Ep. 37: Don't Count on Luck, Persistence is the Secret to Success
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance. One tactic to rule them all.

Now, if I were to think of a specific tactic that led to more success, no matter the species, no matter the place, no matter the terrain, population densities, hot weather, cold weather, whatever comes against you, I would think that the one tactic that has made me so successful over the years would be persistence. If I were to think about it, I believe that I'm probably one of the most persistent hunters on the planet.

I've actually spent as many as 300 days in a single season out in the field hunting. And over those thousands of days over the years, actually in the field pursuing game animals, I have been lucky very few times. But what I have been is persistent.

So this week we're going to talk about what being persistent looks like and how to prepare as well as how to keep your head in the game. Nearly every story I have about hunting involves some elements of persistence, but I want to share a story from last season when a hunter that I was guiding gave it their all. There are so many times hunting when just things don't go as planned.

This particular week happened to be the opening week of general elk season in Montana. We were in Western Montana and my dad and Jace had cow tags and were hunting for most of the week, just looking to fill their cow tags. Now I was off guiding some other hunters, but it happened to be Jace's last day to hunt.

It wasn't that they weren't in the right places. They just had bad luck and bad timing. Every time they went somewhere, it was like they were just a few steps behind the elk. I happened to tag my clients out that I was guiding early that week. And so I figured I had a little bit of time off. I said, I'll go out with you guys this last day and see if I can give you a hand trying to get a cow for the freezer. So we started out first thing in the morning.

I went to one of my favorite glassing knobs. We were there well before daylight. And just as it starts to get light, I spotted some shapes of elk out in this meadow across the valley.

Now, this particular meadow is like fairly close to a road. So I thought, oh, this is going to be perfect. We just have to get over there. We've got good access. We just got to hurry up and just move. So we went back to the truck, got in the truck, started driving over to that new spot because it was maybe two or three miles away from where I was glassing.

We drive over and as we're going up, there's happens to be a truck in front of us and we're like, oh man, this sucks. Like it looked like such a good, sure deal. And now the odds were not in our favor. The truck ended up stopping pretty much where we were going to stop. And the elk were actually had somehow moved down and we're pretty much right by this dirt two track.

So we stopped him and they were actually just looking for a bull. So we were like, Hey, do you mind if we go hunt these cows? They're like, no, not a big deal. So,

We park our truck and climb up the mountain a little ways, get into position. But at this point, the elk had seen the vehicles. And if there was nobody else up there, we would have parked way before that, hiked up, been in position. It would have worked out perfect. It was such a sure deal from across the canyon. And now this group of cows is on edge. They're starting to move off. Jace gets set up. The elk are starting to get spooked.

They start moving off. He takes a shot. The shot's just high, kind of a rushed shot, and the elk run over the mountain, gone. It's like, dang it. They hunted for most of the week, didn't get any opportunities. Here's an opportunity, and it just kind of got messed up. And it was pretty much just the same scenarios that kept happening all week, just one step behind the elk every time, or something looks right, but it just didn't go as planned.

So we said, well, all right, that's all right. You know, came close. Let's go. Let's regroup. We'll get out of here. We'll go around the mountain and see if we can't just respot these elk. So we leave that area, park at a trailhead and start hiking up the trail and get back there. I don't know, maybe two and a half, three miles, something like that.

and start glassing and just are not picking anything up. So I climb up this really steep hill to get to this glassing knob while my dad and Jace are down below. And sure enough, as soon as I get up to my glassing knob, I spot some elk bedded on the ridge across the valley. So I see them down below. So I walk down, get them and I'm like, hey, let's go back the way we came. There's some elk bedded on this ridge up above.

Like, sweet. So we start walking back down the trail and we are trying to, it's kind of a weird position because the elk are now starting to feed over kind of where we came up from. And so we don't want to get into where they can see us. So we kind of have to side hill through this really steep, nasty, rocky country to get into position where I think we might be able to get a shot. As soon as we get there, the elk just start moving back over the top of this ridge. And it's like, oh man, this is not good.

So we wait for a little bit. The elk don't come back out. We decide, all right, I make the executive decision. We're going to go up there and try to see if we can relocate them. The trouble is this is more like flat top ridge and it can be very difficult to find the elk in there. But there is a light dusting of snow. So you think, okay, this is awesome. This will work.

So we start our stock up and we start climbing up the hill. And at this point now, we're quite a few miles into the day. It's been a fairly up and down day. It's like we keep seeing the elk, but then they keep just giving us the slip.

