Speaker 1: As a guide and 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. This podcast is presented by
Speaker 1: Yetti Built for the Wild. Now, the question I want
Speaker 1: to ask you this week is when it comes down
Speaker 1: to the moment, right before you squeeze the trigger, have
Speaker 1: you done everything you can to make sure that that
Speaker 1: shot is he gonna go where it's supposed to. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna think about it like this. You've spent the entire
Speaker 1: week elk hunting, You've stalked in, you're within range, the
Speaker 1: bulls out in the open, but as you show up,
Speaker 1: he starts to move off. You've got your pack and
Speaker 1: nothing else. You throw the pack down. Can you get
Speaker 1: that rifle steady for that one split second he's gonna
Speaker 1: stop before disappearing in the timber? Because I honestly think
Speaker 1: that being able to steady that rifle fast in the
Speaker 1: field makes a lot of difference between going home empty
Speaker 1: or just having another elk hunting story where the one
Speaker 1: got away. This week I want to tell you a
Speaker 1: few of those stories where it just didn't work out right,
Speaker 1: But I also want to give you some tips so
Speaker 1: when you're in the field you can just learn from
Speaker 1: experience and be so much faster getting that rifle steady instantly.
Speaker 1: Now I feel very fortunate because of the guiding that
Speaker 1: I've done, I get to see a lot of the
Speaker 1: mistakes that are most hunters make. Now, a lot of
Speaker 1: the people that I take out I would consider pretty
Speaker 1: decent hunters. They spend time hunting, especially where they live.
Speaker 1: They get a lot of practice hunting there. But when
Speaker 1: they come out West or they're on in elk hunt.
Speaker 1: Some of these people even live around here. Yet one
Speaker 1: of the things that I see as a little bit
Speaker 1: of a tactical error or not practiced enough is when
Speaker 1: it comes the setting up a rifle. Now, I had
Speaker 1: a client that I guided a lot over the years,
Speaker 1: and we first started hunting with me was completely different
Speaker 1: than when we finished hunting with me. And I think
Speaker 1: I'll tell a few of the stories where it just
Speaker 1: didn't work out right, and we did everything right up
Speaker 1: until the point where it came time to shoot, And that,
Speaker 1: honestly is the most important time. So we'll take it
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of the elk season, the end
Speaker 1: of October, about six years ago in the Montana Wilds.
Speaker 1: It's day four of the hunt. We've seen bulls, but
Speaker 1: just no real good opportunities. The guy was unning with
Speaker 1: was a little bit older, and so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit mobility restricted, but he definitely gave it as all.
Speaker 1: Now on this morning, the temperatures seem to drop. I'm
Speaker 1: in a spot that I've hunted quite a bit, and
Speaker 1: I'm glassing off one direction and then I hear it
Speaker 1: the best sound in the elk woods late October. I
Speaker 1: call it a late October bugle off in the distance
Speaker 1: in the valley below me. I hear a bugle rip out,
Speaker 1: and I think to myself, this is it. And when
Speaker 1: a bull starts firing up that time of year, you
Speaker 1: know that you're probably going to get a chance of
Speaker 1: that elk. We work our way down the hill and
Speaker 1: it's pretty well timbered, but I know this area really well,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's an opening in the bottom.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing out some cow calls and I hear just
Speaker 1: a bunch of noise down in the bottom and another
Speaker 1: bugle I hear cow is talking. Now what it is
Speaker 1: is as we work down, we get a out a
Speaker 1: third of the way from the bottom, and it's clear
Speaker 1: cut at this point, and then it's just an old
Speaker 1: clear cut, so it's maybe eight foot conifers, really dense
Speaker 1: pine trees in the bottom that opens up into this
Speaker 1: little marshy meadow, and then the other side's big, darker timber.
Speaker 1: After that, I find a good log. Now, one thing
Speaker 1: I should mention is before I take a guy hunting,
Speaker 1: I always have them shoot. It's not because I don't
Speaker 1: trust that their guns on, but that is one thing.
Speaker 1: But I also study the way that that person shoots.
Speaker 1: I have them shoot, not from a bench, just off
Speaker 1: of shooting sticks or whatever they've got that they're planning
Speaker 1: on hunting with. And the reason is because I like
Speaker 1: to know how comfortable someone is with a rifle. So
Speaker 1: I know at this point he's gonna have to get
Speaker 1: pretty steady. And there are a few stumps and logs around,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, perfect, this will be a great rest.
Speaker 1: We get set up and I can hear cows just
Speaker 1: me you ing down below us in a lot of racket.
Speaker 1: There's a bull that just for some reason. He's all
Speaker 1: fired up. Right now, he's pushing cows around. They're moving around,
Speaker 1: and now the lead cow is decided she's had enough,
Speaker 1: and they're moving single file out of the small pines,
Speaker 1: up through this little meadow and into the timber. This
Speaker 1: is perfect, We've got time. I get him set up.
