The Best Part of My Idaho Hunt Wasn't the Hunting (Part 1 )

Eight days in the Idaho wilderness, dark to dark, and glassing country that I thought would be full of deer. The hunting wasn't turning out the way I'd imagined, but somewhere along the way, the trip gave me something I wasn't expecting.

People.

After my original hunting plans fell apart, I found myself hunting solo. One morning, after getting out and hunting, I headed into town and crossed paths with three California hunters. Sometimes you meet people on the road and exchange a quick hello. Other times, you end up sharing a little piece of the experience with them. These guys were the latter.

They welcomed me in, shared information about the country, and helped make those long days alone a whole lot more enjoyable. Instead of keeping his hard-earned information to themselves. They shared a bunch of his OnX pins with me.

That's something I appreciate about hunting. You spend countless hours learning a piece of country, studying terrain, and trying to understand where animals might be. That information has value. When someone willingly shares what they've learned with another hunter, it says something about the kind of person they are.

After spending all day out in the mountains, there's something pretty special about coming back to a warm campfire. You get to sit down, warm up, swap stories, talk about the day's hunt, and compare notes with people who understand exactly why you're out there in the first place. Nobody needs to explain why they'd spend eight days hiking around the wilderness looking for a deer. Everybody around that fire already gets it.

I went to Idaho hoping to find deer, and I certainly didn't see the numbers I'd expected. But meeting those three California hunters reminded me that a hunting trip isn't measured entirely by what you bring home. Sometimes it's the people you meet, the information they share, and the conversations around a campfire that make a difficult trip worthwhile.

I'll remember those guys long after I've forgotten a few of the ridgelines I climbed. Good people are good people, no matter what state you're hunting in.

Happy trails. Chuck