Some Things I Learned While Hunting this Year

My first Fall back in Montana was a great one and I'm very grateful to have been able to hunt as much as I did with my dad. This Fall was also my first season bowhunting doubling the length of the hunting season, which brought twice as much joy as it did suffering and misery. I mean, who in their right mind would spend so much time at something without being "successful"?

Hunting is a lot like life. And all that time wandering silently through the woods allows one to ponder quite a bit. I came up with some not so obvious traits that you need to have to be a good hunter. I feel like they are easily carried over into normal life as well...

1. First and foremost, you must be eternally positive and optimistic. From the standpoint of hunting, if you let your guard down at any point or stop thinking there could be an animal around the next rock outcropping, you'll get that opportunity you've been waiting for. It could also become miserable if you got down on yourself. Negative thinking saps energy, decreases performance, and otherwise isn't a whole lot of fun.

A great hunting buddy gazing at an overwhelming amount of terrain.

2. You have to have a short memory. This one isn't all that hard because I think us humans are hard-wired to have this trait already. Think about a little kid fishing. If she is out there with her pole for hours catching nothing, she'll get bored and discouraged, start complaining and wanting to go home. But now let that kid catch a fish after all that time and she'll be rearing to go the next couple of uneventful hours. We remember the good times more than the bad because it allows us to move forward.

Not something you see everyday, especially sitting on your couch. Even after a rainy day I had a great after-work evening hunt.

While hunting, if you remember all the blisters, the cold and the wet, and the missed opportunities, then you'd never go hunting again. For me this season, I was burnt out half-way through archery season. I was ready to take a break and not hunt for a weekend. Then I called in a bull with a friend of mine and I was immediately fired up to go out again! Then I think about all the hunting of seasons' past where Dad and I killed whitetail bucks on the last weekend of the season. When someone asks me how those hunting seasons went I respond by remembering and retelling the tale of that day, not the 6 weeks prior of not seeing any animals. Keep remembering the good and you'll be itchin' to get back out there year after year.

3. When I get back from hunt, the first question people ask is, "Did you get anything?" I may be more excited about answering if I were more consistent in harvesting game so maybe this is a cop-out. However, there is so much more to hunting than just pulling the trigger or letting loose an arrow. Success needs to be defined more along the lines of having a good time, getting out alive and well, experiencing the glory of God's creation, and building better relationships with your hunting buddies. Getting an animal is just icing on top of an already delicious cake of experience. Define success along these lines instead of killing a trophy and I think you will have a lifetime of fulfillment.

2010's "icing on the cake": I harvested a whitetail doe filling my B-tag and putting fresh meat in the freezer.

4. Learn from your mistakes. I've heard people define insanity as "doing something over and over again while expecting different results." If it's not working, fix it. One of the best ways to get better at something is to figure out what went wrong and find a way to make it work. Next hunting season I'm going to be a lot better at calling, knowing when to draw back my bow, and finding the best hunting areas mostly because I didn't do a very good job at it this year. It's pretty easy to climb a ladder when you set the rungs pretty low, but you still have to climb it, eh?

On the flip side of this, don't second guess yourself. Don't beat yourself up with "woulda's" and "shoulda's" and "coulda's". Let's think scientifically about it. All you know about a mistake is that the results didn't turn out the way you wanted it to. If you had done something different, the hunt has a good chance of not going the way you planned it too. You have no way of performing the experiment again on that same day with the same situation. For example, I drew my bow back on that bull in September and he trotted away. I can speculate on what would have happened had I drawn back earlier or later, but will never know for sure. He may have turned and ran the same way. All I can do is learn from the experience and try something else the next chance I get. There would be nothing worse than freezing on the next opportunity because I was still thinking about making the same mistake.

5. Finally, don't fear the nap. You can be as extreme and hardcore as you want, but if you don't tone it down every once in a while you're going to fall apart...literally. Our bodies need rest to have recover and gain energy back for the next big push. I have never really been a nap person. I struggle to fall asleep and then am worthless for about an hour after I have to wake up, stumbling around with my brain in a fog. But I am learning that if I listen to my body and nap when it needs it, then I don't have that problem. Some of the best hunting days this season were those that started way before the crack of dawn and saw us hiking out to the truck in the dark, mostly because it also usually meant a nap on a sunny, warm, grassy slope.

Ahh, that's the life.

The One that Got Away

Last Weekend of Bowhunting

No, I didn't sneak up this close behind an elk this season; it's a decoy that Dad and I use while we're calling during the archery season. However, a couple of weeks ago we did get a young raghorn bull to come within 5 yards of me. We were hunting west of town, in an undisclosed location, and essentially scouting for the opening of the rifle season in a week. There wasn't a lot of elk sign to speak of and moral was pretty low. Dad suggested that we just hike to the top of the ridge to look over the other side. Close to the top we got into a pretty elky looking area in an open lodgepole stand. For one last hurrah, we decided to set up and pretend like we were really hot cows.