Speaker 1: I put the pack on top of a cut stump.
Speaker 1: He's sitting down and the elk are starting to file
Speaker 1: out single file. I'm assuming if the bull is going
Speaker 1: to be in the back. Tell him, look, put your
Speaker 1: crosshairs right where those elk ares filing through. They're pretty
Speaker 1: much gonna be right there. Now. I look over and
Speaker 1: he just does not look steady, like you stayble know.
Speaker 1: He's like, I can't get steady. He's like, give me
Speaker 1: my shooting sticks. Okay, sweet. So I grabbed just the
Speaker 1: bipod type shooting sticks, but the sitting kind, you can
Speaker 1: think of it, where it's just two crossed legs with
Speaker 1: a place at the top to put your rifle. So
Speaker 1: I get him set up on that so you can
Speaker 1: get a little bit higher. Her up and look, I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: get your right elbow on your knee. Steady that rifle
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Okay, So he gets it and
Speaker 1: he set up y' on the elk. Yeah, so he's
Speaker 1: on the cows that are walking out. Look, none of
Speaker 1: these are stopping. But as soon as that bull walks out,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rip a really loud bugle and it should
Speaker 1: get him to stop and turn and look our way,
Speaker 1: and that will give you your chance to take a shot.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, got it, elker filing through. I see
Speaker 1: antler tips coming through the small pines. This is about
Speaker 1: to happen. Yard shot. It should be good. He's got
Speaker 1: his sticks. We have a very small window to stop
Speaker 1: him in. So I gotta do it just as he
Speaker 1: steps out, because by the time that sound travels to him,
Speaker 1: he's gonna hear that he's gonna stop. He's already quartering away.
Speaker 1: So even if he just takes one half step toward us,
Speaker 1: perfect shot, be great. The bull breaks through the trees,
Speaker 1: A rip a bugle. He doesn't textbook, slow turn step.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the bull. I look at the guy
Speaker 1: and he's just messing with the shooting sticks. Like, you
Speaker 1: gotta get on him. You gotta get on him. He's like,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's moved. I can't. I can't get steady.
Speaker 1: So he grabs both shooting sticks and he's trying to
Speaker 1: readjust the shooting sticks. At this time, we're losing critical
Speaker 1: time when it should have just been a small adjustment.
Speaker 1: He's messing with the sticks. The bull then starts to
Speaker 1: walk again. As soon as he gets as steadiest, starts
Speaker 1: to walking, and now he's grabbing the sticks and moving
Speaker 1: the sticks. The bull walks off. I stopped at a
Speaker 1: bugle again. The bull stops, He gets impatient, fires when
Speaker 1: I think maybe only one leg of the bipod is
Speaker 1: even on the ground, shoots right over the elks back
Speaker 1: all the elk runaway. We were so close to having
Speaker 1: a bull, yet his lack of being able to steady
Speaker 1: that rifle fast cost him an elk. So growing up
Speaker 1: hunt I've wanted pretty much my entire life, and because
Speaker 1: of that, I really take for granted my ability to
Speaker 1: stabilize a rifle in a field. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that I attribute because I practiced getting a
Speaker 1: rifle steady while I was a kid growing up in
Speaker 1: the field. I would constantly throw the gun up, practice
Speaker 1: putting it on inanimate targets or out in the field, shooting,
Speaker 1: shooting a small game with a light caliber rifle, just
Speaker 1: being extremely familiar with a rifle, having one in my
Speaker 1: hand all the time, using it all the time. Now,
Speaker 1: if you don't have the time or the background in
Speaker 1: that getting steady when the actions coming down, you've got
Speaker 1: to split second. It can be hard to do because
Speaker 1: your mechanics, the way that you operate, the way that
Speaker 1: your brain functions, isn't smooth. A lot of fast action
Speaker 1: is smooth action, doing a task in its simplest form,
Speaker 1: smooth as fast, fast as smooth. You want to be
Speaker 1: able to steady at rifle in a way that it
Speaker 1: makes sense, you have the fewest amount of movements and
Speaker 1: is natural. So when you think about steadying rifle, there's
Speaker 1: four major ways. There's there's prone where you're laying down,
Speaker 1: there's kneeling, they're sitting, and then they're standing. Obviously, prone
Speaker 1: is the most stable because you've got the most on
Speaker 1: the ground you can you can really steady that rifle.
