Speaker 1: As a guide an hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Fire season sucks. Wildfires are
Speaker 1: definitely a reality when it comes to Western hunting, especially
Speaker 1: in these early archery seasons or any early seasons now,
Speaker 1: even if there's not a fire burning in your particular area.
Speaker 1: I mean, last year, it seems like we're affected by
Speaker 1: fires that were hundreds of miles away. Most of Montana,
Speaker 1: Idaho was just like inundated with smoke from fires that
Speaker 1: were in Oregon, California, and Washington. So just because there's
Speaker 1: not a fire in your specific area doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you won't be affected. And with really dry conditions in
Speaker 1: a lot of places this year and a lot of
Speaker 1: big fires already, I want to help give realistic expectations
Speaker 1: on how wildfires are going to affect your hunt and
Speaker 1: how maybe some ways you can persevere and still find success.
Speaker 1: But first I want to share the story of a
Speaker 1: buck in the Haze. How a few years back, my
Speaker 1: buddy Joe came to hunt with me. It was actually
Speaker 1: his first hunt in Montana with his bow, and we'd
Speaker 1: planned the hunt. I tried to do it in between
Speaker 1: when I was guiding. I had a week that I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, we'll just we'll hunt this week.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately for Joe, that week was a wildfire week.
Speaker 1: There was some fires in the area and the smoke
Speaker 1: was just bad. It was like red skies in the morning,
Speaker 1: really really thick fog like smoke, hard to breathe, hard
Speaker 1: to see. That's what we were dealt with. Now, if
Speaker 1: you've ever hunted in smoky conditions like that, you realize
Speaker 1: pretty quick that it's going to be pretty difficult to
Speaker 1: be successful. I mean, the week before it was clear,
Speaker 1: it is nice. We actually had a temperature drop, you know,
Speaker 1: guiding the week before it was like on fire, and
Speaker 1: actually the week after it was on fire too, but
Speaker 1: not that kind of fire, like bugle fire, the good
Speaker 1: kind of fire. And so while Joe was there, it's
Speaker 1: just like it was slow, it was hot, it was smoky,
Speaker 1: there was no visibility, and there's not a lot you
Speaker 1: can do. We got into a few elk They're pretty
Speaker 1: sluggish and just not really firing off in the morning
Speaker 1: is not really bugling hard. I'm not really turned on.
Speaker 1: So we did our best. We we covered a lot
Speaker 1: of ground, and you know, you're just you're hiking. You're hiking,
Speaker 1: you're hunting. You're hunting as hard as you can because
Speaker 1: you want to be successful. You're of lungs or just
Speaker 1: it feels like you smoked five packs a day and
Speaker 1: and then you aren't really finding the animals that you
Speaker 1: think you should for the amount of ground you cover.
Speaker 1: Plus you can't sit in glass as a backup, so
Speaker 1: you just decided. I was like, let's switch gears for
Speaker 1: a little bit. Let's go hunt deer because I'd scouted out.
Speaker 1: I knew there was some pretty decent bucks where he
Speaker 1: had his tags, and I was like, let's just go
Speaker 1: take the middle of the day and go check some
Speaker 1: areas where we can kind of still hunt through these
Speaker 1: logging roads, go up these logging roads and maybe find
Speaker 1: a buck. So gather up our stuff, load up, and
Speaker 1: head up trying to get to the area where I'd
Speaker 1: seen some pretty decent bucks earlier in the season. So
Speaker 1: we're like, we come around one of these corners in
Speaker 1: the logging road and there's small buck. Like, let's just
Speaker 1: keep looking. So we keep going up the mountain and
Speaker 1: hoping to find one dear that I had seen. And
Speaker 1: as we come around the corner of this old logging road,
Speaker 1: a buck jumps up, like, oh dude, right there, and
Speaker 1: we're already We jumped the buck up pretty much within range,
Speaker 1: and it was so hazy. I remember, I don't even
Speaker 1: think my range finder was ranging very well. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the buck was there, but just it just was
Speaker 1: a blur, like my entire memory if this day was
Speaker 1: a blur, I think because there's so much smoke inhalating
Speaker 1: into my lungs and into my brain that I think
Speaker 1: I lost a few brain cells just breathing in so
Speaker 1: much smoke. But I just remember the skuy was really
Speaker 1: red and it was so hazy, like the range finders
Speaker 1: hardly wouldn't work. But we surprised that buck as much
Speaker 1: as that buck surprised us. I think. So Joe gets ready,
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to get my video camera out because
Speaker 1: it just all happened pretty quick. It makes a shot,
Speaker 1: hits the buck. The buck runs off like a sweet
Speaker 1: so from where I was looking at like the buck
Speaker 1: ran not very far and just kind of disappeared in
Speaker 1: the smoke fog. So we end up moving in and
Speaker 1: he had the buck good, but just put another arrow
Speaker 1: in him. Like sweet bucks down as Joe's best meal.
