If you had an opportunity to ask 1,500 hunters to share the most important reasons they have had success in the backcountry, what do you think they would say?
If they were to look back at all of their past hunts and evaluate when they had successfully filled their tag or felt that they truly hunted to the best of their abilities, what would be the things that truly made a difference on those successful hunts?
If they were to remove any “luck” that helped them find success (and, yes, luck is often a factor), what was in their control that they did right?
We asked those hunters, and we have those answers.
As part of The Experience Challenge, we had 1,500+ hunters complete a detailed Hunt Reflection. Their answers inspired this new series, The Backcountry Blueprint. In each installment, we distill key takeaways from 1,500+ hunters to help you master the backcountry.
Today, we’re looking at the attributes of a successful backcountry hunt. Based on detailed reflections from 1,500+ hunters, we identified their 7 most important factors of success...
Preparation and Pre-Season Scouting
The most frequently mentioned theme is the necessity of thorough preparation. This includes extensive e-scouting using tools like onX, physical boots-on-the-ground scouting, and understanding specific terrain and animal patterns before the season opens.
Additional areas of preparation include the focus on pre-season gear readiness, physical training, and having a "Plan A, B, C, D, and E" to ensure time in the field is used efficiently.
You don’t just need “a plan” for your hunt. You need many plans, so that you are ready to adapt to changing conditions, hunting pressure, animal behavior, and the countless unexpected and uncontrolled variables that backcountry hunting will undoubtedly throw your way.
As we discussed on a recent podcast, “Mental Skills to Master the Mountains”, it is important to not only visualize success but also anticipate or visualize ways of adapting when things don’t go as you planned.
Time in the Field and Persistence
Success is often attributed to simply staying in the field longer. But it isn’t only the number of days you have to hunt that matters — it is also how you use each hour of each hunting day. Many respondents noted that being present from first light to last light, and staying for the full duration of a planned hunt rather than leaving early, was critical to their success.
One of the reasons we love hunting with camp on our back is that it maximizes the amount of time we spend hunting. From first light to last light, and even overnight, we are “out there” — in the field, near game, potentially hearing elk bugles from our shelter at 2:00 in the morning, or waking up to the sight of a buck on the ridge at dawn. (This strategy maximizes time AND saves energy.)
In addition to just physically being “out there”, you have to stay mentally engaged and believe that anything can happen at any time. It doesn’t matter if the previous 6 days have been slow and animals have been more like ghosts. If you have a day — or even an hour! — left to hunt, then hunt. We have personally experienced success on the last day, or even the last hour, of extended backcountry hunts. (Watch Mark fill his mountain goat tag on the final day of an 8-day hunt.)
Physical Fitness and Conditioning
Being in "mountain shape" is a major factor of success in the hunters’ data. This includes the ability to reach remote areas that other hunters avoid and having the physical strength to handle a heavy pack-out on a successful hunt.
Connecting to the previous point — time in the field — being physically prepared isn’t just what you can do once, such as making a big climb, it is being able to keep going day after day. If you are extremely sore or fatigued after a big day, how hard can you hunt the next day?
While there is a lot of hype about fitness and training, the fact is, being physically capable is a "non-negotiable" for backcountry hunts.
If you have time on your side and can do a purpose-built and progressive training block before your hunt, we recommend this 20 Week Backcountry Hunting Plan from Evoke Endurance. For a shorter (and free) training plan, we offer a free training plan developed by our friends at Atomic Athlete.
For more training knowledge, check out the Fitness & Nutrition archives of The Hunt Backcountry Podcast, which feature in-depth discussions with experts like Dr. Andy Galpin, Kyle Kamp of Valley to Peak Nutrition, and others.
Mental Toughness and Mindset
We have already mentioned mindset a couple of times in the data, but from a high-level, it is certainly a topic that deserves its own category, and the hunter data supports that it is a critical aspect of success.
A strong mental attitude—specifically "mental fortitude"—is highlighted as a key differentiator on successful hunts. Hunters mentioned the importance of staying positive, refusing to quit when things get difficult (like poor weather or exhaustion), and maintaining a "mission" mindset rather than a "vacation" mindset.
In addition to your personal mental outlook, it is important to realize that the attitude and mental approach of anyone you hunt with is no doubt going to influence—for good or bad—your experience, enjoyment, and chance of success on a backcountry hunt.
Again, we have several great podcasts on Mindset, which deserve listening to, and many — like this one: Thrive on Difficult Hunts — should be re-listened to. We can’t encourage you enough to focus on building and maintaining a positive, confident, and resilient mindset if you want to be a successful backcountry hunter.
Patience and Discipline
Hunters consistently identify patience as a key attribute of their success — specifically, patience in waiting for the right shot opportunity, in sitting for hours to glass an area thoroughly, and in not rushing stalks or calling sequences.
As hunters, we often don’t realize how important patience is until our lack of patience blows an opportunity.
But patience isn’t just about acting or deciding slowly. Indecisiveness isn’t patience. Wandering leisurely isn’t patience. Patience has a purpose, and that’s where the discipline comes in. You have to have a plan, trust the process, act deliberately, and practice patient discipline in a purposeful direction toward your hunting goal.
As our friend Dave Kestner said, in a fantastic podcast discussion, which we summarized in this article, hunters often need to “hike half as fast; think twice as much.”
Of course, patience must be balanced with aggressiveness. Sometimes the key to a successful hunt is instantly switching from planned patience to aggressive action. Whether practicing patience or acting aggressively, do it with purpose and discipline.
Proficiency with Weapons and Gear
Hunters reported that confidence in equipment and marksmanship is essential. Many mentioned consistent, year-round practice with their weapons (bows or rifles) and being proficient in making ethical shots under pressure. Beyond the weapon and shooting, successful hunters made sure that all of their gear was "dialed in", reliable, and familiar.
The big focus here is proficiency with gear, not just the quality of gear. It is easy to spend too much time and money researching that next gear purchase, when in reality, the new gear itself may not matter as much as spending time becoming proficient with the gear we already have.
Specifically on shooting, notice the focus on performance under pressure. The best hunters don’t just practice with their weapon at the range; they find ways to introduce stress into their shooting, and also make sure that they are practicing real shooting scenarios that involve less-than-ideal positions, conditions, and angles
There is so much more that can be said on these topics, and we will be sharing more insights and examples on these topics later in the Backcountry Blueprint series.
Understanding Wind and Thermals
Successful hunters emphasize the absolute importance of woodsmanship, particularly playing the wind and understanding how thermals work in mountainous terrain to avoid being detected by game.
Hunters must understand how air moves through terrain and how to use it to their advantage to avoid detection, as scent is often a factor that contributes to animals being “busted” and shot opportunities lost. But when hunters paid careful attention to the wind and planned their approach to animals accordingly, the number of shot opportunities and successful shots increased dramatically.
You can read about wind and thermals from a theoretical perspective, and that base level of knowledge is a good thing to have. But like most things in hunting, you have to take such knowledge and develop it into a skill by applying that knowledge in the field. Pay close attention to wind and thermals in the outdoors consistently — not just when hunting — and you will develop a much better understanding of reading wind and using thermals, making you a more successful hunter.
So, what has contributed to your success?
All of the insights from this Backcountry Blueprint series are coming from the 1,500 hunters who completed a detailed Hunt Reflection. We would encourage you to take the time to complete your own hunt reflection. You will undoubtedly learn insights through the exercise of reflecting on your experience…
THE HUNT REFLECTION — VIEW or COPY
See the entire Backcountry Blueprint series.