Speaker 1: Welcome back to Cutting the dis and today we're recording
Speaker 1: here at the twenty twenty three Pendleton Roundup with Pendleton
Speaker 1: Whiskey in the nineteen ten room.
Speaker 2: I have to admit I'm not much of.
Speaker 1: A cowboy, but I love watching all the events and
Speaker 1: I just like being around good people, which you're surrounded
Speaker 1: by at these rodeos. Today's guest is a Canadian professional
Speaker 1: rodeo cowboy who specializes in saddle bronc riding. He's a
Speaker 1: three time twenty sixteen, nineteen and twenty two Professional Rodeo
Speaker 1: Cowboys Association World Champion saddle bronc rider. Additionally, he spent
Speaker 1: some time in the fall hunting a little and everything
Speaker 1: that Canada has to offer. Whitetail, elk mildeer, moves, coyotes,
Speaker 1: whatever he has a tag for there on his place.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Zeke, Hey.
Speaker 3: Thank you thanks for having me on. I'm really excited
Speaker 3: for this.
Speaker 2: How was it going here for you at the Pendleton Rodeo.
Speaker 3: That's been really good? Yeah? We we we showed up Monday,
Speaker 3: slacks started. We was in the team roping. Didn't have
Speaker 3: any luck there. I rode my bronc on Wednesday as
Speaker 3: eighty six, so we'll be back for the finals on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's so when when you say when you
Speaker 1: come to these rodeos, you are there guys that only
Speaker 1: do you know single events or are there a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that do a little bit of everything like
Speaker 1: you like roping riding.
Speaker 3: Uh, They're kind of a little bit of both, but
Speaker 3: mostly anymore rodeo has gotten to where it's kind of
Speaker 3: events pretty specialized. One guy's kind of kind of throw
Speaker 3: all their eggs in one basket, you know, But there
Speaker 3: are all around guys. Obviously, the giveaway an all around
Speaker 3: world title probably the most coveted title to get, which
Speaker 3: is Stets and Wright's been when the last few years.
Speaker 3: But there are lots of lots of time event guys
Speaker 3: crossover from CAF Open to team rope and uh, stuff
Speaker 3: like that. We just we entered this one every year,
Speaker 3: just gives away really cool all around saddle and it's
Speaker 3: just it's pretty fun to run one down on the grass.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So normally at this time in the podcast we would
Speaker 1: take listener questions, and if you have listener questions of
Speaker 1: your own, feel free to email them to us. At CTD,
Speaker 1: at phelpsgame Calls dot Com, or hit us up on social.
Speaker 1: But today I'm gonna take this fifteen minutes or so
Speaker 1: and just ask Zeke some questions about the rodeo, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of his life and how you get here. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a little pivot and then we'll get
Speaker 1: back to our normal recordings in future episodes. So, how
Speaker 1: do you become a pro rodeo cowboy? I'm having kind
Speaker 1: of second thoughts on what my career choice would be,
Speaker 1: and so I'm really curious for myself. How do you
Speaker 1: become a pro rodeo cowboy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's kind of an unconventional way to make
Speaker 3: a living, and there's lots of different ways to become
Speaker 3: a rodeo cowboy. Some of the guys that we ride
Speaker 3: with just fall into it and see it on TV
Speaker 3: or something, you know, catch it, catch it somewhere and
Speaker 3: think that's one of the cooler things I've ever seen,
Speaker 3: and somehow get involved. For me personally, on both sides
Speaker 3: of my family have always been very very deeply rooted
Speaker 3: in rodeo and stuff. So I just grew up in it.
Speaker 3: I grew up on a ranch in Big Valley, Alberta.
Speaker 3: And yeah, just pretty pretty well, just grew up in it.
Speaker 3: It's all all I can ever remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so does that start like at a very young age,
Speaker 1: like when what's the progressions? Like you know, at our
Speaker 1: local fair there's like mutton buss you know, they throw
Speaker 1: them on a sheep. So it's like how do you
Speaker 1: progress through like when you're ready to.
Speaker 2: Get on an animal?
Speaker 1: Like how how you finally get on a bronc and
Speaker 1: you know, how does that go?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a little different for everybody. But obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, being being ranch kids, we rode anything that
Speaker 3: anything that we could get on, you know, the goats
Speaker 3: and bottle calves and every everything that was around the
Speaker 3: around the place. But yeah, there are stepping stones, you
Speaker 3: know obviously the sheep ridings. I think that's more for
Speaker 3: the parents enjoyment. But you know, you go that route
Speaker 3: and then you obviously probably start riding a saddle horse
Speaker 3: and learning to riding things and then progress into safety
Speaker 3: you're riding if you wanted to go that route, or
Speaker 3: you start roping and uh yeah, just kind of go
Speaker 3: through the steps until you're okay, where do you want
Speaker 3: to be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. This is not meant to insult anybody,
Speaker 1: but we were I was talking with Garrett along with
Speaker 1: me Eater, he's here at the round up with us,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about like, you know, the extreme bowls,
Speaker 1: the bull riding versus Bronc and kind of the tradition
Speaker 1: and where that came from. Can you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, Like the bulls have kind of
Speaker 1: maybe been for a little bit more show and entertainment,
Speaker 1: where Bronc really has their tradition rooted into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the Bronc riding is what they call the
Speaker 3: event that started at all as kind of the very
Speaker 3: first you know, hundred and fifty years ago, there would
Speaker 3: be you know, say cowboys like at the Penalton round up.
Speaker 3: You know, when they'd have a round up, they get
Speaker 3: everybody's cattle together and brand and then sort them off
Speaker 3: and then you take your own cattle and go sell them.
Speaker 3: It's how they used to do it. So at the roundups,
Speaker 3: whoever had the bronchiest or rankest horse that they were riding,
Speaker 3: you know, obviously they would start putting wagers on it,
Speaker 3: and bats being cowboys and seeing who could could ride
Speaker 3: the longest on the rankest horse, and that's that's kind
Speaker 3: of where it started. And the blue reading I think
Speaker 3: it came around after Yeah, kind of more as a w.
Speaker 1: W yeah, because I mean what you guys were doing
Speaker 1: was you know, trying to break you know, crazy horse.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, where there was no reason you should
Speaker 1: jump on a bowl all around in past.
Speaker 2: Gotcha makes sense?
Speaker 1: So, uh, you know, for me maybe in a little
Speaker 1: bit of an outsider, like we know, there's this local circuit.
Speaker 1: You know, I got the Saint Paul Rodeo close to me,
Speaker 1: you know, the Penalton round up. So there's but when
Speaker 1: think when people typically think, uh, you know, rodeos, they
Speaker 1: think of the n FR, they think about the pro rodeo,
Speaker 1: But the p r c A rodeos all lead up
Speaker 1: to this actual n FR. And can you tell us
Speaker 1: how that goes? How many of these you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say minor events because they're not, but
Speaker 1: how many of the p r c as do you
Speaker 1: hit in order to make it to the NFR? And
Speaker 1: then can you tell us how you actually like qualify
Speaker 1: for the NFR.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there what you would call like a regular
Speaker 3: season rodeo. I think the PRC has somewhere in the
Speaker 3: neighborhood is seven hundred regular season rodeos every year. Our
Speaker 3: season starts October first and ends September thirtieth, and so
Speaker 3: you just for us mostly we start in January. We
Speaker 3: kind of when the building rodeos, big winner rodeos start
Speaker 3: and stuff. So that's kind of when we start, and
Speaker 3: we'll go all the way to the end of September.
Speaker 3: In the BRONC riding, you you're allowed to use one
Speaker 3: hundred rodeos towards your count and qualifications for the NFR.
Speaker 3: NFR strictly top fifteen in the world off money won,
Speaker 3: So the fifteen guys that'll win the most money in
Speaker 3: that event are seeded into go play at the finals.
Speaker 1: So the most I mean, if you happen to go
Speaker 1: to one hundred events and win money out it, they're
Speaker 1: taking your top one hundred winnings calculating that, and then
Speaker 1: that's what determines the fifteen that get to make it
Speaker 1: to Vegas and December every year. Yes, sir, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So I was completely you know, hopefully everybody knows it
Speaker 1: was a joke. I never belong on a BRONC or
Speaker 1: ararible ever. But uh, you know another thing that would
Speaker 1: keep me off. I'm not tough enough. You know, one
Speaker 1: thing that people think about with rough Stock is injuries.
Speaker 1: How's your career band in that sense so far? I
Speaker 1: think I believe you're twenty nine years old.
Speaker 3: I'm twenty nine. Yeah, And as far as injuries go,
Speaker 3: I've been I've been really lucky. It's a it's a
Speaker 3: pretty rough sport. All three of the Roughstock events. You know,
Speaker 3: you're you're dealing with an animal that that outweighs you
Speaker 3: ten times, you know, and so it it h You
Speaker 3: can get banged up, but it's that's kind of part
Speaker 3: of it. You know, if you're if you're gonna if
Speaker 3: you're gonna jump dirt bikes or brad Buckham bulls, you're
Speaker 3: probably gonna get some bumps.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and one thing, the injuries seem to differ
Speaker 1: between Bronx and bowls, where you know, they they twist
Speaker 1: you off, you go fly in typically and they want
Speaker 1: to stomp on you. Where you know, watching yesterday a
Speaker 1: little bit, it seems like, you know, you guys fall
Speaker 1: off a little more graceful. I mean, they can be
Speaker 1: some pretty bad tumbles, but there's a big difference between
Speaker 1: kind of how you crash on bowlvers how you crash
Speaker 1: on the on the bronx.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the bruncker and it's it's pretty you know,
Speaker 3: it's all timing and balance, all the events are but
Speaker 3: the bron grade and they say it's kind of like
Speaker 3: poetry in motion, I guess is what they call all
Speaker 3: the time. So it's when when it's working, it's it's
Speaker 3: really smooth and it looks really good. It's really not
Speaker 3: rough at all. You obviously will get banged up and
Speaker 3: and and get into some some recks and situations where
Speaker 3: you know, it's unavoidable. For the most part. It's you're
Speaker 3: not really going to get two big a rex, but
Speaker 3: knees and knees, ankles and growings are are pretty pretty
Speaker 3: hard for bron graders. Yeah, they go a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've seen more people get banged up
Speaker 1: off of the dismount. You know, they get the rescue
Speaker 1: horse or whatever it is comes out. Pick up man
Speaker 1: comes and gets them off his horse, and then they
Speaker 1: seem to tumble off the other side or end.
Speaker 3: Up on the I usually get all my injuries. You're
Speaker 3: trying to get off safe, safely Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh as far as a crossover, you know, I
Speaker 1: make my living as a hunter. You make your living
Speaker 1: as a as a as a rodeo guy, is it?
