2024 Was the Best Hunting Season of My Life

By Dan Stuewe, MTI Athlete Team

I didn’t harvest a single animal.

I lost arrows, spent money on new gear, obsessed over trail-camera feeds, and put a lot of miles on my truck. But the freezer is empty.

Before this year, I hunted whitetail twice in New York in 2022. And before that year, I can’t recall any trips to the woods within the previous decade. I missed it terribly, but I never motivated myself to get back out there to recon, prepare the area, and hunt like I used to in my mid-30s.

I will never consider myself a skilled hunter. I grew up in northeast Ohio and would upland hunt birds with my uncle. I didn’t hunt for whitetail until 2006 when my operations sergeant took me out to a friend’s farm in Kentucky, after we completed a deployment to Iraq…I was 27 years old. I still remember almost everything about that trip—from the gas-station biscuit sandwich in the morning, to coming home late at night with blood all over my boots and pants. I remember walking into our 900 square-foot on Fort Campbell, to a tired wife and one-year-old son that didn’t understand why I was in such a good mood. I’m still friends with my old operations sergeant to this day. His name is Jeff Hunter (seriously), and he still hunts to fill his freezer.

Fast-forward to 2024. It was the best hunting season of my life because of the time spent on relationships and the memories we made. I had forgotten that being outdoors with friends and family slows your brain down and allows you to appreciate the gift of being alive. I thought I wanted to get back in the woods to kill something—which is partially true—but I forgot that the simple pleasure of hunting is the time you get with friends and family in an environment you all appreciate. We never left the woods after a hunt in a bad mood.

The family aspect of hunting is probably the easiest to understand. This was the first time I got out with my son and daughter on multiple occasions in one season. I hunted most with my teenage daughter because my son is away from the nest, in college. But he and I did our first duck hunt together, freezing our asses off in East Kansas. The only ducks we hit were the decoys, but the only thing I remember is how much fun we had. My daughter and I sat multiple times in a tree-stand, watching does pass as she giggled at their behavior. I could have taken a shot, but I was worried that I’d miss, and my daughter would think I was a failure or wonder why I took a doe, not a buck like my friends had done.

I embarked on my first elk hunt in Colorado with three close friends. We now refer to that hunt as an overpriced backpacking trip. On scouting day, we saw one herd with a nice bull, but never saw an elk after that. However, I wouldn’t think twice to do that weekend all over again even if it yielded the same results, because I cannot recall a time that I felt freer, laughed harder, and stared at sunrises and sunsets that made me grateful to breathe air into my lungs.

Make no mistake, I would have been grateful to stock the freezer. But I’ve had past seasons that put meat on the table, and none of those seasons helped me to grow wiser or caused me to be more appreciative of the gifts I’ve received than 2024.