Brotsky's comment on the hunt rating thread made me think of a frequent FRIENDLY argument (I would like it to stay that way) I have with other hunters. It is a great pro shop conversation.
I love elk hunting. It is what I think about at least 75% of my day and what my year revolves around. With that said, I wouldn't really describe it as "fun". The author John Kraukuer describes alpine climbing as "like fun only different", I would say that is more or less my opinion of elk hunting as well. Even enjoyable could be a bit of a stretch at times. I would say elk hunting is right there with working on a farm: it is a lot of really hard work, but in a beautiful place.
The attached picture is an all too familiar event on most of my elk hunts, that particular stay was over 6 hours. That airy looking tarp that doubled as my shelter proved to be as airy as it looks. It kept the water off us for, at best, 15 minutes.
The other side of this situation is getting up at 3:30am after not sleeping to make a crappy breakfast or eating a raw packet of oatmeal and slamming back a via coffee without water because your partner left the stove under the truck when he repacked his pack to make sure he had the stove. Then you hike in a blazing sun through steep deadfall, sweating you butt off, with a 40lb pack in dark, not so hiking friendly clothing, all the while trying to stay quiet.
Then you get those moments where you hear a bugle, and for me that sound does something to my soul. All the hardships are forgotten. The sound of a bugle makes all those sleepless, rainy nights totally worth it. The cold breakfast...at least I got a breakfast. My one pair of socks and underwear for a four day bivy hunt...they're dry enough.
You do everything in your power to get in front of that bull and then that magical moment happens: everything comes together and miraculously you manage to close the distance to bow range. In miles and miles of timber you inexplicably end up 30 yards, give or take, from this massive, wild, free range animal. You send your arrow on its way and it connects right where you wanted. You see your elk go down.
Then as they say,"the fun begins", truthfully I like the whole deboning process. I'll lump that into the fun category, but on the packout, I just try to find my happy place. I've heard a lot of guys say they enjoy the packout. I wouldn't say I hate it but I don't necessarily enjoy it either and I certainly wouldn't call it fun, satisfying? yes. It is sort of the light at the end of the tunnel and it's what I am there for.
Some guys hunt for the experience. I am one of those, but I am also there to put meat in the freezer and hopefully antlers on the wall. My wife seems to think the same. This year was particularly hard. With abnormal crowds the elk were not where they usually are. I felt like a starving wolf out there trying to find the elk. At one point I called my wife from the continental divide. The view was amazing but I was getting pretty burned out. She gave me the pep talk," I don't care how far you have to hike or how long it takes...don't come home without a dead elk in the back of the truck." That is a direct quote. It's one of the many reasons I love my wife, but at the moment it started to feel like a lot of pressure. The season was quickly coming to an end and the hunting action wasn't getting any better. I was beginning to think my man card was going to get pulled if I got skunked.
While I was running from drainage to drainage, spending hundreds of dollars on diesel, I often thought to myself, "Am I having fun?" Honestly the answer many times was no, but strangely not in a bad way. It wasn't a bad time. It wasn't like sitting at the DMV. But I sure didn't have a smile on my face and one wasn't likely to appear anytime soon.
In the end, I managed to call in a decent bull for a friend and he shot his first hunting, of any kind, kill ever. It was awesome. He filled his tag and we filled our freezers on the last week of the season.
I used this season as an example, but this is pretty accurate of most of my elk hunts.
Most guys on this site, myself included, leave a lot of newbies thinking elk hunting is a total blast and for a lot of you it probably is. But I bet there is a pretty high percentage of guys out there who feel the same way I do: Elk hunting is about 99% really hard work and 1% some of the most amazing experiences you will ever have. It is definitely an addiction. In three weeks of hunting I had a cumulative total of probably three hours of really good action. So including sleep that's 3 hours of action and 501 hours give or take of working for that action.
This isn't a sob story or me venting. I just find it to be an interesting discussion. No matter how bad it gets, I wouldn't trade it for anything. If it was easy I wouldn't be interested in it and despite not being a particularly religious guy I am thankfully for every second I am chasing elk.
