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. When it comes to hunting
Speaker 1: big country. You're hunting out west, maybe more open country.
Speaker 1: I think the single most productive tactic is to be
Speaker 1: a good glass or to be able to spot animals.
Speaker 1: When you think about spot and stock hunting, you really
Speaker 1: have to figure out the spot part before you can
Speaker 1: get a lot of those stock parts in. So being
Speaker 1: good at picking out animals is an extremely important skill
Speaker 1: to have and leads to a lot of success. I
Speaker 1: think that to be able to regularly spot game by
Speaker 1: glassing is really two parts. The first includes where to look,
Speaker 1: but after that it's what to look for and being
Speaker 1: consistent means being able to pick out animals time after
Speaker 1: time when you're in a good spot, knowing how to
Speaker 1: find what's right in front of you that might be
Speaker 1: fairly well hidden. This is done I believe by what
Speaker 1: I consider my four maintenance of spotting. That would be size, shape, color,
Speaker 1: and movement. Understanding those four things and how to incorporate
Speaker 1: that into your glassing is going to overall make you
Speaker 1: a more successful hunter. But before I break down those tactics,
Speaker 1: let's jump into a story on an elk hunt where
Speaker 1: I made an incredible spot on something fairly unexpected. And
Speaker 1: when I'm l hunting, a lot of my success I
Speaker 1: really attribute to being good at glassing, and so when
Speaker 1: there's days that a little foggy or inclement weather where
Speaker 1: I can't see very far, those are generally days that
Speaker 1: success is fairly low. Now, on this particular hunt, I
Speaker 1: had a good friend of mine come up elk hunting
Speaker 1: with me, and he brought a friend to his. So
Speaker 1: I was guiding them for the first week of the
Speaker 1: rifle season, and we're focusing on getting some milk. I'd
Speaker 1: spent the week ahead glassing and scouting and preparing where
Speaker 1: we were going to go for that first morning, and
Speaker 1: luckily I had spotted some elk, and I knew there
Speaker 1: might be a little bit of weather moving in the
Speaker 1: next day. So I spotted that evening, spotted some milk
Speaker 1: off in the distance, maybe four or five miles away,
Speaker 1: coming out into this opening, and thought, okay, let's be
Speaker 1: there first light tomorrow because we might not be able
Speaker 1: to glass. So the next morning we start out early.
Speaker 1: We get into position. It's kind of like overcast, low cloud.
Speaker 1: We get sort sort of a little bit of fog
Speaker 1: and light rain before it gets too light and glassing
Speaker 1: kind of where the elk were, and don't see anything.
Speaker 1: But then I catch kind of just this shape in
Speaker 1: the pre light about I don't know, eight hundred yards
Speaker 1: out and I know, okay, those bushes just don't look right.
Speaker 1: It's not light enough to know, but I decide we're
Speaker 1: going to move over and get into position there just
Speaker 1: in case. So we dropped down the canyon start working
Speaker 1: out still in that dark kind of pre light. It's
Speaker 1: not shooting light yet, and now as we're working over there,
Speaker 1: it starts to get a little bit lighter. Now it's
Speaker 1: legal shooting light. We pop up on the rise where
Speaker 1: we're planning on going, and sure enough there's a herd
Speaker 1: elk out there. We get set up and we're trying
Speaker 1: to get a double so Joe is set up on
Speaker 1: the elk, and then Scott is buddies it's set up
Speaker 1: as well, but we just couldn't coordinate it just right.
Speaker 1: So Joe ends up shooting, drops the bull, and then
Speaker 1: the other bull runs out, but he's obstructed by cows,
Speaker 1: and so we end up getting the first bull. Like sweet,
Speaker 1: you get that bowl, take care of that bowl, pack
Speaker 1: him out, and it's it's raining, starting to snow nour
Speaker 1: his abilities going, but hey, we're successful. It was a great,
Speaker 1: great morning and the plan came together. So now for
Speaker 1: the rest of the week, we're gonna be looking for
Speaker 1: a bull for Scott. And we start going out and
Speaker 1: checking out, you know, all the other places that we
Speaker 1: can hunt. Luckily, it's it dumped snow that day and
Speaker 1: then started to clear up the next day, and then
Speaker 1: it was kind of under these where it's like snowed,
Speaker 1: cleared up and then burning off. So we're hunting, like
Speaker 1: I guess would be like a day or two later,
Speaker 1: and we're up on this big ridge and what I
Speaker 1: like to do is I'm just like glassing into the
Speaker 1: timber in these pockets down lower at this you know
Speaker 1: area that we hiked into. And for some reason, this
Speaker 1: one ridge, I always start thinking, Okay, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: for shed andlers because it seems like a good area.
