The Dark Season
Where Does a Hunter’s Mind Go When the Bird Season Ends?
Published by Project Upland Magazine Winter 2022, print issue
It happens to me most winters and this upcoming year will be no exception. When the sun sets way too early and it’s damn cold, hunting seasons always come to a close. None of this helps my mental health. It’s my dark season.
My brain’s chemistry craves summer activities like training, testing, and scouting. Then, glorious fall arrives, and my state of mind shines throughout six months of extensive bird hunting. Suddenly, it all ends. Each year, my mental health takes a nosedive. The happy brain chemicals of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin that I’ve been running on for months dry up. The delight of crisp, early mornings and drive to pound out the miles comes to a standstill as I freeze underneath winter’s blanket.
A number of events made this past end-of-season my worst yet. September started off particularly poorly with my two-year-old Pudelpointer breaking his leg on opening morning. Surgery ensued and dire warnings from our vet about achieving a full recovery were heeded to the tune of four months rest. This had the young gun benched for almost the entire season, but my Wirehaired Pointing Griffon and I still bagged plenty of birds. The next blow came with the loss of a treasured friendship I still mourn. This was followed by my Grandma Jean finally getting her greatest wish of seeing Grandpa Bud again. Then, hunting season ended.
My mind brewed up dark clouds. I turned to cross country skiing with the dogs to keep the storm at bay. But despite a whole hunting season toughening up their paws, I skied them too hard and long. They soon got frostbite and wore through all eight of their pads to various degrees. My attempts at taking care of myself proved destructive on the very critters I love so much.
My therapist knows I end up on her couch about this time of year, but this past winter was different. Eventually, she taught me about a concept that is frequently applied to performers and athletes: post-performance depression. This experience is often seen in those that invest significant physical and mental effort in a concert series or sports season that extends for months, but eventually ends with a hard drop off point. Post-performance depression is described as stemming from a combination of physiological decline and psychological loss of purpose. Sometimes called the body-mind letdown, this often leads to feelings of sadness, listlessness, and irritability. Some experience extreme self-criticism and enact self-harming practices, like substance abuse and eating disorders. My shrink theorized this concept can apply to hunters, especially bird hunters, who build much of their year and lifestyle around their passion of pursuing birds with dogs.
Yes, I know, everyone loves a diagnosis. But words have power in putting a name to something not previously communicable. I started talking to fellow hunters about this concept and it deeply resonated with some, but not with everyone. Some didn’t connect with the word depression because it felt too extreme to describe their experience, but preferred other phrases like “feeling blue” or “just kinda tired-sad” at the end of the year.
The negative stigma of depression and talking about mental health is something the hunting community doesn’t discuss much. I’d like to shoulder-check this topic into the limelight. Everyone’s experiences with depression are unique and personal; this might not resonate with you at all. Additionally, I apologize for the many perspectives I cannot give voice to here. My hope is that a handful of folks might get something out of this discussion as it appears in this winter publication, a time when bird hunting seasons are nearing their end.
“I think in such pursuits like hunting we often see a lot of rugged individualists, and in those circles we might seem less likely to talk about things like mental health. Maybe that’s changing, but certainly not quickly.”
These words are Tristan Henry’s. He’s an Oregon-based hunter working behind his first bird dog, a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Sturg. Henry said his last walks of a hunting season are usually pretty melancholy. He said if he doesn’t keep busy in the weeks that follow, he can feel a little darker. However, he’s come to expect it.
“I think it’s natural that the more deeply we connect to something, the more violent the reaction will be when it leaves our life,” he said. “So when we pack as much into life as we do, it makes the quiet times much harder and the contrast of full days to empty days is so much greater.”
Henry said some bird hunters measure their quality of life in dogs and in hunting seasons. By that logic, a dog’s life is an hourglass with ten or fifteen grains of sand in it. It’s not a whole lot. With Sturg being nearly three, 30 percent of his hunting career may very well be behind him. With that in mind, Henry finds it impossible not to think about just how precious, momentous, and fleeting a bird hunting season is.
“I lost my sister a couple years ago and I’ve been navigating the grief and loss, so lately I’ve been predisposed to feeling especially nostalgic.” Henry said. “Something about the short time we have with them makes bird dogs a potent vehicle for feeling those feelings and of time slipping away.”
I highly resonate with Henry’s description of time with a first bird dog. My own first pup is nine and he’s ever so slightly graying and slowing down. I’m paralyzed by the thought that one day, the weight of his head on my lap each evening will no longer be there.
When talking with a hunting buddy in his 70s that has buried many a dog, I asked him about last season’s passing of Cricket, his 14-year-old German Shorthair Pointer. Larry Kruckenberg said he doesn’t get depressed. But he did say he got “really blue and down for a while,” especially when Cricket’s death coincided with his own torn meniscus and a couple of broken ribs that ended his hunting season abruptly.
There’s little academic research around post-performance depression, but one extensively studied area is depression experienced by athletes with season-ending injuries. The trigger for depression in an injured athlete can be because their season’s end was acute and unexpected. Their physical and mental stimulation suddenly ceases. Comparatively, the end of a hunting season has a known expiration date. Perhaps this public deadline increases the severity of depressive feelings for hunters. Maybe, because of our apathy for these scheduled emotions, it makes it more difficult to cope with the lack of stimulation.
