Racing, Shooting, Hunting w/ Olympic Biathlete Paul Schommer | Big Hunt Guys, Ep. 226
5/7/20262 hr 18 min
In this episode of The Big Hunt Guys Podcast, Brady and Trail sit down with Paul Schommer—Olympian, elite biathlete, and hunter. Paul shares his journey, from competitive cross-country skiing and shooting on the world stage to applying that same discipline and mindset to hunting. We dive into mental toughness, preparation, and what it really takes to perform when the pressure is high—whether you're on the Olympic course or deep in the backcountry chasing big game. This episode offers insight on training, focus, and the crossover between competitive sport and hunting success.
Clips
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First 90 secondsPaul Schommer· Guest0:00
We're, we're in the stages of planning a video. [laughs] We're gonna make one, uh, in May. It's called, we're gonna call it The Ultimate Weekend Warrior, and basically the premise is gonna be, like my teammate Jake and I, who just retired, we're gonna be like... It's gonna be kind of comedic. Uh, start where he's, like working at a ski shop- Mm-hmm ... and everyone's just like, "All right, old man, whatever." [laughs] And then, like, and then he's gonna call me up, and I'm gonna be like a maintenance worker somewhere and he's like, "Dude, people don't even know, like we used to be like good athletes, man. Like- Yeah ... now here we are just like a bunch of has-beens." And, um- [laughs] ... and so he- So we're gonna do a video where we're gonna attempt to do the entire training week in just the weekend. 'Cause the idea is like, well, we have a job now, so we have to like do it all on the weekend.
Trail Kreitzer· Host0:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Schommer· Guest0:42
And then we're gonna see, like is it possible to do a full world-class training schedule in just the weekend?
Trail Kreitzer· Host0:48
Gotcha.
Paul Schommer· Guest0:49
Um, so- That sounds cool ... we're gonna... Yeah, we're probably gonna, like suffer big time. [laughs] [laughs] It's, it's gonna be painful. But he, he's super talented, and I'm really hoping that maybe I can do more video stuff with him.
Trail Kreitzer· Host1:00
Yeah.
Paul Schommer· Guest1:01
And like trying to see, um, what it's like, because I mean, yeah, good videographers can make good content.
Trail Kreitzer· Host1:07
[laughs] Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah, my favorite videographer, Mike Mather, we worked with this guy Mather out of Seattle.
Paul Schommer· Guest1:12
Hmm.
Trail Kreitzer· Host1:13
And I think when I first started working at GoHunt, they were like, "Yeah, we have this guy, camera guy. I think he'd, he'd filmed some stuff for Lorenzo when Lorenzo was in college, some duck hunts and, uh, goose hunts." And he w- I was like, "Oh, does he hunt?" "Nope, doesn't hunt." And then you meet the guy, he's super unassuming. You know, tall guy.
Paul Schommer· Guest1:29
Mm-hmm.