How to Become a Better Elk Hunting Partner

One of the most difficult things for experienced hunters is to simply listen and be honest.

I am not picking on any individuals here and admittedly I struggle with both these things as well. It’s hard for me to listen and do what other hunters or even guides want me to do. Even if I am paying them to take me hunting and even if I know they have more experience than me.

I have also been dishonest. A buddy once asked me what I saw while on stand right after I had just seen the biggest mule deer I had ever seen. My response, “I didn’t see anything.” I knew my buddy would have told everyone so I didn’t tell him the truth. In fact, I looked him dead in the eye and lied to him. I even watched a preacher I was guiding lie to his buddy about missing an elk I had called in for him a few hours before. So I am of the opinion, I assume like the preacher, that lying while you’re hunting is the definition of a white lie that doesn’t go in the big book upstairs if you know what I mean. At least I hope not and most of my hunting buddies better hope not too. The difference comes when that white lie can impact the outcome of our hunt.

So, what can we do to be better clients and even hunting buddies? Drop the ego, listen and follow directions. Even if it hurts. Even if we think the game plan sucks. This is a tough one as I have had to do this as well on hunts. We have to put our ego and our thoughts of how we would do it on the back burner. Especially on a guided hunt. No guide, myself included, wants a client to tell us what they think we should do or that they don’t think what we are trying is working. I have been on both sides of this equation. Read on to learn more about the impact our ego and not being forthcoming can have on our hunts.

Be Honest

So, what makes a reasonable person not listen to someone with more experience with the animal and the country? What is it about hunting that makes an otherwise honest person fib? I have some theories. As hunters we all have our own way of doing things because big game hunting from turkeys up to moose is often a solitary sport for many of us. Most of the deer I’ve shot, especially while learning to hunt, were on solo hunts.

I have guided guys that had never been in the woods hunting with anyone until I guided them. They have explained to me that when they hunt at home, they hunt by themselves. They may drive to where they are going to hunt with a buddy, but then they split up and do their own thing. Since a lot of us hunt alone we develop our own way of doing things based on our own individual experiences in the field. If we are successful hunting than we trust ourselves when it comes to hunting. Even if faced with animals we may have never hunted and in terrain we know nothing about. Hunters figure stuff out. That’s the nature of hunting. If we are successful doing things ourselves and have taken animals, we are convinced we know best.

In my experience if you are a successful hunter then you probably listen less and question more because it may not be the way you would do it, so it seems wrong. For an example, how many times have you been hunting with someone else and thought to yourself, I would have hung this stand differently or in a different spot. I would hunt this area differently or not at all. Maybe you just heard your guide or buddy call and thought, I can call better than that or I think they are calling too much or too little. Or, I think we should be hunting over there and not here. Most of us do it if we are honest with ourselves.

I would also bet like me there have been times you questioned your guide or even your buddy but you didn’t say anything out loud about it. Then it turned out your buddy or guide had it right all along and had we tried what we thought was best it wouldn’t have worked. I have had clients argue with me over where we set up for elk when I was guiding them on my ranch and when I knew they had never taken an elk before. It’s just in our nature. It’s not that they were intentionally being disrespectful by questioning me, just as I am not if I think to myself or question out loud if we should be doing something different when it comes to hunting. We just think we know better because relying on ourself or figuring out the animals by ourself has always worked for us in the past.

Stick to the Plan

Besides not listening well or struggling to follow someone else’s plan. Hunters will fib about where we were, what we saw, what we got and anything else related to the hunt if we feel we have to. It’s even worse if we are talking about public land. It’s not that the person fibbing is a chronic liar, it’s just many of us have been bit in the ass when we shared information about an area or animal with people that then used that information to take the lazy way and hunt your spot or the animal you scouted so hard to find. The difference is when we aren’t up front with someone guiding us that is trying to help us get an animal. It’s a fine line.

We also don’t like to admit when we mess up. Whether we admit it or not we all have an ego and we are embarrassed if we make mistakes and don’t want others to know about them. I feel we hunters have delicate egos because animals have made fools of us so many times especially while learning to hunt. So, when we have a few successful hunts, we desperately need to feel like we know what’s going on and that we have started to figure things out. If we are hunting by ourselves and mess up it is up to us to decide whether to tell anyone or just keep it between us and the animal forever.

Ever notice when an experienced hunter misses it is almost never their fault? I have heard a hundred excuses for misses.  I hit a limb, horse stepped on my foot, snow fell in my eye as I shot, tripod leg slipped when I shot, horsefly bit me as I released the arrow, bad reload, I grabbed the wrong arrow, safety got stuck, my release went off, gun jammed, squirrel jumped on my head as I let the arrow go, animal spooked as I shot, bow limb hit a branch and on and on. Heck, I have even used half of those myself. Sometimes they are even legitimate. Are there exceptions? Of course, after guiding hunters over 30 years I have had clients totally trust me. I have also had them tell me the truth when they missed and even say it was there fault. But it’s rare as hens’ teeth. Usually, it’s the inexperienced hunters or ladies that listen the most (trust) or tell things like they are (don’t lie).

So how do we as experienced hunters with delicate egos fight against our nature and listen (trust) and not fib (lie) so we can be great clients when we go with outfitters or even buddies so we can improve our odds of being successful? Below are my suggestions and anecdotes.