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a big crossover between the two
Speaker 1: groups and and you know.
Speaker 3: I personally, I've seen a huge crossover my whole life.
Speaker 3: Most most everybody that I know that through the rodeo world,
Speaker 3: you know, is involved in hunting or fishing, some sort
Speaker 3: of controvation, you know, of some sort whether you know,
Speaker 3: it could be just even just ranching, you know, taking
Speaker 3: care of their place and stuff. But huge crossover. A
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of the contestants are are big hunters.
Speaker 3: Some of them have their own outfits and guides. And yeah,
Speaker 3: there's there's a lot of hunting goes on in the radio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to be a lot of crossover. And
Speaker 1: the two the two genres or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call them, the two lifestyles definitely have a lot of
Speaker 1: cross Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think they compliment each other quite well. And you
Speaker 3: know a lot of people that come from Roady, not everybody,
Speaker 3: but it comes from like a ranch or a farm
Speaker 3: or you know, some sort of agricultural background and a
Speaker 3: lot of times with that comes you know, you know,
Speaker 3: harvesting animals off your own land.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the things that you
Speaker 1: know here at me Eater, we're huge public land advocates,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I love it. But one thing
Speaker 1: we need to do is tip our hat to you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the private land. You know, these ranchers,
Speaker 1: these cowboys that run big chunks of private they seem
Speaker 1: to take care of the animals maybe better than we
Speaker 1: can on the public, you know, and give them things
Speaker 1: they need, you know, food, water, you know all that.
Speaker 1: And there there hasn't been too many places I've went
Speaker 1: where the private land hunting wasn't maybe a little better
Speaker 1: than the public that's adjacent to it.
Speaker 2: So I think we we.
Speaker 1: Always talk about conservation, but it's like these private landowners,
Speaker 1: all the work they're doing for their their livestock also
Speaker 1: benefits wildlife in an incredible way.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure. Lots of lots of our neighbors and
Speaker 3: people around us, uh, you know, they run cattle and
Speaker 3: do do all that, but they also you know, sell
Speaker 3: hunts in the fall and like to take care of
Speaker 3: their deer and animals because you know, it's also another
Speaker 3: source income.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what's your biggest and favorite parodial moment if
Speaker 1: you had to pick one?
Speaker 3: Oh, my biggest probably last year. I would say it
Speaker 3: was my favorite moment tenth round in the NFRUH. I
Speaker 3: had one ride that it won me a lot, said
Speaker 3: a set a season's earning record, tied the average record,
Speaker 3: won the world when the average split the round, and uh,
Speaker 3: what's the top gun winner at the NFR So.
Speaker 2: Nice that was.
Speaker 3: That was pretty cool. I don't know if that'll all
Speaker 3: happen ever again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one good ride just kind of checked all
Speaker 1: the boxes there for you. That's awesome. So now we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump in. We're gonna transition a little bit from
Speaker 1: from the rodeo into two hunting. So, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you hunt a little bit of everything
Speaker 1: up there, and that's one thing I love about Canada
Speaker 1: is like you got everything on on on the table.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got elk, you've got meal deer, white tail, moose,
Speaker 1: you got predator hunting. What would be your favorite of
Speaker 1: the species to go after?
Speaker 2: Do you have one?
Speaker 3: I don't know, I would my favorite is probably hunting elk. Obviously,
Speaker 3: when you're you're running around, they're all screaming and and stuff.
Speaker 3: But I just like it. I really just like to
Speaker 3: be outside. I enjoy it. But yeah, it's meal, they're hunting.
Speaker 3: They're all different. You know, it's fun to put a
Speaker 3: stock on a meal deer. You sit in your tree
Speaker 3: standway for your white tail. Yeah, it's uh yeah, I
Speaker 3: like them all.
Speaker 1: So how do you how do you how are you
Speaker 1: able to We'll get back to the rest of the
Speaker 1: species and strategy and all of that, but how do
Speaker 1: you how do you balance your schedule with you know,
Speaker 1: being on the road quite a bit because what the
Speaker 1: rodeo one stops at the end of September, so you're
Speaker 1: about to have a little bit of a fall break
Speaker 1: leading into the NFR Then.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, yeah we'll have We'll still have a few
Speaker 3: more to go to, a few more events and things,
Speaker 3: but that is our slowest time.
Speaker 2: YEA, sure, that's perfect.
Speaker 1: So you have a little bit of your fall fall
Speaker 1: to hunt if you need to, and take care of
Speaker 1: the place while you're there. And uh so end of
Speaker 1: September you're still riding to then do you get to
Speaker 1: catch some of that elkra or you typically hunting them
Speaker 1: with a rifle or a bow up there? How does
Speaker 1: that like, how do you your guys a season structure
Speaker 1: set up there in Canada? And then what what you know,
Speaker 1: how do you hunt elk, whether screaming, whether it's with
Speaker 1: the rifle, and kind of what's your fall lookout?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kinda usually miss most of the good part
Speaker 3: of the rut by the time we get home from this,
Speaker 3: but yeah, we'll go after with our bow for an
Speaker 3: atlerd out gets a draw tag in our area for
Speaker 3: a rifle me and my brother. My brother had one
Speaker 3: last year. He killed a pretty nice bull there, and yeah,
Speaker 3: so then well I gotta I got a draw tag
Speaker 3: for meal there this year. So imagine we'll try to
Speaker 3: go kill.
Speaker 2: Something win's that season run.
Speaker 3: So that's I can I can archery hunt him, and
Speaker 3: then November first turns into a rifle tag.
Speaker 1: One nice nice So where you're at in Canada is it?
Speaker 1: Are you in mountainous ground? Are you hunt them up
Speaker 1: in the mountains or do you have some you know,
Speaker 1: foothills that kind of surround the place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So where I'm at, I'm actually kinda kind of
Speaker 3: right in the start of the prairie. So I'm in
Speaker 3: the prairies that kind of runs through the southeastern side
Speaker 3: of Alberta. Lots of little rolling hills, little bluffs of
Speaker 3: poplar trees and willows, lots of you know, we got
Speaker 3: so many hills, We got lots of little we call
Speaker 3: them slews or whatever. But you know they drive. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the dry up on dry years, but watch of years
Speaker 3: they hold water. And yeah, it's it's actually it's pretty
Speaker 3: cool country right off the river. Red Deer River runs there.
Speaker 3: It's got big river breaks, kind of bad landsing, you know,
Speaker 3: So that country it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So, uh, white tail as well. And then you know
Speaker 1: you can hunt white tail every every single year up there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so what's your what's your go to tactic
Speaker 1: on that? Are you guys more spot in stock? Are
Speaker 1: you sitting in a tree stand a ground blind? Like
Speaker 1: what's your go to?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 2: Are you patterning on them? Or like what's your what's
Speaker 2: your go to there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So for us, it's mostly you just you kind
Speaker 3: of get in the stand or in a ground blind
Speaker 3: or wherever, and you just kind of hang out. Like
Speaker 3: for where our white tail are, it's a few miles
Speaker 3: north of our place where it starts to get quite
Speaker 3: a bit, you know, you start to get into quite
Speaker 3: a bit more cover and and brush and stuff. It
Speaker 3: gets the country gets a little tougher, you know, so
Speaker 3: they're not they're not as visible where I think the
Speaker 3: meal deer have kind of pushed them out over the
Speaker 3: years because seemed like seemed like you used to catch
Speaker 3: them out and open a lot more. But uh, we
Speaker 3: we just you know, you just sit in the stands
Speaker 3: or whatever and try ears so you can sit on
Speaker 3: water and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you do you play white tails during the rut?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to do like that pre rut and
Speaker 1: pattern them?
Speaker 3: Are you during the Yeah, we had them during the rat.
Speaker 3: We'll try to rattle them in.
Speaker 2: Do you do any calling as far as like grunting bleeding.
Speaker 3: Just a little bit, mostly like I I'm not confident
Speaker 3: enough in my calling to uh, you know, if I
Speaker 3: need to stop one or I'll use it.
Speaker 1: For Yeah, I'm pretty new to white Tony. I always
Speaker 1: kind of everybody still kind of jokes with me because
Speaker 1: I always said I would white tail hunt when I turned
Speaker 1: seventy and couldn't walk around on the mountains anymore.
Speaker 2: But I got to go to Kansas last year.
Speaker 1: You know, all the listeners have heard this before, but
Speaker 1: I was surprised, you know, with with some of our
Speaker 1: new grunt calls that we had put out, you know,
Speaker 1: hunt around black tails. We have black tails here on
Speaker 1: the coast, and just how effective it was almost as
Speaker 1: effective as calling elt. You know, just a little grunt,
Speaker 1: you know, some popping grunts, some tending grunts, and uh
Speaker 1: we had bucks come flying at us. And then a
Speaker 1: couple of times we would get up we had some
Speaker 1: elevated ground blinds. We weren't down on the ground, but
Speaker 1: but just hit the rattle bag and just to have
Speaker 1: bucks come running like out of multiple directions, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like sprinting by us.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: So I was, yeah, and I honestly, I'm not telling
Speaker 1: you how to hunt, but I think if you picked
Speaker 1: up a grunt call, like it's super easy.
Speaker 3: I love you know, I know a guy, I'll have
Speaker 3: to know what I'm saying to them with it.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some popping grunts, some little short ones, and
Speaker 1: then you get that longer attending grunt. That's all I
Speaker 1: ever did and had great success with it.
Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, I get on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know a guy I'll get I'll get some
Speaker 2: sent to you. You can give him, give him a
Speaker 2: run this year. Meal deer. You you all spot in
Speaker 2: stock or what's your approach there?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Usually, and and most seems like if we do,
Speaker 3: if we're hunting meal dere it's usually, uh, with the rifle,
Speaker 3: we'll just buy a landowner's tag or something just to
Speaker 3: just have something to go hunt. But yeah, usually just
Speaker 3: spot in stock. And my other actually we killed a
Speaker 3: pretty good meal there a couple of years ago, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just it's kind of fun. We've got family close by,
Speaker 3: and you know, you get up in the morning and
Speaker 3: go out for a couple of hours save in the evening.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so kind of a long family tradition. You guys
Speaker 1: have hunted that country for a long long time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I grew up with two brothers and so all three
Speaker 3: of us boys were pretty close in age and obviously
Speaker 3: had the same interests and stuff.
Speaker 2: So were you guys.
Speaker 1: And I might, uh this might lend to me not
Speaker 1: knowing exactly how Canada's laid out. You know, some of
Speaker 1: those areas in Alberta and Sascotchwan just got giant meal deer.
