Meet The Crew // Daniel Watson
August 30, 2020
If you’ve been following along with us for a while, or watched Randy Newberg’s hunt with us, you’ll likely be familiar with hunting guide James Cruickshank. Hailing from New Zealand, James has been a part of our team for a couple years now and we couldn’t be happier that he is and remains such a special part of that team. Whether he’s leading a client on a stalk after sheep or helping his horse team navigate a late-season trail-out, James is a guide that we’ve come to trust with whatever gets thrown his way. His resourcefulness and combined knowledge of hunting in British Columbia and New Zealand is just a small culmination of what makes James so successful in the backcountry.
While he’s just as happy when he’s off camera, we sat down with James to produce another one of our “Meet the Crew” video series. We’ll include the link to that video below. Wise beyond his years, one of the key takeaways from our interview with James was a bit of guidance that he gave to future clients. “It’s huge how you go into a hunt. How you prepare yourself mentally. There are clients that come in and no matter what happens; they could be rained in for nine out of the ten days. And they don’t get stressed and they don’t worry because they came in with the attitude that whatever gets thrown at them, they’re going to enjoy themselves”. Words for life, not just hunting. He finished by saying that if you can wrap your head around that, you guarantee yourself a successful hunt. If there’s one thing that we could give every client before they head into the mountains, it might be just that. If you haven’t already, give our videos we put together from Randy Newberg’s hunt a watch. It’s a great insight into what a hunt in the north country looks like from start to finish. We got James to give us a rundown of that hunt and some of the lessons he learned.
“The 27th of September was the start of our second to last hunt of the season. It isn’t a better or worse date than the hunts either side of it but different. I always have a plan of where I want to start and finish each hunt and it very rarely ends up going accordingly. This was the case for the start of Randy Newberg’s hunt when he arrived at our base (camp Kiwi). A tough hunt and killing a moose on the same day we were changing hunters meant we were one day further into the mountains then I would have liked. We also had just come back to base camp from spiking out the previous 10 days and we were still at least 5 days trailing from the highway and one high mountain pass between us and the downhill gradient we needed to start moving down.
At this stage in the season, myself and fellow guide Braden Gedson, along with wrangler/sister Blythe Cruickshank, were really starting to get our little team running smoothly. And what made this hunt a little bit special for myself was the combination of people that found themselves together making this adventure happen. From three different countries we had ourselves a group that really clicked as we worked together to make everything come together. From the whole team behind the scenes at Backcountry BC and Beyond to the 7 people on the ground everyone did what they did as close to perfectly as I could imagine. And for those that know me know that’s saying something. As I have been known to look critically at most things.The client is a huge variable on each hunt and attitude often determines success out here. Randy Newberg, Jim Rabenberg, and Marcus Hockett had some of, if not the best mental approaches to this hunt I’ve seen in my guiding career. The kind of mindsets, that what ever twists and turns this experience throws them it was going to be a success. It is usually a challenge I face in every hunt to keep my hunters mental space in the right place so they are enjoying the process of the entire hunt and not becoming fixated on results.With the crew we had the first part of Randy’s and Jim’s hunt was in all honestly quite simple. I can only assume Braden, Marty and Jim would agree with me as with the set-backs they encountered didn’t stop them from enjoying their hunt from start to finish. For us we trailed for three long days to get Randy to and back from my caribou honey hole. Everyone played their role the best they could and the minor things that went wrong I believe were out of our control. Spirits stayed high and we all became closer friends as we shared the experience and enjoyed it in it’s whole. The result was a Boone and Crockett caribou for Randy and a book moose for Jim.I’ve learnt to recognize the difference between the things you need to try to improve on and what is simply out of your control. This is easier said than done but on this hunt the whole crew seemed to get it and this was key to our success”
After navigating a full guiding season in the North during the times of COVID, we’ve also learned to recognize the difference between the things we need to improve on and what’s just out of our control. With that said, we’ve had another successful season and can’t wait to share the results of that with you all. Until then, give our film on James a watch and stay tuned!