Speaker 1: And then standing is the least stable. While those are
Speaker 1: all good shooting positions that you need to know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about ways to use what's around you
Speaker 1: for those adaptations. Of shooting positions. What I really want
Speaker 1: to talk about is just in the field experience simple
Speaker 1: things to readjust and reacquire whatever the target is quickly
Speaker 1: and to get steady fast with what's around you. So
Speaker 1: it's more of a critical thinking and how to set
Speaker 1: up as opposed to just going through the basic type
Speaker 1: of shop positions that you might learn and hunter safety.
Speaker 1: Let's start with shooting sticks. A ton of people bring
Speaker 1: shooting sticks, and I think they are an extremely easy
Speaker 1: way to stabilize your gun, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: their brains in action. You just mess up and adjust
Speaker 1: them in the most inefficient ways possible. I think about
Speaker 1: a double stick or a bipod style shooting stick. When
Speaker 1: you get it set up, I think the best way
Speaker 1: would be saying and elks coming out. You're able to
Speaker 1: sit down on the ground. You're a right handed shooter.
Speaker 1: Therefore your right knee goes up and you can rest
Speaker 1: your right elbow on your right knee. Now the gun
Speaker 1: is between the shooting sticks. Now the animals moving up,
Speaker 1: and you need the rifle barrel to move up as
Speaker 1: well to get closer. You've set them up, the guns
Speaker 1: in there, but the animals moving you need to follow
Speaker 1: with it. A lot of people I see make the
Speaker 1: mistake because your brain says it's two sticks. They grab
Speaker 1: both sides and then try to readjust and then set
Speaker 1: the rifle back in there. Take your left hand, your
Speaker 1: off gun hand, keep that on the left side of
Speaker 1: the stick. Now, to move it higher, you just pick
Speaker 1: the ones side up and move it closer to the
Speaker 1: other side. To move the gun lower, you pick it
Speaker 1: up and move the leg out. That raises and lowers
Speaker 1: the gun. It's one easy movement to raise and lower
Speaker 1: the gun, to move the stick with just a single
Speaker 1: hand while you're still on the animal and still steady.
Speaker 1: If you're going to take a shooting stick, practice with
Speaker 1: that shooting stick. If you don't even have the ability
Speaker 1: to get range time in, you can still practice getting
Speaker 1: those sticks out in an efficient way and adjusting. At home,
Speaker 1: take the bolt out of your rifle, obviously, make sure
Speaker 1: that it is completely unloaded. That just goes without saying
Speaker 1: common sense, but I have to say it. And then
Speaker 1: on the floor of wherever in your bedroom, get your
Speaker 1: shooting sticks out, get down fast, set the rifle in there,
Speaker 1: and practice moving and adjusting higher and lower. Another way
Speaker 1: to Readjust think about anything you're using to stabilize the
Speaker 1: front end of your rifles. Say it's a pack to ray,
Speaker 1: is the barrel of the rifle. Whatever your guns resting on.
Speaker 1: Move it closer towards your body, that lifts the barrel up.
Speaker 1: As you move it further away, that lowers the barrel.
Speaker 1: So when you originally get set up, set up whatever
Speaker 1: you're resting a rifle on in the middle, if you
Speaker 1: have to raise it, you can push it closer, and
Speaker 1: to lower it, you can push whatever it's resting on
Speaker 1: further away. It's a more efficient, smooth way to steady
Speaker 1: for a shot. Now, I never take shooting sticks when
Speaker 1: I'm hunting. I do have a bipod for my rifle
Speaker 1: that I've started using, but I would say most of
Speaker 1: the shots I take are off my pack. It's because
Speaker 1: my pack is always with me and I can pretty
Speaker 1: much use it from shooting prone all the way through standing.
Speaker 1: And I'll give you some examples that you may not
Speaker 1: have thought of before. But these are just the ways
Speaker 1: that I use my pack for the various shooting positions.
Speaker 1: So let's go with prone. We've got an animal out there,
Speaker 1: Say it's bedded at three hundred yards. It has no
Speaker 1: clue we're there. We've got an area where the grass
Speaker 1: is low, We've got a hill or whatever in between us.
Speaker 1: So I can take a prone shot. That's always my
Speaker 1: first option. If I can lay down, I'll take that shot.
Speaker 1: Because a pack has a frame and then it also
Speaker 1: has a bag, you can use both the hard part
Speaker 1: of the frame or the soft part of the bag
Speaker 1: to stabilize the front end of your rifle. When I'm
Speaker 1: laying down prone, I'll throw my rifle four stock on
Speaker 1: the pack itself, and then a lot of times the
Speaker 1: key is to stabilize the back end of the rifle.
Speaker 1: So most of the time I just use my binoculars
Speaker 1: or a range finder or even a rock around me
Speaker 1: to get the butt of the rifle stabilized on the ground.
Speaker 1: At that point, the gun is pretty much self standing,
Speaker 1: self sustaining. I'll move in, get steady, and take that shot.