Speaker 1: You know, you see the giants that lay down on
Speaker 1: the wheatfield or the cornfield, Are you guys in that
Speaker 1: part of the country where they grow just the giant.
Speaker 3: I mean, they get pretty big. So my uncle last
Speaker 3: year just north of us, he lives north of Steller,
Speaker 3: We live south of Steller, he killed. I want to say,
Speaker 3: I didn't hear of any in Alberta going much bigger,
Speaker 3: but he killed the meal there that went to thirteen.
Speaker 2: Jeez, that's a giant.
Speaker 3: Pretty good. The one that me and my brother killed
Speaker 3: last year a year before last, who went one ninety eight.
Speaker 3: So a pretty good, pretty good deer. You get east
Speaker 3: of us over there, kind of long on the Saskatchewan
Speaker 3: border and stuff, you can they can run into some
Speaker 3: big middlegaris, you big crankers down there.
Speaker 2: So I have to ask, maybe you don't want to
Speaker 2: Hunting is.
Speaker 3: Pretty good everywhere in Canada. Like, it's not really bad.
Speaker 3: It's not that bad.
Speaker 1: Is there just not as much competition? And maybe you
Speaker 1: don't know our atmosphere down here. It just seems like
Speaker 1: the competition for the good things is just crazy down
Speaker 1: here versus up there. It doesn't seem to be as
Speaker 1: much for the.
Speaker 3: I think just I think it's just the population size
Speaker 3: and things like, you know, you go to Alberta, there's
Speaker 3: four million people in Alberta, and it's got a bigger
Speaker 3: land mass in Texas. You know where you go to Texas,
Speaker 3: there's thirty million people. Yeah, that's there's a lot more
Speaker 3: people after after something, you know. I just yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that's kind of what it is. Bigger, just it's
Speaker 3: a vast country and and lots of animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might not want people to know this if
Speaker 1: the if the answer is what you're going to tell
Speaker 1: me it is. But how do how would a guy
Speaker 1: like me being down here in the States, how do
Speaker 1: we hunt?
Speaker 2: Canada? You'd mentioned, you know, neighboring property selling hunts is there?
Speaker 3: Like yeah, you just you'd have to go through a
Speaker 3: licensed guide. Short and yeah, there's over the counter tags
Speaker 3: and different things you can buy. Probably not a lot
Speaker 3: different than me coming down here, you.
Speaker 1: Know, So you can go up there, you can get
Speaker 1: an over the countertag, but you just need to find
Speaker 1: property to hunt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to go. I think there's some sort
Speaker 3: of regulation on having to go through a guide and
Speaker 3: you you know, like to have proof that you're up there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not up there with without reason.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you mentioned yesterday.
Speaker 1: We got to talk a little bit yesterday at the
Speaker 1: met Eater booth here at the at the rodeo, Kyle hunting.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you maybe do just as much of
Speaker 1: that is is big game and you enjoy that.
Speaker 2: What's your go to? There? Are using e calls? Are
Speaker 2: you using? Are you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Hand calls like your calls, fox pro whatever. We uh yeah,
Speaker 3: we kind of hunt them, kind of hunt them however
Speaker 3: we can. There's Alberta's littered with coyotes. There's coyotes everywhere.
Speaker 3: You know, the last whatever few years the fur trade
Speaker 3: has been pretty poor. So there, I mean, it seems
Speaker 3: like there's becoming even more of them because you know,
Speaker 3: they're not really in demand. And but that's something my
Speaker 3: dad got us poisoned too when we were we were
Speaker 3: quite young and uh, you know, took us out, called her,
Speaker 3: called us in a coyote, and uh we all got hooked.
Speaker 3: And so it's it's pretty fun winter time, past past time,
Speaker 3: you know. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did that come out of the farming ranching lifestyle?
Speaker 1: Like take did they harass your animals or was it
Speaker 1: not that bad or it just kind of keeps them
Speaker 1: offul landscape or was it.
Speaker 3: You gotta you gotta control them to some extent, you
Speaker 3: know it for us it was never that, you know,
Speaker 3: they were hard on livestocker thing. You know, every seems
Speaker 3: like every year they get in my wife's chicken coop,
Speaker 3: Greek havoc on the chicken. That's about it, you know,
Speaker 3: but just did it, you know, for something to do
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, keep the keep them in check,
Speaker 3: keep everything.
Speaker 1: The decline in the fur trade is a big issue
Speaker 1: with depredation everywhere because you know, back in the day
Speaker 1: when I say back in the day maybe just twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years ago, when when the you know, the
Speaker 1: high prices were high on raccoons, beavers, you know, coyotes.
Speaker 1: You had a lot of guys out there with dogs,
Speaker 1: you know, spending time willing to put gas in their
Speaker 1: gas tank, you know, which like on the wild turkey
Speaker 1: population is huge to to keep those raccoons out. And
Speaker 1: you know, all of that and it seems like with
Speaker 1: the fur trade and the fur price is being driven down,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody's on the landscape anymore. Keeping the keeping
Speaker 1: the raccoons off of their the coyotes, and it's just
Speaker 1: nobody's willing to spend that kind of money.
Speaker 2: You know. It seems like there's a select few that
Speaker 2: are still out doing it, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're kind of doing it at your own expense anymore.
Speaker 3: That not not too many ladies in New York wearing
Speaker 3: fur anymore.
Speaker 2: So it's just a few.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it, you know, which is kind of a shame
Speaker 3: because there is a place, you know, for it, but
Speaker 3: you know, we just we just hunted for fun, and
Speaker 3: you know, there's there's a lot of them around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, Yeah, it seems like anytime you get around
Speaker 1: an agriag environment, there's just it's over ran. Well I
Speaker 1: would consider overran, you know, I don't claim to be
Speaker 1: a biologist, but just more more than than what's needed
Speaker 1: on the land.
Speaker 3: Just opportunities opportunists to hunters.
Speaker 2: Right, so yeah, yeah, there's more on the landscape.
Speaker 3: It's somebody with a feed lot that's got a dead
Speaker 3: pile out back.
Speaker 1: You're good, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, we're gonna switch all
Speaker 1: the way back. We're gonna come back to elk hunting,
Speaker 1: running elk. So you're gonna get back kind of at
Speaker 1: that tail end but what's your what's your approach to
Speaker 1: to running elk? Are you are you running ridges to
Speaker 1: locate them? Are they in the bottom lands or they
Speaker 1: just like and set area because you guys are peer
Speaker 1: puer rockies.
Speaker 2: Where you're at right, No, no roads?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but where we yeah, so where we hunt the
Speaker 3: elk though, like I said, we're in the prairies there.
Speaker 3: So it's that it's pretty tricky wide open Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 3: you got to kind of get you got to get
Speaker 3: up and get in some sort of cover and hopefully
Speaker 3: you get across one and get them coming by you.
Speaker 3: We don't have we don't get a ton of area
Speaker 3: to hunt them either, and they move so much, you know,
Speaker 3: back and forth and stuff. But they're tricky to hunt
Speaker 3: around us for sure. But you know with the rifle, yeah,
Speaker 3: you have a pretty pretty decent ieat even then it's
Speaker 3: still it's not easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so we talked about it on episode I
Speaker 1: believe it was forty nine with Corey Caulkins who used
Speaker 1: to guide on some private land. You just mentioned, you
Speaker 1: guys have a pretty small area, so where you know
Speaker 1: a lot of what I teach in the mountains here
Speaker 1: where you've got endless public is we put quite a
Speaker 1: bit of pressure on them at times where in the
Speaker 1: situation where you are, or even if you find yourself
Speaker 1: in the public situation where you don't want to move
Speaker 1: these elk out of that area, you guys are probably
Speaker 1: a little more reluctant to put a bunch of pressure
Speaker 1: on them during the archery season because you need them
Speaker 1: to be on the piece of land you can hunt.
Speaker 1: You want them to feel comfortable there. You want them
Speaker 1: to know that you're not existing so that you can
Speaker 1: hunt them day after day and they're not moved on
Speaker 1: to the neighbors or a different piece, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then once we get into October,
Speaker 3: you know, you kind you still get you know, there's
Speaker 3: kind of a second phase to the red and stuff,
Speaker 3: or you know, at that kind of at the end,
Speaker 3: you you might catch two or three bulls that are
Speaker 3: kind of hanging out, you know, starting to group back up.
Speaker 3: But it is tricky around, Like it's not like you
Speaker 3: can just go hike four miles and get around them
Speaker 3: and stuff, you know, because that's your neighbors and your
Speaker 3: neighbors over there hunting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys might all be buddies until yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys are all buddies. Util it becomes elk season on
Speaker 1: his property and he doesn't want you over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, noy, They're all pretty good. Everybody's Uh. Actually, last
Speaker 3: year when we killed that bull, the neighbor was across,
Speaker 3: you know, about a mile away on his stuff and
Speaker 3: he was watching them too. He heard the shots and
Speaker 3: come over and he was all excited. We go, they're
Speaker 3: hunting the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one thing that you know, as far as archie
Speaker 1: all coming, you know, when win this kind of king right,
Speaker 1: it controls everything.
Speaker 2: What does the wind like?
Speaker 1: Prairie hunting would seems to be frustrating because in the mountains,
Speaker 1: I've got thermals, I've got some prevailing winds. I've got
Speaker 1: stuff that's pretty I can set my watch to it.
Speaker 1: You know, where when you guys are out in the prairie,
Speaker 1: is it is it more sporadic or is it pretty?
Speaker 2: Is it pretty predictable?
Speaker 3: As far as wind, wind, blow is usually pretty good.
Speaker 3: Usually out of the north northwest, Uh a lot. But
Speaker 3: if you if you get down in one of them
Speaker 3: low spots in like a sleut bottom or something, you know,
Speaker 3: usually got two or three hillsides around you, you know,
Speaker 3: you get in there in the wind change direction on
Speaker 3: you all the time, swirls and stuff. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: need to go with somebody like you and and have
Speaker 3: them get one in my lap because I haven't. I
Speaker 3: haven't had a ton of luck yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might have to have to plan that. Like
Speaker 1: I love hunting the mountains where I can use the
Speaker 1: terrain and the vegetation to like mask my movement. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a little bigger than you, so it's like I
Speaker 1: need all the advantage I can get me sneaking around.
Speaker 3: I haven't ever got to go to the mountains and
Speaker 3: do any ol kind of out of it. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: would be so.
Speaker 1: Well, talk to Garrett and see if we can't get
Speaker 1: something Scheduled's right, So, prairie, is there any covered all?
Speaker 1: Like are there tree rows? Are there? You know fence rows?
