Big Rapids — Getting skunked on your first hunt is a time-honored tradition. Teenage boys with shiny new rifles will sit up freezing in stands outside all November and come home with nothing year after year on their journeys to become men.
Here I was, twice that age, undergoing that right of passage while stalking turkeys.
I came home with neither a cooler full of turkey breast nor a fan to hang on my wall. But I now know what it feels like to haul around a shotgun for three days without firing it and the rush of hearing your quarry approach at dawn.
I’m coming to hunting later in life, and there are no shortcuts. I might get skunked again, but one day I won’t.
Mark Naida is editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