Speaker 1: That's the most accurate way I can shoot, not every
Speaker 1: situation that works like that. Now, with my pack kneeling
Speaker 1: or sitting, what I'll do is I'll sit on the ground.
Speaker 1: I'll put the pack in front of me. This is
Speaker 1: where I normally have the pack sitting upright, I'll rest
Speaker 1: the rifle on the top of the pack, with the
Speaker 1: bottom of the pack on the ground. I'll rest my
Speaker 1: shooting hand or my trigger finger the elbow of my
Speaker 1: right arm because I'm right handed, on my right knee
Speaker 1: if possible, if I have to kneel, I'll use the
Speaker 1: pack as what's stabilizing the rifle, and then I'll sit
Speaker 1: up higher. Hopefully i can kneel with my right knee
Speaker 1: forward to rest my right arm on my knee because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to stabilize both the front and the back
Speaker 1: of the rifle at the same time. Now, cool one
Speaker 1: is there are those times where you do have to
Speaker 1: shoot standing up. I remember a few years ago I
Speaker 1: was hunting mule deer in Idaho. I ended up having
Speaker 1: to stand on this log. The buck was probably only
Speaker 1: seventy yards, but there is no way to get a
Speaker 1: rest because the grass was so tall and the hill
Speaker 1: was so steep. So I just jump up on this
Speaker 1: log and take a standing shot. Now, if you've got
Speaker 1: a pack on already, a lot of times, what I'll
Speaker 1: do is I'll reverse the pack to the front of
Speaker 1: my body and then i can push it out with
Speaker 1: the strap of the pack on my arm rest the
Speaker 1: front end of the rifle on the pack, and then
Speaker 1: have that pack come down to my hips. That's a
Speaker 1: great way to stabilize the rifle while standing. If you
Speaker 1: have a pack and you have to happen to take
Speaker 1: a shot like that. There's just so many ways that
Speaker 1: you can use the things around you in a little
Speaker 1: bit different way for shooting. Now, let's say you don't
Speaker 1: even have a pack. Oftentimes you gotta keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for the things that are around you, say a
Speaker 1: crook of a tree where you can stabilize the rifle
Speaker 1: in the tree, or rocks or stumps, something that can
Speaker 1: use as a rest. There's so many rests out there.
Speaker 1: But I think the way is to practice using what
Speaker 1: you see while you're in the woods, while you're in
Speaker 1: the mountains, getting comfortable using your pack before it's time
Speaker 1: to actually have to get down and take that shot
Speaker 1: when you're at the range. Don't just shoot off the bench,
Speaker 1: shoot with your pack. Practice different ways to get steady
Speaker 1: using what you have or you're gonna have with you.
Speaker 1: Because in the field, that knowledge and that practice is
Speaker 1: gonna make everything smooth, everything steady, and it's gonna get
Speaker 1: you more comfortable and take a better shot in a
Speaker 1: less amount of time. Sometimes it's just a matter of
Speaker 1: seconds between success and going home empty. So having that
Speaker 1: knowledge in that practice, using the things around you is
Speaker 1: overall going to make you a more successful hunter when
Speaker 1: the moment of truth arrives. If you're going to be
Speaker 1: out there rifle hunting this year and some tip or
Speaker 1: something that I've said has helped you, shoot me a
Speaker 1: message via social media. I would love to see your
Speaker 1: guys success stories. Hopefully you can learn a few things
Speaker 1: here that just gets you thinking in a different way. Now,
Speaker 1: if that is the major takeaway from today, just getting
Speaker 1: you to see things in a different light, whether you've
Speaker 1: been hunting your entire life or you're new to it,
Speaker 1: I hope that it just really gets you to just
Speaker 1: kind of look at things that you have with you
Speaker 1: and said, Okay, how can I use this to be better?
Speaker 1: How can I be more stable? How can I get
Speaker 1: steady faster? That's the whole goal, just to make you
Speaker 1: a better hunter. And then I want to just hear
Speaker 1: from you in ways that you've done something maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit different, that worked out and was successful for
Speaker 1: you because I'd love to share that with other people
Speaker 1: because I think that we can all learn from each other. Man,
Speaker 1: if you got how about this, If you end up
Speaker 1: getting an animal this year, whether it's an elk Ader
Speaker 1: or whatever, even take a picture of where you shot
Speaker 1: from and give me just a little brief description. I'd
Speaker 1: love to share some of that with other people, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a way that I got steady, something that
Speaker 1: I didn't think about before. Because it's cool to share knowledge,
Speaker 1: share information. I can learn as much from you as
Speaker 1: you can learn from me. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: cool way in this day and age, to be able
Speaker 1: to just share with each other. I appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: listening until next week. Shoot straight, don't be shaking, man,
Speaker 1: you got this