Good morning! I am in my 40's, and I am a teacher. I have not had a chance to elk hunt because I can't take off a week to head out west. However, I have 6 years until retirement!!!! I have a few questions for you all. I don't smoke or drink. I mountain bike except during deer and duck season. I hike a lot with my pack. I lift weights (low weight high reps). I watch my diet.
What else would you all suggest so that I can comfortably hunt later in life?
I want to use my 5 remaining summers to backpack and scout. Should I scout 1 area 5 times or scout 5 different areas of interest?
Because I'll be a novice elk or mule deer hunter at 51, what other advice do you all have?
Thank you!!!
Getting a tag:
If you have state(s) that you are interested in, research how to obtain a tag for the species you are interested in. Consider buying preference or bonus points if they are available in those states. Don’t be disappointed if the “rules of the game change” for those points in those states, and have a backup plan. Don’t put all your hopes into one state or species.
Get in reasonably good shape, and learn how to stay that way. Running is cute, but it is not the same as being in mountain shape.
Research gear you may need. Don’t buy what you don’t need. If you can’t decide between two or three items, but all of them, try them out, find the one you like the best, and resell the others on a site like this one. A few dollars will be lost, but better to learn painful lessons at home, in the backyard, or in Arkansas than 1000 miles from home.
Practice the gutless method on a deer, quarter and hang the meat, and backpack out the meat a couple of times. Buy yourself a frame backpack to pack out the meat. Also use this frame backpack to test out your hiking boots and break them in.
If you are considering a backpack hunt, buy a shelter and practice using it in your backyard. Learn how to set it up and take it down in the dark and in the rain.
Buy some good boots and break them in.
If you are going with the rifle, your current setup will likely work just fine, whatever it is. Hundreds of threads online debating “which caliber” when they all work fine at most reasonable hunting shot distances.
Accept that elk and whitetail deer are in the same family, are both brown in color, and have four legs with hooves, and antlers on their heads, but that is about where the similarities end. Their behavior, and how they should be hunted, is vastly different, almost better off if you throw out most things one knows about deer hunting. (Hear a deer off in the bushes? Sit still and don’t move! Hear an elk off in the bushes? Call, move into position, rake a tree, etc. Very different!)
Enjoy your journey!!!
circa the 80s…hammer that is
