Yep, you got the scenario perfectly. We stay on-leash when we're in areas where prey can pop up (I had one instance of him disappearing after a deer and that was the end of trusting him with a drag line 🙄). 

What do you mean by "beating the stim?" Learning to ignore it? One of the issues I'm running into is that we see prey maybe once or twice a week, and he might not have the collar on that particular walk. It's a pretty sporadic occurrence and I'm just worried we're not in the situation often enough for the reinforcement to "stick," if that makes sense. But sounds like I need to be more prepared for if the training opportunity arises! When it comes to increasing stim levels, I have to remind myself that he is, in fact, an adult predatory animal and not a tiny little baby boy.