Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the Distance. This podcast is presented by
Speaker 1: Yetti Built for the Wild. What happens when you get
Speaker 1: to your hunt area and it's heavily timbered, or maybe
Speaker 1: the place that you hunt has a lot of broken
Speaker 1: topography that just doesn't lend itself to a good vantage
Speaker 1: point for glassing. This week's podcast, we're going to cover
Speaker 1: the tactic of still hunting. What that is is slow
Speaker 1: and deliberate hunting while moving through an area on the ground.
Speaker 1: Although the word says still, it's a tactic of hunting
Speaker 1: while moving. A successful hunt really involves a cluster are
Speaker 1: of so many individual tactics. If I talk one episode
Speaker 1: about spot and stock hunting, that doesn't mean that, even
Speaker 1: in a single given day, that's the only tactic that
Speaker 1: I use. Really, if I think back to my most
Speaker 1: successful hunts, a tactic that stands out above the rest
Speaker 1: is effective still hunting. Today, I want to cover the
Speaker 1: art of still hunting and point out the three main components, moving, looking,
Speaker 1: and stealth. I've taken most species that I've hunted using
Speaker 1: these tactics, includes mule deer, blacktail, deer, white tails, elk,
Speaker 1: as well as access deer, fallow deer, red stag, and
Speaker 1: some alpine species like tar, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: If you can master the art, you will give yourself
Speaker 1: more opportunity and more success over a wide range of species.
Speaker 1: While I have piles of successful stories, I want to
Speaker 1: share the story of the first Columbia blacktail I took
Speaker 1: with my bow. The reason I want to tell a
Speaker 1: story about hunting Columbia blacktails is really twofold. First, it's
Speaker 1: because the habitat they live in really lends themselves still
Speaker 1: hunting tactics. And second, I honestly think they're underrated as
Speaker 1: a big game species. Now, a Columbia blacktail is a
Speaker 1: deer species that's pretty much a coastal woodland deer. They
Speaker 1: live on the coast from California up through Oregon in Washington. Now,
Speaker 1: for say Pope and Young or Boone and Crockett classification,
Speaker 1: what separates them from mule deer as opposed to being
Speaker 1: labeled as a blacktail. Anything west of I five in
Speaker 1: the state of California is considered a blacktail. Now, blacktail
Speaker 1: really like heavily timbered forests. Now, if you're talking up
Speaker 1: even further north in Oregon and Washington, they're in some
Speaker 1: extremely dense, ferned out temperate rainforests along the coast in California.
Speaker 1: In a lot of the areas, it might be more
Speaker 1: pine forests, but they still stick to the heavier cover
Speaker 1: as opposed to the more wide open that mule deer prefer.
Speaker 1: Because of that, hunting black tails is more like hunting
Speaker 1: white tails than mule deer in some aspects. They have
Speaker 1: a lot tighter home range, they travel and cover more often,
Speaker 1: and they're extremely reclusive animals. A lot of the areas
Speaker 1: that you hunt might have quite a few deer, but
Speaker 1: actually seeing those deer and daylight hours can be difficult.
Speaker 1: This particular hunt, it was the beginning of the archery season.
Speaker 1: It was a hot August day in the California be Zone.
Speaker 1: I think the temperatures that day were a hundred and
Speaker 1: three degrees. It just almost hurt to breathe. Now, the
Speaker 1: terrain where I was hunting is mountainous, but heavily timbered,
Speaker 1: a lot of pine, and then the openings that were
Speaker 1: available choked out with man zanita underneath the pine, a
Speaker 1: lot of brush, a lot of poison oak, a lot
Speaker 1: of just other man's in need of shrubs within the trees. Now,
Speaker 1: this particular hunt, we decided to drive in and I
Speaker 1: was hunting with a buddy. We set up a base
Speaker 1: camp where we parked, and then our plan was we
Speaker 1: were just going to hike out from our trucks each
Speaker 1: day and kind of still hunt through the areas through
Speaker 1: the timber in hopes of first off going in a
Speaker 1: couple of days early and scouting it out a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then during the hunt maybe just moving along those
Speaker 1: areas where we'd identified or spotted deer earlier and just
Speaker 1: still hunt through those areas hoping to get lucky find
Speaker 1: some deer. Now, a couple of days before the season,
Speaker 1: I struck out looking for sign moving along the logging
Speaker 1: roads and ridges, and I was actually kind of focusing
Speaker 1: on the north faces, which are a little more open.
