How to Plan Your First Public Land Hunt from Out of State

The purpose of this post is to make public land pursuits more approachable to the out of state recreationalist. So often, whether you read about or watch big Western mountain hunts, the content of the article or show makes the adventure seem unattainable. I wanted to distill all the complexities that go into planning an adventure to a few core principles so that the Western public land hunt can seem more realistic for the first time public land hunter.

The irony of having over 600 million of acres of public land to recreate on with hundreds of different types of activities that could be done on that land, is that the novice recreator becomes overwhelmed and stops planning a trip all together. To combat this, I approach these decisions by using a mental decision tree. With this system, there are three starting points that must first be prioritized, therefore distilling literally millions of combinations of locations and activities down to a choice of one out of three items.

This sounds trivial, but it significantly reduces the amount of time spent trying to figure out what to do and allows you to formalize what portions of the trip or activity are most important to you.

The categories are, in no specific order - Place, Prey and Method (PPM). I’ll give an overview of each category below, and then give a few examples within each category as it would pertain to planning a public land hunt.

Remember, the point of this process is to allow you to define which of these three categories is the highest priority for your planned adventure, and then let the details take shape after the initial prioritization has been made.

Place

Place, quite obviously, refers to the physical location that your hunt will occur. The Place category is a pretty easy one to grasp but comes with a lot of nuance and knowledge required once it comes down to the details. Often, these details are predicated on understand where it is legal to pursue the type of hunt that you desire. Place could cover a wide variety of options, from the macro to the micro of specificity. Someone prioritizing the Place category will usually make it the priority due to some desire to visit or see a new location they’ve never experienced.

An example for the out of state hunter could be something as high level as, I want to experience the Colorado backcountry, or as specific as I want to experience Hell’s Canyon. Place can encapsulate states, regions, mountain ranges, watersheds, river runs, etc. Oftentimes there are specific attributes of an area that would make the Place priority the top priority for planning a hunt.

If a Place is your top priority, and you’re starting with a macro such as a state (let’s stick with Colorado as an example), it will then be important to be able to dive deeper into the details of as your planning process progresses. Leveraging information from organizations such as USGS, the US Forest Service and other sources will help you hone in on further details of your public land hunt.

Further detail you’ll need to understand (that will be covered in later posts) are things such as, what are the rules of the hunt in the Place you chose, what animal will you pursue, how will you access the land you want to hunt and more. By prioritizing Place, you are saying that you want to experience a landscape or region of the country and you will hunt or fish whatever species required to get you to this region fastest.

Prey

The Prey category is similarly simple to explain but can seem very complicated once you commit to a selection, but the point of this site is to simplify that complexity. The Prey category identifies exactly what type of animal you specifically want to pursue in your adventure.

The Prey category will almost always start out at a fairly high level e.g. I want to hunt moose. If prioritized, it is usually the pursuit of a specific species of animal that makes this the top priority for most hunters. As an example, for my 2017 hunting trip in Idaho my top priority category was Prey, given that I wanted to hunt elk that Fall.

Once Prey is selected as your top alternative, the next information to get is where the pursuit of that prey is possible for that given year. Again, the assumption is that if you prioritize this category, that you want to do the hunt as soon as possible. The nuance with the Prey category is that sometimes that planning process will require years of time. Some species require many years of applications, either accumulating points or entering a random draw/lottery year in and year out to finally end up with a tag for that specific prey. A great example of this would be someone wanting to pursue a Bighorn Sheep hunt in Idaho (notice that Prey and Place are combined in this example), as the Bighorn Sheep tag in Idaho is a random lottery draw each year and tags are very limited. Should someone prioritize Bighorn Sheep hunting in such a way that they can decouple it from Place relatively easy, then it will open a hunters options up as they can apply to one of many states that offer Bighorn tags; albeit at the price of applications for each of those states.

The Prey category is probably the category that gets prioritized first most of the time. People often dream of doing an elk hunt, or a moose hunt, and while they probably have a Place in mind when they say those statements, the Prey usually is the priority. There are many reasons to prioritize Prey first - from the adventure that comes from the pursuit (ala Sheep hunting) to the downright tastiness of the meat (Elk).

