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. Wildfires they can be bad
Speaker 1: news for a forest, but honestly, they can be great
Speaker 1: news for elk and deer. The abundance of new growth
Speaker 1: and feed can increase populations and provide some incredible hunting. Now,
Speaker 1: they might look like the face of the moon at first,
Speaker 1: but that new growth is really a super protein shake
Speaker 1: the animals love. I've spent the majority of my time
Speaker 1: hunting various burns. While it sounds simple find a burn hunted,
Speaker 1: there's a formula to finding productive burns and low hitting
Speaker 1: the animals within that area. That's the wind, where and
Speaker 1: how that makes the difference. One of my favorite hunts
Speaker 1: in a burn was with my buddy Josh in northern Nevada.
Speaker 1: On a trip that almost didn't happen. One of my
Speaker 1: best friends, Josh, happened to draw a really good late
Speaker 1: season elk hunt in Northeastern Nevada. Now, I was guiding
Speaker 1: for most of the elk season in Montana and unfortunately
Speaker 1: couldn't hunt with him. So, just as you do with
Speaker 1: your buddies, it's fall, I get a phone call calling, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm constantly checking in, how's your elkhount going? You know,
Speaker 1: what are you seeing? What aren't you seeing? As soon
Speaker 1: as you would get service, he would call and he
Speaker 1: had hunted a couple of weeks pretty hard, had a
Speaker 1: few encounters, but it was just one of those years.
Speaker 1: It was just tough hunting. I happened to just finish
Speaker 1: guiding in Montana and he was on his way back home.
Speaker 1: There's a few days left in the season, but he
Speaker 1: had to get back for some work and some other things.
Speaker 1: I told him, look, man, you've only got a couple
Speaker 1: of days left. If you can hold off, I will
Speaker 1: run down there and give you a hand. I've been
Speaker 1: guiding up Montana and hunting burns pretty much daily the
Speaker 1: entire season. I called another friend who had told me
Speaker 1: about a recent fire in there that year. I asked
Speaker 1: Josh if he checked it out. He's like, well, I've
Speaker 1: seen it, but you know, we didn't really hunt it.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, that's where I want to hunt.
Speaker 1: There's just a good thing about some of these fresh
Speaker 1: burns that late in the years they get this green up,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, that's what's gonna draw the Elkin.
Speaker 1: I jump in my truck. I've got it all loaded up,
Speaker 1: my stuff that I've been traveling around for. Oh when
Speaker 1: did I leave? Probably left in August, and now it's
Speaker 1: the end of November. Josh has headed out from Reno.
Speaker 1: I'm headed down from Montana. We end up meeting up
Speaker 1: on the road in a little town called Winnemacca. Like,
Speaker 1: all right, man, I'll hop in with you. Then we'll
Speaker 1: drive out, jump in his truck and start driving. It's
Speaker 1: pretty late this time. I realized by the time we
Speaker 1: hit Elko, which is further east, that I forgot my
Speaker 1: boots in my truck. I have everything else, but I
Speaker 1: didn't grab my boots. And I'm not even sure I
Speaker 1: had shoes on at this point. I think I was
Speaker 1: just driving comfortably with my shoes off or sandals. I
Speaker 1: don't know what was going on, but it's late November
Speaker 1: and here I don't have any boots. It's also I
Speaker 1: think what was probably midnight one in the morning at
Speaker 1: this point, so you pull off to the old wally World.
Speaker 1: There I run in. I grabbed the only pair of
Speaker 1: boots that they have in a size twelve, which was
Speaker 1: a pair of steel toad work boots. So I've got
Speaker 1: some fresh boots for an elk hunt that are super
Speaker 1: heavy and extremely uncomfortable, but it's better than going barefoot
Speaker 1: in the freezing cold. We continue driving pretty much all night,
Speaker 1: pull over, sleep for a few hours before sun up,
Speaker 1: and then get into the area that I've marked on
Speaker 1: the map. We're talking regular maps here, not digital maps,
Speaker 1: not on x That just wasn't a thing then. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: man hunting is so much easier now with good mapping
Speaker 1: software and all the technology we have. But then it
Speaker 1: was a paper topo map, figured out a road, and
Speaker 1: we're like, all right, we're pretty much in the middle
Speaker 1: of this burn. Let's get after it. Sun hadn't even
Speaker 1: come up yet, and this is his last day to hunt.