Speaker 1: They're nice four by four good buck. That his best
Speaker 1: archery buck. So we were like sweet stoked. So we
Speaker 1: had one more day to elk hunt, but it was
Speaker 1: like a good thing. We switched up tactics a little
Speaker 1: bit and started going into an area where like at
Speaker 1: least we knew there was animals and they were bedded,
Speaker 1: and we just happened to jump that buck up pretty
Speaker 1: close to us and get a shot. So we ended
Speaker 1: up finishing out the hunt. The last evening of the
Speaker 1: last day. We got a group of elk to fire up.
Speaker 1: We started calling. They were just it was just one
Speaker 1: of those where it's just the bull was just out
Speaker 1: of range. It started to get dark, the fog and
Speaker 1: the smoke was so thick that we could barely see
Speaker 1: the pins, barely see the elk. They were within range,
Speaker 1: still within legal shooting light, but it just really wasn't
Speaker 1: any shot because the visibility wasn't there. Fortunately, we found
Speaker 1: some success, and unfortunately the smoke we pretty much got
Speaker 1: smoked out for a good elk hunt, which is pretty
Speaker 1: typical when you're talking about wildfires. While I am definitely
Speaker 1: a guy who likes to make lemonade out of lemons,
Speaker 1: the truth about smoky hunts is it sucks and they
Speaker 1: are not as successful as when you can see or
Speaker 1: when the air is clear, and it's due to a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons. Generally, when it's smoking and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fires going on, it's hot out, and it's
Speaker 1: not a lot of rain, not a lot of precipitation.
Speaker 1: It's probably hot during the day the fire is burning,
Speaker 1: and the smoke one inhibits your ability to glass too.
Speaker 1: It makes it difficult to hike, and it makes you
Speaker 1: and the animals quite sluggish. You just are not getting
Speaker 1: the normal oxygen. I have hiked a lot during the smoke.
Speaker 1: When they say like air quality is as bad as
Speaker 1: it's ever going to get, stay inside, and I'm up
Speaker 1: hiking ten miles a day. But I definitely feel like
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I'm just drained, I'm tired,
Speaker 1: I'm sluggish, And when I think about it, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the animals probably feel the same way. The reality is
Speaker 1: that not all scenarios are rosy when it's smoky. When
Speaker 1: it's difficult conditions when you've got a combination of things
Speaker 1: with that are hot and something working against you. Many times,
Speaker 1: on some hunts it could be weather that's working against you,
Speaker 1: but during fire season it's often smoke or even closed.
Speaker 1: I mean, you, God forbid, you gotta tag in an
Speaker 1: area that you spent a long time trying to draw
Speaker 1: and the area is closed. Now. While smoke and fires
Speaker 1: do make it difficult, I think there are ways that
Speaker 1: you can adjust your tag tactics to try to find
Speaker 1: a little bit more success. Now, I will say that
Speaker 1: if you could hunt, if you have the option of
Speaker 1: hunting while it's smoky and while the fires are raging,
Speaker 1: or after the temperature is cooled down and everything clears up,
Speaker 1: you definitely want to hunt when everything clears up. But
Speaker 1: that's not always the case. Sometimes you plan your hunts,
Speaker 1: you've got one week, you're out there, it's smoky. You've
Speaker 1: got to make the best of those situations because it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a situation that many of us are going
Speaker 1: to run into. I'm going to run into it this year.
Speaker 1: You'll probably run into it this year, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the hunts over. It doesn't mean that elk
Speaker 1: aren't gonna run. It doesn't mean that you can't be successful.
Speaker 1: You just have to adjust your tactics a little bit
Speaker 1: and find different ways to find success. So I think
Speaker 1: the first thing you got to think about is what
Speaker 1: does the smoke and the fire due to the animals?
