Set Solid Goals to Increase Hunting Success
By Scott Bestul
I sat in a treestand tonight with little hope of seeing a deer. Though December is among my favorite months to find a great buck, this year is different. Here in Minnesota, the temps are mild, and the ground is bare. Whitetails — not just bucks — are in a post-rut funk, and without our usual snow and cold, their motivation to feed is near zero.
Still, I thought it was important to hunt today. Deer stands are where I always do my best thinking, and I’m ready to wrap my brain around a topic that’s been haunting me for some time now: What’s in store for next year?
I should state up front that I’m a goal-setter. My wife, Shari, teases me that when I’m not actually deer hunting, I’m dreaming about it. But the truth is, I don’t fantasize much. I do a lot of reflecting, analyzing and planning. Like any deer hunter, I enjoy remembering past hunts and celebrating any good decisions I’ve made. But I spend much more time pondering choices that didn’t turn out well and then mapping a plan of action to correct them. Regardless of how enjoyable or successful a hunting season has been, I’m continually looking for ways to make next year even better. And the only concrete way I’ve found to make that happen is to set goals for myself.
Goal-Setting Basics
I first learned about goal-setting as an athlete, when I competed in high-school and collegiate track and cross-country as a distance runner. Later, as I coached athletes on both levels, I came to learn the importance of setting and achieving goals. Invariably, I found the runners who were the most content — as well as successful — were those who had set clearly defined and attainable goals. These athletes had taken a hard, honest look at how they were performing, set a reasonable goal for improving and then charted a course of action to get there.
Conversely, athletes without goals were typically a frustrated bunch who complained frequently about their performance. When I asked why they were unhappy, they’d often mumble something vague about “wanting to run better.”
If I asked how they intended to achieve their success, they invariably had no answer, as if all they’d thought about was stardom but little about how they planned to get there. Unless I could get such an athlete to set some goals, they rarely improved, and their dissatisfaction persisted.
What does goal-setting have to do with deer hunting? Not much, I guess, if the hunter in question is content with every aspect of their pursuit. But I’m willing to bet a dozen arrows that most of us want to get better at what we do. Whether you’re a beginning deer hunter just learning the sport or a veteran looking to take his game to the next level, I’d wager there are things you’d like to improve.
I’ve been deer hunting since 1972, and I can’t think of one season when I didn’t have higher hopes than the year I’d just completed. So eventually, drawing on my experience as a competitive runner, I began setting goals for myself. One year, I wanted to do nothing more than improve my understanding of terrain funnels. The next, I focused on shooting better under pressure.
My new goal is to understand food plotting better. After a season of several failed attempts, I realized I needed to master soil preparation and planting techniques. This past summer, I wasted a lot of hard labor trying to grow seeds that were doomed from the start — not from any product failure, but because I was lazy or in a hurry. It won’t happen next year, I promise.
Naturally, there are some deer hunters for whom goal-setting isn’t appropriate. Some of us hunt solely for relaxation, escape and the special solace that only the whitetail woods can supply. These people view hunting as the one place where they can get away from the competition, hard work and high expectations placed on them in other aspects of their lives. To them I say only “outstanding!” and wish them the best.
But for many of us, hunting is a challenge, and the desire to improve is strong. Of course we enjoy and appreciate the unique and therapeutic value of the deer woods. But we also want to get better at what we do, whether it’s growing a better food plot, understanding deer behavior and movement, or simply shooting a bigger buck. I believe goal-setting is the most efficient means for getting there. With that in mind, here are some of things I’ve learned about setting goals and how I apply those principles to deer hunting.
Step 1: Define Goods
The best goals are those that are easily defined. Set your goal in concrete language that can be clearly understood and simply measured. For example, an easily measured goal is to get within bow range of more bucks during a season. By keeping track of your in-range encounters in a journal and comparing those numbers to those you logged the previous year, you can determine if you met your goal. Numbers don’t lie, and you can measure success or failure easily.
Conversely, a poorly defined goal is vague and difficult to measure. Take, for example, a hypothetical goal to “become a good deer hunter.” Exactly what is meant by that statement? Seeing lots of deer? Seeing more bucks? Getting within shooting range of animals? Fooling a trophy? The list can go on forever.
Concrete goals let you log your results and see progress. When we meet a goal, we experience success and become inspired to do more goal setting and improve further.
Step 2: Climb the Ladder
In addition to being easily measured, the best goals are incremental. That means they start small and build on each other, like a series of steps. For example, if a hunter owns a tract of land and wants to improve the habitat or food sources for deer, it’s unlikely he can achieve all he wants in one season. So instead of aiming for a total makeover, a better plan would be to pick one specific change for the first year — such as improving bedding cover — another specific change for the next season, a third plan for Year three and so on. Most of us don’t have the time or financial resources to accomplish all we want to in short order, which makes planning for a series of small successes during a long stretch a much more realistic — and satisfying — approach.