Speaker 1: Now we're in the unit, picked a spot seems to
Speaker 1: be in the middle of where the burn would be,
Speaker 1: waiting for the sun to come up. As the sun
Speaker 1: comes up, start glassing, not really turning much up. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty fresh burn. It was that year's burn, but
Speaker 1: we knew that it was earlier in the summer, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't really late, and it had a chance to
Speaker 1: get some of this what we call green up, just
Speaker 1: new growth. What I was looking for wasn't necessarily elk,
Speaker 1: but I was looking for some of this fringe habitat,
Speaker 1: an area that could provide some cover for the elk
Speaker 1: to hide in during the day and then be close
Speaker 1: to that new green up. Spotted a patch of mahogany's
Speaker 1: off from the distance on a ridge. It seemed to
Speaker 1: be the only little patch that didn't burn in this
Speaker 1: giant swath of wildfire. Now, this country is fairly open
Speaker 1: to begin with, but this one patch of mahogany has
Speaker 1: just looked right now it's mid morning. I could see
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of shade in there. I put
Speaker 1: my binoculars upstart glassing. Sure enough, turn up a bachelor
Speaker 1: group of bulls laying in that patch of mahogany's. Now
Speaker 1: it's time to get our stock on. It's pretty open
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of cover between us and
Speaker 1: those elks, and this is our only chance. This is
Speaker 1: our last day to hunt our first and last day
Speaker 1: to hunt together. But I really wanted Josh to get
Speaker 1: a bull, and I know he did as well. He
Speaker 1: had a great hunt with his dad and had an
Speaker 1: incredible time. Whether he got one or not, he keeps
Speaker 1: telling me, oh man, this has just been one of
Speaker 1: the best hunts I've ever had. But I knew it
Speaker 1: would be so cool to come out of there with
Speaker 1: a bull. So we plan our stock, We get the
Speaker 1: wind right, we're using the contour of the land, and
Speaker 1: start creeping up in there. We had to go around
Speaker 1: the mountain to keep him out of sight because they
Speaker 1: literally had a commanding view of the entire valley below.
Speaker 1: It was burnt to a crisp but there was no cover,
Speaker 1: so we just had to use the contour of the
Speaker 1: hill to stay out of sight. We get to the
Speaker 1: ridge in front of him, slowly crawl up. One of
Speaker 1: the bulls is now standing, but the rest are still bedded.
Speaker 1: We thought, oh man, maybe it's sauce. And then this
Speaker 1: magpie lands on its back, starts picking at it, and
Speaker 1: then the bull just lays down again. He was just
Speaker 1: readjusting for the day. Josh gets the pack set up
Speaker 1: range him pretty close shot crosshairs on him, waits for
Speaker 1: the bull. The bull stands up to readjust to re bed,
Speaker 1: Boom shoots him, bowled down. We were just both so excited.
Speaker 1: I got the chance to pack out the bowl and
Speaker 1: my awesome Walmart steel toed off brand work boots that
Speaker 1: were extremely uncomfortable. Lucky for us, it wasn't that far
Speaker 1: from the road where we ended up finding these things,
Speaker 1: maybe a mile and a half two miles at the most,
Speaker 1: and fairly easy terrain because everything was burnt out except
Speaker 1: for the patch of timber that they happened to be
Speaker 1: living in. Now, I've hunted a lot of burns in
Speaker 1: my day all over Montana, Idaho. While guiding, I actually
Speaker 1: seek burns out. But it was awesome to know that
Speaker 1: you could go into an area i'd never been, find
Speaker 1: bulls and help a good friend be successful. So why burns, Well,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, elk and deer really fringe animals.