Speaker 1: It's pretty remote. I think maybe there will be some
Speaker 1: sheds in here, and my thought is if I'm glassing
Speaker 1: hard enough for shed antlers, then I will probably find
Speaker 1: an elk or deer or whatever are looking for. So
Speaker 1: I'm glass and glass and glass and don't see anything,
Speaker 1: and I'm just kind of looking for those shapes maybe
Speaker 1: of a shed, but also you know other things that
Speaker 1: I searched for, ears, like the shape of an animal,
Speaker 1: different things. And I'm glassing at this one spot and
Speaker 1: my god, this rock just looks really weird because what
Speaker 1: drew my attention to it. I've got my binoculars and um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it just looked like a spot
Speaker 1: in the bock. It was just really far away, maybe
Speaker 1: a mile and a half away. So I get my
Speaker 1: little spotting scope out and it's kind of windy and
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of haze in the air,
Speaker 1: like it's not really great glass and conditions. But I
Speaker 1: zoom in and I'm just I don't know why I
Speaker 1: want to look at this rock, but I'm just like,
Speaker 1: look at the rock. I'm okay, and look at it
Speaker 1: and like thinking in my head, I'll check that rock again. Whatever.
Speaker 1: It just didn't look right, like there's something about this
Speaker 1: rock that looked weird. So I'm glassing all over and
Speaker 1: I go back to the rock and the rocks still
Speaker 1: just a rock. And normally I don't point out in
Speaker 1: and out of my objects because as a guide I
Speaker 1: get that all the time. Like I has been like, well,
Speaker 1: this this tree over there looks like an elk, and
Speaker 1: then they try to describe where it's at and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: is it a tree. Yeah, it's like thirty ft long log,
Speaker 1: but it looks, you know, to them, it looks like
Speaker 1: an elk. So I don't want to waste my time
Speaker 1: looking at logs when I'm like okay, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of ignore it and glass. I'm like, god,
Speaker 1: this this rock just like it's got the perfect shape
Speaker 1: of a wolf sitting there, like it's is white rock
Speaker 1: and it looks like a wolf. Like. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we are miles away. It's just like this weird shaped
Speaker 1: rock that hasn't you know, it's just a rock. So
Speaker 1: I told the guys, I'm like, there's I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it through my spotting scope and I've been checking it
Speaker 1: for the last hour, half hour, and I'm telling the guys.
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, guys, there's this rock down there. It
Speaker 1: looks just like a wolf. You should check it out
Speaker 1: because it's just like, I don't know, it's a funny,
Speaker 1: random white rock down in the bottom. It's trund to
Speaker 1: buy all these other rocks. I don't know. It just
Speaker 1: like looks like a wolf, you know. But I was like,
Speaker 1: I've been looking at it for a long time. It's nothing,
Speaker 1: It's just a rock, but you might want to I
Speaker 1: find this rock interesting. Just as I'm saying that the
Speaker 1: rock moves, sure enough, it was a white wolf down
Speaker 1: in the bottom of this canyon. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a wolf. And then I started to look around.
Speaker 1: All the black rocks that were around it start to
Speaker 1: move as well. It was an entire pack of wolves,
Speaker 1: but the white one, which we don't really have very
Speaker 1: many white ones here there's and all the other ones
Speaker 1: were black. But the way they were curled up and
Speaker 1: laying at that distance just looked like rocks. They weren't moving,
Speaker 1: they weren't doing anything, but something just looked off about
Speaker 1: these rocks that I kept coming back to and looking
Speaker 1: at him, looking at him, And it was very unexpected
Speaker 1: in this particular spot that I would see wolves, let
Speaker 1: alone a large pack of wolves, including a large white wolf.