Speaker 1: What does it do to your ability to hunt? And
Speaker 1: then how do you kind of adjust your tactics based
Speaker 1: on those adversarial things that are affecting it. So one
Speaker 1: thing that I like to think about is when I
Speaker 1: have trouble seeing, when I have trouble glassing. If glassing
Speaker 1: is my main mode of hunting a certain area and
Speaker 1: I lose that visibility, whether it's from whether whether it's
Speaker 1: from smoke, it doesn't really matter what it's from, what
Speaker 1: I like to do is I like to change my
Speaker 1: tactics and go more to areas where you don't need
Speaker 1: that visibility, where whether you could see good or not,
Speaker 1: you're hunting the same way, so I'm not having to
Speaker 1: adjust my tactics. So that includes things like hunting a
Speaker 1: betting area, focusing on places that maybe you scouted, still hunting,
Speaker 1: and then um we can go into some other tactics
Speaker 1: after that, So let's start with hunting bedding areas. One
Speaker 1: thing that I like to do when it's smoky is
Speaker 1: I kind of think about, Okay, well, the animals are
Speaker 1: not moving around as much. And that's definitely the case
Speaker 1: from my experience I've guided through. I mean, as an
Speaker 1: elk guide, we hunt every week, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: there's a fire whatever. From the beginning of the season
Speaker 1: through the end of the season, we hunt every week,
Speaker 1: and over the years, I've kind of found the same
Speaker 1: success every week, doesn't matter if it's the first week
Speaker 1: of the season or the last week of the season.
Speaker 1: It's kind of very consistent. But my tactics do change.
Speaker 1: So on those weeks where we have fires and other things,
Speaker 1: I kind of realized, like, the animals are not moving
Speaker 1: around as much, they're betting up longer. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: even just the smoke, but it's kind of when there's smoke,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of heat, not from fire, but just
Speaker 1: hot temperatures around. So you've got animals that are already
Speaker 1: trying to get out of the heat. Then you've got
Speaker 1: the smoke factor, and you've got kind of this this
Speaker 1: uncomfortability of the animals. They're just kind of quiet, They hide,
Speaker 1: they stay put. It's kind of like whether a storm
Speaker 1: moved in or whatever. Smoke kind of does the same thing,
Speaker 1: especially when it's really thick. So one thing I think
Speaker 1: of is, Okay, we'll all focus on where they're spending
Speaker 1: most of their time, and that's probably gonna be a
Speaker 1: bedding area, somewhere where they can get out of this sun,
Speaker 1: Somewhere where they're going to be in the shade, where
Speaker 1: they can stay cool and they don't have to move
Speaker 1: very far to get the things done that they need to.
Speaker 1: They're gonna need to drink some water because it's gonna
Speaker 1: be hot. They're gonna want to bed up and stay
Speaker 1: out of the heat. Whether the sun breaks through that
Speaker 1: smoke or not, it's probably pretty hot out. So they're
Speaker 1: gonna be bedded, they're gonna be not expending a lot
Speaker 1: of energy, and that's going to be the places that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna focus. So what I'll do is I'll get in,
Speaker 1: I'll think about, Okay, well where do these animals bed
Speaker 1: Probably gonna be on the north face. If I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about elk Um, it's just those north faces are a
Speaker 1: little bit more lush, there's a lot more water on
Speaker 1: the north faces, there's gonna be a lot more option
Speaker 1: for them to bed somewhere, and there might be some
Speaker 1: you know places I like to think of, maybe a
Speaker 1: north face where it it drops over to the other
Speaker 1: south side where they can feed just by dropping over
Speaker 1: and then walk over to the other side in bed
Speaker 1: And those are kind of the places that I start
Speaker 1: to think about, and those are the places that I
Speaker 1: move into because it's not somewhere that I can glass,
Speaker 1: and it's somewhere that's gonna hold out. The trouble is,
Speaker 1: you know, they might be few and far between, or
Speaker 1: they're going to be you know, bedded. But what I
Speaker 1: do is I'll start moving through and then focusing on
Speaker 1: still hunting, walking glass and trying to spot them before
Speaker 1: they spot me, and moving through those betting areas, especially
Speaker 1: the middle of the day. The second thing I like
Speaker 1: to do is focus on the places that I scouted
Speaker 1: in that story where we were all hunting and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'd already scouted out some meal there, so
Speaker 1: let's go back to that place where it's scared, where
Speaker 1: I'd seen animals before. Obviously, if you if you've scouted
Speaker 1: and you put in some time, you're probably gonna be
Speaker 1: hunting where you're scouted. But one thing I like to
Speaker 1: think about is when I was scouting, where were those
Speaker 1: animals betting? Because I might not be able to even
Speaker 1: if it's more open country, I can go in there
Speaker 1: and I can start still hunting into those places that
Speaker 1: I know they're kind of like high density preferred habitat areas.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of country with not a lot of animals.