So we get up to the top. Now it's midday and we just start working into the wind. There's some tracks, but then it burns off and I just keep following the tracks and glassing up ahead, walking, stopping, glassing up ahead into the timber. Just really still hunting through the timber, trying to keep the wind right and follow the tracks the best we can. Sure enough, there's some fresh wolf tracks right in the snow. I'm thinking, oh man, this is not good. Here's fresh elk tracks, fresh dog tracks,

these are going to get blown out. But I just figure, well, we'll keep on them. We've got no other real good options right now. So we keep working into the wind. And as I start to come up over this last little bend where I've seen them bed before, it's just like fairly thick timber, a few openings. And I glass and pick the ear of a bedded elk. And they're fairly close. So we get down and we scoot into position.

And now we're just taking our time crawling, trying not to be seen. The trouble is the sun's beating down on us and they're in this real thick patch of timber, maybe a hundred yards away. Some probably less because we can't see because it drops down. So I know there might be elk between me and the elk that we see. We don't know where all the other elk are. It was a fairly large herd, yet I only see one or two animals at this point. So we crawl the trees in front of us to try to just get a better angle and see if we can see in there.

there's a little bit of snow on the ground and jace gets set up and we start glassing in there and i start looking and they're they're bedded but there's just no shots we just keep watching him and i know at some point the wind is going to shift as the day progresses the thermals are going to take that wind down to these elk and we just need to kind of make a move in order to to kind of force a shot because if we wait too long we're going to get winded or we're going to get busted

So about an hour of just crawling around, looking in and trying to find a good position. We pick one cow that if it stands upright might give us a shot and just wait. We're waiting. We've waited now about an hour or longer sitting in the snow just at the ready. The elk gets up, moves, but just does not offer a shot.

So we're like, dang it. Okay, we spent most of our time waiting this one, but there's other elk in here. Hopefully now that they're starting to mill around, we might get a shot. We readjust, Jace gets the shooting stick set up. It's like, okay, everything looks good. And then it happens. The wind swirls and the elk blow out. We now run down the ridge and reposition, hoping to get a shot at the elk as they're funneling across this one opening.

The elk are moving through, Jace is on them, but it's just, they will not stop. I take my cow elk call out, throw out some calls. I even throw out a short, loud bugle. It'll reach the distance and few of the elk stop. But when they stop, they're just too far, too out of range and they move off.

It's like, dang it. It's now almost, well, fairly close to the end of the day. And it's his last day to hunt. And we've had so many close opportunities. We should have got an elk. So I'm thinking, all right, let's just sit tight here for a few minutes and see what happens. We sit there and I'm like, I don't know. They definitely blew out of there pretty hard. So I'm just trying to think of what's the next move. What's the next game plan? By this point,

We've hiked up and down quite a few ranges, go up one side, down the other. It took, you know, it was an all day get into this spot. It was a long physical day for anyone. We had some pretty close encounters, but it just didn't work out. So we're sitting here. I'm kind of reassessing what our game plan is going to be. And a lone cow pops out looking kind of lost. So I tell him, all right, get set up. I guarantee I can call that cow in.

Normally later in the season, it's fairly hard to call elk in, but there's certain scenarios that you can identify where it's just like, all right, this, I guarantee I can call that cow in. I make some cow sounds and I see its ears perk up and it's kind of like looking for us. I think I arranged it at like 800 yards.

So I call, I do some muse, some more like trying to sound like a herd of elk, like this cow, clearly everybody else ran off and it was confused what happened and just doesn't know where the other elk are. So I keep calling with my cow call and now the elk's coming toward us. Like this elk is coming in. So we get set up and wait, wait, and it disappears in the timber drop below us.

I'm like, all right, be ready. Turn your scope down. This is going to happen. This is our opportunity. It looked like it was blown, but now we're going to get another chance. So we're sitting there waiting. And then I hear some crashing of some brush right in front of us.

And sure enough, that elk came and ran into, I don't even know, 10 feet maybe. Jace throws the gun up to shoot. That elk wheels around and is gone as fast as it came in. I mean, it just came in on a dead run right to where I made that call.

saw us. The trouble was there's like all this brush right in front of us and a fairly steep drop off. So as it popped up, it just wasn't even fast enough to take the safety off and shoot it. He had to move pretty fast to the left. And at that point, the elk was already wheeled around, gone and out of there. It was fairly disappointing to say the least. We'd hiked our butts off. We'd put in a lot of time. It's getting down to the wire and it looks as if the day is done for

Then I decide, all right, well, let's start working our way back to the truck. It's, you know, it's going to be a little while till we get back and I don't know, maybe we can regroup and try to figure something out and we'll glass along the way. So we start working our way back and I look up at one of the higher meadows on the mountain across the valley and I see a group of cows come out and start feeding. I'm like, oh my gosh. All right.