Speaker 1: I really didn't see any deer that day. I saw
Speaker 1: a couple of does, but very minimal. I did, however,
Speaker 1: see this one man's in need a bush just shaking,
Speaker 1: and I snuck up to it, got about twenty yards away,
Speaker 1: and I see this head of a black bear pop
Speaker 1: up and then go back down. What the bear was
Speaker 1: doing is he was actually knocking the band's anita berries
Speaker 1: off the bush and laying there on the ground, reaching
Speaker 1: his arms out and then compiling him into this big pile.
Speaker 1: When he got a pretty good sized pile, he would
Speaker 1: then just start eating the pile and then knocking more
Speaker 1: berries off and just eating. He was eating in the
Speaker 1: laziest way you could see a bery eating, just hitting
Speaker 1: the berries off, laying there, scooping him up and eating him.
Speaker 1: I actually snuck in pretty close got some really good
Speaker 1: pictures of the bear. I think that day I saw
Speaker 1: three bears and two deer. So now I decided, well,
Speaker 1: their habits for blacktail. They like thicker country. I prefer
Speaker 1: to hunt more open country. But I'm gonna change and
Speaker 1: adjust my tactics. I'm gonna now focus on the more
Speaker 1: south facing slopes. So opening day, I decided to check
Speaker 1: out the other side of the mountain where we were out.
Speaker 1: So I hiked down and before daylight drop off below
Speaker 1: camp heat a logging road and then work around to
Speaker 1: the south face slope that I know is a lot
Speaker 1: more timbered. I pick a ridge with a good trail,
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing a lot of sign. Now, these deer
Speaker 1: are so reclusive and they live and cover, so part
Speaker 1: of the tactic too is just moving around until I
Speaker 1: could figure out where these deer living. This game trail
Speaker 1: was a good sign. It led me into a really
Speaker 1: brushed out canyon, really dense forest, so I followed that
Speaker 1: finger ridge up. The wind was coming down at that point,
Speaker 1: so it's perfect. I worked up all the way to
Speaker 1: this logging road, hit the logging road and decided, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep the wind in my face, and
Speaker 1: this logging road is a great way to just stay quiet.
Speaker 1: So I started walking that logging road out. A few
Speaker 1: miles later, I heard something in the brush. I look
Speaker 1: over and I see a few of the bushes moving,
Speaker 1: and I can hear something walking around back there. So
Speaker 1: I just sit down and wait. And I was just
Speaker 1: going as slow as possible on this trail, glass and looking,
Speaker 1: list and in glassing, moving, glassing, listening. Going that mile
Speaker 1: took me the majority of the day because I was
Speaker 1: just moving at a really slow pace. I knew that
Speaker 1: I had seen enough sign where this was a good
Speaker 1: spot for the deer to be. Everything was pointing to
Speaker 1: there's gonna be deer here. Sure enough, I caught a
Speaker 1: glimpse of a buck just off the trail that I
Speaker 1: was walking, maybe thirty yards away. It was so thick though,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a shot, so I dropped down and
Speaker 1: circled around the direction he was feeding and got set up.
Speaker 1: He had no clue I was there. He kept feeding,
Speaker 1: going through the brush, and there was one opening. As
Speaker 1: soon as he took a couple of steps into the opening,
Speaker 1: I had already drawn back when I saw the brush moving,
Speaker 1: he stepped out, and just as he stepped out, I grunted.
Speaker 1: He stopped looking my way, but by that point it
Speaker 1: was too late. The arrow was on his way, hit
Speaker 1: right through his shoulder, and he ran off into the
Speaker 1: ravine down below. I saw the bucket dropped off into
Speaker 1: the canyon, and I knew, based upon the shot, he
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna go far. I gave him about fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and started my way down the steep embankment. It
Speaker 1: was super steep, and as soon as I got to
Speaker 1: the bottom there he was lying in the ravine my
Speaker 1: first Columbia black tail. It was an awesome buck, just
Speaker 1: about a year's wide or passed these ears two by two.
Speaker 1: But I hunted hard for that dear this year. I
Speaker 1: got it on the first day of the season, but
Speaker 1: I had hunted a couple of seasons in the past unsuccessfully,
Speaker 1: So to walk up on that buck was just extremely exciting.
