Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today's
Speaker 1: episode will be the first year in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to take the time to kind
Speaker 1: of recap my hunts from twenty twenty four, you know,
Speaker 1: tell some stories and also talk about some of the
Speaker 1: gear that we used on those and just kind of
Speaker 1: how the hunts turned out. You know that we may
Speaker 1: not have told those hunt recaps. So we're gonna start
Speaker 1: like every podcast, and if you have questions for me
Speaker 1: or our guests, feel free to email them to us
Speaker 1: at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com and we'll do
Speaker 1: our best to get them in here on the podcast.
Speaker 1: But these are just some of the questions that I've received,
Speaker 1: you know that that we get throughout the year. I
Speaker 1: just got this one the other day. If you could
Speaker 1: redo any of your hunts this year, which one would
Speaker 1: it be? And I love every hunt this year. I
Speaker 1: had had a great time, you know, from start to finish.
Speaker 1: But if I had to go back and redo one
Speaker 1: of my hunts here, it would probably be that New
Speaker 1: Mexico archery out count with Luke Combs. For a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. Uh, you know, first, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: a blast to hang out with. You know, we're laughing
Speaker 1: the whole time. But we had I would say, there's
Speaker 1: some unfinished business on that one. You know, we had
Speaker 1: lots of opportunities. You know, Luke passed on some bowls,
Speaker 1: you know, some arrows were let loose, and uh, I
Speaker 1: would really like a chance to get back there, and
Speaker 1: you know the hunt was pretty short. Just kind of
Speaker 1: redo that one and see if we couldn't, you know,
Speaker 1: have have a different outcome. You know, found some different
Speaker 1: areas there towards the end that that we're you know
Speaker 1: producing you know, as far as beagles and had more
Speaker 1: elk in the area. So that's probably the one man.
Speaker 1: You know, the the Alaska doult sheep is is probably
Speaker 1: a real close second, you know, one of my dream hunts,
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, if I could redo the
Speaker 1: Idaho Mountain lion hunt. Pretty pretty good hunts and wish
Speaker 1: wish I could you know, redo those. But yeah, for
Speaker 1: for unfinished business reasons. In the Mexico tri I'll count
Speaker 1: with Luke would would be probably the highest on the list.
Speaker 1: The next question we get, you know or just randomly
Speaker 1: throughout the year is kind of what's your favorite new gear,
Speaker 1: or they'll see a picture, you know, in a in
Speaker 1: a new backpack or using a new knife. You know,
Speaker 1: what was my favorite new gear for twenty twenty five?
Speaker 1: And I didn't get a whole lot. I'm basically gonna
Speaker 1: give you the list of what I tried new, but
Speaker 1: it did perform and I was really, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of excited about how it works. So first off is
Speaker 1: one of our our you know, kind of a inside
Speaker 1: of our own companies doing Montana Knife Company and Steve
Speaker 1: worked together on a new stubhorn knife. Before that, I
Speaker 1: was using a bench made S NINETYV. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what the model was, what was kind of my
Speaker 1: go to I'd been using it for the last four
Speaker 1: or five years. Really liked it. But the stubhorn not
Speaker 1: to not to get too far in the weeds, uses
Speaker 1: a new Magna cut steel. It seemed like it held
Speaker 1: an edge a lot longer, it was easier to sharpen,
Speaker 1: and and it has some really really good, you know,
Speaker 1: characteristics of a hunting knife for me. You know, I
Speaker 1: think when I was in Kansas, I used the knife
Speaker 1: on three white tails, never even touched it up. You
Speaker 1: have through elk season. We used it on three elk.
Speaker 1: I think I touched it up a couple of times.
Speaker 1: The knife is for me. It's the right weight, it's
Speaker 1: the right length, and you know these little things as
Speaker 1: you're breaking down animals, you have the efficiency and the
Speaker 1: ability to kind of to move a little faster. I
Speaker 1: really liked that that new knife. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we we just did an episode on the muzzloaders. I
Speaker 1: can't say enough about that Remington seven hundred muzzleloader with
Speaker 1: the arrowhead breach. And then you take the rules changed
Speaker 1: here in Washington where we were allowed to use a
Speaker 1: one x red dot, so I topped it with the
Speaker 1: loophole freedom alreadys the red dot site and that thing.
Speaker 1: You know, usually when I'm out with an older you know,
Speaker 1: let's say five years ago, we were out with a
Speaker 1: Northwest Addition or style Northwest legal muzzleoader, open sites. You know,
Speaker 1: I was comfortable to one one hundred and fifty and
Speaker 1: very perfect conditions. Yeah, it should be a primitive type weapon.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's where we should be limited to, but the
Speaker 1: rules are allowing us to, you know, with modern ignitions,
Speaker 1: with the use of one x sites, stretch our range
Speaker 1: out and just confidence at closer ranges. I was able
Speaker 1: to loan the gun out to a couple other muzzloader
Speaker 1: hunters and they just said the confidence they had on
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty to you know, one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty yard shot one hundred and forty yard shot and
Speaker 1: to hit the elk exactly where they wanted, and you
Speaker 1: kind of take some of that air out of what
Speaker 1: I would say the older muzzloaders introduced h like I said,
Speaker 1: the the the another I got a new boat, but
Speaker 1: really just for the Kansas white tail hunt, I hunted
Speaker 1: with my my boat from last year, a dart and
Speaker 1: Verocity thirty five in New Mexico elk and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't hunt a lot on that hunt, but I
Speaker 1: did get a new sequel thirty five ST two prior
Speaker 1: to the Kansas white tail hunt, and I just I
Speaker 1: love the boat at draws great. It's you know, got
Speaker 1: some tunability to get my broad heads dialed in real
Speaker 1: quick if they're not hitting perfect with my field points,
Speaker 1: so there's not a bunch of chasing with my sight.
