591 | Completing the Mission (Expert Roundtable)

Completing the mission is really just on post-shot.

It could be immediately post-shot, meaning it's like, "Hey, we shot it.

We haven't even recovered it yet." It could be tracking, um, it could be processing in the field, it could be packing out.

I know it's super open-ended and broad, but yeah, just any particular aspects of that, that you feel you may have unique strategies for, or that hunters still don't fully understand or maybe overlook, and obviously with your context, um, so critical 'cause you're often way back in there.

So where does your head go with that?

Well, I guess I'll start with, uh, recovery, um, because, you know, one of the biggest, uh, obstacles, you know, or it's just one of the biggest challenges, especially on an elk hunt, is getting it out.

And the places that I like to hunt, I love to hunt, I, I love to backpack hunt, you know? I don't like, um, access to too much gear, you know? And if I'm in-- If I'm truck camping, it's like, man, I just got all this stuff I gotta manage.

Like, I love getting out there and just keeping it simple.

I feel like I think a lot clearly, I'm a lot more effective, and I just like being out in that country.

But getting an elk out can be extremely intimidating.

Um, and I didn't, I didn't-- I mean, when I first started out in my teens and 20, I, I didn't have a great plan, you know.

My-- I was still trying to figure out how to, how to just get myself into that position, so I've learned a lot.

But, uh, I guess before I get into that, I'll start with the recovery, and I won't get into, like, a bunch of tactics on, you know, you know, or the, the skill of, of blood trailing, but just more, more the mindset because there's a couple things going on w- especially on elk.

When I make a, a shot on an elk, let's just say I make a perfect shot on an elk.

Well, one, I'm super excited.

You know, I've got a ton of adrenaline.

I'm really, really excited.

Um, and I'm also at the same time, now I'm being presented with more than likely the most intimidating thing that I have faced the entire hunt, and that is how to get 300-plus pounds of, of meat out of a hell hole potentially.

And because of that, uh, it can, and it has limited my ability to blood trail effectively.

So now what I-- When, when that happens, I let-- I make a, say, I make a perfect shot, 20-yard perfect shot on an elk broadside, everything should be good to go.

I used to just be like, "Okay, this is gonna be an easy blood trail.

He probably didn't even go 100 yards.

There's probably gonna be blood everywhere, but I probably won't even have to trail him because he's probably just gonna be laying right there." And you get that in your head, and if it isn't that, which it is not uncommon, as you guys know, for that not to be the case, even on a perfect shot, sometimes they'll go way farther than you would have ever anticipated, and sometimes there'll be almost no blood or the, the, the, the, the ground might be in such that you can't really track their track as well as you would like.

And if you've already got that in your head of this is gonna be easy and it's not, you can start making all sorts of mistakes, and it, it can cause a lot of stress.

You can waste a lot of time.