The Experience.

Recently I drove home from 16 straight days in the field.  By that I mean 16 days living out of a floorless tarp shelter, eating freeze dried meals, no shower.  Sixteen days crawling on hands and knees in/out of my tent twice a day, sitting by a campfire most nights, washing sweaty clothing full of scent in a small plastic tote used to carry food.  Inconsistent and spotty cell service.  Digging holes to take a shit.  Damned near getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and subsequently scratching open wounds into my skin.  And I did it completely alone. 

These moments are cherished by me and I thrive in this environment.  I feel better, inside and out.  Yes, its dirty and smelly and sometimes uncomfortable.  But its also revealing: my skin feels less itchy and dry, my joints don’t ache as much because believe it or not, I’m eating cleaner; there’s less mental and emotional distraction, and my resting stress level plummets.  Living this way extends my life, literally.  I lose a little weight and I’m exercising every day, not as a planned workout but as a matter of necessity.  I don’t have a pantry immediately accessible whenever I feel a craving for a quick hit of whatever (sugar).  There isn’t a game on or a social media feed to browse… there’s zero demand on my time other than achievement of the goal that prompted me to be there in the first place.  The life-infusing and grounding therapy of being alone in the woods has never been lost on me.  What has over the years though, is its power.  I equate it to pain: transitory and losing intensity over time.  What hurts, or is most beneficial, in that specific moment loses impact the further we get from it.  And the longer the time period until we return. 

The occasion of which I speak is my 2019 archery bull elk hunt in Arizona’s Unit 8.  This piece of land spans roughly 645sq.mi. and is 95% public.  It covers elevations from 3600’ to over 9000’ and offers hunting for multiple species, elk being the grand prize.  It is extremely rocky and dry in some areas, thick timber in others, and includes multiple deep/steep canyons, one of which could be considered a mini-Grand.  The topography and its diversity is incredible, as is its opportunity.  This tag was the first early/rut season tag I’ve been able to draw in the state, the others being late archery tags in other units or hunts out of state.  I was more prepared, better educated, and better equipped for this hunt than any other endeavor I’ve undertaken.  I researched the shit out of it, reading everything I could find, listened to a ton of podcasts (some repeatedly), and did my level best to ensure that if the opportunity presented itself, I wouldn’t miss.  Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours; I even took up a part time job at a local archery shop specifically to learn bow maintenance and tuning.  I logged 77 miles on my feet.  I have over 100 waypoints marked in my hunt mapping software, points that I physically stood on either in preseason scouting or during the hunt itself.  I talked to more than a few locals, and a couple non-resident hunters, looking for tidbits of information.  Hunting etiquette demands that we respect one another’s hunt: you don’t ask where the animals are or where the hunter is focusing.  Few of us want a canned hunt or for any of it to be easy.  But, casual conversation will often give you clues that’ll help to either increase your odds due to better comprehension or provide you with a more enjoyable experience.

 And after all that what I came home with was a tag…

“Its about the experience!”  “That’s why they call it ‘hunting’ not killing!”  “I’d rather be lucky than good!”  “You just gotta outwork everyone.” The clichés are endless.  And quite frankly, none of them hold any water with me.  They’re the, “have a good one!” of the hunting world: trite, emotionally meaningless, passive.  When spoken, I hear excuses for failure or a lack of true interest that’s generally the 3rd response to a question first posed out of feigned concern.  What comes to mind after that is this: with regard to the hunt of an animal, what is the definition of “The Experience?”  Not your personal experience or your history but the experience of the hunt itself.  Is it the time spent working to find them?  Is it the amount of effort you’ve invested, both before and during the hunt?  Is it what you learned, saw, smelled, the proximity to the animals?  Observation of animal behavior that you can only experience by physically being there?  I would imagine most would answer “yes” to all of those.  The Experience can’t be any one specific thing; its made up of multiple individual details and encounters that create the collective Experience.  We could include weather, hardship, companions; both the incredible and the mundane, that soup of happenings create the Experience. 