Now, at this point, we've already had a pretty long day. So I say to Jace, I'm like, man, we got some elk up there. We've got, I don't know, a little... I can't even remember how much time was left before sundown, maybe an hour before shooting light ended or something like that, to that effect. I'm like, it's a long ways up there. Now, Jace...

he's hunted with us before and I wouldn't say he's the most in shape guy, but he's been getting in better and better shape every year because of hunting. Like he started elk hunting maybe five or six years ago and it's really just pushed him to get better and better at it. But I mean, honestly, we had a really long day this day. We climbed a lot of elevation. We went a lot of miles and now it's the end of the day. There's some elk at the top of the mountain and it's one of those where you

He goes, how long do you think it'll take you to get there? And I said, me, 40 minutes. You, an hour and a half. And we've got an hour. He's like, all right, can we make it in 50 minutes? I was like, yes, but we have to push. He's like, all right. So now it's a race against the clock and just giving it everything he has to get to the top of the mountain.

We work our way up, get into position and we get on the ridge and we've got about 15 to 20 minutes before shooting time ends. I look and I don't see the elk. So we start crawling up over the rise and I'm kind of glassing up above where the snow is and there's no tracks going up. So I'm thinking, all right, they definitely are down. We start crawling up over this bare ridge and sure enough, I catch the back of a cow feeding like maybe 75 yards in front of us.

set up some shooting sticks, Jace gets into position, the cow picks her head up, walks out a little bit, he shoots, cow runs down the hill and is done. And it was just a really cool, although it wasn't a big bull, it wasn't a giant mule deer, the story was just all about giving it that last effort, that last push, and that was on the very last day, giving it his all and being successful.

I'm completely aware that every hunt and situation is different. The reason for hunting in many instances can be different as well. I mean, some hunts are about just going out with friends, kicking back, enjoying the experience. Other ones, maybe just, you know, taking some time to get away from everything else you're doing.

But then there's those hunts that you want to be more successful. Those hunts where you go out and you say, I want to come home with an elk or a deer. And I think one of the best ways to be successful or the key to being successful is persistence.

Now, if you've followed me for any amount of time, I think the way that I hunt, you'll really understand this. I mean, I'm the extreme case of what persistence means to me because there's been years like through guiding and other things where I've hunted 123 consecutive days. I think that was my most consecutive days without a break. There's times where I would be in one

area, hunt or guide, and then drive all night to the next place, get up in the morning, start scouting, start hunting, whatever. That's the extreme. And I understand that. But persistence is not always really a matter of time. It's not, oh, who can be out there the longest? Because you can be persistent while hunting with whatever time you've got, whether it's a half day, a full day, a week of hunting, 10 days of hunting, maybe a season worth of hunting.

It really comes down to a continued course of action no matter the difficulty or opposition. So what I want to do is I just want to break down persistence as well as what it might mean and look like on a hunt. You know, there's things like physical persistence. Say the elk went over the ridge and you were just a little bit too late. Now what?

Or like in that story, you might be on one spot, it's getting near the end of the day, and now you see something off in the distance. What's your move? Do you push it? What do you do? There's also even just persistence and glassing. Maybe you aren't seeing anything. Well, do you keep glassing? How do you proceed from there? Or if you're a tree stand hunter, sitting in your tree stand on a cold day, something's coming against you, it's cold, it's tough, but...

but persistence to just sit it out and see what happens. Or maybe you blow a stock on a hunt. And then just that ability to continue when things aren't going right, when everything might be difficult or you face some sort of opposition. Especially in Western hunting, there's a lot of opposition from weather to terrain, to animal densities, to going into a new area. There's so many things that are stacked against you.

And while it might seem like some kind of motivational speech or what's this have to do with hunting, I truly believe that a lot of my success has to do with my persistent attitude and my approach toward that hunt in many ways. So I've identified what I would call, say, four types of persistence aids.

Things that help you be persistent in the field, things that help you go over that next ridge, help you get your head in the game when things aren't looking good. Maybe I've been on solo hunts that are a week long and everything has gone wrong, but I'm just looking for that one thing to go right. So if I break it down, I think that there's physical aids, there's preparedness aids, there's an element of a comfort aid, and then a mental game.

So I'm going to break each one of those down in ways to just make you look at the hunt possibly a little different, as well as give you some tips and tactics to staying persistent, to being out there and overcoming the things that might hinder your success.