Speaker 1: But if I know this certain canyon was holding a deer,
Speaker 1: this certain canyon was holding something, I can start to
Speaker 1: still hunt through there and hopefully pick them up before
Speaker 1: or get in close and kind of hunt that smaller
Speaker 1: micro area. When you don't know where animals are at,
Speaker 1: you kind of got to try everything. And if you
Speaker 1: can't see or it's really smoky, it's really difficult to
Speaker 1: cover a lot of country effectively, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: what leads to poor success. So if you've got an
Speaker 1: area that you've scouted and you saw it, like I
Speaker 1: like to think back and say, Okay, during the summer,
Speaker 1: where did I see animals? Because during early fall or
Speaker 1: even late summer early fall, they're probably still going to
Speaker 1: be in those same patterns, especially if it's still hot out,
Speaker 1: especially if they're kind of holding tight, they're gonna be
Speaker 1: into some of those same patterns. So I like to
Speaker 1: go back to those same patterns and then change up
Speaker 1: my tactics a little bit from glassing to move over
Speaker 1: to still hunting now when I'm still hunting in the smoke.
Speaker 1: One thing I've noticed a couple of things. I've noticed.
Speaker 1: You would think, at with the low visibility, the animals
Speaker 1: can't see you as well because you can't see as well,
Speaker 1: and that is kind of the case, but I have
Speaker 1: also noticed that when it's smoky, when it's foggy, when
Speaker 1: they're when their eyesight is impeded, they're actually a lot
Speaker 1: more on edge like animals. You would think it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they can't see as well, so I should be able
Speaker 1: to sneak on them easier, which kind of can be
Speaker 1: the case, but I've found that more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually the opposite, because when their senses are overloaded,
Speaker 1: they're smelling smoke all the time, they are having trouble seeing,
Speaker 1: so they're using other cues too sense for danger. They're
Speaker 1: they're actually paying a lot more attention. So while it
Speaker 1: might be harder to see, they're paying more attention to
Speaker 1: the sounds, to the smells, to the noise, to the sites.
Speaker 1: They're looking around more, and they're on more high alert.
Speaker 1: Whereas if it's a normal day, you might do something
Speaker 1: that kind of messes it up, but they jump out,
Speaker 1: they look around, you, you you sit down. Whereas I found
Speaker 1: that when it's at at like when they're at a
Speaker 1: disadvantage and something spooks them, they go, they blow out,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot more likely to blow things out.
Speaker 1: So when I'm still hunting, especially in low visibility, I
Speaker 1: actually try to key in even more than when it's
Speaker 1: clear out because it's harder for me to see the things,
Speaker 1: see animals whatever. I'm hunting, deer, elk, whatever, But it's
Speaker 1: easier for them to just blow out, I've found. So
Speaker 1: what I like to do when I'm still hunting in
Speaker 1: the smoke, in you know, low viz, is a combination
Speaker 1: of like almost like I'm stalking through that area, moving
Speaker 1: really slow. I say this a lot, But when I'm
Speaker 1: still hunting in the timber or whatever, I'm using my binoculars,
Speaker 1: especially when it's smoky, because elk for sure kind of
Speaker 1: blend into that haze. It's like this monochromatic color, and
Speaker 1: that color of elk gets really hard to spot. So
Speaker 1: put up my binoculars and I'll scan. I'll take a step,
Speaker 1: I'll scan. I'll take a step and scan. I'm not
Speaker 1: only just looking for the animals, but I'm also looking
Speaker 1: for fresh sign because what I'm gonna do is I'm
Speaker 1: going to narrow down the places that I'm hunting based
Speaker 1: on what i'm seeing around. Even if I'm not seeing
Speaker 1: the animals themselves, I'm trying to narrow down those spots
Speaker 1: where they're likely to be at some point because I
Speaker 1: can't see a broad range. Maybe they aren't being active,
Speaker 1: maybe they aren't bugling, maybe they aren't calling. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to narrow down those places based on what I'm
Speaker 1: seeing on the ground, and then moving slow through preferred
Speaker 1: areas glassing, taking my time, going slow, getting the wind right,
Speaker 1: and sneaking around like covering country and hunting, moving slow
Speaker 1: and looking for the animals that I know are in there. Now.
Speaker 1: One super advantage when there's wildfires in an area, when
Speaker 1: the conditions are really bad, it's kind of being able
Speaker 1: to play weather changes, whether it's a fire nearby or
Speaker 1: just an area that's just getting pummeled with smoke from
Speaker 1: somewhere else and there's some kind of inversion that's holding
Speaker 1: a smoke in an area. Anytime you get those brakes,
Speaker 1: those areas where maybe the pressure change shifts or a
Speaker 1: wind comes in blows the smoke out. Sometimes you'll you'll
Speaker 1: get these fires and then you'll get that rain coming
Speaker 1: in for a night and it clears up for the morning.
