I was having lunch with some folks the other day. One of them is an avid hunter and he was talking about how excited he was about being able to take his son out to, as he put it, “see if he can stop a heart this weekend.”

Now, I’m not trying to paint a gruesome picture here, but we live in the South and, frankly, that’s what happens when you go hunting and successfully take down a buck, or a squirrel or bird, etc.

I used to hunt when I was younger, but as I got old enough to drive a car, I was less likely to want to get up before dawn and head out to some field and walk around in the cold in the hopes of taking down Bambi with my 16-gauge. (My grandfather was adamant about me hunting with a shotgun instead of a rifle.)

I still enjoy the woods at dawn or dusk. Seeing the orange and red and sometimes-purple colors cast in the shadows of the trees is something that you can’t quite appreciate the beauty of until you’re in the thick of it, listening to nature. There’s something about nature that we’ve lost touch with in the last 30 years, I think.

A buddy of mine said that his dad grew out of hunting when he was around my age now, 29. But he still took his boys hunting when they were teenagers. He carried a camera, they carried guns.

The three of them would set up in locations around their hunting camp and while his boys were scoping out animals through their rifle lenses, dad was looking through his camera eyepiece.

Sure enough, my buddy told me that when he and his brother would re-group with their dad around mid-morning, his dad would often have already “shot” three or four deer.

“But you didn’t actually shoot them,” the younger of the two boys would say.

“I didn’t?” their dad would answer. “That’s funny, because I looked through the lens and pulled the trigger, same as you would’ve if you could ever be still and quiet enough to let a deer come near you.”

Dads have a way of telling their sons the truth and adding a hunting lesson, sometimes in just a few words.

I guess there isn’t much difference in shooting a deer with a camera instead of a gun. Sure, you won’t have delicious venison at your table at Thanksgiving. But a picture of a deer grazing or a turkey in flight can capture a similar moment as a stuffed animal posed in place in your living room.

Getting out in nature is something my generation is losing. Sometimes I think we may have already lost it.

I heard on TV the other day that my sons’ generation will be the third batch of kids to grow up separated from the woods. That saddens me.

There’s something about getting up just before dawn and heading out to some cold spot and just sitting still and listening to Mother Nature. She can teach you a lot, you know.