What gets your motor running the most?

[Bearkills]

Watching my boy kill his first white tail was the best for me. I miss him a lot, but memories like that help me now This is a good thread and love the posts so far!

[Tubby]

The morning light coming with a frosty morning duck hunt. The silence right before the sun breaks the horizon, that makes me feel that much closer to God. Seeing your first deer of the season coming with bow range knowing that all the sweat, mud, blood and tears that were shed leading up to that moment were more than worth it. The "thump" on your first drop with a crappie jig on a creek bank. The smell of coffee in the perculator while watching the world wake up. Riding the river with the fog lifting, seeing the willow limb "twitching and jerking" with your throw line on it knowing there's big ole mr. whiskers on the other end of it. Running a trot line and then you feel the "sleeper" wake up. The sound of a yo-yo being tripped. Watching a dog work whether it's retrieving, tracking, pointing or just playing.

[Sparkles]

The whole "my kids" thing is over rated

Not for me it's not. Our 2 year old almost never got to come home with us. Thank God she did and every morning when she wakes up I thank God again. Nothing like the sound of her little voice to get my heart pumping.

[Bearkills]

The chase is great. But for me it's usually the kill. That point when the arrow makes the loud THWOK and the animal runs and the legs start to go and BAM it's down. The whole "my kids" thing is over rated. I love seeing my son make a good kill but there is too much stress in trying to get it done with him that it's almost a relief when it's done. I'm excited but drained. I was high for a couple of weeks after killing the buck in my avatar. Wake up in the night with a smile on my face. Still give a fist pump now and then.

I'd give anything to have that time back with my son. Then again, I never felt it was a drain and enjoyed every minute of putting him on his first deer and the two years I made him shoot at targets before I ever let him draw down on an animal. But to each his own.

[Bearkills]

The morning light coming with a frosty morning duck hunt. The silence right before the sun breaks the horizon, that makes me feel that much closer to God. Seeing your first deer of the season coming with bow range knowing that all the sweat, mud, blood and tears that were shed leading up to that moment were more than worth it. The "thump" on your first drop with a crappie jig on a creek bank. The smell of coffee in the perculator while watching the world wake up. Riding the river with the fog lifting, seeing the willow limb "twitching and jerking" with your throw line on it knowing there's big ole mr. whiskers on the other end of it. Running a trot line and then you feel the "sleeper" wake up. The sound of a yo-yo being tripped. Watching a dog work whether it's retrieving, tracking, pointing or just playing.

Best response yet imo! Let the thread continue on, sorry if I derailed it a bit.

[jbitt4x4]

Maybe for you it is but I enjoy every moment with my kids.....my daughters have both been going to the blind with me since they were 6 and my 2 year old son went his first time this year! There is no better feeling than experiencing the outdoors with your kids and wife...I have it made as we hunt as a Family!!!

The chase is great. But for me it's usually the kill. That point when the arrow makes the loud THWOK and the animal runs and the legs start to go and BAM it's down. The whole "my kids" thing is over rated. I love seeing my son make a good kill but there is too much stress in trying to get it done with him that it's almost a relief when it's done. I'm excited but drained. I was high for a couple of weeks after killing the buck in my avatar. Wake up in the night with a smile on my face. Still give a fist pump now and then.

[MountainMan]

A couple of things for me:
elk bugling, watching a big blizzard roll in, the morning after said big blizzard when the world is a very eerie calm. Drawing your bow on any animal. Any Predator Dawn (sunrise from a tree stand), watching my lab work, the moments following a shot, planning any hunt, fishin, hangin out with my wife (no kids for us yet), it may sound weird but manual labor gets me goin, anything from building fence to string barb wire to haulin hay to diggin irrigation ditches. It's probably cuz I have a desk job. seein a praire dog flop over at 300 yards, big mule deer bucks.

That's all I can think of right now

[Clay C]

being in the water at sunrise making that cast to a pothole, gut, hump, drop off, pod of mullet, water change, etc. and thinking there should be a fish there. Then seeing, feeling and hearing the strike. Or wading into the surf for the first surf trip of the summer when its calm and green and horsing the skitterwalk as far as you can throw it not knowing what could blow up on it. Or standing on the casting deck fly rod in hand making a cast to a tailing red. I could go on but they are all fishing related.

[Smart]

Hard to beat watching a group of 20+ vocal mallards cupped up over the treetops on a sunny day as they break through the canopy and set down in your dekes one after the other....listening to their wings hit the branches as they try to get through to where you are adds a nice audio for that visual as well.....

[RedSeal]

The pease and quite just hearing the wildlife!

[BigL]

At night in the woods with hogs grunting, snapping teeth, etc. behind me on their way to the corn in front of me.

Have a quiver full of arrows and Marauder ready to shine!

[topher]

Hard to beat watching a group of 20+ vocal mallards cupped up over the treetops on a sunny day as they break through the canopy and set down in your dekes one after the other....listening to their wings hit the branches as they try to get through to where you are adds a nice audio for that visual as well.....

x2
Sitting in the woods during spring turkey and that gobbler you have been working for 30 min. has been silent for a few minutes and all of a sudden the Thunder Chicken lets out a big old gobble and he his only 30 yards in front of you now and that's what I'm talking about baby.

[W-L-F]

Just waking up every mourning; taking on the day---just don't know what will be coming your way----

[Uncle Saggy]

The smell of napalm in the morning.....jk

Brown trout on a dry fly or watching a good dog retrieve a pheasant

[Mayhem]

standing on the front of the boat with my dad watching the sunrise over lake austin, while sight casting redfish.. watching my lab gunner working a crisp morning picking up ducks a decoy spread, that dog loved that more than anything, the look he would guve me when i would miss, it doesnt get better than that.. man i miss that dog...