Half an hour before sunrise this Saturday the waterfowl season will open.
Although hunting may not be the most followed sport on campus, there are Concordia students and faculty who are passionate about it. Concordia student Trent Peterson goes home to hunt every weekend he can. He makes sure to get home for every species opener.
Although deer hunting is the favorite season of student Alayna Kabanuk, she will make the trip back home for the waterfowl opener as well.
Senior Lauren Alsaker usually makes it home for waterfowl opener, but this year she is torn between that and staying on campus to watch one of her last cobber football games.
“Ducks are my favorite animals to hunt,” Alsaker said.
Faculty member Andy Luikens, in Admissions, is also an avid duck hunter. “We were out there religiously at 3:30 in the morning driving the hour or so it took to get to our spot,” Luikens said.
What about hunting makes getting up at 3:30 a.m. worth it?
“The social aspect, along with being in nature, is the best part,” Alsaker said. “(My) favorite thing about hunting is being with family; just going out to hang out,” Peterson said.
Alsaker said there can be multiple days without getting a single duck, but she still enjoys being out in nature and getting to watch the sunrise.
“It’s very relaxing and it makes you appreciate life,” she said.
Alan Christenson, from the Admissions faculty, said that the only thing he doesn’t like about hunting is the end of the season.
Being a college student can interfere with weekends spent home hunting. Many college student hunters said that the amount of hunting they do has decreased since coming to college.
They prefer to hunt at home in their usual land, with their usual hunting companions. They feel that college makes it hard for them to get home to hunt as much as they would if they were still living there. Peterson even used to go hunting in the morning before school when living at home. “Being an hour and a half away from home makes that unreasonable,” he said.
Schoolwork is also an obstacle when it comes to hunting. Peterson said hunting sometimes interferes with his schoolwork because he would rather go hunting than do his homework. Alsaker and Kabanuk agreed, saying that the time spent hunting is time away from schoolwork.
Despite these difficulties, all three students are pursuing science-based majors. Luikens said that when he was a student, he and his friends would compose their class schedules so they had as many afternoon classes as possible. This way they could go hunting around the area in the morning before class.
Although a little different than your typical Cobber football game, for these Cobbers, hunting is one of their sports.
