Hunting Stories

Nothing’s Easy with Goats: My 2021 Mountain Goat Hunt

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Nothing’s Easy with Goats

My 2021 archery mountain goat on Mt. Nebo, Utah.

Of all the big game animals I’ve chased over the last 30 years, the Rocky Mountain goat is the most fascinating, strikingly beautiful, and toughest I’ve ever seen. He is a rare creature, living exclusively along a sparse band along the Rocky Mountains, ranging from Alaska down through Colorado and Southern Utah. Because he spends his days climbing vertical mountains, he is likely the strongest animal—pound-for-pound—in North America.

The first time you see him, with his stark white coat gleaming against the gray cliffs, it almost seems unfair that such a rare gem should be so easily spotted as he feeds carelessly on patches of dry grass in the wide open. But as you begin plotting your approach over the deep chasms between you, with thousands of vertical feet given and taken, you soon realize that a simple stalk is actually an all-day, perilous venture into the bowels of hell, and always one misstep away from serious injury or death. As Esther would lament later under the weight of a crushing backpack and half lost in the nighttime gloom of unfamiliar woods, “This hunt unit should have a warning label on it…seriously!”

Goats of Ben Lomond.

What does it take to get your goat? Well, aside from the usual requisites—such as shooting proficiency, general fitness, and patience—goat hunting requires more than you might think. First you’ll need about half a lifetime to accumulate the number of points necessary to draw the once-in-a-lifetime tag. For me it took eighteen years, so I got lucky. Second, to hunt a goat you must be a goat. No matter how much physical training you undertake in the off-season, it won’t be enough—period. Goats live in the worst terrain on earth, places where most other creatures and plants cease to exist. Unless your exercise program involves scaling jagged granite cliffs at 11,000 feet while donning a heavy pack and carrying a cumbersome bow, you won’t be ready. Finally, you’ll need a viable exit plan. Big old billies can weigh up to 300 pounds and fall in places where you couldn’t get a horse. Heck, you might not even get yourself out.

With this in mind, let’s go hunting!

The Complaint Department

My deer hunt was a disaster. In a mere four year span, the ever-increasing gaggle of outdoor enthusiasts have turned my once wild mountain into a clown-town mountain bike and hiking resort; people everywhere, all the time, on every road and trail. The biggest and wisest bucks have since fled back to the vast private lands, now refusing to take part in the public land people party up top. Four hot and exhausting weeks down the toilet, my greatest passion ripped away, another mountain ruined and lost forever.

Realizing failure early on, my mind frequently drifted to the mountain goat tag lying on the kitchen table back home. I couldn’t imagine how this fluffy, conspicuous animal could be anywhere near as difficult as the wily old mule deer buck… Or could he… I was continually haunted by the unknown. All I knew for sure was that I’d never seen an easy hunt before, and wondered what surprises lay ahead.

Perhaps I could have scouted my goat unit if only I had a vehicle. In July my truck motor blew up on the highway and became a permanent fixture at a redneck repair shop 150 miles from home. At the same time, Esther’s car was recalled by the dealership for a three month stint requiring a new engine due to some pretty shoddy engineering. So I did my scouting at home, 200 miles away from the goats.

Scouting

My first call was to a fine fellow named Kendall who’d posted a compelling YouTube video from his Nebo goat hunt last year. He’d done extensive scouting beforehand and was gracious enough to answer all my questions and point me in the right direction. My second call was to a DWR biologist who provided even more information.

Of particular interest was the location of goats. Although Nebo is a large unit, the goats inhabit only a few square miles of the three highest peaks, and you won’t find even a trace of goats below ten-thousand feet. There were only nine archery tags issued for the entire Mt. Nebo unit this year, but it doesn’t take much to blow out an entire peak, as I would soon to discover.

Nebo goat country.

A few days after the deer hunt ended, Esther and I loaded twelve days worth of supplies into our emergency-bought, nineties beater truck and headed north to the bald peaks of Nebo. Fall colors were changing and elk were bugling as we settled into a fine tent camp beneath the great shadow of 12,000-foot Mt. Nebo.

Just around the corner from camp we found ourselves within viewing distance of a myriad of tiny white dots scattered across the sheer, granite cliffs two miles away. Judging by the various sizes of the goats, we determined the majority were family units of nannies and kids. The males, or billies, run about 40% bigger than the nannies and tend to live alone or in groups of two or three. Other than body size, there’s no good way to judge the animals from two miles away. All goats—whether billies, nannies, and juveniles—have sleek, swept-back, dagger-like horns ranging from seven to ten inches long and being all but invisible at long distances. Clearly this would be a boots-on-the-ground hunt. Thus, an all-day hike was planned for the following day.

Day #1

I sure learned a lot about goats that first day. At first light we glassed up some promising goats from the camp overlook, and then set forth on a several mile hike around the canyon to get into position 1500 vertical feet below them.

View from Nebo overlook.

It was around midday when I reluctantly peeled off the trail and headed straight up a steep knife ridge towards them. Much of the hike was spent scrambling on all fours, picking my way around rock walls, and clambering up noisy scree slopes while stopping occasionally to glass. Most of the goats remained bedded all day, only rising occasionally to change beds and grab a quick bite to eat. The biggest billies lived right in the cliffs where a stalk would be impossible.

It was fascinating to watch them traverse the cliffs with nary a concern for sheer drop-offs. Mountain goats have large, wide hooves with hard rubbery soles that cling to rocks. Their short, stumpy legs and compact bodies provide a low center of gravity for balance. There is no mountain too high for goats. If the peak stretched up another 5000 feet they would be at the top.

Eventually three large goats came into view a few hundred yards away, including one very large billy, a smaller one, and a big old nanny wearing a DWR tracking collar. Unfortunately they were bedded in the wide open with a wall of cliffs behind them. With no possible approach I continued higher in hopes of finding a good ambush position when they fed out later.

Goats below the cliffs.

The terrain grew steeper as I went, gradually turning to cliffs in all directions. While working around an outcropping I spotted a goat bedded thirty yards below. He turned and looked up at me but didn’t spook. Instead he unbedded and actually walked right towards me. In a surreal moment, he stood broadside just five yards away and stared at me, framed against a massive fortress of broken cliffs and crags.

Juvenile goat at five yards.

Eventually he wandered off and for the rest of the afternoon I sat on a heavily used saddle and watched the three goats from earlier. At four o’clock they all rose and began feeding in wide circles on the open hillside.

With only two hours of light left, it was time to make a move. The smaller of the three goats fed into some cliffs while the big billy fed downhill 200 yards below the nanny. Based on what I’d observed so far, goats aren’t nearly as spooky as deer. With their funny little elf ears, small black noses, and beady eyes, these animals obviously relied on extreme terrain for protection more than their natural senses. In fact every goat I encountered on this hunt seemed perplexed to see a human sharing his extreme environment.

The only possible route to the billy was through the nanny. She continually watched me as I poked my way down the cliffs and scree slopes. At 70 yards she got nervous and wandered off. Methodically I closed the distance to the billy who must have thought all the noise I was making was coming from the absent nanny. But when I got to 150 yards he looked up while I was looking down and pegged me in the wide open. Goats generally don’t run to avoid predators, but rather march steadily into vertical cliffs; and that’s exactly what he did. For the last half hour of light all I could do was watch him feed out of sight. At that point I knew this could be a very long hunt.

I only got lost twice while walking the three hours back to camp in the dark. When I finally arrived, Esther was on the verge of tears, certain that I’d fallen to my doom somewhere. This would become a regular occurrence for her.

Day#2

I woke the second day with various aches and pains from the waist down. After spending an arduous day on Nebo, I was excited to try an entirely different peak: Bald Mountain, aka Baldy. Baldy seemed a little friendlier than Nebo: not quite as steep and with better access via a dirt road. Unlike Nebo, Baldy has patches of sparse pine trees which would be more conducive to close-quarter style hunting.

The road to Bald Mountain.

We didn’t spot any goats from the road, but there was still a lot of mountain hidden from view. We parked the poor truck shortly after the road turned into a pile of sharp boulders with all four tires spinning and not going anywhere.

A lovely morning hike through the golden aspens and fields of choke cherries soon turned into an all-day, up-and-down leg burner, alternating between cliffs and wide-open grassy bowls corralled by steep rocky ridges. We glassed as we went but no goats appeared.

Shortly after reaching the right goat elevation we ran into a harvested goat carcass, obviously taken by a hunter a week or two earlier. Well, congrats to the lucky hunter, but bad news for us. With the goat’s demise, the remaining goats likely spooked further into the vast reaches of Bald Mountain. We continued on.

A couple old goats in the hills.

Around noon we arrived at a great lookout from an 11,000-foot ridge. Our eyes strained through the glass as we dissected the mountains for miles, but turned up nothing. I could tell by Esther’s demeanor that she was done for the day, and thus put together a new plan. From here Esther would sit and glass the far hillsides until 5:00pm. Meanwhile I would clamber about the cliffs on the main peak in hopes of turning up a hidden goat. All the goats I’d seen thus far would feed until about 10:00am, bed down, and then rise again at precisely 4pm to resume feeding for the evening.

Glassing from Bald Mountain.

Clamber as I might, I turned up nothing but old beds and sign. At 6pm I got a message from Esther that three big goats were feeding a mile north of her lookout. It was too late for a stalk, so we planned a return trip in the morning to chase after them.

Three billies that Esther spotted.

