Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and I'm in the beautiful state of
Speaker 1: Oregon with my good friend Ron Hewitt. Now. Ron is
Speaker 1: a man who I admire and look up to. He's
Speaker 1: like almost like a grandfather type figure to me, or
Speaker 1: a fatherly figure. You know, my dad, my grandfathers have
Speaker 1: all long passed away, and I feel like that's something
Speaker 1: that's important in a person's life, is to have someone
Speaker 1: like that to talk to and to talk about life
Speaker 1: and hunting and and just you know, we've been bouncing
Speaker 1: ideas off each other all weekend here, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about just life, life decisions and and things we did
Speaker 1: in life. And it's awesome to have that kind of
Speaker 1: a person to talk to. And I think I think
Speaker 1: society today kind of misses out on some of that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's such a big push with some political
Speaker 1: folks to take down the patriarchy and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think that's that's it's an important thing we
Speaker 1: all need in our life because we can learn a
Speaker 1: lot from the people who've done things a lot longer
Speaker 1: than we have and have kind of learned went through life,
Speaker 1: done some things, made mistakes, made the right choices, and
Speaker 1: here we are talking about turkey hunting and elk hunting.
Speaker 1: What am I doing in Oregon? Well, I'm over here
Speaker 1: at Ron's every year for the last four years he's
Speaker 1: hosted me. He's like, you know, you got to come
Speaker 1: over and go turkey hunting. It seems like we're kind
Speaker 1: of hit and miss. You know what, one year I'll
Speaker 1: get one and one year I won't. One year I
Speaker 1: get two, and one year I don't, you know, and
Speaker 1: kind of back and forth. But it wasn't for a
Speaker 1: lack of opportunity. Sometimes I'm just not the straightest of
Speaker 1: shooters with a shotgun, Like how do you miss a
Speaker 1: turkey with a shotgun? But anyway, welcome to the show. Ron.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about you on I've talked to
Speaker 1: you about you on my podcast. I've talked to you
Speaker 1: about you on Jim Huntsman's podcast because Jim knows you,
Speaker 1: and I finally I've got you on the podcast to
Speaker 1: talk to you. So welcome.
Speaker 2: Thanks Derek. I really appreciate it, and I love talking
Speaker 2: with young people like you that are excited about I
Speaker 2: call you young because I'm twenty two years older. But
Speaker 2: I appreciate that and the fact that you want to
Speaker 2: mentor people and help them, and that you're love for
Speaker 2: hunting in life and your love for happiness and family.
Speaker 2: It really means a lot to me. Your friendship means
Speaker 2: a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy where people people's lives intersect and we've
Speaker 1: been talking about your life, We've been talking about my life,
Speaker 1: you know, and non hunting life, and you know where
Speaker 1: we've lived, what we've done for work, all these different
Speaker 1: things places we've been, and it's funny we have these
Speaker 1: little places in our lives that have intersected. And we
Speaker 1: didn't know each other. We still had never known each
Speaker 1: other or ever knew of each other, ever existed until
Speaker 1: I think it was a few several years ago. On
Speaker 1: both side, there's a there's a forum online forum called
Speaker 1: bo site, and I would always get on there and
Speaker 1: read people's comments on topics and questions, and I'd try
Speaker 1: to put in my two cents, and one day Ron
Speaker 1: messages me direct messages me on there and said, so,
Speaker 1: I think you talked to something about you know, this
Speaker 1: area in North Idaho that I hunted and wondered if
Speaker 1: I hunted there is near the town I grew up
Speaker 1: and wondered, you know, wanted to kind of compare a
Speaker 1: little bit of notes, and we kind of start talking
Speaker 1: there a little bit. And then fast forward a few
Speaker 1: years and you start seeing me on YouTube hunting, and
Speaker 1: you came by the booth in Portland at the Portland
Speaker 1: Show and introduced yourself, and we sat there and that
Speaker 1: booth and I we talked a long time, and we
Speaker 1: were like a couple of little schoolgirls, you know, and
Speaker 1: we look nothing like schoolgirls, but we sat there and
Speaker 1: talked and got excited and talked about those old places
Speaker 1: we'd like we'd love to go and their experiences those
Speaker 1: places elk hunting, and we became fast friends. Yep. And
Speaker 1: then you started inviting me over, so ye must.
Speaker 2: Need to come over and try turkey hunting the way
Speaker 2: I hunt turkeys in Oregon, not just sitting waiting for
Speaker 2: them to come to you, right, but finding them right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and let's face it, you know there's people.
Speaker 1: There's the camp that loves turkey hunting, and then there's
Speaker 1: the camps that say turkey hunting stupid. And I feel
Speaker 1: like people that say turkey hunting stupid or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then they hear the comparison of elk hunting versus turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: and people say, you know, there's a lot of similarities.
Speaker 1: You know, they they're kind of like hunting elk in
Speaker 1: the spring, and then that that will inflame some people
Speaker 1: they're like, it has it, there's nothing that they're nothing
Speaker 1: the similar But depending on how you hunt the turkeys
Speaker 1: and haunt elk, there are some similarities for sure.
Speaker 2: A lot of similarities. Is the way we hunt, the
Speaker 2: way you and I hunt both of them. Yeah, very
Speaker 2: similar yes, yes, And why I like turkey hunting. What
Speaker 2: I like about turkey hunting, Let's say, let's say this.
Speaker 2: What I like about turkey hunting is it's one of
Speaker 2: the best times of the.
Speaker 1: Year to be in the woods and the fall. I
Speaker 1: love elk hunting and deer hunting. The food the fall,
Speaker 1: like in September is amazing. You know, you're getting those
Speaker 1: last few days of summer, but you're starting to get
Speaker 1: those crisp mornings of fall. You still hear birds, you
Speaker 1: still hear bees, and then then the woods transition into
Speaker 1: October November, and it gets colder. Now the bugs are
Speaker 1: going dormant, the birds have left, and it's quiet. It's
Speaker 1: like the most quiet time you can he have in
Speaker 1: the woods is in like November, when there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of snow to like absorb any sound. There's not
Speaker 1: a bunch of birds flying around, there's no bugs, and
Speaker 1: the only sound you hear is your breath. And you
Speaker 1: also may hear a wolf, you may hear a deer grunt,
Speaker 1: you may hear some of these little little wildlife sounds.
Speaker 1: You might hear a squirrel in a tree. But the
Speaker 1: woods get very quiet in November, and then that kind
Speaker 1: of sets the stage for me. Things get quiet. Life
Speaker 1: kind of gets quiet for me. After hunting season, I
Speaker 1: kind of go dormant too. I kind of hibernate once
Speaker 1: I'm hunting season's over. I've been go, go go, and
Speaker 1: I've always been like this, you know, lots of driving
Speaker 1: to get to and from my hunting spots, spend tons
Speaker 1: of time in the woods, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: time away from family. And it's now time I'm going
Speaker 1: to hibernate. Now I'm gonna dedicate all this time to
Speaker 1: my family and staying home and in all winter long.
Speaker 1: Now I'm cooped up all winter, and by the time
Speaker 1: spring comes, I am ready to get the hell out
Speaker 1: of the house. I'm just sick of looking at four walls.
Speaker 1: I've got cabin feed, I've done all my stuff, whatever,
Speaker 1: my winter stuff, and it's like, I got to get
Speaker 1: to the woods now. Now contrast, you go to the
Speaker 1: woods in the springtime, the woods are starting to wake up,
Speaker 1: and year to years a little different on timing. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes in April, you know, it's a little slower to
Speaker 1: wake up because it's been a little colder. You still
Speaker 1: have a little snow on the ground. This year, there's
Speaker 1: not any snow on the ground up where we were
Speaker 1: at to speak of. And it seems like we're a
Speaker 1: little further along in the in the seasonal aspect, it seemed,
Speaker 1: you know, the date aspect is the same, but the
Speaker 1: seasonal aspect is a little a little different. You know,
Speaker 1: we got bugs buzzing around, we got birds tweeting, and
Speaker 1: you know, and you got a little bit of warm sunshine.
Speaker 1: But today, today, but the last two days, was this frigid,
Speaker 1: ice cold wind that was blowing off the mountains and
Speaker 1: it's like, man, it's so pretty out, but dang, I'm
Speaker 1: freaking cold.
Speaker 2: You either thought it was the middle of November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right right? Is that cold? But that's what I
Speaker 1: like about turkey, honey. It just gets get It gets
Speaker 1: me out there. I get to enjoy the woods, waking
Speaker 1: up in the spring, reconnect with nature, Yeah, reconnect. And
Speaker 1: also I love spending time with good friends in the
Speaker 1: woods and turkey season it allows me to do that.
Speaker 1: I spend time with my friends and people I love
Speaker 1: and enjoy their companionship. And guess what, we're chasing this
Speaker 1: crazy thing called the turkey. And they do some stuff
Speaker 1: that pissed me off, and they also do some stuff
Speaker 1: that make me giggle and be happy. So they can
Speaker 1: be frustrating, but yet they could be pretty dang fun
Speaker 1: to hunt too. So what is what do you feel?
Speaker 1: Is that kind of how you see turkey hunting or
Speaker 1: what do you like about turkey hunting?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I started turkey hunting back in about
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one or ninety two, and it was the
Speaker 2: fact that I'd been hunting elk, beagling for elk, and
Speaker 2: I knew turkey's gobbled and you can make them gobble. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this was I'm going, Okay, I want I want to
Speaker 2: hear this, I want to experience this, and when I
Speaker 2: was a kid. I lived in Redmond and up deer
Speaker 2: hunting a turkey full out of a tree one day
Speaker 2: and just scared the daylights out of me. And I thought, man,
Speaker 2: I want to find one of those things and get
Speaker 2: it and eat it, because I liked the fordage and
Speaker 2: take home things to eat. And when we lived and
Speaker 2: we're moved to now, it's like there's turkeys all around,
Speaker 2: and I started hunting them, and the gobble on the
Speaker 2: roost just excites you. But then when they start coming in,
Speaker 2: it's really exciting. And that was what really drew me
Speaker 2: to it, is that the similar is between calling elkin
Speaker 2: calling a turkey in the excitement of it and like
Speaker 2: you say, the springtime, I love getting out here in
Speaker 2: the weather and enjoying the sunshine and not so much
Speaker 2: the wind. I don't like that because it makes it
Speaker 2: really hard hunting. You can't hear anything, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of windy here. Oh it's kind of windy here. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the draw for me, is to I just love
Speaker 2: being outside in the woods and I can get out
Speaker 2: there more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say, while I'm turkey hunting, then I'll
Speaker 1: be going along. And we got these turkeys coming in
Speaker 1: or we're calling to these turkeys. And the funny part,
Speaker 1: the elk hunter brain in me immediately says, the wind
Speaker 1: is wrong. They're gonna smell me. I like, the turkeys
Speaker 1: are coming from this way, They're gonna smell me, like
Speaker 1: like immediately, that's the first thing that enters my head,
Speaker 1: like the wind's wrong. We got to move, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we're hunting turkeys. It's it's that funny little
Speaker 1: hunter instinct. Like I've been hunting elk for thirty five years.
