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 Yetti,
Speaker 1: built for the wild stocking game. Animals with either a
Speaker 1: rifle or a bow can be difficult, but I have
Speaker 1: a full proof mantra when it comes to planning a stock,
Speaker 1: something that I say as a guiding light nearly every
Speaker 1: time I plan to sneak in. It's this, go the
Speaker 1: best way, not the easy way. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about what that means, as well as the three factors
Speaker 1: that generally get you busted wind sight and noise, and
Speaker 1: how those factor into the best way to stock. I
Speaker 1: constantly have to tell myself this over and over as
Speaker 1: I plan a stock, but one particular time that stands
Speaker 1: out ended with the biggest mule deer I have ever
Speaker 1: taken with a bow. Everybody loves a big bucks story,
Speaker 1: and this is my biggest buck story that I've got now.
Speaker 1: I drew a limited entry tag in Montana and had
Speaker 1: heard rumors of a big buck in a particular area.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting permission on this block management area,
Speaker 1: which is private land where they allow public access. The
Speaker 1: morning started out with my buddy Brett and I in
Speaker 1: the area posted up on a glassing knob before Senate.
Speaker 1: Now we're working into the wind and as the sun's
Speaker 1: coming up, we sit there just like most mornings, the
Speaker 1: sun starts to come up and get a chill in
Speaker 1: the air, and just felt like a good day, you know.
Speaker 1: Besides that, one thing that happened that is very of
Speaker 1: important note for this story. On the way there, my
Speaker 1: lucky song Kashmir by led Zeppelin hit the radio. Now,
Speaker 1: when that happens, that's a good omen for me and
Speaker 1: my buddies. That means it's gonna be a killed day.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but before the sun even came up,
Speaker 1: my buddy Mike texts me, hey man, Kashmir came on
Speaker 1: the radio. Good luck out there today. I don't know
Speaker 1: why that's important for this story, but it means a
Speaker 1: lot to me because this is a day that I
Speaker 1: will remember forever. As the sun came up, the temperature
Speaker 1: started to drop. I was hiking up pretty steep hill,
Speaker 1: so I was in pretty light clothing, shivering a little bit,
Speaker 1: get my jacket out, start glassing. All right, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna she's gotta be a big buck in here. Summer
Speaker 1: is great looking country. I saw a few smaller deer,
Speaker 1: but well, that's the way it was going. And then
Speaker 1: I looked down into the valley and here's a group
Speaker 1: of nine bucks, all what I would consider possible shooters,
Speaker 1: with one in there that just stood out leaps and
Speaker 1: bounds beyond the rest is one of the biggest deer
Speaker 1: I've seen in the state of Montana. I knew that
Speaker 1: I had to make it happen today, So I decided
Speaker 1: to watch the deer see where they went, hopefully be
Speaker 1: able to make a play and make a good stock.
Speaker 1: As they moved up the canyon, they started feeding and
Speaker 1: milling around. My first initial thought was, God, wad be
Speaker 1: easy to drop down and pop up that ridge right
Speaker 1: behind them and then trail them up. The trouble was,
Speaker 1: I knew that the wind in order to get to
Speaker 1: that spot, there's a slight chance that it would give
Speaker 1: me away. I had to tell myself in my head,
Speaker 1: go the best way, not the easy way, which in
Speaker 1: that moment you think, yeah, of course I do that,
Speaker 1: but the best way involved practically run unning around the
Speaker 1: mountain up a steep incline and over the backside to
Speaker 1: come in the other direction, so there was no possibility
Speaker 1: the deer could see me and or wind me on
Speaker 1: the route. There's a way to get there faster, but
Speaker 1: it involved potentially getting winded and across through an open section,
Speaker 1: which could get me spotted. That wasn't gonna work. It
Speaker 1: was time to get athletic and take the best way,
Speaker 1: not the easy way. I don't know if my buddy
Speaker 1: Brett really liked that home entree. He's like, let's just
Speaker 1: go this way. I was like, no, we're going to
Speaker 1: the top, and he stuck with me because he knew
Speaker 1: how big that buck was and how excited I was
Speaker 1: to try to make a play on it. So we
Speaker 1: dropped down out of sight go too canyons around, climbed
Speaker 1: straight up the steep hill in the direction that they
Speaker 1: were feeding in hopes of cutting him off as they
Speaker 1: got to the top. As I neared the top, I'm
Speaker 1: coming over and I see antler tips sixty yards out
Speaker 1: moving in our direction. The lead buck stops and just
Speaker 1: pegs my direction. I'm like, oh, no, do we get spotted.