At last light we were able to glass up the goats from the road and verify that they were in fact billies based on their “urination posture.” (Billy goats pee like horses with their legs spread apart, while nanny goats squat like dogs). I was lulled to sleep that night by a combination of excitement, anticipation, and dread.

Day #3

Fearing the weekend would bring more hunter competition to the mountain, we woke well before light and hit the road. Our previous days’ effort turned up a better road jump-off for quicker elevation gain. But I suppose it’s all relative; what’s a 500-foot advantage in these mountains?

Hurrying to reach the goats before they bedded, I hiked like a mad-man up the dark hills, leaving Esther far behind. My lungs burned and heaved in the cold morning air while a metallic blood taste filled my mouth. Still I refused to rest, knowing only one thing for sure: there’s nothing easy with goats.

I reached the lookout ridge around seven and spotted two of the goats feeding leisurely along the next ridge a mile away. Just one more canyon to go. I burned up an entire hour descending a perilous avalanche chute, sliding and clinging to roots while dislodging various boulders that went crashing down the mountain. I kept glancing up at the goats and was glad they were still too far to hear the great cacophony.

Happy to still be in one piece at the bottom, I began an immediate ascent toward the goats. From this point everything came unraveled. The shifting thermals began sweeping upward towards the goats who were now obscured by the curvature of the hill. To reduce my scent I ripped off my sweat-soaked shirt and stuffed it in my pack.

Next I made a wide arc to get above the goats before they winded me. While doing so I was absolutely horrified to see three other camo-clad dudes—a hunter with two buddies—suddenly appear on the horizon above me. “[Insert raging string of expletives here].” My worst nightmare come true; and such wonderful timing! Still, the compassionate inner Nate wondered what hell these guys must’ve gone through to get where they were; certainly there was no better route than the one I’d taken. Nevertheless, here we all were on the same peak, pursuing the same once-in-a-lifetime opportunity against all odds. May the best hunter win!

My carefully calculated stalk was now a flailing bee-line in the direction of the goats. But when I arrived, they were gone. In their stead was a big 5×5 mule deer buck staring at me with a familiar look, as if to ask, “What the heck is a person doing in this place?”

The three dudes looked equally frustrated as they continually scanned the hills in all directions. Either the goats had seen their approach and bailed, or they’d winded me. Either way they were gone. While the competition poked around a few hundred yards above, I pursued my only option, working lower and lower down the mountain while intermittently peeking over the cliffs where the goats must have fled. Still nothing.

At ten o’clock Esther radioed me from the lookout. She was still full of hope until I informed her of the dudes and the disappearing goats, at which time she blew a fuse. After everything we’d been through, we got duded; always more people! After a murderous rant, she asked with exasperation, “So, what’s your plan?” I looked up from the radio and slowly scanned the miles of emptiness in all directions. The wind whistled by and the sun beat down from a cloudless sky.

“There is no plan,” I finally growled. Then, after another pause, “I’ll call you at eleven…” Expecting nothing more from the day but blisters, I kept working down the mountain and glassing clumps of trees in vain hope that one of the goats had bedded nearby.

Movement suddenly caught my eye a 100 yards down in a dark tangle of trees on the cliffy north face. Through the glass my heart leapt at the sight of two white patches milling about and hooving the ground to make day beds. One goat bedded down facing me and I froze in the wide open for a full hour while he chewed his cud and stared in my direction. He finally got up, kicked the smaller goat out of its bed and laid down facing away. At this time I carefully crawled twenty yards lower to some shade and that’s where I sat for the next five hours, 80 yards above the goats and unable to make a peep.

I passed the time writing in my notebook, eating snacks, fighting off flies and bees, and periodically checking the goat as he lay bedded. Was it a mature billy? It was hard to tell from this angle. Maybe a nanny…? My lack of experience with such beasts kept me guessing, but it really didn’t matter. Considering what a person must go through to get within bow range, any mature goat is a good goat and I was intent on making something happen. But for now there was no move. He was bedded directly above some tall cliffs, and even if I had a clear shot, the goat would likely take a flying leap, as is their nature. No, I would wait them out, all day if necessary.

Meanwhile Esther sat patiently on her high perch crouched in some shadows. At one point a nearby rock slide crashed and echoed through the hills. Being out of radio communication, Esther feared I’d fallen to my doom, and thus sat helplessly wondering of my fate all day long.

The Stalk is On!

At 3:30pm I was elated to see movement. The smaller goat soon popped into the open and fed out of sight. I lifted my bow, ready for the bigger one, but he remained bedded for another hour. As the mountain fell into shadows, the wind cooled and began shifting up and down. I winced each time it changed, expecting the goat to suddenly jump out of his bed and disappear. At 4:30 he finally stood , but was in no hurry to enter the open. Instead he just stood there sniffing the air and looking around, waiting for the shifting winds to give away any lurking danger.

Somehow he missed me and eventually walked into the open. Unable to move, all I could do was range him at fifty-six yards before he disappeared out of view. The moment of truth was finally upon me as I began a low-odds stalk into the great wide open.

Stalking my goat, as seen from Esther’s vantage.

Each footstep was carefully placed around loose talus rocks that rattled like bits of broken chinaware scattered across the slope. As I crept closer, the big goat began to materialize; first a white shoulder, then a rump. I ranged again—forty yards, but no shot.

I inched ever closer while crouching low and holding my loaded bow in my left hand, my right arm held out for balance. More of the goat came into view as he fed perpendicular to my approach. My heart beat quickened, drumming louder and louder in my ears. Something was about to happen, here in this vertical wilderness on the shadowy side of nowhere.

Haunted by Rodents

In the middle of an awkward step, a sudden high-pitched chirping pierced the night. Seventy yards below me in a patch of trees a chipmunk, who was apparently upset with the whole spectacle, erupted into an uncontrollable barking fit. My eyes flashed back to the goat who was feeding no more, but staring intently in the direction of the chipmunk. I froze in a hunched position and stared fixedly upon the top half of the goat’s head. His face shifted left and right, then back at the chipmunk. He suspected something was wrong.

After several minutes the goat began alternating between short feeding spells and looking around nervously. I was still stuck at forty yards with no shot and no way to get closer. This went on for untold minutes, but was finally cut short by a loud snort above me, followed by total pandemonium. While watching the big goat, the smaller one had wandered in above to investigate. I read somewhere that goats don’t run, but this little billy stirred up a cloud of dust as he rumbled downhill past the big goat.

Just as the whole evening was imploding, I raised my bow and launched a forty-yarder as the big goat whirled and ran after his buddy. Not accounting for his rapid acceleration, my arrow missed cleanly. Both goats thundered towards the cliffs, and then paused suddenly to look back at me. I was ready with another arrow and in a split second drew my bow, settled the pin for what I figured to be sixty yards, and released.

THUD.

My arrow’s orange fletchings shone brightly where the arrow hit: squarely in the goat’s massive shoulder. Not much penetration, but perfect trajectory. Instead of running into the cliffs, the billy scrambled into the chipmunk trees, staggered for a moment and lay down. His young apprentice, clearly unhappy with the whole situation, walked over and stood by his fallen leader and stared up at me. I sat down and stared back.

After a minute I glanced up at my invisible wife on the ridgeline, still sitting in the dirt after a silent, eight-hour ordeal. I wondered how much of the spectacle she had seen. It turns out a lot. With trembling hands, I fumbled my radio out of my pocket and hailed her. “Hello?”

“Did you hit it?”

“Yeah, he’s bedded below me,” I whispered. “I can’t talk now; I’ll call you back.”

Light was falling fast as the big billy lied motionless in the shadows. I couldn’t tell whether his head was up or not, but a decision had to be made. This isn’t the kind of place where you just back out and return in the morning. If a follow-up was needed it would have to be tonight. Reluctantly I began scooting closer. The smaller goat shifted uneasily, and when I got within forty yards he walked over and kicked up the wounded goat who slowly stood, took two steps, and staggered.

Both goats began a rapid descent straight down an avalanche chute, but the big one couldn’t keep his feet and fell over. He slid a short distance, then got back up, and fell again, this time barrel-rolling down the mountain and out of sight.

I sighed with relief; it was finally over. I hiked up to get my pack and personal effects and then made a careful descent down to the goat. But after a hundred yards he was still MIA. Did he get up and leave? I called Esther on the radio, but she couldn’t see anything. Figuring it was going to be a long night for everyone, I told Esther to start making her way down to me, preferably while it was still light.

It was evident that the goat tumbled more than once, likely rolling each time he tried to stand. Another hundred yards down the ravine and there he was, caught up in some small boulders, one slip away from launching down another series of never-ending cliffs.

The goat where he fell.

A flood of feelings rushed over me, mostly relief, but also gratitude for a clean kill and recovery of this magnificent animal. In near disbelief I reached down and stroked the coarse white hair on his massive shoulder. The great barrel-shaped beast was bigger than I thought, nearly impossible to maneuver for pictures and always threatening to slide into the abyss. Upon his noble horse-like head was a pair of stout, black horns measuring nine inches, albeit missing a few pieces due to his long tumble.

 

The Retrieval

I wish I could end the story right here—a lovely three day hunt in paradise—but it was far from over. The next forty-eight hours went like this:

Esther arrived two hours later by headlamp and in tears. Not tears of jubilation, mind you, but genuine tears of mountain terror and exhaustion. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get myself out!” she exclaimed.