Speaker 1: I've been hunting. I've been hunting turkeys longer than that.
Speaker 1: If you can believe that, I've been hunting turkeys longer
Speaker 1: than that, really, and I've been more successful successful hunting
Speaker 1: turkeys than elk. I mean, excuse me, elk than turkeys.
Speaker 1: I've killed more elk than I have turkey. I've killed
Speaker 1: lot of turkeys, but I've killed way more elk. But anyway,
Speaker 1: there's the little things that trick in my brain while
Speaker 1: elk hunting trigger as well during turkey hunting. The turkey's
Speaker 1: coming in down when we got to move, Oh you don't,
Speaker 1: it's a turkey. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I have to
Speaker 1: remind myself that. And then as they're coming in, they're
Speaker 1: getting closer and getting gobbling, and I start feeling that
Speaker 1: my heart start beating a little bit heavier and faster,
Speaker 1: and I start feeling my breathing change, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to feel that same same feeling when I'm
Speaker 1: hunting elk. Now, when I'm hunting elk, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a little more drastic. It's a it's a bigger
Speaker 1: heart beat, it's a bigger labor breathing. Right, I'm going
Speaker 1: making that funny breathing while I'm this bull's coming in.
Speaker 1: But I'm starting to feel some of those same things
Speaker 1: arise of same emotions with it was the turkey comes in.
Speaker 1: So you know, people pay good money for all sorts
Speaker 1: of like ways to to get an adrenaline rush. You know,
Speaker 1: they jump out of airplanes, they bungee jump, they do
Speaker 1: crazy reckless driving, they do all kinds of weird things
Speaker 1: to get an adrenaline rush. And those turkey hunting and
Speaker 1: elk huntings kind of scratch those itches. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: elk hunting is a complete way, bigger adrenalage and rush.
Speaker 1: I got a eight hundred pound animal with swords on
Speaker 1: his head, coming coming to kill me, whereas a turkey
Speaker 1: he might he might peck you and flog you, he
Speaker 1: might spur me. That's not gonna happen, but you know,
Speaker 1: or the Elk's not gonna kill me once they find
Speaker 1: out I'm gonna I'm another animal, but they think like
Speaker 1: the turkey actually is coming in to breed rather than
Speaker 1: to fight, but the elk, he's coming to fight a
Speaker 1: lot of times. But anyway, it still triggers those same emotions.
Speaker 1: And I yeah that I like that. I like those feelings.
Speaker 1: You know, you just everyday life, normal life, you just
Speaker 1: don't get them. You know, there's there's not anything that
Speaker 1: really duplicates that unless you're doing daredevil stupid stuff. And
Speaker 1: I'm too old at our age, we just don't do that,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But part of it too is like in the morning
Speaker 2: when you when you find them on the roost and
Speaker 2: you're moving in the dark. Okay, where am I going to?
Speaker 2: Just like elk, am I gonna set up? I need
Speaker 2: a path I can get a shot in here. And
Speaker 2: then you get all set up and give them a
Speaker 2: few little calls and they're gobbling away at you and
Speaker 2: then they go quiet for five to ten minutes before
Speaker 2: they fly down and they're looking for their spot. You know,
Speaker 2: they're going to fly down, make sure there's no predators
Speaker 2: down there, and they go quiet, and you go, Okay,
Speaker 2: what's going to happen today? Easy? Got hands? Are they
Speaker 2: gonna take them away? They're gonna come to me? And
Speaker 2: then you wait for the drama to unfold once they
Speaker 2: hit the ground. Yeah, you never know.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of anticipation there. There is, Like I
Speaker 1: find myself same with Elk. I'll be like, oh man,
Speaker 1: please let this happen, Please let this happen. I have
Speaker 1: this little thin in the back of my little voice
Speaker 1: in the back of my head, please please let this happen,
Speaker 1: because I'm super hopeful they'll come in able to shoot them,
Speaker 1: but knowing that it doesn't work that way all the time.
Speaker 1: And it's just like most of the time most especially yeah,
Speaker 1: most of the time, even Elk, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: But but there's always a chance, and you think, is
Speaker 1: this the one? You know, I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to screw this up. So yeah, all those same emotions,
Speaker 1: do you think So do you think hunting turkeys is
Speaker 1: like cutting elk.
Speaker 2: Oh I think it is. I mean, obviously there's a
Speaker 2: size of difference you can see coming in once the
Speaker 2: brush and grass start growing up. A turkey, all you
Speaker 2: can see is the head sometimes and it's harder to
Speaker 2: get a lock on turkeys that way that it is
Speaker 2: an elk. But the turkeys, like you say, they can't smell,
Speaker 2: you don't worry about the wind. And yeah, I've I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of similarities there and I just
Speaker 2: love it for the thrill of calling them in, you know,
Speaker 2: to try to beat them at their game.
Speaker 1: Now, when turkeys hang up, elk hang up, they I
Speaker 1: think this might be crazy opinion. I think it's easier
Speaker 1: to move in on a bull elk that's hung up
Speaker 1: than it is a turkey that's hung up. Because elk
Speaker 1: are so big. They make a lot of noise. You
Speaker 1: can they're standing, their their their face, their head gear,
Speaker 1: their bodies are at a level that sometimes above the
Speaker 1: brush line, and you can kind of spot them a
Speaker 1: little easier than you can a turkey. Like a turkey,
Speaker 1: they blend in so good unless they're and if they're
Speaker 1: not moving and where they're at, they're like their bodies
Speaker 1: are a lot of times are hidden by brush if
Speaker 1: it's a little bit you know, brushy country, But they
Speaker 1: got that damn periscope head. They'll pick up over the
Speaker 1: over the bushes, and a lot of times you just
Speaker 1: can't see it until it's too late and you hear
Speaker 1: and then go the way they go. So I think,
Speaker 1: I think it's easier to like move in on a
Speaker 1: hung up bull elk than it is a turkey.
Speaker 2: I agree, because the turkey's head is always moving. They're
Speaker 2: they're bob their head all around when their heads up
Speaker 2: and they're down feeding and they pick it up and
Speaker 2: jerk it around again, looking and yeah, like yesterday we
Speaker 2: saw him in the sun. He's out there fanning for
Speaker 2: his hands. He wouldn't come into us because he had
Speaker 2: his little ladies already, and we started moving in on him. Well,
Speaker 2: we get up close where we put the stock up
Speaker 2: to this one train. I thought we could get to
Speaker 2: get him there. He had moved, so now we have
Speaker 2: to move up again. So we sneak on up and
Speaker 2: I'm kind of looking over the edge where it goes
Speaker 2: into the shadows and the shade and I'm going looking
Speaker 2: through this little fir tree. I go oh, I think
Speaker 2: I see him down there. I thought, oh, there's his head.
Speaker 2: It's red, you know. I get my gun up on
Speaker 2: my shooting stick and go, dang it. I can't tell
Speaker 2: for sure if it's a tom or what. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's the tom, but I can't tell for sure. And
Speaker 2: then he starts fanning. Okay, so he's fanning, and then
Speaker 2: he goes out of strut and I go, well, I
Speaker 2: can't see his head now, you know what did we
Speaker 2: do that for five minutes at least?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very intense.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. And then I'm trying to side step
Speaker 2: real slow so I can get a really good look
Speaker 2: at him. And by the time I get over there
Speaker 2: where I can see, he's not there. So it's like, gol,
Speaker 2: dang it. We head down the hill really slow, and
Speaker 2: I'm looking in front of me to the right because
Speaker 2: that's kind of where he was, had that, I think,
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden I catch him off on
Speaker 2: the left, the hand of the tom, and they start moving.
Speaker 2: And that was the end of the story on that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but well that was so close, and that
Speaker 1: turkey you could have shot.
Speaker 2: I could have shot him through the tree if I
Speaker 2: knew what it.
Speaker 1: Was right right, and that as responsible sportsman hunters, we
Speaker 1: identify our target. Yeah, you know what if that would
Speaker 1: have been a guy down there moving his hat brim
Speaker 1: and you thought, oh, yeah, I see something moving and
Speaker 1: there have been turkeys there. The turkeys had bypassed him,
Speaker 1: but there was a guy sitting there and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I see something, I see something red. Maybe bang,
Speaker 1: you shoot that guy right in the nose or you know,
Speaker 1: it can happen. People get shot every year to hunting,
Speaker 1: So there's that aspect. It's not safe around other hunters.
Speaker 1: You could shoot another hunter then all also just catching
Speaker 1: the right movement, you think you see red, you shoot
Speaker 1: this turkey you get down there, it could be a hen.
Speaker 1: You know, we and it's it's easy to make that
Speaker 1: mistake and in a split second and you're sometimes your
Speaker 1: eyes will play a trick on you and like you
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's because we wanted to
Speaker 1: like happen so bad. It's like, oh, yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: that's the tom. And then you shoot and then oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's not the tom. So that would be
Speaker 1: an unfortunate situation too. So we have to be super
Speaker 1: mindful of of what we're shooting at. And and that
Speaker 1: goes for for elk too, ye, elk deer, you name it.
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, you know, have to make
Speaker 1: sure it's the right the right animal and not a person,
Speaker 1: and you know, get a good, good ethical shot.
Speaker 2: So and like yesterday, I you know, if I did
Speaker 2: shoot it and the hen was in and then I
Speaker 2: get two of them and so I could not tell
Speaker 2: for sure where the hen was and I needed to
Speaker 2: know that. So yeah, it was just a it was
Speaker 2: frustrating to say the least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with a scatter gun or a shotgun, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's blowback. I mean you can take out two or
Speaker 1: three turkeys. It was at one like those jakes that
Speaker 1: come in, I could there was one. We had six
Speaker 1: jakes come in the morning. I shot my my turkey,
Speaker 1: and if I had to line them up just right,
Speaker 1: I probably could have mowed the whole works down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they figure was Yeah, that was awesome.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and the two big toms strut in the
Speaker 2: background behind them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of the mistakes I don't talk about mistakes made
Speaker 1: the last couple of days and what we did right,
Speaker 1: we didn't make a lot of mistakes, but I will
Speaker 1: say one mistake that I made as people don't and
Speaker 1: I didn't, and I know I knew better, but I
Speaker 1: didn't bring a range finder with me. You know, we're
Speaker 1: shooting with a shotgun, and I didn't bring my range finder.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, yeah, I can judge yards pretty
Speaker 1: get out to fifty yards or whatever. I'll shoot a
Speaker 1: turkey at fifty yards with my with my shotgun. And
Speaker 1: we had this these birds they come off the roost
Speaker 1: and they came up, took a line a little higher
Speaker 1: than us, and and we had to get up and
Speaker 1: sneak up, sneak up, sneak up to try to intersect them.
