Don’t Quit

If there was one resounding theme from our hunt this year it was – Don’t Quit.  I keep a journal from each year at elk camp and looking back I’ll see notes like “if I would have hiked back to the far drainage, I know I would have gotten one.”  but giving 100% on the tail end of a hard hunt is often easier said than done.  We gave it our all this year and the effort paid off.

I read a post recently on a hunting forum and I thought the author did a great job capturing those voices in our heads.

By Richard Primm

I live at 951′ above sea level. My hike into camp begins at 8,700′ and my initial campsite is at 11,100′. I will begin my hike feeling confident, prepared, and strong. Approximately 1/10th of a mile later I will be gasping for air at peak heart rate, my reptile brain will be screaming in my ear that I will die if I keep going this way. He will tell me that I can’t handle this. “You’ve got too much weight, why don’t you set up camp here it’s a lovely spot, why continue to push yourself, you probably won’t get close enough to an elk with your bow any way, no one else you know at home does this why do you need to do this, maybe the neighbors are right I am crazy, there’s no shame in quitting now you can just tell everyone you made it.” WHY IS THIS QUITTER VOICE SOOO F’ING LOUD IN MY EAR! WHY ARE HIS RATIONALIZATIONS SO SEDUCTIVE!

Then I remember what it’s like to be standing at full draw with a 6×6 elk at 12 yards when he lets out a deafening bugle and mauls the saplings that stand between us. I see the vanes on the arrow spinning and the glint of sunlight off the steel of the broadhead as it courses through the air. See the single off colored hair 2 inches behind his elbow as the arrow disappears in his body. Hear the freight train of hooves and breaking limbs as he tries to escape the inevitable. Feel the shaking as the adrenaline passes and quiet returns to the mountain. Live the psychotic nightmare that is simultaneously elation and despair as I slowly follow the red splashes that mark the tornadoes path. Feel the dump of triumph, happiness, and excitement when I spot an antler sticking up from the brush. Mix in some sadness for having extinguished the life of a warrior, and gratitude that my creator has blessed me. Absolute exhaustion as I pull off the final 80lb load at the truck. Fulfillment for a brief second when my head hits the pillow and I pass into a dreamless complete sleep.

I remember these things and tell the reptile brain not today. We’re heading up the mountain no matter the cost.  What I predict for elk season is feeling alive on the mountain with the order and chaos that god has magnanimously placed between my ears. I couldn’t be more excited.  

It’s easy to become complacent as your hunt wears on, but if you truly give it your all and go where the elk are chances are you’ll be rewarded for your effort.  If not, beef and chicken really don’t taste all that bad.  🙂

Here are a couple of my Notes to Self from this year:

1.  Go where the elk are.  Everyone loves to hunt close to camp in the flat easy areas, which is fine if the elk are there, but more often they are not or at least not in the numbers as some of those “other” places. Everyone also wants to run ridges but the elk always bugle back from down in the bottoms (the ones up close know better than to answer back) and then guys make creative excuses for not going down after them.  So whether you glass them from afar or hear long off bugles that’s probably where you need to go.  Don’t keep walking around areas with little to no sign hoping you’ll magically find elk.
2. Always know that when you’ve put that perfect plan together to get into elk, they’ll definitely have one of their own.
3. When you’re walking thru the woods trying to get to that “perfect” place remember that elk can and will be anywhere along the way, and plans will typically need to adjust to the situation.

Our dad (Big Ron), Drew (Goat Ninja) and myself filled 6 elk tags over a couple week period with our bows, along with a monster bear!  It’s a feat that will be hard to beat and a season we won’t soon forget.