The Unsuccessful Hunter!
Not too long ago I remember a hunt where as I was
walking back to my tent I passed a camp with a nice bull hanging in the
shade of a tree. Naturally I stopped to “chew the fat” a bit. The man
was nonchalant and almost uncaring that he’d tagged this magnificent
animal. Just another day in the office for him. Driving out that
morning he’d spied the bull in a field near the road. “Simply a matter
of stepping out to the fence and dropping him. About like every year.
Probably won’t even bother to hunt next year.” I just walked away. Sad
that this man totally missed the point. So I say to you, “Woe to the
hunter who is always successful!” I know a few, and you know them as
well. Perhaps you yourself even fit the description. The guy who fills
his tag every year. The hunter who fairly oozes success. You always
hear his story. “Yea, I just stepped out of the truck and there he was.
Almost fell into the bed!” Or, “I was just sitting at camp and the dang
thing walked right in. Almost stepped on me!” I for one, would rather
be unsuccessful and know the glory of nature than have one animal give
itself to me, because this is the experience at its best and is the
reason I hunt.
I have camped in the woods and on the grasslands.
Have spent endless hours fishing. And I can’t possibly count the hours
spent hiking or rock hounding. Yet, none of these activities brings you
as close to nature as a single morning of unsuccessful hunting. Don’t
get me wrong. A morning of successful hunting definitely has its
points, but ‘hunting’ is the key word. Judge the success of the
experience not the outcome.
Had I been successful one morning I would have
never seen coyote pups playing and learning to stalk each
other,
oblivious to the fact I sat near. I would never have seen a cinnamon
bear cub back lit by the sun, its guard hairs shimmering in the light,
rimming his outline in silver. Had I been successful on another hunt I
would have missed the bachelor herd of mule deer. Seven total standing
together, antlers looking so much like a pole patch. I was hunting elk
that morning by the way. Had I been successful hunting I would have
never been privy to the mating calls of a couple of love sick
porcupines. (One of them almost ran me over in its hurry to get to his
intended!) I would have never seen an albino Pronghorn nor seen the
harvest moon rise when I was deep in the forest and far from camp. Had
I tagged early I would have missed a night under a full moon watching
bull elk spar in a meadow, their challenges echoing up and down the
valley.
Unsuccessful hunting taught me where a bull keeps
himself cool when it’s warm, and when he rises to forage in the
afternoon. I now know the gray squirrel isn’t just scolding me but the
bull as well. You know you're succeeding when the same gray squirrel
sits on your leg calmly dismembering a pinecone as you watch over a
wallow.
To be unsuccessful means to learn. Each unsuccessful
experience in the field teaches and shows me more than the experience
before.
So, after all this rambling what do I really mean?
Hunting. Really hunting! It means totally immersing yourself into the
natural world. I have personally never known any other activity that so
completely requires all of your senses working in tandem, bent towards
a single outcome. A wise man once told me, “Hunt as if your next meal
depended on it!” This is why just being out there doesn’t cut it.
Experience it on this level even once and you will see nature as only a
privileged few ever have. And if you experience the perfection even
once, you’ll be hooked for life. Successful or not.
Gregory J. Saunders | 
