It’s barely 7 p.m. this Sunday that Mickaël has already packed up all his hunting gear, not without a hint of bitterness this year. Aged 53, “Micka” is nevertheless what is called a passionate hunter.
Son and grandson of a hunter, he passed his hunting license at the age of 16. His best memories are either etched in his memory or are currently being written. Indeed, hunting is a passion that is shared, between friends of course, but also with family.
This love of hunting has been rooted in him for as long as his memories go back. It’s these images of general opening and well-stocked hunting pictures or partridges mixed with hares, pheasants and sometimes a few ducks that came to color them a little more. Micka was 7 or 8 years old and it was the age of recklessness, for these elders also who could still practice their passion “with a free spirit”, without a form of ball in the stomach.
Today Mickaël has just experienced his 37th opening of the hunt but it has a particular flavor, a mixture of happiness and a form of anxiety. ” I remember that before we could hunt more easily, without being afraid of getting the date wrong, without being afraid of having forgotten a hare or pheasant bracelet, and above all without thinking that at any moment we risked falling on a weirdo ready to mess with us because he hates hunting“.
Yet this year for the 2nd time, her daughter will accompany her, she is just 16 years old and will be able to hunt alone, last year she was still hunting accompanied. “It’s wonderful to be able to hunt with my daughter, I engrave moments that are essential to my life and, I believe, to hers“. But then why this bitterness in the words of Mickaël? ” Maybe because I’m older and less excited about the opening, but I feel like it’s not as easy as it used to be to hunt » before adding « regulations are necessary but so many, if at least there was some form of national uniformity“.
And then comes the subject of the opponents which particularly concerns him: “ We are singled out, stigmatized more and more, and that is exactly what the anti-hunting are looking for, yet we are not doing anything wrong, quite the contrary, but it ends up weighing on morale. he confides.
However, Mickael has no intention of stopping the hunt. If his happiness is no longer necessarily found in shooting a pheasant or a wood pigeon, he finds himself in the pleasure of seeing his daughter blossom in the middle of nature: ” She radiates happiness when she’s in the fields or in the woods, regardless of the weather, and I’m not talking about when “Doodle” our spaniel brings back a piece of game, it’s ecstasy for her, and necessarily for me too“.
Mickaël told us again, he will never stop hunting. We are currently living in difficult times, but the desire and the need to transmit remain intact. This passion anchored from an early age in the hearts of men and women will always be stronger than the will to harm of some.