Speaker 1: Once it stood up and was moving, then it was
Speaker 1: fairly clear what it was. I ended up getting a
Speaker 1: little bit of video and photo through the spotting scope,
Speaker 1: got my big spot where one of the guys had
Speaker 1: a bigger spotting scope, I just had my little backpacking
Speaker 1: spotting scope. So I got there spotting scope out, zoomed
Speaker 1: it up sixty power, like, oh, clearly that's a wolf,
Speaker 1: and so we watched them for a little bit. They
Speaker 1: fed on some bones. Unfortunately, nobody had any wolf tags
Speaker 1: or anything, so um, we just watched them. But it
Speaker 1: was just one of those times where I was spotting
Speaker 1: and it was it was kind of an unexpected spot.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, I was able to find those
Speaker 1: animals just by king into a few of the tenants
Speaker 1: that I feel are very imperative to glassing. There was
Speaker 1: something wrong about that picture. I kept looking back and
Speaker 1: looking back, and then caught the movement and verified, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something there, And it was just kind of a
Speaker 1: cool spot that I'll probably remember forever when it comes
Speaker 1: to picking out animals, picking out things on the mountain,
Speaker 1: finding what you're looking for. I really believe that, um,
Speaker 1: maybe a lot of the information out there that I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember reading things in the past of Okay, you
Speaker 1: need to look for this, and you need to look
Speaker 1: for that. But when I'm out looking, there's a way
Speaker 1: that I go about it. There's certain things that I
Speaker 1: keep in mind, but I also want to make sure
Speaker 1: that I see everything there. And it always reminds me
Speaker 1: of a psychology experiment that I remember seeing I don't know,
Speaker 1: in some textbooks somewhere, uh, maybe you're familiar with. It's
Speaker 1: like the guerrilla experiment where there's people passing a ball
Speaker 1: and they ask, okay, count how many times the balls
Speaker 1: passed back or forth? And then in this video, maybe
Speaker 1: like a few minutes into it, this gorilla guy in
Speaker 1: a gorilla costume walks out in the background kind of
Speaker 1: like dances around, stares at the audience, and then walks
Speaker 1: off the screen maybe nine seconds total, ten seconds whatever.
Speaker 1: Then they go and ask everybody who is counting the basketball, so, okay,
Speaker 1: how many passes back and forth? Most people got it correct.
Speaker 1: Then they said, who saw a gorilla? And half the
Speaker 1: people didn't even and realize the gorilla. Why because they
Speaker 1: were focused on one task and the gorilla was invisible
Speaker 1: to them. I kind of think of glassing is that
Speaker 1: same way where many people are looking for a deer,
Speaker 1: looking for a deer, looking for a deer, and because
Speaker 1: they're they've got something in their mind that they're looking for,
Speaker 1: they miss everything else. And a lot of times the
Speaker 1: other things are what clue you into finding an animal,
Speaker 1: finding an elk, finding something. So I believe that there's
Speaker 1: good search parameters to have, but there's also kind of
Speaker 1: this overarching thing of what I'm looking for, And I
Speaker 1: want to kind of describe this process, but I believe
Speaker 1: it comes down to when you're looking for animals, understanding,
Speaker 1: getting your brain to react to four of the major
Speaker 1: I would say, tenants of noticeable things that trigger a
Speaker 1: response of there's something there, and that would be understanding, size, reference,
Speaker 1: picking out certain shapes, separating out different colors, and then
Speaker 1: one of the big A factor's movement. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break these down into those four parts, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: start with size. Now, when you're when you're glassing, so
Speaker 1: many times I'll be glassing with a client, glassing with
Speaker 1: another hunter, glassing with someone, and I'll be looking four
Speaker 1: or five miles away and I'll spot elk. Now they'll
Speaker 1: be looking at that same thing and not spot anything,
Speaker 1: or not spot the deer, not spot what I'm spotting.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with understanding the type of size to key in on
Speaker 1: on what you're looking for. Now. That involves understanding how
Speaker 1: far you're looking, understanding the magnification of your binoculars, and
Speaker 1: understanding the size of the animal you're looking for. Am
Speaker 1: I looking for? I always say like, are you looking
Speaker 1: for ants or elephants? On a close hill? Are you
Speaker 1: looking for something really small? Or on a far out hill?
