Opening Day

I have to admit, I just didn’t get opening day. I watched my husband get all excited and start getting ready weeks before opening day. I knew his chance of a successful hunt on opening day was not great. I asked him year after year, “Why not wait until it gets cooler? It’s too hot. You won’t get anything. His reply was always the same: “Because it’s opening day.”

Ok. Whatever. Now that I hunt with him, it is a whole different conversation. I laughed at myself when not long ago, I caught myself saying, “Antelope opens in four months.” He just looked at me and smiled as he told me it will still be hot. Yeah, ok. Maybe I do get it.

We wait all year. It isn’t exactly like waiting for Christmas, but the excitement is close. We get to ditch the high heels and suits and be outside. We get to be ourselves and test our skills and our wits in the mountains. If we are lucky, we get to see animals in their habitat, unconcerned that we are there.

One evening last year I sat just beneath a shrub watching the sun set. I hadn’t seen much and didn’t expect to see anything I could or wanted to shoot. After a while, deer started crossing right in front of me. All of a sudden there were about a dozen does and fawns within twenty yards of me. It was an amazing experience watching them feed and interact with each other so close to me. They never knew I was there. That kind of experience doesn’t happen back in town. I think I get it now.