How to Win the Mental Battle with Public Land Elk

From your parents to your professors and from your coaches to your company leaders, how many times in life have you heard the phrase “you gotta want it.”

It’s a catchphrase with heaps of truthful meaning. Follow that up with the saying, “Anything in life worth having is not going to be easy.” Why the life lessons in an article on elk hunting? Public-land elk hunting requires more grit than walking to a hunting blind behind your uncle’s farmhouse in the Midwest for an afternoon whitetail sit. You really must want it.

As a dedicated DIY public-land elk hunter with decades of elk education in my hunting portfolio, I came to this conclusion long ago. Every year hunting friends remind me of the need to continue the push to want it. On a recent phone call with a friend who has accompanied me on several DIY elk hunts, he admitted that he was giving up. The battle to secure a tag in state draws, the time to execute a public land hunt and then hunting hardships and disappointments had finally made him cry uncle. With elk success rates, especially for bulls, barely escaping the 20 percent range in most units, it does not take many years of hunting to burn out like my friend.

My answer to all the doom and gloom of public land elk hunting orbits around a mental approach. Although many of my close friends and family talk about me being a bit crazy behind my back, that craziness has only hardened my elk hunting commitment, but with a positive mental approach. It takes an all-hands-on-deck attitude to develop this positive approach. And trust me, that positive mental attitude will falter from time to time, but with deliberate consideration of the following categories, there’s positive hope for your next public-land elk hunt.

PHYSICALLY PREPARE FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS

I am no David Goggins or Cameron Hanes. My wife reminds me of that often. Humbleness aside, I do stay in fair condition with a physical fitness definition I refer to as mountain shape. Forget about learning how many reps you need to fit in at a gym from me. I have never held a gym membership and my lifestyle would suffer from having to drive to town for the experience. Instead, I have a home gym that includes an elliptical machine and a weight bench, but I heavily mix the use of that with outdoor adventure. The desire to engage in a variety of seasonal activities, not all hunting, sets the foundation for my elk hunting fitness. Year-long tests of my mountain endurance led to a mental can-do uplift when hunting season arrives.

Already past the half century mark, I settled into a fitness routine based on time spent in the field combined with home gym intervals. Most gym workouts consist of hour-long sessions including ab crunches, various weightlifting routines and time on the elliptical set at max elevation for mountain climbing prep. Some days I join my wife (and our overly energetic border collie) for her daily hike, four miles roundtrip and I add a backpack to maintain hauling fitness. The hike includes two miles of cross-country tramping through sagebrush, but I must admit, the repeated route tends to bore me with no outdoor goal, just a goal to spend time with my bride.

The workouts I look forward to most include trips to the mountains and sagebrush prairies near our home for intended purpose. Purposes include winter coyote hunting, summer coyote hunting, summer scouting and my all-time favorite, spring shed antler hunting.

OWN A RELIABLE AND PORTABLE RIFLE

Elk are extremely tough animals—tough to anchor and tough to keep up with in the mountains. For this reason, it is imperative to have a rugged and lightweight rifle capable of sub-MOA shooting that can easily accompany you wherever the hunt may lead, like the Savage 110 Ultralite Elite rifle. At a scant 5 lbs, it won't infringe on your energy exertion, and with its folding buttstock, its form factor is non-cumbersome. In addition, the carbon fiber barrel adds rigidity and helps with heat dissipation.

“The 110 Ultralite Elite represents a significant leap forward in our commitment to delivering cutting-edge and innovative firearms to our customers,” said Beth Shimanski, Director of Marketing at Savage Arms. “We are thrilled to partner with PROOF Research and MDT to create a firearm that combines exceptional accuracy and durability with a lightweight design. The 110 Ultralite Elite is built to match the conditions of any extreme outdoor trek and can provide hunters with a tool to tackle any big game pursuit.”

What else can the passionate elk hunter ask for and demand besides something that packs light and hits hard?

SHEDDING SOME LIGHT

Without requiring explanation, my fall hunting adventures also help me maintain the endurance required for annual trips into elk country. In addition to hunting as a fitness maintainer, spring shed antler hunting also keeps me in shape, but proves to be an incredible classroom for learning about elk in their homeroom environment. Following eons-old elk trails, locating new water sources, uncovering hidden bedroom benches and seeing firsthand sign leftover from the rut tops off a spring mountain fitness routine that cannot be duplicated in a gym.

