Oh, unless you can stage things somewhere in the desert on a calm cold day with no insects, it's always a thing of chance and looking for a cleanish window in the environmental noise. Record more, choose the best, salvage and retouch what you have to.

If you don't like what you're getting, you should work on your mic placement. Some objects may emmit sounds from spots/angles that are not really intuitive.

The distance could be also the major factor. The closer you get to an object, the smaller part of the sound you get. Which can be good/interesting or just wrong sounding. The proximity effect with cardiod patterns also plays a role, it gets boomier as you get closer.

If you're too far you get more noise, less definition (esp with cheap mics) and the more room/reverb if inside. Small reflective rooms make recordings sound much further than you think and you can't make the reflections to go away "completely", you'd need a dead room or outdoor enviro for that.

I'm using my field recordings for game sound design and all the weird different sounds I captured in the past without any real reason are now suddenly very useful.