Rookie Hunter Podcast Episode 123: Live Show, Vancouver
In this episode, Mike and Kelly travel to Vancouver for a live show at the Gastown Filson store with Eat Wild, The Hunter Conservationist, and myself, Chasing Food Club, to explore why hunting is so hard.
Listen to the episode here on Rookie Hunter. The episode is also available on The Hunter Conservationist and EatWild. It was a pleasure having the opportunity to share the stage with so many of my hunter mentors. Dylan Eyers was the first industry professional I connected with that helped propel my journey into learning how to hunt and gather wild foods.
In the hunting podcast world, many episodes go over gear, training, and techniques, but little explored the mental side of things. This is where I decided to throw down two ideas on why hunting was so hard:
The Valley of Despair
Clear and Concise Communication Without Ego
The Valley Of Despair
The point here is to emphasize the theory; the more you know, the less you know. The more you know, you might end up feeling more overwhelmed (and frustrated) and end up in a funk I call the valley of despair.
I intend to save you from the valley of despair because everyone encounters it differently in their hunting journey. It may last for a moment, a season, or even years. The idea here is not to quit and to keep at it with a positive attitude. My friend Chef Derek Gray of Row Fourteen, who was in the audience, taught me this in my moments of desperation, a mantra he used in the kitchen was to "push, push, push."
Which brings me to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. What Dunning concluded was when you start a task, in this case, hunting, you're at the peak of "Mt. Stupid" and filled with blind confidence. As you spend more time wandering in the woods blindly, your confidence goes down, and you hit rock bottom, the "valley of despair." The theory is as you accumulate more knowledge, you're humbled because you realize how much there is to master. But if you're able to push past the discouragement and keep pursuing the art of tracking an animal, your confidence will go back up and level itself out. Not Mt. Stupid levels, but it's going to go back up, and things will get better.
Using my journey as an example, I started on an LEH, fly-in Caribou hunt, zero doubt in my mind, and a team of 3 rookies got the job done by pure luck. Then I felt defeated because, for two spring seasons, I failed to shoot a bear. Not to mention, I spooked a huge Vancouver Island bear at 40 yards and had my heart on finding another beast of an animal. Social media put any unrealistic expectations on me, and the valley of despair was thriving in my mind, which toyed with my emotions. I seriously considered quitting trying to eat wild game. But with a lot of persistence, I shot my first animal, a Mountain Goat, and saw way more animals in my second year. Looking back on it, I think it's ridiculous I had put that much pressure on myself at that moment and struggled to see past the stress.
Credit to my partner Trevor Bertoia has been using the Dunning-Kruger Effect as an effective (and comical) training tool to mentally prep his Line Pilots for the challenges ahead.
Clear and Concise Communication Without Ego
I am about to say some fighting words, but hunting is all ego. And so it should be; it's a very noble skill to have. How many people can say I tracked and killed the animal they're eating? Most folks in a 2KM radius of downtown Vancouver will look at you and be like, "that's some Lord of the Rings shit."
Because it's all ego, it makes tough conversations more challenging. Ego and ego never go well. The hardest part about hunting was learning how to communicate clearly and concisely during moments such as:
Finding a hunting partner and turning down a hunting partner.
Having to leave your buddy out of a hunt
Figuring out who shoots first
Telling someone to slow down
Telling someone you don't feel safe
Often, the most challenging part of the adventure wasn't the pack-out but my bruised ego. Usually, I found myself sitting there with a bag of mixed emotions and trying to work through them during the season. Therefore, my encouragement is to practice clear and concise communication. Listen to your gut, and always be honest about how you feel, no matter how embarrassed, shy, or awkward you might feel.
The strong and silent type isn't sexy in the woods. Through some questionable encounters, I've learned always to speak up and put safety first. From The Journal of Mountain Hunting, Nolan Osborne gave me two pieces of solid advice before my goat hunt: the first being to always stick to the plan, and the second, was to put safety first.
Lastly, to be kind and compassionate with one other. If you find your feelings hurt, or you have that "how dare you" emotion bubbling up, remember that's just ego talking, and the reality of it is, it was probably just as hard for that person to tell you the uncompromising news as it was for you to take it. Take away all our bows, rifles, gear; we're all the same; we're all just trying to eat some meat.
Happy Listening!
Jenny
