The Balance

​For guys and gals like me who only think about is hunting, fishing, and being in the outdoors the college life was different. In high school my dad would make the late-night drive after a football game to wherever we were going to be spending the weekend hunting. School was not very difficult; I didn’t need to make time to get work done or projects done. High school was pretty easy for me and easy to be able to balance school, sports, and hunting. Everything is definitely a lot easier when you’re younger. When I went to Western Wyoming Community College (WWCC) it was almost the same, yeah I had to work harder but overall, I was able to balance everything with ease.
 
When I transferred from WWCC to the University of Wyoming (UW) I knew that there was going to be a change in how I hunted and that there was going to be new challenges that I would need to figure out. What I failed to realize what the number of new obstacles in my path. Instead of being 15 minutes from home at WWCC and being able to drop things off at home whether it was meat or my gear, now I was three hours away and had to figure out meat care and gear storage on my own while living in a small apartment with two roommates. The gear storage was an easy fix as I put things in my room locked up when I was gone. The meat care, however, was a huge difficulty that I never had a great plan for. There was only one meat locker in Laramie Wy, that took care of wild game and I was never sure if they would have room or not. This is where good friends come into play. Tanner my hunting partner this last year and for more to come had a big cooler that we decided we would put meat in there and keep on ice for at most a week until we could get back home and get it in a freezer. Great plan? No. However that is what we had to work with, and we felt confident in our plan. That guy I just mentioned Tanner, yeah that was another thing we would have to figure out both him and I.
 
Hunting with someone new is a big deal in my opinion. Especially if you haven’t known them all that long. I met Tanner my last semester at WWCC and knew I wanted to hunt with him based on how he talked about hunting. Once you get in the mountains with someone it can be a whole different thing. This was a really smooth change as he talked the talk but then walked the walk as they say. It was nice as we hunt a very similar style for both elk and deer. The biggest struggle for us as a team and sealing the deal on a bull or buck was our time in the field.
 
My time was primarily focused on school as I figure the sooner I can get done the more time I can hunt. This was the first year I remember missing a couple weekends of bowhunting elk in September. One weekend I had so much schoolwork I could not go and another weekend I was by myself and didn’t feel great about hunting an unfamiliar place solo. And even on the weekends I did hunt it was a Friday evening hunt and a Saturday hunt. I never hunted Sundays because if there was anything I needed to get done that was my day to do it. Almost every trip was a day and a half of hunting which made it difficult to be successful. We always felt like we had a chance though because of what we learned in the past and just being in the hills you have a chance.
 
Yeah, I didn’t get to hunt as much this year as I would have liked. But I learned a ton got to experience a new mountain range with different terrain and different animal habits. These are the experiences that we learn from and grow as hunters and humans. I learned so much about the area this past season that even with limited time next season maybe, I feel like I have a solid chance at filling a tag. The biggest thing I learned about college life at UW and hunting was don’t overthink anything. Each time you hunt a new place you see and experience new things and have amazing memories. Don’t overthink anything and just go out when you can and have fun, relieve some stress, and forget about college. Even if it is for a day and a half.

By:
Chase Galley