Speaker 1: What that means is they live on the fringes of
Speaker 1: cover and feed a lot of times. So what burns
Speaker 1: do is they create more fringe habitat while producing higher
Speaker 1: quality forage, especially in highly timbered areas. Actually remember reading
Speaker 1: a study that burns can have an effect, like a
Speaker 1: positive effect on elk populations for at least ten years,
Speaker 1: depending on the type of cover that was burned. Now,
Speaker 1: heavily forest areas one of the areas that I grew
Speaker 1: up hunting. Once it burned, that elk population increased by
Speaker 1: over sevent It's because cows take as much energy to
Speaker 1: make a baby as bulls due to grow their horns.
Speaker 1: So if you have about ten times the amount of
Speaker 1: available food, those cows go into the breeding season heavier
Speaker 1: weights and are more likely to have offspring. Also, the
Speaker 1: bulls in that area, or deer or whatever now have
Speaker 1: more nutrients to grow better an ours, So over the
Speaker 1: course of time you have healthier populations and rapidly increasing
Speaker 1: populations because of the burns. Now, this is more true
Speaker 1: and heavily timbered areas, but it's also true in areas
Speaker 1: that aren't that timbered, because that new growth has a
Speaker 1: lot more nutrients than old growth or stuff that gets
Speaker 1: choked out by more mature hands. Now, when it comes
Speaker 1: to hunting burns, not all burns are equal. Just because
Speaker 1: an area burn doesn't mean that there will be elk
Speaker 1: or deer there even though it's got the good grass
Speaker 1: and other things. There's a little bit of a formula
Speaker 1: on how to figure out where and what burns are
Speaker 1: the most productive. I think of it like this, It's
Speaker 1: the when, where, and what of a wildfire. So let's
Speaker 1: start with the wind. When did that burn happen? This
Speaker 1: is gonna make a big difference. Was it an early burn?
Speaker 1: By early, I mean fire season would be let's start
Speaker 1: in the spring and then runs through summer late fall.
Speaker 1: So was it early in the spring, was it early
Speaker 1: in the summer. Was it June July? Or was it
Speaker 1: in August September fire? If the fire was late in
Speaker 1: the summer, like August or September, I generally will pass
Speaker 1: that area up for that hunting that same year. I
Speaker 1: just don't think there's enough time for that initial regrowth
Speaker 1: during most hunting seasons, and the elk won't be there
Speaker 1: because gonna look like the face of the moon. Now,
Speaker 1: if it was that same year but a earlier fire,
Speaker 1: let's say June July, then I would definitely hunt it
Speaker 1: even the first year that is burned, because you'll get
Speaker 1: that green up, You'll get that new growth, those little shoots.
Speaker 1: While it might look barren from what it used to
Speaker 1: be the elk and deer know that it's loaded with nutrients.
Speaker 1: I would say that a burn is most effective three
Speaker 1: to five years after the initial burn, and probably peaking
Speaker 1: it the best. It hits its apex around seven years.
Speaker 1: That's the max benefit because the animals and the populations
Speaker 1: have had time to grow, they have had time to
Speaker 1: build up. You'll get better age classes out of it,
Speaker 1: and you'll have an overall larger and more healthy herd.
Speaker 1: Plus the area will have kind of stabilized after the burn,
Speaker 1: so you'll get a lot of animals that live there
Speaker 1: regularly and have built up to higher populations. When I'm
Speaker 1: looking for good burns, I generally like to pull out
Speaker 1: my Onyx map, pull up the fire layers, and the
Speaker 1: look for those burns in the three to seven year
Speaker 1: category when I'm trying to pick a new area or
Speaker 1: looking at a new area to check out. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the where the type of range that was burned,
Speaker 1: not necessarily a state, but was it winter range or
Speaker 1: summer range? For overall burn use, it's better to find
Speaker 1: an area that has had a fire on a winter
Speaker 1: range as opposed to a summer range. Now, studies show
Speaker 1: that elk use burns more frequently in the winter than
Speaker 1: in the summer, and this is because that time of year.
Speaker 1: Food is more important during the winter months and shelter
Speaker 1: is often more important in the summer. Elk will use
Speaker 1: those sunny sides to warm up and survive the big snows,
Speaker 1: especially if they have high quality forage. One thing I
Speaker 1: will say is that patchy fires in a winter range
Speaker 1: can help elk remain healthier even if it's a hard winter. Now,
Speaker 1: while fires on a winter range can be more beneficial
Speaker 1: than summer range. Just as an example, the yellow Stone
Speaker 1: Fire had a lot of complications for its elk herd,
Speaker 1: and it's because it was a late fire that burnt
Speaker 1: up a significant portion of food right before a tough winter.
