Hunting Hard or is it Hard Hunting?
September 3, 2008 by Gary Sorenson
We’ve probably all seen the video’s where the hunter is getting up early and sits in a blind for 3-4 hours, comes back to the lodge or motel and plays wiffle ball or watches a football game and than he’s back out in his blind for 3-4 hours in the evening. On about the fourth day he makes the statement “We’ve been hunting hard for four days now and -”.
I’ll be honest with you, the first time I heard this I come right out of my chair. “You have got to be kidding, come with us and I’ll show you hunting hard.” Since then I’ve mellowed a bit realizing that hunting hard means different things to different people. And also the object of our hunting isn’t to see how hard we work at it. I guess what it amounts to is sometimes in our efforts to get a little piece of solitude in our hunting experience we end up picking some places that other people either won’t go or are to smart to go. Then in my thought process I started wondering, maybe some of the difference is, are we ‘hunting hard’ or is what we do ‘hard hunting’?
Seems the hunters I’ve hunted with the last forty years leave the tent in the dark in the morning and most get back that evening after climbing around in the mountains all day. I think of the times I’ve not made it back in just because I wanted to see the other side of one more hill, or waited on a herd of elk coming out of the brush to make sure there wasn’t a shooter in the bunch. Then there was the time my brother and I made our kill on elk right before dark in the bottom of the canyon. Flash light batteries didn’t seem to last very long back then. I remember another time I spotted elk in the bottom of a canyon at 4:00 PM and at that age I never gave it a second thought and headed down. Coming back out my flash light gave out about 30 minutes from the top. I literally had to feel my way up to the top. There was no moon, no star light as it was overcast, it was just plain dark dark. I figured since I reached the top though I could walk the two miles back to camp somehow. Within 100 yards I walked flat into a tree and that’s when I figured I’d be better off to curl up under the tree and wait for some light. My father-in-law talks of nights under a spruce tree in snow storms and spending a week in a two man tent with his son in Montana mountains where the temperature never got above Zero. I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea where I get my idea of hunting hard from. I guess I’ve figured if you have enough energy left at the end of a day of hunting to take a spit bath, you haven’t hunted hard.
That brings me to this last week. Archery antelope opened in Oregon and Tom, my youngest son had a tag and wanted me to go along. No problem, I didn’t think. I have never hunted from a ground blind over a water hole before. The first day I realized I was in for a new experience. We sat for fourteen and a half hours in unbearable heat on the Oregon desert, and we both got good and burned where ever we left our skin exposed. I had drank my three quarts of liquids and still got dehydrated. The second day Tom wanted to get an earlier start so we got our fifteen hours in. In the blind by 6:20, sun come up at 7:20, took my coat off by 7:50, my shirt was off by 8:50, and we settled in to bake. It was just like an oven. When the sun came up it was like some one turned the broiler on, hot on top but the ground was still cool. By 10:30 the bake light came on cause the ground was now heating us up from the bottom too. At noon while eating lunch Tom turns to me and says “I hardly feel like we’re hunting, just sitting here like this.” True, we weren’t hunting hard, but man this was hard hunting.
So I’ve decided to leave the judgement as to what is ‘hunting hard’ and what is ‘hard hunting’ to others, and I’m just going to keep on going where there is some solitude and where I can enjoy the experience and let everyone else find their own level of effort in hunting that they can find enjoyment in.
I’m just going to be honest here. I’ve put in some hard days hunting, but they were nothing compared to the hunting that you guys do.
I admire it, but I don’t envy it-that is for sure.
I don’t like taking the easy road when it comes to hunting, but I don’t turn down the path not even thought of yet either.:):):):)
I’d have to say that our “hardest” hunting would be waterfowl hunting - up by 3:00 AM and not home until 8:00 PM or so… and it’s even better if it’s snowing, raining, sleeting and etc… for part of the day while you are out
Oh or if it is about 4 or 5 degrees outside and you fall into the lake then stay out to hunt for another couple hours before calling it a day
I would say that is hard hunting. During deer season my husband will hunt the morning, come in for a bit and head out til dark.
I never realized the Oregon desert got so hot - there isn’t a tree around for miles, and I guess that makes for some pretty intense heat with no vegetation. Thanks for joining me in that miserable blind, Dad!! It was still fun - but I think one more day of it would have sent me over the edge!
Gary and Tom - I can definately relate to your tales. Gray headed old timers, like me, have lots of tales. I’ve hunted hard and had really hard hunts.
Gary - I once had a 350 yard shot at a bear on the opposite wall of a steep canyon. The bear was about a hundred yards from the creek in the bottom. I was thrilled when a single shot did the job. I looked at my watch and it was 6:30 p.m. It was in April and I realized it would be dark very soon. I was alone and it was too warm to leave him over night. I stripped down to bare necessities and stepped off the landing into the abyss.
It was getting dark when I finally found the bear stuck under a large old tree. The only part of him I could see was his back feet. I crawled under the log and reached for my flashlight.
It wasn’t in my pockets. My “mind’s eye” could clearly see it lying on my jacket, on the tailgate of my truck.
I got that bear out one step at a time, feeling my way down into the creek and then up the nearly verticle slope to my truck. It was 4:00 a.m. when I was able to call my wife and tell her I was alive and on my way home.
I’ve hunted hard, but that was probably the hardest hunt. That or packing out elk, alone, in the dark.
Good article. Love your site. And, I truly appreciate all the e-conversations I’ve had with your son. You’re a lucky man.
Thanks! Jim Gaskins
Good one, Tom.
I’ve hunted hard and I’ve hunted easy, and a lot of times it’s never the hunt you expected it to be. I’ve done some of almost everything at this point, from high elevation backcountry to slogging the southern swamps to shooting critters behind a high fence.
The hunt is what YOU make of it. Nobody else can judge it. Different conditions, different hunting styles… everything is individual, and as long as it’s legal and safe, who is anyone else to say it’s hard or easy or anything else.
I find the all day crawling over the mtns and though the timber easier for some reason. Sitting all day in a treestand waiting for a glimpse of a buck is a lot tougher for me, even if you end up back at the trailer or cabin. It’s harder for me to to stay awake and be vigilent for hours on end. Plus I’ve gotten fidgety in my old age, I can’t sit still like I could when I was a kid.
Some guys go shack wacky from staying on a stand for days. They start talking to themselves and then run off never to be seen hunting again. Had a fella do that in the Kaibab AZ one year turkey hunting.
Sitting in the antelope blind is by far the “hardest hunting” I have done. It can be right on the verge of miserable.