Hunting is a tradition for generations for families
BALTIMORE -- There’s something about hunting with his mom that trips Troy Hutchins’ trigger. Perhaps it’s rising before dawn on a frosty morning in Pylesville, Maryland, and going deep into the nearby woods, .22-caliber rifle in tow, exploring nature’s bounty beside a woman who was practically raised outdoors.
“It’s peaceful out there; you can hear the leaves fall,” said Troy, 13.
Or maybe it’s huddling with his mom in a tree stand, the two breathing quietly in tandem, watching for deer that might bound past in a flash.
“When it’s freezing cold, and windy, the tree stand starts to sway back and forth. That’s pretty cool,” Troy said.
With luck, their target appears, lifts its head, sniffs the air. The boy draws a bead, takes his shot. Supper tonight is on Troy; his family hunts deer for dinner.
Does he like venison?
“Sometimes, it tastes like steak,” he said. “Except it’s better because you know it’s not from the store, and that you got it yourself.”
Though statistics from the state Department of Natural Resources show the number of licensed Maryland hunters in decline (83,555 hunters in 2022, down 8.7% since 2010), the activity remains strong in locales like Harford County, where hunting is often an ancestral tradition in families who see it as both a means of kinship and of putting food on the table.
For six years, Troy and his mom Chrissy Hutchins have hunted game on their 12-acre farm. There is a pheasant and squirrel that he bagged in the family’s freezer, awaiting a trip to the taxidermist. There are deer bologna sandwiches in the lunches he takes to Harford Christian School.
“Troy gets excited when I’m fixing supper,” Chrissy Hutchins, said. “He’ll say, ‘Is that my deer?’ He’s proud that he’s providing dinner for the family.”
It’s a self-reliance that will hold her son in good stead, said Hutchins, who learned the same from her father, an avid hunter. She was Troy’s age when she began tagging along with her dad, studying the flora and stalking the fauna. On raccoon hunts at night, they kept track of their own whereabouts by observing the stars, not a GPS device.
“My dad taught me a lot about nature, and life, on those hunts,” said Hutchins, 36, a surgical nurse at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. Now, she shares those skills with her son, on those frigid mornings that bring them closer together.
“I watch Troy [in the woods] and he reminds me a lot of my dad. He’s very patient and doesn’t get rattled,” Hutchins said. “More often than not, on a hunt, you don’t shoot anything. Just being out there, taking it all in and spending time together is more important than whether or not you bring something home.”
‘I’d rather be out in the woods’
The mounted head of a 7-point buck hangs on the wall of Ben Troyer’s bedroom in Pylesville, a keepsake from a hunt with his father. When friends drop by, Ben shows it off, he said, “because [the deer] is mine and not my dad’s. That makes me proud.”
Clearly, the 12-year-old is hooked on the chase. Ben hasn’t got a cellphone and he doesn’t play video games.
“I’d rather be out in the woods,” he said
Ben is one of three kids in the family who hunt with their dad, Jack Troyer, on their 70-acre farm. Emily, who is 15, and Julie, 9, also take part, whether the target of the day is deer, squirrel or raccoon. Each has felled at least one deer, all of which the Troyers dress and eat themselves.
“The kids help gut [the game] as I show them what comes out,” said their father, who takes time to explain the anatomy. Most of all, Troyer, 40, appreciates those times when he and his brood go tromping through the brush in their camouflage outfits and orange hunting vests, discovering habitats in the rough.
“It’s a good bonding experience, away from the hustle and bustle of work and school,” said Troyer, a logger by trade. “We study stuff in the woods, like bugs and streams and trees. A big part of hunting is spending time in nature with the kids; it’s not just about going out in the woods to kill something.”
When they do bring game home, little is discarded. Bookends on the shelves in Emily’s room are made from the hoofs of a deer that she shot. A freshman at North Harford High, Emily was 7 when she asked to go along on a deer hunt.
