I recently heard a story about a man in Utah who killed a bison. The man was damn near 90 years old, and it was his first. I’m not about to launch into a story about long ago and some anomalous old timer who was still stacking skulls and running fence until he dropped dead of a heart attack while fighting wolves with his bare knuckles. (Although we could all hope for such an exit.) The old fella is the cousin of a good friend of mine, and he shot the bison in the fall of 2025.

It wasn’t a ball-buster of a hunt. You could justifiably call it a harvest. But neither of those facts matters when you consider that he made a good shot to kill an animal he hadn’t yet killed while surrounded by a loving family, at a ripe, old age. I don’t know if he’ll ever hunt again, but if not, that’s a hell of a capstone on a hunting career. 

The point is, he made it long enough to have the opportunity. I won’t bullshit you and say that he was devoted to an exercise routine that’s kept him going into old age; I don’t know that. But I will tell you that good preparation in the present gives us the best chance at a health span that keeps us in the field when we’re in our eighties. 

And the curious thing is, developing the long-term mindset necessary for our bodies to keep working while others are falling apart is also the best mindset for preparing us in the short term. 

The problem is hunters too often think only of prepping for the upcoming hunting season. That isn’t enough.

The Tall Issues with the Short-Term Mindset

Here’s the funny thing about the short-term mindset — it makes a hunter think they have more time than they do. Then they procrastinate. Then they start too late to be fully prepared, even for the current hunting season. Then they start making bad decisions. Then they get their ass whooped. It looks a little something like this.

January hits, and they think something like, well, I ought to be better about exercise this year. They put a half-hearted effort into working out. Then the tag draws come out. This lights a little bit of a fire, but mostly they dick around, not really doing what’s necessary. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, it’s June. The hunter in question thinks, Holy shit, I only have a few months! Then they launch into some kind of acid bath of poorly designed training that makes them feel the same way they felt during climbs last hunting season. And they think this is good; they think it’s replicating what they need and preparing them well. They never stop to question if those climbs should have actually felt that hard. (Spoiler: They shouldn’t have.)

Hunting season hits, and they feel the same as they did the prior year. Uphills have more spice than they should, and their heart rate jumps to near light speed as soon as they start moving. Each downhill beats their quads like a loan shark looking for his money. Absolutely nothing changed. But in their mind, they think their summer training worked. To a degree, it may have. But, mostly, it did not. They weren’t prepared for the current season. And they sure as shootin’ didn’t move their fitness forward for the long-term.

The Other Short-Term Pitfall: Thinking A Tag in Your Pocket is Necessary

“Man, I wish I had a hunt booked. I’d train with you!”

A fella sent me that message on Instagram not long ago. I definitely appreciated the sentiment and the vote of confidence. But I wish he knew how much his training mindset was holding him back and setting him up for missed opportunities — or, at the very least, the confidence to pursue hunting opportunities that pop up.

If you’re waiting for the tag or the hunt to be booked, you’re already miles behind where you need to be to even be prepared for just that tag. 

Let’s say you draw the non-resident big game combo in Montana. Drawing results for those tags aren’t released until mid-April. They’re general tags, which in Montana means that you can use them for archery season and rifle season. You could start hunting in September. That gives you four and a half months to prep, which is a good amount of time if used wisely, but not enough to have you fully prepared to hunt elk who are still living high on the hill.

It takes about 12 weeks of enough training volume to make significant improvements to your aerobic base. The same is true for relative strength. If you start mid-April after drawing the tag, that takes you up to mid-July — and by that point, you’ve only laid your foundation. And that’s if you’re following an intelligent training program. In the grand scheme of things, that leaves you with essentially no time to do the specific work necessary to prepare for uphills and downhills — especially under the load of a pack. You’ll survive, but you certainly won’t thrive, and there’s a high likelihood that you’ll miss opportunities because you’re unable to cover the ground necessary to be successful. Worse, you’ll lack confidence in your fitness. You won’t believe your body can take you the distance. Even if you’re confident when first setting out, the reality of your conditioning will kill your confidence by day three.

