With big-game seasons fast approaching, now is the time to prepare. Hopefully, summer scouting missions have proven fruitful, and a workout routine has you in fit.

But what about your hunting rifle? Has it been sitting in a gun safe since last season? Or perhaps you bought a new rifle. What can you do besides take it out and shoot it once to confirm zero?

Head to the range once your rifle is cleaned and the bullet is selected. If you’re shooting different bullets from last season or your scope’s rings or bases need tightening, your point of impact could have changed.

Take a few shots at the range. Don’t worry about groupings. This process will foul the barrel, making it dirty with powder residue. Bullets tend to fly more accurately when fired from a fouled barrel versus one that’s clean.

These first few shots may have hit perfectly, which is often the case. Still, let the barrel cool and fire one more shot. If that shot hits perfectly with the others, your rifle is zeroed. If that shot is imperfect, you must adjust the scope to the last shot and shoot two or three more rounds to hit zero.

Once zeroed at the range, I head to the hills and engage in practical practice. If you don’t have access to land where rifles can be fired, find a range that allows you to shoot from positions other than off a bench. While a bench provides a solid rest, once you know the gun is zeroed, punching holes in paper from a solid position only goes so far.

If you want to work on shot repetition, use a .22. The shells are cheap, there’s no recoil, you can shoot a lot of rounds, and your shooting form and trigger pull are the same. I often take a .22 into the hills to shoot and practice with. I’ll shoot at various steel targets and self-healing targets. I’ll also shoot off tripod shooting sticks and from kneeling, sitting, and prone positions.

I will shoot a .22 from every conceivable position I may encounter on a hunt and perform these shots in various settings at different times of the day. I might shoot prone from a flat spot, but I’ll also practice shooting prone while facing uphill, downhill, and on a sidehill. I’ll shoot with the sun at my back, from the side, and even looking into it. Trying to pick up an animal through a scope as you’re looking toward the sun when it’s low on the horizon can be jarring. Practicing shooting in these situations will prepare you for the real deal.

The most stable shooting position is prone, but how often do we get such an opportunity to do that? Tall grass, brush, and uneven ground can prevent laying down and shooting. I’ve killed very few animals by shooting prone simply because the terrain didn’t allow it.

My favorite shooting aid is a tripod, especially a vise-style tripod stick. A tripod is more stable than a bipod, which is more stable than a monopod. The more anchor points you have, the more stable the shot will be.

Sitting down cross-legged with each elbow on each knee is the most stable position for shooting from a tripod. This maximizes the number of anchor points, thus increasing shot accuracy. 

The next most stable tripod shot is kneeling. When kneeling, put the knee on the ground opposite your shooting hand. So, if you shoot right-handed, place your left knee on the ground and elevate the right knee. Rest your right elbow on your right knee and snug the gun into your right shoulder. This is a much more stable shooting position as your elbow is secured, not floating. It’s not a natural position and feels restricting, so practice and get comfortable with it.

Practice shooting from a tripod while standing. After shooting from the other two positions, you’ll quickly see that a standing shot requires more effort and concentration to optimize stabilization.

In addition to practicing with a rimfire from these positions, shoot your rifle. Pick a target, get a solid rest, and take one shot. One. Treat it like a big game hunt where you have one shot to close the deal. Don’t worry about cycling through multiple shots quickly. Put one shell in the chamber, hit the mark, and move on.

Something else I like to do is simulate real hunting situations and execute a perfect shot for each scenario.

For example, hike and place a six- or eight-inch steel gong on a hillside roughly the distance you expect your big-game shot to be. Three hundred yards is an excellent starting point.

Then, wearing your pack and dressed in the clothes you’ll be hunting in, make a brisk hike up an adjacent hill. When you reach the top, visualize a buck or bull strolling across the open hillside. Drop your pack, get prone using your backpack as a rest, and execute a kill shot on the gong. If your pack is loosely packed with contents, it will take some adjustment to become stable. Adding a rock or large stick to the pack sometimes helps improve stabilization.

Now slam some water, recover, and repeat the process. For the next shot, I recommend moving the gong further away, setting it at an extreme up or downhill angle, or tucking it into the shadows in the timber. Better yet, do all these and change your shooting position each time. 

