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. Well, it's that time of
Speaker 1: year where maybe you applied for a limited entry tag,
Speaker 1: maybe even just a general tag in a state that
Speaker 1: might have been hard to draw. Maybe not, but it's
Speaker 1: that time where draw results are starting to come out.
Speaker 1: You're checking the mail, you're checking your email in box,
Speaker 1: You're going to the state website and see what she got.
Speaker 1: So you log in, you check it out, and lo
Speaker 1: and behold, whoo who Congratulations you got a tag. But
Speaker 1: then the first question that comes up is now, what,
Speaker 1: Well you're in luck because I'm gonna go through my
Speaker 1: four steps that I do after securing a tag to
Speaker 1: take you from a tag in your pocket, two stakes
Speaker 1: in the freezer, burgers on the grill, and a rack
Speaker 1: on the wall. This week we're gonna cover post draw research,
Speaker 1: looking over maps, gaining intel, and scouting around. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, I figure I might as well share
Speaker 1: some fun draw stories and my first moves afterwards. I
Speaker 1: always feel super fortunate when I end up drawing some
Speaker 1: kind of tag. One because it means that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be hunting too many times. It means I got pretty lucky.
Speaker 1: And three it's like, you know, you apply, you wait,
Speaker 1: you're just anticipating every time I've applied for there's states
Speaker 1: that I've applied for for well, I don't even know,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty three, twenty four years a tag that you're like, man,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll get that tag and still haven't you know,
Speaker 1: secured anything. So every time that happened, and you just
Speaker 1: you kind of have this anticipation of like, man, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen, but you gotta think that it does.
Speaker 1: Otherwise otherwise I would stop applying. Um, you know. For
Speaker 1: the most part, I actually just honestly, I haven't been
Speaker 1: super lucky in a lot of draws. I have drawn
Speaker 1: some great tags over the years, but I do apply
Speaker 1: a lot of places. There's a lot of places that
Speaker 1: I've been I've just struck out and been on the
Speaker 1: unsuccessful side more often than not. This year I got
Speaker 1: lucky and I drew a new Mexico Archery ELK tag.
Speaker 1: Not a crazy I mean, not a crazy hard to
Speaker 1: draw unit, probably even better than fifty percent. And I've
Speaker 1: applied for it many times and not drawn it, so
Speaker 1: it's the first time I've actually drawn there. I've gone
Speaker 1: on hunts with other people down there a lot, I've
Speaker 1: drawn some deer tags and whatever, but I haven't drawn
Speaker 1: an ELK tag. So I started putting in for tags
Speaker 1: would be a little bit easier to get, and happened
Speaker 1: to you get lucky this year, get a tag. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, sweet when that actually finally says successful, You're like,
Speaker 1: heck yeah, man. Also, I you know, I pulled a few,
Speaker 1: um more just like general type tags in a couple
Speaker 1: of different places, place that I've hunted before, and um,
Speaker 1: not necessarily hard to draw. But man, this year it's
Speaker 1: been crazy because it seems like there's a lot more
Speaker 1: people applying in a lot of places. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's because of podcasts like this, it probably is, so, um,
Speaker 1: I'll probably just have to stop doing this podcast so
Speaker 1: I can go back to drawing tags. I say that
Speaker 1: jokingly serious. Um No, it's it's good. It's all good.
Speaker 1: But one thing, you know, it's it's always fun to
Speaker 1: just kind of check and see successful by your name.
Speaker 1: But that thought always comes up, like now, what one
Speaker 1: draw that I always look forward to is just my
Speaker 1: home state of Nevada because it's just one of those
Speaker 1: things just like ingrained in our tradition. There are no
Speaker 1: general tags here for big game. You have to draw it.
Speaker 1: Ever since I was a kid, you had to draw
Speaker 1: a tag. And there's years where you will get nothing,
Speaker 1: many years that you won't get anything, um and years
Speaker 1: where you'll draw something. You have an incredible hunt this year,
Speaker 1: of like many other years, actually, we started releasing as
Speaker 1: I think I let maybe last year they started. Ever
Speaker 1: since they switched the system, they started releasing results around midnight.
