I appreciate your honest post. For me, hunting is just as much about the meat as the time outdoors, so going home empty handed after the season despite tremendous effort, I feel thoroughly miserable. More than once I've said, "I hate hunting. Why do I do this?" Then I'm back at the research, skill building, etc. before long after the season ends. People like us, who hunt tough areas and who go home empty handed a lot, have to dig deeper than guys who are more natural killers or who were taught or handed down special wisdom or hunt areas. Are you still hunting for yourself or for the tradition from which you come? It takes a ridiculous amount of positive mental attitude to stay in the game,like you said. Hope seems to sharpen skill. It sucks sitting on a spot in which you have little confidence. But that lack of confidence will make me not pay attention and more than once I've had a window of opportunity literally just seconds long. It's exhausting, maintaining non-stop focus. I can't hunt from the stand. Too much energy in me. Living in Colorado,I fortunately don't have to; I can move more than Eastern whitetail hunters. The taste of that meat is what keeps me coming back. And the challenge. I also hate to lose, perhaps to a fault. I've let go when I've had to, but the pain has to be high. Only you know your own threshold.
My brother has been an encouragement. He whitetail hunts public land in Indiana and it took him 10 years of failing to become a regular killer. He says you usually gotta have many encounters each season before you actually get a good shot opportunity. He would frequently miss a kill simply because he was set up one tree over in the wrong spot. Next year he'd be in that next tree over and get it done. He's found that he can't just hunt a crop field edge on a bedding thicket. He has to go in "deep" where he doesn't find other hunters. And he has stands placed specifically for the expected prevailing wind that day.
I'll add that you've ******* killed deer dude. A lot of deer. More than the majority of the population. And you're doing something (hunting) that almost no one these days has the nerve for. Stop comparing yourself to the best killers? I'll never be a Remi Warren or a Ryan Lampers. Some guys have the instincts PLUS the accumulation of decades of ancestral knowledge and personally earned experience on the land.
Why have you kept hunting all this time? Has that changed? Are you questioning things about your life in general, ie. a midlife crisis?
Keeping going when others near you are killing but you're not is SOOOO hard sometimes. Makes ya feel stupid or unworthy or something. Maybe that's just me though.
Barring luck or changing hunting areas, If there's a shift in your success rate to be had, I'm guessing it's going to come down to either skill building or a shift in your mental space.
And in case you need to hear this, it's ok to walk away from hunting. But if you keep on keeping on, may the hunting gods show you grace