Speaker 1: As they come strutting by. They weren't coming to us.
Speaker 1: They were gonna kind of go over and they were
Speaker 1: kind of feeding along, but they would strut everything, going
Speaker 1: to strut every now and then and then but as
Speaker 1: as they start, as we see what's happening, we got
Speaker 1: to climb up this little hill just a little bit
Speaker 1: real slow and maybe try to intersect intercept them. And
Speaker 1: I get up there, get up there and get a position.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that turkey's close,
Speaker 1: and he's he's fifty yards, you know, and I put
Speaker 1: my my red dot on him and and I shoot,
Speaker 1: and I watched my pellets from my shotgun fall about
Speaker 1: twenty yards short, and I and he just kind of
Speaker 1: like kind of jumps up and flops his feathers a
Speaker 1: little bit, like what the heck was that, and then
Speaker 1: just kind of walks off. Him and the other turkey
Speaker 1: just kind of walk off. They might even gobbled. I
Speaker 1: think when they shot.
Speaker 2: They did they had another one down below.
Speaker 1: A step too, and then they just kind of walked off,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, dang it. So after they got out
Speaker 1: of sight, I walk up there and I stepped it
Speaker 1: off and it's seventy five yards and I'm like, how
Speaker 1: did I How did I misjudge seventy five yards for
Speaker 1: fifty yards?
Speaker 2: Well, in all fairness on that one, it wasn't It
Speaker 2: wasn't a bright morning because there were some clouds in
Speaker 2: the sky and it was only like twenty minutes after
Speaker 2: fly down you on into shooting light. Yeah, and when
Speaker 2: you did shoot, I saw the flame come out of
Speaker 2: your gun. So it was not a bright you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't really good light for judging, and It was
Speaker 2: really hard to tell on that one.
Speaker 1: And I'm used to judging elk yard bigger than judge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, you're gonna try to look
Speaker 1: at this little bird compared to an elk, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I think that's close enough.
Speaker 2: No, when you shot, you thought it was a robbin
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, shoot, but you know that is one mistake
Speaker 1: I made for sure. So fast fast forward. That was
Speaker 1: opening morning, yep. And we had all this hope and
Speaker 1: all this We felt pretty good about it, and then
Speaker 1: just our opportunity slipped us by, and then those turkeys
Speaker 1: they kept gobbling. But man, those things will cover country
Speaker 1: like they took off. They took off. They didn't ever run,
Speaker 1: but they were at Turkey just walking a normal pace.
Speaker 2: Once.
Speaker 1: If they're not feeding, they just kind of start walking.
Speaker 1: They will outdistance you, kind of like an help easily.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, we kind of followen over to they dropped
Speaker 2: into the next canyon and we could hear them over
Speaker 2: there at times, and they kind of disappeared. Here's something
Speaker 2: across the canyon, and then they shut up and it's
Speaker 2: like then the wind started picking up, which makes it
Speaker 2: just about impossible to hear across the canyons. So what
Speaker 2: we decided to bail out of there and head to
Speaker 2: another area. I knew that was more sheltered, and I
Speaker 2: have cameras set up there and I can I kind
Speaker 2: of watch what time they come through these areas, you know,
Speaker 2: just to have an idea of when to be around
Speaker 2: to call him. And went up to another area and
Speaker 2: set there, and what we called for our hour and
Speaker 2: twenty minutes. Yeah, you know, Dirk's setting under the tree,
Speaker 2: all cameled with a shot and up ready and wait,
Speaker 2: and Ron's leaning against a different tree, kind of gazing around.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon he gets cold, so he slips out in
Speaker 2: the sunshine and takes his pack out there and lays
Speaker 2: it down. He falls asleep, and I look over. Here's
Speaker 2: Dirk still diligent over there.
Speaker 1: So yep, yep, I says, I had the shotgun. Like
Speaker 1: I as much as I want to crawl out in
Speaker 1: the sun and warm up, I was freezing it out.
Speaker 1: There was cold wind, I was not dressed right. I
Speaker 1: had my lightweight warm weather turkey gear on and it
Speaker 1: was it was frigid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we, like I say, we called for an
Speaker 2: hour and twenty minutes and I said, you know, normally
Speaker 2: they if they're going to come in or hear us,
Speaker 2: they'll be here by now. So yeah, let's go. We'll
Speaker 2: go up another little draw and hit hit another hollow
Speaker 2: that's sheltered again. And what we get down there and
Speaker 2: walking along and turkles and were looking. It was really
Speaker 2: hard to see they were betting. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: six of them stand up. Holy smokes, only saw one
Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, and they look at us and they decided, okay,
Speaker 2: let's go up the hill, slow feeding and they're all
Speaker 2: doing their duty. After they stand up, and we'll start
Speaker 2: walking off. And I says, well, Dirk, when I find deer,
Speaker 2: I always find turkeys. I said, Their turkeys and the
Speaker 2: deer like to hang out together here. Okay, we take
Speaker 2: about what five steps and Dirk goes turkeys and they
Speaker 2: were right in front of us. They would come into
Speaker 2: our calls.
Speaker 1: Right behind the deer. They were walking. They walked like
Speaker 1: within five yards.
Speaker 2: Of the deer. Yeah, like they were just.
Speaker 1: Hanging out like chumps. And what's funny is like I
Speaker 1: was telling him about hunting in Kansas around deer and turkeys,
Speaker 1: a lot of white tails and a lot of turkeys,
Speaker 1: and the turkeys will get over and get on the
Speaker 1: corner or whatever. And the deer they don't like it
Speaker 1: when the turkeys are there because I think they can
Speaker 1: make a lot of the noise. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe they maybe the turkeys are mean to the deer.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but they it seemed to like each
Speaker 1: other too much. Yeah, and I kind of I'll make
Speaker 1: some noise and make clear to my throat or make
Speaker 1: some noise or wave my hand outside the blind or
Speaker 1: the tree and try to get those turkeys to see
Speaker 1: me and like spook off, so the deer will bill
Speaker 1: to come in, you know, on with no reservations, you know.
Speaker 1: And Ron was telling me, he's like, oh, that's weird
Speaker 1: because my deer and turkeys they love each other. I
Speaker 1: got pictures on my trail cams with these deer and
Speaker 1: turkeys hanging out together all the time. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that's weird. So we see deer take five steps. Oh
Speaker 1: well there's the turkeys. They're best friends. The turkey's coming.
Speaker 1: And Ron had just made some some yelps with his
Speaker 1: with his box call, and and these these jakes were
Speaker 1: like on a bee line to us and We're kind
Speaker 1: of standing right out in the middle of like on
Speaker 1: the sunshine, like we're we're frozen. We're not moving a bit,
Speaker 1: like we're not moving a muscle, and these turkeys are
Speaker 1: like coming right to us, got to like ten yards,
Speaker 1: and then they didn't. They weren't paying attention that you
Speaker 1: could see, like looking around.
Speaker 2: Hey, where's that hen?
Speaker 1: Where's that hen?
Speaker 3: Out?
Speaker 2: I heard?
Speaker 1: And they're looking around and they're all it's funny to
Speaker 1: watch jakes. They're all kind of grouped together and kind
Speaker 1: of you call them like a gang of thugs or
Speaker 1: a gang of teenagers, like you know, you know, they
Speaker 1: kind of act kind of geeky, you know, kind of nerdy,
Speaker 1: and and pretty soon they don't see the hen. They
Speaker 1: go back well, and then off in the distance about
Speaker 1: sixty yards, there's a couple of toms strutting, you know,
Speaker 1: they're fanning around back there. I'm like, oh, yeah, those
Speaker 1: things need to come. So the Jakes kind of go
Speaker 1: back over there, and then they kind of run around.
Speaker 1: Jakes will do this funny thing where they run around
Speaker 1: in circles. If you haven't been around it too much,
Speaker 1: but if you have, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: They run around circles chasing each other. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny. It's like animated, you know. They're running around
Speaker 1: a circles, chasing each other into like a in a
Speaker 1: six foot circle.
Speaker 2: Then they stop them go the other way, and they stop.
Speaker 1: The go the other way, and then pretty soon one
Speaker 1: of the big toms had come over and chase them off, like, hey,
Speaker 1: get out of here with your nonsense, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like an adult wood smack. The kids like, quit
Speaker 1: screwing around here, and Ron start squawking again with these
Speaker 1: with the box, and here they come again. There they
Speaker 1: come right back over to us that the Jakes and
Speaker 1: the Toms keep on strutting. They're not really making any ground.
Speaker 2: I think they're just I think they're back there strutting
Speaker 2: and staying okay, lady, here, I am.
Speaker 1: See come to me.
Speaker 2: They were probably spitting and drumming both and we just
Speaker 2: couldn't hear it.
Speaker 1: It was pretty windy, yeah, And then I would yelp
Speaker 1: with my with my diaphragm, and I think it was
Speaker 1: a little too low pitched or something. I think when
Speaker 1: I heard them yelping too, and it's more like a
Speaker 1: gobbler yelp, and they would they would cut loose and
Speaker 1: gobble that. The the jakes would gobble their heads off
Speaker 1: every now and then when I I'd yelp with my reed,
Speaker 1: my diaphragm, and but they didn't. It didn't really make
Speaker 1: them come. But when you hit that box that real
Speaker 1: high pitch, then they're like, oh, we better go back
Speaker 1: over there and check things out. And then finally they
Speaker 1: kind of they come over, looked around and see the
Speaker 1: hand went back, and then those toms started like kind
Speaker 1: of pushing them off and then started working their way
Speaker 1: to us a little bit. And there was kind of
Speaker 1: a fall there and some brush and stuff that we
Speaker 1: couldn't quite see him or have a shot. And then
Speaker 1: finally the one they the one tom got out and
Speaker 1: there was a gap. I was thinking, Man, if he
Speaker 1: puts his head in that that opening, you know is
Speaker 1: a pretty good, you know, two or three foot opening,
Speaker 1: and holds it still for a second, I might just
Speaker 1: shoot him. And and he did. Okay, I put my bead,
Speaker 1: I put a little high because I think I think
Speaker 1: that thing's about I think he's about fifty yards and
Speaker 1: I heard Ron say shoot Bayam, I shoot him, and
Speaker 1: down he goes flop, flop flop. Then what happened?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So then Dirk runs up there to get him,
Speaker 2: and I'm sitting there just watching the whole scene unfold.
