TRCP staff share some of their favorite hunting and fishing memories from this past October and November

For many of TRCP’s staff, fall is the season we wait all year to enjoy. The fishing is amazing, hunting seasons arrive, and the stories of past Octobers and Novembers fuel us to make new memories. Below are a few of those new memories and also some anticipation of those to come.

These moments remind us why we step into the arena to work to safeguard the habitats, access, and traditions that make memories like these possible.

We hope you enjoy.

Kris Coston, TRCP Nevada Field Representative

October 2025 was an especially special month for our family because it was my 12-year-old daughter Wren’s first big game hunt. She drew an excellent mule deer tag in our home unit, and we could not have been more excited. I had been dreaming of this day ever since I first looked down into her little blue eyes.

We have been fishing and hunting small game together for years, but as the opening day of deer season drew closer, so many emotions and feelings surfaced that I was not sure how to handle them all. Excitement, nervousness, hopefulness, anxiety, amazement, jittery nausea, fear, pride, love, and unspoken expectations. Thank heavens Wren saw what I was going through and could talk me down.

My little girl was cool, confident, and collected. She really did it all. In preparation for the season, she shot boxes of ammo to hone her aim. Then when the hunting started, she hiked, glassed until dark, explored miles of dirt roads, and got up before the sun time and time again. We laughed, we teased, and we hung out. We found big mature bucks, little dinks, and one buck that was just meant to be.

On a windy and chilly morning on our 24th day of hunting, it all came together.  We had been trying to relocate a big 4×4 that a friend had seen the day before when we spotted a nice 3×3 running up and over a hill across the canyon from us.

“No, that one is too small, let’s keep hunting the big one,” I said. 

Wren looked me square in the eyes and replied, “Dad if you don’t let me shoot this buck, I’m going to start hunting on my own!”

I knew no matter how much I wanted the hunt to continue; I needed to listen to my daughter.

We quickly spotted the buck moving along a ridge. The wind was howling, and the shot had a steep uphill angle at 154 yards. All those emotions from earlier came flooding back. Wren quickly calmed me down and without hesitation dropped into a prone position, settled the crosshairs behind the front shoulder, and squeezed off a shot that laid the buck over in his tracks.

Beaming with pride, I said, “You got him girl!” and then received the best hug of my life!

I still remember my first deer hunt all the way back in 1991 with my grandpa in Jarbidge, Nevada. I was so excited to be out there with him, and that excitement is why I work in conversation: to preserve these opportunities for generations to come, just like the deer hunt I shared with my daughter.

Liz Rose, Colorado Program Manager

Fall has, for as long as I can remember, stirred in me a nervous, wild energy. It was rowdy fall dirt biking and camping trips in my teens, snowboard season anticipation in college, then watching waterfowl migrate overhead and wondering when and where deer would be moving in my 20s.    

Now I’m in the midst of pregnancy and toddler wrangling, reminding myself to make the most of the little outings I’m capable of. To be patient with myself, to enjoy the playgrounds and parks close to home, and to look forward to sharing the beauty and awe of nature with soon-to-be TWO little boys. Now, more than ever, I appreciate the wide range of public land and public access options we have in Colorado that support our health and wellbeing through life’s many stages, and I’ll always stand up to protect that.  

I think parents are all intimately familiar with an internal tension, rising and falling as the layers of our identities feel at times cohesive, and at other times like they’re repelling one another. I once confidently ran a 50K trail race, now rushing up the stairs leaves me panting. But being a parent is so joyous, so fulfilling, and I’ll be able to crush hills again someday too…right?  

To all of you seasoned, outdoorsy parents who have told me with so much sincerity and love how the things we like to do are even sweeter and more rewarding when we get to do them with our kids, THANK YOU. I am immensely thankful to have so many awesome parent role models in the hunting and fishing space. You make a new parent like me extra excited for all the seasons to come.  

Noah Davis, TRCP Communications Manager

There are few creatures that epitomize October in the East better than red-bellied brookies and mullet-headed wood ducks. This October, I was lucky enough to enjoy both as I spent time in the Appalachian Mountains.  

Thanks to welcoming stream-access laws, I’d spend the hour before shooting light wading into a wood duck hole to wait for their high-pitched calls and careening flights over the sycamores to arrive with the the first rays to break over the ridge. Shooting was fast and difficult in those gray minutes, but the river gifted me enough of the acorn-fat birds to make a good meal. 