Speaker 1: While still hunting my kind of seem like you're just
Speaker 1: walking around and you have to get lucky. It can
Speaker 1: be extremely effective if done right. And there really is
Speaker 1: an art that involves three main components. The first is moving,
Speaker 1: the second looking in, the third being stealthy. So what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break it down into
Speaker 1: those three parts and just give you some tips that
Speaker 1: I use that helped me be consistent and successful while
Speaker 1: still hunting. So I think the words still in still
Speaker 1: hunting really throws people off. They think, oh, that means
Speaker 1: I'm sitting or not moving. Really we should change the
Speaker 1: name of it, But for right now, I want to
Speaker 1: first kind of dive into what still hunting is. And
Speaker 1: it's the methodical part of moving slow through the woods
Speaker 1: that makes it a technique and tactic that you can
Speaker 1: use regularly you're moving, and it works great in cover
Speaker 1: or in areas where you can't glass well. A lot
Speaker 1: of hunts there's so much varying terrain and a lot
Speaker 1: of habitat and a lot of species live and cover,
Speaker 1: But still hunting can also be done in the open
Speaker 1: when you can't see everything at one advantage or one
Speaker 1: glassing point. I would also go so far as to
Speaker 1: say that oftentimes the act of stalking is also still hunting,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that you know where or have
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea of where the animal is that
Speaker 1: you're going after. So let's go into the first aspect moving.
Speaker 1: The number one thing is the methodical walking. When you're moving,
Speaker 1: the most important thing to remember is you have to
Speaker 1: keep the wind right. So whenever I plan out a
Speaker 1: still hunt or an area where I'm going to move
Speaker 1: slowly through, I first have to understand which way is
Speaker 1: the wind going and where do I want to hunt
Speaker 1: it from. It's not necessarily by accident. There might be
Speaker 1: an area of the mountain where I think, okay, this
Speaker 1: is a betting area, this canyon, in this topography, I
Speaker 1: can't see from anywhere else. This area holds good habitat,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go through that good habitat. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go through that area, but I first have to
Speaker 1: get the wind right. There's been so many times where
Speaker 1: I've gone into an area and thought, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: where I want to get to, but the wind changes.
Speaker 1: I always follow the wind or walk into the wind,
Speaker 1: because when you're still hunting, most of the time, the
Speaker 1: animals that you encounter are going to be in close
Speaker 1: proximity to you, possibly already within bow range. It's great
Speaker 1: for bow hunting because yeah, when you see them, you
Speaker 1: can almost get a shot, or you're within that initial
Speaker 1: distance to now creep in. But if you have the
Speaker 1: wind wrong, you're gonna see nothing and you're gonna be unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: So you really have to plan it to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: But your plan should be to walk into the wind.
Speaker 1: That gives you the most option for encountering animals that
Speaker 1: aren't can already know you're there, or blow out before
Speaker 1: you can see them. Now, topography is a key when
Speaker 1: it comes to planning you're still hunt What I like
Speaker 1: to do is I like to work high traffic areas
Speaker 1: where I'm most likely to run into whatever I'm hunting,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be very species based. But there's some
Speaker 1: things that just kind of always ring true. A lot
Speaker 1: of the areas that I like to work our ridges,
Speaker 1: betting areas as well as bottoms. If I'm gonna walk
Speaker 1: a mountain, it seems like the top third of a
Speaker 1: mountain is the most productive. What I mean by that is,
Speaker 1: if you were to separate the mountain into thirds, right
Speaker 1: where that top of the third line meets before it
Speaker 1: hits the top, that range just tends to hold more
Speaker 1: animals than anywhere else on the mountain. But it also
Speaker 1: depends on the species you're hunting and the time of
Speaker 1: day you're hunting. Most of my still hunting. If I'm
Speaker 1: going to plan out a hunt, say a day where
Speaker 1: I'm hunting meal deer, I'll probably start my day sitting
Speaker 1: on advantage glassing early in the morning. Now, once the
Speaker 1: day heats up and things are betting, if I haven't
Speaker 1: seen something, I'm gonna stalk. That's the time that I'm
Speaker 1: probably gonna get antsy, start moving around, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: use that those happy feet that I have to be
Speaker 1: effective by sneaking through bedding areas or areas that I
Speaker 1: couldn't see from any vantage point. A lot of times.
