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HOW TO HUNT DEER and ELK:  THE MENTAL GAME
by Danny Pedersen

Did you ever notice that the moment you drop your guard that's when the biggest buck in the woods gets up and walks away?  Yeah, you know the feeling, you also have an excuse, "He was so old and tough you would have to use a chain saw to cut a steak."  .

Over the years I've used two different techniques, "stalk and scare," and "dropping one's guard."  The first was perfected by my brother Dean.  We use this only on elk, the "stalk and scare technique."  Now this is how it works, you spot an elk preferably one that is blind in one eye and deaf in one or both ears.  During your stalk you notice a grouse, so you launch an arrow at it and spend the next 10 minutes looking for your arrow.  Now you can see the importance of a deaf and blind elk. Upon finding your arrow you realize you have no idea where the elk went, so you head back to camp.  As you walk by a Grand Fir that very elk jumps up and scares you into next week.  This system is very productive if you're into story telling back at camp.

This technique has several sub-techniques, one of these is the "reading a book in a tree stand technique." Let's just say your reading a sci-fi book, and right when the monster jumps out and grabs the hero 4 or maybe a 1000 elk bust out of the trees right under you. This is where that safety belt comes into play. After spending the next 10 minutes looking for your book you head back to camp, ten or so steps from your tree a grouse explodes under your feet scaring you into next week.

One of the most productive techniques is the "spot, stalk and scare". This is where you use all you cunning and skill.  Picture this; you're glassing the far ridge and valley bottom. There you spot a small band of elk, a few cows and one or two bulls.  As always these are the biggest spikes anyone has ever seen.  You study the terrain carefully from your vantage point.  Ah yes, there is small ravine running down to the valley bottom, they will never know you are there.  And you were right; they never knew you were there because you never saw them again.

As you look up from the valley bottom to the top of the ridge, you mumble "Man I'm lucky I didn't get any thing down here." As you climb out towards Heart Attack ridge the elk explode out of that little ravine never to be seen again.

I have over the years refined the art of "dropping ones guard."  This came about purely out of self-preservation.  There was a time when I was a serious hunter with only modest success. Up first, to bed last – yep, I was serious!  One morning I was up first and it hurt, it hurt a lot.  It had nothing to do with the snow snake medicine consumed the night before.  As my partners and I warmed our selves over coffee we discussed our serious plans for the day.  I had a plan, a serious plan to go lay down in that little group of Tamaracks by the spring.

One of those snow snakes must have snuck in and bit me last night, sneaky little devils.  Luckily I had plenty of antidote in me or I surely would have perished.

As the morning slowly passed, I watched a weasel watching me; I think he thought I was dead.  Soon I was joined by a chickadee on the tip of my bow and a squirrel enjoying the sun flower seeds I was feeding him. Can you see where this is going?  The guard is dropped. Yep, there he was, the key word here is WAS, the
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