If you're hunting Marco Polo sheep at 16,000 feet, physical conditioning is important, but the payoff was more the result of sheer determination.

FLEXIBILITY
The appropriate adage here is, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Back when I was guiding in eastern Colorado, almost all my hunters wanted to hunt plains whitetails like eastern whitetails. On the plains, the only areas that look like "whitetail habitat" are the river bottoms. Plains whitetails do frequent the bottoms, sure, but at the slightest hint of hunting pressure they're just as likely to head out into little breaks and coulees far out on the plains--where we hunt them more like mulies or pronghorns than like whitetails. Hunters who were flexible and versatile, those able to think outside the box, were far more likely to be successful.

One time Geoff Broom and I were hunting sitatunga in western Tanzania. There was some sign around, the distinctive splayed-toed, Martian-like tracks, so we tried the customary tactics of building machans overlooking papyrus beds and glassing the edges morning and evening.

Two weeks passed with no sightings of shootable males. Then, on the suggestion of a local fisherman, we drove small patches of papyrus at the river's edge. Nobody "drives" the swamp-dwelling sitatunga, and we failed to get a shot at a good bull the first time we tried it, but we got a nice one the second time.

If you think this doesn't apply to you, remember that big buck you've been hunting for several seasons? Have you explored all the options? He's in there somewhere, and while the wisest course may be to be patient and persistent--hunting him as often as you can throughout the season from familiar stands--it may be time to sit back and think. Remember that the human hunter's most important weapon is his brain. Think it through, and don't be afraid to try different approaches.

DECISIVENESS
There are times when it's best to wait, and there are times when it's best to act. You won't be right all the time, but I think it's important to be able to decide immediately on the best course of action.

As a Marine officer, I've always believed that a reasonable decision (a "90 percent solution") today is usually more effective than a perfect solution tomorrow or next week. In hunting, I believe that more opportunities will be lost to dithering around than to taking charge of the moment and acting.

You have game in sight, but the shot isn't perfect or you aren't 100 percent sure of the size of the animal. So you do nothing, frozen by indecision, and the moment passes. I have done this a bunch of times, but I still regret one particular mistake.

One was on a bighorn hunt in one of Montana's unlimited permit areas. Late one afternoon, Jack Atcheson Jr. and I spotted a lone ram far up on a plateau. We moved on him at three in the morning, made a brutal climb in the dark and got on him shortly after dawn. He was bedded on a rock-strewn slope, and I laid down and got ready to shoot--but did not. My excuse is that I was checking the horns, and maybe I was. In a couple of seconds, the ram jumped up and ran like the hounds of hell were after him, and that was the end of that.

In field shooting it's just as important to know when not to shoot as when a shot is viable. With the right equipment and the right conditions, long-range shooting can be a sound and ethical option, but only if you have practiced a great deal at actual ranges.

Mind you, a perfectly sound decision may be not to shoot. On the final day of a 10-day hunt, Ron Dube and I finally got the drop on a mature Wyoming bighorn. He was bedded facing away on the far side of a draw at 265 yards, and I laid over my pack and put the crosshairs on him. I made a conscious decision to wait until he got up.

It was risky, but shooting at a bedded animal is also risky. Ron concurred ("agreed" may be too strong a word), so we waited, and when he got up I shot him. The point here is, choosing not to act is not the same as failing to make a decision.

Last year, on a post-rut elk hunt in famed Vermejo Park, we were having trouble finding mature bulls, and on the fourth day we spotted a small herd far across a deep valley. We could have kept looking. Maybe we would have found a better bull and maybe not. Me, I figured it was time. I said to guide Gene Klein, "Let's figure out how to get across that opening and take that bull." We shot him less than a half-hour later, just as the herd was drifting into the timber. Had we talked it over for even five minutes, I believe they would have been gone by the time we got there.