As I sit here and write this, most of the year is in the rear view mirror and 2019 is looming in the distance ahead. Another year gone and another one upon us, just like that. Looking back at the past year, I am so proud of what I and the ones I love accomplished. I succeeded in harvesting my first archery black bear. Something that I have been working towards for years. My wife has been full time with her photography business (http://www.pmaphotography.com) for a full year. Watching her quit her job and lay it on the line is nothing short of inspiring to me to chase my goals.
When this comes out, our archery deer seasons here in Arizona will have started. This is definitely one of my favorite hunts of the year and a time where I get to spend a great deal of time backpack hunting here in the desert. Chasing rutting mule deer and coues deer with a bow is a perfect way to spend the month of January if you ask me. So, right now my brain is going a mile a minute trying to decide where I want to go, planning scouting trips, researching water, etc. The feelings that we have before a hunt can sometimes drive one mad. We relive moments of past hunts over and over again in our minds and inevitably head into our seasons with those experiences almost expected. The expectations of a future hunt does indeed motivate us and fuel the fire, but it can also work against us.
Luck is one of those words that get thrown around in the hunting world quite a bit. I remember being a kid, in deer camp with my Dad, and him saying something along the lines of “Just give us some luck.” A little luck goes a long way right? While that is true, as I got older I realized that it wasn’t absolute. If we only relied on luck, I feel like we would never be successful out there filling tags. Putting yourself in the position to experience that luck is what it’s all about. By that, I mean putting in the work beforehand. Luck does go a long way, but hard work goes farther if you ask me.
Success or successful are words that get thrown around a lot in the hunting world. You hear it all of the time when folks are telling hunting stories or talk of hunts that have yet to come. “Were you successful? Did you find success?” I think the first thing that most think of when they hear this is filling a tag. That is what equates success on a hunt. Maybe, on the surface. There is much more to it though. As we dive into another fall hunting season, let’s dive below that surface a bit and remember why we are out there.
This post is sponsored by Everywhere Agency on
behalf of FoodSaver®; however, all thoughts and
opinions expressed are my own.
We live in a digital age. There is no getting away from that. Social media, internet TV, and online businesses are a very real thing. If you said that stuff to me 25 years ago, I would have no idea what you were talking about. Fast forward to today, and it is our new normal. Less and less kids are getting outside and more are sitting inside, in front of a screen. Most adults are bound to a desk for their 9-5 grind in a cubicle. No sunlight, no fresh air. Just keyboards and screens. Yeah, you could say that things are a bit different nowadays.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been a planner. Knowing what laid before me for the day was something that I took pride in doing. Whether it was who’s house we were going to hang out at that day, or where we were planning on eating, I wanted to know. “Going with the flow” was never really in my repertoire. With how our lives our structured, this makes a lot of sense to me. We live on a schedule. Those are going to differ from person to person, but they are there. We get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed. There might be some other things sprinkled in there, but for the most part, there ya have it. Breaking that monotony is downright uncomfortable for some. The unknown can be a terrifying reality.
As I sit here and write this, we are landed in the month of May. Turkey season is upon us, spring bear seasons have gone, and more are to come. I’m actually going through spring bear withdrawals over here myself. That’s besides the point though. Even with spring seasons in full effect, I know most of us have our eyes fixated on the coming fall. You know, when a lot of us go missing for a bit or “get sick” and can’t go to work? Things really pop off here in Arizona during the month of August. From that point until the end of January, there is just a lot of hunting to be done. Spending all of that time in the field, you get to know yourself pretty good out there in the quiet. Your strengths and weaknesses are magnified on these excursions.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been a dreamer. Always lost in my own thoughts and drifting away into Neverland, not always at the most appropriate of times. I could sit through an entire class in school and not retain a bit of information because, my mind was simply elsewhere. The same would happen with books. Chapters might fly by and I couldn’t tell you what happened in the story. My imagination was wide open and that was encouraged heavily by my Mother. She always told me to chase my dreams and that I could do anything. Because, of that, I’ve never thought that anything was unattainable. If I wanted something, all I needed to do was give it my everything, and I knew that I would eventually get it. Fast forward 20 years and I’m still dreaming.
Since I was a young boy, I have watched how different walks of life deal with struggle. From elementary school to the mountains, there is a breaking point that people have. The point in which they decide to quit and throw in the towel on said activity. In school it was kids training there butts off to make a certain athletic team. When they didn’t make it, some would quit the activity all together. Others however, were more invigorated and trained even harder than before. What is that? How are some so motivated that struggle motivates them even more? I certainly don’t think it is something that you can teach, but I do think it is something that can be learned. So, how can you learn something that can’t be taught?
Growing up I was always a pretty diligent planner. Uncertainty was not something I welcomed into my life often. I can remember sitting with my friends talking out our entire day before it unfolded. Where we were going to eat and what time. Who’s house we would end up at and when. What video games we would play when we got there. It brought me comfort knowing what I was going to do. I was never a “go with the flow” type of person. Not knowing what laid in front of me made me feel like a chicken running around without a head. No direction for me was no bueno. The same approach would be taken with hunting. Little did I know, hunting would be the very thing that would make me start to relax more and “go with the flow.”
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