We cut up the iron-tough goat until 4:30am, hung the manageable parts in the trees, and then hiked out via the least horrible route. We arrived back to camp completely hammered at 8am and slept for an hour before waking to a multitude of flies buzzing around camp. I knew it was way too hot to leave meat hanging, even at 10,000 feet. We were on a serious timer; anything less than full bore meant losing the whole goat.

There had to be a better route back to the goat. Poring over maps, we discovered a low road running a mile and a half (as the crow flies) and two-thousand vertical feet below the canyon the goat was in. No trail meant busting timber the whole way in, but at least it would be downhill on the way out.

It took all day to get to the goat, at which time we loaded half the monster into our packs and began our downhill trek. The out-route had to be altered due to some dangerously steep slopes and heavy packs. Soon we found ourselves hiking down a slippery, boulder-strewn stream for a mile in the dark. This route proved far too time-consuming, and so a new one was plotted for morning.

Seven hours later we were back, this time coming in from above. This high route was definitely shorter, but also a gamble. Sure enough we got cliffed out and spent half the morning side-hilling dangerous terrain. Just before arriving at the goat, Esther spied a black bear sow with cubs across the canyon. One of the game bags containing a hind quarter was torn open on the ground, the meat partially consumed and swarming with flies. Fortunately we’d hung the rest over some north-facing cliffs and it was fine. In the end, though, the lighter load probably saved both us, as well as the remaining meat.

Despite being cooked out by the midday sun, I was energized at the prospect of ending the ordeal once and for all under the strain of a final pack out. However, no amount of pep talks could get Esther jazzed as she struggled continually to keep up. One word of wisdom for any future goat hunters: You must elicit help from at least three of your biggest, burliest buddies before undertaking such an endeavor. Goat hunting is not an ideal couple’s activity.

Our final out-route ended up being the same one I’d taken the day I got my goat: a ridiculous up-and-down scramble over terrain that would make an elk queasy. Still, we plowed ahead, determined to save our hard-fought meat. We finally arrived back at the truck around 1pm in a grossly over-distressed physical state.

It still wasn’t over. The incessant heat of “endless summer” had taken its toll on our ice supply. So without rest we busted camp and barreled down the road, past the tourists in flowery shirts photographing fall colors, past strings of RVs catching the waning weeks of summer, past weekend fishermen leisurely tossing flies at a mountain stream, and finally into town for a pile of dry ice. For the first time in five days we were able to stop and take a relaxed breath of air. The goat was saved.

Conclusion

A week later, as I sit back and enjoy a delicious goat steak, complete with sautéed onions and mushrooms in a delicious wine sauce, my body is healed and my spirit is full. My mind drifts back to the good parts of the hunt: the awesome sight of Nebo’s granite peaks, the enchantment of fall’s brilliant colors, the wide variety of wildlife seen along the way, but especially the heart-pounding excitement of the final stalk.

Bald Mountain

There is no animal quite like the Rocky Mountain goat, neither in beauty nor toughness. With an ever-increasing number of hunters vying for the coveted tag each year, only a handful will ever get the opportunity to chase the great white king of the peak. For those lucky few, this hunt should be considered an honor. The chance to match wits and might with such a beast is to test oneself in every way. My gratitude for this hunt will stay with me forever.

For the record my goat green scores just shy of 49 inches, placing him in the top 20% of goats ever taken with a bow and arrow. Though I’m thoroughly pleased with the outcome, I’m equally glad it will never be repeated.

It can’t be said enough: There’s nothing easy with goats! And maybe there shouldn’t be. Aside from the fine table fare and the beautiful taxidermy mount-to-be, I think the greatest gift from this hunt is perspective. For as long as I live nothing will ever seem all that difficult again.

Uncategorized, Zen Hunting

Best Foods for Hunting and Backpacking

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Best Foods for the Backcountry

Napoleon once said, “An army travels on its stomach.” This certainly applies to hunters too. Hunting the Rocky Mountains is the most physically demanding thing many of us do each year, requiring nearly double your normal daily caloric intake. But finding the right foods with regards to nutrition while reducing weight can be a challenge.

Everyone has their own tastes when it comes to field food, but what we can all agree on is backcountry hunters need a steady diet of protein to build muscle in conjunction with a regular intake of carbohydrates for continual energy. In big buck country you’ll need plenty of both.

Prepare for the Worst

First off, carrying enough food is far more important than trying to save weight by bringing too little.  This is especially important in cold weather because you’ll burn far more calories trying to stay warm. I’ve been chased off the snowy mountain before from lack of food, and it’s a lousy excuse for failure. Fortunately we live in the era of an abundant supply of pre-packaged, freeze-dried meals that take up little space and weigh practically nothing. Just add water.

Pre-Packaged Meals

On backcountry trips where weight is crucial, your best option is pre-packaged dehydrated meals like Mountain House. When choosing pre-packaged meals be sure to choose the highest protein content since most lack adequate protein for some dumb reason. For this reason I augment my pre-packed meals with precooked tuna and/or chicken pouches. Add them directly to the meal or eat  it separately.

Note:  Most freeze-dried meals can cost a pretty penny. Fortunately you can save about 25% by purchasing the  #10 size can (10 serving size). Then use a vacuum sealer to create customized portions for your trip.

Carbs for Energy

You’ll get plenty of carbs from your Mt. House meals in the form of pasta or rice. Whenever possible you should avoid fast-burn, sugary foods such as candy, soda, white bread or crackers. Instead, reach for slow-burning carbs that will last all day and won’t burn you out. These include granola, oats (oatmeal or bars), beans, and whole-grain bread & snack bars.

Trail Snacks

For trail snacks in your daypack I recommend dried fruits, nuts, jerky (venison or beef), cereal bars, and boiled eggs. Dried fruit has plenty of natural carbs, plus much-needed fiber. Adequate fiber will further help you reduce weight in the field…for obvious reasons.

I always choose a variety of dried fruits with plenty of bananas. Bananas are a good source of potassium, magnesium, and calcium, three nutrients that help to ease muscle cramps.

Beautiful Boiled Eggs

Boiled eggs are a wonderful, high-protein, pre-wrapped food for both snacks and meals. I could live for weeks on boiled eggs alone, even without salt. The only drawback to eggs is they are relatively heavy and prone to freezing. Eggs are also perishable in warm weather so you’ll need a way to keep them cool. If possible store them in a small cooler, a stream, or snowpack. If eggs aren’t your thing, I recommend jerky or peanut butter for high-protein snacking.

Comfort Food

Other than nourishment of the body, food serves another purpose: nourishment of the soul. After a few rough days afield you’ll likely suffer some level of mental fatigue bordering on a breakdown. Hunger only exacerbates the problem. Therefore I recommend a small amount of comfort food (aka junk food), whether it’s a bag of Doritos, Snicker bars, or couple cans of Coke. This will cheer up your inner child and just might keep you on the mountain long enough to get the job done. Just take it easy on the snacking or you’ll just burn yourself out. Think “Emergency use only!”

Conclusion

Having enough good, nutritious food will do wonders for the hunter’s mind and body. Just remember, you’re not going to the mountain for a picnic, so keep it lightweight and simple. If things get really bad, you can always shoot an animal and eat that. We are hunters, after all!

Did I miss anything?  Let me know what you like to eat at 10,000 feet.

Archery Basics, Zen Hunting

Bowhunting Top 10 Tips for 2021

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Bowhunting Top Ten Tips for 2021

In reviewing notes for my last 25 years of bowhunting, I decided to compile a list of my ten tips for bowhunting success.

  1. Hunt where the deer are, not where you want them to be. Use the off-season to study, scout, and explore promising new areas. Always have multiple areas for opportunities.
  2. Be a wilderness athlete. At the very least maximize your physical fitness—especially cardio—so you can actually make it to where the deer are. Minimize your body weight and field gear so you can go farther and  move with stealth.
  3. Learn everything about your prey. Study books, videos, and actual deer behavior. Become obsessed with the daily lives of deer, not just hunting.
  4. Avoid people at all costs (it gets harder every year). Deer hate people more than anything! As a rule, you need to put as much energy into avoiding people as you do hunting. Nothing good ever lasts, and eventually you will lose your secret spot to the crowds. So be adaptable and mobile, ready to cut your losses and find a new area at any time.
  5. Maximize time afield. Hunting is equal parts skill, luck, and time. The longer you hunt, the higher your chance of finding or lucking into a big buck. Spending a more time afield is the only way to attain the experience you’ll need to hone your hunting skills.
  6. Scout effectively. Whenever possible, locate your target buck before the season starts. Off-season scouting begins the day your hunt ends.
  7. Get as close as possible, and then let things play out naturally. Rarely can you force the situation with big bucks. They are extremely wary and fragile. Hunt them on their turf and on their schedule. Success is simply the result of many good decisions plus time and luck.
  8. Flawless shot execution. Shooting your bow must be effortless and subconscious. If you can’t shoot straight under pressure then nothing you’ve done up to this point matters.
  9. Hunt alone. The ultimate goal in bowhunting is not to even exist., to become invisible to the deer. Hunting alone reduces your scent, sound, and visibility. More importantly it allows you to focus on your instincts and innate skills rather than hunting by committee.
  10. Be eternally open-minded and humble. Great hunters learn something new every single day they spend afield. The moment you become an “expert” is the moment you stop learning.

I hope you enjoyed my tips. Did I miss anything?