Speaker 1: That might mean a draw where it drops off and
Speaker 1: has bluffs surround it. I'll get into the bottom of
Speaker 1: that a lot of times, or hunt the top of
Speaker 1: that ridge, or maybe just cruise like the top third
Speaker 1: of a hillside that I couldn't see from another area
Speaker 1: that's covered timbered, where I know animals might be on
Speaker 1: their feet later because there's more shade in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day. Also, if I'm in an area where
Speaker 1: I mean this happens so many times, think about hunt
Speaker 1: where it might be a full moon at night, hot
Speaker 1: during the day, and animals are probably just moving more
Speaker 1: at night because they have better visibility due to the
Speaker 1: light of the moon as well as it's cooler. So
Speaker 1: during the day, where are they gonna be. They're gonna
Speaker 1: be in the cover. You might sit there and glass
Speaker 1: and see no animals, or you might be in an
Speaker 1: area that just doesn't lend itself to glassing. But by
Speaker 1: slowly moving through that area, you extend your hunting time
Speaker 1: and the effectiveness of where and what you're targeting. When
Speaker 1: I talk about moving, still, hunting involves a certain type
Speaker 1: of movement. I like to think of it as the
Speaker 1: walk stop look, walk stop look. Now, the speed that
Speaker 1: I move in walking, stopping and looking depends on the
Speaker 1: thickness of where I'm at. Now, if it's more open,
Speaker 1: it's easier to see, I can scan faster, So sometimes
Speaker 1: that might just be a standard walking pace. If I
Speaker 1: get into what I call the fix or really dense cover,
Speaker 1: it might be moving inches in minutes, I mean half
Speaker 1: of a step, getting down, crouching, looking under every brush,
Speaker 1: looking in every direction. Then when I'm positive nothing is
Speaker 1: within view, taking another small step, maybe even going a
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards over the course of an hour. I've
Speaker 1: done that so many times with so many different animals
Speaker 1: creeping through bedding areas. That really works well as well
Speaker 1: with white tailed deer and mule deer in thicker cover.
Speaker 1: There's just so many species that where they like to
Speaker 1: live when they aren't out in the open is the
Speaker 1: really thick stuff. And you can still effectively hunt that
Speaker 1: thick stuff, but you just have to go so slow,
Speaker 1: like you were stalking in there. Now. The walk stop
Speaker 1: look involves looking, So that's our set in peace to
Speaker 1: effective still hunting. I'm gonna break down the right way
Speaker 1: to look, I've probably said this before, but if I
Speaker 1: go out hunting with somebody that I've never hunted with before,
Speaker 1: within about the first ten minutes, I can tell how
Speaker 1: good of a hunter that person is before they ever
Speaker 1: spot an animal, before we ever do anything, just by
Speaker 1: walking with them. And it's because of the way that
Speaker 1: they walk. And it's not the way that the person walks,
Speaker 1: but the way that they look. A person that hunts
Speaker 1: a lot and is successful probably has one thing in
Speaker 1: common with other hunters that are also extremely successful. It's
Speaker 1: that they walk with their head up. They're looking, they
Speaker 1: aren't looking at the ground. There's been so many times,
Speaker 1: and I get the experience from guiding as well, watching
Speaker 1: people walk through the woods and they're looking down at
Speaker 1: the ground, they're watching their feet. Yes, you need to
Speaker 1: be quiet, and we're gonna talk about stealth and a
Speaker 1: little bit, but walking with your head up is more
Speaker 1: important than looking at what's at the ground. When you
Speaker 1: walk with your head up, you're gonna catch things before
Speaker 1: they catch you. Think about the way a deer moves, feeds,
Speaker 1: and acts, pray animals. They might be eating and distracted,
Speaker 1: but not for very long. They're always looking out for
Speaker 1: danger other predators. Their heads are up, they're moving, they're looking.
Speaker 1: You've walked your entire life. It's more successful to let
Speaker 1: your feet feel the ground and look with your eyes
Speaker 1: for animals than it is to be looking at the
Speaker 1: ground and trying to remain quiet. Now you definitely gotta
Speaker 1: think about staying quiet, But if your head's up on
Speaker 1: a swivel looking around, you're gonna catch things that you
Speaker 1: might miss by that glance. The two steps looking down.
Speaker 1: So as I'm moving, I'm always looking around. My head's up,
Speaker 1: I'm alert, and just that small little act will make
Speaker 1: you so much more successful over time. But it's not
Speaker 1: just looking around. When I'm still hunting, i might be
Speaker 1: in close cover or not have a really good view
Speaker 1: very far, but I'm still using my binoculars. And I
Speaker 1: know I've talked about that before, but it's so key.
Speaker 1: What I do is if you have a let's say,
Speaker 1: eight power binoculars are great if you hunt a lot
Speaker 1: of thick cover, but even my higher magnification binoculars I
Speaker 1: still use in thick cover. What I do is I
Speaker 1: put them to my face, so I first look with
Speaker 1: my eyes. Then my next look is with the binoculars
Speaker 1: and I'll scan through the cover and I'll roll that
Speaker 1: focus to varying depths. What you'll notice when you're doing
Speaker 1: that is you're able to see things at say fifteen feet,
Speaker 1: and then look past fifteen feet as I roll the
Speaker 1: focus to thirty ft to sixty ft feet to whatever
Speaker 1: distance you can see. But rolling that really gets out
Speaker 1: a lot of the distraction of the brush, because in
Speaker 1: thicker cover, you're only looking for a very small part
Speaker 1: of the animal. It might be the lateral line of
Speaker 1: a back, it might be the curvature of an ear,
Speaker 1: it might be just a piece of hair. You aren't
Speaker 1: looking for the whole animal, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's obstructed by brush. Even with your natural eye, you
Speaker 1: might say, oh, I can see over there, and you
Speaker 1: take two more steps in something jumps up, runs off,
Speaker 1: and your hunt's blown. You're gonna be a lot more
Speaker 1: successful by just using your optics in the cover, rolling
Speaker 1: that focus and looking past the distractions of all the
Speaker 1: brush that's in front of you. I would say that
Speaker 1: that's one of the most successful tactics I have when
Speaker 1: still hunting, is using my binoculars in that cover. Now,
Speaker 1: another tactic I use for looking is what I call scrolling.