So here’s the follow up question and the focal point of my discussion: where in the Experience is the kill?  Does it factor in?  Is it a variable in the overall equation?  Does it contribute to the overall Experience and if so, how much?  Does its inclusion, or lack thereof, determine the outcome or quality of the Experience?  Based on my life experience, the answer to these questions vary greatly from one person to the next.  And whether or not this specific topic is even thought of is why the list of clichés above, to me, sound empty.  While the killing of an animal is certainly not a prerequisite in whether or not I hunt, the “killing” variable is just as meaningful as the “hunting” when I solve for the overall Experience.  I think its become trendy, a virtue signaling tactic, to make statements like it being all about the experience.  Its become a bandwagon piece of terminology similar to hunting for meat or conservation.  The overwhelming majority of hunters go afield to kill an animal and use its meat.  In doing so and with rare exception, they are supporting public land conservation and access, are participating in necessary game management, and are more active and concerned with the environment than any special interest group or non-profit.  And they demonstrate it year-round: buying hunting products, researching and educating themselves on the quarry they seek, preparing for months for the next hunt, participating in competition, family fun shoots, support of local clubs and associations, and volunteering work for state game and fish projects.  But the topic of killing and its place in determining the success of a hunt is often ignored or brushed aside as if it doesn’t matter.  Its almost as if hunters are embarrassed to say they enjoy or seek the kill.  I say, it DOES!  It matters a lot!  Should I spike my bow into the ground and angrily yell if I don’t get or execute a good shot?   Well of course not.  But frustration and disappointment are real and warranted.  There isn’t a need to feel guilty, unappreciative, or entitled if you don’t get that opportunity or blow the shot.  What it boils down to for me is proving something to myself.  Validating the effort, finances, and time I’ve invested in that one single aspect of the EXPERIENCE: taking wild game with my bow.  The kill matters, and our desire as hunters to accomplish that is not for us to show shame. 

So where does all this lead?  Why have I written over 1200 words to examine a topic that many of you are responding to with, “well, yeah.  Duh!”  I say all this because I want it acknowledged, out loud.  I want to say it and have the opportunity to explain why it’s a source of frustration when I don’t knock one in the dirt without the dismissive, I’m-not-really-interested, cliché.   Everything we do throughout the year is designed to offer us that opportunity and when it happens, to accomplish the task most efficiently and humanely.  Perfect would be that the animal has no idea what happened.  There was a foreign sound and then they go to sleep.  This happens frequently in bowhunting and the panic and mad dash into the bush is more a product of the foreign sound and confusion aspect than a pain or “oh shit” moment for the animal.  But that describes the perfect shot.  It is what we all see in our minds eye and why short films and video of that happening have such powerful impact on us.  Its what we want, what we see in our brains, and to an extent, what we expect.  All that work, time, and money, both before and during the hunt, boils down to that singular moment and again, validates all of it.  This season however, I came home more satisfied and at peace than any other hunt.  And it was because of that work, time, and money that it ended that way.  The effort serves many masters and from this perspective, this aspect of the hunt, I am completely satisfied.  I worked hard, hunted hard, and left it all on the mountain.  For that I can be proud and it allows me to cope much better with the lack of meat and antlers in my house.  This is the only way I know how to deal with the frustration and disappointment: knowing I gave every ounce of my effort and didn’t give in to laziness.  In my professional career there are a pair of sayings that I hold dear:

Hope is not a course of action.

The animal always gets a vote.

Both are intertwined, wrapped around the other in a dance that affects both.  The only way I know of to mitigate the uncertainty of hope and the unpredictability of the vote is to put everything you’ve got into it.  Leave it all out there because that’s all we can do.  In this respect, to an extent, hope is a course of action.  We can only prepare the best we can for the opportunity and hope things go our way.  Preparing for next year’s experience has already begun; I’m building/testing a couple dozen new arrows, shooting daily again, and may look at a different broadhead just for the personal education.  In the meantime, I’ll hunt the mule deer rut in Jan where I plan to take another buck here in AZ.  That’s also the month we apply for next year’s elk tag… I hope all of your season’s went as well or better than mine did.  Those of you still holding late season tags, best of luck to you also.  If you happen to tag one, feel free to send me a steak.