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. You picked an area to
Speaker 1: hunt and got a tag, whether it happened to be
Speaker 1: a draw tag or an over the counter unit. You've
Speaker 1: got five days to a week planned out of your
Speaker 1: schedule for the season. Now what do you do? Last
Speaker 1: week I talked about ways that you could find tags
Speaker 1: to apply for, find hunts to go on, and then
Speaker 1: ways that while you're at home you can eat scout
Speaker 1: and map scout and plan out your hunt by locating
Speaker 1: areas that really focus on the type of hunting that
Speaker 1: you like to do. This week is the boots on
Speaker 1: the ground portion, and it's the first steps that I
Speaker 1: take when I go into a new area. Honestly, most
Speaker 1: of the places I venture into the area is completely
Speaker 1: new to me. So I have this process that I
Speaker 1: go through to help me locate the most productive areas
Speaker 1: to focus my efforts. And then I follow my plan
Speaker 1: that I made from home. I start by hunting for
Speaker 1: a place to hunt and confirming spots based on my
Speaker 1: plan through previewing an area, locating high percentage spots, and
Speaker 1: adapting to what I find. But before we go into that,
Speaker 1: I want to share the story of how I found
Speaker 1: the biggest white tail I've ever seen while guiding in
Speaker 1: an area I'd never been. This story takes place in
Speaker 1: early archery season in northwest Montana. Now, when I was
Speaker 1: first starting out guiding, I was pretty eager to just
Speaker 1: get any work that I could. The outfit that it
Speaker 1: worked for, he actually had an an operation in quite
Speaker 1: a few different places, and because of that, I got
Speaker 1: the opportunity to hunt some places that I hadn't really
Speaker 1: hunted before. At the time, I was very familiar with
Speaker 1: a couple areas and that's where he did most of
Speaker 1: his rifle season hunts and some archery hunts. But early
Speaker 1: in the season he actually ran an outfit right kind
Speaker 1: of around the Bob Marshall Wilderness in some of the
Speaker 1: areas in northwest Montana. On this particular hunt, it was
Speaker 1: the first week of the archery season and he had
Speaker 1: some clients coming in looking for white tails. Now, this
Speaker 1: this one particular area was known for big white tail Bucks,
Speaker 1: but his mountain hunting really thick timbered country and could
Speaker 1: definitely be a difficult hunt. The guide that he had
Speaker 1: planned for that hunt, something happened to him. He wasn't
Speaker 1: able to make it, so he needed a guide, and
Speaker 1: I was really eager to step up and get some work,
Speaker 1: so I figured, yet I'm in. The trouble was that
Speaker 1: the season started I think four days from this point
Speaker 1: that I you that I was going to be guiding
Speaker 1: up there, and I wanted to make sure that I
Speaker 1: was going to be able to put these guys on
Speaker 1: deer and give him a good hunt. So I pretty
Speaker 1: much as soon as I got the call, drove all
Speaker 1: night to the spot, met up with the outfitter I
Speaker 1: was working for, kind of talk to him about some
Speaker 1: of the spots that he liked to hunt in places
Speaker 1: to go. I had all the paper maps for the area,
Speaker 1: so at the time, there was no note. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's it's so much easier now when I think back
Speaker 1: on it, but at the time, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a stack of paper maps and it had roads, it
Speaker 1: had topo lines, and that was pretty much it. I
Speaker 1: also had a GPS, but the GPS had no mapping
Speaker 1: software on it. It had no topo lines. It just
Speaker 1: had you could like pin away point and it would
Speaker 1: give you coordinates that I could then cross reference on
Speaker 1: a map if needed. So after talking with him, I
Speaker 1: also thought, okay, this is this is timbered country. I
Speaker 1: know what white tails like. They need some of that
Speaker 1: open as well, especially early season. It was one of
Speaker 1: those long springs, so the antler growth that most of
Speaker 1: the year would probably still be in velvet. So I figured,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look for some more open areas. You know,
Speaker 1: I had heard from talking to people that the bucks
Speaker 1: tended to be bachelored up still in the high country,
Speaker 1: and there's still some really good lowland stuff that I
Speaker 1: wanted to check out. But I looked over the maps
Speaker 1: and kind of located some areas that I thought looked
Speaker 1: really good to me. Then I also even talked to
Speaker 1: some people who work for the Forest Service about places
Speaker 1: that had been logged recently and some older logged areas.
Speaker 1: Because my thought was there was a lot of logging
Speaker 1: roads and a lot of hiking trails in the area.
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of pick some areas that maybe
Speaker 1: the timber had been cut out a little bit, providing
Speaker 1: really good habitat for the white tails. Most of the
Speaker 1: other areas I'd hut in Montana were burns or more open,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to find in this real thick timber,
Speaker 1: some good logged areas that are maybe two years old,
Speaker 1: a little bit of growth where they felt secure but
Speaker 1: open enough where you know, it provided good feed and
Speaker 1: their sensitive antlers for their summer habits wouldn't really be affected.
