Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. On
Speaker 1: this episode, I'm just gonna run through the gear I've used.
Speaker 1: Now that season's kind of wrapped up. My Oregon archery
Speaker 1: el hunt, my Western Washington musli or el hunt, the
Speaker 1: Montana rifle hunt for deer, as well as my Kansas
Speaker 1: arch whitetail hunt. There's gonna be a lot of overlap
Speaker 1: between the gear I used on a lot of these,
Speaker 1: but I'll go into the specifics on you know what
Speaker 1: I used that was different from hunt to hunt, kind
Speaker 1: of what my layering system looked like, maybe what my
Speaker 1: meals looked like on these. I'm not gonna have a
Speaker 1: guest on this episode, just gonna be me kind of
Speaker 1: rattling off the gear that I used, how it performed,
Speaker 1: and in maybe any changes I'm gonna make, So we
Speaker 1: kind of cover it all from archery elk out west
Speaker 1: all the way back to an eastern whitetail hunt, where
Speaker 1: you're gear clothing, all that changes drastically. But like every
Speaker 1: epid sort of Cutting the Distance, I'm gonna start off
Speaker 1: with a few questions. I went to the Phelps game
Speaker 1: calls messages that we've got and pulled these out of them,
Speaker 1: but if you have any questions for me or my guests,
Speaker 1: feel free to email them to us at CTD at
Speaker 1: phelps game Calls dot com or like where we got
Speaker 1: these questions from. Hit us up with some social media
Speaker 1: messages and we'll do our best to get them in.
Speaker 1: So my first question was from Steve Barker, and he's
Speaker 1: asking about broadheads for lower poundages. He mentions that his
Speaker 1: wife and daughter both shoot forty to forty five pounds
Speaker 1: and for white tails they've shot lighter seventy five to
Speaker 1: eighty five grain heads with great success. And he's asking,
Speaker 1: what would you recommend on ELK. So I want to
Speaker 1: kind of start off with shot placement, you know, very cliche,
Speaker 1: but shot placement is ultimate and you need to, you know,
Speaker 1: have an arrow. If you're going to go up and wait,
Speaker 1: you need to make sure you know you got your
Speaker 1: your the right arrow, the right spine on that arrow
Speaker 1: to make sure it works. So a lot of times
Speaker 1: I ask I would ask you, like, is there seventy
Speaker 1: five to eighty five grain head doesn't meet all the
Speaker 1: legal requirements for that western state or the state it
Speaker 1: may not even be a Western state, but the state
Speaker 1: that you're gonnahut elk in. If they meet all of
Speaker 1: those and they shoot them very well, I would say
Speaker 1: maybe continue to shoot those. Or if you're one of
Speaker 1: those on the fence about mechanical versus fixed blades, stay
Speaker 1: with the same weight, but maybe switch to a fixed
Speaker 1: blade head as long as it meets the minimum cutting
Speaker 1: diameter and so on and so forth. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of continuing to use what works. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: starting from scratch, some things I would consider on elk,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether you're shooting a big setup like me.
Speaker 1: You know, and my big setup comes mainly from having
Speaker 1: long arms and and you know, full length arrows. But
Speaker 1: I would look at like a cut on contact head.
Speaker 1: I'm currently using iron rolls standards. I like the design
Speaker 1: of them. I like, you know, the the tounel point,
Speaker 1: I like how sharp they are, I like how they fly,
Speaker 1: how they spin. But also if you maybe don't want
Speaker 1: to go spend as much on iron wheels in the past,
Speaker 1: I've had some great success with slick tricks viper trick.
Speaker 1: It's also a cut on contact. That blade is you know,
Speaker 1: in the elk before the farrell ever is it's already
Speaker 1: cutting tissue, and it's got less resistance you know, to
Speaker 1: some of these non cut on contact heads in my opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, chisel trips, chisel tips, they talk about breaking
Speaker 1: bone and stuff better. I'm from from what I've seen.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stick to cut on contact and then
Speaker 1: get good penetration. And to get good penetration, I'm also
Speaker 1: going to lean towards a smaller cutting diameter I'm gonna
Speaker 1: look for. You know, I still shoot, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the S one hundred, which is the standard iron will.
Speaker 1: I may be wrong, but it's either one inch or
Speaker 1: one in sixteenth inch cutting diameter, very small. And what
Speaker 1: I really want when I shoot a bowl at any
Speaker 1: angle is a whole in and a hole out. I
Speaker 1: want that arrow to drive through as deep as I
Speaker 1: can and ultimately hopefully give me, you know, two holes
Speaker 1: to blood trails. So I've hunted with Kelly Smith, who's
Speaker 1: my good buddy, Charlie Smith's wife. I've saw her shoe
Speaker 1: elk and blow right through him, and I believe she's
Speaker 1: only shooting in the low fifties. So I think you
Speaker 1: stay away from those heavy front leg bones, heavy shoulder bones.
Speaker 1: Maybe give yourself a little more room for air behind
Speaker 1: that front leg and make sure you're still hitting square
Speaker 1: in the lungs. Don't risk it. A forty to forty
Speaker 1: five pounds setup should be fine. You know, shot placements important,
Speaker 1: but with that cut on contact small cutting diameter should
Speaker 1: should be the trick. Jumping into the next question from
Speaker 1: Steven Adney, he's asking about overnight trips and what size
Speaker 1: pack he needs. You know, he needs in order to
Speaker 1: stay out for three to five nights at a time. So, Steve,
Speaker 1: you're gonna probably get a whole bunch of answers from
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different people. You know, they're the
Speaker 1: minimalists that try to pack. You know, I'm not bringing
Speaker 1: any extra change of socks, underwear, clothes. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna have a sleeping bag and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put a piece of taiek over me and that's gonna
Speaker 1: be their sleeping arrangement. So it really depends on how
Speaker 1: how comfortable you want to be, how many luxuries you
Speaker 1: want to pack along what your food looks like. But
Speaker 1: I've always been of of the the idea I want
Speaker 1: as big a pack as possible, and it's not so
Speaker 1: much for what I'm going to pack in or to
Speaker 1: let me overpack on the way in. But what it
Speaker 1: does allow me to do is, uh, if I do
Speaker 1: kill something and want to get my camp back out
Speaker 1: on that trip, I've got additional room without having the
Speaker 1: daisy chain. All of my camp supplies on the on
Speaker 1: the outside of my pack. So you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: hunting with a pack that's anywhere from sixty five hundred
Speaker 1: to seventy five hundred cubic inches and people may say, well,
Speaker 1: that's huge. I have yet to see my pack not
Speaker 1: compressed down to two thousand cubic inch packs, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, for a couple extra ounces of material. It
Speaker 1: gives me the ability to blow that pack way up,
Speaker 1: you know. You add the snow collar on and so
Speaker 1: I can pack my uh you know, really really kind
Speaker 1: of push my pack up, you know, as I need to.
