Someone has to say it........"it's why they call it hunting."
Coming home empty handed sometimes makes those days when we have success, more memorable. Sometimes, getting skunked brings us back down to reality and the humbling experience makes us appreciate those successful days. Over the years I have hunted public land and private. Have been run over by deer and gone days without seeing a one. Have fished in areas where every cast resulted in a strike and in water where I never even saw a flash in the water. I know the day will come when all I can do is wish I could just get out in the woods again, much less see anything. For me, the pleasure I derive from hunting has become the experience and the challenge. Success is just a bonus and many times, quite anticlimactic. I hunt nowadays with lower expectations than in my youth, not so I'm not disappointed, but because I'm realistic. Used to be it seemed I hunted to prove something to my peers....now I hunt for myself. I'll never be able to afford that piece of land where I can see half a dozen trophy bucks all feeding in the same food plot at once like on T.V. While over the years I have ad the opportunities to fish fly-in lakes in Canada and large private Cranberry reservoirs what only a few could fish, I have come to realize that success there was not an indication of how good I was.....but how great the water was. Still, on those days when the only thing in the boat is weeds taken off the bait, I consider it a successful day of fishing. Those days when I come home from hunting, cold and tired with nuttin' but an empty game bag and a full box of shotgun shells, I'm still happy I was able to get out.