Speaker 1: Really really liked that that bow set up with fairly
Speaker 1: heavy arrows. I'm not a I'm not that guy that
Speaker 1: wants to be crazy heavy. I carried my arrows over
Speaker 1: from my old setup, and you know, I was shooting
Speaker 1: two and seventy feet per second. But the bow just
Speaker 1: shot really really well, was really easy to tune, and
Speaker 1: really really consistent. So I really, you know, like that bow.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, some people may say it's it's a
Speaker 1: little long, thirty five inches out of a tree stand,
Speaker 1: but for for a guy like myself, you know, I
Speaker 1: like the stream angle at full draw. Everything just fits
Speaker 1: me well and it's comfortable to shoot. And then really
Speaker 1: the only the only other thing I used this year.
Speaker 1: You know, in the past, I was always using a
Speaker 1: duplex frame from Kafaro. I did use that same pack
Speaker 1: on the Dull Sheep Hunt. But in between the Sheep
Speaker 1: Hunt and starting my all content between August and September,
Speaker 1: I was able to get my hands on one of
Speaker 1: the new Kafaro ARC frames with a new Hoodlum bag,
Speaker 1: and I really really like that setup. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: six foot three, I am all torso, so the frame
Speaker 1: was a little short, you know, I think it's only
Speaker 1: twenty five inch frame. You know, I've been used to
Speaker 1: twenty six is. And then my buddy Aaron Snyder used
Speaker 1: to make me twenty eights kind of custom for my
Speaker 1: longer torso so I can get some lyft. But the
Speaker 1: ARC twenty five, even though it's maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: short for a guy like myself, I would say it's
Speaker 1: going to perform great for ninety five percent of the
Speaker 1: people out there. It did a very good job, you
Speaker 1: know on some heavy loads, both on the White River Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm reading off my notes here, you know, my White
Speaker 1: River Elk tag. And it also did really really well
Speaker 1: on the Idaho Meal Deer tag, you know, where I
Speaker 1: had some heavy loads for long trips and it performed
Speaker 1: as good as can be, you know, expected with heavy
Speaker 1: loads that are going to be uncomfortable no matter what pack,
Speaker 1: Yet you have on uh, performed really well. So I
Speaker 1: was you know, those are really my only new pieces
Speaker 1: of gear. It performed really really well. You know, I've
Speaker 1: I did try some new crispies out, you know, the
Speaker 1: Mountain bro in the brickstall line, you know, but I've
Speaker 1: always the brick stalls have always fit my feet well.
Speaker 1: On the sheep hunt, I've tried those. They they performed
Speaker 1: really well. So it's not really new gear, but they
Speaker 1: it was a kind of a new model, a taller
Speaker 1: boot for me, and I really like the performance of
Speaker 1: those as well. But that kind of wraps it up
Speaker 1: as far as new stuff that I tried. I'm a
Speaker 1: pretty simple guy. If it works, it works, I don't
Speaker 1: need to be changing all the time. But but those were,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the standouts I do really like,
Speaker 1: you know, from from first Light. I really liked that
Speaker 1: three toh eight pant. I'm not just saying that because
Speaker 1: they're a sister company in the know to Phelps game Calls.
Speaker 1: I really do like that pant and I believe it's
Speaker 1: a big improvement over what we've you know, what I've
Speaker 1: had in the past from them. So like that. And
Speaker 1: then if I had to pick a favorite hunt of
Speaker 1: the year, what would it be. Man In this year
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, I got to check some of
Speaker 1: my my dream hunts, my bucket list hunts off, and
Speaker 1: I would say it's a tie. You know. I was
Speaker 1: probably more excited about the doll sheep hunt just because
Speaker 1: there was such a long build up. I had booked
Speaker 1: that hunt back in twenty twenty and it was one
Speaker 1: I really looked forward to. So I had four years
Speaker 1: of waiting for it to get here and prepare for it,
Speaker 1: and then the Idle Mountain lion hunt was kind of
Speaker 1: a It kind of sprung on you real quick. You
Speaker 1: had you know you'd be hunt within a month or two.
Speaker 1: But it was a chance to finally hunt. You know,
Speaker 1: big mature Tom's behind the dogs. So I would say
Speaker 1: it's kind of split the Idaho Mountain lion hunt and
Speaker 1: then the Alaska doll sheep hunt, and then both of them.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not one of those guys that the
Speaker 1: experience is important, but I also look at a hunt
Speaker 1: and like, for how did what we what were the results?
Speaker 1: And unfortunately for me on both of those hunts, you know,
Speaker 1: I was able to take very good representations of those
Speaker 1: species on those hunts. And so yeah, I really like
Speaker 1: those those two as they'll probably be the only time,
Speaker 1: maybe the only time I ever get to do it.
Speaker 1: So favorite hunts of the year Idaho Mountain lion and
Speaker 1: Alaska doll sheep. You know, Mountain lion hunt. I loved it.
Speaker 1: The people year around, great people. Alaska doll sheep, same thing.
Speaker 1: You know. Matt Snyder was awesome to be around, and
Speaker 1: just the country that you get to see on that
Speaker 1: you know, those sheep hunts, and it is pretty dang cool.