Speaker 1: Do you have anything? Or is it just wide open?
Speaker 3: And you know there's there's lots of like so like
Speaker 3: little pop like they're a variety of popular tree, but
Speaker 3: they don't get they don't get super tall. They're more
Speaker 3: of a weed. They like the root systems are all connected.
Speaker 3: They grow real fast, take on lots of water, and
Speaker 3: I don't think they live real long. But there's some
Speaker 3: little poplar tree so they get like thirty some feet tall.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of those around. You can get
Speaker 3: in those and the willows and you know, yeah there's
Speaker 3: cover for sure.
Speaker 1: That's where that's where those al. So they'll come out,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. They'll come out feed in
Speaker 1: the prairie and the ag and then they're gonna go
Speaker 1: back in bed.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so off the river, so we live about
Speaker 3: four miles off the river and the river valley. The
Speaker 3: river breaks are huge, like it's it's a mile to
Speaker 3: the bottom on each side. And uh so the milk
Speaker 3: get down in the river and then they'll come up
Speaker 3: out of the river and then they'll come across to
Speaker 3: anybody's alfalfa or oats and barley whatever. They get up
Speaker 3: there and get a feed. That's when we hunt them,
Speaker 3: and then they usually.
Speaker 2: Drop down the river.
Speaker 1: So when they're up there on that feed, you're just
Speaker 1: trying to get fine little crevices and stuff where you
Speaker 1: can make movement and get close. It just seems like
Speaker 1: a very very very tough way. It's a tough way
Speaker 1: to hunt elk, especially if.
Speaker 3: They're a really tough way. And then you get down
Speaker 3: in there and get all them little hills around you
Speaker 3: and stuff, and you can't hear.
Speaker 2: Where, yeah, or where the eyes are going to be?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what herd sizes do? You guys run up there?
Speaker 1: Because it buries where we hunt. You know where I'm from,
Speaker 1: We have roosevelts on the coast. The herd size is
Speaker 1: they used to be until our numbers are so down
Speaker 1: right now? You know, they used to carry herds of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five elk And you know where you're at.
Speaker 1: I can imagine all those eyes on you, you know,
Speaker 1: versus somewhere hunting the mountain. Sometimes it's one bowl to
Speaker 1: two or three cows. Yeah, Like what's the herd size
Speaker 1: is there? And then how many eyes we you have
Speaker 1: to deal with as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like sim elk that my brother was he was
Speaker 3: in the middle of last year when he killed that bull,
Speaker 3: Like I would say, there was I took a video.
Speaker 3: There's probably forty forty.
Speaker 2: Some head hitch so they're running pretty big around.
Speaker 3: Forty Yeah, So that really didn't used to be any
Speaker 3: elk around us around Big Valley, say fifteen twenty years.
Speaker 3: Like when I was little kid like, there wasn't really
Speaker 3: any elk you know, in the last whatever amount of
Speaker 3: years come back, you know they used to be but
Speaker 3: hadn't been for a long time. Anyways, they're back, and
Speaker 3: I would say, I don't know, like there's a couple
Speaker 3: of different herds of you know, you can see sixty
Speaker 3: seventy elk at a time and there's two or three
Speaker 3: different herds run around.
Speaker 2: So did the do I call them ranchers? Farmers whoever?
Speaker 1: Whoever farms all the country there were they are they happy?
Speaker 2: They aulcher?
Speaker 3: There is it?
Speaker 1: Are they becoming kind of a pain with what the
Speaker 1: population growing like it is for you.
Speaker 3: Guys, Yeah, for us, they're not. They don't you know
Speaker 3: really really cause too much havoc. They they're pretty good.
Speaker 3: I think some of the neighbors they might get in
Speaker 3: some of their silage pits and stuff, eat on little
Speaker 3: feed and stuff. But I don't I haven't really heard.
Speaker 3: It's not like you get down there on like Shardon,
Speaker 3: Wyoming or somewhere the Alker half team, you know, and
Speaker 3: they get in people's stack yards and white out.
Speaker 1: White yeah stuff. You know, you see you guys what
Speaker 1: they reintroduction? I say, reintroduction. There may have been somewhere around,
Speaker 1: but you know, like with them showing back up in
Speaker 1: bigger numbers, it hasn't been like a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they say the wolves moved them off the foothills
Speaker 3: of the mountains and they're coming and stuff.
Speaker 1: They're they're finding better country where the wolves don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to be.
Speaker 2: So do you guys have wolves where you're at or
Speaker 2: not yet?
Speaker 3: D No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't see wolves around us.
Speaker 2: No, gotcha.
Speaker 3: The odd bear you see the lion and stuff on
Speaker 3: the river stuff.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask about bears. Do you guys have
Speaker 2: much bear.
Speaker 3: Than you'll see, like the odd barrel fall that river up,
Speaker 3: you know, traveling whatever, but never really sticking around.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Moose is that? I'm assuming that's a drawer? Can you
Speaker 1: guys hunt those every year? How does your your moose?
Speaker 2: Hunting?
Speaker 3: Moose is a draw tag? I think you're an eight
Speaker 3: on that, so, yeah, you put in for eight or
Speaker 3: nine years before then you get a moose tag. But yeah,
Speaker 3: lots of moose around, some pretty good moose. Me and
Speaker 3: my brother killed a pretty good bull twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 3: think you know, for a Prairie moose. He's it's like
Speaker 3: fifty nice.
Speaker 2: Nice. So so you got they and I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna also expose since I've never moose hunted.
Speaker 1: You've got the Yukon way up north. You know you're
Speaker 1: big Alaskan Yukon moose. And then you know, I know,
Speaker 1: we got our shiris here in like Washington that you
Speaker 1: guys have like what they consider Canadian or you just
Speaker 1: you just mentioned them being Perie, you're a shiris.
Speaker 3: As well, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So fifty two inch bowls, I mean really good
Speaker 2: bowl for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like like yeah, it's not huge by no means,
Speaker 3: but for for around us. Says pretty decent moves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool, cool on those?
Speaker 1: Are you guys hunting during the road, Are you guys
Speaker 1: spot in stocking those or on on that sort of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's usually a rifle tag, so you're just you're
Speaker 3: just spot in stock and the November hunting them, gotcha?
Speaker 1: Are those on your property or when you draw a
Speaker 1: moose tag, do you start to get permission from some
Speaker 1: of the neighboring properties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they come around so so rarely, like you
Speaker 3: pretty well you ask your neighbors and whatever neighbor that
Speaker 3: years has the tag, you know, kind of you kind
Speaker 3: of have permission.
Speaker 1: It's a community permission where because you know, not everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna have one.
Speaker 3: You know who's got the tag and yeah, you got full,
Speaker 3: full permission to shoot wherever you want.
Speaker 1: So if you could only what's your favorite? We've talked
Speaker 1: about everything you get to DOUN in Canada. It sounds
Speaker 1: like we.
Speaker 3: Have to say. I would say could probably be my favorite,
Speaker 3: but I don't know. I like it. I like it all.
Speaker 3: It's all pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love ELK just for the interaction, you know,
Speaker 1: just the yeah, the right being able to call these
Speaker 1: you know, have a seventy eight hundred pounds screaming animal
Speaker 1: coming in and you know, pissed off at users.
Speaker 3: So vocal, and yeah, it's yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a I'm chomping at the bit. You know,
Speaker 2: we're here.
Speaker 1: It is September fifteenth, and uh, you know we're here
Speaker 1: at the Pendleton Rodeo and yeah, the bowls in these
Speaker 1: hills about three minutes behind us are just cranking. And
Speaker 1: you know, I love the rodeo, but there's a piece
Speaker 1: of me that really wants to be in the mountains
Speaker 1: right now. So I'm trying to balance this this issue
Speaker 1: I'm going through right now. So it sounds like, as
Speaker 1: we talked about, you get to hunt a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything in Canada, have a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a there's definitely a correlation between the cowboys,
Speaker 1: the rodeo fans, the ranch lifestyle and hunting on which
Speaker 1: I really meyer and kind of I like that. Like
Speaker 1: I say, it's it's the rodeo seems to be full
Speaker 1: of good people. Everybody meet here, somebody'd give you the
Speaker 1: shirt off the back, you know, good, good, wholesome quality people.
Speaker 2: Yes, Salted your type of people. So I'm gonna roll back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna kind of close with back to the rodeo,
Speaker 1: cowboy and stuff. So Garrett along here with me. Eater
Speaker 1: was telling me that his his uncle back in the
Speaker 1: day kind of hired you when you were younger to
Speaker 1: do some trick riding. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that and what that that is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So when I was about nine, we started, uh,
Speaker 3: me and my two brothers started this uh little trick
Speaker 3: riding kind of Western show type act and we'd go
Speaker 3: around to the rodeos and do it. There's a little
Speaker 3: trick riding, a little trick roping as you spin the
Speaker 3: rope and do tricks with it, whip cracking, and then
Speaker 3: roman riding, which is where you stand on the back
Speaker 3: of the two horses and you go around we go
Speaker 3: over a jump or whatever. Anyway, so we had a
Speaker 3: we had a little, uh little show, and we went
Speaker 3: went around all over North America, you know, performing at rodeos,
Speaker 3: and yeah, Garrett's uncle hired us. We did the wolf
Speaker 3: Point Rodeo, did some really really cool things. We got
Speaker 3: to perform for the Queen of England and for the
Speaker 3: Princess Kate and the Prince and I met a lot
Speaker 3: of cool people and uh yeah, I got to got
Speaker 3: to do pretty cool things as a twelve year old boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds pretty cool. And so when did the
Speaker 1: when does trick writing like give give way to.
Speaker 2: The real real rodeo stuff?
Speaker 1: Is there was there a point like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: done doing this trick, right, I need to get on
Speaker 1: a bron.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, it was. It was pretty cool when
Speaker 3: we were little, and then as we get we did
Speaker 3: it from the time I was nine till about fourteen,
Speaker 3: I think, or thirteen somewhere in there. But yeah, so
Speaker 3: we did it for three or four years there and
Speaker 3: it was really good. But yeah, once we started getting
Speaker 3: a little older and and going on to some different things,
Speaker 3: we kind of phased out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So one thing, my wife thinks, I'm on the
Speaker 1: road a lot, but I have to imagine listening to
Speaker 1: your schedule, you're on the road a whole lot. How
Speaker 1: many days a year would you say you're traveling two rodeos,
Speaker 1: are doing you know at rodeos, and then between.
Speaker 3: Yeah, between I would it's it's somewhere between two hundred
Speaker 3: and between two hundred and thirty to two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty days a year, you're probably gone.