I can tell you that I didn't take this call very seriously: I didn't even take off my pack to call and we didn't set up the decoy. So it really took me by surprise when I heard movement off to my right and suddenly saw a bull elk running toward me (Dad later said that he thought it weird that I was throwing rocks down the hill, but assumed I was just acting like a small herd. He unfortunately never saw the elk). The bull stopped to look around about 30 feet away directly on the opposite side of a big alder bush from me. There was nothing that I could do except freeze, helpless with an arrow nocked but unable to draw back my bow. He could choose to walk around the bush either way and was looking right at me, so my only hope was to wait for him to walk by me and hope for a shot at him walking away. After what seemed like an eternity of my heart throbbing in my throat and struggling to breath as little as possible, the bull made his way around the bush directly in front of me within about 5 yards. Then he saw me, sensed my shape or color didn't "fit" and jumped back behind the bush. I was able to draw when he dashed behind the bush but didn't have a shot. He wasn't completely spooked because he didn't run away, but deliberately moved down the hill never stopping within bow range.

I feel very blessed to have two bulls within bow range in my first year of bow hunting. It's frustrating to have been so close and not have an animal in the freezer but I have to realize that I have a lot to learn about bowhunting and hopefully a lot of opportunities awaiting me in the future. We're going to be back at it come next September with a vengeance.

Rifle Season Opener

Last Saturday was the first day of the general rifle season here in Montana, and we got out and about in elk country with our "thundersticks." It was huge mental shift for me switching from a bow to a rifle, trying to wrap my head around the concept that you can conceivably shoot something further than 30 yards away. We biked in several miles before it got light hoping to get up high just as the animals were moving back into cover for the day.

We didn't see anything except several groups of mule deer does, although were encouraged by the amount of sign: rubs and droppings. Yet again, we covered a lot of ground and saw some amazing country. The hunting is always good, but we have been lacking in the harvesting of big-game animals the past month and a half (I do have to remember that we have been slaying grouse with our bows). It's tough when success is measured in actually killing an animal and not in the day to day experiences we have while out in the woods taking our bows or rifles for a walk.

Near the end of the day, it started raining on us and a fog rolled in. We decided we had some time to kill before moving to the area we wanted to be for the evening hunt so we set up a "flying-diamond" tarp, built a warming fire to practice our survival skills, and took an hour long nap. It's always fun to feel like you can take care of yourself in the case of an actual emergency.

Calling in a Bull

It actually works! I’m not a horrible hunter after all… Although I still haven’t shot my elk this hunting season I came heartbreakingly close this last weekend. A friend of mine and I traveled down to Avon Valley for a three-day hunt in an area that we hoped had more elk than what we’ve been hunting. (I mean, I’ve hunted hard for 10 days before this trip and have seen one elk!)

We were in exploratory mode on Friday and Sunday getting absolutely skunked: not seeing any elk or even much elk sign. But Sunday morning changed all that. About 8 am we set up about 100 yards apart and started calling like crazy, pretending to be hot, good-looking cows looking for a handsome bull. And to my absolute disbelief a bull bugled about 150 yards away and came walking in looking for some action. I don’t know how to begin to describe how I felt when he came into view. One minute I was looking at a misty early-morning forest when suddenly that bull came into view. It seemed as though the rest of the forest went blurry and this huge animal became ultra-focused, even glowing a beautiful tan. My heart was pounding in my throat and I couldn’t breathe, I can think of very few times when I had so much adrenaline in my system! He walked within 20 yards of me, stopped and looked straight at Brandon before walking right in front of me at about 17 yards, in what should have been a perfect shot. However, I couldn’t pull my bow back because he would see me. When I thought I was safe with his head behind a tree, I drew back only to have him veer back downhill and trot away. I don’t think he saw me and didn’t act all that spooked, but he may have heard me and figured something was wrong with the situation and decided to skedaddle.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get over the fact that I blew the only opportunity I’ve had all year at an elk, but I do know that I’ll never forget that experience. I just hope there are a lot more opportunities like that in my life.

Hunting Update

Three grouse with a bow. Not out of the air, mind you, but I'm still pretty proud.

Archery season is winding down up here in the mountains of Montana. The weather is feeling more and more like Fall, minus a week or two of Indian Summer. The foliage is changing colors and after watching a ski flick last night (PowderWhore Production Tele-vision) it's tough not to think about snow coming soon. I haven't been able to track down the elusive elk that haunts my dreams yet, but Dad and I have been very successful shooting grouse: I even got my limit of three with my bow while out a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine, Brandon, and I are heading out for one last big push this weekend to try and get a shot at a bull a few hours south of the Flathead Valley.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Car Camping Tip #1:

For your reading pleasure, I thought I would also include a tip Dad and I discovered two weeks ago. We were planning on camping out of the back of my dad's truck on a Friday night, cutting down on driving time to hunt for two days in a row. In the mornings, we don't really have time to have coffee while wolfing down a quick breakfast before heading out before light. So we've gotten into the habit of having some fresh-brewed joe after we get back from the morning excursion. However, in the midst of packing, we forgot our pot to boil water in on the ol' Coleman stove. We tried making a bowl from some old tin foil but it had a small hole in it and leaked out before the water could get hot. Not to be deterred from our savory beverages, we found some old beer cans in the ditch and boiled some water in them! Living out the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ethic, eh? And it worked very well. Necessity is the mother of invention...

Ahhh, that hits the spot!