Speaker 2: The deer up to my left and all these jakes
Speaker 2: are standing there going what the heck is going on?
Speaker 2: And the other big Tom was looking back at his buddy,
Speaker 2: going what's happening here? What are you doing down there?
Speaker 2: And Dirk gets up there and his bird's flopping it
Speaker 2: off on the hill. It starts flopping down the hill
Speaker 2: and he steps on the wing to hold it still
Speaker 2: pulls out half the wing feathers and it's flopping on
Speaker 2: down on the hill, and find the sides. Well, I
Speaker 2: guess he's not coming with us anymore or less. Mosy
Speaker 2: up there.
Speaker 1: Had I have my wits about me. What I should
Speaker 1: have done is I should have just handed you the shotgun.
Speaker 1: But the big bird, the big Tom, he wasn't really
Speaker 1: exposed real good at that point. No, so like we
Speaker 1: could have played out. But as I didn't know fifty
Speaker 1: yards it's a poke, I was like, you know, did
Speaker 1: I just stun him? I gotta get over there and
Speaker 1: get there, get my my make sure he's just down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta put my foot on his neck and make
Speaker 1: sure he's down, because I don't want him to like
Speaker 1: get his wits about itim run off and then lose
Speaker 1: the darn thing.
Speaker 2: Shoot yeah, have him die somewhere you can't find him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So then we giggle and we have a good
Speaker 1: time and and uh yeah, and those turkeys are so pretty,
Speaker 1: like you know, at face value, at a distance, you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big black bird. But up close, like the
Speaker 1: feathers fluoresce all these different colors, hues of green and
Speaker 1: blues and reds and.
Speaker 2: Oranges and oranges, and yeah, they's beautiful.
Speaker 1: They're so beautiful. So in the sun was out, so
Speaker 1: we sat there admired these beautiful feathers for a while
Speaker 1: and took pictures and did all that and giggled a
Speaker 1: little bit and talked about what happened, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know. Then then the hard pack came out. We
Speaker 1: loaded all the you know, the big turkey. Turkeys are heavy,
Speaker 1: not like an elk. Though I'd rather pack a turkey
Speaker 1: out than definitely, But anyway, we packed the turkey out
Speaker 1: and then we had had a cold beer and some
Speaker 1: some lunch, and and uh, that was a that was
Speaker 1: a pretty good day. And then the next day it's
Speaker 1: Ron's turning. He's got a shotgun and we go out
Speaker 1: and just like elk cutting, you know, the day before
Speaker 1: we we had them gobbling, Yeah, we had them bugling.
Speaker 1: The next day we go up. We cannot buy a
Speaker 1: gobble on the roost. We're there well before light and
Speaker 1: we're check all the spots that Ron's got this play style. Well,
Speaker 1: if they're here, if they're not there, they're over here,
Speaker 1: if they're out there, over here, and then all these
Speaker 1: different places have a lot of turkeys. We checked all
Speaker 1: the spots. They would not gobble on the roost. Just
Speaker 1: like elk cutting. You have one fantastic day. The next
Speaker 1: day it's like, what is going on? I can't get
Speaker 1: a bold a bugle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, went down and called across the canon to see
Speaker 2: if those birds are gobbled at us at least nothing. Yeah, nothing,
Speaker 2: And we're going, what the Heck's okay, let's head up
Speaker 2: further up the road and get up there about a
Speaker 2: mile right before we had stopped and called from in
Speaker 2: the morning, what's that in the road, that's a turkey.
Speaker 2: We get up there and it was like, I don't
Speaker 2: even know five or six Hens and Jake at least
Speaker 2: they went right back up where they were the day
Speaker 2: before and would not talk at all.
Speaker 1: No gobbles. Yeah, yeah, there had to have been a
Speaker 1: mature Tom and or so we saw some I mean
Speaker 1: the day before. But still even that Jake, you'd think
Speaker 1: he he'd you know, bark a little bit, but he
Speaker 1: didn't say squat say.
Speaker 2: And that was before we before they crossed the road,
Speaker 2: even they were still on our side. And yeah, so
Speaker 2: then what we go up the road another we go
Speaker 2: check it out and see the man encounters are up there,
Speaker 2: going up the road another couple of miles and head
Speaker 2: into spot and driving down the road, there's there. Says oh,
Speaker 2: there's a hand and so we oh, yeah, yeah, there
Speaker 2: should be a Tom around here somewhere. So we get
Speaker 2: out and call ho and he somewhere off in the
Speaker 2: distance Tom gobbles. Okay, let's go. So we down park
Speaker 2: in the bottom and get up on the ridge top
Speaker 2: and head down the ridge. And that was the one
Speaker 2: that we talked about earlier that I tried sneaking in on.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't wouldn't leave. And then after they flew off
Speaker 2: there said, oh, I heard one gobble across the next canyon,
Speaker 2: so we decided to go there and check it out.
Speaker 2: And we went down there when that thing was and
Speaker 2: by the time we got up there, the wind was
Speaker 2: that howl and bitter cold, and our faces last night,
Speaker 2: like we were sunburned from the wind. We were both
Speaker 2: red faced, and our fingers were frozen. And that was
Speaker 2: with the gloves on everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we said, okay, that's enough for today.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. It's funny. The feelings at turkey hunting give
Speaker 1: you the motions, right, So one day you think I
Speaker 1: am the worst turkey hunter in the world, like you
Speaker 1: like turkeys will humble you. And I know other people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, turkeys are so stupid. You can shoot
Speaker 1: them so easy. And I've had days like that too.
Speaker 1: You're like, turkeys are the I'm like the best turkey
Speaker 1: hunter in the world. This is easy. Like I don't
Speaker 1: know why this is not hard, Like I could go
Speaker 1: out any day of the week and shoot a turkey,
Speaker 1: and then the next day you go out and you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't even come close to like I don't think
Speaker 1: I'll ever shoot a turkey. You get those same feelings
Speaker 1: you don't exist, yep, and elk will do that to
Speaker 1: you too, Like you'll be like, man, I am the
Speaker 1: master of the universe and calling in elk and the
Speaker 1: next day it's like, I must like the worst suckiest
Speaker 1: elk hunter on planet Earth. I cannot I can't get
Speaker 1: one to answer me. Yeah, I'll hike around. I can't
Speaker 1: even jump one, you know, I can't even find them,
Speaker 1: you know, But that's I guess that's the that's why
Speaker 1: they call it hunting, you know. It's yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: back to we'll talk a little bit about elk cutting,
Speaker 1: because I know people like I don't know people like
Speaker 1: I'll hear about elk cutting, maybe more than Turkey's maybe not.
Speaker 1: It depends on who you are, where you live. People
Speaker 1: in the Midwest and and in the East, they really
Speaker 1: love turkey hanging, but they probably really love elk cutting too.
Speaker 1: So I think we will talk about some elk cutting too,
Speaker 1: about the good old days, you know, the love of
Speaker 1: the land that brought you and I together and that
Speaker 1: part of the that part of Idaho back in the day.
Speaker 1: If you guys listen to an earlier podcast that I
Speaker 1: did with George beat Us, Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm getting old.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I just go blank on people's names. That's it.
Speaker 1: Is that a precursor for for dementia? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hope not, because sometimes I'm just like, gee, was
Speaker 1: what's my own name? But anyway, I'm sorry. So earlier
Speaker 1: on an earlier podcast, UH talk with George beat Us
Speaker 1: and he hunted the famed Clearwater region, North Idaho back
Speaker 1: in its heyday. You know, at that time in the
Speaker 1: elk world, I don't have the largest elk herd in
Speaker 1: the nation. Fast forward forty years, however long it has been.
Speaker 1: It's probably been forty fifth well yeah, over forty almost
Speaker 1: fit fifty years, and it's probably one, arguably one of
Speaker 1: the worst places to help hunt elk in the nation.
Speaker 1: And you and I sit around and talk about the
Speaker 1: good old days and the fun experiences we had in
Speaker 1: that country and then what it looks like now. But
Speaker 1: what was it like back when you went up there,
Speaker 1: back when you were a younger man, and the hills
Speaker 1: weren't quite as big and steep.
Speaker 2: That's for darms.
Speaker 1: Sure, Why did the mountains grow taller as we get older?
Speaker 2: Erosion?
Speaker 1: It's got to be erosion.
Speaker 2: No, we started, we started hunting in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: my good hunting buddy and my brother and I and
Speaker 2: it was like hunter to Oregon a lot. I mean
Speaker 2: that's where I hunt. It only was Oregon, Eastern Oregon.
Speaker 2: So I'm hunting a lodge poles and the thickets over there,
Speaker 2: and there's really no brush, not much brush anyway, and
Speaker 2: we could call bulls in over there, but they just
Speaker 2: there was enough. People kind of put me off. So
Speaker 2: I said, let's go try Idaho. So I did some
Speaker 2: research and picked this spot in Idaho, went there and
Speaker 2: I circled spots on my maps. I had a topple
Speaker 2: of maps in the day where I think, okay, there
Speaker 2: might be elk here and here and here. So we
Speaker 2: get there the first night, set up camp and head
Speaker 2: down the road a couple of miles and just I
Speaker 2: don't think it was one of the spots side the circle.
Speaker 2: Let's squat here and look. So we just park head
Speaker 2: out there, and we probably made it a quarter to
Speaker 2: a half a mile and said, this is ridiculous. We're
Speaker 2: beating ourselves through brush the whole way. Let's go back
Speaker 2: the road and go somewhere else. So we did and
Speaker 2: went up on this other point and before dark throughout
Speaker 2: some beagles and got an answer, Oh, okay, well come
Speaker 2: back here in the morning, and this is cool. Went
Speaker 2: down there in the morning and you know, chased him
Speaker 2: around to the vail and we kind of to think
Speaker 2: for nine days and we were in the elk every day,
Speaker 2: had a beegling every day and got some real good
Speaker 2: close encounters. And I don't remember how far into it,
Speaker 2: probably about day six we caught up with some and
Speaker 2: I shot one and he died right in a crik bottom.