Speaker 1: So those are my favorite hunts of the year. And
Speaker 1: once again, you have questions for me or my guests,
Speaker 1: please feel free to email them to us at CTD
Speaker 1: at phelpsgame Calls dot com, or get a hold of
Speaker 1: us on social media, you know, any of our accounts,
Speaker 1: you know, shoot the questions there, you know, personal social
Speaker 1: media accounts, and that's typically where I grab these questions from.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so now we're going to roll right into
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four hunt recap. You I just talked
Speaker 1: about this hunt a little bit. I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be able to hunt you know, mountain lions in
Speaker 1: Idaho behind behind hounds. That's that's great. So you're kind
Speaker 1: of you know, you're he's got some clients in and
Speaker 1: so you're trying to look at the schedule. How's it's
Speaker 1: all going to work and when can you know, we
Speaker 1: hunt whenever we're going to have the right weather. Well,
Speaker 1: as luck would have it, it seems like at times
Speaker 1: everything that I do doesn't seem to go to plan.
Speaker 1: I know, had a horrible winner with a little bit
Speaker 1: of early you know snow in early January when we
Speaker 1: could have got hunting, but you know, had some other
Speaker 1: clients booked. And then we get into show season consumer
Speaker 1: show season for both myself and and my buddy Bradley,
Speaker 1: and so we were trying to you know, match schedules.
Speaker 1: And one of the mornings, I woke up, you know,
Speaker 1: I get up around six o'clock, get usually, get my
Speaker 1: my kids up for school, and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: get my morning started. I had a text as soon
Speaker 1: as I woke up from Bradley says, I think this
Speaker 1: is our window. You need to get over here. So
Speaker 1: bless my wife who's able to quickly you know, pivot
Speaker 1: and and put some more on her plate. Within about
Speaker 1: an hour, I was packed up completely and uh leaving
Speaker 1: for Idaho to go you know, chase cats for for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. You know, we we get there,
Speaker 1: you know, Bradley's Bradley's doing a bunch of running around
Speaker 1: trying to trying to just locate a cat. As we
Speaker 1: as we're pulling into Idaho, Bradley calls me he's going
Speaker 1: back to get his dogs. You'd cut a track and
Speaker 1: to meet us at a certain spot. So we all
Speaker 1: get there. Yeah, the we I bring. I want to
Speaker 1: use my bow, which is you know sometimes I kind
Speaker 1: of chuckle, like, what's it matter to that the cat's
Speaker 1: in a tree? Why do you know, why does it
Speaker 1: matter if you use your bow or a gun At
Speaker 1: that point, it's just pulling the trigger. But I like
Speaker 1: it to bring my bow down. And it was in
Speaker 1: a very steep location and a very tall tree, and
Speaker 1: so it created all kinds of issues with getting you know,
Speaker 1: a decent shot angle. And as we climbed up the
Speaker 1: hill so that we could start to look more level
Speaker 1: with the cat, his vitals were blocked and we just
Speaker 1: had some issues. And thankfully we had brought a thirty
Speaker 1: thirty along just in case the cat, you know, was
Speaker 1: able to get out of the tree wounded, it doesn't
Speaker 1: get any dogs or we can finish it, you know, quickly.
Speaker 1: So we're we're getting ready, we're kind of walking around,
Speaker 1: you know, the tree, trying to find a shot angle,
Speaker 1: and and you can see the cat start to back
Speaker 1: down the tree and ultimately gets about twenty feet from
Speaker 1: the ground and bales out over top of everybody's head
Speaker 1: and we're chasing again. We had run up let the
Speaker 1: dogs We had already had the dogs, you know, leashed
Speaker 1: so that the you know, they don't try to chase
Speaker 1: the cat when it's wounded and everything. So we let
Speaker 1: him go. We're we're chasing again. Well, it was pretty
Speaker 1: awesome a turn of events. The cat ran away and
Speaker 1: then came right back on its backtrack and walked right
Speaker 1: under us, and we were able to see from the
Speaker 1: garment that the cat was gonna so we actually got
Speaker 1: to watch the cat kind of sneak through and slithered through,
Speaker 1: and the dogs were, you know, twenty thirty seconds behind
Speaker 1: it at that point, and came up. And then the cat.
Speaker 1: If some of you haven't seen the video on YouTube,
Speaker 1: the cat ends up, you know, just baying up on
Speaker 1: a rock. The cat had enough. He wasn't going back
Speaker 1: up a tree. He's gonna sit there. And then the
Speaker 1: pressure was on, so the bow was out of the picture.
Speaker 1: We needed to kill the cat. You know, I can
Speaker 1: brad these, you know, it's like, hey, you got to
Speaker 1: make a good show. You know, you can kill my dogs.
Speaker 1: And so now I've got this extra pressure. And then
Speaker 1: they hand you a thirty thirty that you've never shot,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, you know, I instantly went back
Speaker 1: to my younger days when I'm out in the yard
Speaker 1: with my BB gun, remembering, like, man, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ways to kind of site these open sites in.
Speaker 1: You know, did they hold you know, did they sight
Speaker 1: in with the front the front post like level? Did
Speaker 1: they you know, some guys would sit in with like
Speaker 1: front post halfway through so you can actually see over
Speaker 1: your target because when you you know, you kind of
Speaker 1: block the bottom side. And so I start to ask
Speaker 1: a few questions, and then I didn't want to overcomplicate it.
Speaker 1: And then me and Bradley are also talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about on the animal, like where we need to
Speaker 1: hit it to grab lung and spine and do all
Speaker 1: of this stuff so that we don't get any dogs injured.