Speaker 1: They used to do it kind of in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day. We when it was internet based, used
Speaker 1: to be able to look up your name, and like you,
Speaker 1: I'd sit there and refreshing pretty much all week. It
Speaker 1: was just like the most unproductive work week in the
Speaker 1: state of Nevada. There's a lot of hunters just waiting
Speaker 1: on draw results, and we used to like wait and
Speaker 1: then you scroll through the list, and man, everybody had
Speaker 1: their own system for scrolling through the list and you
Speaker 1: can see what your friends drew what you drew. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. Now they released him around midnight,
Speaker 1: so of course I'm like waiting up seeing what I drew.
Speaker 1: I got lucky, drew a deer tag and a spike
Speaker 1: Elk tag, archery deer tag and a spike Elk tag,
Speaker 1: and like sweet, pretty stoked. But then I gotta go
Speaker 1: check all my family's draw results as well. So I
Speaker 1: started looking for their results and I found out my
Speaker 1: brother true a desert sheep tag, so I'm like, heck, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I was so pumped. This is his first sheep tag.
Speaker 1: He's been applying forever, and I mean, I can he
Speaker 1: probably I think he probably had like twenty points or
Speaker 1: something like that, and I'm like, oh sweet. And I
Speaker 1: did a lot of research. I kind of I pretty
Speaker 1: much lined out, like okay, here's your choices. I think
Speaker 1: these are gonna be your best chance of actually drawing.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, he he drew this year. So I'm
Speaker 1: like super excited. So it's late. I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta talk to him, like I gotta. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I don't know if he's asleep or what. Well,
Speaker 1: his phone wasn't on, so I'm like Okay, Well, I'll
Speaker 1: just wait till the morning. I can't wait to talk
Speaker 1: to him. I said him about five texts, call me,
Speaker 1: call me, call me when you wake up, give me,
Speaker 1: you know, draw results out. I mean he knew they're out,
Speaker 1: but I think he just turned his phone off so
Speaker 1: you could check in the morning. So he text me
Speaker 1: like just standard text like oh yeah, unsuccessful goose egg
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Okay, he's definitely messing with me. So
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for him because I saw his draw results.
Speaker 1: It was like he drew desert sheep tag. So I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for him to like text me like just kidding.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, he's got to know. I clearly have
Speaker 1: I know his the password to check his stuff, Like
Speaker 1: he definitely has to know that I already checked and no,
Speaker 1: So like, why is he messing with me? So I
Speaker 1: called him like, hey, you know you check your JARW results. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't ge anything, and I was like, I could
Speaker 1: tell you serious. Somehow he didn't realize like that he
Speaker 1: had actually drawn. So I'm like, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is the best of every word because I wanted to
Speaker 1: be there when he found out. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm coming over. I was gonna. I was like, I'll
Speaker 1: come over breakfast or whatever. He's like, sweet, So go
Speaker 1: over there and have the results ready, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: hand him the results, like take a look at this,
Speaker 1: here's your draw results. You miss something? He looks at
Speaker 1: it like what desert sheep successful? Somehow on the email
Speaker 1: he had scrolled right like right at the top. We
Speaker 1: actually went back to make sure right at the top successful.
Speaker 1: He just scrolled right past that part to all of
Speaker 1: the unsuccessful stuff, kept scrolling, didn't see any successful and
Speaker 1: just assumed that he didn't draw a tag. So I
Speaker 1: was like, man, that was so fun to be able
Speaker 1: actually like see his reaction and be there when he
Speaker 1: found out that he drew the tag, because I was like,
Speaker 1: that was that was worth it. Man. It couldn't worked
Speaker 1: out any better for me. I mean, because I got
Speaker 1: to share in the excitement. That was pretty cool. I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been fortunate and drawn a couple of
Speaker 1: different sheep tags, but one in particular, when I drew
Speaker 1: a Nevada, California big Horn tag. You know, I remember thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: you know these are places like this is an area
Speaker 1: I never hunted, um say, with my brothers TAG, like
Speaker 1: we've never been in this I've never hunted this particular unit.