As the sun rose and the birds stopped flying, I traded the shotgun for a rod and went to the hollows to find pre-spawn brook trout. Low water made the fish wary, so every little char to hand was met with a short celebration before releasing them back into the pool. 

It’s easy to pass a day in October, and now that the golden window of that month has closed, I miss it. But rifle deer season is still ahead.  

Alex Aguirre, TRCP Wyoming Community Coordinator

There’s nothing quite like hunting with your best friend. They’re someone you can count on when the loads are heavy, for a joke when the rain won’t let up, and to wake you up from a nap during a glassing session. 

When my best friend and college roommate, Andrew Walker, pulled a coveted Wyoming elk rifle tag, we immediately made plans for a backcountry elk hunt in mid-October in a spot we’ve had luck before. However, after getting a truck stuck attempting to reach the trailhead, we had to pivot and hunt some new areas with the truck and horse trailer we still had in our possession while we waited for the first road to dry out.  

After an uneventful evening and morning hunt, we glassed some elk in a new zone from afar and decided to take the horses back in there in hopes of getting lucky. This road was not quite as muddy as the first, but we still ended up parking before the end of the road and riding the horses the rest of the way. A few miles later, we were on a great glassing knob as temperatures cooled before sunset.  

A few cows fed out of the timber, so we hustled their direction. They ended up slipping away, but we continued on in hopes a bull would follow. With about 30 minutes left of legal shooting light, I threw my binos up on a timbered hillside and glassed a lone 6×6 feeding. He was in range, and Andrew made a clean shot and harvested his best bull to date. But the fun wasn’t over. 

As we were breaking his bull down, a curious grizzly appeared in the darkness. Luckily, we were able to shuttle the meat off the hill without any true troubles from the grizzly, loaded the elk up on the horses, and began our midnight trek back to the truck. We slept well that night, and retrieved the stuck truck the next day on the way back home.  

When Plan A does not work out, move on to Plan B.  

Tristan Henry, TRCP Oregon Field Representative

I traded my usual archery elk hunt and ten days in the Eagle Cap Wilderness of northeast Oregon to call and pack for my friend Ryan Hibler’s out-of-state elk tag. At first it felt like I was giving something up, but the hills cured me of that. Bugles came steady as clock chimes across the sage flats and the aspen-gold hewn draws. We drank coffee in the dark and the bulls answered from somewhere just out of sight. By noon we lay in the shade near covers and I dreamed of grouse. I thought about my bird dogs five hundred miles away. 

A month and change later, I am sitting with Hal, my seven-month-old GSP, who is panting through a mouthful of grouse feathers. The unseasonable warmth of this November afternoon gives me the excuse I need to trade my rifle for a double gun and go for a grouse walk. I gently place the black-collared male ruffie in my vest and we resume our track. Hal plows energetically through hawthorn while I take the slow line up a game trail, stop, listen and then move again. Another bird comes up through the tangled branches like a small explosion, and all other thoughts yield to the singularity of the flush.  

I have time to fill the freezer later. 

Ryan Chapin, Montana Field Manager

It’s mid-November in Montana, and that means the mule deer rut.  The only hitch is that reaching the backcountry camp where my son, Quinn, and I hunt isn’t easy. A steep climb over loose shale and grass with slippery ponderosa pine needles underfoot always tests our legs, lungs, and nerves on the slope. And this time we brought company. With our packs loaded with three days’ worth of gear, Quinn, his friend Cian, Cian’s dad, Rory, and I were up to the challenge. 

Our camp sat on a south-facing slope in important winter range. Fresh elk sign greeted us early, and later in the week, we found the herd but couldn’t locate a legal bull. On day two, Cian harvested a muley buck, and we were grateful for camp meat to roast over the fire. Over the three days, my son and I spent hours glassing mule deer does, spikes, and fork-horn bucks.  We soaked in the rare and precious November sunshine. 

While Quinn nor I harvested a deer, we were content knowing that we helped Cian kill a buck, and that we had this opportunity to spend quality time together in the hills. It’s adventures like this, sharing stories under star-filled skies while warming our feet by the fire with a piece of venison on a stick hovering over the flames, that help me feel truly part of the landscape rather than a mere observer. These experiences remind me why working in conservation matters and why ensuring hunting’s future on lands accessible to all is so meaningful. 

Photo credit: Ryan Chapin (Feature), All photos are provided by respective staffers.

From now through the end of the year, you can step into the arena of conservation and make a tax-deductible contribution to ensure hunting and fishing memories like those above continue for generations to come.