I really feel like for me, success in a lot of ways, I'm not necessarily that lucky. What I am is persistent. And for me, persistence, it's like I find success when persistence just happens to intersect with luck. I'm just creating more opportunities for luck to happen. As hunters, we always say, oh, hey, good luck out there today. What that means to me is like, don't quit. Just keep going till you end up, till it ends up working out.

But there's a lot of things you can do for yourself to stack the deck in your favor, to give you better odds by just being able to get out there and hunt hard.

I know if you follow any of my social media stuff or whatever, I use this hashtag that I started a long time ago called, it's like live wild, hunt hard. Well, those are two key elements in the way that I approach a lot of things. But for me, the majority of it comes down to hunting hard. So let's take a look at what that looks like and how to prepare for it and how to turn that into success.

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Go to fishingbooker.com today. That's fishingbooker.com. Now let's break it down with the physical aspect. I know that there's so many, well, I'll just put it like this. I've seen people quit that I know can make it. Now, as a guide, somebody will show up and they have something in their mind of, okay, this is how hard it's going to be. This is how easy it's going to be.

whatever. I don't know what their expectations are coming in, but I really have developed a knack of knowing what people are capable of and knowing what people hinder themselves from. So like I said, I've seen people quit that I know can make it and others make it that are probably in worse shape than the next guy, maybe have less skills or abilities, but the deciding factor in their success is their perseverance.

As a guide, I've had guys where there's a guy with me that does works out every day, lifts all the time, a person that would be in your mind, or in anybody's mind in great physical condition. And on this same particular hunt, had a guy that was overweight, definitely not as fit.

but just came in to the hunt with the mindset of, yeah, this is going to be pretty hard, but I'll just keep going. And the person that was in really good shape came with the mindset of, I work out every day. This is going to be easy. I'm in great shape. This will be no problem. After about the first day, the person that was in really good shape, you know, they'd lifted, they'd been in the gym a lot. They just were not in what I would consider mountain shape. They're physically in excellent shape.

But in their mind before they came, they thought, oh, I work out every day. I'll be fine. Now, this person that was with them, they were related. It was actually this guy's dad was just an older guy, a farmer. He grew up to drink his beer and eat his bacon and was not in great shape. But he came out with the mindset of this is going to be a really difficult thing, but I'm just going to do it.

As the hunt went on, the guy that was in really good shape, almost like it was just this weird thing of he pretty much gave up.

And the guy that was in not so good shape was just powering through, going, keeping up the best he could and not slowing down. And it was just a weird thing to see where somebody in great physical condition was being beat by a guy that had no right to beat this person, but just had a different mentality, different mindset and was just persistent.

And so to see that play out in real life was pretty crazy. Now I do think that there is a huge element for Western hunting success that comes down to your physical ability. Your ability to go the extra mile, to go to that next ridge. When the elk or deer go over one valley, you're able to go and pursue them.

And that comes down to physical ability as well as some other things that we're going to talk about, like in that particular scenario, mental toughness as well. Now, before any Western hunt, big game hunt out West or like mountain style hunt, you

You're going to want to be in shape before you get there. And that comes down to the persistence out of the field. It's the lifestyle that you choose that's going to cause more success later. It's going to allow you to push to that next valley or when you're completely tired and gassed and you see a good opportunity, take advantage of the opportunity. You have to have the physical ability to take advantage of the opportunities presented.

I wouldn't necessarily compare myself to someone else or compare two people to each other. It's whatever is your best and putting in the best that you can do. So if you can only go so far, maybe age limits you, maybe you've had medical conditions that limit you, just being at the best that you can personally be because you'll be able to push yourself further.

further, harder, and longer. Through guiding, I've taken guys that are in terrible shape or whatever, and over the years that they've come back, they've gradually gotten better shape and seen success sooner, faster. It's just the more you're able to keep going, the more enjoyable it'll be, and the easier it's going to be in the mental game, the comfort game, and all that later on.

If you think about going on a hunt, think about being in shape, well, you got to be willing to just not say no. When there's an opportunity in front of you, you just have to have that physical endurance to say, okay, there's an opportunity over here. I'm going to do it. Because what happens is as a hunt goes on, you get lazy and now you might get lucky, but if you're going to be lazy in a lot of ways, it's just relying on luck.

So what persistence does is it allows you to take that physical ability and push yourself into intentional situations where you can kind of encounter luck. A lot of the physical ability is just working through the pain, kind of pushing through and pushing yourself intentionally.

