Hunting is a sport of physical ability and knowledge, but successful hunting is obtained when you obtain a consistent display of those two items and your ability to provide those and similar detail in other attributes. The more astute you are at executing those attributes t the more often you will get your buck and the larger they will be test.
Knowledge can be your ability’s during the ground work, weeks before you ever put your boots on. It includes the boots you wear being waterproof and warm, yet not clumsy. The rifle you shoot and its accuracy and accessories down to the bullet type and weight you select. Your ability to shoot fast and accurately without even a moment’s notice, and the range time you took to get that way. Big bucks got big by outsmarting every hunter before you; this is no more than a game of chess with uncharted moves that change every time for both players.
Physical ability isn’t always your ability to leap tall mountains in a single ability but can even be you ability to quickly get your rifle off your shoulder, on target and taking a successful shot.
My whitetail hunt in Kansas a few years back is a good example, a big buck in my area that I had been watching before the snow and cold snap had disappeared from the face of the earth. After a morning in a cold tree stand. With very little movement I was certain that the 4” of snow, with scattered flurries and the temperature down in the single digits had put the big bucks down into an energy conservation mode where they only eat once per day, in the evening about 3PM the warmest part of the day. All morning I had seen does and fawn with an occasional small buck in an area with a high deer concentration but not my buck which had been a regular prior to the December opening morning.
I had hunted this situation before and had changed my tactics and done well with a heavy 14 point that watches over my desk in the office, and greets me every morning when I come in to work.