Speaker 1: I'm more of a simple guy, so I have one
Speaker 1: large compartment. I don't have this thing organized down. If
Speaker 1: I need to do any additional organization, I'll use different
Speaker 1: dry sacks to to separate things. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I'm just I stuff into the bottom. So I would say,
Speaker 1: some guys if you're very very you know, space conscientious
Speaker 1: and and ultra light and really packing the minimum. Some
Speaker 1: guys can get by on a three thousand, you know
Speaker 1: cupikinch pack for a three to five nights day. You know,
Speaker 1: really all your after you've got your sleeping system in there,
Speaker 1: and and it's really just adding additional food at some point,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of additional fuel, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of additional water storage. But that's really all that
Speaker 1: changes in my overnight kit. My my base kit, whether
Speaker 1: it's one day or five days, looks the same. I've
Speaker 1: got some sort of shelter, whether it's a it's an
Speaker 1: ultra light you know. I've been using a seak outside
Speaker 1: cuban fiber tent, floorless tent that weighs, you know, under
Speaker 1: two pounds. If I'm grabbing my kafaro saw tooth, if
Speaker 1: it's going to be you know, with a stove, I'm
Speaker 1: able to get it in five pounds. I've got to
Speaker 1: put those in there. When I'm spiking out, I'm using
Speaker 1: a stone glacier fifteen degree bag, so I get that
Speaker 1: stuffed in there, a sleeping pad, and that's really my
Speaker 1: base and then from there it's really just adding on
Speaker 1: additional food. You know, on a longer trip, I may
Speaker 1: throw in an extra pair of socks, extra pair of skivs,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. But that's really what my system is.
Speaker 1: So you really have to kind of find out for yourself,
Speaker 1: Steve on what you're comfortable with what you need to
Speaker 1: have in there. But I would say anywhere from three thousand,
Speaker 1: but I would urge people to go a little bit larger.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take up much extra weight. You can compress
Speaker 1: all that extra space, and I'm one for I can
Speaker 1: save the weight in minimalizing my pockets. I don't need
Speaker 1: a bunch of pockets on the outside. I don't need
Speaker 1: a bunch of organization on the inside. As long as
Speaker 1: everything can fit in there, I'm gonna dump all that
Speaker 1: when I get to camp anyways and have all kinds
Speaker 1: of room, you know, I can use them zip block
Speaker 1: bags or whatever to separate other stuff. And that's really
Speaker 1: my my simplified system for for overnight trips. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've packed in anywhere from you know, one night to
Speaker 1: ten night, and I'm using that same pack for everything.
Speaker 1: You know, there there's we'll get into it a little
Speaker 1: bit here as I as I talk about what pack
Speaker 1: I use on these hunts and why, But I'm really
Speaker 1: looking for other things, like, you know, can the suspension
Speaker 1: all the wait comfortably? You know some of those things.
Speaker 1: Can I get it all in there for my pack out?
Speaker 1: But yeah, anywhere from you know, some guys can make
Speaker 1: it even smaller than three thousand, but I would say
Speaker 1: for the majority, you're gonna be at that three thousand
Speaker 1: and thirty five hundred cubic inch all the way up
Speaker 1: to the larger, you know, expeditions style packs. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: you just have to kind of test and find for yourself.
Speaker 1: But once again, once again, once again, if you have
Speaker 1: questions for me or my guests, please email us at
Speaker 1: CTD at phelps game Calls dot com, or hit us
Speaker 1: up on social media, send us a social message, and
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to get those on there for myself,
Speaker 1: Dirk or any of our guests. So everybody nowadays seems
Speaker 1: to be doing you know, pack dumps or gear dumps.
Speaker 1: I just really wanted to go through I used quite
Speaker 1: a bit of New Year this year. Some of the
Speaker 1: stuff's been old, and I just kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: walk through my four hunts, kind of go over the
Speaker 1: gear I used kind of start to finish, you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe some things people don't talk about or things
Speaker 1: that aren't that glorified, but really just kind of go
Speaker 1: through what we use. So my first time of the
Speaker 1: year was an archery Oregon el hunt. The unit I
Speaker 1: was in wasn't really set up to spike out in.
Speaker 1: There were a few spots to spike in there, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to film in them, so it didn't
Speaker 1: make any sense to to you know, spike in or
Speaker 1: set up for those. So this is what I would
Speaker 1: consider like a Waltint base camp. I only have a
Speaker 1: twenty by sixteen Waltint which was set up for me
Speaker 1: and my camera guy, so there was all kinds of
Speaker 1: room we did. You know, we weren't worried about grizzly
Speaker 1: bears or anything like that, so we had our cook
Speaker 1: system inside that same tent. We had our table inside
Speaker 1: that tent. All of our gear easily fit with our
Speaker 1: two cots inside that tent. Since this hunt was going
Speaker 1: to take place in the middle of September, we elected
Speaker 1: not to pack the stove, which takes up a bunch
Speaker 1: of room and we would have had to gather firewood
Speaker 1: and whatnot. We figured with the temps we wouldn't need
Speaker 1: a wood wood stove. About day five or six, when
Speaker 1: the temperature started to drop into the freezing, we were
Speaker 1: starting to wish we had a stove. And it's not
Speaker 1: so much that your sleeping bags weren't able to handle it.
Speaker 1: It was just, you know, it wasn't as fun, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting around in the wall tent and all of your
Speaker 1: your puffy coats and whatnot, trying to get ready for bed,
Speaker 1: or just to sit up and have a conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: about the hunts, that day's hunts, tomorrow's hunts, just conversations
Speaker 1: in general. What we used to cook on that one. So,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of our hunts were back packing.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of the jet boils or the
Speaker 1: MSR reactor stoves or whatever little system we use with
Speaker 1: the iso buttane. On this one, knowing that we were
Speaker 1: gonna have a base camp, we we grabbed a five
Speaker 1: gallon bottle of propane and we just packed along a
Speaker 1: two burner camp chef stove to be used on this hunt.
Speaker 1: And rather than have to have a bunch of pans
Speaker 1: and cleaning them, we elected to just have the griddle insert.
Speaker 1: So this is what I use on all of my
Speaker 1: my trips to the dunes with the family. We do
Speaker 1: a lot of cooking on this. It's easy, it's simple.
