I think we’ve all been there. You woke up hours before the sun came up, stumbled out to where you thought you might find some critters by the feeble light of the moon, and were rewarded for your efforts by having a nice bull or big buck generously stand fully broadside to you and hold still long enough for you to line up a great shot.
You made your way over to the downed critter, pulled off your pack, and started the process of field dressing it, only to realize you’d left your knife back at camp. Or worse, back at home. Or maybe you had your knife, but it was as dull as a stick, and you didn’t have your sharpener with you.
Or as was the case with a friend of mine, he had his knife, and it was sharp. He had his roll-up game sled to easily cart the animal out of the hills. But he realized a bit late that he hadn’t remembered to toss in the rope he would need to tie the carcass down to the sled and use to drag the laden sled off the mountain.
My friends make fun of me for my checklists, but they keep me from having these sorts of equipment issues. For every outing, I pull out the checklists, which have everything I might possibly need for a hunt or a camping trip on them, and I highlight the boxes to the right of each item I want to take with me. When I put that item in the pile to pack, I make a hash mark in the box. Then when I actually put it in the pack, I cross the hash the other way to make an X. That way, I know I have it.
The times I’ve neglected to use the checklist, I’ve had to do without something. I always manage to forget at least one thing I really want to have. But with the checklists, I don’t forget a thing.
It might be nerdy, but I’m not the guy standing out in the field next to a dead animal, trying to figure out how I’m going to use a dull, one-inch pocket knife to dress and quarter a bull moose.