Not only will you struggle physically more than you should. That’s a real damper on your fun. You’ll also limit your chances of success.

Long-Term Training Mindset, Short-Term Training Success (And Even More Long-Term Training Success)

“Beyond mountain hunting, I have one big goal,” he said.

“Lay it on me,” I replied. We were at a park in State College, Pennsylvania. He was leaning against the end of a picnic table. I faced him, leaning against the end of another picnic table.

Across the aisle, he said, “I want to do the hike from Alan Seeger up to the Greenwood Fire Tower on my 80th birthday.” I smiled and nodded. I had just backpacked the trail that includes that hike; it’s a spicy, steep-bitch of a climb. I liked where his head was at.

Normally, I don’t get to meet new Packmule members to do in-person consultations. But this was toward the end of 2020. The world was still a bit of a mess, and I happened to be home in Pennsylvania, escaping some of the craziness. 

He was my good friend’s boss, in his early 50s at the time, and a dedicated mountain hunter with plans to hunt Montana’s Unlimited sheep units. Packmule Training Co. — then Human Predator Packmule — was only a year old. I didn’t mind making the short drive to meet with him in person. I believe the kids call that “hustling.” (Although, if you’re not in the know, hustling also means selling drugs.) Confirming that he had the right mindset made it a big win.

It might seem contradictory, but that sort of long-term thinking spurs appropriate action in the present. If that seems like nonsense to you, here’s a helpful illustration.

Let’s say you have two students. 

One of those students just wants to get a good grade. They don’t give two hot damns about the material; they just want to take the test, get a passing grade, and be done with it.

Now, the other student truly wants to learn. Not only do they want to ace the test, but they also want to master the material, not only because they see it as useful, but because that’s who they are.

Student one gets about half of a chapter into studying, gets bored, says screw it, and heads out to party. Student two sticks with it, even when they get bored, does the little things they need to do to compile understanding, and rests after the work is done.

Student one crams the night before the test, walks into the exam full of anxiety, and then gets absolutely shellacked by the questions. They forget everything they “learned” a few weeks after the exam. Student two walks into the test a little nervous, but mostly calm and confident. They use their nerves to focus and drive their performance. They kick the test right in the chest and earn a great grade. They add what they’ve learned into their body of general knowledge, and it’s useful to them for years to come.

Student one’s mindset failed them in the short-term and the long-term.

Student two’s mindset allowed them to ace the exam while also supplying them with information they could use for the rest of their lives.

Student two was able to outperform student one in the short-term, and will outperform them in the long-term, because they saw the value in learning now to support who they wanted to become in the future. It drove them to consistently do the little things that seem insignificant, but compile and compound to create lasting change. Their long-term mindset gave them short-term success. It created the pattern necessary to continue reaping short-term rewards on their way to long-term success. 

Hunting fitness works exactly the same way.

When you set your eyes on the most distant possible peak, you respect all of the work it takes to reach it. That level of respect drives commitment. And commitment changes the way you see yourself — you become the person who shows up consistently over time. That person clearly sees the necessity of doing the right things right now and how those things allow them to climb each peak on the way to the one farthest in the distance.

They know that prepping for this hunting season isn’t enough, even if you only plan to be ready for this hunting season. 

And they know this because they know that thinking only of this season causes hunters to “cram for the test” instead of “studying” in a way that truly prepares them. 

It’s the student twos of the world who will be prepared for this hunting season.

It’s the student twos of the world who will be hiking hard ridges in their eighties while the student ones are glued to a chair, looking out the window, and wishing they could still do all the things they love.

For Christ’s sake, be student two.

Give yourself a solid start at preparing for this season and each upcoming season by taking The Hunter’s Field Test.

It’s free and gives you a complete overview of your current level of hunting fitness.

Download it at the link below:

The Hunter’s Field Test