Fall came in dry this year. A kind of parched stretch that leaves the leaves crunchy underfoot and the forest too quiet for comfort. I’ve always said “the woods talk if you listen long enough”, but this season, they mostly whispered. A long, stubborn silence hung over my bait sites, and for the first time in a while, I started to feel like maybe the bears were listening back, keeping tabs on me just out of sight.
I put in the hours. I sat through the heat, through the wind, through the kind of rain that only starts when you’ve just settled into the stand. The nights stretched out longer than the days, and each one ended with that same familiar weight. My realization that the tag still hung empty in my pocket.
But that’s hunting. It’s never promised. Success doesn’t always come in the form of a harvest. Sometimes it comes in the shape of grit. In sitting down again the next evening, knowing full well the odds are stacked against you.
This fall, I tagged along on a few hunts where the bears did show up, not for me, but for others. Watching them find success brought its own kind of clarity. You can’t fake that rush, that breathless stillness when the shot breaks clean. It reminded me why I love this life so damn much, not just the moments in front of the lens or behind the bow, but the pursuit itself. The waiting. The learning. The respect.
The weather beat me up this season. The dry spell choked the bait trails and kept the bears moving at night. When the cold finally hit, it came hard and mean. A kind of wet chill that seeps right into your shoulders. But through all of it, I kept filming, kept photographing, kept building the story. Because every season, win or lose, tells one.
Mentally, it wore me down. You start to question everything. Your setup, your scent, your timing, your patience. You start chasing ghosts. But it’s in those moments, the ones that test you the hardest, that you really earn the next season.
So here I am, closing out the fall bear run with an empty tag at this point, a full memory card, and a sharper edge for what’s next. The woods might’ve gone quiet for me this time, but they’re far from done talking.
There’s still some daylight left in the year, deer season’s on deck, and I’ve got a score to settle with a big buck that’s been dancing on my cameras since September.
Failure’s only final if you quit showing up. And I’ll be there, bow in hand, camera rolling, heart wide open, ready to listen when the forest finally decides to speak again.