Speaker 2: So you're home one hundred and.
Speaker 3: I spend a lot more time with my family than
Speaker 3: a lot of people. Have a place in Texas that
Speaker 3: we go and spend the winter at, and they come
Speaker 3: with me when we're at the winter rodeos. But if
Speaker 3: it wasn't for that, we'd get about sixty days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what's the balance.
Speaker 1: I know your kids are here with you at this one,
Speaker 1: and Garrett, it really commended you on, like, you know,
Speaker 1: taking your kids to a lot of these things and
Speaker 1: having them kind of live the lifestyle. So are your
Speaker 1: kids traveling with you on most of these are now
Speaker 1: that school like is are they school age?
Speaker 3: Yeah? They don't go a lot my family, they catch
Speaker 3: quite a few in Canada. Like I said, they go
Speaker 3: to all the winter rodeos for the winter. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll take the kids one or time, one or two
Speaker 3: times a year, just me and the you know, one
Speaker 3: of the kids, and they'll go with me for a
Speaker 3: week or so. But for the most part they're at
Speaker 3: home and we're out here doing this. But get to
Speaker 3: bring them with us for this week to Pendleton and
Speaker 3: you know, it's pretty fun ten days to bring the
Speaker 3: family and hang out and do this with you guys.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to let my wife know when I
Speaker 1: when I get back and talk to her that you're
Speaker 1: gone for two hundred and fifty days a year.
Speaker 2: See if you see, I don't know if it will
Speaker 2: help it all.
Speaker 3: I will make you a week long I'll hunt look
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: So we talked about injuries earlier. One of the questions
Speaker 1: I asked, so, how long into the future do you
Speaker 1: foresee yourself doing this. Do you have like a set date?
Speaker 1: Is it just until your body holds up or what
Speaker 1: are you thinking?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't. I don't hardly have any set date.
Speaker 3: I think I think my body will probably will always
Speaker 3: be there. I don't think the broncer, I don't go away.
Speaker 3: It'll probably be a matter of just you know, getting
Speaker 3: over the travel and not wanting to be gone for
Speaker 3: my family and want to be home and do that
Speaker 3: thing a little more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there will there be any competitive decision? Like
Speaker 1: if you want to be are you that guy that
Speaker 1: wants to be able to compete or you're like it
Speaker 1: was that going to aid in the decision? If you're
Speaker 1: not at the top of the top of your game
Speaker 1: like you are right now, is it gonna Yeah?
Speaker 3: I want to. I want to go out on top
Speaker 3: for sure. I don't want to. I don't want to
Speaker 3: fizzle out and go out. You know somebody that they
Speaker 3: didn't remember used to be good, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So here at me Eater, we encourage everyone go
Speaker 1: follow Zeke's journey to the twenty twenty three NFR where
Speaker 1: you sitting at currently on on points for this.
Speaker 3: Year and like right there, third second or flirting second and.
Speaker 2: Second and third.
Speaker 1: So if you go in second and third, there's still
Speaker 1: a way you can win. Does it start fresh the guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anybody if you make it, if you show up there,
Speaker 3: you have a chance to win them. Last year, I
Speaker 3: come from one hundred and sixteen thousand back and so.
Speaker 1: It's basically the aggregate of everything you want up till
Speaker 1: September and then what you add on at the NFR.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so ten rounds, thirty thousand round the average
Speaker 3: paced seventy two thousand. I think the average is the
Speaker 3: highest score on ten head or nine head or whatever
Speaker 3: whoever whoever has that. And yeah, so there's some money
Speaker 3: to be one out there and we're uh, we're called
Speaker 3: so yepful we get out there and yeah, get it going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So follow Zeke twenty twenty three NFR. If you
Speaker 1: want to root for someone who's a hunter, open the
Speaker 1: door for your mom. Just be a great salty the
Speaker 1: earth guy. Uh, Zeke's Zeke's you got to root for Zeke.
Speaker 1: Tell people how they can find out more about you.
Speaker 2: Follow you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can catch me on Instagram. I think it's official.
Speaker 3: Zeke Thurston. I've got a Facebook page. I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't uh, I don't run it a lot. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we're on social media. Check us out, look us up,
Speaker 3: give us a follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we wish you luck here on Saturday. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get terminology all wrong. You're in the short
Speaker 1: or how does the short round? The short round, shot
Speaker 1: round or finals or whatever you want. So that was
Speaker 1: like one hundred and twenty of you have roaded throughout
Speaker 1: the week and then they take the top to twelve guys,
Speaker 1: twelve scores, and then you all get thro right again Saturday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, good luck on that Saturday. Wish you the
Speaker 2: best of luck.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it having you on the show today and
Speaker 1: we'll be here rooting for you.
Speaker 3: Hey, awesome, Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it,
Speaker 3: and this is a lot of fun, and thank you.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a special addition to cutting the distance.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna do a quick recap here. Just got
Speaker 1: done here in Oregon hunting one of the Big three,
Speaker 1: I guess, but it wasn't as easy as everybody liked
Speaker 1: liked to make it out as as a pretty tough hunt.
Speaker 1: I'm joined here with Brian Sanders Oregon backcountry outfitters and
Speaker 1: David Frame, who's my camera guy in this hunt. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna kind of go through the recap, try to
Speaker 1: figure out.
Speaker 2: The you know, the the.
Speaker 1: Positives of this hunt and then a lot of the
Speaker 1: negatives and some of the difficulties and struggles we had
Speaker 1: on this hunt. Welcome to the show, guys, Hi Phelps.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jason, so Brian you you guide in this unit
Speaker 1: as well as the Winnaha Walla Walla kind of all
Speaker 1: across the eastern Oregon.
Speaker 2: I think it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a good hunt, it's got good
Speaker 1: balls in it, but it's not necessarily what it's made
Speaker 1: out to be. It's it's a lot more difficult than
Speaker 1: than just getting a tag in the Big Three thinking
Speaker 1: you're going to find a big bull behind every corner.
Speaker 1: Kind Of what's your opinion on this unit and kind
Speaker 1: of what people can expect if they are to draw
Speaker 1: this tag.
Speaker 6: I'm organ back country outfitting by the way.
Speaker 2: Folk, Oh, but outfitters and outfitting it's close kind.
Speaker 6: Of similar in Jason's world. I think that the reputation
Speaker 6: is a little bit false on how great the unit is,
Speaker 6: how many quality bulls there are, how much privacy you're
Speaker 6: going to have in the woods that other hunters all
Speaker 6: the things. I personally think Mount Emily is probably one
Speaker 6: of the worst because of the access. You can almost
Speaker 6: access everywhere in Mount Emily. You can go to the
Speaker 6: same point that every other hunter can. You can bogle
Speaker 6: an archery season and get an answer below you, behind you,
Speaker 6: beside you, what have you. I just think that it's
Speaker 6: a little bit I don't know, it's pretty tough, and
Speaker 6: the quality of bulls is a little bit tough too.
Speaker 6: You know, we think of Oregon's Big Three and everybody's
Speaker 6: thinking three eighty plus bulls. Then the fact is you're
Speaker 6: looking at three twenty bulls NonStop. You know, they just
Speaker 6: are cookie cutter bulls. Every time you hear a Bugley
Speaker 6: comes in, he's three fifteen, three twenty. I mean, you
Speaker 6: get the three forties on occasion, but it just starts
Speaker 6: getting fewer and fewer. There's some amazing bulls killed in
Speaker 6: each of the units in the Big Three, but far
Speaker 6: less every year with the impact the walls are now having.
Speaker 6: It's just it's tough, yep.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the things we noticed right
Speaker 1: off the bat on this hunt is you're kind of
Speaker 1: balancing quantity of bulls in some areas in this unit,
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of the bulls want to
Speaker 1: end up in the same spot, or you go deep
Speaker 1: to some of these spots that might have fewer elk
Speaker 1: less people, but then you're you're getting maybe one play
Speaker 1: a day because you're not on as many elk and
Speaker 1: in those spots that have the high quantity typically easier
Speaker 1: to get to, it seems like. And then there are
Speaker 1: guys everywhere some of the stuff that you know we
Speaker 1: hunted back in twenty nineteen. There are trucks and people everywhere.
Speaker 1: There's no way, and there's no way as you mentioned
Speaker 1: this Zenit there's roads everywhere at least where I could
Speaker 1: hunt on this tag. There are some conditions on the
Speaker 1: tag that I had Specifically, you just cannot get away
Speaker 1: from the people. And it was very apparent right off
Speaker 1: the bat. These elker call shy. You could do everything right,
Speaker 1: and they just they're not going to come in. They've
Speaker 1: been called to, they've been called to and been winded,
Speaker 1: they've been called to and been seen, and you're kind
Speaker 1: of fighting all of this as the hunt goes on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree, I think that most of the real
Speaker 6: big cow groups are in those areas that are easy
Speaker 6: to access because the cows are kind of using that
Speaker 6: easier terrain, you know, the deep canyons, the kind of
Speaker 6: pockets that hold eight or ten cows. There's one bowl
Speaker 6: to bulls with them instead of there being eight or
Speaker 6: ten bulls, that's working seventy cows. So that's that's the
Speaker 6: tough end of that. And like you said, they are
Speaker 6: call shy. I mean, I think that there might be
Speaker 6: a few factors in that. I think that the wolves
Speaker 6: have changed their habits a little bit over the last
Speaker 6: few years, because you'll be on bulls that are just
Speaker 6: screaming one night, the wolves come through that night the
Speaker 6: next day for two three days in a row, you
Speaker 6: don't hear a peep. I mean, they're still communicating obviously
Speaker 6: body language, but they just kind of they kind of
Speaker 6: get paranoid for a few days. But I agree the hunters,
Speaker 6: you know, it takes so long to get this tag.
Speaker 6: I think that you get a few hunters that are
Speaker 6: less experienced than other hunters that go over the counter
Speaker 6: every year, year after year. They're avid bow hunters, they
Speaker 6: don't maybe have the call experience that yourself does, and
Speaker 6: they do. They sound a little bit off as far
Speaker 6: as elk sounds go, and they get call shy, they
Speaker 6: get when did they get seen? Like you said, So
Speaker 6: it makes it tough.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had to refer to Dave multiple
Speaker 1: times on this hunt, like a guy that's supposed to
Speaker 1: have all these answers right when it comes to calling elk.
Speaker 1: I would look at Dave like, do you think we
Speaker 1: should caw call to this one or should we beegal
Speaker 1: to it? Because we were just getting beat so many times.