Speaker 1: So I kind of focused in on those areas. I
Speaker 1: then pretty much just jumped in my truck, which was
Speaker 1: called the Rambo truck at the time. There's a big,
Speaker 1: lifted giant dodge that got about eight miles to the
Speaker 1: gallon I think maybe less Luckily gas wasn't as expensive
Speaker 1: visit became a few years later, and I would just
Speaker 1: start driving the logging roads and with my maps in hand,
Speaker 1: learning where I'm going, and just kind of pre viewing windows,
Speaker 1: shopping and seeing what's around, what kind of terrain is available,
Speaker 1: what everything looks like. There wasn't any way that I
Speaker 1: could look at it online or anything at that time,
Speaker 1: and there definitely wasn't any self service either, so that
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be an option. But I just I
Speaker 1: used my time to really learn where I was going.
Speaker 1: And then I even would get to a trailhead or
Speaker 1: a locked gate, I would put on my jogging shoes
Speaker 1: and then I would just jog these trails, logging roads, whatever,
Speaker 1: and just kind of see it's around, what the terrain
Speaker 1: looks like. I had my GPS on me, and if
Speaker 1: there was a spot that looked good, I would pin
Speaker 1: it market and then every night I would go back
Speaker 1: on the map and put little pins on places that
Speaker 1: I thought were good, and then just wrote out a
Speaker 1: list of notes from what I saw that looked great.
Speaker 1: I also checked out some of the lower stuff while
Speaker 1: scouting and found some good like what I consider basket
Speaker 1: rack bucks, some of those smaller age class dear, and
Speaker 1: then I found a spot that had some pretty good
Speaker 1: trails and had some one twenty one thirty type bucks,
Speaker 1: so I thought, oh, those would be those would be perfect.
Speaker 1: So it was the day before the hunters came in
Speaker 1: and I was talking without fit Her and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess these guys only want to hunt giant bucks
Speaker 1: like trophy one fifty type bucks are better, And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, I already had this plan in my
Speaker 1: head of Okay, there's some good deer in this lower country,
Speaker 1: so we're going to kind of hunt some of that.
Speaker 1: Hearing that, I'm like, oh crap, Now I got to
Speaker 1: readjust my plan. So I started looking at some of
Speaker 1: the higher elevation areas. There's one area that had a
Speaker 1: really long road, and I noticed on the map that
Speaker 1: there was a spot where I could maybe get to
Speaker 1: what looked like it would be a glassing knob, and
Speaker 1: I'd heard that after talking four service. There was like
Speaker 1: some what I was looking for, some of that freshly
Speaker 1: timbered country, maybe a couple of years old, just logged
Speaker 1: two years before. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: try this spot out. I started jogging the road and realized, man,
Speaker 1: this is a long ways back here. So I dropped
Speaker 1: down the creek bottom went up to that point, and
Speaker 1: sure enough it opened up in this logging area that
Speaker 1: was many miles on the road to get to. Yet
Speaker 1: I kind of cross country through some thick, nasty, steep
Speaker 1: stuff and got there in a mile. I was like, sweet.
Speaker 1: So I go back to my truck and then just
Speaker 1: start checking more and more areas. I think on my
Speaker 1: GPS I had gone I mean it's long days that
Speaker 1: time of year, but I think I'd gone close to
Speaker 1: thirty five forty miles just jogging and hiking and checking
Speaker 1: out areas. In those days that I was scouting. I
Speaker 1: was just going like a madman, trying to figure just
Speaker 1: trying to find animals, but fine spots that looked good
Speaker 1: to me. So the hunters show up in camp, get
Speaker 1: them all settled, and I'm actually excited because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've seen some good areas. I think with a little
Speaker 1: bit of time, we can focus on these spots. So
Speaker 1: we get out and we check a couple of There's
Speaker 1: a couple logging roads and things that I had marked
Speaker 1: early on in the scouting that that looked good. We
Speaker 1: saw a few smaller bucks, but nothing really that the
Speaker 1: guys are after. And I got to keep in mind
Speaker 1: it is also a bow hunt, so it's like a
Speaker 1: big country, a lot of mountains. It's like a mountainous
Speaker 1: white tail bow hunt. So it's very difficult task. But
Speaker 1: I felt up to it, and I felt fairly confident
Speaker 1: that we would find something good. After the first day,
Speaker 1: we actually ended up chasing They had elk tags as well,
Speaker 1: and we ended up chasing some bulls up in this
Speaker 1: little meadow park area. I found this really awesome moose shed.
Speaker 1: While we're in there, I was calling this one bull
Speaker 1: in and he just never fully committed. Its real thick timber,
Speaker 1: and I think his cows just ended up wandering off.
Speaker 1: And it was one of those experiences we really like,
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was so close to getting that bull
Speaker 1: and didn't work out. So the next day I just decided,
Speaker 1: I know these guys are really into white tails, let's
Speaker 1: let's go check that spot that I had to drop
Speaker 1: down to the canyon and then walk up the really
Speaker 1: steep hillside and get to that point. I knew that
Speaker 1: it was going to be not that far. It's like
Speaker 1: a mile, but to get in there walking on the
Speaker 1: roads was a lot of miles, and I was like,
Speaker 1: there's no way you could do that before daylight without
Speaker 1: just walk starting at midnight and get in there. But
Speaker 1: that shortcut, I think we can do that. We'll be
Speaker 1: up really early, but I think we can do that.
Speaker 1: We get up there. The guys are calling it the
Speaker 1: jungle like it was not. They were not super happy
Speaker 1: about the climb up in there, but I thought, trust me,
Speaker 1: this is the fastest way and we can just walk
Speaker 1: the road out if we have to. So we get
Speaker 1: up into that spot, get set up before dark, and
Speaker 1: as it starts to get light, glass in that area.