Speaker 1: So now I'm I mean, it's thirty degrees out, but
Speaker 1: I'm sweating to death because I've got to try to
Speaker 1: make a perfect shot on this cat that doesn't harm
Speaker 1: the harm the dogs. And you know, so thankfully, as
Speaker 1: I as I squeeze the trigger on that thre thirty thirty,
Speaker 1: kind of made sure to just walk myself through, you know, Squeeze,
Speaker 1: squeeze squeeze, was fortunate to hit the cat perfect on
Speaker 1: a pretty steep uphill shot. We went in about mid
Speaker 1: body and kind of just clipped the spine as it
Speaker 1: went out the other side and caught the other lung
Speaker 1: and the cat was thankfully dead as it fell off,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a hundred foot rock on the other side.
Speaker 1: No dogs were injured. Uh, you know, everything worked out
Speaker 1: great and it was a great, great cat. So yeah,
Speaker 1: those hunts. I love hunting with Idaho whitetail guides, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Bradley Dammerman and Amy to do a great
Speaker 1: job there and and it's just it's a fun hunt.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of hard work for him because of
Speaker 1: the dogs and getting up early and running tracks. You know,
Speaker 1: we get up early, but we don't have to do
Speaker 1: hardly into the work. We just ride around on the
Speaker 1: side by side or what what be, you know, what
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, but for that day. But it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I really enjoy, you know, drinking
Speaker 1: coffee and hanging out and talking about you know, stories
Speaker 1: of past for the areas that we're in and you
Speaker 1: know what he's chased and what canyons. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: was that was an awesome hunt. You just got an
Speaker 1: update from Phil Souse over there in Libby, Montana. He's
Speaker 1: actually mountain back cat for me this week. So we've
Speaker 1: been working back and forth on you know, how it
Speaker 1: needs to sit and be arranged. You're really excited to
Speaker 1: see how that one turns out. Then we kind of
Speaker 1: you know, for us, we change gears a little bit,
Speaker 1: we go turkey hunting. You know, we were able to
Speaker 1: go to Kansas and Washington this year. I do want
Speaker 1: to share one thing I'm going to talk about on
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily gear, but it's kind of a new
Speaker 1: system I've found to keep ticks off of me and
Speaker 1: then away from me at least on my legs, which
Speaker 1: is where I would get ninety percent of them. So
Speaker 1: you know we would always put gators on. Well, the
Speaker 1: one thing is if you have any loose spots on
Speaker 1: your gators when you're sitting down or have your foot bent,
Speaker 1: if a tick, you know ninety percent of them are
Speaker 1: going to come up off of your your feet or
Speaker 1: your boots that are touching their ground anyways. They will
Speaker 1: climb up, get under there, get under your pant and
Speaker 1: the majority of them, you know you have where your
Speaker 1: gators will typically be tight at your shin I was getting.
Speaker 1: You know, anything that I had latched on was right
Speaker 1: at that line, because they would be able to get
Speaker 1: up under my gator and under my pant leg and
Speaker 1: go up. So I got on Amazon and they have
Speaker 1: just these stretchy vell crow things that are made for
Speaker 1: guys that write, you know, guys or gals that ride bikes,
Speaker 1: to keep your pants out of your sprockets and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So what I do now is I pull my pants
Speaker 1: down over my boot as far as I can and
Speaker 1: tighten that thing and I use two on each leg,
Speaker 1: basically bell crowing or elasticking my boot, you know, my
Speaker 1: pant to my boot, or you could also use athletic
Speaker 1: tape anything that you could get extremely tight and basically
Speaker 1: not allow anything up above that. And then I put
Speaker 1: my gator up and over as well. And I was
Speaker 1: able to hunt Kansas and Washington this year with no ticks,
Speaker 1: which is a new record for me. You know, I
Speaker 1: had a couple of lone star ticks from Kansas a
Speaker 1: couple of years agoing Thankfully I must have not got
Speaker 1: the old Alpha gal because I'm still able to eat
Speaker 1: red meat. But it's just it's very nerve wracking when
Speaker 1: you know that one in fifty, you know, to one
Speaker 1: in forty of those things could potentially give you, you know,
Speaker 1: alpha gal which I do not want. I don't want
Speaker 1: to deal with not being able to eat red meat.
Speaker 1: So this system worked, and you combine that with promethrone.
Speaker 1: I wasn't you know, I don't. I didn't get any
Speaker 1: ticks on me this year. You know, tuck your shirt
Speaker 1: in at least your first layer shirt, wear a very
Speaker 1: tight belt, you know, as tight as you can handle it.
Speaker 1: I spray my net gator in promethrone and seems to work.
Speaker 1: Didn't have any issues. The two states though, one thing.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously you're hunting a different bird, and Kansas
Speaker 1: were hunting Easterns and Washington were hunting Miriam's. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: funny thing is is I enjoy them both, but they're
Speaker 1: completely different hunts. And Kansas you will walk maybe two
Speaker 1: hundred yards from wherever you park your buggy or your
Speaker 1: side by side, whatever it may be. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: joking a little bit. We will we will run and gun,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times we're just you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're setting up in the morning. Easterns are pretty stubborn,
Speaker 1: so we'll sit and call, we'll maybe move ridge to ridge,
Speaker 1: but we don't really want to bump these birds or
Speaker 1: you know, mess with them too much. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times Kansas will be a long morning sit. You're
Speaker 1: typically on you know, gobbling birds and and yeah, you
Speaker 1: know you don't kill anything by ten you go in
Speaker 1: for breakfast. Washington, you're hiking all day. There were days
Speaker 1: in Washington where you know, we'd put twelve, fourteen, fifteen
Speaker 1: miles on and I had to had to laugh because
Speaker 1: our buddies from Kansas that we hunt with their Randy
Speaker 1: coy Brock, James Harrison, those guys all came out and
Speaker 1: they joked. They said that for the one bird that
Speaker 1: they killed, they'd hike more on that bird than all
Speaker 1: their other birds combined. And it's just it's just that
Speaker 1: different reference of you know, hunting public timberland ground. We're
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to put miles on, you know, to
Speaker 1: get into the good spots. Where in Kansas, you know,
Speaker 1: hunting more ag ground, it's easier to get on the birds,
Speaker 1: you have to move as much. And Washington, the time
Speaker 1: we were hunting there, we were early in Kansas, which
Speaker 1: seems to be better. And we were a little bit
Speaker 1: later into May and Washington and so the hunting was
Speaker 1: good all day, and so we kind of hunted all day,
Speaker 1: put on a lot of ground and we're really trying
Speaker 1: to strike those birds in the middle of the day.