Speaker 1: So going back to the wind, it was a late fire.
Speaker 1: It didn't have time to get that good green up
Speaker 1: going into a hard winter, and therefore the elk herd suffered. However,
Speaker 1: after that, a few years later, the elk herd populations
Speaker 1: were able to rebound based on the new growth that
Speaker 1: came out from that same fire. So now we got
Speaker 1: to talk about the how, and the how is the
Speaker 1: most important part when you're looking of in this giant burn.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's a two thousand acre burn. Where am
Speaker 1: I going to focus in this burn area? And the
Speaker 1: how is going to be the first thing you look
Speaker 1: at on where to go. The best delk habitat is
Speaker 1: a patchy burn where at least twenty of the area
Speaker 1: remained unburned within that fire perimeter. So what I look
Speaker 1: for is a fire that has almost if you were
Speaker 1: looking at an aerial imagery, it would be a mosaic
Speaker 1: pattern where it's got patch is that are burned, patches
Speaker 1: that aren't burned. So as elk, if we're specifically talking
Speaker 1: about elk, their edge animals, their herbivores, they're grazers. They
Speaker 1: like that new growth, they like that grass, but they
Speaker 1: also need that shelter. Rarely will you find elk more
Speaker 1: than I would say, twelve yards away from good shelter.
Speaker 1: So they might go into these big openings, but if
Speaker 1: there isn't that patchy burn where they've got cover mixed
Speaker 1: in with that new growth, they're probably gonna avoid those
Speaker 1: areas altogether. They'll change their habits and they'll focus on
Speaker 1: those areas where they've got the fringes where they have
Speaker 1: to cover the food in the water within that twelve
Speaker 1: yard radius, so a little less than a mile. They
Speaker 1: will rarely venture out into these giant swaths of burn
Speaker 1: if they don't feel safe those patchy areas. Those are
Speaker 1: the places that I focus my attention. Now, if it's
Speaker 1: a new burn, you might not be able to find
Speaker 1: that on satellite imagery, but just cruising through an area
Speaker 1: glass ing over it. When you glass through a big burn,
Speaker 1: if you see big swaths of tim or patches of timber,
Speaker 1: those are the places that you're gonna look for. Like
Speaker 1: that story with my buddy Josh, the thing that I
Speaker 1: looked for in this burn that seemed like it took
Speaker 1: away everything was the few patches of trees within that burn,
Speaker 1: and that was where we found the bulls. So now
Speaker 1: that you've pinpointed the place in the burn, let's talk
Speaker 1: about how to hunt it. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I love to do is glass into those pockets alive timber.
Speaker 1: The majority of the elk using that burn are going
Speaker 1: to spend the most of their day in that And
Speaker 1: that's the exact strategy I used in an area I
Speaker 1: had never been. Taking a friend into that burn, was
Speaker 1: thinking a little bit outside the box. Places that other
Speaker 1: people might not look. This burn that looks like it's
Speaker 1: got everything. And then in the middle of the day
Speaker 1: when they should be bedded, glassing into the standing timber
Speaker 1: from across the way where I could see in and
Speaker 1: look into the shadows. That was a great place to
Speaker 1: start looking. Now, hopefully you see them in the burn
Speaker 1: feeding in the mornings or the evenings. But it's something
Speaker 1: you can hunt all day, is just glassing into some
Speaker 1: of those timber pockets. Maybe they're feeding in the night
Speaker 1: in heavily pressured areas. If they're getting pressured, they're gonna
Speaker 1: stay in those timber pockets in the daylight. So it's
Speaker 1: a good idea to just start your focus glassing in
Speaker 1: and around those timber pockets. I like to get a
Speaker 1: ways away from where I'm looking and then hopefully glass
Speaker 1: say multiple patches from afar, because sometimes you can catch
Speaker 1: those elk when they first move out into the burn
Speaker 1: in the evenings to feed, and that's the best time
Speaker 1: to make a play, make a stock and get them
Speaker 1: when they get out into the open. The only trouble
Speaker 1: is sometimes they can see you better from there as well.