Archery Basics, Zen Hunting

Bonus Point System Failure

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Bonus Point Implosion

Introduction

The goal of this website is to help archers of every age and background find more success afield. Unfortunately the greatest obstacle to success these days is simply procuring a hunting tag!

Back in the eighties and nineties a hunter could swing by a sporting goods store on his way out of town and buy an OTC deer tag. Today, just drawing a general tag for a lousy unit can be a multi-year fiasco. The problem is simple:  supply and demand; too many people vying for our scarce resource, our wild game animals.

The Point System

A couple decades ago most states attempted to rectify this problem by instigating a bonus point system which gives preference to those hunters who’ve been applying the longest. Although the point system varies somewhat from state to state, applicants basically accumulate a bonus point for each year and species he applies for (and doesn’t draw), thus placing him further ahead in line as points are accumulated.

System Failure

The point system worked for awhile, but is now crumbling under the weight of exponential inflation, aka point creep. Presently, any new or young hunter entering the system will likely never draw a decent tag in his lifetime, much less a premium or once-in-a-lifetime tag.

Still, every potential hunter is required to pay an application fee or in some cases even buy a license just to apply for a tag he’ll likely never draw. Thus, the wildlife agencies get rich while providing virtually nothing in return. The once promising point system is quickly becoming a real scam bordering on a Ponzi scheme.

The Real Picture

To further understand the severity of the problem, let’s take a look at the coveted Utah Henry Mountains archery deer odds (see example photo below).

According to the 2020 draw odds, it currently takes 21 points (see figure 1) to guarantee a deer tag. But don’t be fooled! That doesn’t mean if you start putting in today you’ll draw a tag in 21 years. Why?  Because there are 533 hunters ahead of you with 1 point or more.

The DWR only gives out 9 tags per year (5 going to max point holders and 4 to the random draw), which means all 533 people will have to draw with either max points or the random draw before it’s your turn. Therefore it will take 59 years (not 21) to reach max points. These “draw odds” are plainly shown at the bottom of the page (see figure 2).

But it gets worse. The draw odds are actually much higher than 1 in 59 because unless you have max points, there are only 4 tags in the random draw available to you and the other 528 applicants. So for 2021 the actual odds of drawing a random tag are 1 in 132! (see figure 3).

Can It Get Any Worse?

Yes, it always gets worse… Because 9 applicants are removed from the overall pool each year, you might think your odds are improving over time, but they’re actually getting worse. That’s because 42 new applicants are entering the pool each year. If this trend continues, your actual odds go from 1 in 132 (in 2021) to 1 in 140 in 2022, and so on. In other words, for next 59 years the odds of drawing a random tag go down each year.

Now if you think that’s bad, take a look at the Henry’s rifle deer tag which currently takes 191 years to reach max points. Or how about 971 years for the Henry’s bison tag? The point is, the vast majority of applicants will never draw a premium tag, but they’ll still have to pay a lifetime of app fees just for a sliver of chance in the random draw.

That’s bad news for hunters, but great news for the Utah DWR who receives 10 dollars per app per species per year with only a tiny fraction of hunters ever drawing a tag.

Currently the Utah DWR rakes in 1.5 million dollars per year in limited entry and OIAL app fees alone. If you add in non-resident fees, that number doubles to 3 million dollars. This amount doesn’t include the cost of the tag (assuming you ever draw one), so what are sportsmen really getting for their money? It smells like a scam to me.

The Solution

Since the point system is obviously failing, what’s the solution? A pure lottery system of course! Unless Utah and the majority of other Western states change to a lottery system, things can only get drastically worse, and fast.

Currently only two of the eleven western states have a pure lottery system:  Idaho and New Mexico. Long ago, and in the spirit of fairness, these two states anticipated the inevitable collapse of the point system and thus incorporated a pure luck draw.  Surely the other nine states anticipated the same, but the potential revenue in fees was just too much to ignore.

Thus, greed has turned the management of our precious game animals into big business. Remember, the animals belong to us, the citizens, not the state. Shouldn’t every citizen have equal access to his resources?

The Future

Inevitably, every state will be forced to change to a pure lottery system. This will obviously screw over thousands of sportsmen who’ve paid into the point system for decades, but the long-term benefits will be worthwhile, and here’s why.

First, at the current rate of inflation, most youth and novice hunters will never draw a decent tag in their lifetimes. Unlike previous generations, they don’t have fair access to hunting opportunities.

Second, a pure lottery system increases opportunity for everyone, especially hard-core hunters, by weeding out non-committed or fair-weather hunters who have little interest in hunting but still apply simply because they are too invested in the point system.

Thirdly, people’s lives, interests, and situations change over time. Most hunters would prefer to apply only in years when it’s convenient for their family situations, work schedules, or budgets.

Lastly, many hunters with unlimited resources use loopholes in the point system, such as building points with multiple non-hunting family members and then averaging in with them to get tags sooner than hunters who apply alone. Thus, a lot of great tags go to waste that would otherwise go to real hunters.

Conclusion

Bottom line, the point system is bad for all hunters, old and young, veterans or newbies, and good for the states who’ve turned our big game animals into big business. Rest assured the point system will fail someday, the only question is when? In my opinion, the sooner the better! The longer they wait, the more hunters will be cheated out of decades of investments.

Whatever the case, a pure lottery system increases odds and opportunity for everyone. Hunters will finally be free to apply when they want rather than out of fear of falling behind in the pool and never drawing that long-awaited tag, whether they really want to hunt or not.

Zen Hunting

How to Find your Passion in Hunting

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Be Passionate

Hunting with passion will take you farther than anything else. When the mountain is just too big and too steep, it’s not physical strength that pulls me up, but a deep-seated, burning passion that keeps my legs churning. It’s much more mental than physical.

I first noticed this back in 2015 while elk hunting with my wife. In the early light I could hear the elk herd moving farther up the mountain. My legs burned as I huffed and puffed steadily behind them. Still, I didn’t stop or rest as I was compelled with great desire to catch up to them. For a moment I felt as though I’d split in half: my boundless spirit was moving ahead of my faltering body, and then reaching back to pull my body along. It was a weird mental moment, but it got me up the mountain despite the apparent physical impossibility.

That drive comes from the hope of infinite possibilities lying ahead, or some magical opportunity lurking in the near future. Unfortunately, this “drive” is nearly impossible to teach; it has to come from within.

How to Find Your Drive

Learning to be passionately driven will bring more success than anything else, even extreme physical training. If you can learn to fan that initial flame into a burning desire, then you’ll find your passion and use it as a tool.

The best way to kindle you hunting passion is to set realistic goals, and then do whatever it takes to reach them. As you begin to  have small successes, set bigger goals. By continually striving for bigger and better bucks, your love for hunting grows forever.

Throughout this process, try focusing on the whole hunting package, not just the kill. Take time to appreciate the miracle and beauty of nature. Read and learn about the long history of the bow-and-arrow and its precious heritage down through the ages. Feel the power you transfer to the bow from your own body, and then observe the mystical flight of the arrow into the target. It’s a beautiful, artistic craft!

Be sure to immerse yourself completely into the entire hunting process, from preseason preparation to the final harvest. Try processing the animal’s sacred meat by yourself and you’ll attain a greater appreciation for the animal.

This is the recipe for passion that will drive your spirit up the mountain and towards long-term success.

Avoid Pitfalls

If however your intentions are impure; if you just want to kill something with little regard for the sanctity of life; if you’re really hunting for recognition and ego, then your passion will erode and eventually falter. As exciting as the kill might be, most people—hunters and non-hunters alike—don’t really care about your success. That is, unless you shoot a real monster, in which case they’ll just be jealous.

Conclusion

In the end if you aren’t hunting for yourself, or your family’s dinner table, then you’ll lose your passion for the sport. That’s because the mountain is cruel; it often beats you up and holds out on you. Over time you’ll grow to resent it. Finally, one day, tragically, hunting becomes too much a burden and you don’t return.

Don’t go down this route! Instead foster your passion and you’ll find success afield, whether you harvest something or not.

Zen Hunting

Happy Thanksgiving hunters

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Giving Thanks in 2020

2020 was been a terrible year for most people, and hunters are no exception! After all the difficulties I personally endured afield, I finally mustered the mental fortitude to write a new post, and just in time for Thanksgiving.

Note: This will be my first hunting-related post since moving to Southern Utah last year. This move was prompted by several factors, primarily getting away from the hordes of the big city, taking control over my time, and being closer to Nature (see my previous post: Panguitch Manifesto).

After settling in to my new home, I looked forward to having more time afield–and thus more success–during the 2020 archery season. This was not the case. Instead, the Covid crowds bombarded the forests with hunters and non-hunters alike, thus driving the deer deeper and further away from my usual haunts. Long story short, I spent a record 42 days afield with nothing to show but a handful of missed opportunities.

For the first time in five years I was left with no story to write. Returning from failed trip after trip took it’s toll on my spirit as I sunk into a hunting funk like never before. Fearing a continual descent into despair, I took heed of one of my life-long mantras: Always turn reaction into action.

I started by reading all the following books:

The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale
Blood in the Tracks, by Jim Collyer
Creativity, by Osho

These books proved invaluable for creating a new mindset based on hope and positivity. Sure I stunk it up this year, but that doesn’t change who I am, nor does it discredit all the invaluable hunting skills I’ve accumulated over decades of hard hunting. Gradually I began to look forward rather than dwelling on the past.