It's very hard for people that haven't done it a lot to understand what's that look like? What's that mean? You know, the human body is capable of so many things. I've definitely put my own body to the test many times where there's times where I feel like I want to give up, yet I've pushed and pushed and pushed. I'm not saying push to a point that is dangerous.

understand what's dangerous and what's not. But a lot of it comes down to, I feel tired. So then you act tired. I would say 90% of my successful hunts, I've pushed past that point of being, well, I feel tired to that point of, oh, I felt tired, but look, I'm still doing it. And I'm capable of getting there and

going over that next ridge. I'm capable of taking advantage of that opportunity at that animal there while it's there now, because instead of giving up and saying, nah, it's too far. I don't want to do it. I just get in the mindset of knowing, yes, I can do it. I've done things that are similar. I can push myself to keep going further. And that's going to lead to a ton of success. Now let's jump on preparedness.

preparedness happens. It's in combination with that physical ability of training, whether it's whatever you can do. I know earlier in the year when I had my, we did the new year's resolutions and I gave some things of some goals to set. Maybe it's this summer hiking a hundred miles or with a pack on over the course of

from January till hunting season, or just setting some kind of goals. Maybe it's even, maybe you don't work out now, but you can get one or two workouts a week of running or hiking, some kind of uphill training, maybe some kind of training with a pack training, like you're hunting. Maybe it's every other weekend you go for a prolonged period of a hike, whatever you can do, do. Now, some people can do more and take it to that next level. I suggest it.

But even preparedness in thinking about your gear choices, what you're going to bring on the hunt, and then practicing with whatever you're hunting with, whether it be a bow, whether it be a rifle.

I can never stress practice enough. Like yesterday, now that we're all, a lot of us are in this quarantine mode, or maybe you'll listen to this podcast a year from now. This is a thing of the past. I mean, I go out and try to shoot my bow as often as possible every day. If I can, if I'm a bow hunter, I feel like it's my obligation duty to the animals that I'm hunting to continue to practice with it.

And I know that, you know, not everybody has the time or whatever, but you can make the time for the things that are important. With your rifle hunter, getting out on the range, practicing shooting, not just being the guy that says,

I'm going to go out, make sure my rifle's sighted in camp the day before I go hunting because I shot an elk with it four years ago and it should still be sighted in, but I'll shoot it at a rock and see if it's good. Getting out and practicing and knowing, okay, at different distances, how your rifle reacts in different elements or whether it's your rifle, your bow, whatever you're hunting with, knowing how it

the wind affects it, knowing how the rain affects it, knowing how distance affects it and shooting uphill and downhill and getting that practice, that preparedness and that perseverance in the off season is going to, when you get that one chance, that one opportunity, making good on that opportunity. There are so many hunts that I've been on where I know that going into it, I might be hunting for a week for one opportunity. And so in my mind, I

I feel like I'm very successful when I go out hunting because I have that don't give up attitude. I have a physical ability to do the hunt. Then I also practice and prepare. So when I get my one opportunity, my one chance, I make good on it. I can't stress enough how much that preparedness in the off season is.

lens to success in the future. And right now is a great time. If you're in some kind of quarantine, if you're locked down, but you can get out and do those kinds of things, shoot a little bit, whatever, you're going to find a lot more success in the future.

So let's just think about, and maybe I mentioned this earlier in a previous podcast, but if you are in lockdown, maybe some things to think about. Say you're a bow hunter and you have a short distance. I know not everybody has access to mountains. Not everybody has access to shooting long distances. You know, practice things that you might encounter in a hunting scenario. So what I like to do is say it's with my bow when I'm practicing. If you only have, say, maybe you've got 20 yards, maybe you have less than 20 yards to practice. Practice

practice things that kind of will help with the skills that you might need while in the field. So one of the things that I do is I'll draw my bow back and I'll hold it for as long as I can and then shoot. So I try to get that fatigue to set in. I try to get some more erratic type shot where it might be something similar to an elk's coming in. It steps behind a tree. I draw back. Now I hold, I hold, I hold. Maybe I hold for a minute and then it steps out and I get my shot and I take that shot.

I also try to practice a lot of shooting from kneeling position, squatting position. I mean, one of the hardest shots I've found, the time that I miss the most is if I've got something I draw out of cover and then I raise up, but it's not where I can raise up to my knees. But if I stand fully up, then I might be skylined or whatever. So this kind of shot where you're not fully standing and not fully kneeling, it's more of like a power squat or a chair squat position.

bow shot, practicing those things that I've encountered that I have a struggle with in the field now that don't necessarily mean taking longer shots, like just things that you can practice and then practice if you if you've got short amount of range, something like precision, you know, making sure that your close shots count. So when you're further out, you you really hammer home that precision.