Speaker 1: You know. Around home we use a blackstone, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're camping. The camp chef's a little more durable and
Speaker 1: I don't care as much about it breaks down a
Speaker 1: little bit easier, so we just throw the camp chef
Speaker 1: in the back of the truck. It's kind of indestructible,
Speaker 1: always reliable. So yeah, just use that camp chef for
Speaker 1: all of our cooking. It got a little boring. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of uh, you know, burgers and hot
Speaker 1: dogs and uh you know brought worst and then we'd
Speaker 1: go back through burgers. We did have steaks one night
Speaker 1: and uh my camera guy Dave's brought some brisket for
Speaker 1: the first night, so we switched it up. But it
Speaker 1: was a lot of canned vegetables, you know, burgers and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, which was which was plenty for us
Speaker 1: as far as food on a normal hunt. On a
Speaker 1: normal year, I eat a lot of just whatever, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know the Belvida breakfast bars, you know, any of
Speaker 1: those you know, nice bars, any kind of just glued
Speaker 1: together corn syrup tight bars seemed to kind of fill
Speaker 1: my pack. This year, I went a little bit different direction.
Speaker 1: I was trying to eat a little bit more healthy,
Speaker 1: try to get a little bit more fat me and
Speaker 1: a little bit less quick carbs. So a lot of
Speaker 1: what I ate this year was a lot of keto
Speaker 1: nut mixes, a lot of bags of nuts. We brought
Speaker 1: some like hard parmesan cheese. There were some ultrafat packets
Speaker 1: that used to be like f bomb packets, but now
Speaker 1: they're like ultrafat packs, which is like a macadamia nut
Speaker 1: mixed with some with some coconut oil, you know, heavy
Speaker 1: calorie type stuff. A lot of meat sticks, so I
Speaker 1: bought a lot of There's a Bavarian meats company. They
Speaker 1: make these little short Lndieger's, like two in a bag.
Speaker 1: I'd throw one or two of those packages in my
Speaker 1: pack every day and then really just kind of really
Speaker 1: boring food selection, but kind of just grinded it through
Speaker 1: the hunts with just minimal you know land Dieger meat sticks,
Speaker 1: nut you know, bags and nuts. And then I was
Speaker 1: eating I don't remember the exact brand, but they're like
Speaker 1: a baked protein bar you know, like sixteen the thirty
Speaker 1: thirty grams of protein per bar just to it was
Speaker 1: kind of a little treat throughout the day, a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, satisfy that sweet tooth, but that was really
Speaker 1: all I ate through the day. And then we'd come
Speaker 1: home and have kind of a big, a big meal
Speaker 1: on the camp shift. So that was kind of my
Speaker 1: eating a lot different than what you see a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys pack or what I've packed in the
Speaker 1: pass where it's you know, a bag of sour patch kids,
Speaker 1: gummy worms, you know, whatever you can find and get to.
Speaker 1: Really just kind of went a different direction this year
Speaker 1: and tried to try to be a little more healthy
Speaker 1: throughout the hunt, and I see, I think it kind
Speaker 1: of kept my energy levels higher and more sustained. Maybe
Speaker 1: I wasn't as good you know on a on a
Speaker 1: steep incline or a quick run up a mountain, but
Speaker 1: overall start to finish, I felt a lot better. We
Speaker 1: mentioned our cots and sleeping bag and the wall tent.
Speaker 1: So when I'm in a wall tent, I've got my
Speaker 1: canvas cutter system, and then I've just got my Kafaro
Speaker 1: fifteen degree synthetic bag. Kind of stuffed in that it's
Speaker 1: plenty warm on a hunt like this, the fifteen degrees
Speaker 1: is plenty. It does a good job keeping me warm.
Speaker 1: The canvas cutters outfitted with four inches of memory film
Speaker 1: that kind of lays in the bottom, and I just
Speaker 1: kind of keeping an old pillow stuffed in there, a
Speaker 1: real you know, I don't even know what it is,
Speaker 1: a cotton pillow or whatever the heck. You know your
Speaker 1: old standard cheap pillows are made out of and that
Speaker 1: that system is great. I do. I do have an
Speaker 1: old school caught. I need to upgrade to get a
Speaker 1: little bit of a bigger one because it seems like
Speaker 1: I'm touching all four sides of this thing. But that's
Speaker 1: just kind of my system. I actually sleep better sometimes
Speaker 1: on this cotton sleeping bag with the FULM system than
Speaker 1: I do when I get home on my bed, so
Speaker 1: real comfortable and just kind of makes it gives me
Speaker 1: a good night's sleep. As far as when I got
Speaker 1: to this hunt, you know, what was I going to
Speaker 1: be shooting this year? You know, in the past, I've
Speaker 1: been shooting some psc options. This year, I went back.
Speaker 1: My good buddy Corey Miller is working for Black Eagle
Speaker 1: Arrows and Darton. I went to a three D shoot
Speaker 1: with him and Eastern Montana and got talking with him
Speaker 1: and Randy Kits, the owner of Darton and Black Eagle,
Speaker 1: just a great guy, and we talked to them and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead, and you know, I haven't shot at
Speaker 1: Darton forever. I've never shot a Darton, but let me
Speaker 1: let me shoot you guys, got let's make sure we
Speaker 1: you know, we like them, and and so yeah, we
Speaker 1: just kind of to try something different. So I ended
Speaker 1: up shooting a Darton Vera City. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's Verocity or Veracity thirty five. Really liked it. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit heavier than like the PSC thirty four
Speaker 1: mock thirty four that I shot last year, but I
Speaker 1: held the bow a lot better. Lighters not always better,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to keeping a bow on target
Speaker 1: and how much the bow's reacting. At least for me,
Speaker 1: I felt way more confident in this bow. The bow
Speaker 1: shot where I wanted it to, and one of the
Speaker 1: big bonuses it tuned up very very easy. Now it
Speaker 1: may have been because I had, you know, Henry Bass
Speaker 1: come to my place and get it all tuned up,
Speaker 1: you know, a great, great archery shooter. We also kind
Speaker 1: of knew tuning it into into where the new arrows
Speaker 1: were going to be, that there weren't gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of changes between a broadhead and we were shooting
Speaker 1: them side by side as we got them tuned, so
Speaker 1: right off the bat we basically had our bow broadhead
Speaker 1: tuned as well as shooting field points great. We didn't
Speaker 1: mess with paper, which is something I really liked. We
Speaker 1: just went straight to shooting broadheads and field points and
Speaker 1: got them to dial in. I really liked that system
Speaker 1: because from when I switched from field points to broadheads
Speaker 1: full time, everything was just kind of dialed and ready
Speaker 1: to go. Really really liked that bow. Like I say,
Speaker 1: it's a little heavier to pack around, but I will
Speaker 1: trade a little bit of you know, in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of it. What's a half a pound a pound?