Speaker 1: Are you looking for something too big? When you look
Speaker 1: and you go, oh, that might be an l And
Speaker 1: then you realize that you're looking at a rock that's
Speaker 1: the size of a house. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: adjust your search parameters and adjust you know, the size
Speaker 1: reference in your mind of what you're looking for. That
Speaker 1: also lends into translating into what optics to use on
Speaker 1: different varying places you're glassing, how steady you're gonna need
Speaker 1: to be, and understanding, okay, what tools for the job
Speaker 1: for where I'm looking, and understanding how steady you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to be maybe are your binoculars. Should it be
Speaker 1: a spotting scope job or a binocular job? Do I
Speaker 1: need to get the tripod out? Or is this something
Speaker 1: that I can hand hold? Having all that, so when
Speaker 1: you throw your binoculars up, you'ren't wasting time, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at too far in the distance and a shaky
Speaker 1: binoculars where what you're looking for will be impossible to spot,
Speaker 1: or maybe spending your time on too close with the
Speaker 1: zoomed in spotting scope where you don't have a wide
Speaker 1: enough view and you're wasting your time looking that way.
Speaker 1: The best way to understand the size references picking out
Speaker 1: items and objects on distant hills and distant places that
Speaker 1: you kind of understand their basic size, and then compare
Speaker 1: that basic size to the animal that you're hunting. So
Speaker 1: this would be a for instance, I'm glassing way off
Speaker 1: in the distance, right, I've got my binoculars. I'm looking
Speaker 1: across the valley and I see standing tip Like, look
Speaker 1: what do you see around? Okay, there's some standing timber,
Speaker 1: there's some rocks. There's some other things that are maybe
Speaker 1: near where I'm at as well, maybe a sagebrush bush, well, um,
Speaker 1: maybe a ponderosa tree, maybe a couple of other trees. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's something that I can kind of gauge the animal
Speaker 1: size that i'm looking for to what i'm looking at? Okay,
Speaker 1: how big does that tree look? Now, instead of gauging
Speaker 1: things on the height of the tree, look at the
Speaker 1: trunk of the tree. How why do you think that
Speaker 1: tree is compared to the trees that around where you're
Speaker 1: at or you've seen. Is that comparable to the width
Speaker 1: or the length of an animal's body size? And then
Speaker 1: you can understand, Okay, I'm looking for something that's that
Speaker 1: big by maybe you know half of its body length
Speaker 1: or width, and you can start to gauge and say, okay,
Speaker 1: that's the size that I'm looking for. How much detail
Speaker 1: can you see what you're looking at a distance? Can
Speaker 1: you see the bark of the tree or can you not?
Speaker 1: One thing I'll do many times is I'll pull out
Speaker 1: my range finder and range the hill that I'm looking at.
