Contingencies in Action: Adapting on a Tough Blacktail Hunt

Back in February, Jaden and Hayden Richins recorded an episode called "Contingencies: How to Build Backup Plans". They worked through uncertain draw odds, multiple states, and over-the-counter options to make sure they would have a hunt together no matter how application season shook out. That planning session eventually sent them to Northern California to bowhunt blacktail deer. Now it is late August, their hunt is over, and contingency plans got tested in the real world. Jaden and Hayden expected to backpack into the high country, glass up bucks, and hunt them using a familiar spot-and-stalk approach. Instead, they found few deer up high, smoke that ruined their glassing, brutal terrain, unpredictable winds, and blacktails that were remarkably good at staying out of archery range. This episode covers how they adjusted once the original plan failed. They moved to lower elevations, followed tracks and travel corridors, still-hunted through cover, and eventually committed to sitting springs for hours at a time. That was not how either of them wanted to hunt, but it consistently gave them their best opportunities. They did not come home with a buck, but this hunt proved why contingencies cannot stop at choosing another state or buying a backup tag. Western hunters also need backup areas, backup tactics, and a process for deciding when it is time to change course. This is the full-circle follow-up to the February episode and an honest look at what adapting during a hunt actually looks like when Plan A gets punched in the mouth. Show Links: Book a Hunt West Planning Session >> Hunt West Hosted Red Stag Trip >> Thanks to Bo DePena, a musician, friend, and avid hunter in Colorado, for the intro and outro music for the show.