Just What is an Elk Hunter

What is an Elk Hunter? I suppose that most folks figure an Elk Hunter is somebody that heads to the mountains in the fall and wanders around in the woods for a few days. I suppose those same folks have serious questions as to the mentality of those mountain woods wanderers. What they don't get is that real Elk Hunters, now I mean real, serious, go getter types, aren't just wanderin' around in the woods a tryin to escape reality and such.

You see to a Real Elk Hunter, Elk Camp and Elk Huntin' is their reality! Elk Hunting doesn't last just during the few days before season and then end after two or three days of not seein' critters. Elk Hunting begins on your way home from Elk Camp. Really, I mean it, it is on your mind, in your dreams, filling your thoughts and dang near literally in your blood, that is if you are a Real Elk Hunter. Even as you are breaking camp, after a long a tough Elk Season, the True Elk Hunter is already beginning the next Elk Season. All during camp you've been taking mental, and pencil, notes on how you might do it differently next year, or what piece of gear or gadget you forgot or just must obtain prior to the next Elk Camp.

A funny thing happens as you pull out of Elk Camp. It is darned hard to see or even focus your eyes. You know why? Wull I do, it's because there's been tears in your eyes cause you just gave your best buddies a big ole hug and the scary thought that this just might be the last year you get to see each other at Elk Camp has flashed through yer brain. It tugs at your heart strings and pulls you closer than ever to the best friends you could ever have in this world. This may be the biggest reason we keep going back year after year, cause we just don't want to miss that next chapter in the Adventures of the Elk Hunters. Yeah, we keep showin' up, like our lives depended on it, and maybe they do? We've been there with various maladies and injuries and troubles, and as long as we can get there, Elk Camp happens! I know that we haven't all had perfect attendance, but, I can garantee that anyone who hasn't made it, has literally ached to be there and more than anxiously awaited the tales of Elk Season.

Then, when you've gotten yourself together and are heading down the road, each stretch of gravel & pavement means that your are getting further and further away from Elk Camp. There's this terrible urge to turn back or at least just stop and refuse to move on, but alas this season has come to an end, and it is now time to prepare for the next Elk Camp. Then you get to the highway. Another funny thing happens, you forget that you have to actually remember how to use a seat belt. A seat belt! What! Yeah, it's that nylon strappy thingy that you stuffed into the seat cushion when you got to Elk Camp.

I suppose that the very worst part of returning back to civilization from Elk Camp is unloading the gear from the trailer, truck, SUV, RV or whatever vehicle you use to transport all that gear. Thats why I've started following my buddy Randy's method. I just leave Elk Camp in the silver trailer, I mean, after all, that why I got the silver trailer to begin with, right? If I need the trailer fer somethin' else, well, its just temporary, the gear goes right back it.

What I'm tryin' ta get ya to understand is that Elk Huntin' isn't just something that Elk Hunters do, it's who and what they are. Deep down inside that carpenter, office worker, business owner, doctor, waiter or mail carrier lies the inner Elk Hunter. It's a year-long, full-time obsession. This obsession isn't with Elk, it isn't with being in the woods, it isn't with shooting a 30-06 or 300 Win. Mag., and it isn't with getting away from it all (whatever that is). Elk Huntin' is about relationships. Relationships with the great outdoors, with the wildlife, with the wind, with the Creator and with the incredible friends and family that make Elk Camp and Elk Huntin' so absolutely, wonderfully enticing. Yup, thats it, relationships..............