Speaker 1: Even when I know, I draw that bow back and
Speaker 1: in my mind's at ease because that pins just kind
Speaker 1: of sitting where I want. Really liked it. Shot great.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the shot on the bowl and you
Speaker 1: can't ask for much more than that. At the end,
Speaker 1: arrows I shot blacks black eagle, X impacts for those
Speaker 1: of you who don't know, I've got a thirty two
Speaker 1: inch draw and it's all of thirty two inches. If
Speaker 1: bows would let me go farther, I could probably get
Speaker 1: another half inch, if not more, out of them. So
Speaker 1: I'm shooting a two to fifty spine, a very stiff arrow,
Speaker 1: and these arrows are full length, so I don't cut them. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the Black Eagle, you know a lot of times that
Speaker 1: the imperfections come at the ends. Thankfully for me, the
Speaker 1: Black Eagle X impacts pretty straight all the way through.
Speaker 1: So we just take a full ink shaft, get them
Speaker 1: prepped up, and that's what I'm shooting. We add some
Speaker 1: weight to the tip, so along with that iron will
Speaker 1: s one hundred, I'm adding some weight to to the
Speaker 1: tip on the insert as well as the the I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get this wrong, and hopefully I'm shooting basically a
Speaker 1: half sert. I believe we've got basically a hidden system
Speaker 1: down inside that then attaches you know, to that, to
Speaker 1: that arrow, and it's great. I can if I need to.
Speaker 1: I don't get too hung up on tuning my broad
Speaker 1: heads or getting everything to match in. But but that
Speaker 1: system gives me about two hundred and twenty grains I
Speaker 1: think plus mnus in the front. So I end up
Speaker 1: shooting about a five hundred and seventy to five hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty grain arrow, thirty two inches of draw at
Speaker 1: about seventy two and a half pounds, and we're shooting
Speaker 1: at you know, mid to eighties. So I'm not one
Speaker 1: of those guys that just chases crazy high arrow weights.
Speaker 1: I build my setup backwards, so I look at the
Speaker 1: bow's rated speed, know where it's going to be, and
Speaker 1: then I just kind of build my arrow to put
Speaker 1: me at the mid two eighties. I found mid two eighties.
Speaker 1: Keeps my pin, my pin GAP's pretty tight, but also
Speaker 1: make sure that tune in broadheads isn't too much of
Speaker 1: a pain in the neck. And so just kind of
Speaker 1: sat there my rest on that that bow is a
Speaker 1: black Gold Ascent Pro. One thing that I do a
Speaker 1: little bit different than others is I shoot all green pins.
Speaker 1: I set up my twenty thirty forty for an one
Speaker 1: to nine pin, and then I set up my fifty
Speaker 1: yard pin as an nine all green. Some people are like,
Speaker 1: well that's confusing. I just it's easy to keep track
Speaker 1: and it keeps me honest. I just I have to count,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty thirty, forty, and then trust me. After
Speaker 1: a while, it just becomes second nature. You know. If
Speaker 1: you're Hayman thirty, you're using your second pin and so
Speaker 1: on my fifty yard pins my slider. I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever slid my site all year, aside from getting
Speaker 1: my site tape set. So it's there, but I hopefully
Speaker 1: never have use it, and I never intend on using
Speaker 1: it unless the situation, you know, requires it. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, don't like to mess with that cider.
Speaker 1: I use tight Spot's new five arrow quiver light. It's
Speaker 1: got the rubber hood with some cutouts on it. And
Speaker 1: then for a rest, I had the rip Chord microadjust
Speaker 1: drive cage, and for a stabilizer, I've got like a
Speaker 1: ten inch spider with four or five ounces on the end.
Speaker 1: Really kind of settles my bow down for me and
Speaker 1: balances out pretty nice. So that's really all I've got
Speaker 1: going on with my bow. We got the Dart and
Speaker 1: Varasty black Eagle arrows, iron Will broadheads, gold black Gold
Speaker 1: Ascent Pro, We've got tight Spot, and then we got ripcord.
Speaker 1: Pretty simple and for me as much as I like
Speaker 1: this bo, my ultimate goal when I get shooting this
Speaker 1: thing is to have absolute confidence at any range that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot an ELK that that that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hit that thing within that kill zone. And I haven't
Speaker 1: been as confident in this in one of my setups
Speaker 1: since I shot my Elite thirty five whatever that was
Speaker 1: ten years ago. This is this has had me, you know,
Speaker 1: very I guess my Voked thirty five from PSC I
Speaker 1: was pretty confident in, but got really confident in this bow,
Speaker 1: which is for me is ultimately what matters when I'm
Speaker 1: out in the field. I know I'm gonna make a
Speaker 1: shot when the shot prevents itself. So what's on my feet?
Speaker 1: For boots? I usually I've had all kinds of issues
Speaker 1: with boots over my years. I've tried almost every mountain
Speaker 1: boot and then ultimately settled on Crispy brickstalls we've used.
Speaker 1: They used to have the Black, which were like a
Speaker 1: Flex Level five, and then they had like the Brown,
Speaker 1: which I believe were like a Flex level three. Brown
Speaker 1: was non insulated. Black had two hundred Graham's inslation. Well,
Speaker 1: fast forward to twenty three, Krispy brought out a bunch
Speaker 1: of new boots around the Brickstall series, and one that
Speaker 1: really caught my eye was the Brickstall pro Gta. So
Speaker 1: it has a synthetic a synthetic fiber on the outside,
Speaker 1: same last, same everything else as a bricks all same
Speaker 1: lay system. But we had a synthetic fiber, and we
Speaker 1: also had the gore tex. And one thing I didn't
Speaker 1: know if I was gonna like it or not, but
Speaker 1: it is a light gray boot. They added two undred
Speaker 1: grams of insulation to this boot, which for September August
Speaker 1: September hunts. I'm like, I didn't know if I was
Speaker 1: gonna like it, but I didn't notice any issues throughout
Speaker 1: the hunt. These boots were dang near perfect. We had
Speaker 1: just a little bit of separation of the rubber ram.
Speaker 1: But I also wore these boots for sixty plus days
Speaker 1: in the mountains. You know. All over performed flawlessly. We
Speaker 1: we did some did some touch ups with some marine goop,
Speaker 1: cleaned them out, and they're backed as good as new.
