Category: First Steps

Should you pay for a hunting guide, or should they be avoided like the plague? There are legitimate hunting guides and there are scammers, just as in any profession. And just like anything else, there are good and bad times to pay for services. On this episode I help you understand when it is a good idea to pay for a guide and how to get the most out of the experience. 

Hunting guides and outfitters are not the same thing. An outfitter may be a hunting guide, or may supply a guide, but the outfitters’ role is much broader. They help furnish everything you need for a hunting trip from transportation to lodging, food, entertainment, gear, etc. A guide is someone who takes you into the woods, leveraging their expertise and scouting to help find you game.

Guides provide a valued service, and it’s an honorable profession. But you will always want to try and vet a potential guide before employing them. Look for reviews, contact past customers, search their name and credentials, do anything you can to verify their legitimacy, or at least check to see if serious complaints have been lodged against them.

There are two main times when getting a guide is a good use of resources.

The first is educational purposes. If you are trying to learn how to hunt something new, somewhere new, or someway new, then a guide may be the fastest way to get a crash course in how to do it right. Watch them, take mental notes, ask questions, analyze everything. Do all that you can to take in as much as possible. Your goal is to learn from a master how it is done under these circumstances.

The second big time is for unique experiences. If you have a once in a lifetime or once in a blue moon opportunity to go somewhere really fun or hunt something really unique, a guide can help you maximize the enjoyment of that opportunity. It’s not so much about learning because you aren’t planning to do it again, or often enough to be able to master it, you are just out to have fun. It is also not about taking a large set of antlers that you can show everyone you ever meet for the rest of your life and tell them how amazing of a hunter you are. You boasting about your accomplishments that are the fruit of a guide’s skills is a bit slimy, and not a great reason to get a guide.

Listen to the whole podcast episode to hear all the juicy details!

If there is one sure thing about hunting, is it that you are going to spend money. It is best to acknowledge that from the beginning, to count the cost, and to plan for the expense, and then stick to that budget. On this episode I talk about how to set a realistic yearly hunting budget no matter what your income. This is for new hunters, lifelong hunters, and everyone in between.

When I first started hunting, I had no idea what I was getting into financially. It took me years to begin to even think about the annual costs, let alone start to budget for them. But of course, there is more to the cost of hunting than just that. There are two primary types of expenses when it comes to hunting, the fixed costs needed just to go into the woods and take game every year, and then the discretionary costs of everything else we buy.

Lots of things contribute to the cost of hunting, depending on the game we are after. If you are hunting deer, you will likely use a tree stand or a hunting blind of some sort, those have costs and don’t last forever. Maybe you need to replace them every 3-5 years, maybe every 5-10 years, but you will need new ones at some point. When it comes to waterfowl hunting, waders and decoys are the same way, when it comes to turkey hunting you have calls and vest that wear out.

No matter what you hunt, you will have clothing and other standard gear that will wear out and need replaced eventually. Many of these things you can plan for, accrue for, so you are not caught off guard. And there all the new shiny things that you must have, this is where costs can quickly multiply. So how do you budget for the necessities and the nice to haves in a way that makes sense for your level of hunting devotion and your income?

In this podcast episode I get into the nitty gritty details of how to take all of these things into account and build a smart sustainable annual hunting budget that will enable you to pay for the things needed to hunt, set aside funds for things that need replaced, and put some money away so you can buy upgrades and new fun things from time to time. The biggest trick to all of it is counting the costs, being realistic, and sticking to your budget without steeling from other areas of your life to buy more and more stuff.

It took me a few years to even begin to realize how much money I was pouring into hunting. I did not understand all of the costs or all of the things I chose to add on because I was not paying attention to the expenses, or where the funds came from that I used for hunting equipment. 

If you’ve never had a hunting budget, you may be surprised to learn that you can end up spending a lot less money by setting aside money for hunting. How can this be? Listen to the whole podcast episode to find out!

Let me also say, I am not an accountant or a financial planner. I am just a regular guy who has learned some simple financial principles over the years that anyone can put into practice to help set and keep to a reasonable budget that can cover all of your hunting costs and expenses from the must haves to the nice to haves. All it takes is a little bit of focus and discipline and you can both save money and be relieved to never need to think about where you’ll pull the money for your general hunting expenses again. 