So what's your opinion... is elk hunting "fun"?
(Sorry for the long post. It's frickin' cold and snowy out right now so I'm taking the day off and I don't have a lot going on.)
Elk hunting always sounds great when you're sitting around drinking a beer and you'll be sleeping in a nice bed that night, taking a hot shower when you need to, watching TV, eating a burger, etc.
Reality sets in quick when you are actually there and have gone 3 days without seeing or hearing an elk, everything you own is wet, your body hurts, and thinking about doing that long ass hike in the dark again tomorrow morning.
I liken it to one of the many races I've entered...I love the preparation and anticipation. The race itself is extremely grueling and painful but I still give it my all. The feeling of accomplishment when I surpass my goal pace or win my division is priceless!
I don't have Dan's, Jaquomo's or City's kind of elk hunting experience, but I'll be a self aggrandizing d-bag and quote myself in regard to this topic.
"In my opinion, elk hunting can be hard. At times, with a few other challenging factors, it can be real hard. I think everyone should take up golf instead."
There isn't an hour spent that I'm not thinking about elk hunting, whether it's reminiscing about past hunts, or planning future ones. I know it's a cliché, but it's not just something I do as a hobby...it's a huge part of who I am. That said, there are LARGE portions of bowhunting elk that simply aren't fun.
It's not fun getting up at 4-4:30 every morning. It's not fun getting caught in a freezing rainstorm. It's not fun winding your way into some deep, dark hole, knowing you'll have to haul your butt back out at some point. It's not fun chasing a bugling bull up and down ridges for hours, finally getting him to turn and come in for a fight, only to have some other hunter pop up and blow the whole thing up in your face. It's not fun being tired, cold, and hungry. It's not fun busting your behind for days, with nothing to show for your effort besides tracks. The list could go on and on.
HOWEVER, when it all finally comes together and you have that in-your-face elk encounter of the close kind, all the "bad" stuff is quickly forgotten. THAT'S what makes all the not-so-fun stuff worth every second, and THAT'S what makes elk hunting so addictive and keeps us coming back for more.
I do have to admit, though, the older I get, the harder it is to take the not-so-fun stuff! ;-)
You have done an excellent job of capturing how I feel also. Videos do not show endless miles without hearing a bugle. I never see the Primos boys with frozen clothing or eating oatmeal out of a titanium cup at O dark thirty. BUT it is these things that put an elk hunt in perspective. When you go through those things, it is all that much sweeter when you do have success. We develop a certain level of amnesia while reflecting on the difficult times when we contrast while posing with our bow and a dead elk.
Maybe we take some sort of perverse satisfaction when we go through the tough stuff.
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
Like Midwest, I do some running. Those dark and cold training miles are analogous to the less "glamorous" aspects of elk hunting. No one is there to see your suffering and no one else cares. But when you accomplish your running goal (Or kill your elk), you have done something which very few people have accomplished. I don't do these things for any recognition from others. I do them for my own self satisfaction.
I think that pretty much describes elk hunting. As Much a Fun As A Heart Attack!
Hours of hard work followed by seconds of shear panic/madness when the trout is on,and in this case, the elk is within bow range and or down.
Would you want it any other way?
My best, Paul
I had heard that women, after child birth, release a hormone that allows them to forget the pain during childbirth. I think men who hunt have something similar . . . . that is after you work your A$$ off quartering and packing out an elk . . . . we forget all the aches and pains and get after it again the following year (and I'm sure it's nothing like childbirth).
Bu then again, hard work can be fun too. :0)
I'd say elk hunting is partly for testing ourselves and partly for answering the primordial call to gather meat like we were born to do.
Asking "why" is best left to liberal arts college professors and institutional scientists who wile away their days confined to labs and offices, rationalizing and debating their own role in the world, while the rest of us happily go on with our lives. I don't believe a wolf would ask himself why he kills. He just does it for the unexplainable temporary satisfaction, then he rests up a little while until it's time to kill again. Kind of like I'd do if I didn't have a damn business to run...lol.
Does a fat kid love chocolate cake?
Hell yes!