Same thing with a rifle. Go out to the range, practice in real life scenarios with whatever you're going to use. Shooting sticks, shoot off your pack, shoot uphill, shoot downhill. Just practice real life scenarios when you get the opportunity to. Even if you just go to a local range, don't just shoot off the bench. Shoot on the ground from your pack. Shoot kneeling. Shoot without a rest. Shoot different ways to practice and understand and build those skills that will help you later on.

Now let's talk about the third item that I've outlined as a persistence aid, and that's comfort. Now it's comfort in not, oh, I'm comfortable in my couch at home. Everything's great. It's not saying that there isn't some form of discomfort because I've found that a lot of my, well, if I'm, if we're going to talk about backcountry hunting, a lot of backcountry hunting success comes in the form of being comfortable, being uncomfortable.

But there are a few things that I do to make sure that certain things don't hinder me. You know, we'll bring it back again to persistence or just like a continued course of action, no matter the difficulty or opposition. But think about sticking it to Murphy as well. And that's where this comfort thing comes in. What are things that really make it difficult to continue your course of action that you can prevent?

I think one of the biggest things is foot care. You know, if you go out with a brand new pair of boots into the mountains and get blisters...

It's really hard to do what's necessary to be successful. If you've hunted enough and you've done that, you've probably run into this where you start getting blisters, your feet start hurting. You see an animal a long ways away that normally you would get to no problem. And now you're like, nah, maybe we'll just go after it tomorrow. I'm not going to take an advantage of this opportunity because I've got something slowing me down. And I'm not saying be stupid. If you go back to one of our earlier episodes, it might even be like,

I would say in the first 10, I can't remember which one off the top of my head right now. We talked about foot care and there was a story of a guy that got gangrene because he just ignored foot care. I'm not talking about doing that. That's not, persistence is not just beating your head against a rock and being stupid.

It's about taking the precautions as well so you can continue to hunt hard and take advantage of situations when you have them. Like I said earlier, it's not necessarily a matter of time. It's just taking advantage of the time that you do have and putting everything you have into that time. Now, if you only have a day to hunt or whatever, you don't have to do that.

You don't want to be hindering yourself by doing something stupid and not taking care of things that you can prevent from going wrong. So that's where this comfort idea comes in of, you know, take care of your feet early and often have boots that fit and are well broken in. Even things like, you know, getting good sleep and having the right fuel and food for your body, right?

A few weeks ago, I guess maybe a month ago, we talked about backcountry food and backcountry food ideas. You know, picking the right foods to fuel your body so you have that extra bit of energy so you can physically go further and stronger and hunt longer. A lot of it just has to do with getting yourself what you need to go out and hunt how you need to hunt.

Now to take even comfort a little bit further, there's, there's been hunts where, you know, if you don't sleep good, I know my dad, I used to make fun of him for packing in one of those. It's like inflatable pillow, you know, like it's a blow up pillow. Well, that helped him sleep better. So then he had more energy to get up and hunt hard every day. So a few ounces that he's sacrificing of carrying this pillow. When I was always like, Oh, just sleep on a rock. It's not a big deal. Um,

you know, those little things that help you. Yeah, great. Bring them. Think about that comfort level of, I'm not saying go overboard. You also have to understand that you've got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And a lot of that is going to come into our fourth and probably most important aspect, the mental game. But there are things that you can do to increase your comfort where you have that extra energy level, where it gives you a positive mental attitude, where you can keep going out and hunting harder for a prolonged period of time.

I can even think of, there's a desert sheep hunt that I went on a couple years ago. A friend had a tag and it wasn't a backcountry hunt. So I wasn't necessarily too worried about weight. And I carry a lot of weight anyways, with all my camera gear for the solo hunting and all that stuff. But I threw in this collapsible chair almost. There's a backcountry chair. I thought, look, this is a glassing intensive hunt. It's like a lot of cactus and sharp rock and other things.

And if I'm just going to be glassing for the majority of the day, I hike my way up to this glassing knob. I'm going to be sitting there. This is a backpacking chair. I wish I remembered the type of it, but it's just like almost like tent poles that come out and then you just made this chair out of it.

