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. It's hunting season. You have
Speaker 1: a tag in your pocket for a place that you've
Speaker 1: never been before. Now, what where do you even start? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I could probably talk about nearly any hunt I've been
Speaker 1: on for a story that coincides with this. A lot
Speaker 1: of the hunts I do I've never stepped foot in
Speaker 1: the area. But what it comes down to is the
Speaker 1: time I spend looking over or what I would call
Speaker 1: e scouting on say my on X hunt app. What
Speaker 1: I want to do on this podcast is cover where
Speaker 1: do you even start? But first we need to talk
Speaker 1: about the basics of map reading, understanding a topo map,
Speaker 1: and then understanding how to put all this satellite imagery
Speaker 1: and the stuff at your hands together while you're at
Speaker 1: home so when you get out in the field you
Speaker 1: can immediately become successful. A lot of hunt stories start
Speaker 1: opening morning or when you're in the field. But the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is, for me, most hunting stories
Speaker 1: should start weeks beforehand, when I'm in my house pouring
Speaker 1: over maps. One hunt stands out in particular because it's
Speaker 1: just so fresh in my mind. This season, I picked
Speaker 1: up and pretty much what would be considered over the
Speaker 1: counter archery antelope tag. You had to put in for
Speaker 1: it beforehand, but everybody that put in drew now, having
Speaker 1: never hunted in this state for this species, where do
Speaker 1: I begin? I just started pouring over my on X
Speaker 1: map as soon as I got that tag, looking over
Speaker 1: areas every night, start going through different units that are
Speaker 1: in their outlining places that I can hunt, until I
Speaker 1: started to hone in on what I was looking for. Now.
Speaker 1: It actually driven through this area multiple times, so I
Speaker 1: kind of had a rough idea of places that I
Speaker 1: wanted to check out, spots that look good to me,
Speaker 1: but at this point I had no spot. I started
Speaker 1: marking pins and places that I like to check out.
Speaker 1: Now by the time opening day rolled around, I was
Speaker 1: ready to start hunting. I found my spot. I did
Speaker 1: a little bit of a road trip, camped out the
Speaker 1: first afternoon that I got into the unit. The season
Speaker 1: had actually been open for a couple of weeks. But
Speaker 1: when I got in there marked camp spot check that out.
Speaker 1: I get into that campsite, I'm looking around on the
Speaker 1: way in, I'm like, man, I don't know. It looks good,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really see any antelope where I was
Speaker 1: at set up camp, and I decided to go out
Speaker 1: for the first evening the first spot that I had marked.
Speaker 1: Pull my bioners up and here is a group of
Speaker 1: antelope with a decent buck in it. Oh sweet, this
Speaker 1: is cool. All right, Well, mission accomplished. Now I've at
Speaker 1: least found what I'm looking for. That's the start. But honestly,
Speaker 1: spot and stock antelope. Hunting with a bow can be
Speaker 1: extremely difficult. So the way that I hunt him is
Speaker 1: I pretty much stock every buck that I see, because
Speaker 1: at least then I know the more opportunities I have,
Speaker 1: the more chance I will to get into range and
Speaker 1: hopefully get a shot. My wife is actually with me,
Speaker 1: and I was just kind of taking her along. She's
Speaker 1: taking some photos and some videos and other stuff, and
Speaker 1: it was just more of a vacation because we're on
Speaker 1: our way up to a friend's wedding. Anyways, we thought
Speaker 1: this would be a sweet hunt to do on the
Speaker 1: way up, so that first day, start stalking in on
Speaker 1: the group of antelope on the way over there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's always the ones you don't see that mess it
Speaker 1: up for you. There was a couple of does and
Speaker 1: some fauns in between the group of bucks and the
Speaker 1: big group of dos that had seen us bumped off
Speaker 1: and instead of running up the hill, they ran straight
Speaker 1: toward the other antalope blew them out. Ended up chasing
Speaker 1: those ones for the rest of the day, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: figured out where antelope are, be back here first thing
Speaker 1: in the morning. Next morning, get up in there, start
Speaker 1: glassing at first light, pick up a different set of
Speaker 1: antelope with another buck in there, do a big stock
Speaker 1: after they bed, and unfortunately they're moving and it doesn't
Speaker 1: work out. Now it's midday, it's hot, I'm not seeing
Speaker 1: as much, so I think, well, pull out my map,
Speaker 1: check another spot that I had marked, do a big
Speaker 1: drive through some country they don't really see much. But
Speaker 1: it is the middle of the day that evening the
Speaker 1: other spots I had marked out. Sure enough, out pops
Speaker 1: a good buck. Okay, sweet, but unfortunately it was while
Speaker 1: I was moving and he'd just seen us as soon
Speaker 1: as we had seen him, and high tailed it out
Speaker 1: of there. So now I guess call it Day two.