Speaker 1: And when I was in there the first time, I
Speaker 1: just like in the middle, it was this little creek
Speaker 1: running down. I just thought this is perfect. And there's
Speaker 1: all these little willows poking up in the creek, and
Speaker 1: it was like more overgrown in some of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So I started focusing in that, thinking, well, maybe these
Speaker 1: deer watering in the morning. And I'm looking in that
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I see as it starts
Speaker 1: to get like like a flick of a white tail's tail,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, the guys, there's there's deer in there.
Speaker 1: I've got my spotting scope on it. And I see
Speaker 1: this buck pick his head up, and I'm like that
Speaker 1: that's a nice buck. It's like a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: inch public Land Mountain white tail buck. And there's four
Speaker 1: other bucks in there that are about the same size,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of smaller, couple of little bit bigger.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, in the back this
Speaker 1: buck lifts its head up and it's just a giant
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the whitest white tail I'd ever seen,
Speaker 1: easily a hundred and seventy five in white tail buck
Speaker 1: on public land, Like this is this buck? Would net
Speaker 1: Boone and Crockett guaranteed it is just a giant deer,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my god, you guys gotta look
Speaker 1: at it. Like I wanted to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: saw this deer because this is just the deer of
Speaker 1: a lifetime. And they looked in the scope and it
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, game time, go time. We gotta try
Speaker 1: to get this deer. I figured the closest timber where
Speaker 1: they would get was above them, and one of the
Speaker 1: smaller bucks already started feeding uphill. And the perfect thing
Speaker 1: was the thermals were now like that. I knew that
Speaker 1: as soon as the sun started going up, the thermals
Speaker 1: we're gonna go up. If we got above them, we
Speaker 1: would be in the right spot. And this little goalie
Speaker 1: was like just the perfect setup. So I'm like, I
Speaker 1: told one of the guys, I'm like, which one of
Speaker 1: you shooting? Because we have to go. We gotta We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go fast because we got to kind
Speaker 1: of chase the sun they're gonna move up with the sunline.
Speaker 1: We need to get into position before they get there,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a pretty good climb, so
Speaker 1: we had to kind of go back around the mountain
Speaker 1: and then just hustle straight up. One of the guys like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's in a little bit better or shape and he's
Speaker 1: got the first shot, so okay, cool, So I take
Speaker 1: one guy. The other guy is just gonna sit there
Speaker 1: and watch. And I'm like, I'm setting the pace when
Speaker 1: somebody's following me, hunting with me, and I know I
Speaker 1: have to get somewhere. I don't wait on them. I
Speaker 1: let them like they're just they're just gonna be constantly
Speaker 1: trying to catch up, especially because I know the caliber
Speaker 1: of that, dear and how rare it is to to
Speaker 1: get a buck like that with a bow on public land.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking this is our chance. So we work up.
Speaker 1: He's dragging behind. I'm like, dude, give me your pack,
Speaker 1: give me your bow, whatever, I don't care. We gotta
Speaker 1: like pretty much run to get into position. So I
Speaker 1: keep getting ahead, getting ahead, and we're like getting there,
Speaker 1: and I'm just knowing that it's a race against the clock,
Speaker 1: Like we are going to either be there on time
Speaker 1: or just miss them. So I marked just visually. There
Speaker 1: is a couple of trees that hadn't been logged, but
Speaker 1: it was pretty much like a big clear cut. So
Speaker 1: when I got to the backside, I peeked over and
Speaker 1: I saw those trees that were my markers, and I
Speaker 1: ream remember that there's like this real brushy spot. They
Speaker 1: went down to this this log that was still on
Speaker 1: the ground, and I thought, just looking at it, that
Speaker 1: looked like it would be within range of that little
Speaker 1: gully for the deer to come up. So I'm like
Speaker 1: at the top, trying to get him to hustle, trying
Speaker 1: to get him to hustle. We get in and we
Speaker 1: start moving down to this log and I can see
Speaker 1: the antler tips of some of the bucks. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, dude, like this is gonna happen. So we
Speaker 1: start creeping down to the log and I know we're
Speaker 1: just like a little bit behind, but it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: The winds perfect, the deer still feeding. We get set
Speaker 1: up on this falling log like right behind it. We've
Speaker 1: got good cover and everything. I kind of peek up
Speaker 1: and I see their antler tips and they're like thirty
Speaker 1: forty yards out. So there's a couple of smaller bucks
Speaker 1: going through and then the bigger buck. And I see
Speaker 1: that bigger buck and I'm like, oh, dude, this is it.
Speaker 1: So I got a crowd down and it's just that
Speaker 1: perfect angle because they're below U. Since I crouched down,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't see him. So I just whispered
Speaker 1: to the guy case he's I popped up and arranged him.