And it was one of the best tools that I brought because I was able to glass more persistently. I was able to just sit there comfortably and focus on the task at hand as opposed to, you know, all my back starting to hurt. So I get up and move around and not really pay attention. And then you start to get uncomfortable and you start to

think of other things, but I could just sit there, have my binos on the tripod glass. And I turned out to be the one that spotted the rams that we ended up harvesting, which was ended up being a Boone and Crockett ram. So to have that comfort and just that little extra sacrifice there, something like a persistence aid, something that helps me be more persistent. Let's talk about the fourth thing. The

Now, it's hard to talk about persistence without also understanding patience. Hunting is one of those things that I feel like it gives me a lot of life lessons outside of hunting. But patience is the thing that I constantly work on. But I do believe that I am very patient because you can't be persistent and not patient. And patience is just that ability to kind of tolerate trouble and suffering without getting upset.

As soon as you start to get upset at the challenge and the way things are going, that's when you put yourself in a bad positive mental state. And when that happens, it's hard to be persistent. I've seen so many hunts be foiled by people's mental attitudes. That earlier example of the fit guy and the unfit guy and the unfit guy just out hunting the fit guy was all down to

a mental attitude, essentially. It was that ability of something didn't go right. It was a little bit harder than expected. And so instead of continuing on, it was more of an attitude of giving up. Whether you're hunting the back country, whether you're hunting out of a motel near a whatever, it doesn't matter.

Things go wrong in nearly every hunt. That's just part of it. But the successful hunters, the guys that I look up to and say, this guy's a really good hunter. What sets them apart is their ability to take the situation, flip it around and keep going. And like, yeah, you know, a stock got blown on the last day, but instead of sulking and slowing down and getting lazy, they're the type of person that just says, no,

Now, that's all part of it. I'm going to push forward. I'm going to keep hunting. I'm going to make it happen. I think one of my best attributes in the field is my mindset when I go into every hunt. And this mindset is just an embrace it mindset.

I've got this because I've done a lot of my hunting, my personal hunting has been very tough solo hunts in what I would consider tough units, hard hunts. I have this weird love for very difficult hunts.

And I think that that can translate well to every type of hunt, whether it's a three-day mule deer hunt close to a road system or whether it's a grueling two-week backcountry alpine hunt for, say, elk or deer in an area that has very few animals.

My embrace it mentality is when I go into every hunt, every journey, every adventure, I kind of take this idea of I'm just going to embrace the suck. Like that's the part of the story that I will tell. That's the part of the adventure that kind of keeps me coming back. So when these things go wrong, when I do a stalk on a giant deer and the wind shifts and I blow it, that's part of the story. Like embracing that part of the story helps me keep a really positive mental attitude.

keeping that positive attitude honestly keeps me more focused at the task at hand and pushing forward and continuing to hunt hard. I have personally been on hunts where things go wrong. Like I, I can remember quite a few hunts where I'm out there by myself. Um, I remember this Nevada mule deer hunt in particular. I don't think I'd ever been so frustrated. You know, I was just hunting after one buck. Things kept going wrong. People would blow the stock. I,

I went into a different area and then you stalked a deer, missed. And it's just like everything was pissing me off. And it was this attitude of, I just started then it was like hot, it was bad conditions. And I just got this bad attitude. And I noticed that because of that attitude, I was sitting there hunting and I wasn't hunting how I normally hunt. I wasn't focused. I wasn't, I

I wasn't, I would see something way away and like, oh, why would I go over there? That's not going to even happen anyways. That's a really, and normally I would say, oh, okay, there's a good opportunity. Yeah. It's going to cost me a lot of physical exertion, but you know what? Let's go for it. Let's see if I can make that happen. So instead of taking that attitude, I was taking the opposite and it just became more unsuccessful, more unsuccessful. And at the end of that hunt, I felt beat up.

And that was just a really good eye-opener of keeping that embrace it mentality, that embrace the suck, and just really taking each and every opportunity, whether it's good or bad, as a learning experience to push forward and to keep persevering until I'm successful.

I really hope that this episode was helpful because I honestly believe that perseverance makes the best hunters. And it's one of those things, mental toughness, just being physically prepared and just being prepared in the off season to take the best advantage of the opportunities you're given doesn't necessarily get talked about as often as it should.

I think some of the best hunters I know are mentally tough, they're persistent, and they really understand what it means to just keep after it. I think if you can latch on to that, well, it might seem, oh, it's more of a motivational speech than hunting tactics. Maybe. But it is, in my opinion, one of the best tactics you can have in your toolbox.

So as we're, you know, a lot of people just like some of these lockdowns have shut down hunting seasons. And it's just, it's one of those things. Here's a good time. If you're ever going to practice mental toughness, a pandemic is a great time to do it. You know, as seasons come, start getting shut down and you, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of things that have affected everybody's lives. I think there's a lot of people that are affected right now.