Speaker 1: But I was fortunate on those two hunts. I'm mounting
Speaker 1: my first trick he ever. I was able to kill
Speaker 1: a great four year old in Kansas. And the Washington
Speaker 1: bird that I killed was probably the biggest Marriam I'll
Speaker 1: ever kill. But it was later in the season and
Speaker 1: he was you know, his uh you know, chess was
Speaker 1: all you know, all the feathers were had fallen out,
Speaker 1: and he was pretty rough, had a lot of pitch
Speaker 1: on him, and so I elected that he was a
Speaker 1: very pretty bird though. But probably my two best representations
Speaker 1: of those birds that i've i've you know, will ever
Speaker 1: kill or maybe you know they were good birds. Now.
Speaker 1: I always joke where it's like, yeah, they're a little smarter,
Speaker 1: but I don't know when I'm shooting. When I'm shooting them,
Speaker 1: you I just know that they're they're a long beard
Speaker 1: and it could be a two year old and they
Speaker 1: just happened to be four year old, so no great
Speaker 1: great turkey hunts I really enjoy. You know, some people
Speaker 1: don't like turkey hunting. That's fine, you don't have to like.
Speaker 1: I like getting out in the spring. It's also a
Speaker 1: good reminder on how bad out of shape I am
Speaker 1: from from the Christmas carry over in the in the
Speaker 1: show season. So it's a little it's a good little
Speaker 1: reminder to get my butt back in the gym, back
Speaker 1: on the stair climber, and get ready for for fall seasons.
Speaker 1: We had a quick little stop next in spring bear
Speaker 1: in Idaho. It was later, you know, in in June.
Speaker 1: So I just love watching the dogs work. You know.
Speaker 1: Bradley started to give me a little bit of grief
Speaker 1: that every time I show up we have long races
Speaker 1: on bears that bay up and won't tree. So my
Speaker 1: very first time with Bradley, we let off on a
Speaker 1: dog and I think we till two or three in
Speaker 1: the afternoon trying to get all the dogs back off
Speaker 1: a bear that just refused to go up with a tree.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of his dogs were banged up.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to this year, we let off on
Speaker 1: the first bear we we get on and he takes
Speaker 1: us into no man's land. There was no easy way
Speaker 1: to get to this you know bear from any direction,
Speaker 1: and he would never tree. He was just bouncing back
Speaker 1: and forth and back and forth and roadless country. There
Speaker 1: were roads on kind of each side, at least three
Speaker 1: sides of them. Roads not so much on the other side.
Speaker 1: And thankfully that bear cooperating didn't go out of the country.
Speaker 1: But that you know, a bad bear ended up being
Speaker 1: about a two hundred pound boar. And as I mentioned
Speaker 1: on on the lion hunt, is there's some danger to
Speaker 1: the dogs on wounded animals, and so me and Bradley,
Speaker 1: we're able to get the fourlers close to these, you know,
Speaker 1: to the dogs and the bear as we can. And
Speaker 1: it was just a mad dash to some cliff country,
Speaker 1: you know, sprint and running as fast seat can. And
Speaker 1: we got down in there and Bradley, you know, I
Speaker 1: was we were right behind him. But Bradley decided on
Speaker 1: this one he was just gonna, you know, take the bear.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like to as the guide, but he's always
Speaker 1: got a tag and able to. The bear was so
Speaker 1: beat he was just laying in a puddle in a
Speaker 1: creak and the dogs were still being pretty aggressive on him,
Speaker 1: and Bradley was able to kind of shoot down on
Speaker 1: the bear and dispatch that one. And then you know,
Speaker 1: for the next couple of days the dogs ran great,
Speaker 1: but just long chases like some that took us way
Speaker 1: out of the country and you know, just just long
Speaker 1: chases with it, you know, hard on the dogs, you know,
Speaker 1: moving a lot of ground. And then we were able
Speaker 1: to treat a couple, but just some small, small, young bears.
Speaker 1: But once again, you know, just getting to go over
Speaker 1: there and watch the dog's work. I really really enjoy that.
Speaker 1: Next up was the Alaska Doll sheep. Like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: booked it in twenty four I always kind of joke
Speaker 1: I didn't think my wife would know how much the
Speaker 1: hunt cost if I paid for it for you know,
Speaker 1: over four years and just made installments and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: seem as bad as that was my That was my joke,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to selfishly be the first hunt of
Speaker 1: the year with Matt. So the idea was, I'll book
Speaker 1: far enough out that I'm the very first hunt of
Speaker 1: the year. In my mind, it helps you with you know,
Speaker 1: with a good summer scout and the sheep haven't been
Speaker 1: bothered by every hunter that you know, the legal ram
Speaker 1: has been pushed around. I was a little worried going
Speaker 1: into the hunt because there was a time on the
Speaker 1: third installment where they he said, just keep your money.