Speaker 1: If I'm hunting open country or more mountainous type terrain,
Speaker 1: what's scrolling is is as I walk, I uncover the
Speaker 1: new terrain below me. So it generally happens when you're
Speaker 1: on a ridge, walking downhill or uphill or over into
Speaker 1: new valley, especially in more open country. Now, as I scroll,
Speaker 1: what I do if I'm coming up over a rise
Speaker 1: or over ridge into new country. I take a step
Speaker 1: or two, and then I kind of read each new
Speaker 1: piece of land as it's presented to me. So I
Speaker 1: take a step as the new ground comes into view
Speaker 1: below me, I look with my binoculer's left to right,
Speaker 1: right to left, take one more step, look in every direction,
Speaker 1: and just scroll like I'm reading a book as I
Speaker 1: move forward. I'm reading that book that's now presented in
Speaker 1: front of me, looking for an animal before it spots me.
Speaker 1: It's super effective tactic as you're moving in on a stock.
Speaker 1: But also if you're just an open country. Every time
Speaker 1: I walk over a new ridge, that's how I walk,
Speaker 1: and that's how I look. I scroll, I take a step,
Speaker 1: I look at the new country. I take a step,
Speaker 1: I look at the new stuff. I don't just pop over,
Speaker 1: because so many times you're gonna get busted on that
Speaker 1: skyline or that ridge line before you see what's hidden
Speaker 1: below you. Now, the third tactic to still hunting is stealth.
Speaker 1: You gotta remember when you're still hunting, you're mostly moving
Speaker 1: through thicker cover, or you're gonna be in an area
Speaker 1: where there's limited visibility, so what you do see will
Speaker 1: be fairly close. I've learned a lot about still hunting
Speaker 1: by hunting in New Zealand and hunting with a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that hunt red deer and some other stuff
Speaker 1: in the more jungle type beech forests. That style of hunting.
Speaker 1: Mixing that with a combination of being extremely quiet is
Speaker 1: really successful because when you see the animals that are
Speaker 1: un alerted to your presence, and most of the time
Speaker 1: you're already within range. Now all you have to do
Speaker 1: is make slight moves and adjustments, a slight play to
Speaker 1: get a chance or to get a shot. It's really
Speaker 1: good for bow hunting, but can be extremely effective for
Speaker 1: rifle hunting as well. Just because you have a rifle
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that all the shots need to be far.
Speaker 1: A rifle is extremely handy in still hunting scenarios because
Speaker 1: you can get the gun up a little smoother and
Speaker 1: a little easier to take your shot. Now, as far
Speaker 1: as stealth goes, I kind of talked about it when
Speaker 1: we're talking about looking. Keeping your head up, but feel
Speaker 1: the ground before you take a step. Walk light on
Speaker 1: your feet. Your steps should be soft and quiet. But
Speaker 1: also as you're picking where you're gonna walk, if you
Speaker 1: can walk through really thick, noisy brush, or you can
Speaker 1: take a game trail, I always opt to take the
Speaker 1: game trail. I use trails when possible. I use logging
Speaker 1: roads when possible. I try to walk on ridges or
Speaker 1: other places where it's going to be more quiet for
Speaker 1: me to walk through. That's all comes down to the
Speaker 1: way that I move and choosing where I'm going to
Speaker 1: walk through. So if I can find a place where
Speaker 1: I can get the wind right, I can try to
Speaker 1: stick to a trail when possible, like a game trail
Speaker 1: or something that doesn't have as much brush, isn't as allowed,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot better. Another thing to consider
Speaker 1: is walking in the shadows, even in a forest or whatever.
