4 Tips to Stay Motivated in a Tough Bow Season

It happens to all of us, and if it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. A tough bow season can really take the wind out of your sails, but it isn’t over yet. We wait all year for hunting season, so we can’t let a few (or more than a few) disappointments in season ruin the rest of it for us. I am having a tough bow season this year myself, but I have been here before. Here are 4 tips to staying motivated during a hunting season that just isn’t going your way.

1. It is okay to lower your expectations

It is very natural for expectations to slowly fall during season, but at what point is it okay to get rid of them all together?

As soon as you are feeling highly unmotivated to continue hunting, or hunting isn’t becoming fun, it is time to lower your expectations.

What I mean by this, is that sometimes it is important to take a day of hunting that isn’t about chasing that big buck that you’ve had on camera for two months, and can’t seem to get a glimpse of in the daylight. You need to remember why you started hunting in the first place. First of all, hunting is fun! Or, it should be at least. Second, you probably were quite motivated by the meat when you first started. Lastly, spending quality time with friends and family has always been a key reason that I love hunting.

There is no doubt that I push these three things to the back burner when I am in the dog days of bow season, chasing a seemingly impossible task, and getting burnt out.

It is okay to lower your expectations. It is okay to shoot a doe, or a smaller buck than you intended. Take a kid hunting, or go small game hunting with a friend for a day. Hunting season is only here once a year, don’t let it overwhelm you and make you forgot why you started hunting in the first place.

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2. Stay off social media

There are a lot of scenarios where you could insert this sentence in life, and it would be a positive sentiment pretty much everywhere. Social media highlights only the positives in life.

You might follow an old high school friend, and be jealous of the life they show off on social media. They have the house, the wife, the kids, the great job, the amazing hobbies, etc... What you don’t see is the mortgage, the stress of taking care of a young family, the overworked/underpaid hours at work, and the many hobbies that have been given up on.

Hunting on social media is identical. If you were to look at my social media, you might think that I never have had a bad day of hunting. What isn’t shown on there is the hundreds of hours spent driving home from unsuccessful hunts, the thousands of dollars that feel wasted on tags and gas, the misses, the difficult track jobs, the freezing hands and feet in the treestand, I could go on...

The point is that social media shows only the good, and it shows only what people want you to see. If you compare your hunting success (or lack thereof) to a hunting influencer on social media, you are sure to be disappointed. For this reason, I have made my personal account private and haven’t posted in almost 2 years. I don’t feel a need to contribute to the false image of reality that social media paints in hunting, and don’t feel like you need to either. When your friends kill a big buck, they will text you a picture and call you with a story of how tough it was and how it probably wasn’t a perfect hunt.

When your season gets tough, stay off social media. Put more time and thought into your own season, and less into others’.

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3. Take a cheat day

This one really ties into the first point. Let’s say you are burnt out and frustrated, but you just can’t wrap your head around giving up on that buck. This happens to me pretty much every year. I then take a cheat day.

A cheat day in the woods for me is when I go out with the sole intention of shooting a doe. I am always looking for a lone doe, and the first mature doe without fawns that shows up will do. If I am feeling particularly burnt out, I take a rifle with me. There is nothing wrong with this.

Forgetting about that buck and focusing only on shooting a doe for a day does wonders for my motivation. First of all, you don’t need to be picky. Any mature lone doe will do, so it’s not like you are waiting on that one buck who might be miles from your property at any given time. Second, since your chances of success have skyrocketed on this ‘cheat day’, you are going to suddenly have a massive burst of motivation. Third, when you do harvest that doe and get some blood on your hands, it is going to feel refreshing. You have gotten back in the game, you remember what it feels like to have success, and you have contributed to your freezer.

Take a few days off hunting and process that deer, and you are going to feel unbelievably motivated to get back out there and continue chasing that buck.

I know what some of you are thinking, it might not be a good idea to shoot a doe in an area where you are chasing a buck. Yes and no. I find that it has never mattered in my area. In fact, I remember a cheat day I took a couple of years back, where I had shot a doe with a rifle and while I was about 200 yards away from my camera, quietly field dressing her, I got a notification on my phone that there were deer at my camera. It was only minutes after legal light, a gun shot and a pretty lively commotion had just happened 200 yards away, and my target buck was off minding his own business without a care in the world.

He hung around despite there being one less doe in the area. I didn’t notice any change in his activity, and I shot him two weeks later. I don’t think it matters in a lot of areas as long as you are quiet, and selective. If you are worried about it, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding permission for another area just to harvest a doe.

An early November doe that I had taken (with a Tooth of the Arrow XL S-series) after a frustrating two months of chasing a mostly nocturnal buck. A few weeks later, I caught up with him in the rut, and this doe gave me a lot of motivation to keep going out for the rest of season. Very thankful for the meat, motivation, and experience that she provided me.

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4. Bowhunters are allowed to rifle hunt too!

Again, this ties into the last point – but I feel strongly enough about this one that it needs it’s own section.

As hardcore bowhunters, it can be really easy to turn your nose up at rifle hunting. Don’t do that, we are all on the same team here. When season is coming to an end and I don’t have a full freezer, out comes the rifle. I feel no guilt or shame.

Rifle hunting is fun, especially for bowhunters! In fact, I believe that the most dangerous hunter in the woods is a bowhunter with a rifle in his hands. It is amazing how much fun a day of rifle hunting can be after a long bow season. The first time you see an animal at 250 yards and remember that you can lie down and shoot it from there is just surreal. Picking up a rifle doesn’t make you ‘not a bowhunter’.

Enough with the silly labels, just go hunting. Have fun, do your best to find success, and remember why you started hunting in the first place. Fun, meat, and memories. If you are lucky enough to be spending time in the woods, you need to be thankful for each and every minute of it no matter how challenging and defeating it may get. Remember that you will have an ‘up year’ again, but only if you stay motivated and keep putting miles on your boots.

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If you have any questions or would like to discuss the topic further, please feel free to reach out to us at sales@toothofthearrowbroadheads.com

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