Speaker 1: So if you set yourself up where you can glass
Speaker 1: multiple timber patches and understand their patterns and where they're living.
Speaker 1: You can actually make plays in the morning as they
Speaker 1: go back into cover, and then set up in the
Speaker 1: evenings as they come back out later that day. Now,
Speaker 1: one word of caution that I will say about hunting
Speaker 1: burns is when they start to get older and it's
Speaker 1: a standing burn timber patch, you really have to watch
Speaker 1: out for falling trees. I say that from experience because
Speaker 1: I've almost been crushed twice, and that's a scary, scary thing.
Speaker 1: What happens is the roots start rotting out in these burns,
Speaker 1: then you get some wind going and trees just start
Speaker 1: dominoing around you. Now, the odds of actually getting smashed
Speaker 1: are pretty low, but if you're out there a lot
Speaker 1: hunting these burns a lot, the odds increase. So when
Speaker 1: it gets windy, I'm always cognizant of which way the
Speaker 1: winds blowing, and looking for where other trees have fallen
Speaker 1: which direction, and try to stay away from trees that
Speaker 1: I know, if they fall over, will crush and kill me.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking up and being aware of my surroundings
Speaker 1: because having guided in some burns that are now getting
Speaker 1: to that point where trees are falling a lot. I've
Speaker 1: had some fairly close calls, but I'm always aware of it,
Speaker 1: and I just think that if you're gonna be the
Speaker 1: type of person that hunts a lot of burns, you
Speaker 1: really need to keep that in the back of your
Speaker 1: mind always and don't get complacent thinking, oh, yeah, i'll
Speaker 1: just sit down here when it's windy. You're take a
Speaker 1: nap here when it's windy, because you really have to
Speaker 1: pay attention to those falling trees. I at one time
Speaker 1: I was stalking in on a mule dear windstorm came
Speaker 1: up and this giant pine crushed down right between me
Speaker 1: and this deer. The buck went running one way and
Speaker 1: I went running the other. So it's just one more
Speaker 1: thing to think about if you're hunting burns. Just a
Speaker 1: little safety tip before I sign off. I just want
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody's safe as well as successful. It's
Speaker 1: getting later in the year, and depending on where you live.
Speaker 1: Unless you live in Hawaii, which is a great warm
Speaker 1: hunting destination this time of year, you're probably starting to
Speaker 1: feel the effects of winter chilling. Next week, I think
Speaker 1: I want to talk about winter camping, winter travel and
Speaker 1: back country hunting. When everybody else wants to leave that
Speaker 1: back country, that might be a good time to go in. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things you got to think about.
Speaker 1: It's different than hunting the rest of the year. Four
Speaker 1: season camping and late season hunting can be tricky, but
Speaker 1: I've got some tips that will make you comfortable and
Speaker 1: maybe some little out of the box things that you
Speaker 1: haven't thought about. And we are cruising on these podcasts.
Speaker 1: It just seems like yesterday we start it. But I
Speaker 1: want to keep thanking you guys for listening. Like the
Speaker 1: response has been incredible. I really appreciate it. It's that
Speaker 1: time of year that the season is almost over, but
Speaker 1: I think it's also time to pick up. If you
Speaker 1: missed anything during the season, go back because all these
Speaker 1: little things listen to you throughout the year. We're gonna
Speaker 1: keep it going, give you more tips, more things in
Speaker 1: the coming future. And as always, I say it, darn
Speaker 1: year every week, but I'm not tired of saying it.
Speaker 1: Thank you keep sending me everything that you're sending me.
Speaker 1: It's just awesome to see and I appreciate it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're like almost half a year deep and people are
Speaker 1: loving the no sign off? Maybe the rest of these
Speaker 1: sign offs. I'm just gonna use all the suggestions that
Speaker 1: I've got is great. Why do I have some? I'm
Speaker 1: the guy that like as a friend, that you talked
Speaker 1: to and you're like, now you hang up, you know,
Speaker 1: you hang out like bye bye, see you later, bye bye.