Backcountry hunting has a fairly effective way of exposing the skills you never bothered to learn.
Navigation seems straightforward until the trail disappears. Starting a fire is easy until everything is wet. A small gear problem is mildly annoying until the nearest replacement is sitting in your truck eight miles away.
That is why useful backcountry skills are so essential and just as important as the equipment in your pack.
You do not need to become an expert at everything. You should, however, be capable of handling the problems you are reasonably likely to meet.
These five skills below are worth learning properly:
1. Practice Finding Your Way Back
Finding a hunting area is only half the navigation job.
You still need to find your way back out.
As you travel, pay attention to landmarks and terrain features that will look helpful from the opposite direction. Routes can feel surprisingly unfamiliar on the return, particularly after dark.
You should already have a good idea of how you are getting back.
2. Learn To Glass Properly
Hunting requires more than just gun safety knowledge, and there is more to glassing than finding a high point and looking through binoculars.
Learn how to break country into smaller sections and search it slowly instead of constantly jumping to somewhere new. Use your eyes first, settle into a comfortable position, and give promising areas enough time.
The animal you are looking for may not be standing conveniently in the open. Getting better at finding game often means getting much better at sitting still and actually looking.
3. Make Your Shooting Practice Less Comfortable
If every practice shot happens from a comfortable position on a calm day, you are only ever testing one version of your shooting.
Try awkward field positions, hills, wind, and shots after physical effort. These sessions can teach you far more about your limits.
Training for performing under pressure on a hunt should expose the situations where your normal technique starts falling apart. You definitely want to discover those weaknesses during practice and NOT when you’re out in the field.
4. Know How To Deal With An Injury
First aid becomes a lot less theoretical when you are far from your truck or home.
Learn how to handle the injuries you are realistically likely to encounter and make sure the supplies in your pack are things you can use.
Then just be honest about what happens next. Some injuries can be dealt with, and the hunt can continue. Others mean going home or to a hospital.
5. Know How To Look After Meat
The work does not stop once an animal is down.
Backcountry hunters need to know how to prepare, cool, protect, and transport meat when the truck is hours away.
Learn what your conditions require and have a plan for getting everything out before you pull the trigger. Finding an animal is exciting. Realizing afterward that you have given very little thought to several hundred pounds of meat is considerably less exciting.
To End
Every backcountry hunt leaves you with something to work on.
Maybe you misread the terrain, rushed a shot, struggled with the pack out, or discovered a gaping hole in your first-aid knowledge.
Remember those moments.
Fix what you can before the next trip, because becoming a better backcountry hunter happens one lesson at a time.