Speaker 1: He's like forty yards just drawback, stand up and shoot him. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he got freaked out or what,
Speaker 1: just like a little bit of target panic. I was saying,
Speaker 1: drawback out of sight because they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: see him. Draw back, and then just slowly stand up
Speaker 1: and shoot. It was just set up perfect. He stood
Speaker 1: up and just did this huge draw motion, like pulling
Speaker 1: the bow and moving his arm like sky drawing, and
Speaker 1: that movement the buck whipped over looked right at him,
Speaker 1: and that whole hurded deer just blew out. Oh. We
Speaker 1: we were both just heartbroken. I was thinking, man, that
Speaker 1: is probably one of the best opportunities at a buck
Speaker 1: like that, And to this day, I always there's very
Speaker 1: few times whereas guiding where I'm thinking, Man, I wish
Speaker 1: I was the guy with the gun or bow on
Speaker 1: that scenario. That deer is one of the deer that
Speaker 1: in my memory. There's probably five deer in my life
Speaker 1: that stick out just so crisp and clean in my memory,
Speaker 1: and that's one of them. And I still have never
Speaker 1: found a buck comparable to that one on public land.
Speaker 1: When it really comes down to it, hunting for a
Speaker 1: place to hunt is as important as the hunt itself.
Speaker 1: For many hunters. Scouting is a big part of the
Speaker 1: planning and hunting process. There hunts where you can put
Speaker 1: in adequate time beforehand, and then there are those hunts
Speaker 1: where you just can't. So I'm going to cover both.
Speaker 1: I really think that there's something fun as well as
Speaker 1: something rewarding about that idea of being able to go
Speaker 1: out and scout the area. You know the area better,
Speaker 1: you understand what you're looking for and what's the potential
Speaker 1: in the area, and it gives you an idea when
Speaker 1: that season opens up where you want to be, and
Speaker 1: a better formulation of the actual hunt plan. But I
Speaker 1: also know that and this happens for me a lot
Speaker 1: many of the places that I hunt, I don't have
Speaker 1: time to scout. It might be a long ways from
Speaker 1: my house. I've got other things going on. I might
Speaker 1: have only a week or five days to do a
Speaker 1: certain hunt, maybe less, maybe more. But I have the
Speaker 1: same philosophy of a mini scout within the hunt itself.
Speaker 1: So what I want to do is I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk about scouting verse previewing an area. So scouting is
Speaker 1: what I might do ahead of time, preseason, and then
Speaker 1: previews what I might do if I don't have time
Speaker 1: to scout during the season or right before the season.
Speaker 1: What scouting is is it's the act of searching for something,
Speaker 1: often a spot, and also the animals in the area.
Speaker 1: So many scouting trips are really just hunting trips where
Speaker 1: you're looking for animals but you just have no ability
Speaker 1: to harvest. And it's also the to just understanding the area.
Speaker 1: So you're you're scouting it out, your understanding where the
Speaker 1: roads go, what are the vantage points. When you're at home,
Speaker 1: you can pinpoint some potential areas that look good. Now
Speaker 1: you're going to go into the field and just actually
Speaker 1: see what they look like in real life. Certain things
Speaker 1: look great on a map, But in actuality, you might
Speaker 1: get there and say, oh, it's that open areas too steep,
Speaker 1: or it's too rocky, it's too dry, it's too wet,
Speaker 1: Oh it's heavily timbered. It's not. There's just it looks
Speaker 1: a lot different and you can get a much better
Speaker 1: feel for an area when you're actually there. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter what you're hunting for. Scouting can be a
Speaker 1: really major portion in being very successful. Like many white
Speaker 1: tail hunters, they'll put out trail cameras, learn trails, understand
Speaker 1: what animals might be coming to their food plots, or
Speaker 1: what animals are in their area. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about like elk and mule deer hunters, you might
Speaker 1: just be looking for good glassing areas or high concentrations
Speaker 1: of game. But scouting can be done anytime up until
Speaker 1: the day before the season. You can scout now in
Speaker 1: the springtime and see just maybe where animals are calving
Speaker 1: or fawning. You can also see in the summertime where
Speaker 1: bachelor groups are hanging out. You can see right up
Speaker 1: until days before the season where animals are in that unit.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe taking three or four days before the
Speaker 1: hunt starts, but if you don't have that time to
Speaker 1: do it ahead of time, then what I do is
Speaker 1: I have this what I call a preview, which is
Speaker 1: just scouting either very short amount of time or during
Speaker 1: the seasons. It's a quick scout maybe a day or less.
Speaker 1: Can be prior to the season, but it can also
Speaker 1: be during your hunt. So if I have five days
Speaker 1: to hunt or seven days to hunt, I spend one
Speaker 1: of those days doing a preview and then the rest
Speaker 1: of the days hunting. And if I've got a little
Speaker 1: bit longer hunt, maybe seven to ten days, I might
Speaker 1: do a preview the first day I get there, and
Speaker 1: then I'll hunt, and then I'll do a pre If
Speaker 1: I'm not finding what I need, maybe another preview mid hunt,
Speaker 1: and then continue to hunt. Now that's not to say
Speaker 1: that while you're doing those previews you might not see
Speaker 1: an animal or won't be hunting, but it's just the
Speaker 1: way that you're looking at the area and what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily focusing on looking for animals, but focusing
Speaker 1: on a place to then eventually look for animals. The
Speaker 1: first thing that I do when I get into an area,
Speaker 1: whether it's preseason scouting or previewing is I like to
Speaker 1: see as much of the area as I can, and hopefully,
Speaker 1: like we talked before, you've taken at home, You've gone
Speaker 1: through your maps, You've maybe pinned some depends how you
Speaker 1: like to hunt. Maybe you like to hunt still hunting,
Speaker 1: so you've pinned some good ridges that you'd like to
Speaker 1: still hunt into. Or if you like to glass, which
Speaker 1: I suggest on a lot of Western big game hunting,
Speaker 1: you're looking for little knobs that you can glass from,
Speaker 1: maybe an opening in the timber where you can see
Speaker 1: across the canyon. Looking for good glassing vantage is good habitat,
Speaker 1: maybe places where you can glass into that good habitat.