Speaker 1: But what I mean, I just kind of went through
Speaker 1: the same checklist that I do with everything, and it
Speaker 1: just kind of started with, Okay, what can I kind
Speaker 1: of expect in this area? When I drew that California
Speaker 1: Big Horn tag is like all right, I started going
Speaker 1: through checkout summaries again. Even though I do all this
Speaker 1: stuff when I apply, like really now focusing on it
Speaker 1: because it's a different ballgame. When I had TAG in
Speaker 1: my hand, kind of going through the checkout summaris reading
Speaker 1: maybe where some of the animals were taking the sizes,
Speaker 1: kind of just giving me a picture of what to expect,
Speaker 1: and then it's like immediately, well, at that time, I
Speaker 1: didn't really have online mapping system, so it's just like
Speaker 1: pouring over maps of the unit, mostly big map books,
Speaker 1: and then there's like almost like road outlas is but
Speaker 1: they had they came up with some that had units
Speaker 1: in them and all that kind of stuff, which is
Speaker 1: pretty sweet pouring over that and just really getting like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've been, uh, you know, check her hunting in this
Speaker 1: particular canyon, but you know, not really focusing on sheep
Speaker 1: or not having had a cheap tag in there. There's
Speaker 1: places i'd definitely been, but not places that I knew
Speaker 1: where the sheep were at. And it's just like reaching
Speaker 1: out to people that I had seen draw or had
Speaker 1: heard of hunts, gaining a bunch of intel, and then
Speaker 1: really spent most of my time for that tag in particular,
Speaker 1: just out there scouting out there. I made quite a
Speaker 1: few trips early in the season to really get a
Speaker 1: good lay of the land. You know, I actually didn't
Speaker 1: seem as much in my first initial scouting trips, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't really scouting for animals. I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: where's the water, where's the access, Where where's this spot
Speaker 1: that somebody maybe talked about, or like the kind of
Speaker 1: type of terrain or type of area that I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: how do I get there? Whereas the roads? Where where
Speaker 1: would I hike in from? All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then I started, you know, really putting more and
Speaker 1: more scouting in and because of it, I ended up
Speaker 1: with what I think was probably the best sheep in
Speaker 1: the unit, based on just starting out pretty much doing
Speaker 1: the same thing that I do every time I draw
Speaker 1: a tag because realistically, for most of my Western hunts,
Speaker 1: they're in areas that I've never been. So that, okay,
Speaker 1: I drew a tag. Now what where do I start?
Speaker 1: And that's what I want to go through this week
Speaker 1: and kind of break down my process for the next steps.
Speaker 1: After you draw a tag, I think to just kind
Speaker 1: of get you and make it easier to understand the
Speaker 1: process I think of it. And if I were to
Speaker 1: think of like, alright, I drew tag. What I do
Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily and I do it, I don't
Speaker 1: really think of it in these steps, but when I
Speaker 1: really think about it, I'm like, yeah, this is absolutely
Speaker 1: exactly what I do. So I kind of broke it
Speaker 1: down into four steps. So the first would be some
Speaker 1: post draw research, The second step would be pouring over maps,
Speaker 1: the third would be reaching out to people, and then
Speaker 1: the fourth step would be scouting. Let's start with the
Speaker 1: first step, so post draw research. Now, I'm the type
Speaker 1: of person I love. I mean, I put a lot
Speaker 1: of time into researching the tags, researching the units, really
Speaker 1: kind of understanding what I'm getting into or where I'm applying.
Speaker 1: But sometimes that research is more geared on getting a tag,
Speaker 1: not necessarily planning a hunt, because if I went into
Speaker 1: the hunt planning, I mean, I might have five or
Speaker 1: six choices multiple states. Most of my research is what
Speaker 1: are the draws, what's potential success look like, what kind
Speaker 1: of terrain is in there, what kind of public land percentages,
Speaker 1: what type of animals might I be able to expect?