Speaker 1: The temperature drops once that smoke clears, it's like that
Speaker 1: temperature plummets. Playing to those weather changes can be super effective.
Speaker 1: I would say most of the time when there's been
Speaker 1: good fires and then all of a sudden there's a break,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just for a morning. If I I really
Speaker 1: pay attention to the weather forecast while it's smoky, and
Speaker 1: any time that I think that there's gonna be a break,
Speaker 1: if I can time it, those are the times that
Speaker 1: I want to be out in the woods. Those are
Speaker 1: the times that I'm really successful. A lot of the
Speaker 1: elk that I've taken have been during a smoky time.
Speaker 1: It's been slow and then I catch that weather change.
Speaker 1: I go to a place where it's like, okay, the
Speaker 1: winds coming from this direction, man, it's it's stacking smoke
Speaker 1: into this end of the valley. Or I'll even go
Speaker 1: to maybe try another unit or a different area around
Speaker 1: where I know that I can get Maybe it's like okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta go high because the temperature is going to
Speaker 1: be colder up there. They're gonna turn on and you
Speaker 1: get these fire ups, especially when it comes to elk.
Speaker 1: So you'll notice in those weather changes, like the animals,
Speaker 1: they've been cooped up. They don't like it as much
Speaker 1: as we don't like it. And then once they get
Speaker 1: that clear, once they get that quick temperature drop, things shift,
Speaker 1: they click on, they change, And that's especially true with elk.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of success hunting elk where everything
Speaker 1: seems slow. If you live near an area where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I can, I can kind of time my hunting a
Speaker 1: little bit. Find those times where you've just got that
Speaker 1: quick weather change in the smoky in the fire season.
Speaker 1: When that quick weather change happens, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot of animals turn on a lot more activity, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna probably find yourself in a lot better position
Speaker 1: to make a move, and so it's really good to
Speaker 1: capitalize on those things that could be your big break
Speaker 1: in something that's you know, generally a lot harder to hunt. Well,
Speaker 1: Oak season is pretty much here, and we're probably going
Speaker 1: to cover a lot of one of my favorite topics,
Speaker 1: elk hunting, So make sure to send in any elk
Speaker 1: questions you have. You can send them to at remy
Speaker 1: warrant on Instagram. I generally check my direct messages there,
Speaker 1: especially during the hunting season. So anywhere that I get service,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on the mountaintop. I'll scroll through. I
Speaker 1: might not reply right away, just because I'll start. I
Speaker 1: just start. This is my method of answering questions. I
Speaker 1: start screenshotting questions that I like, and then when I
Speaker 1: sit down to record the podcast or whatever, I scroll
Speaker 1: through that gallery and find those questions. So make sure
Speaker 1: to put your name, whether it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: first and last, can just be first name, maybe where
Speaker 1: you're from, more state, where you're from, um. That way
Speaker 1: I can give a little bit of context to it.
Speaker 1: I try to keep like I definitely even if you
Speaker 1: put units or areas or whatever, I keep all that
Speaker 1: stuff out because I like to I don't like to
Speaker 1: put anybody's spots on blast um, but yeah, send me
Speaker 1: your questions, especially pertaining to elk hunting. If you've got
Speaker 1: an elk tag coming up, you've got some questions shooting
Speaker 1: my way and a lot of those. Maybe they won't
Speaker 1: be answered in the Q and A or anything, but
Speaker 1: it might kind of direct the direction of some of
Speaker 1: these future elk hunting topic podcasts. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: I've got I'm definitely gonna be out in the elk
Speaker 1: woods a lot, so maybe I'll try to do that.
Speaker 1: Might be cool, like get a SAT phone and just
Speaker 1: do like a call in Call in uh podcast where
Speaker 1: I just like call from the Elk Woods and be like,
Speaker 1: here's what's going on, here's what I'm doing, this is
Speaker 1: what was working, this is what's not working. A little
Speaker 1: bit of real time thing. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: can get that worked out, but it might be kind
Speaker 1: of a something different, something cool. Um. So I guess
Speaker 1: in the words of the Eats Smoky the Bear, remember
Speaker 1: only you can prevent forest fires unless you're lightning. Lightning
Speaker 1: also causes forest fires. I don't know about that, Smoky
Speaker 1: h