How Mental Toughness and Planning Save's Hunts – Cody Rich’s Arizona Elk Hunt Story

Seasoned hunter and entrepreneur Cody Rich shares a raw and revealing look at what separates successful hunters from those who crack under pressure. He shares the brutal details of his 16-day grind chasing a giant bull in Arizona’s late  season rifle hunt plagued by breakdowns, busted gear, and mental warfare.

This conversation is a masterclass in resilience, grit, and why every hunter needs more than just a tag and a backpack. Cody dives into the importance of planning multiple backup strategies (plan A through plan E), managing expectations, and how mental preparedness can keep you in the hunt when everything else goes sideways. Whether you're battling blown tires or blown stalks, this episode will arm you with tools to stay locked in and finish strong.

🧠 Episode Takeaways

• Why you must expect things to go wrong... and plan for it
• How to keep a cool head when disaster strikes
• The power of having multiple plans for your hunt 
• Why mental strength compliments physical toughness in the backcountry
• “Inputs = Outputs” mindset shift for long-term hunting success

Transcript

Ryan Uffens (00:00)
You're listening to the Hunt Stealth Podcast.

Ryan Uffens (00:04)
What's been kind of like your most difficult hunt that you've done?

Cody Rich (00:16)
lately, I would say Arizona. Arizona two years ago, late rifle kicked my ass. So I drew it Arizona, really tough hunt, but there are some big bulls. ⁓ It's ⁓ not known for being easy hunt. It's probably, I'll just say it's one of the easiest tags to draw for a reason. But there are giants in there. so I went down and we lost one of those hunts where... ⁓

Ryan Uffens (00:22)
Tell me about it.

Cody Rich (00:45)
My truck broke down the week before, took a loaner, took my father-in-law's truck, blew out a tire on the way down, blew out another tire when I got, you know, just like one of those hunts where, ⁓ first day I'm there side by side, blows a belt. I'm by myself. So side by side blows a belt. Luckily some guys drug me back to camp. Had to hike all the way back up another two miles and climb up to get service.

I had to buy a belt, you know, like I'm like, I'm trying not to let anything ruin my hunt. Cause I'm like, this is, drew Arizona, finally drew Arizona. And I see this a lot. had a buddy that have this happened to where it's like, everything's going wrong. You cannot let it you up. And you're just like, do not, this isn't getting to me. Like I need a side by side. Don't have it. Like shift the belt, shift the wrong belt. You know, I overnighted it. Like all these things are just like going on. So I was in Arizona for 16 days and

I don't know, day three or four, five, found a good bull, found a shooter bull. And I should have killed him right there. Like it just made a mistake. But long story short, it was like, okay, this is the bull. I'm hunting this bull. And I think I hunted him another 12, 13 days and I would catch glimpses, but it was just like not enough. You'd see him two miles away across the ridge. It was just very, very, very, very difficult hunt. And I will say I feel good about like the...

mentally strong part because I think that that hunt kicked my ass for 16 days straight. And it was like, I didn't plan on going that long. And my wife was even like, do you need to stay longer? And I was like, I think I'm good. I think I'll walk away from this one now. So I don't know. Like there's always those hunts. Yeah, put in a full effort. Yeah, I learned a lot. I think I could do better on it the next time, which is always the case. But you you always hang your head.

Ryan Uffens (02:26)
Put in a full effort.

Cody Rich (02:38)
or hang your head high when mentally you're stuck with a hunt, through all the obstacles. I try not to let those obstacles eat you. ⁓ I've just been on enough of those where it's like, it just feels like the hunting gods are trying to take me out.

Ryan Uffens (02:51)
When you were getting, you were, yeah, you

were getting, you were getting pummeled before it even started hunting. ⁓ And I mean, and that's like, that's a testament to you and who you are as a person, because that's not like a mental toughness that you just decide you're going to pick up there. You have to be prepared for that because life does man, life constantly just like it, like it can beat you down and it can get you to the point where you just, you know, it's like, whatever.

Cody Rich (02:58)
yeah. yeah.

Yeah.

Huh? Yeah.

Ryan Uffens (03:21)
Um, you know.

Cody Rich (03:22)
I had a good buddy.

drew a late Utah tag, know, burned a lot of points to get it. And I actually was going to go down with him first day or so. And we made it two hours from his house or our house and transmission goes out and you could just see it like in his head. He's like, no, no, no. He starts to like fall off and it's like so easy to do. And I was, I was trying to talk him off of Cliff. I'm like, you're fine, man. Let's just run back to the house. We'll switch. You just take my truck, take my truck on the little one. Like, don't let this because

That's when things snowball, know, like one bad thing happens and like you start to just, perciferate that thing and you just let it eat you up on the hunt. And then everything starts going wrong. And like, this will happen on a lot of hunts. Like it's like something terrible is going to go wrong. Maybe three things. And then you have to just like, okay, we got this. We got to stick with it, stick with the plan, you know, and those things. And I think back to the whole planning, I think this is why it's so important to have plans.

A lot of guys will make one plan, maybe one or two plans. get there. You're tired. It's day five and you're like, nothing I did worked. You know what? Bag it. I'm going home. Cause you don't, you don't have the mental capacity to think through a new plan, new strategy, start all the way over, but that's why it's really good. I got this from my buddy, Mark Levissay. He is great at East Gouting, great at hunt planning and he will have 10 plans because we just know that

Gosh, you get tired, you get fatigued. You're not going to be able to rethink this entire situation. you need to just look at the plan. We're going to plan D. Here's plan D. I don't have anything left in the tank, but we're doing it. And I think it's really important to have all those plans.