Practice some of that mental toughness. Practice on the positive ways to look at tough situations. If you can do it in any way, just practice it in daily life as well. And I know right now some...

season that I was planning on going and hunting has been temporarily suspended and you start to be like, oh my gosh, is this ever going to end? Yes, it's going to end. We'll get through it. So good time to just practice that mental toughness from home. But also I'll answer a quick question here. I know some, I did talk a little, I was a little long winded today, but I think people have got more time now anyway, so I think it's fine.

This question says, and to be honest, I got, I don't even know, probably a dozen questions similar to this vein recently. So I figured might as well talk about this and it goes great into mental toughness. So it says, Hey, Remy, I was wondering if there are any tricks you use on solo hunts when your mind starts wandering at night? It seems like I keep thinking something is out there to get me. Do you ever get scared when you're out alone in the wild?

And they go on to say that they've kind of started doing some of their own solo hunting and they've been successful, but they also struggle sometimes with the mental aspect of it. Cade from Michigan.

So yeah, thanks for that question. I think that's a great question. And, you know, I've been, I've been hunting solo so long. I think some of these things that I started out doing, I don't necessarily do anymore, but there are those times where I've been in, in weird places or had hard days or tough situations. And yeah, your mind starts wandering at night. I did a solo trip

in Africa and I could hear just crazy animals roaring and making noise around my tent, my camp. And I just, I know a few specific times

that I felt uncomfortable at night. And I think one, there's a few tricks that I do have that I've done and still continue to do this day to help comfort myself. It's all part of keeping that positive mental attitude and just staying comfortable and staying focused. You know, if you start to get lonely or you start to like get scared,

It can be scary. I mean, there's been plenty of times where I've been completely scared by myself, times where I thought I was almost going to die. And those are just some of those things that I've got through and say, okay, I can push through this. And I mean, I've got so many stories, I could go down a million rabbit trails on this. But a few specific tricks that I use. One, if it's safe and legal, start a fire. At night, a fire...

There's this thing between man and fire, and it is a very comforting factor. It is something that when you stare into that flame, you feel safe, you feel calm. It kind of has this allure of scaring everything else away, whether it's mental or actually does, I'm not 100% sure. But there's...

There have been times where I've been on the mountain just like getting in my own head and it's like, okay, I start a little fire and it's just calming. I watch the fire, then I go to sleep. And it's a great tool. Obviously, use it with safety, but that's one thing. There's other times, I mean, I've done some really long solo trips before.

And I used to have like, I'm not even good with a harmonica, but like a harmonica or sing yourself some kind of song that you like, or maybe you have enough battery juice, whatever, listen to some music like those are great ways to just take your mind off what's going on. Really?

Relax a little bit and enjoy the experience. And then again, you know, just embrace it. Like the part of being alone, sometimes you do get lonely. And if you've got some kind of satellite messengers, whatever, those are great for safety. And it's great to just throw out a message every once in a while and say, you know, talk to, you know, someone close to you and be like, oh man, I'm having a tough day. Whatever.

whatever this is what's in have some encouraging people that can send you some encouragement too that's always great I know there's been a few hunts that I've been on where I've just like literally felt like I gave it my all and just defeated and I texted my brother via Garmin inReach and

And he's like, dude, you've been on, you've done way crazier stuff than this. Like get after it. And you're like, heck yeah, I have. All right, let's do this. So those are all things that I've used in those, in those scenarios where just things aren't going right. Or you just get in your own head. Great stuff to think about. All right. Well, I am excited for, for next week. I had a list of topics that I want to talk about. And then this just popped in my head today. And I thought this is as timely as it gets.

Next week, I'm going to talk about my foolproof anti-tick procedures because a lot of people are going to be going out turkey hunting, bear hunting as soon as these restrictions get lifted and we're going to be out in the field. Springtime ticks are dangerous, man. So I'm going to talk about the tactics that I use to keep ticks out.

at bay and they work really well. And I'm excited to share that. So I think you'll enjoy that. And then if you've got any suggestions or questions or comments, you can email me remy at the mediator.com or Instagram at Remy Warren. I'm on there. I'm answering as many questions as I can. I'm also doing a lot of live events via social media. So if you jump on there, you can, you can catch me live and answer, ask questions there. And,

If you listen to this podcast, I really appreciate it. I appreciate all the support you guys have given me, the comments, the following, the subscriptions, all of it. I appreciate it. And so I want to continue making everyone better, whether it's through this podcast or everywhere else. So feel free to reach out and we'll catch you guys later. Until next time, stay persistent.

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