Speaker 1: If I'm walking in front, let's say I'm just walking
Speaker 1: up a hundred yards as I'm still hunting and moving,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get behind the shadow of each
Speaker 1: tree that I come to, and then use those bigger
Speaker 1: trees or bigger obstacles to kind of block my form
Speaker 1: for that movement in the direction that I'm going. A
Speaker 1: lot of people don't account for the actual shadows cast
Speaker 1: in the forest and how that can block your human
Speaker 1: outline and not make you stand out even though you're
Speaker 1: walking through the trees the light that's hitting through. I
Speaker 1: like to just pick my route based on what's going
Speaker 1: to be quiet, what's gonna be stealthy, how am I
Speaker 1: going to be least visible. So I'm almost walking and
Speaker 1: stalking at the same time. I'm imagining everywhere that I'm
Speaker 1: going there might be an animal, So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: keep myself is obstructed and as unseen as possible. When
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about gear as far as what I'm wearing.
Speaker 1: If I hunt an area that's extremely timbered or I
Speaker 1: know that I'll probably be still hunting, a lot of
Speaker 1: times I lighten up. I try not to take a
Speaker 1: big pack, although me personally, if I'm filming or whatever,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of stuff with me. A pack
Speaker 1: is super loud in the thicker stuff. So if that's
Speaker 1: the kind of hunting you're gonna be doing more often
Speaker 1: than not, a smaller, lighter pack is a lot better.
Speaker 1: You can get underbrush better, even like a Fannie pack,
Speaker 1: or just going light, maybe using your maps on x
Speaker 1: map or whatever, marking your pack and then saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna still hunt through this four yard wide patch
Speaker 1: of cover. That's probably a good betting area, leave your pack,
Speaker 1: hunt through it, then go back, grab your pack, and
Speaker 1: then even maybe still hunt through another part of it
Speaker 1: before you continue on. But it's just way easier to
Speaker 1: go light, to wear silent clothes. Maybe even think about
Speaker 1: going back to the shoes off situation podcast. There's so
Speaker 1: many times where I've put my stocking socks on and
Speaker 1: literally crept through potential betting areas looking for animals, just
Speaker 1: already in that stealth mode, already in the silent mode,
Speaker 1: because when you see something in thick cover, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be within range and you have to get in there unnoticed,
Speaker 1: undetected by sight, sound and smell. The last thing to
Speaker 1: talk about, as far as successful still hunting would be
Speaker 1: what you do when you see the animal or are
Speaker 1: in position for a shot. A lot of the time,
Speaker 1: as I'm stalking, I'm pretty much ready. A lot of
Speaker 1: quick movements are what's going to get you busted. So
Speaker 1: even if you see something within bow range, you gotta
Speaker 1: think slow, fluid, steady. If your bows already ready, that's great,
Speaker 1: But if it's not, what I do when I take
Speaker 1: an arrow off, I try to get out of sight
Speaker 1: if I can't, either by slowly crouching down, getting low,
Speaker 1: or slowly moving to behind cover or letting the animal pass.
Speaker 1: It's always good to just keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: where's that animal's eye, And if you can't see their
Speaker 1: eye or it's obstructed, they probably can't see you. Just
Speaker 1: keep in mind that most animals have a larger range
Speaker 1: of peripheral vision than us, so just because their heads
Speaker 1: away doesn't mean necessarily that they can't see you. So
Speaker 1: make sure that their eyes obstructed by something, and then
Speaker 1: make a slow movement to get out of sight so
Speaker 1: you can get into position. When you go to put
Speaker 1: an arrow on your bow. It should be a slow movement,
Speaker 1: especially if they're maybe not looking at you, but maybe
Speaker 1: they they saw something that was that was something that
Speaker 1: didn't look right. You can get away with a lot
Speaker 1: by moving slow. I think a lot of people's initial
Speaker 1: reaction is just throw something on real quick, drop down,
Speaker 1: real quick, do something real quick. Oh they're right there.
Speaker 1: I need to move quick. If you have that quick mindset,
Speaker 1: quick mentality, you're doing it wrong. You're going to create
Speaker 1: almost an attitude of panic for yourself because you're so
Speaker 1: close to the animal, or you have to do something
Speaker 1: now and they're gonna catch that. They're gonna pick up
Speaker 1: on that, whereas before maybe they noticed you, but they
Speaker 1: weren't threatened by you. So everything I do at this
Speaker 1: point is very slow, very fluid, very methodical. But I
Speaker 1: also don't waste a lot of time. When you're hunting
Speaker 1: and cover, your opportunities for open clear shots are few
Speaker 1: and far between. Sometimes you just have to take a
Speaker 1: shot when you get it. So I like to be ready,
Speaker 1: but also slow, fluid movements. Now with a rifle, the
Speaker 1: other thing is, you know, it's one of those where
Speaker 1: you bring the rifle up slow. Don't throw the rifle up,
Speaker 1: bring it up slow, do everything calm. If you think calm,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get usted fewer times than you do. If
Speaker 1: you think, oh, he's right there. I gotta go fast.