Speaker 1: You know. But that's completely different than kind of some
Speaker 1: of the research that I start to look for once
Speaker 1: I have that type. Once I've secured that tag, it's like, man,
Speaker 1: now I can narrow in. First thing I do. I
Speaker 1: hop online. There's a couple of services that I use
Speaker 1: where I can kind of look up the unit and
Speaker 1: just read a little bit of information about it. But
Speaker 1: I also like to just, you know, gather as much
Speaker 1: info as possible. That includes searching documents that might be
Speaker 1: on phish and game websites, might be on um, you know,
Speaker 1: any anything that I can find on that unit. A
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff, like let's say I drew a
Speaker 1: sheep tag, most states would have check out summaries of
Speaker 1: the sheep, and I'll really start pouring through those, even
Speaker 1: though I'm crazy about sheep, and look through every state's
Speaker 1: check out summaries like like that's just my nighttime reading.
Speaker 1: I've probably read through them four thousand times just looking
Speaker 1: over stuff. But um, I really start to kind of
Speaker 1: look at maybe like some harvest statistics and some anything
Speaker 1: that I can find relating to like, oh, here's a
Speaker 1: article that was written about this particular unit on the
Speaker 1: biology and the migrations in the area, any kind of
Speaker 1: little tidbits of information. Because what I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is I'm trying to build a picture of like what
Speaker 1: to expect, because I think really the first step after
Speaker 1: you draw a tag is like what should I reasonably
Speaker 1: expect on this hunt? What is it gonna look like?
Speaker 1: And what am I going to be looking for? You know,
Speaker 1: if I start finding I start going through I'll even
Speaker 1: go through things like in state record books, um, looking
Speaker 1: at that county Pope and Young record. If it's like
Speaker 1: an archery hunt, I'll start looking through some of the
Speaker 1: Pope and Young records, um all pretty much all the
Speaker 1: organization records and say like okay, especially for this is
Speaker 1: primarily for limited draw entry units, where I'm like, okay, man,
Speaker 1: this this year here was um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of entries. You know, I go Okay, maybe in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight there's a lot of entries. And then I'll
Speaker 1: just even look start looking up some data of like
Speaker 1: what was the rainfall and water like that year, what
Speaker 1: does it look like this year? And I start to
Speaker 1: build out like this, like I kind of create like
Speaker 1: this intel board. You ever see those crime shows where
Speaker 1: they've got like, you know, they've got the criminal and
Speaker 1: they've got that big board in the background and they're
Speaker 1: like putting all the info and all the data, and
Speaker 1: I just start a file and start just doing research,
Speaker 1: because what I want to do is I want to
Speaker 1: build out a good picture of what's the potential of
Speaker 1: this area. You know, is this an area where it's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: there's some really big bucks in here, there's some really
Speaker 1: big bulls, or it's like, man, I'm not really seeing
Speaker 1: it very much. This might be more of an opportunity
Speaker 1: um because based on like, look, it's got pretty high
Speaker 1: harvest rates, but there's not a lot of um large
Speaker 1: animals coming out of it. You know, maybe it's just
Speaker 1: more of an opportunity hunt. I'm gonna have a good
Speaker 1: opportunity and good hunter. Maybe it's like, man, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of big stuff here. Maybe I should hold out,
Speaker 1: Maybe I should target a really mature animal. Maybe this
Speaker 1: might be kind of more of a one chance that's
Speaker 1: something for really quality hunt. So I start to do
Speaker 1: that kind of research, and then I like to kind
Speaker 1: of pair that with just any kind of data that
Speaker 1: I can find on the unit. I'll look up fire
Speaker 1: maps and and switch on layers of like, Okay, was
Speaker 1: there fire in the area when there was a lot
Speaker 1: of good animals harvested, what's kind of the kind of
Speaker 1: feel for this area. Also, just try to search for
Speaker 1: pictures just from other hunters, may we get an idea
Speaker 1: of maybe some success um And even just like videos, man,
Speaker 1: I'll go through YouTube videos just trying to find anything
Speaker 1: I can it's like maybe about that unit or just
Speaker 1: kind of that general area, to get a good feel
Speaker 1: of like what it looks like, what I can expect,
Speaker 1: what kind of you know, if I'm seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of pictures from this particular area, go okay, this is
Speaker 1: fairly popular, this is the kind of terrain that things
Speaker 1: are being taken in, more open country, more timbered country.
