Beginner’s Luck

How a single hunt can ignite the flame.

Atop a high ridge the night before opening day, a handful of elk popped out into a small clearing. Then another few moseyed out. Then the floodgates opened. There were elk everywhere. At last light, we counted just over 50 bulls, and what must’ve been another 600 cows. Best of all, there wasn’t another soul in sight. We had the basin all to ourselves.

I couldn’t believe my luck. It was my first hunting season. My first hunt. I’d purchased an over-the-counter elk tag at a gas station en route to the trailhead. My hunter-safety card was dated a few months prior, and the background check on my rifle a few weeks before that. I’d learned the shooting basics from a friend, putting a handful of rounds through the chamber. 100 yards was my self-capped upper range.

My brother and I had backpacked into this remote drainage, selected purely based on the name: Elk Creek. We gained the ridge in the afternoon, napping and reading books in the October sunshine. We kicked out elk beds for our tents in nearby timber still fresh with elk scent. And after marveling at the cervine spectacle until dark, we went to sleep to the sound of bugles piercing the stiff, alpine wind.

As for what happened the next day—well, it was the kind of thing that diehard elk hunters dream about their whole lives, and may never experience: bulls everywhere, feeding cluelessly on a crisp fall morning. But I was nearly as clueless as the elk, and made just about every rookie mistake under the sun. Somehow, on a mountain full of giant bulls, I shot the smallest one. At the time, it just about killed me to consider all the stalks I’d botched. But in retrospect, I think it was for the best. Would I really have wanted to start my hunting career with the biggest bull I’d ever shoot? In the years since, that day has served only to fuel the fire—one which burns even brighter today—and motivates me to learn as much as I possibly can. It was the start of a journey. One that’s led me here today.

The Stalk guidebook is a collection of articles written by avid hunters—those like me, in whom the fire burns. None are experts—no hunter is. Every year, we learn a little more, and make as many mistakes as the year before. Nonetheless, when I was first starting out, I wish I’d known a fraction of what was in this booklet. Read it carefully. You may not get as lucky as I did on my first day, but you may make fewer mistakes. At the very least, you’ll have solid footing when you venture out into the woods.