Show Notes:

Recoil is one of the most vivid parts of shooting and hunting for many who are beginners. It permeates people’s thinking and memory and is often little understood and not properly managed. On this episode I talk about the effect recoil has on hunting, the science behind it, and what you can do to better manage it and be a more effective hunter.

• Recoil effects accuracy, fun, shooter confidence, and health. The better you understand it the more effective of a hunter and shooter you can be.
• Recoil is a measure of action and re-action, felt recoil on the other hand accounts for the real life factors that determine how it effect us.
• Felt recoil is a function of bullet weight, powder charge, gun weight, shooter mass, and mitigating factors. Adjust any of those and you can change the felt recoil.
• There is a macho factor that goes along with heavy recoil, nothing has perhaps done more to damage our sport and dissuade children and newcomers alike than this nonsense.
• People often use more gun than they need for a hunt, which comes with more recoil than they need, which makes them a less effective marksman and a less effective hunter in many cases.
• Whether you are hunting coyotes, varmints, turkeys, whitetail deer, elk, moose, or anything in between, do the best that you can to pick a firearm and ammunition combo that is the right balance of power and recoil to do the job well and be as manageable as possible.
• There are three big things you can do to improve your accuracy and effectiveness with higher recoil firearms, they are covered in the episode.
• Some people just should not shoot certain guns, the physics of their body size and composition hinder their ability to safely and effectively use high recoil firearms.
  • There comes a point where no amount of practice or pride will improve the situation, it’s science.

Show Notes:

Every gun needs cleaned, but how do you know when you should clean them? On this episode I give practical, realistic tips for when you should clean your firearms.

Take Aways:

• Guns are tools that server the hunter. The hunter does not serve the tools.
• Taking care of your tools and treating your tools better than people are very different things.
• Guns are not magical or unpredictable, they do not need random unprovoked cleanings from time to time.
• You should not need to clean a gun every time you use it, unless certain things happen.
• Listen to the episode to hear the 3 times you should clean your guns.

Show Notes:

People tend to assert their opinions or feelings as the reason why hunting is ok or not ok. But what does the Bible have to say about it? On this episode I answer that question and touch on a number of related subjects.

On this episode I talk about what the Bible has to say about:

• Eating meat in the beginning, historically, and today
• Hunting in general
• Hunting for food
• Hunting for self defense
• Hunting to protect property
• Hunting for sport
• Hunting ethics
• Hunting tips and instructions
• The game commission

Here are some of the scriptures that I mentioned on the episode:

Genesis 1:28
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:15
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

Genesis 9:3-6
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”

Genesis 25:27
So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents.

Leviticus 17:13
“Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust;

Proverbs 12:27
The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting,
But diligence is man’s precious possession.

Deuteronomy 7:22
And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.

Show Notes:

Is there a most important hunting tip that translates to all types and styles of hunting? Yes, absolutely.  On this episode I talk about the single most important lesson I’ve learned about hunting and that is developing mental and positional readiness.

Take Aways:

• Mental readiness is having decided ahead of time what game you are going to take a shot at, what range you are comfortable shooting to, and the angles and scenarios you will pull the trigger in. 
• Mental readiness enables you to operate within the critical two second rule.
• Positional readiness is having your bow or firearm in a ready position with both hands always in their places so that you can bring the weapon to bare with just one pivot point. 
• Positional readiness also enables you to operate within the two second rule.
• Material readiness is having the right tools and gear to operate within the two second rule without making too much noise or having too much movement. Such as having a quiet and tight enough coat, etc. 
• Material readiness also involves keeping you comfortable enough to maintain positional readiness.  Such as having warm enough gloves, etc.
• The two second rule is a philosophy of hunting where you cannot count on having more than two seconds to make a decision to shoot, shoulder your weapon, and take the shoot. More time is a luxury that you must not depend on.
• The two second rule is not about practicing fast target acquisition and trigger pulling, it is about maintaining mental and positional readiness.
• You do not need to do speed drills at the shooting range, you need to be strategic in how you hunt.
• Sometimes you should move very slowly and maybe take 10 seconds to shoulder your weapon, it is not just about fast movement but deliberate, efficient, and undetected movement.