Speaker 1: Rolls around, decide, well, I'm gonna go back to that
Speaker 1: spot where I saw the big buck last night. Get
Speaker 1: in there first thing in the morning. Spot a buck,
Speaker 1: try a stock on him. Unfortunately, as I get within
Speaker 1: thirty yards the one that was closest to me what
Speaker 1: happened to be a dough. He was just past the
Speaker 1: rise of the hill and I couldn't get a shot.
Speaker 1: They ran away. Dang that sucks. Well, keep going, end
Speaker 1: up getting up to a high vantage glassing and seeing
Speaker 1: that buck move off with his dose, and then bed
Speaker 1: in a good position stock in, and as you know it,
Speaker 1: they spotted me when I was about sixty yards out.
Speaker 1: Blew out. Game over, pull out my map again and okay,
Speaker 1: I've pretty much covered this country here. I know there
Speaker 1: was antle up here, but it seemed pretty uh, pretty
Speaker 1: disturbed at this point. So I picked another spot that
Speaker 1: looked good on the map that I had marked so far.
Speaker 1: I'm on the places that I had already checked out
Speaker 1: while I was at home. Get into that next canyon,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, here's a buck walking right toward me. Well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work out, But he ended up going down
Speaker 1: the mountain and congregating with a group of other bucks.
Speaker 1: Perfect I belly crawled down the mountain. Is probably a
Speaker 1: half a mile mile of just belly crawling, get into
Speaker 1: position and set up within two yards of this group
Speaker 1: of bucks. Now they're just chasing each other around, and
Speaker 1: his luck would have it, they just start moving my direction.
Speaker 1: I put myself in between the little water source that
Speaker 1: was there and where they were bedded, and they're moving
Speaker 1: single file, one at a time. Now it just so
Speaker 1: happens that the best buck that I'd seen the entire
Speaker 1: time was in this group. All the small bucks start
Speaker 1: filtering past towards that water. Big buck is the last
Speaker 1: one there. He stops to rake a bush right in
Speaker 1: front of me, drawback, shoot, make a perfect shot antelope
Speaker 1: down in an area that I've never hunted before for
Speaker 1: and all the spots that I encountered animals I had
Speaker 1: found before I even stepped foot in the unit. I
Speaker 1: honestly think the best thing out there right now that
Speaker 1: we have going for us. The best new technology for
Speaker 1: hunting is the ability to eat scout or scout from home.
Speaker 1: I really believe that the Onyx Hunt app is the
Speaker 1: best way to get started to doing that. It's really
Speaker 1: changed the entire game of how I go about thinking
Speaker 1: about a hunt, learning about a hunt, or even just
Speaker 1: first steps in a new area, because that's where I
Speaker 1: always start. So what I want to do is I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna open the app. I think it's just easier
Speaker 1: if I start that way, open the app and almost
Speaker 1: just randomly pick an area. I'll make up a species
Speaker 1: that I'm hunting, and then just go through it right
Speaker 1: now with you here. And that way it's easier for
Speaker 1: me to kind of go through my process and then
Speaker 1: give you the best details that I might not even
Speaker 1: notice that I do. But before I do that, you
Speaker 1: first need to really understand topo maps, because that's how
Speaker 1: I started map reading and scouting was just on paper maps.
Speaker 1: It was lines. There were no satellite imagery. But those
Speaker 1: lines tell more of a story often than a picture does.
Speaker 1: Now seems like it wouldn't, but what it is doing
Speaker 1: is those contour lines are telling you preferred habitats of
Speaker 1: animals and what give you a really good picture of
Speaker 1: what that looks like. Now, another tool that I use
Speaker 1: a lot is Google Earth, where I can see things
Speaker 1: in a three D format, but I first like to
Speaker 1: look for certain features in the topo. Now, just in
Speaker 1: case you're new with map reading, there is so much
Speaker 1: technology out there, it's easy to have maps at your hand,
Speaker 1: but you may not understand the old school way of
Speaker 1: reading it. And that's the way that I relate it to.