Speaker 1: It's like when you thought, in a normal situation that
Speaker 1: we should get in close and beegle because it's a
Speaker 1: herd bull, he would take his cows. And then it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, next time we're going to go on in
Speaker 1: this herd bowl, we're going to caw call. That didn't
Speaker 1: seem to work, and so it had me even questioning
Speaker 1: these bulls were you know, so call shy, Like how
Speaker 1: do you approach these? You know, I asked you on
Speaker 1: the phone because you had some success earlier in the
Speaker 1: week calling in quite a few bulls, and and I'm like, Brian,
Speaker 1: what are you.
Speaker 2: Doing, you know to get these in?
Speaker 1: We were just kind of talking back and forth, and
Speaker 1: you know you were playing the game the right way,
Speaker 1: you know, whether if you know, you started with a
Speaker 1: cal call and they answered, But it would seemed to
Speaker 1: be few and far between where you'd actually get the
Speaker 1: bulls to play the right game. Me and Dave had
Speaker 1: a couple good hunts, more of the remote stuff where
Speaker 1: people hadn't mess with these elk, but you were only
Speaker 1: dealing with one bowl, maybe one herd bul no satellites,
Speaker 1: or the one herd bowl that we did get on
Speaker 1: had a few satellites, and it.
Speaker 2: Just made it tough.
Speaker 1: You're either in not very many elk or you were in,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of elk with a bunch of people,
Speaker 1: and so you're you're trying to weigh that that decision
Speaker 1: on being in the middle of elk or be by yourself.
Speaker 2: And like Dave can Dave is.
Speaker 1: I love Dave as a camera guy because he's a
Speaker 1: very I mentioned in the last podcast, he's a pretty
Speaker 1: smart elk hunter. He gets it. He's a great guy
Speaker 1: to bounce ideas off of. But there were just times where,
Speaker 1: you know, there were days where we dropped fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: feet into a canyon or a thousand feet and like
Speaker 1: we were going for broke, and then there are other
Speaker 1: times where we just didn't know what to do at times,
Speaker 1: and and we kind of had to change our mentality
Speaker 1: here the last couple of days when we finally got
Speaker 1: it done. But what do you think, Dave? What was
Speaker 1: your takeaway from this hunt? As far you know, of
Speaker 1: course you're behind the camera a lot, but you get
Speaker 1: to make the same decisions and be in the same
Speaker 1: same scenario as I am. What's your opinion of the
Speaker 1: Big Three? You grew up in the Blues, but on
Speaker 1: the Washington side it's a special place to you. But
Speaker 1: the OLK hunting, I don't want to say it's overrated,
Speaker 1: it's it's a great spot to hunt elk, especially in comparison.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sounding ungrateful, but it's just maybe not
Speaker 1: what it's it's made out to be.
Speaker 2: At times it can be good, but.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these organ organ units are a little different in
Speaker 4: the Washington side, just a lot a lot more hunters.
Speaker 4: You're definitely hunting pressure dell, super call shy and then
Speaker 4: throwing inconsistent wins in there, and and it's pretty hard hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 4: towards the end there we were we were pretty much
Speaker 4: just going silent and trying to get as close as
Speaker 4: we could, almost sudding them like Mealy's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we we definitely had to change change our
Speaker 1: tactics there a little bit.
Speaker 2: As as the hunt went on. We you know, it's like, dang,
Speaker 2: you know, my.
Speaker 1: Call sound good, like they would locate, but when you
Speaker 1: would get in tight, I didn't know what the right
Speaker 1: answer was. And and so ultimately we went to a
Speaker 1: little bit of spot in stock with maybe a few
Speaker 1: cow calls and in certain situations and it it just uh,
Speaker 1: it made it rough. And and the other downside is
Speaker 1: in my numbers might be a little bit iffy. But
Speaker 1: there's about fifty five tags given in Emily, Is that right, Brian?
Speaker 6: I think the fifty fifty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's so fifty five and that's big bull tags.
Speaker 1: But then they give out three hundred spike tags.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they give out a bunch of spike tags. So
Speaker 6: that doesn't help things.
Speaker 2: And we're we're in these spike guys.
Speaker 1: You hunt spike bulls, you find spike bulls just like
Speaker 1: you do big bulls. Right, you're locating the herd bulls
Speaker 1: the satellites and you're moving on these herds, trying to
Speaker 1: call these spikes way. So, in my opinion, you've really
Speaker 1: got three hundred and fifty five guys out in the
Speaker 1: woods plus or minus if you you know state tag holders,
Speaker 1: you know guys with tags like mine. You've got three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people in a unit. That's it is
Speaker 1: a big, vast unit. But a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: are concentrated, and you've got a lot of guys going
Speaker 1: after you know, a barely.
Speaker 2: Small amount of bulls.
Speaker 1: When it when it all boils down to it, it
Speaker 1: just makes that pressure really real tough.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree in the one all haul wall, while
Speaker 6: I think is a little bit better, but yeah, it's
Speaker 6: it's pretty tough. You get all them guys attacking the
Speaker 6: same herds and they get call shy fast.
Speaker 1: Yep, I'm gonna I'm gonna back up a little bit
Speaker 1: because I think the audience needs to like dial into
Speaker 1: what you call big bulls. So you you know, as
Speaker 1: an outfitter, you're trying to kill the absolute best bowl
Speaker 1: for your clients, right, and you're a guy that's been
Speaker 1: lucky enough to kill a lot of big bulls. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to discredit the unit for not having
Speaker 1: what most people would consider like balls of a lifetime,
Speaker 1: you know, at that three twenty three forty, but you're
Speaker 1: talking about trying to find those bulls that are at
Speaker 1: a very uprand. You're you're looking for three fifty plus
Speaker 1: and you're even trying to find a few of those
Speaker 1: three eighty to four hundred type bulls in some of
Speaker 1: these units. So so break that down kind of We've
Speaker 1: had this conversation a lot because my definition of a
Speaker 1: giant is way different than yours. A guy that gets
Speaker 1: to live here see a bunch of these bulls. So
Speaker 1: explain that a little bit, Like the percentage is kind
Speaker 1: of what you can expect to see if you come
Speaker 1: to Emily, Like you're probably not gonna lay eyes on
Speaker 1: a four hundred, Like, explain that hierarchy, you know, the
Speaker 1: amount of bulls you're going to see, what you can
Speaker 1: expect to see if you're just a Joe blow that
Speaker 1: doesn't do a whole lot of scouting, maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of week weekends and just take it on in September.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's all. I guess I kind of know what
Speaker 6: you're asking here, But in my opinion, the very first
Speaker 6: thing I tell my hunters is you have to come
Speaker 6: with realistic expectations, so your abilities have to align with
Speaker 6: your expectations. Number one. Number two, you're exactly right when
Speaker 6: I say big bulls. You know, in my head just
Speaker 6: because we work hard and we're a little bit spoiled
Speaker 6: at being able to be out in the woods all
Speaker 6: the time. So we are looking for that three p
Speaker 6: fifty three sixty and even a lot bigger like you
Speaker 6: say for some state wide auction tags things like that.
Speaker 6: But when you come to this unit, you're going to
Speaker 6: see that three twenty bull and as Jason said, that
Speaker 6: is a bowl of a lifetime. I mean that is
Speaker 6: realistic expectations for all these big three units. I always
Speaker 6: tell my hunters, you know, this is our this is
Speaker 6: our goal, but this is realistic expectations. You come to
Speaker 6: this unit and three twenty three thirty bulls are the
Speaker 6: big bulls. You know, they're they're genetics, especially on the
Speaker 6: mount inly side or some of it, you're not gonna
Speaker 6: get different genetics that get a lot of inches. So
Speaker 6: you need to come looking for mature bowl that you're
Speaker 6: happy with. Don't come looking for inches, you know, don't
Speaker 6: get stuck on inches because they have to have a
Speaker 6: bunch of extra stuff, and some of these units don't
Speaker 6: have it. The genetics just have straight sixes, straight seven
Speaker 6: whatever I mean, Is that kind of what you're asking?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just what if a hundred puts in draws Emily,
Speaker 1: you know, you see a lot of these. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody's coming over here. It seems like everybody, if you
Speaker 1: look at the internet, comes over here and kills a
Speaker 1: three sixty bowl, right, It's what it seems like, or
Speaker 1: what they make it seem to believe. But being in
Speaker 1: the unit twice three times now, I've hunted with you
Speaker 1: twice this year, I didn't hunt with you. But the
Speaker 1: reality is, you guys are working your tails off to
Speaker 1: find a few of these three fifty three sixty bulls,
Speaker 1: and the normal guy probably should come over here expecting
Speaker 1: more realistically, And I think a lot of guys, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones we've talked to here this week, they're happy
Speaker 1: with those three twenty bulls. But I think where a
Speaker 1: guy may go wrong or a gal whoever's here, is
Speaker 1: you know, passing on what they would see as a
Speaker 1: three twenty three three because you might not get another
Speaker 1: chance at something better is the reality, Like a three
Speaker 1: twenty bowl is probably what most people are going to
Speaker 1: have a chance at, you know, those those bigger, mature
Speaker 1: satellite bulls.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would agree one hundred percent if you if
Speaker 6: you got a three twenty bowl and you have this tag,
Speaker 6: it's a shooter. I mean nine out of ten times,
Speaker 6: unless you've done your scouting or or you have a
Speaker 6: target bull in mind, which, as you said, we work
Speaker 6: our tails off, so we have some target bulls in mind,
Speaker 6: and we're targeting those bulls specifically, and we're not going
Speaker 6: to shoot until we kill one of them unless we're
Speaker 6: running out of time or just capabilities. So you come
Speaker 6: to the big three, I would say any of the
Speaker 6: Big three a three twenty bulls a trophy bull. And
Speaker 6: I mean it wasn't very many years ago, a three
Speaker 6: hundred inch bull wasn't even heard of really, So I think,
Speaker 6: just you right on, expectations need to be more realistic.
Speaker 6: It's just a little bit blown out, and I think
Speaker 6: that a lot of people even sell it as that,
Speaker 6: but it's it's definitely a three three forty and under unit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with a few exceptions that the hood above
Speaker 1: that mark and it's got the ability to grow in
Speaker 1: but it takes a lot of age, it takes some
Speaker 1: special genetics. All those things have to kind of add
Speaker 1: up to get that bowl there. And then they're like,
Speaker 1: you say, they probably make up what one or two
Speaker 1: percent of the bowls in the entire unit. I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump over and talk to Dave here a
Speaker 1: little bit about kind of what we went through on
Speaker 1: this hunt.
Speaker 2: A lot of ups and downs.
