Why do some guys always kill a big buck or big bull on every hunt they go on? Why do some guys, even though giving it their personal best, always come up less than they hoped? Why is this? I guess it boils down to who tries the hardest while being the smartest. Hunting is an odds game and when you title yourself a trophy hunter your odds get a whole lot slimmer. I am deeply jealous of hunters that truly just want to have good time and a good experience no matter the outcome. Not me! No, I am always saddled with intense pressure and huge self imposed expectations for success. It is who I am. I have been a full blown trophy hunting maniac for as long as I can remember. This post will focus on trophy hunting.We will not talk about the importance of preseason preparation in this post. Preseason scouting is detrimental to the success of any trophy hunt. Without it you are just hoping to get lucky. I am not lucky and I have never been lucky. Let's assume we have already scouted.
I have learned that for me to be consistently successful, I have to work as hard as I can and do it as smart as I can. I guess it all begins with getting an early morning start with a good plan. Every serious hunter starts early. We start extra early. Game animals are always more at ease in the dark. They know they can't be seen and hence will tolerate alot more in the dark. Even if our morning plan starts at the truck we will still arrive and park at least an hour early. This just allows time for things to settle down and get quiet before daylight. Arriving and parking right at daylight puts everything on alert right at prime time. We start early, ridiculously early most mornings. If other hunters arrive right at daylight and bugger things up than we deal with it, but it wasn't us that did it. I can't stand being beat to a spot. We remedy this by making sure we are first to our areas every time, no matter what. Also, our daily plans are precise and coordinated, not just a random walk in the woods. Obviously all hunting is a show of flexibility, but you have to start out with a plan and a good one.
Secondly, we do what ever is necessary to up the odds. We select our vantage points based on which location will maximize the chance of seeing the target animal. If there is a nice glassing knob right next to a huge nasty mountain, we will choose the huge nasty mountain everytime. Even if we have to get up at 2:00am to start climbing it. We will position ourselves where we will be the most advantageous no matter what. This is one of the most common things we see other hunters do that hurts their odds. They glass from the easy spot instead of the best spot. I guarantee you that climbing to the highest spot around, every time, will increase your sightings and hence your odds of success. Always climb the best hill let the other guys glass from the easy hill.
We stay active and productive all day. Even on early season hunts like archery elk or deer. We are always out all day. If you break off and go back to camp to cook and eat and take naps everyday you are hurting your odds. Even when its hot and everything is bedded down it will pay to remain in the field and keep trying to do something productive. Even if it is laying under a tree a few hundred yards from the game you are hunting. Animals are more active midday than most people think. They will often stand up and feed a bit, or rut around a little. Smart tactics can make things happen at a time when most are at camp. This will keep you engaged and keep you in the know of what is going on. If something blows the game out of their midday bed at 1:00pm you will know this if you are still in the field. If you are at camp sleeping with a plan to come back and hunt them that evening, you may arrive and waste a whole evening looking for something that is no longer there. You can sleep when you get home. Don't sleep during the daylight hours on a short trophy hunt. You are wasting your time if you do. Check trail cameras, hike or glass new country, take a new road, do something. Do anything! Hunting is a game of odds. Sleeping in camp is a zero odds plan. Just the act of leaving camp increases your odds of success. Why would you voluntarily do something that will reduce your odds to zero?
We are always hunting for a specific animal. We do not just go hunt a spot because it a good spot. Good spots change every year. Find a bull or buck you like and then hunt him like your life depends on it. This focus is the most important thing we do that put critters on the ground for us. We are simply too hard headed to quit. We scheme, adapt, flex and switch but keep hunting specific animals until we kill them, someone else kills them or the season closes. There are very few other instances that will cause us to change animals. If we have scouted and found the animals we want, we will hunt them relentlessly day in day out. I have always thought that everyday that goes by that we don't kill the one we are after, is one day closer to the day we will. It is often a matter of fitting puzzle pieces together each day until you line things up and get a shot. You learn something everyday about him and use it against him the next day. Another aspect is that the average hunter doesn't stick to the game plan for long. They will get discouraged easily when the game is not cooperating, other hunters are in the area or one of the million other obstacles arise that make trophy hunting hard. Everyday you stay hooked is usually a day that someone else gave up, making your job easier.
Do not let your effort or intensity wane if the hunt goes long. This is one of the hardest things we deal with guiding clients. Hunters tend to lose hope when a hunt goes into the latter stages. Everyone is gung-ho on opening day. They have been waiting and dreaming for months and it culminates on opening morning. Trophy hunting is an extreme sport. It is much harder than just going hunting. When you limit yourself to all but the biggest of animals you will learn to eat tags as painful as that is. We are successful just as often in the second half of the hunt as we are in the first half. In fact, if I counted it up, I would bet we have killed most of our animals in the second half of all of our hunts. Common is the guy that mentally gives in after the third tough day of hunting and the rest of the hunt is just a weakening progression until they get to go home. Not with us, we start hard and finish harder. On the few hunts that do end unsuccessfully for us, it is not for lack of effort. In fact, I can deal with not harvesting an animal if I know with 100% confidence that we did everything possible to sway the odds in our favor. I have never forgiven myself for the few times in my youth that I weakened during a hunt. We never weaken anymore. We are relentless in our efforts. Trophy hunting is dirty tough, you need to be tougher or you will not win.
Be aggressive in your hunting tactics. There is no telling the number of unsuccessful hunts that could have been successful if the hunter would have seized the moment and made success happen. How many times have you heard someone say "I backed out so I didn't spook him and will come back tomorrow." One of the best hunters I know once told me "Hunt every big buck like it is the last time you will ever see him." Think about that. Treat every scenario like it is the last night of the last day of season and you have nothing to lose. If you adhere to this methodology it will lead you to success more often than it will lead to disaster. I am not advocating for doing stupid things that have no odds of working, but if you sit by waiting for the "perfect" situation you will let many viable chances pass you by. Exceptions to this rule might happen on private land or in a remote units with low hunter pressure. But, in the public land units we hunt in Arizona, the hunts are usually very competitive. If you are not aggressive someone else will kill the buck or bull you are after. Even on our private land hunts we press hard to make shot opportunities happen. Antlers get broken and big animals just have a way of vanishing sometimes. Every hunter makes mistakes. I would rather make a mistake while trying to make a shot op happen than make the mistake of sitting by waiting for the perfect scenario. Press hard...
Make the shot. This is self explanatory. All the prep work and hunting effort is all for naught if you can't make the shot. Practice like your life depends on it. Getting the shot should be the hard part not making it. This is one of the few things in trophy hunting you have complete control over. Shoot until you are sick of it in every imaginable position and range you can think of. Don't be the guy that blew it at the moment of glory. Be the guy that made it happen when it counted...
Most people don't understand what it means to be a trophy hunter. I talk to people every year that want to kill a giant with their tag, yet have no idea what it will entail to do so. You have to pass great animals to kill big ones. You have to hunt harder, smarter and longer than the rest of the hunters. You have to be different than the average guy.