Speaker 1: I lay down, not moving still. Now it would have
Speaker 1: been easy at this point to get impatient, to sneak up,
Speaker 1: maybe try to get a shot, hoping that that bigger
Speaker 1: buck was within sight. But I knew I had to
Speaker 1: just be patient and do what was best. The best
Speaker 1: thing at that moment, because I didn't see the bigger
Speaker 1: buck in the group right then, was to just lay
Speaker 1: there motionless. I laid there and resisted the urge to
Speaker 1: peek up to look around. About thirty minutes went by
Speaker 1: before I decided to move again. At that point, the
Speaker 1: deer had gotten back into their rhythm, ignored me, started
Speaker 1: feeding and moving past me. All the deer had moved
Speaker 1: out except for two out of the group. The two
Speaker 1: missing were the big buck and the smallest buck. Now
Speaker 1: in between the point where those deer went over. Remember
Speaker 1: I took kind of mental notes on the mountain and
Speaker 1: were a couple of trees down below in this canyon.
Speaker 1: My thought was, the sun's out, it's getting hot. That
Speaker 1: buck had to have stopped and bedded in that shade.
Speaker 1: I waited for about an hour. The big buck never
Speaker 1: came up with the rest of the group, so I
Speaker 1: was assuming that he was down below, kind of where
Speaker 1: I last saw him before I went around the mountain. Now,
Speaker 1: it would have been easy to just sneak down from
Speaker 1: where I was at, but I knew that there was
Speaker 1: a chance walking down that way that I would get
Speaker 1: busted because I would be walking down the mountain in
Speaker 1: sight of where they could potentially be bedded. So I
Speaker 1: backed out went back down the mountain. Now, the thermals
Speaker 1: were coming up, but there was a spot where I
Speaker 1: could parallel around the hill and get into proximity of
Speaker 1: where I expected this deer to be bedded. I took
Speaker 1: off my shoes and I slowly started to creep in.
Speaker 1: As I got within range, I kept ranging the big tree,
Speaker 1: not seeing anything, not seeing anything, crawling slow, steady. Then
Speaker 1: I see antler tips of the small buck. I'm like, sweet,
Speaker 1: they're here. I don't see the big buck, but he's
Speaker 1: got to be right below me. There's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a ledge below me somewhere that he could be
Speaker 1: tucked out of sight, and I just decided to sit
Speaker 1: and wait till they start moving again. Now, as I
Speaker 1: sat down, the little buck caught a glimpse of something,
Speaker 1: but I was already within range. I'd range of the
Speaker 1: whole hill. The big buck started to trot out, knowing
Speaker 1: something wasn't right, stopped. I grunted, drew back, stopped the
Speaker 1: buck and let the arrow fly. It hit its mark.
Speaker 1: The buck ran over the hill and fell over. When
Speaker 1: I walked up on that deer, I was pretty much
Speaker 1: in disbelief. It was one of the biggest deer I'd
Speaker 1: ever laid my hands on. Now, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that could have gone wrong in that stock. It
Speaker 1: was extremely open country, a lot of chances for those
Speaker 1: deer to spot me before hand and blow out way
Speaker 1: ahead of time, a lot of chances with the way
Speaker 1: the winds were swirling to win me. But every time
Speaker 1: I made a decision, I said go the best way,
Speaker 1: not the easy way. There were so many ways that
Speaker 1: would have just been easier or faster to go. But
Speaker 1: in the long run, it ended up working out just right,
Speaker 1: and I got the buck of my dreams. Now, when
Speaker 1: I say go the best way, not the easy way,
Speaker 1: what's that even mean? When you're thinking about a potential stock,
Speaker 1: there's always these little outs, little ways to go, a
Speaker 1: direction that will probably get you there, But something's just
Speaker 1: a little bit wrong. The best way is the way
Speaker 1: with the least amount of possible ways to get busted. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if you have all your options laid out on
Speaker 1: the table right in front of you, you have to
Speaker 1: pick the option has the least potential to send that
Speaker 1: animal running, and that oftentimes I found statistically over the years,
Speaker 1: the best way is often the most physical or longest
Speaker 1: way possible. It's the way that kind of seems in
Speaker 1: your mind, I don't really feel like doing that. That's
Speaker 1: because there's an element in choosing the best route, not
Speaker 1: based on what's the easiest. You have to pick it
Speaker 1: based on what is the most likely to get you
Speaker 1: in position without hitting the three get busted factors. Those
Speaker 1: three get busted factors are the wind, being spotted, and
Speaker 1: being heard. Those are the three things that you need
Speaker 1: to take into account when planning your stock, and then
Speaker 1: you pick the option that always lends you to get
Speaker 1: within range without the deer ever potentially being aware of
Speaker 1: your presence. Okay, so let's break down those three factors.