Speaker 1: We've we had good weather to start with, but we
Speaker 1: it seemed like we were in an area some of
Speaker 1: the spots we wanted to hunt right off the bat
Speaker 1: very very over pressured. We thought we were in there
Speaker 1: deep ran into too get you know, two firefighters from
Speaker 1: from Eugene area. It's like, dang it, you know, we
Speaker 1: thought we had all of that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: later in the hunt we went more more isolated, way
Speaker 1: out into some deep stuff, long drives just getting away
Speaker 1: where we could hunt in the unit and a lot
Speaker 1: less bulls. We you know that one day, I think
Speaker 1: we did what fourteen fifteen miles and we got on
Speaker 1: what two bowls that entire day. Yep, So a lot
Speaker 1: of bootleather to find just a few bulls, and it's
Speaker 1: new country. We hadn't been in there, we didn't really
Speaker 1: know how to win. Laid in, and then progressing through
Speaker 1: the hunt, we hit it weird where it was nice
Speaker 1: one day, rain the next day, nice the other. So
Speaker 1: we had all these different systems moving in and I'm
Speaker 1: this is all joking, but at one point I about
Speaker 1: threw my bow down the mountain because we would literally
Speaker 1: try to walk three hundred and sixty degrees around the
Speaker 1: bowl and you could or where you were trying to
Speaker 1: get to you maybe hurt a bowl beagle or whatever
Speaker 1: you were trying to get to a spot, and you
Speaker 1: could not keep the wind right. I know one time,
Speaker 1: you know, because you can fill the wind in your
Speaker 1: face as you walk. You know, we've all did that before.
Speaker 1: But I would puff my wind and be like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're good. I'd give Dave a thumbs up, and then
Speaker 1: he would ten minutes or ten seconds later, he would
Speaker 1: look at me and then he'd puff his wind and
Speaker 1: it was hitting us in the back, you know. And
Speaker 1: we fought that all week long or ten days long.
Speaker 1: And how frustrating was that, you know for us, because
Speaker 1: I know you could probably sense of frustration with me,
Speaker 1: you were getting frustrated because you know, as a camera guy,
Speaker 1: you have to take all the same steps I do.
Speaker 1: And so have you ever played with fickle winds to
Speaker 1: that extent that we did.
Speaker 4: No, I've never seen wins that inconsistent before. And it
Speaker 4: was pretty frustrating as a cameraman. Like bulls and elk
Speaker 4: all around us, but all week you're just they're just
Speaker 4: out of arms reach as far as like getting footage
Speaker 4: of them and stuff. Yeah, filming, I'm here and there
Speaker 4: at half mile away with long lens, but yeah, those
Speaker 4: callings are pretty sweet to get on film, and it's
Speaker 4: just hard to get those.
Speaker 1: I feel a little bit responsible because Dave. Dave has
Speaker 1: talked about this, you know, behind the scenes with me.
Speaker 1: He's like, I love it because I've always got a tag,
Speaker 1: But he doesn't necessarily have a tag to kill the animal.
Speaker 1: He's got to take the photo it, you know. And
Speaker 1: I felt bad because we would get on bulls, we
Speaker 1: could work them, but it seemed like right at the
Speaker 1: last second, they would bump or we would get the
Speaker 1: wind wrong, and Dave, we just weren't able to capture footage.
Speaker 2: No, no fault to you.
Speaker 1: It was a rough hunt, and I feel responsible for that,
Speaker 1: and then I feel even more responsible at times where
Speaker 1: we're climbing, you know, thousand feet down to go chase
Speaker 1: a bugle. Maybe a bad decision I made blows them out,
Speaker 1: and then we're hiking back out and you're you're there
Speaker 1: with me, You're kind of getting pulled along. But it's
Speaker 1: all part of the game. And we were just we
Speaker 1: were really really struggling with that wind. I think we
Speaker 1: were on elk every morning, every evening. We were playing
Speaker 1: it right, just could not seem to get everything to work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were able to locate elk every day, but
Speaker 4: just getting them to play with us played the game
Speaker 4: was a struggle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing we another takeaway which a lot
Speaker 1: of people need to recognize, is elk aren't necessarily dumb.
Speaker 1: Where we were finding the majority of the elk, they
Speaker 1: seem to be in these pockets where that wind was
Speaker 1: three sixty or there was no way to approach any
Speaker 1: direction you went. You weren't going to get in on
Speaker 1: them because the wind was eventually going to get to them.
Speaker 1: It was kind of it was kind of interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: something we've always known. They always seem to bed in
Speaker 1: areas where they can't you know, where you can't sneak
Speaker 1: in on them. But a lot of these areas seem
Speaker 1: to be really really you know, in flats or pockets
Speaker 1: or bowls where the wind would just swirl and hit them.
Speaker 2: And then yesterday.
Speaker 1: A lot of these hunts come down to a series
Speaker 1: of decisions, right, are you gonna take the day off?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna take it easy? Are you gonna go
Speaker 1: hard every day after day? And one thing we should
Speaker 1: talk about is just like the physical demand that that
Speaker 1: this unit will put on you. There are some easy
Speaker 1: spots to hunt, but if you're going to get into
Speaker 1: some of the steep, breaky country, it's gonna wear you down.
Speaker 1: And you need to be able to come to this
Speaker 1: unit and do it day after day. And I don't
Speaker 1: you know, you're in great shape. We were able to
Speaker 1: make it, but uh, you know, there were some there
Speaker 1: was a lot of effort put in for some days
Speaker 1: it just didn't really pan out or materialize anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of a lot of vertical in this
Speaker 4: country and uh yeah, just a lot of work, a
Speaker 4: lot of miles, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And then going back to that decision, making all these
Speaker 1: little decisions yesterday, you can kind of I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was a sense of urgency. We had what
Speaker 1: four day five days left, but yesterday, if you look
Speaker 1: on you know, you've got a smart watch, I've got
Speaker 1: an iPhone, you start to look at what we did yesterday.
Speaker 1: We were to the point where we weren't we weren't
Speaker 1: We needed to like hit that turbo mode, right, We
Speaker 1: needed to just go. We needed to give more than
Speaker 1: we had been. And so we started biggling off into
Speaker 1: this deep country and we were chasing every bugle like, oh,
Speaker 1: that one's too hard to get to. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: go chase that. So we went after every single bowl
Speaker 1: we heard yesterday and and just kind of gave it
Speaker 1: our all. You were even and this is where having
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily a hunting partner. You were more of
Speaker 1: my camera guy, but we were hunting together.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I would pick you like hey, I think we
Speaker 1: should do this, and then you were like, hey, Phelps,
Speaker 1: we should definitely go bigle off here. And it was
Speaker 1: a lot of that back and forth kind of keeping
Speaker 1: each other positive and like hey, we need to go
Speaker 1: try this. That really kind of added to our success.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I know, it was fun getting to help
Speaker 4: out on the hunt in this hunt and uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and so I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of
Speaker 1: wrap us up with how we ultimately killed this bowl.
Speaker 1: I can't remember a bowl that I've never called in
Speaker 1: with archery equipment. And as we were grinding last night,
Speaker 1: it was just before six o'clock. We had literally an
Speaker 1: hour day. Like we had stopped down one little side road,
Speaker 1: you know, we're driving down the road looking on X.
Speaker 1: Dave's like, well, this kind of gets us above that
Speaker 1: one area we had been hunting or we had checked
Speaker 1: out the first day and never been back to. We
Speaker 1: we you know, hurry out there. We checked for bugles
Speaker 1: and we get two different bowls biglan and we drop pins.
Speaker 1: We're like, well, the wind's bad, we're above them. Let's
Speaker 1: let's boogy around. And we were kind of calculating like
Speaker 1: all right, we can get back the truck in five minutes,
Speaker 1: we can get down there in ten and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be tight, like real close to dark.
Speaker 2: And so we made it. We and then.
Speaker 1: We're able to kind of fly up the ridge, especially
Speaker 1: for my pace, you know, get there fairly quickly, got parked.
Speaker 2: Made it all the way to the bowl.
Speaker 1: And the nice thing was this bull was beegling on
Speaker 1: his own occasionally, not very you know, feverishly, wasn't baglan
Speaker 1: all the time, but he would give us just enough.
Speaker 1: We knew about where it was on this On this instance,
Speaker 1: I elected to not make any calls. We were just
Speaker 1: we had a lot of wind. The wind was blown down.
Speaker 1: It was let us be pretty quiet, go under. But
Speaker 1: we were able to follow this bugle. And we get
Speaker 1: up to this meadow, beautiful meadow, and I spot a
Speaker 1: cow maybe one hundred and twenty yards away, yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're kind of like, all right, we got to slow down,
Speaker 1: we got to kind of get our heads, you know,
Speaker 1: our bodies out of the way so she can't see us.
Speaker 1: And about that time we spotted some horn movement. This
Speaker 1: bull was betted down and thankfully he was on our
Speaker 1: side of the meadow, not the far, not the edge.
Speaker 1: He was right in line with that cow. At that time,
Speaker 1: it was about what's seventy yards away.
Speaker 4: Maybe, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Fortunately had a pine tree and me and Dave do
Speaker 1: some real quiet talking and hand motions. I'm like, let's
Speaker 1: get behind me. We'll walk in a single file line,
Speaker 1: and thank god, this tree was big. I'm a fairly
Speaker 1: big guy, and I was able to just keep that
Speaker 1: bull's head behind a pine tree. We had a couple
Speaker 1: of loud ass sticks we had to, you know, and
Speaker 1: trees and stuff to get over. We were able to
Speaker 1: see the bull's head, and a lot of times when
Speaker 1: a bull's betted, you can't really tell real easily if
Speaker 1: he's looking at you or away from you. You're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on with which direction he's facing.
Speaker 1: And we kind of get in a straight line and
Speaker 1: we just start moving towards him. And the nice thing
Speaker 1: was is you could see his horns out one side
Speaker 1: of the tree as you were walking, so you could
Speaker 1: tell if he was picking up on your sound, your noise.
Speaker 1: We get through the sketchy section of that tree and
Speaker 1: he's still. Everything's good. I'm ranging it. We're at forty
Speaker 1: nine fifty and I want to get to forty that
Speaker 1: way when he gets up out of his bed. We
Speaker 1: had about a half hour a day light left and
Speaker 1: wanted him to get out of his bed on his
Speaker 1: own without having to make a cow call. And we
Speaker 1: get to just under forty of the tree, but I
Speaker 1: figured he's bedded past the tree, so he's going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit maybe right up forty maybe just
Speaker 1: a little bit over when he gets up. And we
Speaker 1: were in a section of pine trees, and anybody's hundred
Speaker 1: pine trees knows if you dropped to your knees, you're
Speaker 1: now able to shoot under him. And he was under
Speaker 1: a pine tree, we'll be able to shoot under the
Speaker 1: limbs to him. And I wasn't as graceful as I
Speaker 1: wanted to be going to my you know, down on
Speaker 1: my knees, and that that bowl kind of caught some noise.