Questioning Every Decision is Bad

I had one client years ago that I had to break it down for after he had literally argued with every decision I made on the first two days of his elk hunt. When I said we should cover country and try and call, he thought we should sit. If I said it’s hot this morning we should sit water, he would argue that he thought we should walk and call. I finally sat him down and said, “This is your hunt and I want you to enjoy it and I really want you to be successful or have the best chance at being successful. Since you are the customer and you paid the money to be here, I want to let you know we can do what you want every day. You can tell me what you want to do, how you want to hunt and where you want to hunt and you can even tell me if you want me to call or not. But be aware if we do everything you want and at the end of your hunt you have not had a shot at an elk, I am going to tell my guides and my buddies that you made the plan all week and we didn’t get an elk because you don’t know anything about elk and are a dumbass.

However, if you want me to do my job and me make the plan and me decide when we are going, where we are going and let me decide when to call, and you haven’t had a chance at an elk at the end of your hunt you can say that Fred is a dumbass and doesn’t know anything about elk. So what do you want to do?” He decided to listen to me and low and behold he got an elk. We didn’t become besties or anything and I hated to have to go as far as I did, but I felt we couldn’t have two chefs in the kitchen.

Before I sound like I am belittling that hunter, I am not. He was used to following his intuition and his intentions were to do what he thought was best. I will share a story on myself that taught me a lot because I questioned my guide and looked like an idiot. It happened in Africa. I did the same thing to a guide in another country with an animal I knew nothing about. I was after a civet cat and my guide had put out several baits. We walked up to check one of the baits and based on what I knew I did not see any cat tracks. So, when the guide said he wanted me to hunt that bait that night. I argued and said it looks like just jackals and maybe a hyena hit this bait to me and I would like to look at the other baits. He was very polite and explained that the tracks I thought were jackals were actually civet cat tracks. He explained that despite the fact that our cats in the U.S like mountain lion, bobcat, etc., don’t show claws when they walk because they are retracted, the civet cat wasn’t a true cat and that when it walked the claws showed like fox, coyotes and wolves.

The lesson I learned there was to listen and trust the guide because he knew a lot more than me. Especially in his country and about an animal I had never seen.  I felt stupid and he could have easily said you pick where you want to hunt mister expert on African animal tracks and I would have never seen a civet cat and I would have deserved it. I did get a civet cat that night but it was because my guide knew what he was doing. I learned that trip that even if I think my guide is wrong, to shut up, listen and trust. Our success is often in the hands of our guide. Insulting them or constantly questioning them can be a sure way to have a bad experience instead of a great one.

Kill Your Ego

The fib thing is usually ego related and can negatively impact our success on a guided hunt. One prime example is years ago we had a client on an archery elk hunt and the weather had turned really hot. I made the call to put him at a waterhole because the heat combined with limited water options where we were hunting made it seem like a good choice to me. I had him sit from dawn until dark and when I picked him up, he said he had not seen an elk. I was shocked but felt bad he had endured a long day in the blind and had not seen an elk so I changed what I thought was a good plan and we spent the next few days trying to spot and stalk in super-hot conditions and did not get a shot. At lunchtime on the last day of his hunt. My clients hunting buddy who had taken a bull the first day of his hunt pulled me aside to talk to me. He explained that his buddy didn’t want me to know but that he had actually missed two different bulls at the waterhole but was so embarrassed he had lied to me and had only admitted it to his buddy that morning.

I was crushed. Not because he had lied to me but because with that information, I could have better helped him get a bull. Just knowing that two bulls were bedding close to the waterhole in that heat would have helped us make a game plan or I could have taken him to another waterhole. He didn’t get an elk and left with the lie intact that he didn’t get a shot. He had no idea his buddy in an effort to help him had told me the truth. Like any guide I apologized that he didn’t get a shot and told him I hoped his dream of getting a bull would come true one day. What bothered me about that hunt is to this day I feel had he told me what had happened, with that knowledge I could have made a better decision on how to hunt him that week and he may have taken a bull.

Another one that sticks in my mind is a client that we set up in a sweet spot where we had seen multiple elk. When my guide picked him up our client said he didn’t have any luck. Upon noticing an arrow missing out of his quiver my guide questioned him further. The client than admitted he had taken a long shot at a bull but was sure he had not connected. My guide than searched diligently for the arrow but couldn’t find it. Based on the clients claim he had for sure missed and with no blood he didn’t look any further. A week later when the same guide went by that area, he noticed ravens and a rotten odor. A thorough search turned up a dead bull less than 150 yards from the blind. The client was embarrassed he’d made what he thought was a non-fatal shot and so he told my guide he was sure he had missed.

When we go on a guided hunt, we need to be in the best shape possible, have good equipment and know how to use it. The most important thing however is often overlooked because it hits close to home for all of us, and is perhaps the most difficult to do.

Be a Good Hunting Partner

The absolutely best thing we can do to increase our odds of success is to listen, trust, follow directions, leave our ego back at home where we may be the expert and be honest with the people that are trying to help us. Whether that is a friend or a guide. If we need to, for our own fragile ego after an unsuccessful hunt to think if we would have done what we wanted to do we would have got one, well that’s fine. That’s better than pissing your guide off during a hunt, because when we do that, our hunt doesn’t get better, it usually gets worse. I know that because unfortunately I have been the bad client in the past and I have also been the frustrated guide.

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