Dog Days of Summer

I have been busy.

Busy trying not to get too dehydrated. Trying to stay cool. Trying to get my six mile run time down to around 40 minutes. Trying to thin out my outdoors gear, think through what I'll be taking on this year's elk safari.

I have also been scouting from afar. I am trying a new place for elk this year, a different elk zone entirely. It began, I suppose, last year when the hunting was good (it always is), but the locating elk wasn't so good. So I had it in mind to maybe try something new next year. I began by wiping the slate clean and looking at past hunting stats in Idaho. What areas had the highest success rates? What areas had the most hunters? With that info, I narrowed it down, and made a few phone calls and emails. I scoured my maps. I narrowed it down further. And while I am not 100% certain where exactly I'll be, I think that might be an advantage from previous years. I have some flexibility built in.

But at the same time, these are the dog days of summer. In a lot of ways, I have a harder time with this period each year than I do with cold snaps in the dead of winter... It can be hard to stay motivated and get ready for an upcoming hunt when it's too hot to go outside.

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