Speaker 1: So what I'll do when I previous, I almost consider
Speaker 1: it windows shopping. I'll go through the area, whether in
Speaker 1: my vehicle or whatever, and try to cover as much
Speaker 1: ground as possible. I'm not even necessarily going into where
Speaker 1: I'm going to be hunting. I'm just looking at it objectively,
Speaker 1: saying almost like I'm just looking at a map, but
Speaker 1: in real life, where I'm cruising enough of the area
Speaker 1: to get an idea and a really good feel for
Speaker 1: what's out there. Okay, you know things are going to
Speaker 1: change a little bit from what you saw on the
Speaker 1: map to what you're seeing now, and I want to
Speaker 1: see as much of the country as I can. I
Speaker 1: want to maybe hit as many of those glassing points
Speaker 1: as I can, maybe they're a mile from the road, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just kind of bust in there, look around.
Speaker 1: If it's during the season, I'm always gonna have my
Speaker 1: gun or bow with me or whatever i'm hunting with,
Speaker 1: because you never know, you might get in there and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I I gotta focus in on this right now. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, what I'm doing is I'm just
Speaker 1: cruising around looking for a spot to hunt. I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily nitpicking and looking at animals. I'm gonna throw up
Speaker 1: and start glassing major areas that I think maybe we'll
Speaker 1: show something, and if I see something, great, that's a
Speaker 1: good indicator. But a lot of the places I'll be
Speaker 1: looking at will be in the middle of the day
Speaker 1: at not prime times, so you know, in the morning
Speaker 1: or the evening, I'm gonna focus on maybe getting to
Speaker 1: a good glassing spot in glassing and giving it a
Speaker 1: place that I think looked a good a good look
Speaker 1: at those times, But the rest of the day I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be spent moving around, just getting a really
Speaker 1: good lay of the land, understanding what roads go where,
Speaker 1: what trailheads are there. What does it look like up
Speaker 1: that canyon, up that trailhead? What could I potentially run
Speaker 1: into up there? Is it going to match my plan
Speaker 1: that I made at home? Does this area have a
Speaker 1: good feeling? Is it doesn't look a little too barren
Speaker 1: or um? Is it maybe the creek that I was
Speaker 1: expecting to be running run dry? Is there something that's
Speaker 1: changed from my online scouting to my in real life
Speaker 1: or in person. Is there something that I noticed that
Speaker 1: I didn't catch on the map. But you already have
Speaker 1: that roadmap from at home scouting, where you can then
Speaker 1: go and start checking places you've outlined off the list
Speaker 1: and possibly adding some more places you see to the list.
Speaker 1: Now for backcountry hunts, I do something similar. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're at home scouting and you've decided, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go into the wilderness or this road, this area
Speaker 1: it's five or six miles in there, and then I'm
Speaker 1: going to hunt this basin in these canyons, It's harder
Speaker 1: to preview it because you got to get in there
Speaker 1: and then that takes time. So what I'll do is
Speaker 1: I'll do one of two things. If I've got an
Speaker 1: area where i'm thinking of I've got multiple options. Say
Speaker 1: I've got one canyon that looks good and I've got
Speaker 1: another canyon that looks good, and I can't decide between
Speaker 1: the two, I might just go in day hunt that
Speaker 1: canyon for the first day, or just if I'm out
Speaker 1: and hike up but take a look around, hike down,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe do a ten mile day. But I
Speaker 1: don't have a heavy pack on, so I'm just previewing it.
Speaker 1: I'm just cruising up there, seeing what the trails like,
Speaker 1: seeing how to get in there, seeing once I get
Speaker 1: in there, Okay, is there enough country that I think
Speaker 1: I can successfully find something in here? Or does it
Speaker 1: look not like what I was expecting. Now, if it's
Speaker 1: one of those places where okay, I've got I've focused in,
Speaker 1: I've picked this canyon. That's where I'm gonna go, then
Speaker 1: I'll just go ahead and pack in there, and I
Speaker 1: do the same thing or a similar thing once I
Speaker 1: get in there. On the trail in I'm paying attention
Speaker 1: to what everything looks like. Maybe there's something on the
Speaker 1: way in that I find interesting that I might have
Speaker 1: not thought about. Then when I get to my designated
Speaker 1: camp spot, i'll set up camp, I'll kind of lighten
Speaker 1: my load, maybe do a little glassing in the evening
Speaker 1: or whatever, depending on how much energy it took to
Speaker 1: get in there, And then I might just go check
Speaker 1: some spots within that back country canyon or basin and
Speaker 1: just really understand what the area looks like, so I
Speaker 1: know that when it's time to hunt, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: focus on this area. Or I've got this glassing knob
Speaker 1: that looked good, I check that out, and I just
Speaker 1: start checking stuff off the list and getting a good
Speaker 1: idea for what it looks like, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to spend the majority of my time hunting one spot
Speaker 1: and not getting to the other spots that might be
Speaker 1: better or might be more productive or might look better
Speaker 1: once I actually get there. Then the question comes in, well,
Speaker 1: how do you identify these high percentage spots? So what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for when I'm scouting is what I would
Speaker 1: consider high percentage spot or what areas held animals, what
Speaker 1: areas had the habitat I was looking for, and also
Speaker 1: factors of time of year and when I'm scouting. So
Speaker 1: if I'm summer scouting, I'll be in the summer range,
Speaker 1: but I've got an October tag, then I really need
Speaker 1: to think about, Okay, what's going to be a high
Speaker 1: percentage area Later in the season. They aren't going to
Speaker 1: be up in that summer basin anymore, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to scout out high percentage areas or spots
Speaker 1: for the time of year that I'm hunting. So you
Speaker 1: really have to break it down into thinking as you're
Speaker 1: previewing an area or as you're scouting ahead of time,
Speaker 1: looking into the areas for the type of habitat when
Speaker 1: that season is going to be around. Like, a high
Speaker 1: percentage spot to me would just be an area that's
Speaker 1: most likely to hold animals during the season that you're hunting.