Ryan Uffens (05:02)
Yeah.

Like I said, I mean, that sounds something that can be applied to more than just hunting,

Cody Rich (05:11)
Anything.

Ryan Uffens (05:13)
I also think too, you know, just kind of like on this like mental toughness thing, I think too, if you don't have your house in order when you go out, you're not gonna like those other things that, know, invariables that come up, transmission, whatever, that's gonna be a really tough thing to push through. Cause you know, you got.

the wife checking in, you got maybe work or something's checking in. And it just completely, I mean, I could just see it completely ruining a hunt. You're just not in it. And then it makes like the tough things that you want to do in order to be successful. You're just done. you just give up or even get into it. And like I said, I mean, I think that applies to a lot of different aspects of life. So if

Cody Rich (05:53)
yeah.

Ryan Uffens (06:08)
If I would that one thing that I would say to somebody is if you're getting into hunting like make sure that you've got like your affairs in order before you go out so that you can be able to like focus on on you know your end goal which is harvesting an animal. So anyway.

Cody Rich (06:15)
Ha ha

Totally. And I think

like, you know, set the bar low. You have to have successes because this is all going to be a giant failure. trust me, I've been doing this my whole life and like, it's like, it's going to be hard. It's going to suck and you're not going to want to be there. And that's when you got to really want it. I think, you know, it's easy to look at Instagram or YouTube and, know, or watch Brian call go hunting. Right. And you're like, I want to do that. And then you get out there. You're like, this is not the same thing. And it's going to, it's going to be hard. It's going to suck.

Ryan Uffens (06:50)
Yeah.

Cody Rich (06:52)
⁓ and stick with it and that, know, you'll look back on that. It's kind of like my Arizona thing. Like that, do I feel good about the output I did? And I am hugely like inputs, outputs, like don't focus on success as in killing something, focus on like, I'm going to execute perfect, ⁓ perfect outputs and the input that comes, you know, is, what it is. Like I'm going to execute my plays and if I kill an elk, I kill an elk. That's great. But I'm going to hunt hard, I'm going to hunt well, and I'm going to make the right calls.

And I'm going stick with it to the very end. you know, if I get lucky, I get lucky, but so many people, I need to kill somebody. need to kill something. And then they start making mistakes. They start doing the wrong things. Things start snowballing. And like, yeah, you fall apart mentally. And like, no one talks about that, but like, it's very true. Like I've seen the best hunters in the world fall apart mentally.

Ryan Uffens (07:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you say that it's I've got to kill the bull. I've got a couple. It reminds me of, you know, the, the dating scene, like in high school, the more desperate you get, the more distance is created between you and, getting that date, right? It's like, Hey, play it cool. You have your plan. Just work through everything and just let the

Cody Rich (07:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Ryan Uffens (08:07)
chips fall where they may, but give yourself the bet, you know, you got to put forward the a hundred percent effort,

Cody Rich (08:12)
it goes back to like, I think I said output SQL inputs, but inputs equal output. So if I say, you know, one of my tactic is like, I'm going to hunt betting areas and I'm a slip in and I'm going to do my cow calling sequence, which I've predetermined. And I'm going to do that or whatever in these scenarios, 10 times a day. If I, I know that if I do this set up, this input, I I do this 10 times a day, I'm going to get, you know,

two encounters to work. And it's like, just execute this over and over and over. Someone like, man, if I hit great glassing spots, I'm at great glassing spot every evening and every morning till the absolute darkness. You're going to find out, you know, it's just math. I shouldn't say it's just math, but like, you know, like it's going to work. Right. And so you have to focus on what you can control, which is like executing well. And, know, the chips are going to fall where they fall, but, you know, you'll make better decisions over time, but that's so much better than.

How do I kill an elk? Oh, maybe I should do this thing. Maybe I should do that thing. Oh, I heard this podcast the other day where you do this call. It's just like, I don't know. Never works.

Ryan Uffens (09:16)
you're out there. And I mean, you've put forth the effort to get into the backcountry you've had to have trained and you know, or you haven't and which is another element of it. But but yeah, you just you get out there and I get it because I've been there and I've been like, I've got to find something. I got to find something.

Cody Rich (09:26)
Good show.

Ryan Uffens (09:35)
and I'm doing things just to be doing something and it's just not the right thing. So that is one of the things that now you've got me convinced. I need to sit down and create a system for when I go out and have like, okay, like here's like plan A, here's where we're gonna look. There's nothing there. We're gonna start moving on to B, C, D, E, however deep you have to go to do it. But I think that's great advice. So.

Cody Rich (09:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. And if

anybody wants, do like, have like on my website, there's an entirely free e-scouting course, which is like just the system of e-scouting. And I, I just kind of break down a unit, ⁓ and go through kind of my thought process, which you're like, you could still, I don't know if the spots are any good, but actually never actually been there. And I did that intentionally, but, ⁓ you know, like it just, I think you, you could claim a lot from just the frameworks and the thought process behind some things of like how to think about things. ⁓ and I think that.

I don't know, maybe it has helped a lot of people, so I'm sure it'll help more.

Ryan Uffens (10:34)
Awesome, yeah,

if someone to go find that, where would they go look for that?

Cody Rich (10:38)
Yeah, you can just go to ElkHunt201.com and should pop up under free free resources. Yeah, it's worth a watch.

Ryan Uffens (10:44)
Sweet. OK, yeah,