man this sounds all to familiar.
It's been a few years for me. Started when I started taking the fun to a sort of side buisness. I was doing it anyways, building arrows for people, it only made sense to get a couple dealerships to help curb the cost.
Being x military and working for the military, obviously most of my friends and hunting buddies are yup military of some sort, mostly active which creates a small conflict of interest. Alaska unlike the states takes time to teach. People show up here with a 'kill list' more often then not and as time went on I found out real fast that those friends were friends only because of the knowledge I had. Luckily I kept my mouth shut for sheep.
Over time my close hunting partners pcs'd or ets'd outta here. There is still a couple guys I think are in my shoes that did retire here. We were all hard into it. I have been for almost 20 years now. Then the 2 years before divorce, stopped building arrows and strings for people, gone most of the summer guiding home just in time to catch what was left of moose season, missed all together sheep season.
Those hunting partners were gone......and so was the fire that had spawned a lifetimes obsession, if you come into my house, you'll quickly learn this is not a hobby! Though most of it is still packed today from the move a couple years ago, there is enough in every room to convience even the most uneducated otherwise. I still go home and hunt whitetails or turkeys (though this year chose not to do it with the longbow), I did shoot a black bear this year with the liberty another first, again only finding out military guys trying to pawn info to the point a friend went out less then 24 hrs and sat my stand and shot another bear off of it...kinda irked me a little, on the other hand I'm happy he did shoot his first bear.
Seems there's one thing in common with most of us that have posted on this thread......friends, someone to shoot with. Traditional archery, well all archery for that matter, is when it comes to hunting, typically a loner's approach as my one close hunting buddy puts it. But in there the comradre of it all is why most of us got into it in the first place.
I work my tail off like the next guy, still dream about hunts coming up and hunts past. Finding a hunting partner, something almost needed up here, is harder then finding a spouse. The fire that had me shooting daily all winter, and summer, for hours isn't there. Now I can hardly shoot more then a handful of arrows before the joints in my string hand are sore, my concentration is gone. Or I'm start stewing again over the poor arrow quality, buisness relations (at the dearship level) and life that has led me up to this point. I WILL change it alone if I have too......it sure as hell aint gonna be as much fun though!
There's my resume, need a hunting partner?
Topic: What do you do when it's just not "fun" anymore??? (Read 1025 times)