Speaker 1: Just kind of know what to expect, because once I
Speaker 1: build that really good picture in my head, then when
Speaker 1: I start my scouting, when I start my planning, when
Speaker 1: I start moving into the other steps, I've already I'm
Speaker 1: building like a really accurate picture of what I want
Speaker 1: to be looking for. So that moves us on to
Speaker 1: step too, And that's gonna be going through your maps.
Speaker 1: The first thing I do, like, any unit doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: so this is a great step. It's like, hey, i've
Speaker 1: got a you've got a general tag, um, you've got
Speaker 1: to over the counter tag, you've got any kind of tag.
Speaker 1: My first kind of step is going over maps, and
Speaker 1: it's looking for these sort of things. So the first
Speaker 1: thing I look for is I find somewhere to hunt,
Speaker 1: and that's looking for public land, and I look for
Speaker 1: those access points. I gotta know, how do I get
Speaker 1: to the hunting area? Where can I go in from?
Speaker 1: Where can't I go in from? Where's the public land
Speaker 1: where I'm gonna be hunting. You might even draw tag
Speaker 1: and you look at it and you're like, that's rough.
Speaker 1: There's private land. Okay, Well I've got this little bout
Speaker 1: of public land. And then you could even maybe look for,
Speaker 1: you know, some places that you could get permission on.
Speaker 1: But it just gives you a place to start, because
Speaker 1: you need access, you need somewhere to hunt. So that's
Speaker 1: what I do. I look for that public land first,
Speaker 1: and then I start to kind of key in and
Speaker 1: look at habitat. But also I really want to familiarize
Speaker 1: myself with the area. I want to understand, Okay, what
Speaker 1: are the main creek names, what are the main range names,
Speaker 1: what are the main canyon names, and what are some
Speaker 1: of the main roads and access points. You know, you
Speaker 1: can always see like Okay, here's a number, like a
Speaker 1: main that goes through the middle of the unit. Here's
Speaker 1: a road that goes around the unit on the north side,
Speaker 1: on the south side, uh, and then there's these roads
Speaker 1: and other things, these trailheads, and really just kind of
Speaker 1: build an understanding of that area. I also like to
Speaker 1: get on some three D map action and fly around
Speaker 1: that unit, just cruise around and really get a feel
Speaker 1: for it. Say like, Okay, there's mountains here, there's some
Speaker 1: valleys here, here's uh some good habitat, and then how
Speaker 1: do I access that? And I'm just kind of taking
Speaker 1: this broad approach but really just mentally familiarizing myself with it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons for that, and I would
Speaker 1: do this before there is even any um online stuff.
Speaker 1: I just get that map book out and I'd pour
Speaker 1: over Okay, here's a mountain, here's the range, here's the
Speaker 1: names of the peaks, and the other stuff. Because what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen is as I build out this plan, if
Speaker 1: you don't know, like if if I don't know the
Speaker 1: canyons of the creeks, if I end up talking to someone,
Speaker 1: or if I get um have some ideas of where
Speaker 1: I want to go, I need to be able to
Speaker 1: converse with the people that might be helping me or
Speaker 1: some other people that I reach out to about the area.
Speaker 1: And I want to have that kind of picture. So
Speaker 1: when somebody says something, or if I'm thinking about something,
Speaker 1: I can kind of put areas and names and things
Speaker 1: together in this puzzle because it's going to really help
Speaker 1: me build that picture that's on that wall where I
Speaker 1: went from that research of Okay, there's this I'm building
Speaker 1: out like a really accurate picture of what to expect,
Speaker 1: and that's going to really help me build out an
Speaker 1: accurate picture of my final hunt plan. So I'm really
Speaker 1: learning those names of roads, those different places. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at places maybe people were successful in the past. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't always like, oh, this is a concentration where
Speaker 1: people are really successful. Sometimes I'm like, okay, that's a
Speaker 1: good area to look at and understand, Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of people hunt your Why do you think a lot
Speaker 1: of people hunt here? Um? Maybe I'll start saying like okay,
Speaker 1: I'll pinpoint a few areas and say, okay, well there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of success in this particular canyon. Well
Speaker 1: is it just because there's really good access and more
Speaker 1: people are hunting there. Maybe that's an area to avoid
Speaker 1: and I find somewhere else, or maybe that's an area
Speaker 1: it's really limited tags that I kind of focus in on,
Speaker 1: but I like to be able to build out this
Speaker 1: picture and then really understand the unit looking at the map.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm gonna now kind of start map scouting.