Speaker 1: Everything else on the boot held up great, So I
Speaker 1: can't complain about about those. But while I'm giving you
Speaker 1: recommendations on boots, I also need to caveat this with
Speaker 1: do not take somebody's recommendations for boots unless it's like
Speaker 1: maybe on the durability, everybody's foot's different. Everybody's got a
Speaker 1: different last that they build their boots on. Even within
Speaker 1: the same brand, Like all the boots won't fit the same.
Speaker 1: They'll put one on one last one on a different one.
Speaker 1: So that's take it for durability. But I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that everybod needs to go out and try the crispy brickstalls.
Speaker 1: But for me, a guy with a lot of foot issues,
Speaker 1: they worked great. Maybe just as important as the boots
Speaker 1: or the socks. What what you've got on between your
Speaker 1: your foot and the and the boots. I've used to
Speaker 1: be a smart wool guy. I've I've tried all of
Speaker 1: these different brands and ultimately ended up on darn tough
Speaker 1: full cushion socks. They they have a way tighter you know,
Speaker 1: weave or a knit or whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1: They're tighter, they're more comfortable, they're more durable that I
Speaker 1: just don't have heel issues, blister hotspot issues with darn
Speaker 1: tuffs on, and so I don't know if it's a crispies.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a darn tuffs, but whatever
Speaker 1: it is, those two are going to go in a
Speaker 1: combo and I'm gonna stick with them. So darn tuff
Speaker 1: full cushions inside the crispy brickstalls are a month system
Speaker 1: for me. What's on your back? We talked a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier on one of the listener questions. I'm still
Speaker 1: using an old school I've got a forty four mag
Speaker 1: from Kafaru and I've got a Cavern from Kafaru, which
Speaker 1: is about a sixty five hundred cubic inch pack. I
Speaker 1: no longer carry a big hood. I found that I
Speaker 1: just ended up stuffing it full of too much crap
Speaker 1: that I don't need. So I just ran a Kafaro
Speaker 1: Cavern big open pack and it works great for me.
Speaker 1: And what I really like about the Kafaro is I've
Speaker 1: been using them since twenty eleven. The suspension has never
Speaker 1: ever let me down. Well, I shouldn't say never. I
Speaker 1: had one issue on my Oregon Bowl in twenty one
Speaker 1: where one of my load lifter straps had broke a buckle.
Speaker 1: It wasn't anything that I couldn't get taken care of
Speaker 1: with some five fifty para cord and then Kafaro took
Speaker 1: curve of it right away as soon as I got out.
Speaker 1: So it's not ideal to have equipment break. But I've also,
Speaker 1: in whatever it is a thirteen years now, only ever
Speaker 1: had one issue, and I'm not gonna say that it
Speaker 1: wasn't mine, because when you switch packs around and have
Speaker 1: to reconnect everything, I may have, you know, messed something
Speaker 1: up on how I connected that loadlifter, but been super
Speaker 1: happy with the Kavaro. You know, my packs squeak free,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that I used to
Speaker 1: drive me nuts about my old packs, and then that
Speaker 1: one pack. I like how it's organized. I've got a
Speaker 1: spotting scope pocket on the outside. My tripod attaches very easily,
Speaker 1: very quick to get in out of, and we'll pack
Speaker 1: way more than I ever will be able to. Another
Speaker 1: thing that I do when I when I have meat
Speaker 1: as well, a lot of people like this pack will
Speaker 1: separate away from the frame. I carry a one hundred
Speaker 1: liters dry bag and I just drop all of my
Speaker 1: meat into that dry bag until I get out, unless
Speaker 1: it's going to be a real long pack out, and
Speaker 1: then I've got to try to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get some air to it. But packs worked great for me.
Speaker 1: As far as clothing. On a September hunt, I like
Speaker 1: to be able to layer. And whether it's an archery
Speaker 1: hunt in September, whether it's a rifle deer hunt in
Speaker 1: ten degrees, I like to try to get by on
Speaker 1: three lays, you know, three layers I like to have.
Speaker 1: Like in September, it's usually gonna be the wick against
Speaker 1: my skin. If is it gets more colder, we may
Speaker 1: move into the kiln or even into some heavier you know,
Speaker 1: first light stuff, whether you know it's a furnace or
Speaker 1: you know, some of those other ones. But usually for
Speaker 1: me it ends up being the wicic early season, and
Speaker 1: then we go to kiln, you know. After that, then
Speaker 1: I like to go with either a fleece or you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's the origin hoodie or like the klamath over
Speaker 1: top of it. And then from there I go to
Speaker 1: the big coat, whether it's you know, for me right
Speaker 1: now it's the chamberlain. You know, we're we're we're going
Speaker 1: into that With those three layers, depending on how I
Speaker 1: mix and match them, I should be able to get through,
Speaker 1: you know, any situation early season all the way to
Speaker 1: late season. I was able to test out first Slight's
Speaker 1: new pattern this year. The circle pattern kind of built
Speaker 1: for new Western open environments, and I tell you what,
Speaker 1: at least on the Oregon Elkin, it blended in great
Speaker 1: with some of that open yellow grass more open country.
Speaker 1: I'm not real thick dark timber seemed to perform really,
Speaker 1: really well. As far as my harness. You know another
Speaker 1: sister company I've worked with Paul well before we ever
Speaker 1: joined up at Meat Eater. You know, I'm using their
Speaker 1: front opening bino system. On my right pocket since I'm
Speaker 1: right handed, I've got my rangefinder pocket, and on my
Speaker 1: left wing, I've got an E three pocket and they
Speaker 1: I've got a little velcro strap in there and that
Speaker 1: allows me to hold my thumb release. So I've got
Speaker 1: my archery release on my left pocket, my rangefinder on
Speaker 1: my right, and then my binos straight down the middle
Speaker 1: optics I used. I use these on all my hunts,
Speaker 1: a loophole ten by forty two binos. I used to
Speaker 1: use the BX five's. They've got some new range finding
Speaker 1: binoculars out now, the BX four range finding binoculars. I'm
Speaker 1: still using some old prototypes that I was given three
Speaker 1: years ago out the glass and I really really like them,
Speaker 1: so that's what I'm still continuing to use. And then
Speaker 1: for a rangefinder on the archery, I ended up with
Speaker 1: the r X five full draw range finder. I love
Speaker 1: that thing. It's quick, it calculates my my true horizontal distance,
Speaker 1: and I can trust that thing whether I'm shooting hundred
Speaker 1: yards you know, on a three D course straight downhill,
Speaker 1: always seems to give me the right answer. So once
Speaker 1: we did find some success on the hunt, my knife
Speaker 1: that I use was a bench made hidden canyon hunter.