Speaker 1: So examples would be, if i have a let's say,
Speaker 1: uh elk archery tag, and I'm scouting in the summertime,
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna be looking for is probably areas with
Speaker 1: lots of cows. Now, the bulls are probably gonna be
Speaker 1: up higher in some summer range, and and also cows
Speaker 1: might be as well, and that can still be a
Speaker 1: good time to hunt. In September, but you might find
Speaker 1: some more like resident cow el kurds that the bulls
Speaker 1: will come into. Like those cows have their territory, they
Speaker 1: might have a little bit of a home range, especially
Speaker 1: if it's an area that they don't migrate a lot,
Speaker 1: and then the bulls will start coming into those cows
Speaker 1: later in September during the rut. That's something to look for.
Speaker 1: Or you could even scout in the summer for a
Speaker 1: late season hunt, maybe a November hunt or a migration hunt.
Speaker 1: So you'd just be looking for maybe some good winter
Speaker 1: range habitats, some south slopes that are open and are
Speaker 1: going to have grass, or if it's like muled, or
Speaker 1: maybe some some really good winter range habitat that has
Speaker 1: tall old gross sage and buckbrush where they can have
Speaker 1: good feed, they can also feel safe. Or like if
Speaker 1: I've got an early season, maybe I've got an early
Speaker 1: season archery mule your hunt, Well, I'll just go up
Speaker 1: on the summer range and say, yeah, these deer probably
Speaker 1: still going to be in the summer range, so I
Speaker 1: can scout that time where they'll be during that season,
Speaker 1: and then through that I'm gonna try to take that
Speaker 1: and use my maps that I outlined earlier and check
Speaker 1: out good glassing vantages, and then from those glassing vantages,
Speaker 1: understand how to get to where I might need to go.
Speaker 1: So if I've got a glassing vantage, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: across the canyon and there's openings and meadows that I
Speaker 1: think will be great to glass, where there's a good
Speaker 1: area that looks like maybe here there's some water down
Speaker 1: in the valley and this bedding area over here, And
Speaker 1: then if I see something there, what's the easiest way
Speaker 1: to get there? Do I walk from here? Do I
Speaker 1: go around and catch another road or trail? Like how
Speaker 1: do I get to where I'm going? And mapping all
Speaker 1: that out before you get in there and really start
Speaker 1: picking apart during your hunt if you don't have time
Speaker 1: to scout ahead of the season, like if you've got
Speaker 1: to just do what I consider the preview, where you
Speaker 1: go into the area and kind of spend that first
Speaker 1: day in the area scouting it out and just looking
Speaker 1: over the lay of land, getting a feel for what
Speaker 1: it looks like. Yeah, you'll be hunting at the same time,
Speaker 1: but you're mostly just looking for a good spot to
Speaker 1: go hunting, a good spot to really focus your efforts
Speaker 1: on that's where you're pre at home. Scouting is going
Speaker 1: to come into play a little bit more because you
Speaker 1: want to have a really definitive plan on places of checks.
Speaker 1: So when you get into the area, you've got that
Speaker 1: day to just really look it over and get an
Speaker 1: understanding of what things look like. It might even mean
Speaker 1: I've done this many times where I get into an
Speaker 1: area and I'm planning on packing into a backcountry area
Speaker 1: that might be far away, but I noticed that if
Speaker 1: I get way out in the flats and get a
Speaker 1: good view of the mountain, I can take my spotting
Speaker 1: skill about and I'm I'm not looking for animals. I'm
Speaker 1: too far to even look for animals, but I might
Speaker 1: be out of the trees far enough away where I
Speaker 1: can look at this mountain and say, Okay, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the basin that I'm going into. Looks like that
Speaker 1: left side of the of the range has just big
Speaker 1: rock slides and not what I'm really looking for. But
Speaker 1: the other side's got kind of some sparse timber, and
Speaker 1: maybe the top of that ridge looks good. I know
Speaker 1: I can't see in there, but I can kind of
Speaker 1: get an idea of the type of cover, the type
Speaker 1: of terrain, what it might look like in there. I
Speaker 1: might look and say, oh, man, that's it's a lot
Speaker 1: of green, and then there's that big yellow patches every
Speaker 1: every once in a while, and east sides of the hills. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe there's some aspens in there that the elk are
Speaker 1: gonna hang out and bed in and and might enjoy
Speaker 1: a little more riparian area in there. Okay, that that's
Speaker 1: got some of the things that I might be looking for.
