Balancing Hunting and Family Life

We get asked about this more than almost anything else — how do you disappear into the backcountry for a week or more and still show up for your marriage and your kids? We don’t think there’s a perfect formula. Every marriage is different, every family has different demands, and hunting means something different to everybody who does it. Also, we are far from perfect, but we damn sure give a good effort.

But between the two of us, we’ve made plenty of mistakes and picked up a few things that actually work. Here’s what we’ve learned.

Where it’s gone wrong

Let’s start with the bad, because it’s the more useful place to start.

Running on empty before we even left

The trips that have gone worst are the ones where we were already running on empty before we even left. Maybe it was a work trip, late nights at the office, no date nights for weeks — and then the hunt date shows up and it’s immovable. You drew the tag. The money’s nonrefundable. Years went into it. So you go, even though the timing is bad, because the alternative is losing the opportunity entirely. And your spouse is left at home already stretched thin, and now she’s more stretched thin, and she’s not happy about it. That’s not a hunting problem. That’s a planning problem that hunting just happened to expose.

Going dark

Communication is the other big one. Not emergency-level stuff — we haven’t had to deal with that, knock on wood — but just being a sounding board. A quick check-in once a day so she knows you’re thinking about her. Going dark for days at a time isn’t rugged, it’s just inconsiderate. “I couldn’t get ahold of you, I was worried” makes the time move a lot slower for the person back home.

Not being straight about cost and timeline

Then there’s the money and timeline honesty. Not being straight about what a tag actually costs, or promising “I’ll be back by Halloween” and then a once-of-a-lifetime bull shows up and suddenly you’re not. Overpromise, underdeliver — that’s the fastest way to burn trust.

Leaving things a wreck

Garage in disarray, lawn not mowed, weeds everywhere they shouldn’t be, nothing prepped — now she’s doing bedtime solo and looking at a mess on top of it, with zero payoff for any of it.

What’s actually worked

Communicate early

Even the inconvenient stuff. Telling your spouse in March that you’re going to miss Halloween goes a lot better than telling her in September. “I drew this tag, this is the plan, I know it means missing trick-or-treating — but let’s do a Halloween movie night before I leave to make up for it.” Say it early enough that it’s a conversation, not an announcement.

Have a real plan for staying in touch

Preloaded messages on a Garmin inReach, checking in when you have service, being upfront about how much contact she should expect based on where you’re headed. You don’t need to be glued to your phone out there — one check-in a night goes a long way. “Thinking about you and the kids, we’re safe, we’re having a good time, I love you.” That’s it. That’s the whole message.

Be present the rest of the year

We’re not golfing every weekend or disappearing every Saturday for something else. We work hard, we handle the house, we show up for family trips, we spend our weekends with our wives and kids. So when hunting season rolls around and we want a few trips to the mountains, it’s a reasonable ask — not a pattern. Your spouse notices what you do all year, not just what you ask for once a season.

Do the prework

Take her on a date or spend time with her every week. Ask for the honey-do list two weeks out — “What do you need done before I leave?” — and actually do it. Fix things, replenish things, don’t leave projects hanging. It’s a small thing that tells her you were thinking about her before you even left.

Underpromise, overdeliver

If the trip could run ten days, tell her ten — even if you’re planning to buffer and come home in seven or eight. “We’re headed home early” is a great text to get. “Sorry, we’re staying an extra day” is not.

Come home with something for everybody

Not just the freezer. The meat matters, but honestly your spouse probably cares more about hearing “I had such a good time, I feel recharged, that was exactly what I needed” than about how much backstrap made it home. She’ll love the pack of Diet Coke and the kids will appreciate seeing a surprise treat when you walk through the door a lot more than you’d expect.

Give each other room to stay individuals

Marriage and parenting take up a huge part of who you are — and that’s not a bad thing. But a healthy relationship still leaves room for both people to chase the things that make them feel like themselves. For us, that’s hunting. For your wife, it might be something completely different — travel, friends, art, running, her own career. It doesn’t have to be a perfectly even trade to be mutually supportive.

Come home when it’s time

If you fill your tag early, don’t stretch it out just because you can. Nobody’s ever been disappointed by the truck pulling in a day early.

But family still comes first

There are times the plan has to change. If your spouse looks at you and says “I need you home,” there are moments where the right call is to head home. You know your spouse. You know your kids. You know when something’s actually wrong.

That said, a planned trip that’s been on the calendar for months shouldn’t get cancelled just because the week arrives and being apart suddenly feels hard. That’s when the harder conversation happens — why does this trip matter to me, what’s making this week feel overwhelming, what can I do before I leave to make it easier, is there a way to keep this commitment without leaving her underwater. Sometimes the answer is still “stay home.” Sometimes it’s not. Knowing the difference has more to do with knowing your spouse than following any rule anybody could write down.

The bigger picture

Hunting and being a family man don’t have to compete with each other. But making room for both takes intention.

Plan early. Be present the rest of the year. Don’t let your own hobbies eat every free weekend. Make the trips you do take count. Prep your family for the days you’re gone. Give your spouse the same room to be an individual that you’re asking for yourself. Stick to the plans you make together — and be willing to change them when your family genuinely needs you to.

The mountains will always matter to us. But we keep getting to go back to them because of what we’ve built at home — not in spite of it.

— Cole Hally & Casey Evans