5 things on your bucket list

So, I've had a bucket list for a really long time, basically since I was able to create a list in excel. My Mom was big on the bucket list, she had one when she graduated college, and finally checked the last one off about 7 years ago when they went to Africa. In her mind she'll die content with her life having set out to achieve a set of goals and then following through on the choices and decisions, effort and struggles necessary to check those boxes.

I have a bit of a different take on lists. I don't ever want to check them all. There should always be more I want to do, something to look forward to.

There are currently 46 things on my list and I haven't updated it in years. There are clearly things on there that I really don't want anymore. And there are things on there that will never happen. But every time I check one off I try to add two more. A few that HT might find entertaining

1. Publish a book
2. Tarpon on a fly, DIY (I had several chances in Belize in 8th grade, but was too nervous, the fish were too big, like "me" big, and all I brought was 12 lb tippet)
3. Kill a big bull in WA
4. Month long wilderness trip, maybe river trip
5. Wild and native steelhead on a skated dry
...
6. Maximize the amount of days I get to see my wife in a bikini- it still gets me every time.

I should add get a friggin' limit of chukar, it's only f-in' 6, but it could honestly happen any day (though I've been saying it for almost 10 years). It all boils down to getting a little too excited when they flush, and not hunting a bit further south.
 
My bucket list has been changing a lot lately as priorities in my life are changing. Just goes to show as you get older, and this depends on your personal life, what is important is radically different. At least that is how it has been for me. We have had our last child so our 3 babies is all we will ever have. All of them are 5 years apart (idk wtf we were thinking doing that)

My priority's have shifted to 100% focus on experiences and memories for my kids. Its not a situation that I live for my kids, its a desire to live and be around my kids. As I hit this strange point in life I'm more interested and taking in every moment with my family as you just never know when one is either gone or when you are gone. Deep I know, weird point in my life. Some would call it a mid life crisis, but I'm not seeing that corvette in my garage.

1. Finally do that Alaska fishing trip with my dad
2. Enjoy a quiet vacation with my family doing nothing but fishing and spending quality time together.
3. Be at every sporting event my kids are involved in.
4. Spend more time with my close friends.
5. Take my wife somewhere new every year.
 
OntarioHunter said:
So what more could I ask for? Indeed, asking the Maker for more would seem greedy. I have given serious thought to an Ibex hunt in one of the "stans" but recent events in that neck of the woods are a bit unsettling. Especially since I would be traveling with a US passport. I might take my grandson to Africa for one last hunt. That would be an adventure he wouldn't forget. Ever. My bucket wish is for my great great grandkids to know and appreciate what I've accomplished. If I can live my bucket list, so can they. They have my blood.
Click to expand...
When my grandpa did his Marco Polo hunt, he was hunting 5 miles from the Afghan border when the US invaded Afghanistan. r. He was supposed to go with a friend the year before (2001), but 9/11 happened, they rescheduled for the following year. His friend backed out due to the tensions in the middle east then.

Hunt of a lifetime, but holy hell the traveling must've been unnerving.
 
As far as hunting trips go, I really have little on my bucket list.

Sheep in the MT Absaroka-Beartooth Unlimiteds is about the only thing. Not because I really want a sheep, but because I spend so much time up there in the summer and just want the experience of this hunt. It falls during the start of upland season, tho, which is also falconry season so priorities happen. Ive bought the tag maybe 5 times now and have yet to foot in the mountains after Sept 1 with a rifle in hand.

Fishing is a whole other story.

Id like to take a month or so driving, camping, hiking, and fishing my way through Alberta then thru the Yukon ending in the Tombstones, doing some hiking and fishing there. Ive fished southern Alberta quite a bit, but havent fished anything north of Calgary/Banff.

Ive tried to book a charter float for a DIY float on one of the North Slope rivers in Alaska and would still like to make this happen at some point. There are no salmon up there since the ocean is too cold, but there are anadromous dolly varden that spend summer in the ocean and come back into the rivers in the early fall to overwinter. The problem has been this corresponds with hunting seasons and charter flights are hens teeth, seemingly, especially in the time frames that Ive tried to get them (ie last summer for this coming August -- couldnt get one).

Huh, thats all I can think of. So, there is 5:

1. Fly a barbary falcon.
2. Own the Magic card Wheel of Fortune.
3. Hunt one or more of the Unlimited districts.
4. Camp/fish/hike northern Alberta and the Yukon.
5. Wilderness float down one of the North Slope rivers (I know which one, but Im not saying).


If Im adding things that arent just 'me, me, me', then Ill add:

6. Help my nephew kill his first deer (hopefully this year!).
7. Take my wife to all the places she wants to go (which often also involves fishing for me, so thats a double win!).
 
Such an impossible task.

Hunting/fishing:

1- Kill a ram. Any ram.
2- Get back to Alaska for a moose hunt.
3- Have at least one hunt with my sons and dad together.
4- Land a blue marlin. Been so close.
5- Have an awesome hunt to look forward to each year.