Many athletes describe the phenomenon of post-season blues, said Dr. Davita Burkhead-Weiner, a psychiatrist based in Michigan who is also a competitive tri-athlete.
“There is often a root cause for depression,” she said. “In the situation of a season ending, whether it’s athletics or something else, there is an adjustment period that everyone experiences differently. Everyone’s experience is nuanced and by expressing this you’re bringing a concept to life that could help someone understand a hard place they find themself in.”
Always one to see the humor in hard things, Christy Langston thinks of the end of the hunting year adjustment period like an air mattress. It’s nice when you’re riding high, but it’s terrible to put away. As the mom of two toddlers and owner/operator of Spring River Kennel, her life revolves around those dual jobs.
“Putting the gear away into storage is when I feel it hit,” Langston said when discussing post-performance depression. “I love the prepping and packing and, of course, the implementation of hunting trips, but it’s when the gear needs cleaned and packed away that it really sucks.”
February is her worst month of the whole year. None of Langston’s hobbies or professional commitments are really happening during that month and it’s a strange time for her. The training and testing season is still a ways out, and it’s bone-cold where she lives in Missouri.
She said that social media can also be a mirror of everyone else’s success that makes her feel “less than” with its highlight reel of everyone’s best adventures.
“Certain people have a way of putting things out there that make me feel bad about myself,” she said. “I sometimes get these thoughts when seeing other people’s social media that if I was a man or didn’t have kids I could just go on all the trips I’ve ever dreamed about. But then I feel guilty about that because my family is my everything. It’s a twisted, jealous thing to think about. My babies won’t be in my home forever, so I remind myself to cherish these moments. I cannot keep comparing myself to a 25-year-old without kids and unlimited resources. I have a great life and am so fortunate. I take this into consideration and it gets me through.”
In her triathlon community, Dr. Burkhead-Weiner said there’s a lot of media surrounding the sport. Whether it’s the local club’s Facebook page or the full force of Ironman’s brilliant marketing, there is a lot of content generated online.
“This can lead to the fear of missing out, envy of seeing other people’s wins, and comparing your stats to theirs. It can be really overwhelming,” she said. “The access to this information can give you a reward to strive for the next thing, but the ability to access all of other people’s success on social media platforms can send you down a black hole of reflection.”
Social media certainly feels like a black hole for me at certain times of the year. The forever scrolling and mind-numbing highlight reels of everyone’s best selves can become toxic. Increasingly frustrated by my fascination with this media, I’ve grown to loathe my participation in the system. Taking long, forced breaks and leaving certain platforms altogether are self-care mechanisms that I’m trying to practice more. I see others in my community doing this as well.
Dr. Burkhead-Weiner said other depression management methods can come in the form of physical and mental release. She suggests lining up stimulating activities after your season ends, but solutions are not going to be the same for everyone.
“It’s easy to give advice, but it’s not easy to take it. It’s so hard to see a problem when it’s yours,” she said. “This can blind you to the reality of your situation. There can be some sort of relief or release when you hear your experience reflected by another.”
Having a whole different level of perspective on the topic of post-performance and seeking relief, David Gutierrez spent 11 years in the military with the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) and later worked as a government contractor. He served four tours in Afghanistan and nine tours in Latin America. When he concluded his service, he was “trying to snuff out the frustration” he felt as he returned to a civilian’s life.
“You could compare post-performance depression to coming off a deployment; when you’re so happy to be home, but then you start trying to figure out what’s next,” Gutierrez said. “When I got out, I was all of a sudden out of the cycle of knowing exactly where I was going.”
Finding hunting and bird dogs was a way for Gutierrez to reclaim his time outdoors.
“I got to chase birds and deer, not the Taliban or Al Qaeda,” he said. “There were a lot of things about hunting that were similar to things I enjoyed about my time in the military like hiking, planning, and navigation, but I’m now doing that for myself and my dogs instead of other soldiers.”
Either when facing the end of his military career or the end of the hunting season, Gutierrez said it’s a matter of mindset and perspective to stave off those blues. He tries to have something to look forward to and actively works to find ways to distract himself. Last year, Gutierrez lived and worked out of his Tacoma with his dogs. Then, he met someone, and they acquired a refurbished 1978 Airstream. It underwent more buildouts and electrical projects prior to the 2022 hunting season. Together, Gutierrez and his partner hit the road with three dogs and two cats.
“If I gained anything from the military, it would be that I want to live life on my own terms. I don’t do well with idle time,” he said. “The off-season work of living in the truck or Airstream is filled with planning like how to keep the dogs exercised, finding fresh water/food/fuel, getting a shower every once in a while, etcetera. It can get exhausting, but at the end of the day, I sleep like a king.”
I’m writing these words at the beginning of the 2022 hunting season, but I’m cautiously anticipating its end. With all these anecdotes from great hunters paired with the ways they experience and manage their mental health, the dark season seems much less foreboding. Come January, I have a lot more in my tool belt to face the post-season blues. I’m saving for a trip abroad, and maybe a trailer build-out to make a mobile hunting camp. I’ve also been toying with the idea of running the Utility Test again. Heck, I might try knitting again. But right now, there are birds to be found. Living in the moment with my dogs is all I want.
And need.