Speaker 1: Slow and steady is much more effective than fast and rushed.
Speaker 1: I really hope that you found some of that still
Speaker 1: hunting tactics effective. I really think that if you use
Speaker 1: a lot of those tactics, you're going to be more successful,
Speaker 1: and over time it's not gonna be so much just
Speaker 1: walking quiet through the woods, but you'll begin to understand
Speaker 1: where animals are in that thicker cover, how to move,
Speaker 1: and how to just be consistent still hunting. Really, if
Speaker 1: I think about it, most of my hunts, most of
Speaker 1: my successful hunts, especially for new species, involves some form
Speaker 1: of still hunting tactic throughout the day. So it's extremely
Speaker 1: important tactic to use, to practice and to get good
Speaker 1: at because the guys that are really good at it
Speaker 1: are often successful more than other people that don't employ
Speaker 1: that tactic. Before we get out of here, I want
Speaker 1: to read a couple emails that I got sent and
Speaker 1: answer a question from someone. I think I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to add a couple of those every now and then
Speaker 1: to the end of the podcast. So also before I forget,
Speaker 1: I wanted to announce the winners from the Christmas special.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our Christmas special. We had a
Speaker 1: couple of sneaky giveaways, one for some Yetti products, another
Speaker 1: for some binoculars. I've actually contacted those winners a while back,
Speaker 1: but just keep forgetting to announce them here. So I
Speaker 1: want to announce him that way. Everyone knows that if
Speaker 1: you're listening to that episode now and then you catch
Speaker 1: up to this episode, it's too late for you to win.
Speaker 1: They've already been given away. So the V series cooler
Speaker 1: was claimed by Adam Dancy. We did uh Rock paper scissors,
Speaker 1: if I remember it, he chose paper over. I might
Speaker 1: get this name pronounced wrong about Kone Simonte, but Keone
Speaker 1: actually is getting something as well. I think Yettie cut
Speaker 1: some Yetti drinkware. And then I also had the looking
Speaker 1: Ahead Vortex photo contest. All this was through my Instagram page.
Speaker 1: Steve Smith won that his photo was of his kid
Speaker 1: with a red writer b begun looking Ahead talking about
Speaker 1: taking her out into the field. I thought that was
Speaker 1: pretty sweet, cool concept for the Looking Ahead, So good
Speaker 1: work everybody that applied. I really got to appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys taking the time to do that. It was fun
Speaker 1: for me to give that stuff away. So here I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read what we got We've got. I'm actually just
Speaker 1: gonna read it. Let's call it like a testimonial if
Speaker 1: we were selling a product. This is the testimonial for
Speaker 1: Cutting the Distance podcast. So this comes from Dustin Lynde.
Speaker 1: He wrote, I first wanted to drop a quick note
Speaker 1: and thank you for doing Cutting the Distance podcast. Insights
Speaker 1: you share are excellent and actionable. I had spent the
Speaker 1: last six hunting seasons coming up empty on my elk
Speaker 1: tags in Montana, with a lot of frustration and wasted energy.
Speaker 1: A good portion of this was bad luck, and even
Speaker 1: bigger portion was my own stupidity, but each season ended
Speaker 1: with no elk in my freezer. I spend the entire
Speaker 1: spring and summer out of the state for work, so
Speaker 1: scouting has been impossible for the last few years. But
Speaker 1: I was able to take in from your e scouting
Speaker 1: podcast to find solid areas to glass. I took your
Speaker 1: advice by getting better optics and glass the hell out
Speaker 1: of those spots, and lo and behold found a herd
Speaker 1: of elk. My brother and I had both listened to
Speaker 1: your podcast where you advised to take the best route
Speaker 1: for stalking, not the easiest route, and after an ass
Speaker 1: kicker of a sprint of the backside of the mountain,
Speaker 1: found ourselves in a pretty good spot to make shots.
Speaker 1: The timber was too thick to see much of anything,
Speaker 1: so we took your advice from the shoes off situation,
Speaker 1: ditched the boots and moved into the timber. We poked
Speaker 1: our head around some trees and spotted the herd thirty
Speaker 1: yards away, where my brother touched off a shot and
Speaker 1: dropped an elk. In the ensuing mayhem, I was able
Speaker 1: to single out a cow that stopped to look around
Speaker 1: and dropped her at thirty yards, filling my special draw tag.
