Whew, I don’t know about you, but hunting has been tough for me so far this year.

I pulled back on a couple of deer, but there was a small bush in the way. I took a half step to the left for a clear shot and they spooked. It doesn’t take much to send an arrow off track.

I was mainly elk hunting but wasn’t doing any good on them either. I used to think I was a good hunter. Now, I don’t know.

Ever since I became an outdoor writer, things went south. Maybe I never was any good and just forgot the bad years. You know, a selective memory thing. Now I have to painfully write out every hunt and why after teaching all of these calling seminars and writing numerous how-to articles, I can’t even fill a tag.

Plus, now there’s Facebook, Instagram, email, etc., where every city-slicking nerd is posting pics daily of the big bulls and bucks that they are slaying. And as if that isn’t bad enough, now everyone knows I’m an outdoor writer, so they gleefully come up and I get shown pics of the huge buck their kid got or the bull that their little 12-year-old shot. Just today while leaving church, a guy I know pulled out his phone and showed me a pic of the huge buck that his son just got and then, oh yeah, he said he had to show me a pic of the antelope he got.

Next week, I’m sure the same guy will be showing me pics of the buck that his daughter-in-law shot. His son and her both drew buck tags in a primo area, as well as antelope tags. Ugh! By the end of the season, I’m going to need counseling the way this is playing out so far.

And what about my sponsors? They’re all sitting here waiting on an article with a pic of me flaunting a huge buck crediting their product for enabling me to be able to harvest it. No biggie, I’m telling them. I’m passing all the smaller stuff waiting on a big un’. What’s going to happen on the day of reckoning? I can see it now. That big moment comes. They open the newspaper or magazine expecting to see me with a new world record, only to gasp in horror as I’m sitting there beside a spindly spike. And, even then, I had to shave his head so you could see his nubs.

Whew, luckily, it’s Halloween. My daughter texted me and told me she’d found the perfect mask. It was a beard and face impersonating the Duck Dynasty guys. I told her to grab me one. Little does she know my ulterior motive. I’m going to wear it the rest of the season.

That way when I’m walking down the street no one stops me and asks me if I’ve got my deer and elk yet. Then gleefully finish up the conversation by whipping out their cellphone and showing me the monster they just harvested.

Why do the biggest dorks always get the biggest bucks and bulls? Is there no justice in the world? Or is God just keeping me humble? Or, am I just not a very good hunter? Well regardless. If you suddenly see one of the Duck Dynasty guys furtively scurrying down the street, trying to remain obscure. It’s not Willy and the family, it’s just me trying to hide out.

Let me be. I’ll be back to normal as soon as I can kill something. A little trick photography to make it look huge for the article and I’ll have my cap on backwards popping off like normal. But until then, it’s a humble crow pie eating life for me.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.