Speaker 2: And that was our first day in there ever, and okay,
Speaker 2: let's took care of him, packed some stuff out that time,
Speaker 2: and went back down with three of us to pack
Speaker 2: him out. In Oregon. In eastern Oregon, the brush you know,
Speaker 2: the bottoms of the creeks aren't brushy at all. So
Speaker 2: we loaded him up and said, let's just head up
Speaker 2: a creek. You know, big mistake. We're fighting through tag alder,
Speaker 2: We're slipping on the rocks in the creek and it
Speaker 2: was a mess. But we finally packed him out and
Speaker 2: got done with our hunt that year and came home
Speaker 2: and on the way home said, ma'am, it was fun,
Speaker 2: but we're never going to Idaho a gain. I can't
Speaker 2: stand that brush, yeah, you know, and the tag alder thickets.
Speaker 2: You know, you'd hear the bowl there and you just
Speaker 2: go plowing right through the middle of it, and or
Speaker 2: the I don't remember what the other one is down
Speaker 2: in there, the vine maples and stuff. And little did
Speaker 2: you realize that we're trails through there, you know, the
Speaker 2: Olkus trail. They just don't go plowing through like we did.
Speaker 2: We're dumb boys. Took us a while to learn. And
Speaker 2: so we're set on our way home. Now, we're not
Speaker 2: going back there. That was just too much work and
Speaker 2: too brushy, you know, so forget it. Two or three
Speaker 2: months later, well, what are we going to do next year?
Speaker 2: Are we going to hunt? I said, you know, we
Speaker 2: had a lot of bulls bugling in Idaho and had
Speaker 2: a lot of clothes. Let's go back there. So we
Speaker 2: went back for two weeks, and that year we learned
Speaker 2: that there's trails that go through all this brush, and
Speaker 2: we learned a lot more area that year. And you know,
Speaker 2: we hunted that from eighty nine through two thousand and
Speaker 2: three and just had a ball over there. He got
Speaker 2: to know the area well, and we had multiple balls
Speaker 2: in all the time and got a lot of bulls
Speaker 2: taken home with us and it was fun. It was
Speaker 2: just a blast. And during some of those studies, I'm
Speaker 2: sure that I'm on this hill side and you're on
Speaker 2: that hill side, and I'm beagling to you, and you're
Speaker 2: beagling to me, and we're going, there's hunters there, what
Speaker 2: the heck?
Speaker 1: Guy over there?
Speaker 2: Over there going, what the heck's that guy over there for? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we probably crossed paths in the mountains,
Speaker 1: but not close enough to know to meet each other.
Speaker 2: Right, And we'd go by where you were camped and
Speaker 2: we oh, we'd wave with the camp on the way
Speaker 2: by you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Things things were different back then,
Speaker 1: Definitely they were a lot more elk Ron does it
Speaker 1: did a thing that's really cool. It's not you. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's other people that do it. And I know, as
Speaker 1: far as regrets in my hunting life, I wish I
Speaker 1: would have done this because I love interesting data in facts.
Speaker 1: But Rawn has kept a journal log of encounters and
Speaker 1: call ins and how many elk they heard seen moon
Speaker 1: phases from nineteen eighty nine till last.
Speaker 2: Till last year. Last through this year. I just don't
Speaker 2: have the last I don't have the last five years
Speaker 2: on my data sheet. You have an updated to data
Speaker 2: sheet right the year or the total data sheet you're
Speaker 2: printed up one. Yeah, but yeah, So what kind of
Speaker 2: a trend have you seen from nineteen eighty nine to
Speaker 2: modern times? So from nineteen eighty nine through nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: four we were seeing on the average of twenty bulls
Speaker 2: a year and had twenty five close encounters a year,
Speaker 2: And to me, a close encounter is when the was
Speaker 2: within sixty yards, I can see them and there's a
Speaker 2: good shot possibility. So for those, however, many years we
Speaker 2: had that kind of stats, and then ninety five it
Speaker 2: went down. In ninety six we had the hard winters
Speaker 2: there in ninety five ninety six, So yeah, in ninety
Speaker 2: six and ninety seven it dropped down to eight per
Speaker 2: year on bulls seen and twelve p R on close encounters,
Speaker 2: and then it started trending back up through about two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, went back up to fourteen bulls a
Speaker 2: year and six encounters or fifteen encounters a year, and
Speaker 2: then the wolves showed up and they were they were
Speaker 2: starting to get there. In two thousand and three even. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and one night we're in bed sleep and you hear
Speaker 2: them coming down the road howling, And you know, get
Speaker 2: up the next day and there's all these huge wolf
Speaker 2: tracks out in the road. Yeah, oh my gosh. Well
Speaker 2: after that happened for the next what do I have?
Speaker 2: Two thousand and three was the last year we hunted
Speaker 2: that particular area. We saw six bowls and had six
Speaker 2: close encounters. Said, okay, that's it, We're moving somewhere else
Speaker 2: in the unit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've moved from You've went from twenty to twenty
Speaker 1: five a year down to six six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's discouraging when you stark difference. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the the vegetation hadn't changed that much. The feed, you know,
Speaker 2: the habitat hadn't changed. I mean it changed a little bit,
Speaker 2: but not enough to do that to the numbers. And yeah,
Speaker 2: the only common no nominator was wolves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And so we moved over east further in the unit.
Speaker 2: We were seeing fourteen bowls a year and fifteen close
Speaker 2: encounters for the next four years, and then it went
Speaker 2: down to six bowls and six close encounters again. We said,
Speaker 2: and there were wolf tracks all over the roads and
Speaker 2: they're howling at night again. Yeah, okay, you know, let's
Speaker 2: get out of here. So we went to another area
Speaker 2: and we were seeing up there. You know, it was
Speaker 2: our first few years up there. We were seeing nine
Speaker 2: bowls a year, nine close and counters, and so we said, okay,
Speaker 2: forget that one, let's go somewhere else. And we got
Speaker 2: another one that we were seeing ten and eight a
Speaker 2: year close encounters. Which the difference there is that it
Speaker 2: was thicker. It was actually thicker than where we had
Speaker 2: been hunting. Yeah, and to see a ball and get
Speaker 2: a close encounter was a lot harder. We've got a
Speaker 2: lot of bugles going up there. We got a number
Speaker 2: of bugles going up there.
Speaker 1: We heard a lot of different bulls. But then the
Speaker 1: close encounters and then visual eyes on bulls went way
Speaker 1: down because it's just such thick.
Speaker 2: It's only twenty yards, you know, we were shooting twenty
Speaker 2: yards up there as all maximum. So yeah, it definitely
Speaker 2: changed well, And and we kind of migrated down to
Speaker 2: this souther area and I ran into somebody down there
Speaker 2: named Dirk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, it's funny because I think the year
Speaker 1: that I seen you up there in the woods. Finally
Speaker 1: we crossed paths. It we'd been hunting some of the
Speaker 1: same areas for the last thirty years and never run
Speaker 1: across each other in the woods that we knew of.
Speaker 1: We we might even passed each other by a way.
Speaker 1: We've never talked, you know, but at the Sportsman Shore
Speaker 1: in Portland and what was it to uh, let's see
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Maybe probably something like that.
Speaker 1: Then you introduced yourself. What kind of talked about? We
Speaker 1: sit there and talk like school girls and stuff, and
Speaker 1: we we knew the places we used to hunt, but
Speaker 1: now we kind of we didn't really talk a lot
Speaker 1: about where we hunt currently, Like we kind of left
Speaker 1: little tidbits like I kind of hind around where you hunt.
Speaker 1: But we didn't really say names or anything.
Speaker 2: You don't never say names to somebody else, No, you don't.
Speaker 1: That's we laugh about. Hey, Hey, you guys see anything hunting? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a thing. Okay, this man, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard it out of course. You know. It's the elk hunters,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to each one camp to another. You know,
Speaker 1: you never share or divulge your information because you know
Speaker 1: you don't want the other guys sneaking in there. On
Speaker 1: your spot that they see your puck up and they're
Speaker 1: going to be looking for a for a for that
Speaker 1: bowl you've been bugling. So anyhow, fast forward, So that
Speaker 1: was twenty eighteen, the winter of twenty eighteen, we talked yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and Mett finally face to face. And then
Speaker 1: that fall during mouth tab Madness that if you guys
Speaker 1: haven't watched my YouTube channel, it's called The Bugler and
Speaker 1: I do a series of videos called mouth tab Madness.
Speaker 1: I'd injured my shoulder that fall elk hunting, and I
Speaker 1: had to relearn how to shoot a bow with using
Speaker 1: a mouth tab. Had to bite on this little the
Speaker 1: tab attached to the string with my teeth and then
Speaker 1: push the bow forward with my left arm, line up
Speaker 1: my eyeball to my peep side, and then shoot. And
Speaker 1: that's how I went hunting that fall. The rest of
Speaker 1: that fall was with this mouth tab bow. Anyway, we're
Speaker 1: up there, Me and cameraman Dusty had just hiked up,
Speaker 1: had a wet day of bugle fest. We'd been chasing
Speaker 1: these bugles around and we got just got back to
Speaker 1: the pickup and I heard a vehicle coming. I'm like quick, Dusty,
Speaker 1: hide because I don't like talk to people in the woods.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to answer asking me questions. I don't
Speaker 1: want to I don't want to have to lie to him.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, I haven't heard a thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I'd just rather not talk to I don't want to
Speaker 1: pump people from information, and I don't want them to
Speaker 1: pump me for information. So I'm like, come here, Dsky,
Speaker 1: hide behind the pickup. So we kind of hid behind
Speaker 1: the pickup and this guy pulls up and I hear
Speaker 1: and he just stops. I'm like, oh, dang it. And
Speaker 1: then his I can hear his window go. He's like,
Speaker 1: come on, come on out, guys. I see you hiding
Speaker 1: back there. I hear this voice. I'm like, oh, dang it,
Speaker 1: we're hit. We're had. And I walk around and then
Speaker 1: to my dismay, it's Ron and and he I could
Speaker 1: see the same, the same surprise in his ice. He's like, oh, Dirk,
Speaker 1: this is where you hunt, Like dang it. So we
Speaker 1: had a good, good, good visit there. We probably talked
Speaker 1: way too long middle of the road there and instead
Speaker 1: of going hunting, but it was good to reconnect, and
Speaker 1: you told us where you were camped, and we end
Speaker 1: up coming out to your camp later on. But uh,
Speaker 1: anyhow that that that's when we finally ran into each
Speaker 1: other the woods in the woods and and I.