Speaker 1: The sheep aren't looking good. We don't even know if
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a season. So now I start to
Speaker 1: get worried, like, because you're gonna have to refund my money?
Speaker 1: Am I even gonna get the hunt? But Matt was able.
Speaker 1: You know, anybody that's got to hunt with Matt or
Speaker 1: knows Matt like he's he's determined, he's a hard worker,
Speaker 1: and he was still getting his clients all shot opportunities.
Speaker 1: So the year before I went twenty twenty three, all
Speaker 1: three hunters got shots to hit. One missed the three hundred.
Speaker 1: I believe a three hundred dard shot or a doable shot.
Speaker 1: So I was excited. I had looked forward to this
Speaker 1: one for a long time, gotten you know, really good
Speaker 1: shape and uh the logistics the Alaska or an additional
Speaker 1: you know, in addition to the experience, you know you
Speaker 1: fly up there. For us, we were able to just
Speaker 1: do a turo rental, which is uh, you know kind
Speaker 1: of cool. I was able to, you know, find a
Speaker 1: truck that had four drive, and you know, and then
Speaker 1: it's a long drive in Alaska. You know, you've only
Speaker 1: got a couple of airports, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: a six hour drive from the airport. But then it
Speaker 1: was time to sheep hunt. It was everything I could
Speaker 1: dream of. It was the country you've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: the steepness of the country, the ruggedness of the country.
Speaker 1: The sheep are just absolutely you know, beautiful animals, and
Speaker 1: I was I was stoked to get to hunt that way.
Speaker 1: I also love the idea that it's a spike out hunt,
Speaker 1: right I at times I missed those hunts, but you know,
Speaker 1: I loved that we were going to load up food
Speaker 1: for seven days and that was our hunt. Like we
Speaker 1: were leaving with seven days and when that food was gone,
Speaker 1: we were either gonna have a sheep or not. We
Speaker 1: were living on the side the mountain. We were going
Speaker 1: to live with them. You know, Matt had a pretty
Speaker 1: good plan. He was able to go into this country
Speaker 1: and make sure there were some legal rams and then
Speaker 1: we just had to figure out how to hunt right
Speaker 1: off the bat. I was a little nervous though, and
Speaker 1: you could tell Matt's and experienced guy. You know, he
Speaker 1: kind of felt us out and could see that we
Speaker 1: could zip up through the rocks pretty well. But then
Speaker 1: we got into these big screen fields and if you're
Speaker 1: not from Alaska or haven't spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: navigating that, when you looked across the canyon, then he
Speaker 1: kind of showed us our route. I kind of questioned him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, are we we really going to be able
Speaker 1: to or are we gonna you know? And so we
Speaker 1: we get across there and from it's not as bad
Speaker 1: when you get there, and you when you finally get
Speaker 1: confident enough that the big steep screen fields that you're
Speaker 1: in are eventually gonna stop rolling and you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're only gonna drop a foot. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there were a couple of little cliffy areas to navigate,
Speaker 1: which which had some you know, risk involved, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, once you get over there, you're able
Speaker 1: to do a lot more in the rocks. And you
Speaker 1: could think just looking across at him and it's just man,
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's you know, financial, you know, there's
Speaker 1: some financial constraints on everybody being able to do that.
Speaker 1: Hunt in Alaska. But man, I'm I'm ready to go back.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't necessarily say I've got the Alaska bug,
Speaker 1: but I'm definitely looking hard at doing a moose hunt
Speaker 1: or something of that nature, just to get back to
Speaker 1: Alaska and kind of an experience. It's it's wildness and
Speaker 1: just how big it is, and it's just it's I
Speaker 1: liked that. It seems like it's kind of it hasn't
Speaker 1: been touched. It's it's still fifty sixty seventy years behind
Speaker 1: where we're at down here, you know, in the in
Speaker 1: the lower forty eight. And I really like that about Alaska.
Speaker 1: Well White River Elk tag. So I killed an elk
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three that had hoof. I was put
Speaker 1: into a incentive draw. I was one of the Lucky nineteen.
Speaker 1: And then within that lucky nineteen, I was able to
Speaker 1: get the tag that I wanted, which gave me an
Speaker 1: incentive tag which I was I was stoked about, was
Speaker 1: the unit I wanted to hunt. So you get all
Speaker 1: of your your trail cams out and everything where you'd
Speaker 1: seen elk, and just the report from the trail cams
Speaker 1: was a little bit dismal. Nothing big was shown up,
Speaker 1: or we thought it would. Nothing as big as in
Speaker 1: past had shown up, so we kind of go on
Speaker 1: a little scouting mission. My whole idea going into this
Speaker 1: is we'll just go up there on September first, and
Speaker 1: you know, quickly kill an elk when it's patternable before
Speaker 1: the rut really gets going. Well, guess what, there were
Speaker 1: no mature big bulls to kill, so we basically spent
Speaker 1: six or seven days up there walking and hiking with
Speaker 1: nothing really worth hunting. I had to leave for the
Speaker 1: New Mexico archrailll Count, which I'll get to in a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then I was able to come back.
