Hunting, Mother Nature's Show

Since before our first hunting license, we have been told over and over that detailed planning, lots of scouting, and practice and more practice with your favorite gun or bow would lead to better hunts.

- Tom Cooper

Maybe a dose of good luck is also needed to help with travel and hunting weather. Not only is quality hunting based on these factors, but I believe old-fashioned superstition and folklore play an important role as well. A convenient definition of superstition is: belief in the sign of things to come. Folklore’s definition simply ties beliefs to specific groups of people. Sounds a lot like hunting in America to me. To use folklore to advantage, hunters observe the signs of Nature’s participants and assess their power(s). Whoa now, before you disregard my contention without reading another word, let me say this: By telling a pretty darn good hunting story, complete with observations of a few of Nature’s signs and powers, I expect to make my point. Are you wondering, maybe just a little, how I might pull this off? Ok then, read on and let’s get to my story.

During the 2011 general hunting season, this very true hunting story (not all hunting stories are true you know) occurred mostly in Hunting District 380, in the Elkhorn Mountains, well-known for trophy bull elk. However, since neither my brother Bill nor I drew those coveted tags, we decided to hunt brow-tined bulls on opening day in an adjoining district. Despite hiking several miles, hunting our secret hot spots, we did not see any elk and found little elk sign (tracks, beds, or fresh manure). We knew hunting the Elkhorns next made sense, because I had a spike bull tag, and Bill had a cow elk tag he had drawn. After two days hunting the south end of the district, Bill and his tag went home to the Bitterroot Valley; I still had mine too. He returned in two weeks on a Tuesday to take advantage of less mid-week activity on public land. Even though I hunted the area twice during Bill’s absence with little result, when he returned, we decided to try the south end again.