Speaker 1: Everybody is talking about certain features in topo lines. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a topo map, and then I'll
Speaker 1: just go through essentially my process for scouting a new area.
Speaker 1: The most basic rundown of a topo map. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna give it to you right here. Topomap includes lines,
Speaker 1: which are contour lines. Those helped create the picture of
Speaker 1: what the mountain or topography looks like on a flat surface.
Speaker 1: So contour lines like on the onyx app or set
Speaker 1: forty ft apart. Then you have your index lines, which
Speaker 1: are your darker lines. Those should have the numbers of
Speaker 1: the elevation. The way that it works is as the
Speaker 1: lines are closer together, that represents something steeper because it's
Speaker 1: over a certain amount of distance, a rapid gain in elevation.
Speaker 1: Further apart lines are something more gradual or flatter. When
Speaker 1: you're looking at the map, anything like a line that
Speaker 1: points down to a lower elevation indicates a ridge, whereas
Speaker 1: a line that points up towards a higher elevation indicates
Speaker 1: a valley. So think of it like these U shapes
Speaker 1: that you see pointing down as a ridge. Pointing up
Speaker 1: is a valley. Now, contour lines never intersect, so one
Speaker 1: line runs the length of that entire elevation shin never
Speaker 1: intersecting other lines. When you look at that, you'll see
Speaker 1: things on the map like you'll see the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain, which would be a round circle, and then
Speaker 1: coming down from that, you'll have your ridges. Those would
Speaker 1: be the lines that continue around, pointing in almost a
Speaker 1: U shaped down towards a lower elevation. And then inside
Speaker 1: those ridges, you'll have your valleys which would be pointing
Speaker 1: up toward those higher elevations. When you get toward the top,
Speaker 1: you of what I call head basins. These are the
Speaker 1: spots that look like little alien heads made out of
Speaker 1: tobo lines, almost like a rainbow, where the lines bend
Speaker 1: in the upward fashion, upward pointing valleys that make a
Speaker 1: head basin. Head basin because it looks like a head.
Speaker 1: These are things that I really key on our head basins.
Speaker 1: But it depends on what species you're looking for. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna open up my app right now and then
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give you a quick rundown of the
Speaker 1: things that I'm looking at. So let's say, let's go
Speaker 1: for this. We're hunting ELK. I'm gonna grab a random
Speaker 1: unit in Montana, and then I'm just gonna kind of
Speaker 1: look and say what I'm doing and what I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: just like I were planning out a hunt in an
Speaker 1: area that I've never been. Okay, so the cool thing
Speaker 1: about this app is it has the unit, so I
Speaker 1: can start there. I've got the Onyx Hunt app open.
Speaker 1: I'm in Montana. I'm just randomly scrolling the screen so
Speaker 1: it lands on a unit. I won't tell you what
Speaker 1: unit because I'll probably end up giving someone's secret spot away,
Speaker 1: but I've got the unit, so that's a start. Now
Speaker 1: I'm looking for public ground because that's the kind of
Speaker 1: tag I have. I don't have access where I'm going,
Speaker 1: so I'm now going to be having the layers on
Speaker 1: that show me public and private ground. I always start
Speaker 1: my map at the topo level, okay, because what I'm
Speaker 1: doing is I'm trying to key in on key features
Speaker 1: that really hold animals. When you think about finding say
Speaker 1: elk or any animal, they all need three key things.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if you're hunting antelope, sheep, whatever, they need
Speaker 1: the right habitat that sustains them. And for that they
Speaker 1: need food, water, and cover or some kind of As
Speaker 1: far as antelope go, they don't really use over, but
Speaker 1: they need open is their cover because they use their eyesight.
Speaker 1: So you kind of just have to understand the animal
Speaker 1: a little bit, but you have to find the three
Speaker 1: things that create good habitat. Now I'm looking for elks,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to find something that probably has food, water,
Speaker 1: and cover in a smaller area. Where I like to
Speaker 1: start is I like to start looking at ridges, finger ridges,
Speaker 1: and head basins. So I'll define those for you. A
Speaker 1: ridge is just anywhere where we've got that descending elevation
Speaker 1: on the map. A finger ridge, let's say the ridge
Speaker 1: goes north south from the top of a mountain down.
