Jason McKnight is calm and ready as he places the cross hairs of the rifle scope just above the deer’s armpit for his signature lung shot. McKnight has been hunting for the past 15 years and has successfully killed and processed a deer every year except for two. McKnight values his hunts by eating what he kills. “I love good food, there is nothing like a venison tenderloin grilled medium-rare,” McKnight said. “When you can taste that and you know that you brought that deer down and you are responsible for it, that is a feeling that nothing else in the world will give you.”

Even though McKnight has killed a deer almost every year for the past 15, he only has been shooting at white-tailed deer on the same 40 acres of land. To McKnight, it is not just about putting a pair of antlers on his wall, but the alone time he receives from being in the woods connected to nature. McKnight enjoys hunting in Northern Michigan; he wants to at some point travel somewhere and hunt a larger animal. McKnight would like to shoot a pronghorn, elk, caribou or some other large, four-footed, antlered animal.

Since McKnight has been hunting for the past 15 years, he has many stories to tell. His most memorable hunt happened during his second year of hunting. He remembers seeing one of the biggest bucks; however, the buck would not give him the shot he needed. “He stuck his head out, I got to see his antlers and I said, ‘Two more steps and I am going to shoot you,’ and he would not give me those two steps,” McKnight said.

McKnight comes from Northern Michigan, where lots of people like to hunt. When he was a kid, he got the first day of hunting season off. However, it was always a holiday for him because he was never really taught how to hunt. McKnight has taught hunting to his daughters. The first few times, he wants them to just go out with a camera and take pictures. McKnight then would have his daughters come and watch him gut a deer because he believes that gutting the hardest part of killing an animal. “It is getting the blood up to your elbows and actually gutting it and getting it ready for processing that is the hardest part and that would have to be done very gently with a lot of preparation,” McKnight said. He hopes in the years to come to allow his girls to get them comfortable with the gun. His final step would be to take them into the blind, talking them through what to do then and having them pull the trigger. He would, however, give them the option of not killing an animal. He believes that no one anyone should be forced to hunt.

In later years he met his wife, and her father was always been a hunter. “I started talking to him about always wanting to hunt, so he gave me a gun and put me out in a blind and said, ‘When a deer walks in front of you, shoot it,’” McKnight said. This year, McKnight plans on taking the year off from hunting because there is still meat from last year in the freezer. “I am going to be up north for Thanksgiving and I am really terrible at saying no,” McKnight said. “So if my father-in-law presses the right buttons with me I could very well end up out in a blind over Thanksgiving.”