Make a move!

I came across this awhile back and really enjoyed, so thought I would share. Sorry it's a bit lengthy.

Making the Move

Not too long ago, a good female friend of mine asked me what my favorite thing to do was? That could be a very dangerous question to ask a man, especially a single one. And I'm sure she expected an answer which would include some sort of outdoor adventure, fishing hunting, napping and the like. I think I caught her off guard with the uncharacteristic depth and thoughtfulness of my answer. “Making the move”, I answered without hesitation. Yes, “making the move” should be every man's ambition. To perform his best when it counts most. Even in failure, I'm much more satisfied with making the attempt and coming up short, than to not have “made the move” at all. Actually, without the possibility of failure you are not truly “making the move”. “Making the move” can occur with anything from dating, sports, business, parallel parking, hunting and fishing, anything that requires talent and has risk of failure. Typically, “making the move” is a part of a grander performance. It is the isolated moments of skilled, sometimes, nerve racking attempts.

Let me give you an example.

It’s the old west. Two rough looking characters swap ugly looks at one another. Make derogatory comments about each other's attire, dog, horse lineage and such, until suddenly someone crosses some unwritten line, causing one, then the other to lurch to their feet arms flexed, hands at the ready, trigger fingers itching. Until now everything has been mere foreplay of the grander performance. It’s now ‘go time’. Time to “make the move”. Obviously, the risks of failure in this scenario are extreme. In the real world, the risk need not be as extreme to make the move satisfying, but they absolutely need to exist. On a side note; simply having an audience can intensify the risk, (even if only perceived). I actually believe that the risk is exponentially increased with the size of the audience. Think this is not true? Pull up to any empty boat ramp and back the trailer down the ramp. You'll nail it almost every time. Now, have six other vehicles waiting for you, a dozen folks on the dock… oh, and your new girlfriend and her friends witness the performance as well. Is it getting warm in here all of a sudden? But I digress.

I've been guiding hunters in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness for 37 years. Have many seasons in Alaska under my belt as well. I’ve guided hunts for everything from Blue Grouse to Grizzly Bears. In Idaho, primarily Elk, Mule Deer and Bighorn Sheep, some Black Bear, Mountain Lion and now Wolves. In that many years, I've had plenty of clients randomly bump into trophy game, pull up and shoot. Yes, they filled their tag but they certainly didn’t have any sort of primal hunting emotions that come with “making the move”. In the world of hunting, three facets of mother nature will continually, together or separately, try to let you down, get in your way, join forces with your prey, and so on. Wind, sound and sight, “the big three”. Typically, you can't be seen, heard or smelled if you want to be a successful hunter.

On some occasions simple terrain, time and weather issues can negatively impact your plans as well. A storm blows in blocking your viz, a cliff that can’t be crossed or just not enough minutes of daylight left to get the job done. As any experienced hunter knows, whether stalking, calling, tracking, posted-up or just a slow traverse of prime game country, “the big three” need to always be considered if you wish to be successful. A sudden change in wind direction, snap of twig, an unseen set of eyes spotting you from a tangent, can all ruin the plans of yourself and your client. Many times, those plans being years in the making. There are plenty of sayings universally used at unfortunate moments like these. The one that most often rings true; “that's why they call it hunting, not killing”.

In most cases, the wild game managing agencies of each state (I.E. Idaho Fish and Game) sell hunting licenses, not killing licenses. It would therefore seem logical and expected that these agencies manage to keep hunting, hunting. The conundrum then becomes; how do we delineate between hunting and killing? I would begin with the notion that; if there is no issue of your intended game seeing, hearing or smelling you, then you are probably not truly hunting, you are just killing.

Furthermore, many of the state agencies have implemented primitive weapon seasons. If that is the intent (primitive weapons), then that should be what is managed for. Typically, the intent of primitive weapon seasons is to allow liberal use of primitive weapons because success should naturally be limited and less than if more modern weapons are used. If your “primitive weapon” has features that move it into untraditionally long range for a primitive weapon category, then it’s not really a primitive weapon. Essentially, we have created a nation of hunting cheaters. In 30 minutes, even the most inexperienced archer can be deadly with the new cable/cam-type bowl, a far cry from the guy out practicing with his longbow all summer. Daniel Boone would have given a pretty penny to have a muzzleloader with a scope that would shoot accurately up to 250 yards. Now with a simple note from the family friend in the medical profession, we can forgo practice almost entirely and grab a crossbow and participate in most archery seasons.