Speaker 1: A finger ridge would be anything that spurs down off
Speaker 1: of that. I'll explain that here in a little bit
Speaker 1: because the reason I'm looking for those finger ridges and ridges.
Speaker 1: Is what they do is they provide multiple areas for
Speaker 1: micro habitats, things that include food, water, and cover. No
Speaker 1: matter which way the wind's going or the direction of
Speaker 1: the sun, they have a little bit of everything as
Speaker 1: well as provide multiple escapes for the animals, so it's
Speaker 1: a really safe place for them to hang out. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start identifying these based on the topo lines.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick a few areas that look really good.
Speaker 1: Another thing I'm gonna look for is what I consider
Speaker 1: head basins. Head basins are a great area to really
Speaker 1: start focusing your search. Often there will be water running
Speaker 1: down the canyon and then it offers the animals multiple
Speaker 1: bedding options based on the orientation of the hills. So
Speaker 1: think about a slope of a mountain. You've got the
Speaker 1: north face and then you've got the south slope. So
Speaker 1: the south slope is the gentle slope. It's the one
Speaker 1: that gets the most sun. It often has the least
Speaker 1: amount of timber and often more feed. The north face
Speaker 1: is often more timbered and more shaded, which lends to
Speaker 1: good bedding. Now, if you have a head basin that
Speaker 1: includes both north and south slopes in one micro area.
Speaker 1: What that's doing is creating good habitat in a very
Speaker 1: small area. So late in the season, when it's cold,
Speaker 1: they can get sun, and when it's warm they can
Speaker 1: get shade. They can just choose their bedding and eating
Speaker 1: areas based on the time of year and other things.
Speaker 1: It also has food around, and it also probably most
Speaker 1: likely has water in the bottom, so they have everything
Speaker 1: they need right in this one little area. The other
Speaker 1: thing it offers it offers multiple options for bedding depending
Speaker 1: on which we the area is going. Because when animals bed,
Speaker 1: they generally like the wind coming downhill onto their back
Speaker 1: bedded in a way that it's more comfortable facing downhill,
Speaker 1: so then they can look for danger down below. So
Speaker 1: if you have that in your mind, you can really
Speaker 1: start to pinpoint where they might bed depending on what
Speaker 1: the wind or thermals are doing for that day. Now
Speaker 1: that I've identified some good basins to look at, some
Speaker 1: good head basins, some good ridges, and some good finger ridges,
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do is I just now switch it
Speaker 1: to the hybrid map where it's got topo and satellite
Speaker 1: imagery together. So I'm I picked this particular area and
Speaker 1: just as I hoped. In this head basin, there's a
Speaker 1: nice What I'm looking at right now is a ridge
Speaker 1: coming down on the north slope is a big grassy
Speaker 1: This is just looking at the map without any imagery
Speaker 1: ahead of time. I hit that and I have exactly
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for, a timbered north face and open
Speaker 1: south face. It has water in the bottom and looks
Speaker 1: like prime out country. Now from here, what I'll start
Speaker 1: doing is dropping pins and identifying spots where I believe
Speaker 1: elk will be or good spots where it looks like
Speaker 1: they might hang out. This will just remind me to
Speaker 1: check these spots out later. Now I'm gonna switch back
Speaker 1: to the topo, and now I'm looking for areas where
Speaker 1: I can glass into this spot. So I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a knob or something where I might get a visual
Speaker 1: idea of somewhere I can get to and see this
Speaker 1: area where to hunt from a lot of times, what
Speaker 1: I'll do is I'll take that same pin, go to
Speaker 1: Google Earth and I'm opening up my Google Earth app.
Speaker 1: I'm putting in my coordinates, and I'm flying to that
Speaker 1: spot that I've identified. Now I've got a three D
Speaker 1: look around where I can say, okay, I'm sitting right
Speaker 1: on this knob. What's it look like? Can I see
Speaker 1: from here? Am I going to have a good vantage?
Speaker 1: While it does change a little bit, it gives me
Speaker 1: a good idea of places to and more of a
Speaker 1: real life feel of what it looks like. Once I've
Speaker 1: identified the spots that the animals like using the topo lines.
