Turns out, I'm a natural at archery. I just have to work a little harder on my arm pull strength, because I was struggling to pull back the recurve bow with a 50-pound pull weight. I still did it, but I want to get stronger so I don't feel it so much. Chances are, I'll buy my own recurve bow, a set of practice arrows, and a couple of heavy targets to set up in my own backyard before I get another firearm. That bow will give me the arm strength that I really want, so when I return to uncle Courtney's later this summer, he won't rip on me so much for having skinny twig arms, even though Courtney himself admitted that he struggled with any bow with a pull weight heavier than 60 pounds.
Before the day ended, my great aunt Sharon and grandma Connie went to the store to get us some dinner and supplies for smores, while I stayed at the house with Courtney and my grandpa. I gave uncle Courtney my hunting information a few weeks ago, and to my surprise, there are a lot of leftover cow elk licenses in the region I wanted to hunt. Around 370 were already drawn, but there will be 130 leftover tags available for sale on the morning of August 6th. I was also rather surprised to find out that I'll be hunting on private land, which means that less people will be calling and emailing CPW at 9 AM for a tag in that specific region. I'll be in Minnesota on August 6th, but I'll still be picking up the phone at 10 AM Minnesota time to purchase my cow elk license.
While I missed the first elk tag draw, in order to keep things competitive and interesting, CPW will hold a certain number of tags per region for the leftover tag sale in the late summer. Sometimes, those tags are gone within the first minute after CPW finally puts them up for sale, while other times, those tags are never bought. Elk hunting is viciously competitive and popular in Colorado. While we've got a ton of elk, we also attract a ton of elk hunters from all over the world, so the elk tags are usually hard to get. In some regions in Colorado, it takes 30 years for someone to draw a bull elk tag. In other regions, bull elk tags are available over the counter for the whole year. The tags depend on the population of the elk and how old and impressive the elk typically turn out to be per region.
Assuming all goes well, and I don't find a creative way to screw it up, I will be hunting elk this season, and I will end up with 300 pounds of wild game. My freezer can fit about 170 pounds of meat if I use my entire body weight to stuff it in, so I hope my close friends and family will have a decent amount of freezer space for the other 130 pounds of elk I'll end up with, and will be happy to take some of it off my hands. Also, the cow elk tags are valid from October 1st to January 31st. If I don't get anything with Outdoor Buddies during opening weekend, uncle Courtney offered to be my guide until I got something, come hell or high water.
Hunting with Courtney will be different than hunting with Outdoor buddies. Instead of having the luxury of staying in a 5-star hotel and being driven around in a warm truck with heated seats, Courtney will push me well beyond my limits, like he always does. We'll end up camping in the wilderness somewhere near Westcliffe, snow or shine, wind or calm, and my only means of getting around besides walking will either be on the 4-wheeler or horseback, depending on how snowy it ends up being. Basically, uncle Courtney will be dragging me through hell with him, along with his son, Sean, the horses, and my grandpa Lyle, while we hunt for a large cow elk to feed myself, my friends, and my family.
Uncle Courtney strongly believes in an extreme form of exposure therapy. He believes, and rightly so, that exposing yourself to your greatest fears will inevitably make you realize that you're stronger than your fears, and will make you a better, stronger, more well-rounded, and intelligent person. He's forced me to do things that put me at great risk and scared me to death before, and he'd gladly do it again. I mean, the only reason why he didn't have me jump on the back of one of his feral horses today, and tame it in his favorite cornfield by a busy middle school and main road, was because it was my birthday. Otherwise those middle schoolers would've seen one hell of a show during their lunch break!
Hunting with uncle Courtney means I better renew my membership to Vasa fitness and practice with a recurve bow nearly everyday, or else Courtney will leave me behind in the wilderness near Westcliffe with just my rifle and sense of direction. Well, not really. But I certainly won't be hunting any elk with him if I can't at least match him athletically. He may be much older than me, but he still hunts and works out harder than I ever have.