Speaker 1: Will start with wind. Wind is the one thing that
Speaker 1: might be invisible, but you can never get away with it.
Speaker 1: Once an animal smells you, they are blowing out. I
Speaker 1: always consider that is the most important thing to avoid
Speaker 1: getting winded. Now you have to first account for what's
Speaker 1: the prevailing wind doing. When you're on a spot in
Speaker 1: stock hunt, no amount of scent control solution will prevent
Speaker 1: that animal from smelling you. The only thing that will
Speaker 1: work is using the wind in your favor, and that
Speaker 1: means putting the animal up wind of you, so your
Speaker 1: scent does not ever have the potential to reach it. Now,
Speaker 1: there's so many stocks where you start thinking about the
Speaker 1: other factor's site and sound. I think I gotta get
Speaker 1: around behind him because there's that tree. You won't be
Speaker 1: able to see me and I walk in. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm six hundred yards out and my winds kind of
Speaker 1: going that direction. You know. In order to get the
Speaker 1: wind right, I have to drop all the way around
Speaker 1: this mountain, down that canyon, and then up the other side.
Speaker 1: I'll just try going this route. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: quicker to get out of sight. The trouble is Murphy's
Speaker 1: the law. You think it probably won't happen, but the
Speaker 1: majority of the time will happen. He's gonna win you.
Speaker 1: He'll be aware of your presence. You're putting yourself in
Speaker 1: that category where he has the chance to know you're
Speaker 1: there before you want him to. The whole key is
Speaker 1: you don't want him to know you're there ever, you
Speaker 1: want to make your shot before that animal really realizes
Speaker 1: you're there. Other things to consider when you're talking about win.
Speaker 1: You can't just think about which ways the prevailing wind going,
Speaker 1: but you also have to think about will the wind
Speaker 1: or thermal's change as time goes on. Is it early
Speaker 1: in the morning, are those thermals still rising then the
Speaker 1: prevailing wind will kick in and shift. Is it close
Speaker 1: to the evening. Are you making a stock near the
Speaker 1: end of the day. Are the thermal is gonna shift
Speaker 1: and start going downhill once it starts to get shaded
Speaker 1: on that animal? So you have to think about the
Speaker 1: wind where you're at, plus future or potential actions, and
Speaker 1: give yourself a timeline of how long it will take
Speaker 1: to get there, as well as Okay, is this stock
Speaker 1: gonna work in the amount of time that I have.
Speaker 1: If you're planning on getting above them, but you think, well,
Speaker 1: the thermals are gonna shift, I'm gonna run out of time,
Speaker 1: you might need to rethink your plan and get into
Speaker 1: a spot that if the thermals do change, you're still
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. All of this planning is continually thinking
Speaker 1: what's the best option, what's the option that gives me
Speaker 1: the least amount of chance to get busted. Next, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about site. This is one where you can get
Speaker 1: away with a little bit, but it's the easiest one
Speaker 1: to see visually. As long as you keep that animal's
Speaker 1: eyes to where it's blocked, its visions blocked from where
Speaker 1: you are, it can't see you. That's something to think about.
Speaker 1: Just because you can see its body, you want to
Speaker 1: keep its head or its eyesight from even being able
Speaker 1: to slightly pick you up. Now. I tend to go
Speaker 1: overboard because what I like to look for is what
Speaker 1: I call a blind approach, where I can get to
Speaker 1: within range, whether it's a rifle abode, whatever, Wherever I
Speaker 1: plan to get within range and make my shot from,
Speaker 1: I want to be out of sight all the way
Speaker 1: through that point. Let's say you're six seven yards out
Speaker 1: and you gotta cross this big open I would rather
Speaker 1: drop down and walk an extra half a mile quarter mile,
Speaker 1: or go up a steeper section to get around the
Speaker 1: backside where I know I'll be out of sight, or
Speaker 1: I can keep popping over and checking in on him
Speaker 1: on the way, but using all my travel out of
Speaker 1: sight because I know that there's no potential to get
Speaker 1: busted before I get within range. Now that's not always possible,
Speaker 1: depending on the scenario, but if you can't, then you
Speaker 1: need to keep his eyes away from where he can
Speaker 1: look and see you. You also have to remember that
Speaker 1: a lot of animals you'll be stalking have a lot
Speaker 1: better peripheral vision than we do. They can see behind
Speaker 1: their head a lot better than you might give them
Speaker 1: credit for. Take an antelope, for instance, you can see
Speaker 1: all but maybe forty five degrees directly behind its head.