In what other endeavor can you be laboring up a mountain with a hugely heavy pack, exhausted, half-dehydrated, running on just a few hours sleep, pack sores forming, yet look at your buddy and still smile?
Bake
We take so much out of the experience. These days for me, it's the thrill and joy of pushing my limits for that one opportunity, and knowing that whether it happened or not, I gave it all I could. There's also the joy of reliving the event and seeing so many other people that "get it." I take a great sense of satisfaction in being part of this club. To me, that's where the fun lies in all of it.
How the H did you know what I was thinking?? I thunk it, but couldn't write it as well as you did....
I will say this...after doing it for 25 years, the folks you spend the hunt with have a HUGE impact on whether "fun" is a potential adjective for describing the experience. If you ain't smiling in camp, if for no other reason than because of where you are, then I likely won't enjoy your company. And I'll likely just stay in the woods until I need your grumpy a$$ to come help me pack my bull. If you are really a Debby Downer, I won't even ask for your help with that!
Fortunately, I hunt with a couple great guys and that is not an issue.
Great topic.
WRT descriptive words, actual Elk Hunting covers many of the "ex"s....
Exhausting, exhilaration, exasperating, excessive, exquisite, exposure, expensive, ex-wife..... excetera....
The degree of both physical and mental difficulty is what makes the success so rewarding. Without that it wouldn't be the same. But I guess unlike me and a few of you... some people like things that come easy.
Last... you only kill an elk one day out of all those days and weeks you spend up there. What makes it "fun" all the other days? The mountains.... that's what. The mountains are fun. Let's just thank God that elk live in those mountains though right. Gives us a damn good reason to do what we do. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't run around up there just to kill an antelope or a stupid turkey! Nothing against stupid turkeys. lol
Now at 67 I no longer hunt elk but I still have the memories and think about them often. Every elk thread brings them back!
AndyJ's Link
Its amazing how every year I leave the mountains beaten down and exhausted, but as soon as I'm in the truck all I can think of is how much I can't wait until elk season starts again.
When we were packing out my buddy's bull this year I told him,"Next time you meet a meat eating, anti-hunter, ask them what they went through to get their meat."
Still when I think, is it fun? No. But every morning I look at the heads on my wall while drinking a cup of coffee or open a full freezer of elk meat, I can't describe the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.
"it's a lot of hard work, but it's very fulfilling when it's all over with and you set that last quarter on the tailgate."
Vids-That is an amazing feeling. Brad (cnelk) and I where talking about this a while ago. It is an amazing feeling when you see the truck on that last trip. See imbedded link. It's at least that special.
Sure makes sitting in a tree stand for Ohio whitetail pretty dull. Some get it and some don't
I got a laugh out of your musings Andy. You're right, it's not fun setting up camp at 0200 hours. It's not fun climbing out of a 2k foot hole. It's not fun doing the Spiderman over deadfall.
It is fun sitting by a fire drying out socks. It is fun laughing with your buddy at your stupidity. It is fun getting your knife bloody.
There are a lot of things we do that don't make any sense, yet we get so much enjoyment out of them. On that note, I'm going chukar hunting tomorrow. My wife (a personal trainer mind you) thinks I'm brain dead for taking part in such activities.
for me, as I know some of you are the same, I live my entire life for that animal. the workouts I do. things I eat. its a yearround thing, so to me I don't really think of elk as just an animal, but more of a lifestyle.
I am not into the pain of training, the arduous climbing, or being wet and freezing, but it's apparently what it takes to get the payoff of excitement. I admire those bow hunters who have the drive to pursue elk with so much determination.
I have to say, though, if I was rich and killed an elk deep into the mountains, I would call in a packer to haul it out for me, if feasible. I don't get the enjoyment part of that.
Im not sure many smile when packing meat uphill. LOL!
Here is a pic while we are taking a break with loaded packs. Notice, no smiles :( but there are definitely worse times!
She stomped into the bedroom and locked the door. I guess she didn't agree with my analogy.
Was that hefty bag rain gear the scent lock version?
Rocky Mtn Elk-Sometimes!
Roosevelt Elk-No freakin' way!!!