Learn more about Brian Lueddeke

Desire

I once heard a saying, “I loved a woman named desire, and she consumed me.” Listen to the meaning of the words, and you will understand what desire means to you. For me, desire to be hunting has been a significant part of much of my adult life, although hunting wasn’t always the number one priority as I progressed through the seasons in life.

Early on, hunting was my highest priority, I dedicated much of my time, money and energy to it, and even shared it with my wife during this time. As I progressed into the middle part of life, hunting was always there, but desire placed it on the back burner while other activities and priorities consumed my time.

With a growing family and the time that children required to grow and be successful, my desire was to give them that time. Add in a career in law enforcement and the desire to excel, which led into being selected to the SWAT team and becoming a successful and decorated sniper and sniper instructor. These desires became the priority, and while I still hunted, much of my time in the field was spent making our childrens’ hunts successful and engraining the art of hunting into their personas.

As I have aged, the realization that the desires in life have a finite timeline, an expiration date. The desire to be ‘that guy’ in policing and SWAT has waned; and injuries have forced me to take a hard look at desire and re-prioritize our relationship with regard to career. The desire to be a parent of a growing family has ended, and now grand kids and watching the successes of my children are in the forefront.

As the season changes yet again, all the children have left home started their own lives and families. It occurs to me that I feel the desire to be back in the field, hunting. This little flame started to burn deep inside once again; but I felt like I needed to feed this fire with different fuel: First, hunting in remote areas, sometimes by myself; second, hunting the species that I wanted to hunt, not just what was ‘traditional’. I have always enjoyed hunting deer and deer like animals, however desire has beckoned me to now pursue bears, antelope and mountain goats as well; Finally, I realized that I had a desire to share my knowledge of hunting and precision firearms to others in our community.

So as I enter into this season of life, desire leads the way again, starting to consume my time and energy. As I return to my roots, I was blessed by drawing a limited Idaho antelope tag, and embarking on my first-ever antelope hunt. After all the work of scouting and preparing for this hunt, I was able to harvest a mature age-class buck, with a single precision rifle shot at moderate range in high winds. I was also blessed with the opportunity to hunt with my hunting partners from the early season in life. We met in California and hunted blacktail deer and hogs, and again I was able to harvest my first blacktail deer and hog in over a decade. This buck was a mature age-class animal and a beautiful representation of the species.

Once again, injuries from my career have limited my 2020 hunting season, causing my season to end even before my deer and elk hunts had even opened. While I am done hunting for 2020, desire is keeping me ripe with anticipation for 2021, and the opportunity to teach classes to the public.

“I still love a woman named desire, and she consumes me.” As this season of life progresses, I look forward to the changes to come. I believe that these are about to be some of the best years yet, and I will be a better person for them.