But was the past really that bad? No way. Despite 2020, I can still walk downstairs and bask in the glow of past success; successes almost unimaginable, and for which I am eternally grateful!

My trophy room.

Next, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I sat down and wrote a list of gratitude. This included items such as my health, home, freedom, and my supportive hunting-wife partner; what else does one need? Well, does of course! After all, I did harvest a beautiful Idaho doe to fill the freezer this year.

My 2020 doe.

Success or failure isn’t as important as how we react to it. Simply put, failure forces change.

Already I’ve begun making plans for next year. There are still plenty of great deer in my unit, I just need to change how and where I hunt for them. This includes more effective scouting and strategies to avoid people…which is something I specialize in.

Guy Eastman once wrote that “a failed hunt just makes the successful ones that much more special.” This might be hard to stomach, but it’s true.

Over-achievement can actually inhibit our growth by making us complacent. Inflated egos cultivate an air of entitlement which goes against everything natural. Nature requires us to continually evolve. If we aren’t moving forward, then we’re moving backwards. Challenges are therefore something to embrace because it perpetuates growth.

This year I’m most grateful for continual opportunities to pursue the greatest passion of my life–bowhunting–even in this difficult time. I’m also grateful for my past successes, and even my failures from which I continually learn. I’m especially very grateful for an old doe harvested with my bow.

What are you grateful for this year?

Hunting Stories

Slivers of Opportunity: My 2019 Deer Story

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Southern Utah

A Grim Assessment

Walking down the dusty trail in the dark, I grumbled, “Even if I do write a story about this hunt, it’ll be a short one:  Every day was horrible, and then it ended”.

“Well, it’s not over yet,” Esther replied.

I wished it was.

It was a strange hunt, and a strange year. Winter arrived late and went long, as did spring and then summer, throwing the entire year one month late. So August was really July, and therefore the deer took their time migrating up the mountain, resulting in half the deer. Add to that an ever-increasing amount of human-hunters—twice as many as past years—and you have the perfect storm: Twice the dudes; half the deer.

Aside from that, I was about to nuke my entire known life and move to the boonies—300 miles away—in desperate attempt to salvage what good years I have left far away from the stifling mass of  humanity. All of springtime I spent finishing my basement in anticipation of selling my Hooper home. The worst case scenario was to sell my home during the hunt, which would force me to abandon the hunt early to move. So of course, that’s what happened.

Since the August opener was really July, the weather was unseasonably hot and dry, creating a forest substrate like potato chips everywhere you went. No matter how carefully we moved, the deer always heard us coming, forcing us to hunt on established hiking and game trails, a low probability venture indeed.

The opener also coincided with a glaring full moon. This is bad for hunting because it allows deer to feed and move more at night, making them harder find during the day. Add to that a billion yellow-jackets and flies constantly circling your face, and conditions couldn’t be worse.

All that aside, I was deer hunting, so I was hopeful and happy. Amidst constant complaints I held fast to my goal: to shoot a great buck over 200 inches. It’s been way too long since I arrowed a true trophy buck, and I was determined to make this my year. Well, I might have picked the wrong year to reinvent myself…

Opening Day

My goal was to pick up where I left off last year. Last year I didn’t find the “land of giant bucks” until twenty days into the hunt. This year I headed up before light on opening day, climbing a thousand vertical feet through heavy timber, but nobody was home. The next day was the same, and so I began exploring other areas. As soon as I left my area, some clowns (other hunters) moved in, bombarding it morning and night. By the time I determined there were no other good areas, the clowns moved out and I moved back in.

Late one evening, as I sat in ambush at a historical deer crossing, a true giant with wide-sweeping antlers showed up. Unfortunately he was out of range, and it was too dark to count points. As nighttime swallowed him up, I began my 1000-foot timber descent back to the truck. With newfound hope, I tried a morning ambush. This time the deer sniffed me out from below and blasted away.

That evening found me in the same spot, but just as the buck’s sentinel materialized, a mysterious nighttime wind shifted upwards and blew the deer out. The following evening I chose a different approach, but the mysterious winds still blew uphill, and the deer never showed. Now, everyone knows that cooling air blows downhill in the evening. It’s simple physics: cold air falls. But not here, not in the “Bermuda Triangle.”

Traditional hunting grounds.

That’s when it hit me: the biggest, baddest, unhuntable stud-bucks used this area because there’s no way to get in front of them without being winded. Mornings are even worse because, as the deer work uphill from feeding, the warming air follows them, negating a stalk from below. An ambush from below also means chasing bucks over crunchy ground, which is impossible. Either way, those bucks winded me for the last time and left the mountain for goods. Back to the drawing board.

Slivers of Timber

In this age of high hunting pressure and long-range weaponry, big bucks adapt quickly or die. The first thing they do is move as far from people and roads as possible, living on extremely steep slopes, the kind of stuff mountain goats like. Next they go nocturnal. Bucks are mostly nocturnal in the first place, but big bucks are completely nocturnal. The only reason we ever catch them on their feet is because they have a hard time differentiating complete blackness from twilight. If you happen to catch a group of elk or deer feeding in the morning, you’ll notice they really don’t get moving until the sun crests the horizon, and then they’re gone. This is probably the most frustrating part the early season: you only get two slivers of daylight each day to catch them moving: 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night.

After that, they’re headed to fragile bedding areas which should be avoided at all costs. If you bust a buck from his “hard bed” (primary daytime bed), he’ll leave the area for the rest of the season. Thus, the best daytime strategy seems to be returning to your boring camp and wasting the entire day sitting around waiting for the next sliver of time to make your move.

The long-range rifle, which has gained popularity over the last decade or so, has had the greatest observable impact on big game animals. My recent extended stints in the woods have shown that deer antlers are narrowing. They still grow the same amount of bone on their heads, but it’s much more vertical than horizontal. Reason being—of course—is that deer are holding tighter to the timber, and a wide rack only slows them down.

Perhaps the animal most affected by long-range rifles is the pronghorn (antelope). Esther drew a limited antelope tag this year, and when I took a day off deer to and help her, it took less than 12 hours to realize I couldn’t. The only way to locate the sparse antelope was to drive the vast dirt roads and glass. But whenever the antelope spied a vehicle, even a mile away, they’d take off at a dead run until they were miles farther. These poor speed goats spend their entire lives in the open sagebrush. Over the years, long-rangers have sniped them from the road at unconscionable distances of half a mile or more! Esther’s only real chance was to pick a random water hole and sit in a ground blind for days at a time. It almost worked too, but that’s another story.

Inevitably, modern big game animals are growing more cautious. If you’re lucky enough to find a mountain with high deer density, you’ll still have a near-impossible time locating the giants. Giant bucks are only found in tiny slivers of terrible timber on steep, high-elevation slopes. Using territoriality, they take over the deepest woods where the wind is always in their favor. They live by their over-sized snouts, using scent rather than sight to dictate their movements.

Hunting the deep woods.

When hunting in dense timber, it’s almost impossible to verify a deer that you’ve spooked because of how they move. Big bucks don’t just beeline away, but rather dive behind the nearest tree(s), and then zigzag from cover to cover, ensuring the hunter never gets a clear shot. Even unpressured bucks zigzag through cover throughout their daily movements. If you get a chance to track a big buck, you’ll notice he rarely travels in a straight line, but moves from cover to cover, always avoiding open areas. On top of that, deer make very little noise when moving. The same crunchy ground that makes a hunter sound like a bulldozer is nearly inaudible with a deer’s carefully placed hoof.

Finally, ‘big bucks’—any buck over five years old and having antlers scoring over 180-inches—are extremely rare on public land. How rare? In thirty years of deer hunting I haven’t found an area/unit/region where more than two percent of the bucks meet trophy criteria. Skillful hunters can still find big bucks, but you’re lucky to get more than a sliver of opportunity. Despite all of this, about half the bowhunters I see are still road hunting with bewildering hope. Many small, inexperienced bucks are regularly picked off this way, but a serious hunter must adapt continually with each passing year, just as the deer do.

Where Are They?

Each night Esther and I returned to camp and conferred with Brent about the bleak situation. We concluded that the majority of deer must be lower on the mountain due to the unseasonably dry conditions. So we spent an evening in the even hotter lowlands, but still saw nothing. Ultimately we learned that the majority of deer were situated on intermediate lands, somewhere below 9000 feet and lower elevation private property. From that point we began exploring these new slivers of forest, and right away saw more bucks.

One morning, Esther and I took a mile and a half climb through rough country to get to one of these spots. At first light, Esther had a nice 4×4 buck appear at 20 yards. Her shot was true, but the arrow penetrated poorly and the deer ran off with hardly a speck of blood.  Desperate to relocate the buck, we kept returning to the area. By this time, my aspirations of arrowing a trophy had drastically declined. Considering the conditions, I was ready to take any mature buck. A dude must eat!

Late one morning, while ghosting through heavy timber, I spotted a decent 4×4 rack sticking up and facing me from a stand of trees. By all descriptions, it appeared to be the same deer Esther shot days earlier. Unfortunately I was pinned down in the sweltering sun. Minutes felt like hours as I stood there with swarms of bees and flies circling and landing on my face. I wanted to scream and run away, but couldn’t move. Eventually the buck got nervous and melted into the timber.

This hunt was the opposite of my usual “Zen” hunt; it was torture. Every day was Groundhog Day: hot, cloudless, dusty and buggy.

