The Other Side of the Hunt

There are a lot of people who make hunting better, but one of the most underrated friends an avid hunter can have is a master chef.

My friend Bill and I have known each other for about 15 years. We met through skateboarding and surfing, and that’s still where I usually see him. He’s one of those sideways friends, someone who doesn’t really have anything to do with hunting but somehow becomes an important part of the whole experience. I know Bill generally doing anything other than standing over a cutting board in a high-end kitchen.

Then I walked into his world.

Bill runs a serious kitchen with a dozen chefs working for him, and watching him move around that place is like watching a conductor run an orchestra. Everyone knows where they need to be, and somehow he’s keeping track of all of it. It’s pretty funny because it’s a completely different version of the guy I know. I’m used to seeing him paddling out, not running a kitchen operation.

So when I harvested a pig, I knew exactly who I wanted to call.

I brought the pig to Bill and he took care of the rest. He ground the meat, professionally vacuum sealed it, and helped turn an animal I had worked hard to harvest into something that will eventually become a whole lot of meals. Now I’ve got a freezer full of properly packaged wild pork, and every time I open that freezer, I know exactly where it came from.

That’s one of the things I love about hunting. The hunt itself is only part of the story. There’s the miles, the weather,  the shot, the work afterward, and then there’s the part where you actually get to eat what you worked so hard for. Having the right people around you makes every one of those steps better.

I’m grateful for friends like Bill. We might have met through sideway sports and we might still spend most of our time talking about completely unrelated things, but when it comes time to turn a harvested animal into food, he’s one of the men to know.

That’s the funny thing about friendships. Sometimes the people who have nothing to do with your hunting life end up playing an important role in it. And when you’re lucky enough to have friends who know their craft, whether that’s running a kitchen, building something, fixing something, or just showing up when you need them, you start to realize that harvesting an animal is never really a solo endeavor.

It takes a lot of people and a lot of little connections to truly enjoy the animal you bring home. Bill just happens to be the guy who makes sure mine ends up in the freezer ready for the next part of the story.