Speaker 1: This is a situation that I had blown dozens of
Speaker 1: times in the previous seasons by doing stupid things that
Speaker 1: spooked elk, But thanks to the info I got from
Speaker 1: your podcast, I was able to finally fill tags and
Speaker 1: close the deal. Thanks again for all the info, man.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Now, if you haven't listened to some of
Speaker 1: those podcasts you refer to a few of my favorite
Speaker 1: ones that I think have some of the best info,
Speaker 1: and um I get a bunch of those emails, and
Speaker 1: please continue to send those emails and you can always
Speaker 1: reach me at Remy at the meat eater dot com
Speaker 1: or message me on social media on Instagram. I pretty
Speaker 1: much read almost all of them that I can try
Speaker 1: to reply to as many as I can. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to read one here, and maybe I'll read a
Speaker 1: couple more of you guys testimonials in the future. That's
Speaker 1: the whole reason that I'm doing this podcast to read
Speaker 1: that makes me still sit down every week, strap on
Speaker 1: the headphones and give you some of my secrets. I
Speaker 1: might be making an army of extremely skilled hunters, so
Speaker 1: next time I go into the woods, I'm competing against
Speaker 1: a lot of people that have a higher set of skills,
Speaker 1: so there's more competition for me. But reading these things
Speaker 1: makes it worth it makes it worth the time, so
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. Also, if you do listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast, you enjoy it, don't forget to subscribe. There's
Speaker 1: probably a lot of you that listen have to go
Speaker 1: in and find it every week. Hit the subscribe button.
Speaker 1: It just makes it easier for you, and it just
Speaker 1: makes sure that you can get the info that we're
Speaker 1: putting out there. So just reminding everybody to subscribe if
Speaker 1: they don't already. Now I'm going to answer a question
Speaker 1: as well. This question comes from Adam Waddington of Australia.
Speaker 1: He says, do you clean the copper fouling out of
Speaker 1: your barrel and have a possible p o I or
Speaker 1: point of impact for shift next time you shoot, or
Speaker 1: do you leave it fouled up and just keep it
Speaker 1: dry and clean out any of the other stuff by
Speaker 1: running through dry patches. That's a really good question. So
Speaker 1: my personal philosophy with this, and I know if you
Speaker 1: talk to a lot of old timers, they're always they
Speaker 1: shoot the gun, then they clean the gun. I've even
Speaker 1: had people show up in our hunting camps and they
Speaker 1: shoot the rifle on the bench and then before we
Speaker 1: go out hunting clean the rifle with solvents and everything.
Speaker 1: I don't do that. I would rather hunt with a
Speaker 1: dirty rifle. And here's why. I will clean the mechanisms
Speaker 1: that are moving, say the bolt, the trigger, keep things loop,
Speaker 1: make sure everything's moving right. But as far as the
Speaker 1: barrel goes, I clean it. But after I clean it,
Speaker 1: I always shoot it a couple of times because I
Speaker 1: don't want that point of impact changing from where it's
Speaker 1: sited on paper. Because of yeah, most of the time
Speaker 1: after you clean through, you run copper solutions through, your
Speaker 1: point of impact is going to change the first shot
Speaker 1: or a couple of shots. So I personally don't clean
Speaker 1: my gun very often. If I'm shooting a lot, I'll
Speaker 1: clean my rifle afterwards, I'll take a few shots and
Speaker 1: then I'll put it away. What I will do is,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, I will run one of those bore
Speaker 1: snakes down there quite often. It's like one of those
Speaker 1: rope cleaners, just to brush it out, make sure that
Speaker 1: there's nothing in there that's gonna affect it. But I
Speaker 1: like to shoot and then make sure it's right where
Speaker 1: I left it, and then put it away. And that's
Speaker 1: just my personal way that I've done it forever. I've
Speaker 1: had no problems. Now if the gun is dirty enough
Speaker 1: where it's affecting accuracy, like you're getting severe copper fouling, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely clean the gun, then shoot it again to make
Speaker 1: sure you've got the correct point of impact, and then
Speaker 1: keep it that way for a while. Most of the
Speaker 1: time when you're hunting, you'ren't burning through that many rounds.
Speaker 1: So if I'm going to go to the range and
Speaker 1: shoot a lot, like when I practice, I might shoot
Speaker 1: two to four boxes in a weekend, who knows, maybe
Speaker 1: even more. I'll clean it a lot during that just
Speaker 1: so I don't build up extra fouling and other things.
Speaker 1: But when I'm hunting, I don't do like a clean
Speaker 1: right before hunting, I like to know exactly where the
Speaker 1: point of impact is, so I hope that answers the question.
Speaker 1: So thank you guys very much for listening in. I
Speaker 1: appreciate everyone. Until next week, keep your rifle's dirty, alright,
Speaker 1: see you