So how does mental strength coalesce with physical fitness? Being physically fit provides you with the strength to continue a hunt when the going gets exceptionally tough. It helps keep negative, pessimistic thoughts at bay because your physical strength continues to propel you forward. After years of hunting with good hunters my records show that unless the elk hunting is off the charts, most begin to lose faith around day three and quit by day five. The will to continue abusing a body in average shape with little or no glimmer of winning on the horizon fades in a few days. I am not claiming you will continue the hunt being in elk shape, but you will have one less reason to quit than hunting with a body more comfortable in a whitetail hunting blind.

Get in shape. Strive for mountain shape. That formula helps you mentally and physically to continue hunting longer. The math works out in your favor.

STUDY HALL FOR ELK

Study hall for elk breaks down into two segments, virtual and real. You likely applied for a hunting unit based on hours of research or a tip from a trusted friend. Now learn everything about that unit that will influence the elk living there. It’s a mental boost. Start with that trusted friend or relative. They supplied you with the information to apply for the tag and likely possess intel from spending time in the field there. Query the crap out of them.

Ask them the dates they hunted there. If they hunted the entire season, ask them if the herd dynamics shifted with less or more sightings. Question them on hunting pressure, probe if the elk were call shy, request where the elk spent most of their time and most of all, demand they explain why they wanted you to apply for that unit.

The most overlooked cramming I see with elk hunters includes the scrutinization of elk dispersion in the unit. All units are not created equally and hopefully your informant answered this very important question. If they did not or you do not have a person on the inside, consider a call to a local game warden. Over the years I believe I have gotten more down-to-earth answers from the people in the field. Nothing against biologists in the office crunching data, but game wardens deal with landowners and investigate game violations. They understand the pulse of a unit and with the management of animals as big as elk, combined with the movement of large herds, game wardens understand elk country.

Your questions to a game warden should work to unearth not only the quality of the hunting, but the elk pattern of the unit. In a nutshell, do the elk stay in the unit and do they maintain a solid presence on public land? Depending on the state you hunt, the elevation of the unit and seasonal changes, elk could vary their density in the unit or their very presence on public land. You do not want to arrive on Sept. 15 only to discover the elk vacated their summer range at 10,000 fee to stampede down to 7,000 feet and amass on private ranches with locked gates.

As I write this article, a friend and I have been in deep discussion about a particular Montana general unit. My go-to general unit has experienced a steady uptick of hunting pressure. I still have taken four archery bulls in four consecutive hunts to the unit, but after he drew a Wyoming tag and I personally showed him some of my favorite areas there, he reciprocated with information on another Montana general unit I might wish to consider. Let the doctorate studies begin.

Beyond friends, relatives and game wardens, scour online, particularly forums where unknowns trade valuable information in many instances. If the online intel checks with your personal discussions, your mental positivity to the hunt took another huge leap forward.

EARLY BIRD GETS THE BULL

This category talks to those of you arriving for a public-land hunt on the opener. Arrive earlier. It provides another platform to build confidence and master your mind over matters of elk success importance. A bonus I learned about arriving a few days earlier than the rest of the crowd is to stake out the best campsite possible. Public campgrounds only have a handful of camping sites and they go quickly the day or two before the opener. If legal and you opt to utilize dispersed camping, you could be hard-pressed to locate level ground.

Elk country is unforgiving along the trails and backcountry alike. Finding a suitable place to park a trailer that is level, free of boulders and with space between trees could rival your challenge to find elk. If you have an opportunity to pre-scout an area for elk, do the same for campsites. Choose two or more just in case your prime location has a Minnie Winnie parked in it before you arrive.

Arriving early also advances your opportunity to scout a unit as it will appear only days later in the season. Elk should be populating areas where you expect to find them on the opener. Begin with a thorough hike through your intended hunting area, but scout in a hunting manner. Slip into areas with a downwind advantage, use scent eliminating products to help mask your presence and glass from a distance whenever possible. Most of all, note all sign you discover such as fresh droppings, crisp tracks, new rubs and recent wallowing activity. Where legal, deploy trail cameras to help you hone your hunt approach.