Speaker 1: It's funny how once you understand how far something is,
Speaker 1: or really get a grasp of how far it is,
Speaker 1: you can start to build out that size reference a
Speaker 1: lot better. Just yesterday, I was sitting looking at this
Speaker 1: big meadow that looked fairly close. I take out my
Speaker 1: range finder, go nine yards. I'm looking at it kind
Speaker 1: of bear. I thinking, yeah, I would see a deer
Speaker 1: on this hill, which I would, but also the deer
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking I would see would be more in
Speaker 1: that reference of the four hundred yard deer where you
Speaker 1: you easily see it. Instead now you know, well it's
Speaker 1: kind of brush you over there as well. It's a
Speaker 1: lot further than it looks. Now I'm going to focus
Speaker 1: in and just realize that I'm looking for something smaller. Uh,
Speaker 1: focusing tighter, maybe get more steady, not just throw the
Speaker 1: buyos up and give it a quick scan. Slow down,
Speaker 1: take my time. And then I started picking out the
Speaker 1: deer um in foliage that was, you know, like comparing
Speaker 1: it to Okay, those bushes are going to be about
Speaker 1: the size of the animal, and look for it will
Speaker 1: be very concealed. I'm gonna have to slow down and
Speaker 1: really pick it apart because that size reference of instead
Speaker 1: of thinking, oh, I will see the deer standing above
Speaker 1: those bushes. Now that I realized that the deer are
Speaker 1: going to be below those bushes, so it depends on
Speaker 1: it gives me the cadence for glassing. It gives me
Speaker 1: a way to focus in and it gives me an
Speaker 1: understanding of what I'm looking at. The same thing goes
Speaker 1: for even the same scenario. This last week, I'm set
Speaker 1: up glassing. I look at my on X, I pull
Speaker 1: it out a measure. The distance I got that that
Speaker 1: area I'm glassing is five miles away. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: something very small, but I'm looking for elk you know.
Speaker 1: I I look at it and go, well, it's a
Speaker 1: grassy opening. The grass around me and this kind of
Speaker 1: similar environment. Is this tall, I should be able to
Speaker 1: see those elk um. They're gonna be, you know, the
Speaker 1: width of the base of that big ponderosa tree. And
Speaker 1: then I start picking apart and seeing these dots and
Speaker 1: then watching those and seeing, okay, they're moving. I verified
Speaker 1: their elk They've got everything else, the right shape, the
Speaker 1: right color. Obviously their elkum. Now we can make a play.
Speaker 1: And that play led to harvesting a good six by
Speaker 1: six bull just on a couple of days ago. So
Speaker 1: that size reference is key and understanding what to look for,
Speaker 1: but also how to spot. If I know i'm looking
Speaker 1: further way, I'm going to know that I need to
Speaker 1: be steadier. If I know that maybe that brush is
Speaker 1: taller than what I'm looking at. Understanding that is going
Speaker 1: to really help me use my time wisely to focus in.
Speaker 1: So many times people look at a hill and they think, oh,
Speaker 1: there's nothing there because they can see what it looks, open, whatever,
Speaker 1: but they don't realize that at that distance, you know,
Speaker 1: what they're looking at might conceal what they're trying to
Speaker 1: look for. So, okay, that might be more of a
Speaker 1: scenario where I take out the spotting scope, I zoom
Speaker 1: it in just the power instead of using my ten
Speaker 1: power binoculars. I zoom into twenty and I and I
Speaker 1: grid that I start to look slow. But also there's
Speaker 1: another hill in between here and are where I want
Speaker 1: that wide view, So I'm not just spending so much
Speaker 1: time looking so close. And I'm just gonna do the
Speaker 1: same thing, glassing off my knees, holding the brim in
Speaker 1: my hat, steadying my optics, and just combing over that
Speaker 1: stuff close in a wider view where I understand if
Speaker 1: there's something there, I should see it relatively easy, and
Speaker 1: then slowing down as I get to those more covered areas.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to jump into the next segment, which
Speaker 1: would be shape. I think one thing that is important
Speaker 1: is having some form of search parameter. I call him
Speaker 1: search parameters, like this thing in your mind that you're
Speaker 1: looking for. Now. You never want that thing in your
Speaker 1: mind that you're looking for to just be the whole
Speaker 1: animal standing there. Very very few times is that what
Speaker 1: I noticed? But if I really think about when I'm
Speaker 1: out spotting. I've tried to do this as I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this podcast and really trying to build it out.
Speaker 1: When I spot things, I just see them now it
Speaker 1: might be a piece of them. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: it might be something that is off about what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: There's just something that catches my eye. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: know exactly what first catches my eye, but it's always
Speaker 1: something that catches my eye now that just translates immediately
Speaker 1: in my brain to elk, dear, whatever I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: It is funny because when you're when you're thinking about
Speaker 1: a certain animal and I'm when I'm looking for elk,
Speaker 1: I probably seem more elk than dear because I'm I've
Speaker 1: got these certain search features that I'm looking for. But
Speaker 1: one thing that's very um universal as far as spotting,
Speaker 1: you know in in different game animals is the shape thing.