Speaker 1: I like to have a big, heavy duty blade that's
Speaker 1: that's sharp. I get in there and try to do
Speaker 1: quick work. I used. I love, you know, havalons and
Speaker 1: stuff when you're when you're caping or around the face
Speaker 1: or the heads, or but for skinning quickly making sure
Speaker 1: you're not cutting to hide, I'd much rather take my
Speaker 1: bench made hidden canyon knife or those type of knife,
Speaker 1: you know, those five inch type fixed blades that you
Speaker 1: can rip, you know, rip and tear and kind of
Speaker 1: get through that animal really quickly. Maintains a great edge
Speaker 1: and it's very very easy to sharp. And I also
Speaker 1: carry in the same pocket a work sharp field sharpener
Speaker 1: just with the you know, real easy to touch up
Speaker 1: that knife and get things back to the way they
Speaker 1: were to start with. And we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: on the meal deer hunt when you're when you're having
Speaker 1: some success and you're you're ending up on all of
Speaker 1: the on all the processing. You know, we we had
Speaker 1: to get through five six seven deer with those and
Speaker 1: that work sharp field sharpener just works quick calls. I
Speaker 1: can't I can't go through through what we use without
Speaker 1: mentioning mentioning calls. So we release that new unleashed two
Speaker 1: point zero this year. And while a lot of guys
Speaker 1: like I still just love the metal bugle tube. I
Speaker 1: love the ring, I love the residents we get out
Speaker 1: of a of an aluminum material. So I ended up
Speaker 1: sticking with our metal bugle tube this year. I threw
Speaker 1: an easy sucker on form my external. I actually didn't
Speaker 1: pack a Mini X. I don't believe if I did,
Speaker 1: I didn't use it a whole lot. And then for diaphragms,
Speaker 1: I ended up using a combination of the Pink amp,
Speaker 1: which is my signature call the Green amp, and then
Speaker 1: also threw in a Pitch Black two occasionally on that hunt.
Speaker 1: So I don't pack a lot of calls, don't need to,
Speaker 1: but that was kind of what we had headlight. When
Speaker 1: things got dark, I was actually using the lead lenser
Speaker 1: MH eight style headlamp. I like it because I can
Speaker 1: charge it. If I get back to the truck after dark,
Speaker 1: I can hit it up, hook it up to my
Speaker 1: USB charger, get it charged up for the rest of
Speaker 1: the day, and if I happen to be out too
Speaker 1: long or can't or can't you know, get it charged.
Speaker 1: I can take out the rechargeables and dump in normal
Speaker 1: double A batteries and we're right back to going. It
Speaker 1: also comes with the case that acts as a battery pack,
Speaker 1: so when we're on at least for the first couple
Speaker 1: of days, you know, if we're not using our headlamps
Speaker 1: a lot, I can recharge that thing, you know, three
Speaker 1: or four times and without having to dip into to
Speaker 1: the lithiums and get that thing recharged. You know, game bags,
Speaker 1: everybody's what game bags you use. I'm like, I using
Speaker 1: the sordid grab bag over all these years. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got some Margali, I've got some tag bags. I've
Speaker 1: got some that Loophold sent me. We've just got a
Speaker 1: big mix of game bags and after washing them and
Speaker 1: having forty different bags kind of sitting in the shop,
Speaker 1: I'd usually just grab and they've all worked fairly well
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, don't have any complaints there, so
Speaker 1: you know, aside from that, that's really kind of the gear.
Speaker 1: The main gear that we used on on this, uh
Speaker 1: you know, archery l hunt on X was used. One
Speaker 1: thing I didn't mention, which you know, we did use
Speaker 1: a lot of on X. You know, depending on whether
Speaker 1: we were next to property boundaries, need to figure out
Speaker 1: where we're at how to get access, so a lot
Speaker 1: of on X was used to make sure we're staying
Speaker 1: in place. And uh yeah it was that. That was
Speaker 1: the gear that I use on that, And a lot
Speaker 1: of this is gonna carry over. So then my next
Speaker 1: hunt of the year rolls into like a Washington rolls
Speaker 1: into my Washington muzzli or hunt really similar temperature to
Speaker 1: Oregon archery hunt. So a lot of the gear is
Speaker 1: gonna stay the same. But one thing I do want
Speaker 1: to kind of highlight is the muzzloader that I've always used.
Speaker 1: The Traditions Northwest edition. You know. So we used to
Speaker 1: have some stricter rules on traditional muzzleloaders. A couple of
Speaker 1: years ago they changed those rules, and so this year
Speaker 1: I was able to use a Remington seven hundred Ultimate muzzleloader.
Speaker 1: For those of you that haven't seen it, I think
Speaker 1: it's a short and three oh eight case with a
Speaker 1: magnum rifle primer as your ignition system, and then the gun.
Speaker 1: I need to be careful what I say. The gun
Speaker 1: doesn't say it's designed to use Blackhorn too O nine,
Speaker 1: but I move forward with black Horn two nine, so
Speaker 1: I'm not endorsing it, not saying it's it's okay for it.
Speaker 1: I do have a new breach plug coming for it,
Speaker 1: which is set up for Blackhorn too and nine. But
Speaker 1: I used that original ignition system inititional or that original
Speaker 1: breach shot Blackhorn two O nine. Ideally you should be
Speaker 1: measuring your powder by weight on a scale, but I
Speaker 1: was using one hundred and five grains by volume, which
Speaker 1: I don't even want to get the math wrong. Ends
Speaker 1: up being somewhere between like seventy two to seventy five
Speaker 1: grains by weight, a fairly light load. But because I
Speaker 1: didn't have the breach correct that stock Remington seven hundred.
Speaker 1: Ultimate breach isn't designed for black horn two nine, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want a gas cut that breach. I kept
Speaker 1: it pretty dang light, and then I this year elected
Speaker 1: to use Federal Trophy copper borlock two seventy, very easy
Speaker 1: to load, very very accurate of my gun. So with
Speaker 1: all of that being set up, worked very very well,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually sitting here holding one of the mushroomed bullets.
Speaker 1: Performance was amazing on boat first bullet from long distance,
Speaker 1: you don't quite get the expansion that bullet passed through.
