KEEP IT SIMPLE by Travis See

I was barely as tall as the shotgun I carried trekking through snow as high as my knees.  Looking back on my introduction to hunting, my biggest take away is my dad teaching my brother & I how to walk, talk, and constantly be looking while in the woods.  Otherwise it was your standards deer drives.  We were the sitters since we couldn’t keep up with the pushers.  We didn’t have heated hunting blinds, scopes on our guns, or trail cameras back then.  We had the basics.

Nowadays things are different.  We no longer party hunt.  We mainly focus on hunting separate pieces of ground & sharing in each other’s successes, stories, and strategies.  And now I am a father myself.

As a solo hunter the past 10+ years now, I will say my biggest challenge has been slowing myself down to focus on the goal. Simplicity is still key.  As far as gear goes, I am a minimalist.  My goal is to get close to my prey and I’ve come to realize doing so mainly requires patience & planning.  3 years ago, I added to my hunting goals by taking my (then) 2-year-old daughter deer hunting with me.  I will admit, we used a ground blind to get her accustomed to hunting.  However, our most successful hunt happened recently during Iowa’s archery season, on October 24, 2020, when I shot what you could call my target buck.  We sat on the ground with only a couple downed trees for cover, the same way I sat as a kid waiting on deer drives with my dad.

It’s not as crazy, dumb, or hard as some guys make it seem to succeed on your own OR with a child, and it doesn’t require anything fancy or extravagant.  Just keep it simple.

-TRAVIS SEE