Speaker 2: Well, we'd actually seen each other just a little bit
Speaker 2: before that because we were looking. We were road beagling
Speaker 2: one night and we're standing beside the road beagling down
Speaker 2: This drawn ron had nature calls, so he's standing there
Speaker 2: and here comes a rig around the corner a little
Speaker 2: and they're coming by and they're just laughing. And I'm
Speaker 2: laughing because I know what I'm doing. They're laughing because
Speaker 2: they know what I'm doing. Well, we talked to Dirk
Speaker 2: later and he said, yeah, I was laughing because we
Speaker 2: were buggling to each other ago. I was laughing for
Speaker 2: a different reason.
Speaker 1: Dirk got caught with your pants down. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then then when we ran into him, if they
Speaker 2: were done hunting, we'd we'd heard the bulls beagling up
Speaker 2: there that morning, but we had in mind we wanted
Speaker 2: to go somewhere else in hunt, so we did and
Speaker 2: the artist made there was nothing there, So we said,
Speaker 2: let's go back and go to that area where the
Speaker 2: bulls were this morning. So we went to the backside
Speaker 2: of it and there's a rig park there. It's like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, let's go to the other side and
Speaker 2: climb the steep face. And that's when we found Durkle
Speaker 2: there had been up there chasing my bulls that morning.
Speaker 1: Well that's awesome, and it's funny. Like my experience is
Speaker 1: like I wish I'd wrote them all down that way,
Speaker 1: I'd have that hard data. I just have to go
Speaker 1: on memory. But I remember, you know, the same kind
Speaker 1: of trends, you know, you know, you would hear lots
Speaker 1: of bugles, lots of every year, different bulls, and you'd
Speaker 1: have you know, you would get eyes on bulls, and
Speaker 1: then he can't close encounters and a lot of people
Speaker 1: will throw around, oh yeah, I called in forty seven
Speaker 1: bowls last year, but did you really call in forty
Speaker 1: seven bulls. In my mind, calling in a bull is
Speaker 1: having a bull either come in to within archery range
Speaker 1: or very close to it, so he's traveled a long
Speaker 1: ways from where he was at originally and he came
Speaker 1: to your calls and you almost get him. Or let's
Speaker 1: say a bull comes from half a mile away, and
Speaker 1: stands on a hillside one hundred or two hundred yards
Speaker 1: away and looks back and paces back and forth and
Speaker 1: bugles at you. But then you don't. He don't come
Speaker 1: any further because he's like he wants to see elk
Speaker 1: or he wants you to make a move, but then
Speaker 1: he kind of goes back. That's a call in too.
Speaker 1: But I know people that will will hunt some of
Speaker 1: the same areas I hunt, and they'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we called in forty nine bowls last year. I'm like,
Speaker 1: but did you. I mean, I don't think you're counting.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're calling counting call ins like me.
Speaker 1: I think maybe maybe the amount of bugles.
Speaker 2: You heard they got forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what g is. I guess if
Speaker 1: that's what makes you float your boat and keeps you
Speaker 1: going going every day, I mean, you know, bless your heart.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you can count them however you want, right, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: same as turkeys, right, oh he called in these, except
Speaker 1: they when they got off the roost, they went the
Speaker 1: other way and the half we're hs. But that you
Speaker 1: know that we're where we met you, We ran into you.
Speaker 1: If you if the first year I hunted that spot
Speaker 1: there was in two thousand and seven, and that year
Speaker 1: my buddy Brent and I we'd heard thirty five different
Speaker 1: bulls bugle in a week, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is great because my old spot I used to
Speaker 1: go had been really good. And then on way downhill,
Speaker 1: just like what you said, you know, you know, I
Speaker 1: think the last year I hunted there, I think I
Speaker 1: had two close encounters and I heard like three balls
Speaker 1: the whole time. Yeah, and it just hurt them and
Speaker 1: I got on on almost all of them. I got
Speaker 1: on all of them, but you know, I guess out
Speaker 1: of the three balls I got on, two of them
Speaker 1: had close encounter. But anyhow, fast forward, you know to
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, you know, thirty five balls we
Speaker 1: heard in a week and had lots of close and
Speaker 1: client counters. I didn't really count those if I'd have
Speaker 1: to kind of go back to the old memory banks
Speaker 1: and write them down and kind of figure it out,
Speaker 1: but lots of close encounters, very you know, tension on
Speaker 1: the string drawn back a few times and almost got
Speaker 1: them to when we met you in twenty nineteen, we
Speaker 1: had I don't know, we probably heard like maybe ten
Speaker 1: bules that year and had three or four close encounters
Speaker 1: in nineteen. In twenty nineteen, Yeah, and he's gonna he's
Speaker 1: gonna look at his bible. Here, his LK Cunting Bible.
Speaker 2: Twenty nineteen, we heard a total of thirty three bules
Speaker 2: and saw five bulls. Well, I have four clothes encounters.
Speaker 1: You, you Sandbagger. You when I talked to you in
Speaker 1: the woods, you said, oh, yeah, we've heard a couple
Speaker 1: of bulls here and there. But well, you weren't being truthful.
Speaker 2: Well you probably weren't either.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't at all. Yeah, you guys said, oh, did
Speaker 1: you get into them up there? I'm like, oh, we
Speaker 1: heard a couple of bugles up there out of the brush,
Speaker 1: and we weren't real truthful either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little geno. I sit down there and listen
Speaker 2: to them all morning before we left. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: It was a good year.
Speaker 1: But but just the start contrast, you know. And then
Speaker 1: fast forward to like twenty twenty two, that that was
Speaker 1: the last time I hunted up in that country. That
Speaker 1: was the ghost Bul video you guys watched if you
Speaker 1: haven't watched it on YouTube, the ghost Bul.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was Nor was a good one.
Speaker 1: Ghost Bowls of the North or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ghost Bulls of the North.
Speaker 1: That was the video on YouTube, the Phelips Game Calls
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. And I think I heard five bulls that
Speaker 1: year and had three close encounters as in I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was in within shooting range of bulls.
Speaker 1: So even it had even gone downhill from twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty two, in my mind, a lot less
Speaker 1: sign and you know a lot of hunter activity, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of going to some places you
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of people. But still it's just
Speaker 1: it's just that the elk numbers are not there right
Speaker 1: there used to be a lot more than there. And
Speaker 1: in my mind just from I feel like, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm about as educated as any biologist, probably more
Speaker 1: so than any biologists are out there and now there.
Speaker 1: Most biologists they read things, they look at spreadsheets, they
Speaker 1: look at that kind of data. Ron and I are
Speaker 1: out there surveying the landscape, the countryside, firsthand experience covering
Speaker 1: the country. We're digging in, I would dare say way
Speaker 1: more than anybody that's like doing any kind of biology
Speaker 1: assessment of an area. You know, we're boots on the ground.
Speaker 1: We're walking in places people don't normally walk unless you
Speaker 1: have like an elk calling to you. Like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to walk down to these crap holes if there's
Speaker 1: not a bull bugle and like they're just you're not
Speaker 1: gonna walk down there to to write something on a
Speaker 1: sheet of paper just to see what's down there. You're
Speaker 1: just not going to do it. So anyway, I feel
Speaker 1: like we have a pretty good gauge on what has
Speaker 1: happened to Idaho's elk nor North idahos elk. Certain parts
Speaker 1: of Idaho elk are flourishing. Other parts of Idaho they're diminishing.
Speaker 2: But where they're flourishing, do they have many wolves?
Speaker 1: Not as many, no, or any, you know, not as
Speaker 1: many or any, but wolves are starting to find some
Speaker 1: of those places. Now. I have friends and you know,
Speaker 1: in this southern part of the state. You know, if
Speaker 1: you cut the skinny part of Idaho off and make
Speaker 1: a box out of the southern part of the state,
Speaker 1: you know, make a rectangular box the areas in that
Speaker 1: those places, you know, I feel like they have better
Speaker 1: elk herds. I probably shouldn't say that, but I know
Speaker 1: on the fringes of the northern part of the Box.
Speaker 1: I know people are starting to say, you know, man,
Speaker 1: we're starting to see more wolves and starting to see
Speaker 1: more wolves. And they'd seen wolves before and they kind
Speaker 1: of came and went, But now they're back and they
Speaker 1: they're they're finding dead heads, lots of deadhead elk. They're
Speaker 1: starting to make an impact in a lot of areas,
Speaker 1: especially with the kind of winters we've been having. Last year,
Speaker 1: this winter wasn't too bad, but the winter of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two twenty twenty three was devastating to South Idaho.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that's you know, what got
Speaker 1: those wolves. You know, they just followed the herds down
Speaker 1: into the lower country as the time went by. But anyhow,
Speaker 1: some might say, like if we go back to northern Idaho,
Speaker 1: some will say, you know, it's all about habitat, you know,
Speaker 1: the habitat loss, because in too in nineteen ten, there
Speaker 1: was a giant wildfire that went from north central Idaho
Speaker 1: clear way up into the Panhandle and burned millions of
Speaker 1: acres of the national forest, which after thirty years forty years,
Speaker 1: when it grew back, it was amazing. Elk cabitat you know,
Speaker 1: the burnt had opened up the canopy, you know, grasses
Speaker 1: and small shrubs growing everywhere, and it was a perfect
Speaker 1: storm because you know, back in them days, not a
Speaker 1: lot of people in Idaho. And then around World War two,
Speaker 1: they'd even pre World War two, they'd even shut down
Speaker 1: hunting seasons in a lot of those units because they'd
Speaker 1: had some bad winners and they wanted the elk to
Speaker 1: come back and flourish, and they did, and they opened
Speaker 1: up seasons again. Anyhow, the elk hunting was fantastic, and
Speaker 1: George beat Us got to hunt onto the tail end
Speaker 1: of some of that there in the seventies and early
Speaker 1: eighties of that fantastic yel hunting and if you listen
Speaker 1: to that podcast, his stories were incredible. But to understand
Speaker 1: and in the forties and fifties it was twice as
Speaker 1: good it was, if you can even wrap your head
Speaker 1: around how good that was, it was twice as good.
Speaker 1: It had the nation's best elk elk heard in this
Speaker 1: relatively small area compared to like the whole state of
Speaker 1: Colorado now that has the largest delkurd in America. So
Speaker 1: but anyway, now you know, now we're in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Those forests have grown up, they've aged, they've matured, they've
Speaker 1: choked out, you know, grasses they've choked out. You know,
Speaker 1: the underbrush has matured and gotten really tall, so you
Speaker 1: don't have all the tender things to eat at more
Speaker 1: of a more just little above ground level. So the
Speaker 1: feet has changed. So people will say the experts will say, well,
Speaker 1: it's more of a habitat issue than a wolf issue,
Speaker 1: and I think both sides are right to a certain degree. So, well,
Speaker 1: if you have elk that should have really great feed,
Speaker 1: If they have really great feed everywhere and they're pressured
Speaker 1: by wolves, they just keep moving until you know, okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay, we'll just go live over here. There's good
Speaker 1: food here. And they just keep following the food and
Speaker 1: the wolves follow them. They're probably gonna stay more nourished
Speaker 1: and probably have less mortality. But as it is now,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a lot of mature forests and stuff.