Speaker 1: My follow up shot from sixty yards mushroomed out perfectly
Speaker 1: and was lodged in the opposite shoulder that that worked
Speaker 1: great and you couldn't ask for a better performance on
Speaker 1: the bullet We did recover h on this one, we
Speaker 1: we a little bit different style. I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to get an elk out hole in a long long time,
Speaker 1: but this el cap and to die and some property
Speaker 1: that we had permission to get to. So on this
Speaker 1: hunt we used a retrieval vehicle which was we have
Speaker 1: a can am which actually my daughter's can am Trail
Speaker 1: one thousand. She likes to put around the yard and
Speaker 1: go for little nature drives and whatnot. So we hooked
Speaker 1: that up. We're able to get to that bowl and
Speaker 1: ultimately get that bowl out hole, which is is real nice,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's nice to clean up when you
Speaker 1: get back to to the We have a meat shop
Speaker 1: with an eight x ten you know, cooler and and
Speaker 1: all of that. And so got it back to the
Speaker 1: home and was able to break that thing down and
Speaker 1: the can am came in real nice because the property
Speaker 1: owner didn't necessarily want to take our truck out there,
Speaker 1: but didn't mind if we had a small little UTV
Speaker 1: and so that that worked out, you know good. But yeah,
Speaker 1: everything else aside from that was very similar. The same clothing,
Speaker 1: same boot, same pack, same everything aside from the weapon.
Speaker 1: That one was right in my backyard. So you also
Speaker 1: switched up camp and you ended up you ended up
Speaker 1: just staying at home, and it's kind of nice being
Speaker 1: able to come home, get a good night's rest and
Speaker 1: then you know, get up an hour hour and a
Speaker 1: half before daylight and get going. Next hunt on my
Speaker 1: my list was my Montana rifle deer hunt. This is
Speaker 1: kind of always one of those ones I look forward
Speaker 1: to every year. It's always a great fun hunt with
Speaker 1: my family and uh so this one on this one
Speaker 1: we uh the weapon we ended up using the our brothers.
Speaker 1: It's a custom built rifle. I used to be in Washington,
Speaker 1: then went to Utah and now he's ultimately in Texas.
Speaker 1: But we used in our brothers custom built gun and
Speaker 1: seven short action ultramag. So I had that gun kind
Speaker 1: of custom built from Mountain hunts, you know, elk capable,
Speaker 1: shoots really well, defiance action, you know, uh, jewel trigger
Speaker 1: proof barrel. And then all three of us ended up
Speaker 1: shooting our deer with that same gun. All one shot,
Speaker 1: one kill, very very minimal meat damage and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to be surprised. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't like the one ady Burgers. But to this day,
Speaker 1: with that gun, I've had very very many, very very
Speaker 1: few animals make it more than ten yards. Most of
Speaker 1: them die on impact, and if they don't, they pile
Speaker 1: up pretty quick. So very happy with how that performed.
Speaker 1: My wife shot her deer at five hundred and eighteen yards,
Speaker 1: hit it perfectly right behind the high point on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: didn't damage hardly any meat. My son shot his buck
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifteen yards with it, and I
Speaker 1: shot mine at about two eighty all one shot one
Speaker 1: kill and placed very very well one ad Burgers. We
Speaker 1: reload that gun with r L twenty six. One thing.
Speaker 1: We actually we reduce that load in the off season.
Speaker 1: R L twenty six is an alliant powder and it's
Speaker 1: very It's supposed to be temperature stable, but it's as
Speaker 1: crazy as it gets at times. It doesn't like to
Speaker 1: shoot in cold, doesn't like to shoot in the hot.
Speaker 1: We've had pressure signs. But it does give you ultimate performance.
Speaker 1: But we were able to kind of curb those issues
Speaker 1: or kind of make them less of an issue by
Speaker 1: reducing that seating the bowl a little bit farther and
Speaker 1: that gun just shoots lights out. So yeah, we reload
Speaker 1: that one top that gun off. That gun has my
Speaker 1: maybe my favorite scope of all time. It's the Loophole
Speaker 1: Mark five five to twenty five by fifty six a
Speaker 1: thirty five millimeters two. That gun has tracked perfectly all
Speaker 1: the time. It dials up where you want it, it drops
Speaker 1: back where you want it. It's easy to get on target.
Speaker 1: It's got a great eyebox, especially for me. It's maybe
Speaker 1: not as big a issue. But for my wife and
Speaker 1: son that are shooting the guns that also have the
Speaker 1: cheek piece set right where it's good for me, they
Speaker 1: can always acquire their target very quickly. And been really
Speaker 1: happy with that scope number one. It's repeatable. Uh number two,
Speaker 1: it's got some great glass in it and never never
Speaker 1: let me down. So I really like that set up.
Speaker 1: That hunt. I don't know if anybody have been in
Speaker 1: Montana when it's uh after a snow or a freeze.
Speaker 1: That hunt on a few days pushed my raptor to
Speaker 1: everything that it had, you know, all four and we
Speaker 1: didn't try to tear it up. We were trying to
Speaker 1: sometimes just get turned around, you know, four wheel drive
Speaker 1: differentials locked and you know, traction control off, advanced track off.
Speaker 1: That thing with without a U t V or the
Speaker 1: ability like that got us into some areas, you know,
Speaker 1: even even some of the county roads were a little
Speaker 1: bit sketchy. But that hunt ultimately dried out and it
Speaker 1: became real nice. But yeah, I that one. We also
Speaker 1: used the loophole spotter the and I'm gonna get this wrong,
Speaker 1: the I use all straight. I believe it's the Essex four.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Yeah, SX for spotter from loophold straight.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a great glass. Let's just sit behind
Speaker 1: it for a long time, and uh, you do all
Speaker 1: the spotting there trying to think if there's any other
Speaker 1: gear on that hunt that we used a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: It did start to get cold on that hunt, so
Speaker 1: you know, you start to I'm I'm a big cis
Speaker 1: when it comes, you know, to to gloves, and so
Speaker 1: I always end up I don't know, I believe there.
Speaker 1: We weren't using the brooks down. We were using the heavier,
Speaker 1: the alpine cold weather glove on this hunt. And then
Speaker 1: there's I think I had the Alpine cold and then
Speaker 1: my wife and son had the grizzly two point zhers.
Speaker 1: Just we we added heavy gloves. We we were in
Speaker 1: our chamberlain a lot more on that. And then this
Speaker 1: is where we start to switch to the kiln series
Speaker 1: from the wick. We start to go to a heavier
Speaker 1: mid layer, and then we started to chain on top.
Speaker 1: Especially when you're doing long glassing sets without a lot
Speaker 1: of movement, movement really kind of seemed to be the answer.
Speaker 1: Trying to see anything else on that rifle hunt that
Speaker 1: we did a little bit different now. I think that's
Speaker 1: about it as far as different gear, you know, same
Speaker 1: thing boots. We were still rocking the Krispy brickstalls. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that that twiner grams and insulation kind of kind
Speaker 1: of knocked that edge off when it starts to get cold.