Speaker 1: And just being able to preview that area and get
Speaker 1: good sense of what you're going to go into, and
Speaker 1: then compare that to how your online scouting went and
Speaker 1: just kind of see as much of the unit or
Speaker 1: as much of the potential areas you've outlined as possible
Speaker 1: to get a good feel for it. Some of it
Speaker 1: might just come down to, man, this spot looks good,
Speaker 1: this spot feels good. This is where I'm going to
Speaker 1: focus my energy. And it's a lot better to do
Speaker 1: once you actually set foot in the area. Now, the
Speaker 1: final step in this scouting or previewing is you also
Speaker 1: have to adapt to what you find. The best laid
Speaker 1: plans do change, and you've got to adapt to some
Speaker 1: real time data, but also don't discount what you learned
Speaker 1: and what you saw. So it's good to have a plan,
Speaker 1: pick a spot, and then hunt it. The amount of
Speaker 1: time you stay in one area really just depends on
Speaker 1: the type of terrain. And I get asked the question
Speaker 1: all the time, well when do I move? The answer is, really,
Speaker 1: do you believe you've covered it? If you feel like
Speaker 1: you've covered it, then yeah, clearly move on and maybe
Speaker 1: check one of the other spots you've outlined, or try
Speaker 1: another area. But what time is invested in Do you
Speaker 1: have enough time to go somewhere else? And also is
Speaker 1: there something that you haven't seen? If it's just this
Speaker 1: wide open area and you think you look at it
Speaker 1: and you've spent two days there and haven't seen anything,
Speaker 1: you go, if there was something here, I would see it,
Speaker 1: then by all means, then it's time to move. We
Speaker 1: also want to take the information you get while previewing,
Speaker 1: while scouting, and then compare it to your home plan
Speaker 1: and exactly what you see. And then once you've got
Speaker 1: that from scouting, you've got Okay, I found deer in
Speaker 1: this canyon, I've got elk in this other canyon. I've
Speaker 1: got a good glassing spot here. Now you're gonna take
Speaker 1: that and create your hunt plan. Now that could happen
Speaker 1: if you're previewing the area, You're going to do that
Speaker 1: in the first day. If you've got time to scout,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it. After you've scouted, you might not
Speaker 1: see what you're looking for, so you might have to
Speaker 1: readjust remake an online plan map scouting, and then when
Speaker 1: you get back to the area in the season, you
Speaker 1: might have to preview and find a new place. But
Speaker 1: with that on the ground information, that's how I normally
Speaker 1: form my hunt plan for when the season actually happens.
Speaker 1: Just a few tips for making these plans. If you've
Speaker 1: got time to scout early, what I like to do
Speaker 1: is I'll scout early, and then I'll try to extrapolate, like, okay,
Speaker 1: from what I see now to when the season is
Speaker 1: going to be, where am I going to put myself
Speaker 1: in a good position when I show up, and then
Speaker 1: focus on those areas. If I don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of time to hunt early, but I'm gonna be, let's say,
Speaker 1: hunting from opening day on. If I'm hunting opening day,
Speaker 1: I like to have one or two days before the
Speaker 1: season to kind of figure out where I want to
Speaker 1: be opening morning, especially if it's a general area and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure. If I'm showing up mid season,
Speaker 1: that's not so much the case where I would then
Speaker 1: just say I'm showing up mid season, I've got five
Speaker 1: or seven days to hunt. I'm gonna hunt all those
Speaker 1: days during the season, and I'm gonna take that first
Speaker 1: day I show up in the area to just get
Speaker 1: an idea the lay of the land, understand where some
Speaker 1: of the roads go, and figure out how to get
Speaker 1: to the spots that I outlined at home. One thing
Speaker 1: that you really want to look for or like pay
Speaker 1: attention to, is you don't want to worry about what
Speaker 1: else might be out there. I think everybody can be
Speaker 1: guilty of this. Once you've you've picked a spot, you've
Speaker 1: made a plan, kind of trust that in some ways
Speaker 1: and don't start chasing your tail. I'm guilty of it
Speaker 1: as much as most, maybe sometimes more. But in those
Speaker 1: previews and in those scoutings, like, oh, this looks like
Speaker 1: a good spot. That looks like a good spot, and
Speaker 1: have all these good spots, and while I'm hunting in
Speaker 1: an area, thinking about all the other spots. I know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's better just to if you're in a spot
Speaker 1: and it looks good and the data that you found
Speaker 1: while scouting and previewing everything looked good about it, you know,
Speaker 1: don't necessarily start thinking about all the other places. Focusing
Speaker 1: on the place you're at, hunt it, and then once
Speaker 1: you've ruled it out as a good spot, then move on. Also,
Speaker 1: as your previewing areas and scouting areas, like scouting, you
Speaker 1: cover a lot of country and you look at a
Speaker 1: lot of land, but you look at a lot of
Speaker 1: country and land at non prim time times, So you
Speaker 1: might be glassing in one spot in the morning and
Speaker 1: glassing in another spot in the evening, but throughout the
Speaker 1: middle of the day you're looking over a ton of
Speaker 1: country that you aren't seeing anything in. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: get in our mind that, oh, those areas didn't have anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything there. Oh I spent hours there