In North America and around the world, the lion share (no pun intended) of big game hunting is for vegetarian, ungulates—grazers who usually live around 10 years. Really? How much advantage do we need? It’s not just about the target animal’s chances. Some seasons are short-range weapon seasons, not necessarily primitive. If the weapons used are realistically capable of 200 yards plus, are they really short range? In either case you have hunters following the intent of the season knowing that their weapon is only accurate, traditionally for a bow, to 50 yards or less, a muzzle loader with open sites limited to about 100, and a shotgun with open sites, somewhere in-between. Now enter the 125-yard bow, the 250-yard muzzle loader and such, and it does seem quite fair for the guy following the intent, nor does it seem to bode well for the escapement necessary to allow for such liberal opportunities. I think we should respect the true hunters by realistically limiting the other so-called hunters, whether primitive or not.

Any argument of a sensitive nature should begin with the statement; “We are all hypocrites”. We are all content with our lower and upper limits and tend to disagree with those whose limits differ from ours. Vegetarians think vegans are nuts. Meat-eaters think that they’re both nuts. Anti-hunters don't tolerate hunting. Many hunters don't tolerate other hunter’s use of certain weapons, techniques or species hunted. Any time I'm confronted with an anti-Hunter I immediately give them the hypocrite spiel at which time I usually get a cross-eyed better-than-thou look. It's about then that I ask if they travel by car? Live in a home? What they would do if they found a rat in the baby’s crib? Point being; it would be extremely difficult to live on this planet without being a killer at some level. It's just that their killing doesn't align with mine, as mine does not align with others. All hunters are killers at some level, but not all killers are hunters and not all killing is hunting. This is not to say that all killing which is not hunting is wrong. It just means hunting with only the possibility of killing, should mean something different. If you want to go to a game farm and shoot a monster elk which was raised for the purpose of you to do so, fine. Just don’t call it hunting. So with that said, maybe the word “wild” should enter the discussion at some point as well.

In my 37 years of professional hunting I’ve witnessed several major transformations of the image of “The Hunter”. The first occurred with the release of Stallone's movie “First Blood”, an awesome movie about the Vietnam vet done wrong. It seemed like overnight, with the help of Norris, Schwarzenegger, Segall and others, the image of the Hunter transformed from Daniel Boone, family man, red and black Woolrich plaid, to military commando. The bigger the knife the better! It suddenly seemed impossible to hunt without radio communication and some pattern of camo.

Shortly after the “Rambo effect”, we all became movie stars. Enter the age of video. It was like Fish & Game should have been offering cinematography certifications along with Hunters Ed.

Then we entered the satellite age. Suddenly we tapped into our satellite system. No one could survive anymore without a GPS. Maintaining a constant vigil on our current location, our former location, our intended location, miles traveled, steps taken, elevation gained and lost. And let's not forget how important we all became with our need for continual communication with the outside world via SAT phones, locators, satellite messaging devices, and on and on.

But the worst so far came with the Afghanistan/Iraq war. Famous snipers like Chris Kyle, mile-long kills and Osama Bin Laden taken out. Now it seems most everyone wants to play “Seal Team Six.” Long-range rifles, compensating scopes, rangefinders, shooting sticks. Try to buy a daypack with less than 39 pockets. It’s nearly impossible unless it has Barbie on it. And now it's digital synthetics. How did we ever kill anything before techno camo and thousand-dollar rain gear? Witnessing hunters at the trailheads, airstrips and in the field, it's like they're all wearing space-age uniforms. I just can't quite tell who's on which team.

And now feeders, trail cameras and drones; don’t get me started.

Case in point; long-range rifles. Back to the question; are we hunting or are we killing? I begin again with the notion that, if the big three are not a factor in the target detecting your presence, then you probably are not hunting. If you don't have to “make the move” you probably aren't hunting. Taking a 12-year-old son out deer hunting and having him shoot a deer at 800 yards is like taking him to the whorehouse on his first date. If you spend enough money he'll probably have success, maybe a positive experience, but will never have made the move, never having hunted or risked rejection while asking for that first dance, first date, first kiss, getting seen, winded or heard. Oh, he'll leave with some success, but that sort of success pales in comparison to success that is accomplished when risky moves are made.

I had two hunters that hunted with me for 20+ years on Big Creek, Unit 26 and 20A in the Middle Fork Zone, in the Idaho wilderness, Jim and Wink. Wink would carry a little day pack that looked like he stole it from his grandson in which he would carry a 2 quarts thermos of coffee and that’s about it. Jim on the other hand, carried nothing. Everything he had, everything he needed for the day was in the pockets of his pants or wool jacket. These two men hunted relentlessly and fearlessly throughout the toughest areas of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, British Columbia and Alaska. For several decades, they came and were always ready, willing and able. The also never spent a moment working out, at the gym or on a piece of exercise equipment. They were great hunters and were always yearning to make the move. Now, many of today's ever-changing clients have so much unnecessary crap that my riding horses and mules are considering unionizing.

In my 37 years of professional hunting experience, the average hunter has done almost everything possible to detract from the true essence of the hunt and take advantage of every bit of opportunity or technology available, to give him the upper hand on a grazer that is typically less than 10 years old. And absolutely none of it has enhanced their ability or pleasure in… “making the move”.