Speaker 1: Everything else is similar those hunts. We we airbnb it
Speaker 1: my wife and kidder along. I want it to be
Speaker 1: enjoyable for them, so and don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 1: like to to have a comfortable camp and be able
Speaker 1: to shower every morning. So I kind of like like
Speaker 1: those ones. And then just we just finished up our
Speaker 1: Kansas archery hunt once again. Our biggest change is our
Speaker 1: weapons kind of going back and then our clothing on
Speaker 1: this one. So I went back to the dart and
Speaker 1: Varasity thirty five, same exact arrow setup. Anybody that paid
Speaker 1: attention during Whitetail Week, I did a little blurb on
Speaker 1: the bow I've been using for Whitetail, and I just
Speaker 1: don't change my Western setup. It's it's a monster out here.
Speaker 1: I don't need to shoot any faster. I don't switch
Speaker 1: my broad heads. One thing I did run into a
Speaker 1: little bit of an issue when I went to shoot
Speaker 1: my buck. You know, you get in these blinds, whether
Speaker 1: it's a tree stand, you've kind of got all kinds
Speaker 1: of room. You're in a blind, You've got limitations. You know.
Speaker 1: I'd always draw my bow. Sometimes my elbow would hit.
Speaker 1: And one thing that happened right when I was going
Speaker 1: to shoot my buck this year is I've got that
Speaker 1: ten inch spider stabilizer on it. Sometimes it's hard to
Speaker 1: draw your boat. You know, you got your arrow kind
Speaker 1: of hanging out the windows even to get your bow drawn,
Speaker 1: just so things aren't in the way. And I didn't
Speaker 1: realize my ten inch stabilizer was going to hit off
Speaker 1: of the windowsill the inside. And so next year I
Speaker 1: may look at before I go to whitetail hunt, coming
Speaker 1: up with a different stabilizer system, you know that maybe
Speaker 1: has more weight but on a shorter bar, something to
Speaker 1: that effect, to prevent, you know, any of that from happening.
Speaker 1: I've never felt cold enough yet that I couldn't draw
Speaker 1: my boat back. You know, even when I do get chilli,
Speaker 1: I I kind of practice make sure I get my
Speaker 1: boat back, and I haven't had any issues yet. So
Speaker 1: knock on wood that that nothing all happen there So
Speaker 1: clothing changes up a lot when I'm not Western hunting,
Speaker 1: when I can't get up and walk and go to
Speaker 1: to warm myself up or or you know, create some
Speaker 1: of my own heat you're stuck in a tree stand.
Speaker 1: So one thing that I did this year, you know,
Speaker 1: last year it was really really cold and I kind
Speaker 1: of barely just got buy on my Solitude set up.
Speaker 1: So this year the Solitude kit worked great. You know
Speaker 1: in that forties I would say forties, the thirties on
Speaker 1: that one, I would put my Kiln hoodie on on
Speaker 1: the bass layer. I would wear my Source jacket over it,
Speaker 1: and then I would play with zipping or unzipping or
Speaker 1: walking to my stand without my Solitude coat on. But
Speaker 1: then I'd have my Solitude bibs on for the majority
Speaker 1: of the hunt. One thing I also change up all
Speaker 1: my white toe hunts is my boot system. Those those
Speaker 1: crispy mountain boots. Even two hundred grams installations just aren't
Speaker 1: gonna cut it. So I've got some lacrosse. I can't
Speaker 1: even I believe there are sixteen one hundred grams and insulation.
Speaker 1: And let me, I'm actually searching Google right here while
Speaker 1: I'm I'm looking at it. I believe they're the Alpha
Speaker 1: Burley pros that are in Yeah, Alpha Burley Pro sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred grams in first light cipher. I believe, so where
Speaker 1: those and I also just wore my darn tuffs in
Speaker 1: those and they seem to be enough to get me
Speaker 1: through those thirty to forty degree days. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we used We used quite a few Summit tree stands.
Speaker 1: We used a lot of Millennium tree stands. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of these are already set up on the hunt.
Speaker 1: My buddy Randy that owns the proper, but he's also
Speaker 1: got some red neck blind set up. You know, we're
Speaker 1: using Summit harnesses, safety harnesses on those hunts. We did
Speaker 1: add to Dave Smith decoy. I don't know it's one
Speaker 1: of the bucks. I don't know if it's like a
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact name of it, but uh,
Speaker 1: it worked on a couple sites. We've had some bucks
Speaker 1: coming bristled up. But there are times where you know,
Speaker 1: maybe some smaller deer, some dozeddn't necessarily like it when
Speaker 1: they kind of show up out of the blue. So
Speaker 1: it worked on the bucks that it was meant to
Speaker 1: work on, but kind of you know, was a little
Speaker 1: suspect to some of the gear that didn't want to
Speaker 1: see that buck that close to the stands. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Dirk had some better success with it than I did,
Speaker 1: and and some bucks that really committed to that thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Other than that, that's kind of the gear we used.
Speaker 1: We don't get too crazy, too fancy with our gears.
Speaker 1: Kind of the same stuff year after year. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of major changes that I want to make
Speaker 1: to my gear. I'm I'm I try to put more
Speaker 1: attention on the on the hunting better and different than
Speaker 1: I do and my gear. So that's really what we've got.
Speaker 1: You know, the calls on that white to hunt, I
Speaker 1: guess we need to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1: I used the beta as well, but we also tested
Speaker 1: some new calls. You know, we've got some new calls
Speaker 1: coming out for twenty four with some pretty cool features.
Speaker 1: You know. We also got to test our rattling bag,
Speaker 1: which seemed to at times have gear running by us.
Speaker 1: So the rattle and bag worked really well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was what we used in Kansas. That's kind of
Speaker 1: what I used for all of twenty three and if
Speaker 1: twenty four seasons. Started tomorrow. I wouldn't hesitate to go
Speaker 1: right back out in the field with it. There was
Speaker 1: no gear that I used that I thought really really
Speaker 1: failed me or that I wanted something better. So yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, cutting the distance. That was my gear
Speaker 1: for twenty three. Feel free to send us an email
Speaker 1: to CTD at Phelps game Calls dot com if there's
Speaker 1: any gear you want opinions on or like us to
Speaker 1: test out or take a look at. I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in what's new and what's out there and maybe something
Speaker 1: that we're overlooking. But I appreciate y'all. Good luck if
Speaker 1: you have any Fall hunts left, and we'll catch you
Speaker 1: on the next episode.