Speaker 1: But before I really even get into the map scouting,
Speaker 1: these are just my initial steps. When I know that
Speaker 1: I drew that tag, I'm going to first learn kind
Speaker 1: of everything I need to know about the area. If
Speaker 1: I see stuff that's cool, I'm gonna start dropping pins
Speaker 1: and pinpointing things that I like basin springs, canyons, road accesses,
Speaker 1: those kind of things. As I see them, but primarily
Speaker 1: just trying to learn what the area is about what
Speaker 1: it looks like and build that mental picture out and
Speaker 1: I'm and before So once I've done that, now we're
Speaker 1: going to move on to step three, and that's the
Speaker 1: reach out portion. And this is like with all the
Speaker 1: map scouting and digital stuff out there, I think that
Speaker 1: this particular thing kind of gets left out and this
Speaker 1: is probably one of the most important steps. And I
Speaker 1: like to do this after I'm a little bit familiar
Speaker 1: with the area and looking at the maps, and that
Speaker 1: reach out is trying to find people that have actually
Speaker 1: been boots on the ground in the area and just
Speaker 1: ask them some questions. And I I'm not the type
Speaker 1: of person like I don't ever, I don't ask people
Speaker 1: like where should I go? You know, that's not a
Speaker 1: question that I ask. But what I do like to
Speaker 1: ask is things that kind of helped me understand the unit,
Speaker 1: what I'm getting into, and how that I can best
Speaker 1: build out my hunt plan based on what other people
Speaker 1: know about the area, Because in a few minutes, you
Speaker 1: can understand more about an area from somebody that's been there.
Speaker 1: Whether they were successful or unsuccessful doesn't really matter, just
Speaker 1: kind of getting a good picture of what you're going
Speaker 1: to expect there and maybe what you should be looking
Speaker 1: for when you start building out that plan to start scouting.
Speaker 1: I think one of the ways there's so many ways
Speaker 1: now that you can kind of reach out to people
Speaker 1: I've see. I mean I use them all the time,
Speaker 1: and I see a lot of people use them as well.
Speaker 1: Just message boards. Um, there's plenty of websites and apps
Speaker 1: out there that have message boards where you can say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I drew this unit. Anybody have any kind of inside
Speaker 1: or hunted that I could maybe chat with for a
Speaker 1: little bit. Social media is like a great way. I
Speaker 1: mean there's people people reach out to me on social media. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I don't actually see all the messages. It's kind of
Speaker 1: difficult now, but um, you know, when I do see something,
Speaker 1: when that gets pining to try to the best I can,
Speaker 1: um answer. But I think that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of ways to reach out
Speaker 1: to people on social media, especially when if you drew
Speaker 1: like a limited entry tag, there's not as many people
Speaker 1: that want to be tight lip. Now if you drew
Speaker 1: a general tag and over the counter tag, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be very difficult to get information from a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But you don't necessarily need spots. You just need some
Speaker 1: kind of information to kind of let you form your
Speaker 1: own decision. You're going there anyways, but just being able
Speaker 1: to talk to somebody that's been on the ground there
Speaker 1: is a great resource to have. Now. Of course, friends
Speaker 1: and friends of friends, those are the first people that
Speaker 1: I reach out to, and generally, like, if you hunt
Speaker 1: a lot, there's somebody within your network or somebody that
Speaker 1: somebody knows that can point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Just today, I was on the phone with one of
Speaker 1: my good buddies. I'm like telling him some of my
Speaker 1: hunt plans, some of the tags that I have. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: had you know, I haven't hunted that area, but I've
Speaker 1: got my boss hunts that area, and he's got some
Speaker 1: cousins that live in there. You know. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things that's like as hunters, I'm always stoked with
Speaker 1: a friend of mine connects me to somebody that drew tag.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got this time of year, it's like
Speaker 1: I'm on the phone to friends and friends of friends
Speaker 1: all the time, just chatting over spots, ideas, things that
Speaker 1: I've seen places I've been placed I haven't been, but
Speaker 1: things that I know about the area, um that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. As hunters collectively, we're a pretty awesome group.