Step 3: Keep It Real
One of the toughest aspects of goal-setting is dealing with reality. When I was coaching, I’d never discourage anyone from shooting for the stars, but I’d urge them to fly over a barn roof first. Setting a realistic goal requires that you take a hard look at your time, experience, personal skill and property, and then set an attainable goal. For example, I have a buddy who set a goal to shoot a 200-inch non-typical buck last fall. Obviously, that’s a tall order — if not a total impossibility — for most hunters in most areas of the United States. But my friend is an outstanding deer hunter with about 40 Pope & Young-class bucks to his credit. He is also the lucky owner of a big chunk of ground in southern Iowa and has a job that lets him hunt almost every day of the season. Finally, Steve had spotted not one but three bucks during his summer glassing sessions that would flirt with that rarified Boone & Crockett score. My buddy proved he had set a reasonable goal in mid-October, when he shot a huge buck that grossed 214 inches non-typical.
In contrast, my cousin Scott is an equally talented deer hunter who has access to a sizable chunk of Wisconsin property. However, he has much less lofty goals than Steve. As a building contractor, Scott cannot shut down work for three months every year, which forces him into hunting mostly on weekends. In addition, the property Scott hunts is not as prime as Steve’s Iowa real estate. Whitetail body weights and antler growth are limited by poorer nutrition, and the property is hunted by other relatives, which means bucks receive more pressure. Consequently, Scott is content with shooting a solid P&Y-class buck every couple of years. Holding out for a beast that doesn’t exist would be a fool’s game, and expecting to kill a trophy buck in a pressured area, with limited hunting time, would likely cause my cousin nothing more than frustration.
Step 4: Map the Course
After you’ve set your goals, it’s time to decide how to reach them. I call this step creating a road map, because reaching a goal is no different than traveling to a destination. You’ll get there more quickly with some directions. Of course, there are no handy atlases telling you how to figure out big bucks, grow better clover or shoot like a champ under pressure. So you’ll have to create and follow your own map to success.
That isn’t easy, but just like setting your goals, I’ve found it’s best to keep the steps for reaching them as short and concrete as possible. One way I do this is to reflect on past failures, determine how I screwed up, and think of solid ways to correct my mistakes. For example, this past summer, I rushed to put in a brassica food plot and decided I didn’t need to fertilize the field. The crop suffered, and within a month, I realized my mistake. So one of my goals for this year is as simple as taking the time to soil test and follow with lime and fertilizer recommendations. It’s nothing earth-shattering, I’ll admit, but it’s a simple, concrete and easily followed goal toward better food plots.
In the past, I’ve written steps as simple as, “Spend two days per week spring scouting,” “Get aerial photos of all hunting properties and study them,” or, “Spend one day per week this summer at a 3-D shooting range.” These small, simple steps comprise the sweat equity that will help you achieve your larger, loftier goals. Remember, dreaming about where you want to go minus a plan of action is just that: dreaming.
Step 5: Appraisal
At some point, you’ll need to sit down and assess your progress. As I noted earlier, I like to do this toward the end of the season, when I’m still excited about deer, but the triumphs and failures of the past year are still fresh in my mind. Which of my goals did I meet and why? I enjoy this process immensely, as it gives me a chance to recall those wonderful moments when everything came together and I met a goal, whether it was as simple as hanging a tree stand in the right spot or as important as getting a good friend an encounter with the best buck he’d ever seen.
And what of the failures? It sounds weird, but sometimes, I enjoy thinking about them even more than my too-short highlight reel. For me, deer hunting is all about fun, so even when I screw up, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge and there are few things more rewarding than taking a hard look at things I’ve done wrong, then deciding on the steps I need to take to correct them. In some strange way, I treasure my failures, as they give me one more reason to look forward to the next fall, when I’ll get the chance to become a little bit better at growing, managing and hunting whitetail deer.
Final Thoughts
Only three weeks of deer season remain as I write this. To be honest, I have little chance of killing a great buck unless we get the right weather, which doesn’t seem likely. Still, I’ll relish every chance I get to sit in a treestand, staring hopefully at a trail and praying one of the big bucks I’m hunting will walk down it. But while I’m waiting, I’ll bide time by reflecting on the weeks that have slipped by me and making big plans for next year. Goal-setting should help me accomplish some of my dreams, and I think it can help any serious deer hunter willing to give it a try.