It’s never really how you remember it, is it? Time has a funny way of erasing the hardships, the misery, to be down right honest; the truth. As hunters, the months we accumulate in the off season gives us ample time to romanticize past seasons and make it the way we want it to be, not the way it happened.

This certainly is the case at the present moment.

I stand in a patch of willows in a vast basin as hail tries to puncture holes through my clothes in its attempt to deflate my will. A half hour ago it may have just done that, pushing me out of the backcountry in disgust; with myself, with what I’m doing away from my family and with what I had chosen to do with my “vacation” time.

But not now. Not as I stand here with knife in hand and a velvet buck at my feet. How quickly it has changed. From misery to elation. From questioning to validated.

This is the backcountry, my self-inflicted humble dose of temporary discomfort. Something that I previously used as a source of appreciation for the modern conveniences that we enjoy by way of being its polar opposite. That has changed. Now I look forward to in its own right, for what it is, not a means to an end and not what it gives me when I don’t have it. But for what it is at the present moment, reminding me how human I am while also showing me that I’m an animal not so different from the ones I hunt.

The Colorado archery mule deer opener started six days before and with expected excitement, I headed out for my first mountain hunt of the season. And as often happens, with many months away from these mountains and the memories of its hardships, my optimism is sky high.

“I’ll be home in a few days at most,” I told the family. “Most likely I’ll be FaceTiming you and the kids on the way out of the mountains opening morning with a big buck in the bed of the truck. Get the grill ready, we’ll be eating backstrap by tomorrow evening.”

I had the confidence that only the Navajo hunter or those who forget every season previous possess. I’m about as white as a Cumulus cloud so I assure you, I’m the later of the two.

On opening morning sitting atop a cliff protruding into basin like the Titanic looming over the ocean surface (and just as intimidating) , I felt my chances of keeping my word to the wife were highly likely. There were deer everywhere. Apparently no one told them that it was opening day and I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell them.

The sun crested the spine of the Rockies as I sat and watched mule deer mulling around, my spotter making erratic movements as I tried to keep track of the bedding bucks.

Keeping tabs on them from my crow’s nest perch was one thing, but I knew once I started a stalk this two dimensional flat map would become three dimensional in a hurry. The carpet of willows that matted the valley floor offered up as many landmarks as being smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

The wind felt right as I made my way down into the basin. In hindsight I should have been smarter and knew that what was happening up on top of a ridge had close to nothing to do with what was happening in a deep basin.

As I made my approach I experience turbulence to rival any storm in the Bermuda triangle. Wind hit the back of my neck, wind hit the side of my face and at one point I’m pretty sure I was in the center of a tornado with winds swirling around me from every angle.

Deer busted out and moseyed off without much concern.

I played this same scenario out to some extent for the rest of the week. Get close, catch wind on the back of my neck, swear off bowhunting. It was almost comical at the predictability of how the stalk would play out.

But you know what? I wasn’t going to kill back home in Denver. The winds are more predictable there but for some reason the deer population has been on the decline since 1858 when the city was founded. I figured I’d take my chance up here.

I was seeing plenty of deer so that kept the “lows” from tanking like the 2008 stockmarket. But I was feeling the morale destroying effects of failure.

The alarm kept going off and I kept getting up. The “todays the day” mentality kept me going. If you don’t believe you’re going to kill, you might as well pack it up and head out of the woods. You’re time will be better spent elsewhere.

“Today’s the day,” I continued the mantra as I woke up on that sixth day.

I had seen a monster the day before high up on a ridge, bordering a unit that was forbidden to me and the tag I held in my pocket. Maybe he’d decide to peak down into the basin I was hunting to see if the salad bar presented a better option than what he was currently being offered. A man could hope.

Besides today had to be the day. Tomorrow morning I would be packing up and pointing the truck towards a groggy eyed, freshly turned four year old that expected dad to have his birthday pirate ship assembled and waiting for him. I’d take the disappointment of eating a tag over disappointing my son any day of the week.