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the cool things is
Speaker 1: like we're all the same tribe. We're all love the
Speaker 1: same thing, and hunters love to tell stories and they
Speaker 1: love to help other hunters out. I think there is
Speaker 1: a stigma of like, oh, that's my spot, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna help you. But this isn't talking about giving away spots.
Speaker 1: It's talking about connecting with people that might be able
Speaker 1: to give you a positive intel on an area, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to limited drawer is. I think most
Speaker 1: people are pretty apt to kind of share knowledge of something.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I probably won't draw that again in
Speaker 1: my life. It might take me three to five years.
Speaker 1: Here here's kind of what I know and talking in
Speaker 1: physical talking to someone, it's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, back in the day you used to be
Speaker 1: able to kind of reach out to fishing game offices
Speaker 1: and biologists in the area. I'm sure you can still
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know. I mean they might get
Speaker 1: inundated and some of that information is like Hey, that's
Speaker 1: the information that's already published online, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that information is you gotta play it by here. There's
Speaker 1: people that I've run into you start talking to at
Speaker 1: a party and start saying, no, I gotta tag here.
Speaker 1: You start finding people to talk to. UM. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of resources out there now that weren't out
Speaker 1: there a long time ago that you can connect with
Speaker 1: hunters other places and start kind of sharing information now.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I don't not the type of person.
Speaker 1: I don't even be like, hey, where where should I go?
Speaker 1: Where where's a good spot? UM? I like to ask
Speaker 1: different questions. I like to ask the questions that really
Speaker 1: helped me build my own hunt plan because I don't
Speaker 1: want to UM. This might sound weird where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know the area, but I don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: influenced one way or the other. Sometimes, you know, somebody
Speaker 1: give you a hot tip and it's like, oh cool,
Speaker 1: especially when it's a tag that maybe they've hunted in
Speaker 1: with some friends. It's like there's no chance that they
Speaker 1: could get it again or whatever. You can get some
Speaker 1: pretty good tips that way, But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I just kinda like to ask these questions like what
Speaker 1: to expect, you know, I like to ask them about
Speaker 1: their hunt, like how did your hunt go in there? Um,
Speaker 1: there's sounds where I've gone on and I was like,
Speaker 1: and I had a great hunt, but we barely saw
Speaker 1: any dear. It was really tough. You know, this is
Speaker 1: how we hunted. We hiked in really far. We're glass
Speaker 1: and pretty hard. I've hunted there before, I've had success,
Speaker 1: but do this last year? I was just like two
Speaker 1: years ago, we didn't see anything that I just like
Speaker 1: to know, like what did they see? And hear their
Speaker 1: hunt story and just kind of build a picture of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is maybe what I'm gonna expect. I always ask
Speaker 1: them kind of what they observed some and then one
Speaker 1: thing is like would they do anything different, especially if
Speaker 1: it's a really limited tag, because those kind of questions.
Speaker 1: I don't want just uh check this spot out. I
Speaker 1: want to really understand the area. I really want to
Speaker 1: understand the hunt, and I really want to be able
Speaker 1: to build kind of like my own hunt plan based
Speaker 1: on the things that I've learned. So would you do
Speaker 1: anything different? I mean there's times where I've actually that
Speaker 1: was one thing that I learned When I drew my
Speaker 1: California Big Horn tag, I talked to some people. I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, would you do anything different? They're like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I got out there, I scouted a couple of days,
Speaker 1: didn't see much. I wanted to spend most of my
Speaker 1: time hunting. He's like, I would have. I would have
Speaker 1: put all my time into scouting, because you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like the guys that put in the time scouting
Speaker 1: got the big rams. And I really took that to heart.