Speaker 1: And one of the conditions of this tag is you
Speaker 1: can hunt with any weapon when there's no other seasons
Speaker 1: in this unit. So you know, before archery between archery
Speaker 1: and muzzleloader. But if it's archery season, you have toent
Speaker 1: with your bow. If it's muzzloader season, you have to
Speaker 1: switch to your muzzloader for that time, and then you know,
Speaker 1: you can alternate back and forth. So I had a
Speaker 1: couple of days left when I got home from New
Speaker 1: Mexico to hunt with the rifle. I'm thinking, all right,
Speaker 1: it's September. I don't remember what day, twenty fifth or
Speaker 1: twenty six. I had a couple of days left, chasing
Speaker 1: bugles everywhere, bagland bulls in all over, but nothing with
Speaker 1: any size. Starting to get pretty frustrated. Well, we end
Speaker 1: the you know, it's the night before muzzloader starts, and
Speaker 1: we sit on what sounded like a big bowl turned
Speaker 1: out not to be a very big bowl. And so
Speaker 1: now I've got to switch over to my muzzloader and
Speaker 1: make things a little more different. You know, you got
Speaker 1: Now you've got a lot more people out in the
Speaker 1: woods with you, albeit only I believe eight or ten
Speaker 1: or something, I don't know how many, but you've got
Speaker 1: people with new energy, maybe more willing to get into
Speaker 1: the areas that you wanted to. Once again, still nothing
Speaker 1: showing up on my trail cameras. And so it was
Speaker 1: a We spent you know, a couple of days with
Speaker 1: the muzzle order looking for for elk and just couldn't
Speaker 1: find big ones or big enough ones. And then finally
Speaker 1: we hiked back into where we had heard the big
Speaker 1: bugle the last night of the rifle and was able
Speaker 1: to there was a new bowl in the area, you know,
Speaker 1: a mature six point and it was it allowed me
Speaker 1: to hunt the way I wanted to. You know, we
Speaker 1: were two and a half hours in on a trail,
Speaker 1: you know, in there pretty deep, and I just I
Speaker 1: didn't want to in this unit. You could kill smaller
Speaker 1: bulls or even decent bulls off the road or near road,
Speaker 1: and this was the way I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: And so I was able to take a great bull
Speaker 1: in some beautiful country, some rugged country and get that
Speaker 1: one out. So we talked about that new Mexico archery.
Speaker 1: I'll count with Luke. So the probably the if I
Speaker 1: had the most you know, my most requested question of
Speaker 1: the year is probably how is Luke in real life?
Speaker 1: And I think everybody's, oh, you know, he's awesome because
Speaker 1: he might be listening to this, but you could convinced
Speaker 1: me that he isn't a guy that grew up right
Speaker 1: alongside me in my town. Super funny. We always cracking jokes,
Speaker 1: keeping everything light, which I really appreciate. And he's just
Speaker 1: I want to hesitate using the word, you know, redneck
Speaker 1: or you know, he's just a country boy that loves
Speaker 1: doing country things. He was very interested and wanted to
Speaker 1: know a lot so I like people that don't just
Speaker 1: want to you know, it could have been just real easy,
Speaker 1: you know, him tag along with me and Jeremy, but
Speaker 1: it was really a He was asked a lot of
Speaker 1: good questions, like he was paying attention. He wanted to
Speaker 1: know why they were doing this or why we were
Speaker 1: doing that. So it made for a really fun hunt
Speaker 1: with a new hunter. And I have a ton of
Speaker 1: respect for Luke because we talked about it. He could
Speaker 1: have hunted anywhere, anytime with any weapon, you know, with
Speaker 1: with his ability and resources, and he elected to come
Speaker 1: do it on public land a lot side of a
Speaker 1: bunch of other hunters, and we made the most of it.
Speaker 1: You know. He passed on a couple you know, chip
Speaker 1: shots on some legal bulls. We've had some chances of
Speaker 1: some bigger ones. You know. I just really enjoyed hanging
Speaker 1: out with Luke and then you know his buddy Carl
Speaker 1: that was there. It was it was a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: and uh, I hope to get to do it again
Speaker 1: this year. We've got some plans in the work. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in the next to ourcher. It was tough though, you know,
Speaker 1: to recap the hunt. People driving side by sides where
Speaker 1: they shouldn't, you know, areas where we had spent the
Speaker 1: time and energy and effort to hike into and then
Speaker 1: to get you know, elk bumped by, side by sides,
Speaker 1: just kind of a kind of a bum deal. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of people in those units, you know,
Speaker 1: the elk were all kind of congregated to the water.
Speaker 1: So typical typical public land elk hunt. You got to
Speaker 1: deal with people. Just unfortunate that some of them weren't
Speaker 1: playing by the rules at times. Another strong runner up
Speaker 1: for one of my favorite hunts. So after all of that,
Speaker 1: we go to Idaho meal deer. It was a had
Speaker 1: a strong runner up for one of my favorite hunts
Speaker 1: because we lived off of our back for eight days
Speaker 1: straight on this This Idaho meal deer elk hunt was
Speaker 1: a collab that we're going to do with tall timber productions,
Speaker 1: focus on elk and we can find deer when convenient
Speaker 1: or when available. And I would say it flipped really
Speaker 1: quick when we were seeing elk everywhere without mature bulls,
Speaker 1: and the bulls we were here in Beagle were still spikes,
Speaker 1: and we were seeing some pretty good deer. And so
Speaker 1: the Idaho meal deer or the Idaho hunt turned into
Speaker 1: a deer hunt really really quick, and I just I
Speaker 1: love hunting and on hunts that the logistics are a
Speaker 1: little difficult, like you might have to drive here and
Speaker 1: side by side to here, and then hike to here,
Speaker 1: and then every morning you've got to pick a different
Speaker 1: mountain top to go glass from, and you know, you
Speaker 1: after day one you start to learn, you know what faces,
Speaker 1: their aspects or have deer on it, and then you
Speaker 1: know where's the sunlight. You don't want to glass into
Speaker 1: the wrong spots. The hunt was unseasonably warm, so we
Speaker 1: we also knew that our morning glass and you know
Speaker 1: a little bit at night had to be we were
Speaker 1: only going to see animals for for very short windows
Speaker 1: in the morning and night. But I really really liked
Speaker 1: that we were able to take two really good bucks
Speaker 1: out of the area and just really enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 1: hunt with my buddy Tyson and just meal deer in
Speaker 1: the mountains where I feel like it's a real level
Speaker 1: level field and uh, yeah, I really enjoyed it. Met
Speaker 1: some great people in and around the area. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of people, but the deer hunting was
Speaker 1: still pretty decent. If you worked for it. You know,
Speaker 1: we we all took decent bucks on that hunt, and
Speaker 1: you know, the tall timber guys, and you ended up
Speaker 1: with a with a couple of bowls there Towards the end,
Speaker 1: we ended up you know, leaving, but really excited to
Speaker 1: try to do that one again this year and then
Speaker 1: to finish up my season, uh, we'll go to Kansas
Speaker 1: again and our white tail hunt that we do with
Speaker 1: our buddy Randy and Brock and Koe every year. I've
Speaker 1: really grown to like the white tail hunt for different reasons.
