Here's a list of five things that you just don't plan during the fall hunting season.
We don't care if you're hunting wild turkey, bobcats, migratory birds, or antlerless deer, just don't tell us that there's suddenly some kind of function that requires our presence.
When the fall comes round—and it only comes once a year—we have our hearts and minds set on one thing, and only one thing: hunting.
The fall season signifies that the hunt is about to start. Our focus is as sharp as the knives in our sheaths.
It's hard enough to continue going to work each day. Talk about getting in the way of hunting! Doesn't your boss care about your desire to be in the treestand or blind?
We have so many choices of wild game to chase, whether it's waterfowl, pheasant, woodcock, fall turkey, black bear, ruffed grouse, or the obvious whitetail deer. But there are so many things that can interfere...
Maybe the biggest roadblocks between us and our prized hunts are the ones from those we love the most. It's not entirely their fault, it's just that we don't always see eye to eye when it comes to what's really important: the daily bag limit.
We can complain about life's obligatory events all we want, but our lament seems to fall on deaf ears.
Here are some of the biggest things we dread during the fall. If you're scheduling one of these this year and are inviting a hunter, maybe reconsider?
Anniversary
If you are a hunter and plan your wedding for, say, October... you've messed up your life something fierce. Your partner might argue that an autumn celebration can be a beautiful thing, what with the changing leaves, cool air, and the odds of invitees being available to attend.
Everyone knows that it's a year round thing to be in love, and relationships take work and sacrifice from both partners. But when one of you is a hunter, it's worth it to rethink celebrating that fall anniversary.
Maybe you could celebrate your "half-anniversary" in the spring instead?
Or you could spend some time with your beloved showing them what it was that's made hunting such a can't-miss activity all these years.
Hunters are some of the happiest, healthiest humans on the planet and that's something that should be shared.
Just officially share it during the offseason, you know?
Weddings
Speaking of those weddings, there are beloved people in your lives—wonderful people, no doubt— that don't hunt and would love to get hitched in the fall. They're surely inviting you to join in their celebration. It's almost inevitable.
This prospect can haunt the hunter. Fall weddings often take place after the leaves have begun to change and before it gets terribly cold. In other words, during the best part of bow season.
The only saving grace might be the fact that you'll get the invitation long before the actual event, so you will have plenty of time to think of excuses. Maybe your life partner tries to remind you that your friends are more important than the opener of deer season. Now you've got a decision to make: go to the wedding and suck it up, or accept the fact that you're missing the biggest deer hunting day of the year.
Good luck with that.
Career Change
This one might not be all that easy to see coming.
Picture this: you've worked your tail off for years at the same company, and suddenly the boss calls you into his office for a chat. You start to think that there is a problem, but in reality he or she is about to offer you a supervisor job and all the extras that come with it.
Oh by the way, the position starts in the fall, right when hunting seasons are in full swing.
You'll have to be there for meetings, on-boarding, and training which will inevitably translate to extra hours and less free time. You might as well kiss your fall turkey hunting opportunities goodbye.
Maybe the worst part: people that you now manage approaching you for time off in the fall so that they can hunt the opener. Just like you've been doing since day one. Ouch.
Moving Day
Your family members should already know by now that you can't be taking time away from the field to help them schlep their old ratty sofa up three flights of stairs. Maybe you can lend them your pickup truck in place of your physical attendance. Then when you bring home that 10-pointer on the top of Aunt Barb's Volkswagen Beetle, you'll still come out ahead.
Now, if it's your own move, you may have just put the kibosh on the hunt and blame only yourself. Some life events are out of our control, but with a little planning you can still make good use of that deer permit. Maybe you can skip muzzleloader season and schedule a move during that time period.
However you handle it, just know that you won't ever harvest a deer with great antlers to hang in that new house unless you're hunting at the right times.
Birth of Children
Get out a calendar, any calendar, and count backwards from the month of November, when most hunting seasons are occurring. Reach nine months before November, and you'll find yourself in Feberuary. That's the month that includes Valentine's Day. That's the month you DO NOT want to get yourself or your spouse pregnant.
What this all boils down to is the fact that you are going to have to lay it down to your life partner that the love making needs to cease in the first two or three months of the year.
Having a child is a fantastic and life changing experience for us, but so is dropping that target buck that we've been tracking on trail camera for years.
Some folks might even say that having a future hunter born during the fall of the year is like being born on the Fourth of July, but that doesn't mean that they will grow up to be president.
For a lot of hardcore outdoorsmen, hunting and trapping season can have only one objective. It may be the difference between a hunting license and a marriage license, but for those looking forward to actually spending their fall season in the woods, prairies, or marshes, then the answer is clear: plan ahead!
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NEXT: MOOSE VS. ELK: THE IMPORTANT FACTS, WHAT TASTES BETTER, AND WHICH TO HUNT THIS SEASON
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