Man-Eating Cougars

As if we didn’t have enough troubles, the lions paid a visit. On opening day I came across a freshly shredded fawn, and figured there must be a cougar in the area; no big deal. The next morning, while hiking up a well-used trail with Esther, I was disappointed to find boot tracks of two hunters traveling ahead of us. A short distance later, big cat’s tracks overlapped the dude’s tracks, and all three continued up the trail for nearly a mile. All evidence suggested the cougar was actually following the unsuspecting hunters in the predawn murk. Esther and I eventually split up; I went around the backside of the mountain and she continued along the trail. After a couple hours of fruitless hunting, I radioed Esther to meet up for our hike out. She sounded a little shaken up as she related the following story:

Shortly after separating, she rounded a corner in the trail and came face-to-face with a cougar coming back down the trail. At 20 feet, the lion semi-crouched while staring straight into her eyes. Apparently the cat had backed off the two guys—a daunting meal for sure—and by luck stumbled upon a lone, medium-build woman instead. In a semi-panic, Esther began waving her arms above her head and yelling, but to no avail. The cat stood its ground, assessing its newfound prey. Fearing the worst, Esther loaded a trembling arrow and flung it past the cat’s face. Somewhat discouraged by this gesture, the cougar casually turned and strolled into the forest. Esther’s morning hunt was suddenly over, too.

Cougar on trail camera.

Cougars primarily prey on deer while avoiding more dangerous prey, like people. But when deer numbers are low, like this year, they must consider alternate food sources. That’s fine and good, except that an over-abundance of cougars puts the remaining deer on high alert, making hunting and stalking exceptionally difficult. This appeared to be the case here.

Note:  The next time Brent checked his trail camera in the area, there was a photo of what was likely the same cat prowling around at night.

September: Round Two

By September (really August by weather standards), Brent had abandoned the deer woods and headed to Idaho to chase elk. Over Labor Day, Esther and I went back home to work and pack things, whereas our house had gone under contract. When we returned to the mountain three days later, something magical had happened: big bucks began popping up in all the traditional areas!

In one of our favorite areas, Esther would setup a lower elevation ambush while I prowled around higher up the mountain. On the first morning I busted a group of deer near the trail and was happy to see some real good antlers in the group. That evening I snuck into the same area, and sure enough, a beautiful, tall-antlered buck appeared feeding 100 yards away. But just as I began my stalk, a horrible squirrel fired up in a nearby tree. The buck immediately whipped his head up and stared in my direction. The squirrel methodically worked his way down the tree, limb by limb, barking wildly until it was five feet away, screeching in my face. I could feel my face turning beet red and wanted nothing more than to send an arrow right down his throat. The next time I looked up, the buck was walking nervously away.

The next morning found me in the same place hoping to catch the big buck coming out of feed. Sure enough he appeared in almost the exact same spot, cautiously surveying the open shooting lanes in front of me. Just as I began loading an arrow, there was a loud snort behind me, and then another. I turned slowly around to see an angry doe a few yards away, stomping her feet and snorting relentlessly. Horrified, I turned back to see the buck had vanished. I must be cursed! That big buck was nowhere to be found the next evening and again the next morning.

Meanwhile, Esther was getting a similar dose of bad luck. While I was getting busted by various, nefarious wildlife, she had a mature buck come feeding along just 10 feet away. But as she began drawing her bow, two unsuspecting hunters came traipsing through the area and spooked the deer off.

The People Party

My mountain doesn’t feel like my mountain anymore. This beautiful, high-altitude portion of the Dixie National Forest is a popular destination for campers, cyclists, and hikers. Most years, the cold and wet weather of early fall invariably chases most of the campers away; but not this year.

Endless summer beauty: Indian paintbrush flower.

Instead, the perpetual bluebird skies and warm weather encouraged human activity all over the mountain throughout the entire hunt. Not good. You see, deer hate people more than anything. They don’t discriminate between hunters and recreationalists, so with each encounter with a random cyclist or hiker, they grow increasingly wary, and consequently less huntable.

Worse yet is the great Highway of Death. To access my woods, one must traverse a busy, two-lane highway for many miles. Throughout the summer and fall I can count between 8 and 12 dead deer on the road in just a fifteen mile stretch. Half the collision-killed deer are fawns, and the rest are does and smaller bucks. This has a detrimental effect on herd numbers, and it gets worse every year.

The Highway of Death isn’t just perilous to deer. Throughout the hunt, emergency vehicles could be heard whirring up and down the highway. One lovely evening, as Esther was driving back from antelope hunting, she observed an oncoming driver drift onto the shoulder, over-correct, and come skidding across her lane before rolling twice down a gully on her side of the road. The male driver got out okay, but his wife was carted off to the hospital with critical spinal injuries. A deer was blamed for the over-correction, but from Esther’s vantage, it appeared to be good old-fashioned driver distraction.

Day #21

We rested our area 24 hours, but unable to turn up anything better, returned for an evening hunt. Determined to outsmart the squirrels and does, I took a lower route to the buck’s feeding area. Sneaking quietly along, a forest grouse suddenly exploded from the brush in front of me. I thought nothing of it until I eased around a tree and found The Big One staring at me 60 yards away, obviously alerted by the grouse. He didn’t stick around.

I hit rock bottom. Surely the mountain had turned against me! Absolutely mortified, I turned and dragged my feet back down the trail, grumbling to Esther the whole way back to the truck. How could the one thing I truly love be so miserable? So many painfully early mornings, sweating and heaving up and down the mountain on sore feet, eating crappy meals way too late, and then long, hot days in the bugs and dust; it was taking its toll on my body and sanity.

I hated the mountain. Every day I fantasized about sleeping in and spending the whole day sitting on the couch in my undies watching NFL with a cold beverage. Oh, to be comfortable and in control again. How I longed for an easy hunt, just once in my life!

Day #22

With no real hope or plan, we almost didn’t get out of bed in the morning. Esther was leaving for her antelope hunt later that day, but I convinced her to join me for one more shot at deer. We took the usual route, Esther low, Nate high. But this day was different. A cold wind howled all morning, a sharp contrast to the previous three weeks.

As expected I found my area devoid of deer, and with nothing better to do, began wandering aimlessly into the wind, just killing time, really. Then, deep into the woods, I was surprised to stumble upon some fresh, green buck droppings, jarring me back to alertness. The bucks weren’t gone after all; they were just living deeper into the dark woods.

I estimated their direction of travel and looped around to get in front of them. Slipping quietly down a small ridge, I rounded a spruce tree and there he was, forty yards away: the big one, with a heavy, symmetric 4-point rack and a great wall of fur. Behind him, a sentinel buck milled around, oblivious to my presence. The big buck caught my movement and froze, staring in my direction, partially obscured by a tree. Knowing he was about to bolt, I quickly loaded an arrow and drew. To my dismay, a pine bough stretched across his vitals. Would the arrow clear it? I began a slow motion crouch until my knees hit the ground. Bending even lower, I settled the pin and hit the release. My arrow sailed just under the branch, and then under the buck’s chest, burying deep in the dirt behind him. As expected, he bounded away.

Immediately I loaded another arrow, and simultaneously the second buck trotted forward, stopping with his front half showing in the same clearing. Fearing an empty freezer back home, I settled my pin and let him have it, narrowly threading my arrow forward of some branches that obscured his back half. He whirled and blasted away.

My, how quickly things change!

I worked down to where the buck was standing and immediately found blood—lots of blood—unlike I’ve ever seen before. It was basically a steady drizzle, as if someone had walked through the woods pouring red syrup on the ground. Where the buck paused, there were great pools of blood. The whole time I expected to see him around the next tree, but no luck. The tough buck trotted a quarter mile, and then dropped down an incredibly steep mountainside. I slowed way down, following the red carpet and glassing ahead. Just when I thought the buck was somehow unkillable, I spied an antler in the shadows of a tree. He was bedded with his head still up! Afraid he might recover and run, I crept forward for a follow-up shot. At twenty yards the buck laid his head down for the last time; he was mine.

My 2019 archery buck.

Conclusion

 As I pried the buck loose of the tree, the same old emotions spewed forth. I was simultaneously overjoyed by success, but disappointed at missing The Big One. My buck wasn’t the glorious trophy I came to the mountain for, but then I wasn’t the same person either.

I radioed Esther for help, and then sat for a while with my deer, listening to the wind whistle through the pines in the middle of nowhere. Sadness loomed as I pondered mine and the deer’s fate. These powerful animals are smart survivors whose daily existence is one of pain, hardship, and fear. But they just take it, year-round, until their short lives are cut even shorter by some natural or unnatural foe like me.

Maybe we can learn something from our quarry: accept the pain and discomfort, even revel in it. These admirable beasts deserve our greatest respect, and we deserve what the mountain dishes out precisely because we take so much.

My sacred hunt always plays out in a familiar way:  In seeking antler-clad glory, the mountain beats me down, and then, in my darkest hour I find humility. The hunter earns his meat.

The End.
Zen Hunting

Happy New Deer’s 2019

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2019 New Year’s Resolutions

Hooray, we lived to see another year! Anyone who values the infinite miracle of life will appreciate a shiny new year.

Now is a great time to reflect on the future, and ensure mistakes of the past don’t interfere future opportunities. More specifically, I’m talking about new deer’s resolutions.

Since bowhunting is my life’s passion and purpose, I set the same goal each year: shoot a 200″+ buck with my bow. Sometimes I get close, but it’s been a while since I’ve actually done it.