Speaker 1: From there, I go back to my on x app,
Speaker 1: I mark the spots that I want to glass from,
Speaker 1: hunt from, and there you have it. I have a
Speaker 1: pretty much my recipe for the hunt before I even
Speaker 1: show up in the area. Now, just think for an
Speaker 1: antelope hunt, I'm looking for something different. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: more gradual terrain. I'm looking for more open So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go in the same unit, zoom out, go
Speaker 1: back to the topo lines. I'm looking for where the
Speaker 1: lines are way further apart. So I found a spot
Speaker 1: here on my app. Now I switched in between the
Speaker 1: satellite imagery as I hope it's more preferred habitat. It
Speaker 1: looks like some sage flats some other things. This I
Speaker 1: can mark as well for antelope type country. So depending
Speaker 1: on what you're hunting is different things you're looking for.
Speaker 1: But just remember, look at the topo first and look
Speaker 1: for those topographical features that are really good indicators of
Speaker 1: quality habitat Another thing I love to do when you're
Speaker 1: out there, say you're in a unit, you're hunting deer.
Speaker 1: You've got an area where you're seeing deer. Mark those
Speaker 1: deer on the map. Then when you get home, have
Speaker 1: a file of places that you've spotted animals. Switch to
Speaker 1: the topo map and see what that looks like on
Speaker 1: the map. You'll be surprised how many other places you
Speaker 1: find topographical lines that look similar in a new area
Speaker 1: and hold animals. Those lines tell a story, and if
Speaker 1: you know how to read the map, those lines will
Speaker 1: tell you a story of exactly where to go, even
Speaker 1: though you may have never stepped foot in the area. Now,
Speaker 1: map reading is a very visual thing, and I've tried
Speaker 1: to make it an audio thing today, which I understand
Speaker 1: can be a little bit tricky. Now, I think if
Speaker 1: you take what I've said and just look at a map,
Speaker 1: pull out some topo map and just start looking, I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna start understanding what I'm talking about. But
Speaker 1: to help you out, I think what I'll do today
Speaker 1: is I'll try to post some pictures on my instagram
Speaker 1: my at Remy Warre on Instagram some of the little
Speaker 1: features that I'm talking about right now, to just give
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a kickstart. If you're new
Speaker 1: to this now, if you've read maps your whole life,
Speaker 1: I think you'll catch on real quick the types of
Speaker 1: things that I'm looking for just studying those maps, using
Speaker 1: them in real time. When you see stuff when you're
Speaker 1: out there, just start marking it and understanding when you're
Speaker 1: out there, look at that topo as well, and understand
Speaker 1: what it looks like in map form. Reading a map
Speaker 1: is really just like learning to read. It takes It's
Speaker 1: a process. You don't just pick up a book after
Speaker 1: not knowing your alphabet and go start to finish while
Speaker 1: you're out there. Get the building box to the story
Speaker 1: of what you're seeing on paper, and I really think
Speaker 1: that that's going to lead you to a lot of
Speaker 1: success scouting from home. Rifle season is bearing down on us,
Speaker 1: and I hope that soon you will be bearing down
Speaker 1: on a tasty critter out there. So what I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk about next week is ways to get that
Speaker 1: rifle steady. There's a lot of little tricks to getting
Speaker 1: steady in the field. So I'm going to divulge a
Speaker 1: few of my favorite secrets. I think that your homework
Speaker 1: this week will just be to check out these maps
Speaker 1: while this is still fresh in your head. You're probably
Speaker 1: listening while driving, so unfortunately you're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: it at work. But it's great. That's a good place
Speaker 1: to bust out your topo maps and re listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast again. Now that you've got a primer, you
Speaker 1: listen to it once, maybe listen to it again. Honestly
Speaker 1: loving the feedback. Still, thank you very much. If you
Speaker 1: aren't a subscriber yet, subscribe wherever you can and make
Speaker 1: sure that uh yeah, I think that's it. If you subscribe,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and until next week, keep reading those maps.
Speaker 1: By the end of the year, I think they'll have
Speaker 1: a good sign off that I can just use for everything.
Speaker 1: But I kind of think that at this point my
Speaker 1: sign off is not having a sign off