Speaker 1: So their eyesight is the second most important factor that
Speaker 1: you need to consider. Now. The third thing sound, so
Speaker 1: noise is a factor that you can control while on
Speaker 1: the stalk based on your speed and the type of approach.
Speaker 1: Earlier we talked about in an earlier podcasting. If you
Speaker 1: haven't listened to it, go back and find it. The
Speaker 1: shoes off situation talks about moving in stealthily. Right now,
Speaker 1: moving fast creates a certain amount of noise. Slowing it
Speaker 1: down creates less noise. Before you even stalk in. Look
Speaker 1: at what's around that animal. A lot of times, say
Speaker 1: mule deer, they'll bed in areas that lend themselves to
Speaker 1: be noisy where they can add that audio queue to danger.
Speaker 1: So if there's a shale slide behind the animal, one
Speaker 1: that's going to be exposed to, it's going to be loud.
Speaker 1: Try to plan your approach on a quieter route. The
Speaker 1: best route, not the easiest route. So many times it's
Speaker 1: just oh yeah, I can creep down this shale slide
Speaker 1: to him instead of go around, get parallel with it,
Speaker 1: and then crawl in, because slowing down and crawling a
Speaker 1: lot of times can be a pain. The same goes
Speaker 1: for sight. You know you might have an animal bedded
Speaker 1: facing the direct and that you need to come in from. Well,
Speaker 1: you can stay out of sight oftentimes by just crawling
Speaker 1: that extra distance, especially with a bow. I've been really
Speaker 1: successful by doing most of my stocks crawling. It can
Speaker 1: be painful, it can take a long time. It sucks
Speaker 1: to crawl through a lot of this stuff, but it's quiet,
Speaker 1: it's out of sight. It's more difficult, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's the best approach. So constantly thinking about
Speaker 1: the best way not the easiest way. Yeah, it's easier
Speaker 1: to crouch over and move in and this, that and
Speaker 1: the other thing. But if the best way is going
Speaker 1: to be to crawl in, to stay out of sight
Speaker 1: and to stay quiet, that's what you need to do.
Speaker 1: So plan your stocks with that mantra in mind, and
Speaker 1: over the course of time, I promise you you'll be
Speaker 1: more successful. If there's one takeaway from this podcast, this
Speaker 1: episode right now, honestly, I think it should be don't
Speaker 1: get lazy and cheat yourself out of success. This might
Speaker 1: be about stalking and them all and you might only
Speaker 1: hunt from a tree stand for white tailed deer or
Speaker 1: be a turkey hunter. It doesn't matter. That principle is
Speaker 1: successful for all types of hunting. Think about when you're
Speaker 1: selecting your tree stand, picking the right wind, getting in silent,
Speaker 1: going away that might be a little more difficult, or
Speaker 1: setting up in an area that might be a little
Speaker 1: more difficult, but you know is the best option. Doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you're hunting. If you choose that and be
Speaker 1: persistent at it, you're going to be more successful. And
Speaker 1: that's the whole goal here, more success in the field.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you checking this podcast out listening. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the best thing, my favorite thing, is all the response
Speaker 1: we've been getting. A lot of people are listening to
Speaker 1: these while they're headed out to their deer stands, while
Speaker 1: they're headed out to the mountain, while they're headed out hunting.
Speaker 1: And that's what gets me excited, because you're out there,
Speaker 1: you're getting after it. I always love to hear your
Speaker 1: feedback and your response, as well as your success stories.
Speaker 1: So key that coming in. I appreciate it, and good luck.
Speaker 1: May the Force be with you. You know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do on the next Q and A podcast that
Speaker 1: I do, I'm going to read some of the suggested
Speaker 1: sign offs because some of them are great. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start using a bunch of those. That's fun. It's fun
Speaker 1: not having a sign off, and I like the aspect
Speaker 1: of talking about it nearly weakly. It's entertaining for me,
Speaker 1: all right, me, The Force be with you.