I made it up to the ridge in the early morning light to see the beast feeding in the wrong direction. It looked like he sampled what my basin had to offer last night and decided that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. He was headed back to a GMU that was as off limits to me as North Korea.

“To hell with it,” I said as I worked my way from the demilitarized zone. “Go back to North Korea.”

I plopped down on the ridge since I already made the effort to climb up into this thin air and overlook the valley I’d been hunting for almost a week. Luckily it’s big enough that if you make a mistake and get winded, they headed to another spot in the same valley. I figured that’s the only thing I had going for me, because buddy, this valley had my stink coated all over it like cheap perfume on a… well you know where I’m going with that.

I kept glass to my eyes and tried to ignore the deep rumblings of a storm building up behind me. I peaked back over my shoulder and realized the storm has some potential. I felt the air go still as the thunderheads sucked up the energy in the mountains before it decided to spew it back on them tenfold.

My eyesent back to the glass and I caught movement of velvet.

“There you are,” I said.

One of the bucks I’d been chasing all week. An odd fella of sorts. A three by four with small forks, but damn is he wide. And thick. And apparently available.

Last day redemption buck? I’ll take him. Besides, I needed a little extra time to practice my “Arrrgs!” and “Ahoy there matey!” before heading back home.

If there was a better spot to put a stalk on in the basin, I was hard pressed to find it. The way I see it:

He was a little ways off of a popular hiking trail so I know for a fact he was catching some human scent by passing by hikers and it wasn’t spooking him off.
He was buried deep in some willow with just his antlers sticking out, giving him very low visibility.
There were some thick patches of pines that would give me a perfect approach route to hide my bumbling approach.

He looked like he was pretty locked in there and wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon.

“No time like the present,” I said to myself.

I started my casual hike off the ridge, knowing he had no chance of seeing me this far out. The thunder started to build adding a deep sense of suspense, like giant drums sounding off the march to war.

Here and there I took a peek at him to make sure he didn’t change his mind about the hotel room he chose and wander off in search of something classier.

I cut back and forth behind the camouflage of the pine patches and miraculously manage to get within seventy yards of him.

His velvet antlers rotate around like a periscope as he scans for trouble, but he never lock on to me.

Perfect. He had no idea that I was there. The deep willows that he decided to bed himself in was giving him minimal visuals on his surroundings. Unfortunately it was also giving me minimal opportunities to slide an arrow into him as he’s almost completely covered up.

The waiting game.

He stood and fed, then bedded back down, repeating this over the next hour, never giving me a clear shot at his vitals. He’s blocked on one end by thick willow and had a small runway to work with to move around. There was one small opening and I knew that he had to move through it at some point. And when he did…

At one point he must have buried himself in a deep hole because I lost sight of him. Panic set in. I knew he had nowhere else to go, but I’m a visual type of guy. If I don’t see it, I usually don’t believe it.

I pressed in ten yards closer hoping to get a different angle and much needed confirmation that he was still there.

Nothing. What the?

I was contemplating my misfortune when up rocketed velvet like a kraken out of the sea.

He stood and made for that three foot by three foot window of opportunity. There was no time to think. To be honest I don’t even remember drawing my bow back.

I heard the most beautiful sound that a bowhunter could hear. The sound of a cantaloupe being struck by a two by four as my arrow buried deep into his body. The sound of success.

He ran off sixty yards and laid down. The storm cracked with a renewed vigor as the life faded from him.

I walked out to did what all hunters do; convert hard work, obsession and countless hours away from our loved ones into sustenance.

I packed him out to a vehicle miles away that will transport me out of the primitive lifestyle and back to the ones I love. To a boy waiting for his dad to stop playing in the woods and come home to him and tell him why he’s there in the first place. To a world that thinks what we do is archaic and unnecessary. To a place I love because of the lessons hunting and the backcountry has taught me.

// Fred Bohm