This year I’m aiming higher.

Goal #1: Shoot a 220″ buck with my bow.

Yeah, 220-inches sounds lofty, but given enough time and scouting, I know I can find a 220-class buck. Maybe he’s in my general unit, or perhaps outta state, but I’ll find him.

Goal #2: Stay healthy enough to hunt big bucks.

You can’t hunt if you’re dead, so health is priority #2. I’m not talking about fitness and exercise, but overall wellness. As the years fly by, wellness is quickly becoming a major hobby of mine. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Here in the far-flung future, we live in a toxic environment. Our air, water, and especially our food is full of toxins and devoid of nutritional value. This will inevitably break us down and kill us.

Avoiding disease and death is product of a healthy immune system. A healthy immune system is driven by three major factors: diet, sleep, and stress.

My advice: Grow your own food, harvest your own meat, drink clean water, and avoid environmental toxins. In the mean time, get 8+ hours sleep per night–come hell or high water–and avoid chronic stress at all cost.

My plan is to put off the inevitable by becoming self-sufficient and living off the land…hopefully a land far away from all this toxic sludge!

Goal #3: Make enough money to afford time afield.

Work is the great necessary evil of life. Most unsuccessful hunters think they can blame their job for failures afield, but it’s really misplaced priorities.

If hunting is your passion, and your job doesn’t allow enough time to hunt (say a week or two), then you have a crap job and severely misplaced priorities.

Don’t get me wrong, I love working. Work affords hunting, food, and shelter. But in a hundred lifetimes, I’d never allow the almighty J.O.B. to shave off even a single day afield. And it doesn’t…

…but at what cost???

…probably millions of dollars. I earn about 1/4th what most of my family and friends do. I don’t have dollar one set aside for retirement, and most times I feel like I have nothing to show for a whole year’s worth of work.

But I wouldn’t change a thing. I have a room full of fantastic trophies and trophy experiences, all worth billions to me, and all afforded by time afield, not time at work.

Conclusion

What are your new year’s resolutions? Is there a big buck in your future? Well, it’s yours for the taking, assuming your priorities are in order.

My advice to fellow hunters:

Dream big, avoid distractions, stay healthy, put in the time, and be grateful for past accomplishments.

Good luck this year!

Hunting Stories

Better Than Perfect: My 2018 Deer Hunt

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The Goal

A dire warning jumped from the pages of last year’s hunt journal: “Plan to hunt the entire 28-day season or plan to fail!” Midway through the 2017 season, the daunting task of arrowing a trophy buck inspired me to write these words. So my goal in 2018 was to hunt the entire season no matter what. I never had this luxury before, mostly due to work obligations. Last year was my longest stint in the woods at 18 days. In order to reach my goal I had to shirk work at every turn, turning down a myriad of jobs, not to mention several fishing trips and other opportunities. I was in for the long haul.

A Quest for Knowledge

I dedicated the first week of the hunt to helping Esther. I would set her up in prime ambush areas while I went off to explore new places and learn everything I could about big buck behavior. This strategy worked out great. Esther finally got a shot at a mature buck, and I got in the habit of collecting data and scouting rather than just hunting.

While exploring a new area one morning, I spotted an old 30-inch wide 3-point buck. I wasn’t completely sold on shooting a 3×3, but he was well out of bow range anyway. Instead I followed his tracks in hopes of learning where big bucks go during the day. The tracks wrapped around the mountain and eventually dropped off a dreadfully steep, shale-rock slope. It was hard to believe a deer would travel so far just to bed down. His route was confirmed by very large tracks and big, green droppings measuring three-quarter inches. They were such large pebbles that I’d always assumed they were elk droppings in the past.

Just when I was about to give up pursuit, the old buck stood up from his bed in a clump of trees 30 yards ahead. He, along with another big buck, took one look at me and hopped away. I stared blankly for a minute, and then had an epiphany: I’ve been hunting wrong my entire life! In 27 years of big game hunting I never realized just how far unpressured deer were willing to go just to bed down for the day. Sure I had my suspicions, but now it was confirmed.

The steep country.

In most of the hunting books I’ve read, the author categorizes big bucks the all same way, whether they are young-mature bucks (3+ years old), older bucks, or old trophy bucks. But young bucks act very differently than old bucks because deer learn exponentially each year they survive. They adapt rapidly to hunters with each encounter, so much so that old bucks (in the 6-10 year range) essentially become unhuntable. Biologists have theorized that 80% of bucks aged 5 years and older will never be harvested, and die natural causes instead. The great majority of bucks taken by hunters are only one or two years old. These “toddlers” have some basic survival instincts, but with so little experience, they cannot effectively avoid hunters. Old bucks on the other hand basically evolve into a completely different animal, so you need to hunt them differently.

Perfect Creatures

Mule deer are the most perfect creature I know of, even better, I dare say, than humans, at least from Nature’s perspective. Here’s what I mean: Deer ears are 10 times larger than ours; they hear everything. Their 310-degree field of view and night vision overshadows our own narrow focus. Their nose is tremendous, shaping their entire head into an olfactory funnel capable of smelling danger a mile away. Every big buck is built like a linebacker; muscular and lean, with the strength and agility to blast away from hunters for miles before setting up shop on some distant, near-vertical slope. Then there’s intelligence—but a different kind of intelligence. It’s widely known that intelligence is the human’s only advantage over the buck (weapons, optics, camouflage, etc. are all products of our intelligence). Yet 80% of bowhunters fail each year because they cannot beat the deer’s seemingly simple intelligence.

From first to last light the hunter gathers information and formulates a series of well thought-out plans to ambush his four-legged foe. The deer, on the other hand, catches the slightest human scent, and without actually seeing the hunter, completely alters his behavior so he’ll never cross our path again. Instantly he goes nocturnal; his evening routine becomes a night routine. He moves from bed to feed on a completely different route and schedule. Simultaneously, he decides to go a few days without water just to keep a low profile. And for the rest of the hunt that buck is never seen. All of this occurs in the buck’s little brain with lightning strike brilliance and hardly a conscious thought.

In hunting stories, people often state that “the buck made a mistake that morning,” or, “I just had to wait for the buck to make a mistake.” The truth is that big bucks don’t make mistakes, they just get unlucky. Every step a deer takes is deliberate, with the purpose of conserving energy and surviving. It’s people who make mistakes—continuous mistakes, actually—and then once in a while we get lucky. The buck is not only “smart” at surviving, but mentally tough from living in the cruel woods 365 days a year. He’s accustomed to constant pain, fear, and discomfort. So it’s hardly a chore for him to avoid a bow-toting hunter who can barely get own his lazy butt up the mountain. Worse yet, while we clamber around the mountain, complete with frustration, the buck sits in the shade of a seemingly random tree, half-asleep, and chewing his cud. Simply put, he’s vastly smarter at surviving than we are at hunting him. Thus, the mighty mule deer buck is God’s perfect creature, perhaps even better than perfect.

The Draggerbuck

Speaking of frustration, week one brought me face to face with a pair of velvet-clad bull elk. For years I fantasized about harvesting a bull in velvet, but these elk spotted me first and blew out of the area…permanently. Esther went home after the first week and I was left alone; just me, my tent, and the mountain. One day, while driving up a nasty dirt road in the velvet elk area, I glimpsed a wide deer butt in the trees. I backed up and was befuddled to see a massive antler glued to the head of an enormous sway-belly buck just 10 yards off the road! Long story short, I spent the next four days tracking that buck through heavy timber.

The Draggerbuck

Back and forth he went with no apparent pattern. All I could glean from this fruitless endeavor was that he dragged his right, rear leg, likely the result of a past human encounter. So I called him the “Draggerbuck.” I set up a trail camera in the area and eventually caught the old warrior on film. Thank goodness he was only a 3×4, because I was beaten and abandoned the pursuit altogether.

Putting it All Together

By the third week I’d seen a lot of new country and a lot of mediocre bucks; so many bucks that I gave up counting them. I’d fallen into a monotonous rhythm: Hunt prime feed at first light, then after 9:30 or so, when the deer had bedded, I’d go on an intel-gathering mission, following big tracks along travel routes while searching for likely feed, water, and bedding areas. Knowing that bucks will go to any horrible place just to avoid hunters, I really pushed myself. Around midday I would drag my sore feet back to camp for lunch and try to catch a “crap-nap” before setting out again. (Daytime sleep was rare and often interrupted). Then, in the early afternoon I’d head back out to explore prime areas and work bed-to-feed routes.

Through it all I never had a bad day because I was learning so much. Each day I returned to camp with a handful of clues—puzzle pieces if you will—that I’d picked up, photographed, or noted in my field journal. During periods of downtime, I meticulously pieced things together until a picture gradually developed. Sure there were gaps here and there, holes to remind me that the pieces are infinite, and can’t all be found. But we’re not meant to know everything; we can only get close. Some pieces probably got vacuumed up, and the dog probably ate some. But the picture was becoming clear and just what I’d hoped for: A monster buck, God’s most perfect beast, standing majestically in the timber, stoic and powerful, with a gleaming coat of coarse-gray fur, his massive antlers glistening above his muscular neck and wizened face. Dramatic, pastel-painted clouds loom overhead, and there’s a title at the bottom, barely visible in gold calligraphy etched in a boulder below his hooves. One word:  UNTOUCHABLE.  What a picture.

