The sun had just set a few weeks back when Amanda Ehrler stepped out into the crisp autumn evening, drew a deep breath and sighed.

“It’s hunting weather,” she said.

Though Ehrler, senior in genetics, has not hunted in six years, she used to spend hours with her father tracking wounded deer through the woods at night near her home outside Bellevue.

“I knew a seven-mile radius area like the back of my hand,” Ehrler said. “I could go there now and walk through it at night and know where everything is.”

It’s this intimacy with nature that draws hunters out into their big backyards every fall.

George Moser, senior in geology, said he is out preparing by 5:45 a.m., though shooting doesn’t begin until a half-hour before sunrise, according to Iowa Department of Natural Resources regulations.

“I really enjoy listening to everything wake up in the morning,” Moser said. “There’s a period of about a half-hour when it goes from deafening silence to when everything is happening.”

This is only the second year Moser, who took up the sport as a result of his eating habits, has hunted.

“At the time I started hunting, I only ate free-range organic or wild game for meat,” Moser said. “[Hunting] was an opportunity to add meat to my diet.”

Moser hunts birds like pheasant, geese and ducks, and he eats everything he kills or freezes it for later in the year — but the hunt is not just about the outdoors and the food.

“I’ve never hunted alone,” Moser said. “It’s kind of a social activity too. It’s a good time to get up early, watch the sunrise and chat with some friends.”

Matt Marietta, senior in elementary education, has been hunting since he was 12, the earliest age at which Iowa issues hunting licenses for hunters not accompanied by a licensed adult.

“I just really enjoyed being outside and being with family,” said Marietta, who first went hunting with his father and uncle.

Although Moser said he hunts only around Ames, Marietta has traveled to six other states, including Montana, to hunt antelope and Texas for wild boar.

Like Moser, Marietta eats his kills, but he also donates some of the meat to Help Us Stop Hunger, a program coordinated by the Iowa DNR and the Food Bank of Iowa to combat deer overpopulation and feed hungry Iowans.

The meat from one deer can provide up to 200 meals’ worth of protein.

Hunters can also help ranchers whose land is perforated by holes from prairie dog burrows.

For something different, Adrian Richardson said he is looking into a spring break trip to South Dakota to hunt prairie dogs — an endeavor for which ranchers will pay.

Richardson said he once hit two pheasants with one shot, and once he shot a banded goose.

“They have a leg band on them, and Iowa Migratory tracks them,” said Richardson, junior in biology. “You can turn it in to them, and they’ll give you a history of where [that goose] has been tracked to.”

Though hunting involves killing animals, it’s also a unique opportunity for some human-animal cooperation. Moser, Marietta and Richardson often hunt with dogs.

“A good dog is like having four other people along. It’s almost essential [for pheasant hunting],” Moser said.

A retriever dog comes in handy for waterfowl, too.

“I don’t want to swim after ducks,” Moser said.

Although Moser, Marietta and Richardson all eat their kills, they emphatically endorse the sport aspect of the hunt — sport hunting is not always about the kill.

“Some people have a negative opinion about hunting, especially when it’s just about the sport,” Richardson said. “But I think those are the people that aren’t outside. You can say, ‘Oh, I go for a walk outside.’ But it’s not until you’re walking through cornfields out in the middle of nowhere and no one’s bothering you that you really appreciate it.”

Marietta said he gains a new view on things out in the wild.

“It’s neat just to slow down and see everything around you when you’re sitting there in the woods,” he said.

“You notice a lot of things that people who don’t hunt don’t ever get to see.”

In early October, Moser and some friends were goose hunting when a flock of about 25 mallards flew back and forth just over their heads for about 15 minutes.

Though the ducks weren’t in season, Moser said it was a thrill to get to see them so close.

“Everybody in the field that morning said, ‘Yeah, we could go home now,'” Moser said.