So I've been sitting here this morning glass in this herd of 13 cows, 12 cows, one spike, and a tiny little like four point being the only bull in the herd. I was sitting here and I've been watching them for about half an hour wondering where in the world is the big bull. What's going on? Just about ready to drive off and I hear like a good, good bugle.
And I've left over to the left and this big six point pops over the saddle, cugling as he walked and he was rolling right down into that herd now. In 2000, I left Central Oregon and moved to Idaho where I began hunting the rugged salmon river country in the interior part of the state. The first few seasons I failed to notch my tags, but had all sorts of opportunities and encounters with elk in countries that inspired year round excitement and explorations. I think my first bull season was in 1995.
I had some razor close call right out of the gate that pumped me with confidence that harvesting an elk with my bow was absolutely obtainable. The following season I did just that and for the next few years maintained an every year track record of success, aerowing bull elk. By 2004, I'd transitioned through several different locations and had dialed in an absolute honey hole for super big as in Boone and Crockett size bulls, bucks too in fact. And for a handful of years there in the mid 2000s, myself, along with my buddies from band Adam and Brian, we packed out some great bulls from the depths of the mighty salmon river drainage.
By the 2010s, extensive wildfires had torched the area that I'd become so well acquainted with, which sent me roaming once again in search of a place that I felt cozy in my elk hunting. I wandered across mountain ranges, river drainages and gained management units. I weighed the pros and cons of here and there, debated the merits of open sage versus 12 foot altar brush, all the while fleeing the explosion of ATV tracks that spread like a relentless cancer throughout our public lands. I sought solitude first and foremost.
I was drawn to transitional zones that featured timber lines, upper and lower boundaries alike. And I really didn't care how many elk were present, as long as there remained a chance for encounters. My fortunes season after season remained steady. Plenty of opportunities, close calls, tremendous knowledge and data acquisitions and heartbreaking defeats.
Here, after year, spot after spot. In 2012, my good buddy Bobby was dipping his toe into archery hunting elk and being a talented filmmaker, I welcomed his company, tagging along to shoot some video footage with hopes that we could strike gold and capture something on camera. We never struck anything but high marks on our sweat soaked hats, but it opened up another facet of outdoor pursuit that proved tremendously satisfying, sharing what I'd learned with others and trying to help friends like Bobby find success at their own. It really was fun to describe elk hunting scenarios and expectations with somebody totally new to hunting like Bobby.
It was a sense of opportunity that, if nothing else, delivered a consistent satisfaction of sharing whatever it was that I had to offer with a friend who was wanting to learn. The aspiring filmmaker and myself also paired well with friends coming along in efforts to capture footage. And so the hard earned and meaningful memories we stole away with on our cameras fueled the scope for upcoming tracks and offered some sparse ailment for the endless winter doldrums that I battled each year. Along with many hunts shared with friends, the majority of my time in the wilds was spent alone.
And this solitary nature certainly became something of a theme of what I've come to find as my personal happy place. Being alone, wandering alone, and happy alone. A disturbance was beginning to take shape however, a nagging slump and bringing anything home to a freezer. And as each season arrived with a swell of energy and optimism, the end of each season delivered demoralizing acceptances of defeat.
And I began to question how it was possible for so many close calls and encounters to be yanked out from under me time after time, season after season, not just a few instances, but over the course of years into the double digits. A slime of negativity would coat me every September 30th, and I'd realize a feeling of foolishness for allowing the optimistic bounce in my step during summer. Each September as the bitter angst would take hold following frustrating encounter after gutting defeat. I began to question how global I must be to keep trying harder and harder each season.
I felt like a puppet in a skit held by a trio of mythological deities, karma, luck, and wind. In the harder I tried, the farther I'd grasped, the gallons I'd sweat, the more satisfying and hilarious it was for the divine audience. I felt like such a fool. Now I need to clarify, this wasn't how I felt after one or two fruitless seasons.
No, I expertly strapped on blind faith and boundless confidence for a good five seasons, politely shrugging my failures and uncut tags off as part of the game, or just paying my dues. I knew that archery hunting was challenging. I knew that I could only control so much, and that the wind and luck ultimately held all the cards. But with my lifelong experience as a savvy and tactical predator since early childhood, and proven success in many seasons of my past, six, seven, eight, nine, back to back years without bringing home an elk took on the splintery crust of a full blown curse.
A curse that I was powerless to combat, laughable in the sense that I considered myself far better at elk hunting than anything else, and still I could not win. Disturbing in the sense that I kept at it, and sickening that I cared about it, so very much.