Speaker 1: and didn't see a single animal. But you also didn't
Speaker 1: see a single animal because it was not a good
Speaker 1: time to look for animals. So one thing you want
Speaker 1: to try to avoid it, whether you're scouting or previewing
Speaker 1: an area, is to not discount good looking areas based
Speaker 1: on looking at them at non prime times, by formulating
Speaker 1: a plan at home and then actually getting into the field. Now,
Speaker 1: if you can do it ahead of time, that's great
Speaker 1: and scout it out, or whether you just have a
Speaker 1: little bit of time during your hunt to preview a
Speaker 1: lot of the areas, you're gonna be well on your
Speaker 1: way to being more successful. That way, you've got a
Speaker 1: good idea and a good grasp of the unit where
Speaker 1: you have your tag, and you've got a good plan
Speaker 1: and play ace that can then be executed based on
Speaker 1: some real time information from the information you have while scouting,
Speaker 1: or even just the information you have while previewing the
Speaker 1: areas that you previously outlined at home. I hope that
Speaker 1: that helps everybody get their mind around maybe some planning
Speaker 1: some scouting trips this summer, or even just when you've
Speaker 1: got a new tag for a new area in your pocket,
Speaker 1: kind of how to approach going into that area and
Speaker 1: executing a plan based on what you've kind of found
Speaker 1: at home, and then getting in there and just really
Speaker 1: giving it a good look over and seeing what looks
Speaker 1: the best to you. I hope everybody is doing well
Speaker 1: amidst the whole COVID thing. I think if you're anything
Speaker 1: like me, you've got a little cooped up feeling and
Speaker 1: you're ready to just get out. I actually just got
Speaker 1: back from a short little turkey hunt. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I haven't been around in the springtime
Speaker 1: turkey hunt for a very long time, so because I've
Speaker 1: been in New Zealand or Australia, I've kind of I've actually,
Speaker 1: i think it's been probably close to a let and
Speaker 1: or eleven years since I've experienced a full spring, so
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me, like I've i haven't really chased
Speaker 1: turkeys in a very long time because I haven't been
Speaker 1: around in the springtime. But it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I end up getting a pretty decent tom the first day,
Speaker 1: and then I was on some like agricultural land down
Speaker 1: in the bottoms for private stuff. And then I went
Speaker 1: up in the mountains and tried to find some birds
Speaker 1: up there, but they were signed. They just I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was the weather moving in or what,
Speaker 1: they just really shut up and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: cooperate up there. So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It was cool. It was great to to have some
Speaker 1: turkey hunting action while I was feeling pretty cooped up,
Speaker 1: pretty penned up. So yeah, I think I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to next week. I want to do a Q and A.
Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of questions lined up, and I
Speaker 1: know that there will be more coming in. So what
Speaker 1: I'll do is I just kind of try to keep
Speaker 1: as many of the questions. I look through them as
Speaker 1: well and say, oh, here's here's a common question and
Speaker 1: try to answer those. So if I don't answer your
Speaker 1: specific question, and hopefully I'll answer your question through someone
Speaker 1: else's question or what have you. So feel free to
Speaker 1: keep shooting those over. You can send them to Remy
Speaker 1: at the meat Eater dot com, or you can send
Speaker 1: them to my Instagram at Remy Warren and a lot
Speaker 1: of those ones that the at Remy Warren. If I
Speaker 1: can't answer them on the podcast, I'll try to shoot
Speaker 1: your message back if I can, or or answer them
Speaker 1: in some ways some form, some shape, or maybe it'll
Speaker 1: just give me an idea for a podcast topic in
Speaker 1: the future. So yeah, I'm really excited to hear what
Speaker 1: you guys got going on. Maybe some tags you draw,
Speaker 1: if you draw some good tags, or you've got hunts
Speaker 1: planned or whatever. Shoot me, shoot me messages, send me whatever.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that kind of stuff. And if
Speaker 1: you've got some had some Spring success. I've got a
Speaker 1: ton of people that have taken some of the bear
Speaker 1: advice out in Canada and in the US and been
Speaker 1: successful with it. Some people that have struggled hunting bears
Speaker 1: and said, hey, the tips that you gave on the
Speaker 1: Spring Bear hunting. So I just I love to hear
Speaker 1: the success store rais or even just maybe something new
Speaker 1: that you're trying after listening to some of these podcasts.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate you guys. Thank you very much. Also,
Speaker 1: if you feel the urge or feel the need, or
Speaker 1: if you listen, I don't know where everybody listens, it
Speaker 1: would be nice to know. If you you can always
Speaker 1: just tell me where you're listening from, whether it be
Speaker 1: Apple or Stitcher or whatever. But if you're on those
Speaker 1: apps or platforms, feel free to subscribe to it, give
Speaker 1: it a rating, give it a comment, share it with
Speaker 1: a friend. Maybe there's some topics, so are certain ones
Speaker 1: you like. Send it to a buddy that you're gonna
Speaker 1: be hunting with so he knows what you know. And
Speaker 1: then you guys can be a more successful team together.
Speaker 1: So until next week, keep on scouting