Hunting Creates a Friendship

Above Garrett, below Cory

Saturday was the start of waterfowl season for us hunters in Ohio. I’ve only been waterfowl hunting for the past 4 years but in those 4 years it has easily become my most favorite type of hunting. Ever since I was little I loved to turkey hunt but now goose and duck season is what I look forward to all year long. The reason I just recently started waterfowl hunting is because my dad and my grandpa never did. The only reason I started was because my cousin, Garrett, who is like a brother to me, hunted geese with his best friend. The first time I went goose hunting it was the day after Christmas and it was cold and raining. It was just terrible weather and surprisingly we never saw one goose. It was a horrible hunt, but I didn’t give up on waterfowl hunting. I still thought it could be fun and it would give me a chance to spend more time with Garrett. I had no idea that it would become my most favorite thing to do.

That first year I went goose hunting I only went two times. I was in high school and I was pretty busy most of the time. I didn’t know at the time how thrilling it is. The next year I became a full time hunter. I was cut from the basketball team and that would leave me with all the time in the world to just hunt. At first I only went hunting when Garrett would go. I didn’t know the hunting guys very well and I wasn’t very close friends with Garrett’s best friend, Cory. I hunted a lot that second year though and I really started to like goose hunting. We didn’t see very many ducks so we mostly just hunted geese, but it was still amazingly fun. Over that hunting season I started to become good friends with all the guys we hunted with. They would make fun of me for looking like Matt Damon and we would all laugh. We even recorded one of our hunts that year and in the recording I am introduced as a special guest hunter, Matt Damon. After most our hunts we would go to a local diner and get breakfast. This was when a lot of our bonding really happened. This year was also the same year that my cousin would graduate and go off to college somewhere. I knew this and realized that it would be weird hunting geese without him, but this turned out to be good for me.

The next year rolled around and goose season was going to start. I knew I wanted to hunt geese all the time, everyday if I could. I also knew that the only person I would be able to hunt with was Cory because everyone else was busy and Garrett was 2 ½ hours away at college. Cory and I have a common bond; we are die hard hunters, more than anyone else that we hunt with. This bond is why I knew that we would be hunting a lot together for a long time to come. Cory had all the decoys to hunt geese with and I had the property to hunt them on so we started hunting together, just me and him. That year he drove home from college everyday to go hunting. It was a 45 minute drive for him but because he had someone to hunt with it was worth it. We had a great season; we killed tons of geese and even lots of ducks. Because we were hunting almost every day together we became pretty good friends. I even think that we have become best friends. I hang out with Cory for more than just hunting now. I believe that our friendship is completely due to hunting. It’s funny how the need for someone to just go hunt with has created a great friendship.