I was perched on a fallen log that was clogging the trail ahead of me. I was fuming self-loathing out of every pore in my body. The universe was against me, it didn’t want to see me succeed, it was setting every obstacle it could muster in front of me just so it could watch me fail. It didn’t have to try hard, I was doing a standup job of it myself and I could hear its laughter.

The bottomless pool of self-pity knew no depths. I was supposed to be having fun, hell I chose to do this with my free time, but plain and simple, I turned something I loved into something I loathed.

I was stewing in my thoughts when I heard the crumbling of leaves. I looked up to see my buddy Jon whistling to himself as he made his way up the path towards me. This is the first human I’ve seen in over eight days and I’m not sure if I was speaking my thoughts out loud or if I wasn’t so far removed from society that I knew how to keep them internalized.

If I was going crazy and muttering like a mad man, like any good friend he didn’t embarrass me by showing that he caught on to it.

“You look like you need a beer,” Jon said as he unshouldered his pack and plopped down next to me.

“I could use a keg I think,” I muttered back, still half in my own world.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“I don’t… I really, really don’t,” I said as we clink cans of whatever ultra-hopped IPA he pulled out of his bag.

We sat in silence for a bit, me not knowing what to say. He knew I was a ticking time-bomb so he let the alcohol go to work on me instead of trying to pry it out.

“Ahhh fuck it. So it goes,” I finally spurted out and rose up to my feet with finality. “Thanks for meeting me for the hike out buddy.”

Jon cracked another pair of beers and handed me the trail soda for the hike out.

Conversation started up and any subject was game except for what I had been up to for the last month of my life. I looked around on the way out and know that sometime in the distant future I’d really miss this hunt, but at the time I couldn’t see it.

For the last thirty-one days of my life, I’d been stomping around with my bow on my shoulder in some of the nastiest, steepest, most uninviting mountains known to the west. I’d been seeking out its inhabitants, more specifically Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep.

And I had been getting my ass handed to me every step of the way.

The early summer initial phases of scouting started innocent enough. I explored areas in a mountain range that I thought I knew very well. The scenery was stunning, the pictures were some of the best I had ever taken, and as the scouting season progressed rams started showing up.

But this was the honeymoon phase. Every animal is killable when you don’t have a bow in hand and the weight of the tag in your pocket.

The season started and the wind didn’t seem to be as consistent, the animals changed their patterns and Murphy reared his ugly head at every turn in the trail. Seeing animals during scouting season is a minuscule fraction of the potential success come the season.

rocky mountain bighorn sheep bow hunting

I came to the ugly realization that luck wasn’t going to be on my side the day before the opener. I sat with binoculars glued to my face when I heard the telltale sign of incoming sheep. Scree tumbled down the steep slope of the mountain letting me know I wasn’t alone up there.

I stayed perfectly still, pulled out my phone to film, and waited. Seven sheep made their way towards me like I was some lonely ewe looking for company. The front two would be shot by any sane hunter. They stop within thirteen yards of me, knowing full well there isn’t a weapon within a mile of me. They had the regulations and had studied them. They enjoyed their last day of unmolested freedom and sauntered by me without a care in the world.

“Shit, I just used up about ten years of hunter’s luck on this little interaction”, I muttered to myself.

And this is where the bad attitude started. The day before the opener. I convinced myself that the hunt was cursed and I would have to fight tooth and nail if I were to be successful. I let negativity dig its claws deep into me and give me a preemptive excuse for failure.

The hunt was over before it started. I failed to control my mind and the negative thoughts it was producing. Physically I was ready for this hunt, but mentally? Not even close. The relentless physical exertion, the loneliness, the frustration, the knowledge that this was going to be the toughest hunt of my life… none of this bothered me in the least.

Having to control negative thoughts and their uncanny way of manifesting into reality? That’s what killed me. I let it get to my head.

And so the season went. I screwed myself on every attempt, every chance that I had. I told myself that it was supposed to be near impossible and so it became.

I thought I was mentally tough, but I wasn’t.

This was a new type of mental game that I didn’t even know existed before I confronted it on this hunt. My mental attitude would have a direct outcome as to how this hunt would go down. And my mental attitude sucked.

I took everything I loved about bowhunting the backcountry and threw it off a cliff. I instead made it into something I hated. I sabotaged myself and I deserved the outcome I got.

More than anything, I was disappointed in how I viewed the hunt and therefore how I went about it. You can train in the mountains, shoot your bow every single day, and know the species you're chasing inside and out, but a shit attitude can sabotage success faster than walking in there completely unprepared.

I failed. And in a more significant way than just walking out of the mountains empty-handed. My concern about what I wanted in the future became more important than what I was being blessed with experiencing in the present. And in the process, I almost ruined something I love.

On a positive note, I walked out of the experience a lot more humble. The universe does not care about you. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. We are small infinitesimal organisms in the grand scheme of things and our wants from the world do not make it into the equation. We get what we put into anything we set out to accomplish, and that’s not always the end goal. Sometimes it's learning that your wants are not that important.

I don’t know about you, but that’s awful freeing.

// Fred