“Pre-Hunt Anxiety” and How to Deal With It

In the months leading up to a hunt you can usually find me scouring maps, spending an unhealthy amount of time on google earth, sifting through backpacking journals online, and shooting my bow each and every day, sometimes multiple times. I am a planner, and I always have been. Not knowing what is going to happen in the future, somewhat stresses me out and it’s an area that I need improvement. I try everything I can to make sure all of my ducks are in a row. If this isn’t done beforehand, it drives me crazy and I can’t think straight. Oftentimes, it will lead to me throwing in the towel, because I am left not knowing what to do with myself. It is my Pre-Hunt Anxiety. Each year that goes by it creeps up on me, and each year we throw hands at one another.

This anxiety that I experience in my opinion is natural. When we care about something, we tend to put a lot of mental focus on that thing. The more we think about it, the more things we think about within that topic to worry about. This is something that can get out of hand and sometimes my wife has to reign me in. There are some things that we just cannot control and we need to be OK with that. Easier said than done, trust me.

Grind

I think one of the reasons that I think like this is because the only way I have ever gotten good at anything in life is to put my heart and soul into it. The more work you put in, the better the end results. I remember being a kid and skateboarding. I’d literally spend hours upon hours trying to learn certain tricks. Over and over again I’d try and fail. At the end of the day though? You can bet that I ended up figuring that sucker out and landing that trick. Hunting is no different. The more I scout, the more I learn an area, and the more I shoot my bow, the better my experiences get out there. Hence, why I might tend to “overwork” myself in the preparation process creating unneeded worry.

Big Picture

As much as I love being prepared for anything and everything, there is something to be said about going with the motions of something. Plain and simple, we can’t control what the weather does, where the animals might be when compared to last year, or if there are other hunters in your spot. I also find myself from time to time worrying about things that haven’t happened. Stuff that my imagination just makes up. Through the years, I’ve gotten better at mitigating this, but it still happens here and there. What we should be worrying about, is having fun. We are pretty lucky being blessed with all of this public land for us to make our dreams a reality. The thought of just knowing that we have the opportunity to chase our goals and be struck with pre-hunt anxiety, is just as beautiful as the landscapes themselves to me.