Taking a long range shot and watching it connect. There's no way to describe it especially if you're not a hunter. The years of shooting and practicing. Time spent doping your rifle in with its sight. The hundreds or even thousands of rounds you've shot to get to that point. The money you put into your gun and scope and ammo. Cleaning your rifle over and over again. Stripping it down and reassembling it night after night. You get to the point where it's all muscle memory. It goes from taking an hour or two, to the point where I'm doing it in 10-15 minutes while watching the nightly news and eating a bowl of cereal at the same time. It becomes a quasi religious affair. Then when you finally get your first "real" kill. The crisp feel of the air against your skin, the sun beaming on your neck. The rifle feels almost weightless in your arms, it feels like a third arm, an extension of you. You see it in the distance, a beautiful elk, you see it in the distance and question for a quick 15 seconds or so whether you can make the shot, but you decide to try. The past several years has led up to this. You kneel down resting the rifle and sling, and wait for a brief minute for your resting heart rate to drop. You raise the rifle, adjusting the sights, and you breathe in, and breathe out. And in that brief lull, you subconsciously mechanically squeeze the barely 2 pounds needed to start the process. And in that brief fraction and a half of a second while the bullet flies towards your dinner, lunch, and breakfast for the next 2 weeks, you question whether or not the shot makes it. The elk look up and birds start to scatter as you see your beautiful elk lock up and crumple to the ground. And your heart jumps and a sense of euphoria and accomplishment wash over you. $4k, 6 years, and maybe a few hundred boxes of 50 shells were spent in the lead up to this moment. The 10 minute hike to the elk has you in a solemn sort of relief. It's over, the high is subsiding, that simultaneous release of euphoria and stress from your system all at once is something else. You walk over to the carcass of the elk and you just admire how solemn and beautiful it is. The doey amber eyes, the majestic fur. He was powerful, strong, graceful. You can almost feel his last breath, warm and full of life on your skin as your hand traces around his snout. The shot was good, a slightly larger than a quarter sized hole is located on his abdomen, the shot bursting his heart. A neat surgical blemish on his otherwise flawless coat. You feel sad, to rob this world of such a beautiful creature feels wrong, but you're proud of your handiwork. Man hauling this thing back to the truck is going to suck, but nothing compares to that first shot. That first kill.