This type of realistic practice creates ready-for-the-moment preparedness. I’ve seen too many hunters botch the moment of truth because they fumbled with their pack, bipod, tripod, etc. Know every bit of your gear and how it can help you achieve a solid shooting position.

When hunting and a longer distance shot materializes, it seems it’s never perfect. The ground won’t be flat, and even your bipod set on your backpack won’t give you enough clearance to go prone.

When difficult moments arise, be savvy to act quickly, but don’t get into a nervous rush. If an animal has no clue you’re around, you have time to get set and make one well-placed shot. Time spent in the field now, before the season, constructing a shooting rest that includes your bipod, backpack, a few rocks, and a rolled-up raincoat will pay off. Be able to use your gear and what the landscape provides to create the most stable rest possible, and you’ll connect on more shots.

When the season hits, you want to be able to drop your coat between a tiny gap in a massive boulder, lean into the boulder with your body at an awkward angle, and execute perfectly. A secure rest might also come from a log, a partially fallen tree, or even a tree limb. If using a tree limb, try securing the rifle where the limb joins the tree, which will offer a more secure rest.

Nobody wants to shoot in the wind, but calm hunting days are few. The West’s rugged land breathes a little harder on those days when you’re likely to send lead.

There are several ballistic devices, but the decisive moment often happens fast and is gone in the blink of an eye. For this reason, practice shooting in value and no-value wind. The more you shoot, the more you learn, and the better your shooting instincts and decisions.

Value wind is a crosswind. A full-value wind blows at 90 degrees. No-value wind directions are straight on and straight behind your shooting position. No-value wind directions have zero side-to-side effect on bullet flight.

Practicing in different wind speeds at different values from full-value directions from 3 and 9 o’clock to ‘tweeners will boost your shooting confidence like few things will. 

I’ve been in many hunting camps throughout the West, Alaska, and Canada and the number one reason I see fellow hunters not filling tags is that they’re not physically ready to get to the animals. You don’t have to bench-press 400 pounds and run marathons to kill elk, but you need to be in decent shape.

Getting your legs in hiking condition, doing cardio work, and eating a healthy diet will go a long way toward helping you put meat in the freezer. If you don’t like running, a stationary bike or an elliptical can do wonders, but you have to push yourself.

Lifting weights will also make a big difference. Don’t think of bulking up for a Mr. Universe competition. Go lightweight with more repetitions and be sure to stretch. Flexibility, strength, and stamina will help you win the game.

Scouting is also essential. Monitor wildfires in your hunting area — both past and present — and talk with regional biologists about big-game population trends. Physically scouting and setting trail cameras are essential to learning about the animals and the area you’ll be hunting. Come opening day, you want to be hunting, not looking for a place to hunt. 

A hunter’s success is realized when preparedness meets opportunity. The more prepared you are, the more ground you can cover, and the better you can shoot, the greater your odds of filling tags.

Before checking your rifle’s zero, be sure to select the best bullet for the hunting you’ll be doing. Different bullets will shoot differently in your rifle. If hunting deer with one bullet, then hunting elk with a heavier bullet, check the zero before each hunt.

While 130, 140, and 150-grain bullets are good for deer, goat, and sheep-sized game, they are light for elk. For elk, 175 and 180-grain bullets are ideal.

Many hunters pick one versatile bullet to meet the needs of all hunts. This ensures your rifle’s point of impact will remain constant, meaning you’ll not need to sight it in prior to every hunt. Typically, 165, 175, and 180-grain bullets are good multi-species bullets. If hunting big-bodied black bear, Roosevelt elk, or moose, 175 and 180-grain bullets work well, and they’ll perform great on all deer-sized animals. Even with large bullets, a smaller animal will incur minimal meat damage when hit behind the shoulder, not on the bone or point of the shoulder.

While you’re out practicing, take the time to learn all you can about your scope, and I don’t just mean using the elevation and windage turrets.

I often sit on a hillside in low light and find objects in the distance with my binos. Then, I quickly change to my rifle and acquire the object in the scope. While doing this, play with your parallax and magnification without coming out of the scope. Just like operating your rifle, you should be able to manage parts of your scope without looking at it. Take your eye off a game animal tucked into thick cover, and you might never find it should it move while you’re looking down at your scope.