Speaker 1: I think the wolves that I spotted, what caught my
Speaker 1: eye was the shape the outline. Um, there's something about
Speaker 1: the shape that I was already searching for that picked
Speaker 1: up my eye. So I don't necessarily look for the
Speaker 1: whole animal, but I look for certain shapes. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna break down some of the certain certain shapes that
Speaker 1: you can have in your I guess like in your
Speaker 1: mind as the search parameters. The first would be an outline.
Speaker 1: What's the outline? What's the silhouette of the animal you're
Speaker 1: looking for? At distance? Many animals, even if you see
Speaker 1: the holy animal, they're blocked out, they're darker, and you're
Speaker 1: just seeing the silhouette. So think of the silhouette in
Speaker 1: a three sixty view. You've got the side profile, the broadside,
Speaker 1: the what do you see in that silhouette. You've got
Speaker 1: the head with the nose shape, You've got a neck
Speaker 1: that swoops, You've got a back, and then you've got
Speaker 1: the rounded end of the rear end. Then you've got
Speaker 1: the vertical legs. Think about that silhouette, and then you've
Speaker 1: also got the underline of the body. So you're looking
Speaker 1: you're thinking of a silhouette. Now let's turn that silhouette
Speaker 1: facing you. What do you see. Well, now you've got
Speaker 1: more of that ear profile, that kind of Mickey Mouse silhouette.
Speaker 1: You've got the long neck, and then you've got the
Speaker 1: line underneath the chest and the legs. Let's flip it
Speaker 1: around to the back end. What do you see. You
Speaker 1: might see the same ear profile if the heads up,
Speaker 1: but if the heads down, you might just see kind
Speaker 1: of a rounded back end and the legs or you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of dish profile the hips where it goes
Speaker 1: up from the hips and you start build out that.
Speaker 1: Really think about these profiles, these outlines, because those like
Speaker 1: understanding those types of shapes of the animals you're looking
Speaker 1: for is really going to help you spot what you're
Speaker 1: sitting there. Defined One thing that I heard a long
Speaker 1: time ago, like when I got started, when people are
Speaker 1: talking about glassing, is that they'd say, like, look for
Speaker 1: look for the lines, look for these lateral lines. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of lines and animals that I think really
Speaker 1: stand out. One of them is the is the line
Speaker 1: of the leg The legs are this vertical that goes
Speaker 1: to this horizontal that doesn't necessarily seem natural in all
Speaker 1: the other natural stuff. Another one of the lines is
Speaker 1: that line of the back, or the line of the belly,
Speaker 1: the line of the neck, but honestly that that back
Speaker 1: in belly line, these two parallel lines at distances or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's kind of this. Yes, there's things that are laying down,
Speaker 1: but it's this this kind of unnat trill natural thing
Speaker 1: where it looks slightly different than the environment around it,
Speaker 1: while everything else might be broken up. Um, the bushes
Speaker 1: have more of a fringe, the trees and logs have
Speaker 1: that What is this shape and what are these lines
Speaker 1: that I'm looking at when I'm still hunting. This is
Speaker 1: something that I actually try to key into, is these
Speaker 1: lines through forces I'm moving through really thick cover, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for not necessarily vertical lines, but horizontal lines. Or
Speaker 1: if i'm glass and close, I'm looking for those vertical
Speaker 1: lines of the legs, little pieces that kind of symbolize
Speaker 1: or trigger my mind to say, there's an animal. And
Speaker 1: there are things that often get looked over when you're
Speaker 1: moving slow, when you're in thick cover. You know, keeping
Speaker 1: those search parameters and understanding those lines and just bringing
Speaker 1: up mental pictures of what animals look like, the certain
Speaker 1: shapes and silhouettes, and then the type of lines that
Speaker 1: you're looking for. Don't look for the animal, look for
Speaker 1: those lines and then key in and focusing on that.
