Today on Gritty, my guest is my good friend Phil Mendoza and our topic is Targeting Buck Fever. Phil is a stud. Period. Not just because he’s an incredible hunter, archer, Train To Hunt champion, owner of Alpha Bowhunting and the Alpha Bowhunting Challenge and not because he’s the owner of the biggest archery shop in Denver; although that resume pretty sick. No, Phil is a stud because of his character. “The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren
And that quote about sums up Phil and why I like him so much. He’s been a guest on the podcast before. Early on, when I started the Gritty Bowmen podcast, Phil and Aron Snyder went on an Epic Big Horn Sheep hunt and Aron tells the story on GB EPISODE 24 and 30. More recently, Phil was a guest on episode 255 where he and our friends from Fit 4 The Hunt talked about Physical Conditioning and The Mental Game--those have been popular episodes and if you’ve never listened them, I recommend you check them out.
Phil wrote a booklet, not too long ago, that he titles Targeting Buck Fever. Every hunter, every archer has struggled at one time or another with Buck Fever. The urban dictionary defines buck fever as, “nervousness felt by novice hunters when they first sight game.” Which is absolute rubbish because buck fever can affect both new and experienced hunters. When the stakes are high, when you’re on that once-in-a-lifetime hunt, when it’s the last hour of the last day, when the buck of your dreams presents a last second shot, buck fever can wreck you. So how do you rise to occasion, hold your mud, and crush that shot? Well, that’s the discussion that Phil and I have on today’s podcast. It’s good stuff. Take a listen and if you like what you hear, do me a favor and link up with Phil on his Alpha Bowhunting Instagram and Youtube Channels and checkout his book on Amazon. As always, thanks for tuning in to Gritty and making this show possible.