Speaker 1: But just like we've talked with Brian multiple times, he
Speaker 1: almost thinks it just walking around at times and letting
Speaker 1: that bowl here you walk. He bugled as soon as
Speaker 1: I got to my knees, like he turned our way,
Speaker 1: but then he bugled like it didn't scare him, it
Speaker 1: didn't bother him. He bugled at us and then slowly
Speaker 1: got out of his bed and walked to his left.
Speaker 4: I remember the wind a couple of times was on
Speaker 4: our back, and it's like, oh, well, count down to
Speaker 4: five seconds and he's going to be out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was very ready to shoot quick and I remember
Speaker 1: looking back at Dave like, gosh, dang it, we just
Speaker 1: need this wind to hold. But it was one of
Speaker 1: those times where the wind was predominantly down slope the
Speaker 1: whole time, but we were getting uphill pushes because these
Speaker 1: systems were moving in kind of changing the wind. And
Speaker 1: I think we got lucky because the wind would blow up,
Speaker 1: but then it would switch and come back down and
Speaker 1: wouldn't let that that wind get to him. So we
Speaker 1: risked a little bit. That bowl gets up. I had
Speaker 1: a very narrow shooting lane, probably twelve inches wide at
Speaker 1: the bowl. I was able to get drawn and settled,
Speaker 1: fortunately very quick Dave. I was able to rewatch the footage.
Speaker 1: Dave is able to like time it perfectly. As I
Speaker 1: get my bow drawn, Dave like he's perfect, We're perfectly
Speaker 1: in line because we were both paying a tree. Dave
Speaker 1: just like inches out to the right maybe eight inches,
Speaker 1: and gets gets the shot and everything on film had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a rough go no blood for
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred and fifty yards hit the bowl
Speaker 1: really well. We we finally start picking up blood. We
Speaker 1: follow those tracks to the point where we've got blood,
Speaker 1: and we we we made a bad decision at this
Speaker 1: very point in our night. I'm gonna blame it on Dave.
Speaker 1: As we were getting ready, Dave's like, are we leaving
Speaker 1: the packs here? I'm like, yeah, let's know, I take
Speaker 1: all responsibility. I said, let's leave the packs here. I
Speaker 1: hate you know, it's just nice sometimes to be able
Speaker 1: to go light and nimble, beagle to bow. Dave grabs
Speaker 1: his camera and to change the batteries and we're just
Speaker 1: we're out. We realized that searching for blood with your
Speaker 1: iPhone light is not the greatest, the greatest solution to
Speaker 1: track in blood. We get on some real good blood.
Speaker 1: It's got it's got bubbles in it. We know we're
Speaker 1: either in lungs or heart. Everything's looking real good. He
Speaker 1: bleeds great for one hundred yards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think so hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of down in the dumps, even though
Speaker 1: I pride myself in blood track and Dave took the
Speaker 1: lead because I was a little bit just I was
Speaker 1: a little discouraged with the blood trail and a little
Speaker 1: just like, hey, this is best. Just to let Dave,
Speaker 1: Dave lead it, like you're doing a great job. I
Speaker 1: helped a couple of times where we'd lose some blood.
Speaker 1: My light was a little bit brighter, was able to
Speaker 1: pick up some blood. And we get to a point
Speaker 1: where we got our last few specs and where there's
Speaker 1: just nothing, and my good buddy Brian Sanders text me
Speaker 1: and I we didn't have very good service. It just
Speaker 1: somehow randomly got through, like hey, update, And I was
Speaker 1: able to get a call out real quick to him.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a great call. If he wouldn't have
Speaker 1: if you would have been quiet and let me talk
Speaker 1: for He asked me, why didn't you shoot the bowl?
Speaker 1: He asked me, why didn't have my bow drawn back?
Speaker 1: If I could get my boat drawn back? He asked
Speaker 1: me all these dumb questions. And by the time I
Speaker 1: lost reception, I couldn't give him a pin or tell
Speaker 1: them where we're at. So then we needed to back
Speaker 1: out anyways, because we were we didn't have good lights,
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to rain at eleven this is
Speaker 1: about eight thirty. We climbed back up to the meadow
Speaker 1: where we shot him, had good service, was able to
Speaker 1: get a phone call into Brian, and he was going
Speaker 1: to come up with lights and because we and maybe
Speaker 1: bring our packs up, but I couldn't tell if I
Speaker 1: could get my truck unlocked from up there using the
Speaker 1: old Ford you know Ford Pass. We were gonna use technology, Like, hey, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna un unlock my truck for you.
Speaker 1: So we we just I call him back, like, hey, Brian,
Speaker 1: we'll just meet you at the truck. It's only a
Speaker 1: mile walk down. Maybe maybe, and we'll just meet at
Speaker 1: the truck. We're going to charge our phones, get our packs,
Speaker 1: and we'll meet you and come back. So we asked
Speaker 1: for some water because I was pretty low on water,
Speaker 1: and I'm almost positive that Brian set me up here.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm dying. I needed some water, and Brian's like, no,
Speaker 1: don't take it out of this plastic jug. Take it
Speaker 1: out of this black thermos. He's like that one, it's heavier.
Speaker 1: I don't want to pack that. I pour this into
Speaker 1: my water bottle and almost burnt my hand it was
Speaker 1: so hot. And he swears he didn't do it on purpose,
Speaker 1: but I'm positive he did.
Speaker 6: I didn't. I won't say either way. I would say
Speaker 6: Jason and I have a special friendship.
Speaker 2: So I head back up on the mountain with boiling
Speaker 2: hot water.
Speaker 1: But we regroup. He brings his brother. Me and Dave
Speaker 1: go back up. We now have our head lamps, we've
Speaker 1: got bright lights. We head back in there, and I'm
Speaker 1: never Me and Dave are never ever going to live
Speaker 1: this down. He thinks we set him up. We had
Speaker 1: already found the bowl maybe and just called him up
Speaker 1: there to help pack. But we get to the last
Speaker 1: Blood and there's an obvious I mean, when you track bulls,
Speaker 1: there's an obvious direction.
Speaker 2: They're going right.
Speaker 1: We were kind of on it and we were sitting there.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even put I was still standing at Last Blood,
Speaker 1: trying to get my pack all situated.
Speaker 2: Brian walks down. He makes a first he's complaining, which
Speaker 2: is typical of Brian. Not really, He's about his He's
Speaker 2: tough as nails. But Brian's like, is it all this
Speaker 2: freaking brushy down here? He gets I think he got
Speaker 2: to that edge right, and You're like, is it all
Speaker 2: this crappy? And I'm like, yeah, at least in that
Speaker 2: pocket you can go left or right of that. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't less than a half a minute later. Brian's like,
Speaker 2: your bull's right down here dead. Explain your theory and
Speaker 2: how you stumbled into it.
Speaker 6: Well, I kind of told Jason that they have hoofs,
Speaker 6: and the hoofs make tracks, and if you just follow
Speaker 6: the tracks from last Blood, you'll find your dead bull.
Speaker 6: But he kind of disagree with me.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I claim that you didn't follow its tracks.
Speaker 1: You just stumbled into it because you came a different
Speaker 1: direction and found the blood later. But regardless, there were
Speaker 1: elk tracks.
Speaker 6: And if anybody knows me, I'm like the littlest human
Speaker 6: compared to Jason, and he couldn't see me through all
Speaker 6: that brush, so he has no idea which direction I
Speaker 6: came from and not.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to I didn't find the bull, so
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to like make excuses for myself. But Dave,
Speaker 1: we were probably five yards away from that. We thought
Speaker 1: that there was a bear. I thought he had tumbled,
Speaker 1: which he didn't. He never did tumble. He went to
Speaker 1: his bed to lay down and died. But right above
Speaker 1: that there was an old log tour apart, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: it looks like he tumbled through here, Dave, and I
Speaker 1: went down there with my little iPhone light earlier, like
Speaker 1: there's nothing and it was literally you push you that
Speaker 1: brush and he was laying there dead.
Speaker 6: No, yeah, you guys are right on track. It's just
Speaker 6: you didn't have lights. And it's nice to have fresh
Speaker 6: eyes and a positive attitude and all the things you bring.
Speaker 2: You bring a positive attitude. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was awesome to have you guys there. Brian's pretty
Speaker 1: damn handy with a knife. His brother Justin was awesome.
Speaker 1: Dave's Dave's a pack animal. He's always uh, you know.
Speaker 2: Taking care of the situation.
Speaker 1: He's grabbing bags, you know, legs, taking video pictures, doing
Speaker 1: his job. Why we're trying to cut up meat. So
Speaker 1: it was an awesome little team there to to finish
Speaker 1: that up. And Brian asked if I could tell everybody
Speaker 1: how much weight he packed out on the pack out,
Speaker 1: because he's he's wanting there.
Speaker 2: We know how tough he is. But Brian took.
Speaker 3: All the way.
Speaker 6: We don't need to tell anybody anything packed out. It
Speaker 6: was fun.
Speaker 1: We all packed, But Brian for being what one hundred
Speaker 1: fifty pounds, maybe so can we he uh, he probably
Speaker 1: had one hundred and fifty pounds on his pack. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate all the help, you know, Dave justin. You
Speaker 1: guys all packed higins. I had the head and a
Speaker 1: front shoulder and we made pretty quick time out from
Speaker 1: the time we left the truck nine to forty five.
Speaker 1: We were back at the truck by eleven forty five.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a hustle in. We broke
Speaker 1: them down really.
Speaker 6: Quick, by like five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it was. It was a great hunt.
Speaker 1: Had to change tactics a little bit, so you know,
Speaker 1: we always talk about being aggressive, getting close in the
Speaker 1: situation where it's just not working. I encourage anybody to
Speaker 1: change up tactics and do what you have to do
Speaker 1: to find success. But uh, I can't thank you enough
Speaker 1: Brian for for helping your pack, thank for coming on
Speaker 1: here today and talking about the Big Three. And as always, Dave,
Speaker 1: you take twice as many steps as I do on
Speaker 1: these hunts and don't ever get to pull the trigger,
Speaker 1: but you get to hit the record button and really
Speaker 1: appreciate you having you, having you here. So thanks everybody.
Speaker 1: That was just a real quick add on to cutting
Speaker 1: the distance. Just wanted to have a quick update from
Speaker 1: the from the field on my my organ arch.
Speaker 2: We'll count
Speaker 3: M H.