Life:

1- See my kids grow up to be amazing like their mother.
2- Summit the Tetons
3- Visit/hunt New Zealand with my wife. Planning for 2024.
4- Visit Southeast Asia again with my wife (Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Maldives)
5- Die in my sleep like my grandpa, or die fighting a grizz.
 
KB_ said:
My bucket list has been changing a lot lately as priorities in my life are changing. Just goes to show as you get older, and this depends on your personal life, what is important is radically different. At least that is how it has been for me. We have had our last child so our 3 babies is all we will ever have. All of them are 5 years apart (idk wtf we were thinking doing that)

My priority's have shifted to 100% focus on experiences and memories for my kids. Its not a situation that I live for my kids, its a desire to live and be around my kids. As I hit this strange point in life I'm more interested and taking in every moment with my family as you just never know when one is either gone or when you are gone. Deep I know, weird point in my life. Some would call it a mid life crisis, but I'm not seeing that corvette in my garage.

1. Finally do that Alaska fishing trip with my dad
2. Enjoy a quiet vacation with my family doing nothing but fishing and spending quality time together.
3. Be at every sporting event my kids are involved in.
4. Spend more time with my close friends.
5. Take my wife somewhere new every year.
Click to expand...
#3 IS very important, quit a job to watch a daughter at a track & field day.....30 years later, still glad I did!!
as to the CORVETTE- Bought a Big Block,1973 vette/t tops....collected more tickets in one summer than previous 25 years.........Most uncomfortable vehicle I ever had !!!! so glad I sold it off !!!
 
I don't really have a bucket list, but for the last few years I've made up a list of outdoor activities to do that year. All things that I could easily do, but don't, and they go back on the list for the next year. Seems like there all always reasons not to accomplish these simple goals. This year I've come up with a new plan, to actually write down dates to do these activities. Haven't finalized the dates yet 😀.
 
Really bucket list for ME alone is easy. My wife and I talked about about our 40th birthdays. I was gonna go hunt a Yukon a moose and she was gonna have a girls trip to a beach (I easily win that). Then @Oak called me in June to tell me I won a mountain goat tag and he put my bucket listen item on hold. And I wouldn’t change anything. I have several family goals and such, but literal bucket list….. Yukon moose.
 
I have always had a "list" of places that I'd like to duck hunt, but there are a few other hunts that I'd like to take:

Hunting List
Alaska hunt for brant, emperor gooose and pacific eider
Greenland hunt for the king eider(better chance to see northern lights when there too)
Platte River hunt for mallards
Kill a respectable 4x4 mule deer
Hunt the Delta Marsh

Life List
See my son become the man he is close to becoming and see him start a family
Continue to see my daughter have a successful career and family
Take my wife on as many cross country trips as we can afford
Retire by the time I am 60 and be debt free
When I die, die somewhere doing what I enjoy(not in a hospital bed)
 
duck wrangler said:
I have always had a "list" of places that I'd like to duck hunt, but there are a few other hunts that I'd like to take:

Hunting List
Alaska hunt for brant, emperor gooose and pacific eider
Greenland hunt for the king eider(better chance to see northern lights when there too)
Platte River hunt for mallards
Kill a respectable 4x4 mule deer
Hunt the Delta Marsh

Life List
See my son become the man he is close to becoming and see him start a family
Continue to see my daughter have a successful career and family
Take my wife on as many cross country trips as we can afford
Retire by the time I am 60 and be debt free
When I die, die somewhere doing what I enjoy(not in a hospital bed)
Click to expand...
That's the way to do this. I presumed the OP was asking about outdoors bucket list but life, especially family, list is or should be equally if not more important. My life list is as short as my hunting list. I've lived in so many interesting places working so many interesting and rewarding jobs. That list was filled to overflowing long before I retired. My family bucket list was cut short when my wife and son died twelve years ago. I suppose my only bucket list item of any significance, either outdoors or life, would be to live long enough to see my daughter get a degree. High school would suffice. She's a great mother and never been into drugs, booze, or smoking so there's that to be thankful for. Very thankful. But it's just not enough in the 21st century. I worry about her. And second on the short life list would be to build a closer relationship with my other daughter by an earlier failed marriage. She lives in Baltimore. Been there once. I can't go back. Her mom put her on a very poor footing for life and then dumped her. Quite sad. But Holly has also kept her nose clean and I am proud of her for that. She has a free ticket to come here and hoping to see her soon. She is in her forties and my daughter Jessie is 31. They have never met face to face. Fixing that is long overdue.
 
1) Moose
2) Mountain Caribou
3) Kill as many coyotes as possible
4) 40 lb plus Chinook Salmon
5) Get exited about a goat/sheep. For whatever reason they don't excite me.
 
NAHMINT said:
#3 IS very important, quit a job to watch a daughter at a track & field day.....30 years later, still glad I did!!
as to the CORVETTE- Bought a Big Block,1973 vette/t tops....collected more tickets in one summer than previous 25 years.........Most uncomfortable vehicle I ever had !!!! so glad I sold it off !!!
Click to expand...
I turned down an awesome job offer recently because my daughter is gonna play soccer this year and I would have had to work during most of her games with the new job schedule. It was a tough decision but seeing this makes me know I did the right thing.
 
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