Speaker 1: There's less quality habitat. The wolves pursue, they distress elk.
Speaker 1: They're not as in good as shape because they don't
Speaker 1: have a good as feed, and then they're easy. They're
Speaker 1: easier prey because there may be find some good food,
Speaker 1: if a good food source, and don't want to leave it,
Speaker 1: and then the wolves go in and wipe them out.
Speaker 1: And this is all just my theory.
Speaker 2: What do you think? Yeah, I mean I agree with
Speaker 2: someone that that has grown up into old forest, old growth.
Speaker 2: But then you start out where you go back to
Speaker 2: where you and I first turn it over there, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that is all burnt, that's all. There's been fires
Speaker 2: go through all that country, and so it's reforesting. It's
Speaker 2: got the open grasses, it's got the habitat for them.
Speaker 2: And you were back there last year rifle hunting and
Speaker 2: you found zero in there. Yeah, so you know, there
Speaker 2: used to be tons of elk in there, and now
Speaker 2: there is good food. If it was habitat, there's great
Speaker 2: food for him in there. But they're still in the elk.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, for the about a decade ago that country
Speaker 1: started burning again. Between burning and then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of beetlekill timber that's falling, you know, and opening up
Speaker 1: the canopy as well, but you're still not seeing elk.
Speaker 1: And then you know what George talked about. You know,
Speaker 1: a good friend of his who was a biologist for
Speaker 1: the fishing the forest service in that area. A forestry guy.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, they need to prescribe burns in
Speaker 1: the winter habitat, you know, to get those you know,
Speaker 1: you know, those those burns we're talking about, a lot
Speaker 1: of them are up on top top. They're not in
Speaker 1: the they're not in the winter range. But conversely, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, I wanted to hear George's opinion, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to, you know, take counterpoint on it.
Speaker 1: But I got to thinking and thinking about, like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: that that does make sense. That's a fair, fair assumption.
Speaker 1: But then I look at the frank Church Wilderness. All
Speaker 1: all you got to do is go to Google Earth
Speaker 1: and look at the frank Church Wilderness. It's all burnt
Speaker 1: from the river to the highest peaks, most of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's a huge vast wasteland of burn, wasteland as
Speaker 1: far as like timber. But now there's grasses, small trees,
Speaker 1: you know, like jackfurs and brush, lush brush growing. Where
Speaker 1: are the elk? They haven't made a return there. There's
Speaker 1: nobody's saying good lord. You know, the outfitters aren't getting
Speaker 1: rich in the frank Church Wilderness because there's so many elk,
Speaker 1: and they have so many clients coming in. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of outfitters that have gone out of business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to too many people lately that said, oh,
Speaker 1: the Frank Church is on fire with elk right now.
Speaker 1: He actually asks people and they're like, yeah, there's elk,
Speaker 1: but a few between. They kind of tell the same
Speaker 1: kind of stories we tell about the places we've been hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, if you know the pockets where they live,
Speaker 1: you'll get into them. But if you don't, you're gonna
Speaker 1: you could spend a whole week there or a ten
Speaker 1: day hunt and not see a dang elk or here.
Speaker 2: I know, if if you walk forever through the brush
Speaker 2: piles and just beat yourself togeath.
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I I don't know what the easy
Speaker 1: answer is because they have, you know, with trapping and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then I know the idole fishing game of flown
Speaker 1: missions with their their helicopters, and you know, to reduce
Speaker 1: numbers of wolves, you know, they shoot a bunch and
Speaker 1: to help certain areas where the elk are suffering or
Speaker 1: maybe cattle, and then the trappers are getting a fair
Speaker 1: share of them. And I think I think they're just
Speaker 1: kind of keeping them at bay. They've reduced some of
Speaker 1: the numbers, but they've kind of keep them at bay.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. Something has to happen drastically to
Speaker 1: get those elk to come back in those places.
Speaker 2: So that takes you to the next thing is where
Speaker 2: the elk drop their cows. Yes, guess what's down there?
Speaker 2: Bears bears. So has the bear population increased enough to
Speaker 2: where they're hurting the herds by killing enough cows? I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I think they put it in on them, definitely. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of bears. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: like the bound bears we had in the eighties. But
Speaker 1: we don't have the amount of elk because we had
Speaker 1: in the eighties.
Speaker 2: But there's more cougars now too than there were ye
Speaker 2: So you know, everything's trying to like a turkey. We
Speaker 2: were talking, Yeah, a turkey doesn't have a friend one
Speaker 2: in the woods except for a deer. Everything else wants
Speaker 2: to eat it.
Speaker 1: It's on everyone's menu, I mean.
Speaker 2: Says oh young bobcat, Oh yeah, cougar, yeah, but an
Speaker 2: elk because you know, there's a lot of things trying
Speaker 2: to eat the elk too. Between the bear, the cougar
Speaker 2: and the wolves, you know, they're yeah, now, prime fair.
Speaker 1: Now. Am I calling for the eradication of wolves or
Speaker 1: bears or cougars. No, no, But it has to be
Speaker 1: a good balance, right, It's got to be a balance.
Speaker 1: And and being I'm an animal lover, I love all
Speaker 1: animals and I want to see them all do well,
Speaker 1: but not at the expense of the other one. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want all the elk to be gone, and
Speaker 1: I don't want all the wolves to be gone, and
Speaker 1: all the cougars in the mountain lions are the bears,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to see something disappear completely off
Speaker 1: the landscape at all, but we have to manage them.
Speaker 2: It is cool to hear a wolf howl. That is
Speaker 2: just a neat. I mean, it's an air you sound,
Speaker 2: but it's cool to hear.
Speaker 1: And I love dogs. I am. People may not know
Speaker 1: this about me, but I love dogs. I have a
Speaker 1: black Lab, I've had black labs. I've had dogs my
Speaker 1: whole entire adult life. And I love dogs. And I
Speaker 1: feel like wolves are interesting. Dogs are intelligent, Dogs are
Speaker 1: way smarter than people will usually give them credit for.
Speaker 1: And especially they're very in touch with their emotions. I
Speaker 1: think dogs are more self aware than a lot of
Speaker 1: people will acknowledge or understand. So you think wolves are
Speaker 1: very self aware, very intelligent. They've they've they learned very
Speaker 1: quickly about danger, about food, they learn very quickly about everything.
Speaker 1: And so I can appreciate that. That's an inter it's
Speaker 1: very They're an interesting animal. They have an interesting family dynamic.
Speaker 1: They have just a different kind of way of life,
Speaker 1: you know, which is interesting, which should should be appreciated.
Speaker 1: But also I can appreciate when they're overpopulated, then other
Speaker 1: animal species suffer, and I don't appreciate that, right. I
Speaker 1: don't want that to happen.
Speaker 2: I want there to be a balance, to go from
Speaker 2: fifteen thousand elk curd down to fifteen hundred elk curd.
Speaker 1: Something's wrong, something's wrong, and it hoped it happened within
Speaker 1: a two three year period.
Speaker 2: Is this boom?
Speaker 1: Is what happened? And the habitat didn't just fail as
Speaker 1: there's less elk on the landscape. Think of this, you know,
Speaker 1: you say a habitat as there's less elk on the landscape,
Speaker 1: there's more food on the landscape because there's it's not
Speaker 1: like all the the grass and brush died in North Ido.
Speaker 1: If anything, there's it's brushier than it's ever been everywhere
Speaker 1: he looks.
Speaker 2: Food, Yeah, it is. It's it's a it's a jungle.
Speaker 2: That's the best way to describe it.
Speaker 1: Like an elk doesn't have to walk far for food,
Speaker 1: Like they can like walk three feet. Oh there's something
Speaker 1: else to eat. Yeah, theysh they walk fifty yards. Oh
Speaker 1: there's water. They have, they have, they have everything they
Speaker 1: need except I think they the the wolves have done
Speaker 1: quite a number on them, and I think they do
Speaker 1: definitely need to restore a lot of the the winter
Speaker 1: habitat by doing prescribed burns. But as my friend George said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that's a politically charged thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we start burning, you know, there's a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who suffer from asthma and stuff, and it makes it
Speaker 1: hard for them to breathe. Well, they get they get
Speaker 1: pushed back, the four Service gets pushed back on on
Speaker 1: air quality. Yeah, and you know it's hard to make
Speaker 1: everyone happy, you know, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But but you have to look at the money
Speaker 2: that hunters put into the economy. Yep, And I think
Speaker 2: as hunters, you know, buying license and tags and all
Speaker 2: this stuff. You've promoted the game and built up the
Speaker 2: herds to where they were, you know, so that was
Speaker 2: and then to be managed responsibly at that level, you know,
Speaker 2: keep the herds up. And then something else comes into
Speaker 2: the equation, doesn't that wasn't there before and changes all everything.
Speaker 2: So you have to stop and re examine how you're
Speaker 2: doing things. And I don't know, I I don't have
Speaker 2: the answers. I wish it did.
Speaker 1: Well, here's I mean, here's a here's a here's a topic.
Speaker 1: We could spin off of this and go down another
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. Logging. You know, they've they've ceased logging for
Speaker 1: the most part. On buying large on national forest. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: we can't burn that. We can't burn these these winter grounds.
Speaker 1: Can we log them?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying put in new roads into these places,
Speaker 1: but people can help licopter log right, That's that's a
Speaker 1: very effective tool. You're not you're not you're not scarring
Speaker 1: the landscape with roads. You you make the roads that
Speaker 1: are existing roads. Better cut the timber, fly it to
Speaker 1: the fly it to the nearest road. Landing and truck
Speaker 1: it out. You know that now now again, we're stimulating
Speaker 1: the economy, We're creating dollars, we're getting people putting back
Speaker 1: to where work. We're getting tax money that will help
Speaker 1: maintain the forest. Yet the same people who don't want
Speaker 1: you to log, they don't want you to burn, well,
Speaker 1: some of them, but it seems like, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't want you to to log the forest. But and
Speaker 1: but what happens in the end is well, wildfire and
Speaker 1: it isn't burning anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's worse because nothing is restored yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's the middle of summer, it's July and August,
Speaker 1: and now air quality all over the northern northwestern part
Speaker 1: of the United States, the sky's are brown for the
Speaker 1: whole month of August.
