Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 19 H umility is a hard notion to swallow. It bumps into pride going south, gets all tangled up in your gizzard, and requires a pretense of confidence to flush down. If you hunt, you know this already. Anyone venturous enough to pit himself against the wiliest of wildness is gonna learn pretty quick he ain't as good as he'd like to believe he is. You want to think you're good. You need to think you're good. But the flat truth of the matter is— if it weren't for the three "Ts": tools, technology, and treachery—a human being ain't much of a match one-on-one against anything in the woods or field higher than the invertebrate dominion. Don't get your back up now, but start subtracting the "Ts" and see where it leaves you. How well can you pitch that rock on the ground? I'm just saying that sometimes we get to feeling too spunky about our prowess on this or that, and it never hurt nobody to get knocked on his ass once in a while and get a colossal dose of humility stuffed down his gullet. It sets things straight in immediate order and brings him to a thing that's been too largely forgotten by a lot of people, particularly the outdoor TV heroes: respect for a so-called subordinate creature that can just as often beat your pants off. Sift the chaff out of the wheat and you come again to what you're out there for anyhow: to test yourself against something much wilder and wittier than you'll ever be. (Remember, toss the three "Ts.") When you get a whuppin', swallow a giant lump of humility; you'll strive hard to be better the next time. You want to win. You need to win. But if you could win every time, after a while it wouldn't amount to much of a victory, and you'd likely not go anymore. I didn't invent that last sentence, of course. How many times in whatever context have you remarked the same to a friend, or vice versa? So, cutting brutally to the chase here, if you're winning now so much at whatever that you're getting tired of winning, I've got the cure in my bag. One warning: it's a cruel fix, and if, once I give you the gist, you're either flat- First Light by Mike gaddis Turkey hunTing is TesTing yourself againsT someThing much wilder and wiTTier Than you'll ever be. out afraid of trouncing your ego or just plain leery of mortgaging your ability, sidle quietly off to the side with your rep still fully in feather. You hard cases who'll stake yourself against anything fur or feathers short of The Holy Trinity, get in line. G etting right to it, what's the outright, no-holds-barred, toughest big game hunt in the Americas? We're not talking most dangerous here, now. I won't put you in utter peril. Besides, humility's on the market at a much lesser price. So is fear. The kind of fear that you'll wager your very best and still come up a bag of mortar late and three bricks short. We are talking, however, severe physical excruciation, most failure prone, and certainly most mentally debilitating. High-country elk? Coastal griz? Big whitetails? Coues bucks in the Mother Sierras? Bighorns? Dalls? Stones? Musk ox? Ursus polar on the ice cap? Blackbuck? Mountain cougar? Wolves in dark timber?