Glassing

In one of my secret areas I can glass an adjacent mountain peak where a band of bucks often feed late into the morning and then take a predictable route through the pines towards a known bedding area. I had the wind right one evening, so I took my time carefully working into the timber in hopes of ambushing the bucks as they came up to feed. I worked carefully through the thick timber until I found the perfect ambush point between two deer trails and set up there for the evening. I sat motionless until the whole mountain and even the squirrels forgot I was there. I listened intently and glassed often, but nothing happened. As darkness fell I stood up in dismay and wondered deeply, how can I be better than perfect?!

My Mountain Home

A lot happens in 27 days of hunting. I found a couple broken arrowheads and what appears to be a spear tip fashioned of pale blue flint. One night a horrible, screeching witch-monster (or something) walked past my tent at 2:00 am. 27 years of hunting and I’d never heard such an awful noise in the woods! It woke me from a nightmare and I lied there frozen in terror, listening as the monster moved through the trees. I slept with my revolver close that night, and then, undeterred, resumed normal hunting activities the following morning.

Spearhead?

The woods are cruel, I’ve decided. They may seem benign to the uninitiated, but to the veteran hunter they’re downright mean. Big buck areas are often protected by a near impenetrable network of barking squirrels, doe snorts, and crackling ground cover. Trying to navigate these obstacles is a daily exercise in futility. Squirrels are the worst and can effectively ruin a hunt. Observe any buck when a squirrel fires up with its relentless, mindless barking. The buck whips his head around and stares in that direction. The older bucks won’t even look, they just walk away.

It gets worse in September when the squirrels have amassed a collection of pine cones and become territorial. The entire pine forest becomes gridded out as squirrel territory. But there’s more going on than just random barking. Oftentimes, the obnoxious rodent simply ignores me until I’ve crawled into bow range. At that point, he seems to have a moral responsibility to alert the buck to my presence. I suspected this before, but now I believe it. Here’s one example: I’m sneaking down a trail when I hear some rustling 20 yards ahead. I crouch down as a mature 4×4 buck steps into view. As I raise my binos for a closer look, a nearby squirrel loses his mind. Then a chipmunk joins in. The buck turns around and glares at me before nervously moving off. This happens all the time, and now, at risk of sounding insane, I fully believe the squirrels are protecting the deer from hunters.

Week 4: Hell Week

Twenty days afield wears on a guy. Days and days go by without speaking to anyone. I stave off loneliness well enough, but then there are the constant bugs, heat, dust, and the crappy air mattress taking its toll on my spine. Weary exhaustion from waking too early, hiking all day, and getting to bed late makes time go by in a blurry haze. Days are very long and time is perceived differently. What day is it, I often wonder.

A day in the woods.

Summer gradually changes to fall;  mornings grow cooler and evenings grow shorter. Suddenly it’s a new month, a new moon, and a whole different season. Then there’s dinner: a can of soup, the same kind every night, alone in the dark, sometimes with moths floating in it. But you get used to it. Still, this hunt feels tougher than most, probably because work- and home-life were so stressful preceding the hunt.  It was a record year for ripped off, even by good friends, so I carried a lot of negative energy into this hunt. But I suppose it’s easier to spend a month in the woods when you’re disgusted with humanity.

As I sit in the dark, rhythmically slurping my soup, I suddenly realize that everything back home is a luxury. I ask myself, what do I really need to survive? The forest mind, now focused by chronic stinging silence, sees clearly that the vast majority of what consumes our lives is totally unnecessary. The constant din of technology—the TV, phone, internet, ads—is all distractions, even dangerously distracting, because these digital devices distract us from what really matters—purpose, meaning, friends and family. These are digital toxins, stealing away our precious time and scattering our minds. Modern man is becoming an aberration, the byproduct of over-consumerism and selfishness perpetuated by technology and too much information.

That ubiquitous phone-device we poke at all day is the portal from whence the monster comes. It feels like tentacles around my neck. Being self-employed, I live project to project, not by a wage. I haven’t had a paid vacation day in almost fifteen years, so time is valuable. But my phone rings and beeps all the time, interrupting my focus and wrecking my productivity. 90% of the time it’s no one I want to talk, or worse yet, scammers and crooks, seething vultures prying at my wallet and vying for my life’s energy. Even the device itself is constantly trying to sell me something, begging for updates or demanding upgrades. Like I need an upgrade; if anything, I need a downgrade!

Technology has gone too far. It’s a detriment to natural life. It’s ridiculous and abhorrent. Sci-fi predicted our fate a long time ago, and now, here in the future, the machine really has killed us, we just don’t know it yet. I shudder at the thought of returning home. I love the mountain; it’s my rescuer.

The Big One

By week four I’d seen nearly a hundred bucks and only two were worthy of my arrow (180 inches or better). 2% sucks, but it’s still better than most places in Northern Utah. Week four is also fraught with regret. That big 4×4 I passed up early in the season suddenly doesn’t seem so small. I busted him low, then high, and that was the last I saw of him. He changed mountains altogether, went nocturnal, and practically stopped existing. The following week I went looking for him and in his stead was a beautiful 4×5. I passed him too, first at 15 yards and again at 40. Now I’d be happy with either one. But I was convinced there was a bigger one lurking somewhere.

Well, I met that bigger buck with only five days left in the hunt. I estimate him at 190 gorgeous inches. I left camp early that morning, heading to the same far-off ridge where I chased the 30-inch buck early on. Just as the sun began streaming through the trees I heard a swishing sound in the dry brush, and out popped a monster buck 50 yards away. He was a majestic 4×4 tank-of-a-deer, beautiful and old. He was feeding broadside on a steep slope, barely visible in the thick pines. I pulled an arrow, but there was no shot. The buck was working steadily towards the only opening in the forest when a squirrel fired up. Then the wind began to swirl. The buck looked around nervously.

Realizing my only chance at a great buck was about to fall apart, my adrenaline surged and I began shaking like a little girl. The buck continued, slower now. I was coming unglued; my heart pounded and my hands shook. When he finally sauntered through the shot window, I settled my dancing sight pin best I could and hit the release. The arrow took a last minute nose dive into the dirt and the buck smashed away unscathed. After a minute of disgust, I raised my binos and lo and behold, there he was, deep in the woods, antlers sprawling through the trees. He was scowling at me—really scowling—like I’d never seen a deer do before. We stared at each other for several minutes before he finally turned and melted away.

With only four days left I hammered the monster buck area relentlessly. I found two prime feed areas and two prime bedding routes all bearing huge, pebble droppings. I put in full days afield, ghosting through the woods tirelessly, but I never caught up with that buck again. The great, unsolvable problem was navigating the “gauntlet” each morning. The whole area was booby trapped with does, squirrels, swirling winds, and lesser bucks sprinkled around perimeter. The bucks had the decency of just B-lining out of there, but the does were evil. They snorted, stomped, and sprinted around in circles alerting the entire forest to my presence. By the time I got to the big buck area, everything was blown out. With only three days left, and painfully aware of my empty freezer back home, I lowered my standards. Now any mature buck was good enough.

Day 27

Friday, September 13; only two days left. There was a short sentence scribbled on my bow hand in heavy ink: This is IT! Everything I’d endured all year came down to this. Besides, you never know which hunt might be your last. I took the same route that morning and by some miracle made it through the gauntlet. But as expected, the prime area was empty.

Reminder.

The secondary area was a third-mile away, so I needed to hurry. I was trotting through the woods at 7:45 when I spotted two small bucks feeding a short distance ahead. When I paused, a squirrel lit up like its tail was on fire. The two bucks looked back at me, and then promptly shuffled away. To the right a large bush swayed back and forth. A third, unseen buck was raking a bush with his rack, too distracted to hear the squirrel’s alarm. I pulled an arrow just as the bush stopped moving.

The buck, suddenly alarmed by the squirrel, began walking briskly to the right. Through the first opening he came to I glanced at his headgear, four points, good enough. His shoulder appeared and I launched the arrow without a second to spare. The shot felt good and the buck blasted up the near-vertical slope like a cannonball and disappeared in the trees. I stood for a while trying to get my bearings. It all happened so fast.

The blood trail was instant, crimson splashes on both sides of dug-in tracks blasting uphill. After a short bit I found my broken-off arrow covered in bubbly blood. Fifty yards up the mountain, his tracks veered sharply right and there he was, his grey body piled up in some yellow bushes with a heavy antler protruding upward.  I knelt down by the beautiful buck and grasped for understanding.

My 2018 archery buck.

Everything had transpired too quickly to process it. All these years of intense learning had led to this sudden, surprising encounter.  I was kind of expecting a grand crescendo to an epic hunt, but instead got an abrupt end to a chance meeting. Nevertheless I was happy; my spirit was full.

Conclusion

The story is really a short one. On a far-off mountainside, somewhere between two prime deer areas, a bowhunter met a random buck, and that’s all. A person can dedicate his whole life to learning about these wondrous creatures—collecting data, photographing, admiring, and pondering—but they’re really beyond comprehension and almost beyond reach. My buck appeared when I needed him to, 27 days into a 28-day season. But the real trophy was knowledge. In just two seasons I’d put in 45 days afield and went farther than ever before while simultaneously expanding my mule deer knowledge ten-fold.

My buck wasn’t really old, nor was his rack really wide, nor tall. He was just a solid 4×4 buck with good mass and some extra cheaters. But considering all I’d been through and how little time was left, I’d say he was perfect, maybe even better than perfect.

Archery, Zen, and Hunting