Speaker 2: You're spending money to fight the fighters instead of making
Speaker 2: money by log in it, Yes, which just doesn't compute
Speaker 2: for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In areas where there's a lot of different ownerships of land,
Speaker 1: you know, you have state, you have private timber companies,
Speaker 1: you have National forest in those areas, you definitely see
Speaker 1: a difference in ELK numbers just because they've opened up
Speaker 1: the forest in those places. So I do believe habitat
Speaker 1: does have something to do with it, Yes, because even
Speaker 1: with the presence of predators, the elk do better.
Speaker 2: And the fires don't do as well because they hit
Speaker 2: these blocks that have been logged and they can distinguish them, you.
Speaker 1: Know, extinguish. We don't have those multimillion acre burns like
Speaker 1: we had in nineteen ten. So anyway, I wish we
Speaker 1: could just you know, I think we've just solved the
Speaker 1: world's problems here, Ron.
Speaker 2: I'm too old for that.
Speaker 1: Man. It's been really fun. As always, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: hosting me and bringing me over here. I cherish the
Speaker 1: time we get to spend together and go over and
Speaker 1: it's fun. We talk about life and giggle and laugh
Speaker 1: and and you cook good food for me. You love
Speaker 1: to cook and I love to eat. I mean, anybody
Speaker 1: that's seen you know that's a great that's a great duo.
Speaker 2: We gave first razor clams the other night, the.
Speaker 1: First razor clams. I've never had those before. Jason Phelps
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for no invite. He lives very close
Speaker 1: to the coast. And yeah I did, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: had to had to come to my good friend Ron's
Speaker 1: house to get razor clams. I hope you're listening, Jason.
Speaker 1: You know, if if you guys have questions or comments,
Speaker 1: you can always email them into CETD at Phelps Game
Speaker 1: Calls dot com. Yeah in the distance, Yeah CTD at
Speaker 1: Phelps Game Calls. Got to com and send send an
Speaker 1: email to Jason Phelips and say, hey, why didn't you
Speaker 1: have Dirk over for razor clams? I thought you guys
Speaker 1: were friends. I'm starting to question our friendship.
Speaker 2: Make sure you use clams and not mud clams.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well yeah, he'll probably eat the ray the
Speaker 1: clams and I'm not there. He's like, oh, we got
Speaker 1: to some of these others. We call them m clams
Speaker 1: for mud. But anyway, anything to wrap this up, any
Speaker 1: last thoughts. Do you have any regrets or looking back
Speaker 1: at your your long hunting life, Like, man, I wish
Speaker 1: I'd done something that you just didn't do, and looking back,
Speaker 1: you wish you could have done something different.
Speaker 2: So, so when I was learning the hunting starting out
Speaker 2: in Oregon and I got I don't even know where,
Speaker 2: I heard about bugling. I was excited. I thought I
Speaker 2: want to call it. I want to hear bugle. So
Speaker 2: I don't even know, I don't know if it was
Speaker 2: herders or what. Back in the day, I heard some
Speaker 2: turkey diaphragm calls you can make yourself, and I made
Speaker 2: my own diaphragms and I used them for bugling. Or
Speaker 2: I was younger and my voice worked better and I
Speaker 2: could do a throat bugle with my own voice.
Speaker 1: Did you suck in? Or did you scream?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Can I try to do that? I sell like a
Speaker 1: credit might sell like a stuck pig or something. It's
Speaker 1: so terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I called nice point in one day and here
Speaker 2: came a hunter down up win from him, and gone.
Speaker 1: Got them both. He's got you fool them both.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. It was like, oh my gosh, you must
Speaker 2: have been pretty good. But I made my own diaphrams
Speaker 2: and tried those, and then they had, you know, so
Speaker 2: I don't remember what called. Larry Jones came out with them.
Speaker 2: I got the squealer thing and got my first bull
Speaker 2: to really answer and come in later on, and he
Speaker 2: was ripping up a tree and I thought, I'm sitting
Speaker 2: here waiting for him to come walking out in front
Speaker 2: of me, and he left, you know, so it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that's not how it goes. And then I taught myself.
Speaker 2: I had to. I learned it myself just by doing it.
Speaker 2: And like we were talking back in the day, there
Speaker 2: were enough elk and Idaho, if we blew this one,
Speaker 2: let's go to the next one mile away. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: don't do it again. And that was how we learned.
Speaker 2: It was just trial and error. And it ends up
Speaker 2: that you and I pop a lot alike.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like we're sitting here talking like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Aggressive aggressive aggressive means this, not this. And if the
Speaker 2: bull gets aggressive sounding, we get aggressive sounding. But if
Speaker 2: he's not, we're aggressive pushing them, getting closer and making
Speaker 2: them mad. So yeah, yeah, I mean I the only
Speaker 2: regrets I have yeah, okay, not a whole lot, just
Speaker 2: a few.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I wish I had more patience at times. That is
Speaker 2: one of the key things for somebody learning patients. Just
Speaker 2: because he hasn't showed up within two minutes doesn't mean
Speaker 2: he's not gonna be within ten minutes. Just like turkey hunting, Yep,
Speaker 2: if a turkey doesn't show up and he's quiet, he
Speaker 2: might be coming in quiet. It's the same thing with
Speaker 2: an elk.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: So I've learned a lot of patience. Especially now that
Speaker 2: I'm older, I don't like to move as much and
Speaker 2: it hurts to go, and so I learned to stop
Speaker 2: a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think Kenny Rogers said it best. You got
Speaker 1: to know when to hold him and know when to
Speaker 1: fold them exactly.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, that's about it. I just thoroughly enjoyed
Speaker 2: my time in the woods and learning about like you know,
Speaker 2: I was telling you stories the other day what I've
Speaker 2: seen with hell kin of the cow falling in the
Speaker 2: bog ahead over heels, Yeah, calf getting beat on by
Speaker 2: a cow, and you know, it's just there's so many
Speaker 2: things just see watching nelk get spooked, you know, spike
Speaker 2: grouse flop at its feet and the spike just did
Speaker 2: some results trying to get out of there. So you
Speaker 2: see so many cool things when you were out in
Speaker 2: the woods getting to watch that stuff, and that's what
Speaker 2: I enjoy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's so Yeah. All the times I've been
Speaker 1: by myself hunting and I didn't have anybody with me,
Speaker 1: and I've seen some amazing things, like nobody's gonna ever
Speaker 1: believe this story, and it's long before you videotaped anything,
Speaker 1: and it's by myself and it's like, man, that was
Speaker 1: so cool. And it's one regret. I've hunted it by
Speaker 1: myself a lot in my life and I enjoy it,
Speaker 1: I love it, I prefer it, but when something remarkable happens,
Speaker 1: I regret that I didn't have someone there with me
Speaker 1: to share that moment with, Like.
Speaker 2: Can you believe that just happened?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: No, so my Yeah. Another regret is that we didn't
Speaker 2: run into each other back in the nineteen nineties and
Speaker 2: then start hunting together with our group. You know, it
Speaker 2: would have been it would have been.
Speaker 1: I would have seen your license plate thought I'd been
Speaker 1: like them damn or Guardian hunters. But out of standers
Speaker 1: get out of it.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just kidding, but I wish we'd have found
Speaker 1: each other back then and could have chased them same
Speaker 1: the same mountains that we love so much together. It
Speaker 1: would have been such so much fun.
Speaker 2: Would have been. And now you're not hunting where I'm
Speaker 2: hunting anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeap.
Speaker 2: So we'll have to give you a report card this year.
Speaker 1: Wrappers over, yeah, yeap, And we'll just have to you know,
Speaker 1: we have turkey hunting Ron, that's right, We'll always have turkey.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's for Darner.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, thanks again. How can people find you? You
Speaker 1: wanted to have let people know where they can find
Speaker 1: you on social if they want to follow you.
Speaker 2: I don't have any idea, Okay you do, I don't, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know. If it's just Ron Hewett
Speaker 2: on Facebook and something wrong hew it on Instagram, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't post much on their normally his
Speaker 2: family stuff, family stuff. And I probably posted a picture
Speaker 2: of you the other day because I had eleven year
Speaker 2: memory or something on April fifteenth with me with a
Speaker 2: bird and it said ad So I put your picture
Speaker 2: on there, it shows up. I don't. I don't even
Speaker 2: know how to find.
Speaker 1: That, so right on, Well again, I thank you for
Speaker 1: having me over, Thanks for thanks for getting on the podcast.
Speaker 2: You know, I know that was the first I said
Speaker 2: I was never going.
Speaker 1: To do this. I know you told me I'll never
Speaker 1: get on a podcast, and I'm like, Ron, you gotta
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: Like I'm sweating and trembling and shaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's you know. One of my regret life regrets
Speaker 1: is not no knowing or my before when my dad
Speaker 1: passed away. Before he passed in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: and back then, I hadn't even heard of a podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what a podcast was, and there was,
Speaker 1: it wasn't mainstream media by no means, and I regret
Speaker 1: that I hadn't recorded. My mom always wanted my dad
Speaker 1: because my dad, Yeah, he's a very colorful person, crazy
Speaker 1: stories like he lived a hell of a life from
Speaker 1: you know, storm on the beaches of Ewajima to living
Speaker 1: and working in Liberia, Africa back in the sixties, and
Speaker 1: you know, all the hunted the Idaho's backcountry when it
Speaker 1: was the very best right out of World War Two
Speaker 1: in the forties and fifties, and and just he'd experienced
Speaker 1: such a wide range of experiences in life. My mom
Speaker 1: always tried to get him to like record something like
Speaker 1: a little tape recorder, and he I think he kin'd
Speaker 1: felt worried about it, and he's likesh, I'm not doing that,
Speaker 1: you know. But if we'd have been able to sneak
Speaker 1: or or something or sit down, and I wish I
Speaker 1: could have had an opportunity to podcast and record all
Speaker 1: these wild stories he had and life experiences.
Speaker 2: I do regret that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was awesome. And but and that's
Speaker 1: why I really wanted you to get on here, because
Speaker 1: I wanted to I want to pick your brain and
Speaker 1: record you and here and hear your your You're spent
Speaker 1: on life and and and elk cunning.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate life is enjoy all it's here. We
Speaker 2: never know about tomorrow. It's all in God's hands. So absolutely,
Speaker 2: that's that's the Just enjoy every day, make the most
Speaker 2: of it, make make the friends and enjoy your friendships.
Speaker 1: So I love that. Yeah, all right. And family, family
Speaker 1: and family. Yeah, absolutely definitely family, family first. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: thanks Ron, and we'll catch everybody on the next one.
Speaker 3: H h h h h m hmmm