“It’s a fun activity to do with your dad,” she said. In time, she learned to shoot, mastered safety skills and landed a doe two years ago.
“I was nervous to shoot but relieved when I hit [the deer]; it felt huge, because I knew she could be useful to us,” Emily said. “I was proud of myself; I felt like I’d accomplished a goal that I set out to achieve.”
In doing so, she had a light-bulb moment.
“Girls can hunt just as good as guys,” she said. “Maybe better.”
Brianna Kerns would agree. At 13, Brianna bagged her first deer last year, a 6-point buck, while hunting with her father on the family’s 20-acre spread in Norrisville.
“Her reaction was priceless,” said Jason Kerns, 46. “Brianna grinned from ear to ear.”
Kerns, who is employed by Baltimore County, hunted as a youth with his dad but quit until coaxed back in by his daughter.
“She took a hunter safety course before I even knew it,” he said. Brianna, it seemed, had caught the bug.
“It’s ‘in’ her,” Kerns said.
Brianna called her first shoot “the best moment of my life” though confessing mixed feelings afterward.
“The deer was a living creature, kind of innocent,” she said. “But he was in our corn field, eating our crops — and it was exciting to shoot something that we could eat.”
Now Brianna, who is home-schooled, has moved from tree stand to soap box to talk her friends into sharing her passion.
“Most of them don’t hunt, but my [success] is motivation and they’re getting interested,” she said. “I do believe girls can hunt with their dads.”
Building a stronger bond
Not all of those who embrace the sport in Harford County have ancestral hunting roots. Twelve years ago, urged on by in-laws, Justin Hall joined the crowd. Now, at 37, the civil engineer hunts geese and deer with his son Mason, who is 12. Daughter Emma, 8, goes along to spot game.
“Every hunt is a new experience, so I feel like Mason and I can be learning together,” said Hall, of White Hall. Weekends may find them hunkered down in a goose blind on the family farm, or holed up in a tree stand, aching for deer.
“Hunting geese is funner, because you can talk more,” said Mason, a sixth grader at North Harford Middle School. “My dad will teach me stuff, like how to call the geese in; there’s a [stuffed] goose that I shot in my bedroom. Or we’ll talk about other stuff, like sports, school or friends.”
Such moments are prized, his dad said.
“At first, we’ll converse about hunting,” Hall said. “Kids are pretty reserved, but the more you’re around them out there, they really start to share things that they never would have told you.”
In October, armed with a crossbow, Mason shot his first buck on his uncle’s farm nearby. Now there is deer bacon for breakfast and deer sticks for snacks.
“Sometimes kids are more willing to eat it because they worked to get it,” his dad said.
And though Mason plays organized sports, such as football and lacrosse, he prefers hunting because, when you achieve your goal, “you get to eat what you shot.”
Score a touchdown, Mason said, and you’ve still got to buy lunch.
A teaching moment
Last fall, Case Huber begged, time and again, to go deer hunting with his father. Inquisitive by nature, he was excited and bubbling with all the questions that a 5-year-old could muster. Finally, Travis Huber relented.
“If you can be quiet, you can go,” said Huber, 36, of White Hall. A lifelong hunter whose forebears did the same, Huber now has his son scrunch down with him in a tree stand and watch for deer.
“Case will sit there and mumble to me, but he’s pretty darn quiet for a 5-year old,” he said.
Then, last November, Huber shot a doe and the boy’s demeanor changed.
“He put his hand on the deer and cried,” his dad said. “You could tell he was upset about taking a life. I told him, ‘We don’t shoot things for fun, but to put food on the table.’ After several days of talking about it, Case understood.
“Later, as he ate a backstrap [deer tenderloin] steak, he said, ‘You’re right dad, this is good food. I was sad when we shot it, but we need to get more.’ "
“Hunting is a learning process, and Case has warmed up to it. I guarantee that when I get another deer with him, he’ll claim it as his own,” Huber said