Speaker 1: Another thing I noticed that I kind of look for
Speaker 1: is is I start to think off shapes. That's when
Speaker 1: I even talk about maybe looking for something that is
Speaker 1: very hard to find, and you'll pick up things that
Speaker 1: are easier. One thing is is shed antlers. I kind
Speaker 1: of in my mind think find a shed, find an antler,
Speaker 1: because what that will do is that triggers my mind
Speaker 1: to start thinking of that off shape, that shape of
Speaker 1: an antler. Sometimes I'll find sheds. Sometimes I'll find antlers
Speaker 1: attached to an animal, and that might be something that
Speaker 1: I pick up along the way while I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: glassing at distance or in thick cover as I'm still hunting,
Speaker 1: something that immediately tells my brain, Oh, there's an animal there,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm looking for. And then again those
Speaker 1: rounded shapes. There's a lot, especially if you're like spring
Speaker 1: bear hunting. One thing I'm always trying to think of
Speaker 1: when I'm spring bear hunting is is look for the round.
Speaker 1: Look for that curve of the back, the bear feeding
Speaker 1: that the round at any position, this kind of unnatural
Speaker 1: round object that's in whatever I'm looking for, or a
Speaker 1: piece of that round object, kind of thinking of breaking
Speaker 1: it down into pieces legs, ears, back, neck, um hit, Like,
Speaker 1: just think of the pieces of the animal and build
Speaker 1: those mentally, even before your glassing. You know, it seems
Speaker 1: very strange in a way where you're like, the easiest
Speaker 1: way to find deers look for deer. People that just
Speaker 1: look for deer don't spot as much as the people
Speaker 1: that understand to look for pieces of what they're looking for,
Speaker 1: and they've built out in their head these mental images
Speaker 1: of the parameters that they're seeking. Because what happens is
Speaker 1: as you look, I can throw my for me, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm very good at glass and very good
Speaker 1: at picking out animals before other people because I throw
Speaker 1: up my binoculars and I don't have to analyze everything.
Speaker 1: I let my brain look at it and then it
Speaker 1: just triggers there's something there, or then I focus in
Speaker 1: on that. I can scan a hillside probably two or
Speaker 1: three times faster than most hunters because I have these
Speaker 1: search parameters, and obviously it happens by doing it a
Speaker 1: lot and practicing. I mean, just like anything, it takes practice.
Speaker 1: It sounds weird, but glassing practice, yes, it makes a
Speaker 1: really big difference. Of people say, well, you know what
Speaker 1: to look for, Yes, I know it to look or
Speaker 1: but I've also trained myself to look for certain things
Speaker 1: that trigger in and I can I can throw my
Speaker 1: binoculars up, scan a hillside, or sit down and grab
Speaker 1: out the spotty scale and know what to do when,
Speaker 1: and it utilizes my time better in those especially those
Speaker 1: times when it's gonna be easier to spot animals, or
Speaker 1: in those times where it's very difficult to spot animals,
Speaker 1: I'll generally spot them. There's very little that gets by
Speaker 1: me because I have these search parameters always going. I'm
Speaker 1: the type of person that I could be driving down
Speaker 1: the highway sixty miles an hour and two miles away
Speaker 1: spotted deer. It's just because I'm always looking. But my
Speaker 1: brain triggers into those certain features. There's certain shapes, and
Speaker 1: I understand the size reference of where I'm looking at
Speaker 1: what distances. That comes with practice, and it comes with
Speaker 1: kind of building out a mental picture in your mind. Now,
Speaker 1: the next two I think are are very key, and
Speaker 1: that would be color and movement. What I want to
Speaker 1: do is I want to break those down in a
Speaker 1: little more detail next week. So for this week we
Speaker 1: just cover in size and shape. Next week we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the color and movement, and those are
Speaker 1: probably two of the most important things the key in
Speaker 1: on and the easiest to really get started. But I
Speaker 1: want you to start building these mental pictures before we
Speaker 1: build out coloring movement into our search parameters. When it
Speaker 1: comes to glassing your homework for the week. On the
Speaker 1: next hunt that you go on, I really want you
Speaker 1: to start thinking about this size and shape reference. Now,
Speaker 1: if you aren't hunting, maybe you're new to it, maybe
Speaker 1: you're new to this whole spotting thing. Throw up images
Speaker 1: like look through wildlife photos, look at different silhouettes, and
Speaker 1: start thinking of like building out this idea and this
Speaker 1: mental thing of what you're looking for. I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: it's an exercise in it's something that just happens. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm always constantly, I think most hunters, I'm always thinking
Speaker 1: about the animals that I'm chasing. I'm always thinking about
Speaker 1: mule deer, but I'm also thinking about when I go out.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the terrain that I'm in, and I
Speaker 1: just really try to picture what is reasonable that I
Speaker 1: might see. I don't really try to picture this big
Speaker 1: animal standing out there. The ones that I miss are
Speaker 1: like the ones right in front of me, often because
Speaker 1: I'm always looking further or thinking that they're more concealed.