Method

Place and Prey are fairly straight forward to grasp. The category of Method is the one that I am still working on articulating, so this post is a first big step in that, but the Method category is often the glue that binds the adventure together and sets final plans in place. First, a definition of what I mean by Method - Method is a broad sweeping term that refers to the way that a hunt or pursuit carries itself out. It covers the type of weapon selection, the type of overnight accommodations, and even the modes of transportation.

My opinion is that Method is the broadest category, but one that, if prioritized first, really helps define a trip quickly. An example of Method could be, I want to do a backcountry hunting trip or I want to do a three day river float fishing for something. Additionally, the Method will include what gear or equipment you’re using to hunt - do you want to archery hunt or use a rife? Are you staying in a hotel, car camping or humping into the Wilderness?

Further, Method can even include the type of environment or experience that you want to have while on your adventure. The best example of this that I can think of will be expanded on in the example below where I will specify this year’s hunt where I am prioritizing Method first because I want to do a hunt with my Dad.

If Method is the top priority, typical follow up questions will be - where exactly can I do this type of adventure, what can I chase after, what gear do I need to make this happen? The Method category is most likely the category that is given top priority the least among the three options, but if it is a top priority, I believe that your detailed plans can fall into place a lot faster.

I apologize for the seeming randomness of thought of the PPM process, especially for the Method category. I am certain my ability to educate on this planning process will become refined and change over time, but right now it is the simplest way I can think of to explain how to at least start.

An Example

While I am planning numerous hunts and adventures for this coming Fall, I want to detail the one I’m most excited for which is also the most planned out of my hunts right now. The small amount of back story detail to set this situation up is that my Dad lives in Minnesota, I live in Idaho and we have hunted together every single year for nearly twenty years now, and despite living 1,500 miles apart we don’t intend to stop this year.

Given that, I am prioritizing Method as my top category. Given this, I’m defining Method as any hunt that I can do together with my Dad. Items I am thinking about with regards to Method are primarily a hunt that can be physically done by both of us, meaning that accessibility and overnight accommodations are right for both my Dad and my ability. I would be willing to spend a cold night in a rock cave on a backcountry hunt after hiking in my camp a few miles. I know that my Dad would not say no to doing this together, but that also his level of enjoyment might be impacted. Both of us getting maximal enjoyment out of the hunt is the most important thing for both of us, and that will come from us being able to spend as much time together while out in the woods.

The next category that I have prioritized for the 2019 hunt is Prey. My Dad and I want to hunt elk. We have hunted Midwest Whitetails together every year, and elk presents a unique challenge, change of scenery and massive amounts of the tastiest wild meat.

Naturally, Place is our third category to prioritize. Given that I just moved to Idaho, and that Idaho has many options available over the counter for resident and non-resident hunters, it seemed like the easy choice for this year. Proving that it is indeed the third category in terms of preference for my Dad and I hunting together is that both of us are accumulating preference points in other states so that when one of us gets drawn in that other state, we will plan a hunt there. Overall, we’re very flexible to the state we hunt.

Now that our priorities have been established as Method, Prey, Place it’s time to get into details. I will cover these details in a later post, but the process becomes circular between the categories. The very next question that my Dad and I have to answer is, where in Idaho do we want to hunt? Surprisingly, it becomes a balance of where we want to hunt and where we have the opportunity to hunt, given that my Dad’s a non-resident and I’m a resident.

As we dig into those details regarding Place, we will be checking it against the Method category quite a bit - are the places that are available for us to hunt accessible enough, do they have enough elk, how do we want to hunt the area, etc. While it might seem overwhelming to the beginner, because you prioritized the categories up front, you are always able to detach and take a step back if you ever get overwhelmed and ask yourself if you’ve muddled up your priorities. It helps keep alignment with the entire planning process.

I appreciate any feedback on this planning process and I hope it can help an out of state hunter, whether located out West or the Midwest or further East, to plan and execute and adventure on public land!

Kyle Zibrowski