In September, dusk and dawn scouting often reveals bugles that you can use to focus your opening day hunting strategy. An early morning bugle could spark a response, but getting into a bugling match now could only help educate an elk to avoid your calls later. Mark the location of the vocal bull on your hunting app and shut up.

You also have an opportunity to hang a treestand over a wallow or build a hide from natural materials along a scouted elk travel route. These simple acts add more hunting time to your hunt schedule rather than robbing time during the hunt. One year I hiked a portable treestand 1,500 feet up a summit where I knew elk liked to wallow near a spring. Just before dropping into the small canyon that held the spring, I spotted a herd of elk feeding adjacent to it. The herd lingered near the spring until dark, but I did snap a few quick photos of the bull and left the treestand at the summit. I did not get it hung that evening, but the hard climb was behind me. Eight days later I tagged that bull only a few hundred yards from where I photographed him.

Despite using my Wapiti Whacker bugle tube, not a treestand to tag the bull, the preseason scouting boosted my public-land confidence and that pushed me to make that 1,500-foot climb 8 days consecutively.

HALFTIME NEW STRATEGY

All the previous planning has merit for a bright mindset for your public land hunt. Even so, expect curveballs. Monsoonal rains could make access to some areas impossible. Snow could invade a high-country locale, even in September. Livestock grazing on public land could prod elk away from your scouted tract and a huge camp of Wisconsin hunters could set up camp right at your favorite trailhead. These and more, crash confidence with the blinding speed of a launching mountain lion.

No worries. Have a backup plan. Then, back up that plan. You need to be prepared to move anyway since there is a chance the elk will vacate an area sometime during your hunt. A seat-of-your pants approach works, but a thought-out plan that includes learning another area and having another campsite pre-located serves you better than winging it.

When a situation seems funky, go to Plan B and then to Plan C. On a general unit hunt several years ago, the hunting pressure intensified to the point it pushed most of the elk off the mountain I was hunting. I needed a backup plan and needed it fast. While summer scouting, a friend took me to a canyon where he’d had a few elk encounters, but the ruggedness did not favor daily excursions into its depths. With no other choice, I moved my base to that area and four days later tagged a 300-class archery bull. The backup plan worked.

You also need a backup strategy. Calling and decoying offer excellent influences to make a bull come to you during archery season. Spot and stalk hunting shines as a late-season strategy, but do not be afraid to break tradition. At least 25 percent of the bulls I have taken during archery season fell to the whitetail classic of stump sitting. Another 25 percent fell to still-hunting. Calling typically aided in locating elk for these strategies, but the paranoia of the herds required a more veiled approach.

The last public-land bull I arrowed loved to return bugles, but would not budge. Moving slowly toward the vocal bull was easy, but getting into bow range had its challenges with the bull surrounded by cows. That’s when a freelance attitude with strategies took over. Unbeknownst to me, another group of hunters had been working the same bull from the opposite direction. They blew it and in seconds, the entire herd started dashing by. With the bull in the rear, a strategic mew stopped him at 52 yards and my arrow hit home in one of the craziest elk hunts of my career yet.

I had confidence in the hunting location, plus backup locations, but freelancing strategies in the end led to a great season ending. You want something? Go get it, but use a strategy of focused planning to build positivity, especially a positive mental attitude to intensify all your hunting skills.

HUNTING CONSULTANTS

If you simply lack confidence and cannot wrap yourself around positive thinking, don’t schedule a psychiatrist meeting yet. Instead, consider investing in the services of a vetted hunting consultant. Hunting consultants offer a myriad of services including helping you apply for limited tags, teaming you with qualified outfitters and even assisting you with DIY information if you still wish to go it alone after drawing a good tag.

These services come at a price. But for the under-confident or hard-working hunter who has too little time for family, much less investing hours in elk research, the investment is worthwhile. My personal plan includes handling several states on my own for elk applications. I live in Wyoming and on the border of Montana, so those states are no brainers for me. For the rest, I rely on the experts at Worldwide Trophy Adventures. For the chance at a premium elk hunting license, they help me choose quality units, confirm units I prefer and handle the applications, along with floating fees until drawn.

Services like these do wonders for boosting your attitude toward landing a good tag and planning a great hunt. Once you establish a preference point formula and apply for tags in most good states you could be hunting elk every year, if not every other year. Smile. The public-land elk grind just got a little easier. Worldwide Trophy Adventures, worldwidetrophyadventures.com.