Speaker 1: I said, I really like the Idaho Meal dear hunt
Speaker 1: because we were backpacking in and then I really like
Speaker 1: the white to hunt because it's the opposite. I sleep
Speaker 1: in a bed warm house, you know, stoven of and
Speaker 1: a barbecue, we got the you know, the the gas stations,
Speaker 1: got pizza, we got breakfast when we want it. It's
Speaker 1: the complete opposite. And it's really made by the people
Speaker 1: in the place. Some of these areas of Kansas, the
Speaker 1: people you deal with are just salt of the earth,
Speaker 1: as good as they get. You know. Some of our
Speaker 1: our friends that we get to hang out with are
Speaker 1: just great people, great storytellers, and I really really like
Speaker 1: it and you know, just being around them in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: And then there's just something about sitting in a tree stand,
Speaker 1: you know in the morning when it's dark and kind
Speaker 1: of letting the world wake up around you. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy that. And just you know, the rustling of the
Speaker 1: leaves and you know, hearing a deer come from one
Speaker 1: hundred yards away because you can hear them in the
Speaker 1: oak leaves. Just everything about it, it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of excites your different senses than then maybe
Speaker 1: sitting behind binoculars or a spotter all day when you
Speaker 1: finally spot the one you want, it's different. And so
Speaker 1: I was very fortunate this year that one of my
Speaker 1: favorite stands, my favorite areas I get to hunt on
Speaker 1: the top is what we call it. I was very
Speaker 1: fortunate within an hour to have you know, my best
Speaker 1: white tail come in and put a perfect arrow in it.
Speaker 1: Uh touch on the My favorite gear from that that
Speaker 1: Dart and sequel thirty five st two and iron will.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of white tail hunters, I would
Speaker 1: say the majority of them are shooting expandables nowadays, and
Speaker 1: they they talk about you know, bigger entrance holes and
Speaker 1: bigger exit holes and you know, quicker, quicker, you know,
Speaker 1: the deer expires faster. I'm I'm gonna start hitting stop
Speaker 1: watches or or go back and review some of this footage.
Speaker 1: I ended up shooting three der on that hunt, you know,
Speaker 1: one buck and two does, and uh, the iron Wheels
Speaker 1: performed amazing, Like I yeah, I don't know if if
Speaker 1: an expandable would have killed them any faster. You know,
Speaker 1: the buck was dead within seven seconds, maybe seven to ten.
Speaker 1: The dough I could, you know, within seven to ten
Speaker 1: on a dead sprint, made it one hundred fifty yards,
Speaker 1: and then the one dough you know, died on arrival.
Speaker 1: You know, hit it, hit it kind of a downwards
Speaker 1: frontel through the shoulder, you know, was able to kind
Speaker 1: of just plant it and anchor it right there. So
Speaker 1: I really like that set up. Iron Wills do great.
Speaker 1: The bow was super comfortable to draw. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can imagine even if it was you know, cold, and
Speaker 1: people have trouble drawing their normal draw away. Like just
Speaker 1: really easy to to make work on that hunt out
Speaker 1: of a tree. But that's kind of my wrap for
Speaker 1: twenty four. I don't know what twenty five brings were
Speaker 1: able to, you know, secure some tags already. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: see what Washington brings and then we've got I've got
Speaker 1: some really good odds of drawing the tags that I've
Speaker 1: been waiting for, and Montana, Colorado and Utah. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to kind of figure out what i want
Speaker 1: to do. But I'm kind of you know, we're just
Speaker 1: getting over with twenty twenty four and I'm already in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five planning mode. So if you have any questions,
Speaker 1: is you know for us, you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: nerd out on planning and I've got, you know, in
Speaker 1: this state, I'm going to do this in this date,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this. If you have any questions
Speaker 1: on the draws or applications, we'll probably throw a podcast
Speaker 1: out on that coming up, just on how we think
Speaker 1: about it and how we manage all of the applications
Speaker 1: and what we're looking for in each state, and you know,
Speaker 1: we can give our opinion on what each state provides,
Speaker 1: but feel free to shoot those questions over to us.
Speaker 1: But we hope you all had a great twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four and here's do a great twenty twenty five. And
Speaker 1: I can't thank you all enough for tuning into cutting
Speaker 1: the distance, take care of the times wish