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How To Mentally Prepare for Your Elk Hunt

By Brodie SwisherSeptember 9, 2016

There’s a handful of the guys from the Bowhunting.com team hitting the mountain this week to chase bull elk, and you can bet that mental preparation is very much a part of the pre-hunt routine. Hunters spend countless hours preparing for the hunt by researching maps, shooting their bows, selecting broadheads and much more. But far too often we fail to be prepared mentally. And when it comes to elk hunting, failure to mentally prepare for your elk hunt can be a deal breaker.

elk hunters mentally prepare

Have you mentally prepared for the rigors of your elk hunt?

Here’s a quick look at how you can mentally prepare for your elk hunt.

The Mental Prep Checklist

  1. Know what you’re up against. Be sure you’re mentally prepared for the terrain, weather, and physical expectations. There’s no place for surprises on a western elk hunt.
  2. Have confidence in your equipment. From your bow to your backpack, you need to have the mental confidence that your equipment won’t fail you at any point during the hunt.
  3. Leave things in good shape at home. Don’t leave for a hunt having blown up on your wife or kids. Make sure things are good with your family and that everyone is happy and healthy before you leave so your mind is not full of regrets when you’re sitting on top of the mountain.
  4. Set adequate goals for your hunt. What are you after? Big bull, small bull, or cow? Don’t wait until you’re at full draw to try to decide on what size critter you want to punch your tag on. More times than not, this will lead to tag soup.
  5. Decide how bad you want it. Are you willing to keep going morning after morning for 5-7 days?
  6. Pack the essentials. An overloaded pack is a sure sign of fear. We’re scared of running out of food so we pack more groceries than we’ll ever need. We’re scared of  getting cold so we pack too many clothes. I had a buddy pack 4 boxes of rifle bullets for a hunt. That’s 80 rounds! I think a box would have been more than enough. Fear of the unknown leads us to put extra burden on our back. Know what you need. Ditch the rest.
  7. Think like a bull. We often think too much on how to kill an elk with all the great gear and gadgets we’ve got when in reality we simply need to think more like a bull. Learn to get in his mind. Talk like them. Act like them. Be like them. Get closer to elk by mentally thinking like an elk.

Karl Badger on How To Mentally Prepare

Mossy Oak prostaffer, Karl Badger, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and is the Big Game Regional Pro Staff Manager for Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Karl is an experienced high country hunter having logged countless hours in pursuit of elk, mule deer, antelope, moose and big horn sheep. In the video below, Karl shares how to mentally prepare for your elk hunt.

Brodie Swisher
Brodie Swisher is a world champion game caller, outdoor writer, seminar speaker and Editor for Bowhunting.com. Brodie and his family live in the Kentucky Lake area of west Tennessee.
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