Speaker 1: So maybe I gotta add in my homework is just
Speaker 1: gonna be adding more of that, like big animals standing there, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm right here kind of thing. Um. But what I
Speaker 1: would suggest is just kind of start to think about
Speaker 1: those shapes, like look at the photo, break it down
Speaker 1: in your mind of little pieces, little parts, like what
Speaker 1: does that look like? As I talk about it, I
Speaker 1: just visualize it. And I think that there's a big
Speaker 1: aspect of just visualizing these things before you ever go out,
Speaker 1: before you ever get into the field. Maybe you're new
Speaker 1: to it, this is something that you can do. Study
Speaker 1: pictures of animals in those environments and not just clear
Speaker 1: pictures animals, pictures of a hillside and what do you
Speaker 1: see and what might it look like? And build those
Speaker 1: search parameters in your head. You want these things to
Speaker 1: be automatic. You want to be the guy that can
Speaker 1: throw up the binoculat spot something that's very hard to spot.
Speaker 1: And it's not because you have a Like, having a
Speaker 1: better eye is really having a better mind. It's understanding
Speaker 1: what you can see. Now, there is something to be
Speaker 1: said for having good vision. You know. Obviously, if you've
Speaker 1: got contacts and you'ren't wearing them, that you probably aren't
Speaker 1: gonna see as much. But a good eye means understanding
Speaker 1: what you're looking for. That takes practice. And if you
Speaker 1: don't have all the time to practice understanding and looking
Speaker 1: at those those references and and really building out that
Speaker 1: mental picture you think about it, get your mind trained
Speaker 1: to find things for you and let your eyes do
Speaker 1: the looking, in your mind do the spotting. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's what's key to this whole process. So
Speaker 1: that's your homework till next week, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: break down the other part of that tips the color
Speaker 1: and the movement. And I think by the time you
Speaker 1: combine all these things together and looking at at it
Speaker 1: that way, I think you're gonna be a lot better
Speaker 1: at spotting. So I really just wanted to break this
Speaker 1: out for you. I think that it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really good tip it's a really good tactic, and it's
Speaker 1: me just trying to dissect the way that I do things.
Speaker 1: I've been doing it my entire life. I've been doing
Speaker 1: it profession only. I've gotten really good at it. But
Speaker 1: I believe that it's very hard to explain sometimes how
Speaker 1: you get better at certain things unless you kind of
Speaker 1: talk in this way of like I really try to
Speaker 1: dissect what I'm doing. So I hope it's helpful, and
Speaker 1: I hope it's something that you can enact in your
Speaker 1: next hunt or in any hunt. As always, you know,
Speaker 1: feel free to make this a two way conversation. I
Speaker 1: try to, you know, obviously it's like right in the
Speaker 1: middle of hunting season, but honestly, if I get a
Speaker 1: little bit of service or in the evenings in the mornings,
Speaker 1: I love to, like look at those messages. I read
Speaker 1: almost everything. I just maybe don't have time to respond
Speaker 1: to whatever. So um, keep those messages coming because I
Speaker 1: really it really like encourages me and gets me fired
Speaker 1: up to hear so many success stories and other things.
Speaker 1: So I just appreciate you all until next week, keep
Speaker 1: a share by catch you guys later.