I could hear the footsteps and munching sounds from the beautiful ten-year-old ram 35 yards away. A smaller, but still full curl ram fed up behind him. As the larger ram lowered his head for another bite, my fingers tensed on the string of my bow, but I was out of cover and as close as I was going to get. Longbow in hand, I was left with nothing to do but enjoy one of the greatest shows in all of nature, two mature Dall rams feeding quietly in the morning sun in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

It was September 2023, and I’d been hunting that challenging terrain and relentless weather for more than 20 days. I had found myself in that situation, just out of longbow range, many times over. I kept asking myself, why do I choose to hunt in a way that makes actually harvesting an animal so much harder?

Over the years here in Alaska, I’ve done a lot of traditional archery hunting, generally with a longbow, almost always solo and almost always involving extended wilderness camping. This kind of hunting has brought me a great deal of satisfaction but it’s far from an efficient way to take game.

Last season alone, if I’d had the ability to shoot out to 45 yards I would have had at least six opportunities on a mature Dall rams, one on a 65-inch bull moose, more chances on very large bull caribou than I care to think about, and shots at two really nice blacktail bucks, all of which were the result of long involved stalks deep in the backcountry. After many days hunting, I did come home with a nice caribou bull and a couple of blacktail bucks to feed my family. But the fraction of my total season’s stalks that resulted in a harvest was very low. Whenever I share these details, people always ask why I make it so difficult.

The answer to that question lies entirely on why I hunt in the first place. There is simply nothing on Earth as exhilarating as spending time close to wild animals, especially wily old ones! I can’t even begin to count the number of mind-blowing, almost life-changing experiences that I’ve had out there. For example, I once spent almost five full days within 300 yards of a nine-year-old ram in an over-the-counter rifle hunting area. The topography allowed me to bivy in a little depression downslope of his bed, downwind of him. Each day I carefully worked the terrain and varying wind currents, often creeping into well under 100 yards. On day five I finally found him bedded in a good spot and was able to climb into the cliffs 20 yards above him where I spent almost an hour waiting for him to stand up to allow for a clean shot. After all of that, an actual shot at longbow range still never happened, but I’ll never forget the intensity and enjoyment of those five days. Had I been hunting with a rifle or even a compound bow, I suspect that experience would have been very different, and I think I likely would have missed out on some amazing mountain and sheep time.

The best hunt of my life took place over two seasons after locating a very old ram on day 15 of a backpack hunt. With only a few days of food left I was only able to close the gap to about 300 yards, but never got the opportunity for a stalk. One year and many miles of hiking later, I found myself in the same drainage looking at the same ram on day three of my hunt. I was able to close the gap from 250 yards to just seven before my arrow found its mark. Hearing that ram’s horns scrape against the brush within ten yards is one of my most prized memories. Thinking about it now gets my heart racing.

In my experience, most animals in Alaska, even Dall sheep, feel dramatically more comfortable around any kind of predator, humans included, at 50 yards than they do at under 20. I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve been busted at 40-50 yards only to have the animals stand there and watch me for excruciatingly long times. When detecting danger at under 20 yards, however, almost every single individual big game animal I’ve hunted will immediately jump and bolt away, often pausing at 40-60 yards to reassess the situation. To me, this makes sense because it seems like most natural predators are exponentially more dangerous at under 10 yards or even under 20 yards (the same distances I prefer with my longbow) than they are at 50-plus yards.

I once found myself moose hunting with seven days left in the season when I discovered the largest group of rutting moose I’d ever seen. On the first day, the lead bull passed me just out of range at 30 yards. Despite the terrible weather, I found the group almost every day for a week, spending hours in my moose hunting gear watching ten moose vocalizing and mating within 100 yards of me, even hearing their calls at night from my tent. Although I had killed my first moose almost 30 years earlier, I learned more about moose behavior that week than in all my previous hunts. On the last day, still without a good shot at the big bull, I started to wish for moose meat for my family and questioned my dedication to my stickbow. Yet, I was in awe of the experience. With some luck and last-day aggression, I finally got within 20 yards of the herd bull, and a heavy arrow from my 63# longbow found its mark. However, the lessons I learned from that hunt were more valuable than a freezer full of moose meat.

The kind of hunting I do doesn’t just provide a lot time around animals but, more than anything it requires spending many days out in true wilderness landscapes. For me, it’s almost always solo. I’ve come to structure my whole year around being able to disappear into the wilderness for several weeks at a time each year, and, aside from my family, this has become a central focus of my whole life. It’s hard to put into words but cruising around in Alaska’s big country with my bow in hand and 14-20 days of food on my back, knowing I’m unlikely to see another human being, is simply among the best feelings I’ve ever had. And being properly equipped with the right hunting clothes and performance hunting gear only enhances my experience, ensuring comfort and efficiency even in the most demanding conditions.

I really believe that forcing oneself to only take shots under 25 yards is just about the fairest of fair-chase hunting scenarios as we part time amateur predators intentionally work to level the playing field with “full time professional prey” animals. (Even nature’s more refined “full time professional predators” like wolves fail far more often than they succeed.) Years’ worth of my own blown stalks has informed my future stalks, giving me the chance to be more successful next time.

While I value the wilderness time in and of itself, the primal drive of being out there trying to get super close to a mature old ram, billy, bull or buck with my bow adds a level of intensity that I’ve had a hard time finding anywhere else. There’s no doubt that many aspects of the hunt are much harder solo, the flexibility to hunt, hike, eat and sleep however and whenever I want is addicting. After about seven days out solo in true wilderness, I start to notice a change in myself. Everything feels sharper, louder and more intense. Stresses and worries from the “real world” shed from my mind without resistance, and I find a clarity of thought that I long for the rest of the year. In addition to maybe gaining a little extra experience as a hunter, I have no doubt that I return from these hunts a better doctor, citizen, friend, son, husband and father.

On these long hunts I do miss my wife and son but I’ve never felt lonely out there and I’ve never wanted to come home early. If I’m being totally honest, taking an animal early in the hunt is usually a bit of a disappointment because I know I won’t have this experience again for another year. And while I don’t think that carrying a traditional bow is necessary to have this kind of experience, I believe firmly that the added challenge and intensity involved greatly enhances it.

Carrying a traditional bow around by myself for weeks at a time in the Alaskan wilderness is not an efficient way to fill the freezer or put horns on the wall, but it has provided me with many of the best moments of my life.