Speaker 1: I scouted. I thought, hey, if I have two weeks
Speaker 1: to hunt, I essentially spent that those two weeks scouting
Speaker 1: and really one day hunting, even though I could have
Speaker 1: hunted more days. But um, because of that, you know,
Speaker 1: that advice and that like, that's what I wish I
Speaker 1: would have done. I really took that to heart and
Speaker 1: was like, that makes sense. You know, there's guys that
Speaker 1: are going to be scouting hard, and those are the
Speaker 1: guys that are gonna find the mature rams and they're
Speaker 1: probably gonna be on them opening morning. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: having that kind of intel and just really understanding the
Speaker 1: unit and what to expect is great advice and it
Speaker 1: really helps me then go into my final stage of
Speaker 1: this beginning planning. It's like scouting, and that could and
Speaker 1: I kind of I mean step four is two parts
Speaker 1: because it's a lot of map scouting if I can
Speaker 1: get there or not, and it can also be some
Speaker 1: boots on the ground scouting, which is preferred. But now
Speaker 1: I kind of take that map scouting the next level.
Speaker 1: After I've talked to people and really understand the area.
Speaker 1: They might mention a canyon or like, hey, we went
Speaker 1: up this area, is this is the type of train
Speaker 1: you might see in there, I can kind of then
Speaker 1: pinpoint those areas. I write everything down, and then I
Speaker 1: go into in depth stuff. I start looking at different areas,
Speaker 1: different types of places that I like to hime. Maybe
Speaker 1: they said, dude, we were hunting the road system. There
Speaker 1: was dudes everywhere, you know, we hiked off a couple
Speaker 1: of days. We saw we didn't see hardly any ELP,
Speaker 1: but we didn't see any hunters either. Then I take
Speaker 1: that intil and ago all right, I'm building that into
Speaker 1: my scout plan. There's gonna be people people ripping all
Speaker 1: over the place. It sounds like a really busy unit,
Speaker 1: but they didn't really see many people getting off the roads. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna find some spots. Now, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: locate pinpoint spots where I can build to the type
Speaker 1: of hunt that I want. I want to get away
Speaker 1: from people. Hey, seeing fewer animals is fine, but you know,
Speaker 1: as long as I'm seeing fewer people. So now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start focusing in on those areas I've had. The
Speaker 1: same thing happened where I was, you know, Drew Tag
Speaker 1: talk to people who are like, yeah, man, we packed
Speaker 1: nine miles into the wilderness. It was a zoo up there.
Speaker 1: It was like trucks at the trailhead everywhere. Everyone was
Speaker 1: hunting in the back country. They're like that we pulled out.
Speaker 1: We hunted a couple of days on the way out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, my cousin shot a little three by three,
Speaker 1: But we wish we had more time to kind of
Speaker 1: hunt this other this front country stuff because everyone was
Speaker 1: packed in. Like, Okay, that's a good that's a good
Speaker 1: hot tip. Maybe I kind of want to plan off
Speaker 1: the same thing. Maybe I'm gonna find a few glassing
Speaker 1: vantages that are easy to get to, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is an area where it's like, man, I want
Speaker 1: to stay away from people, and maybe this is the
Speaker 1: way to do it. Find those pockets that aren't in
Speaker 1: the wilderness but aren't necessarily close to the road either,
Speaker 1: and and and play in my hunt that way. So
Speaker 1: I'll do that by map scouting. I'll look for that habitat.
Speaker 1: I'll start narrowing in one thing that you know, depending
Speaker 1: on the type of unit you've got. When I'm hunting southwest,
Speaker 1: one thing that animals are pretty tied to, and there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of his water. So I start pinpointing water,
Speaker 1: and I start saying, okay, here's where the water sources are.
Speaker 1: And then I start to think myself, Okay, what kind
Speaker 1: of year is it is a drought year, is it
Speaker 1: a really wet year. Is there going to be plenty
Speaker 1: of water? Or is there not one thing that's nice
Speaker 1: when you're in this more arid stuff. As you go, okay, well,
Speaker 1: animals are gonna have to be tied to water, but
Speaker 1: you know you've got to be able to find that water.
Speaker 1: So I'll start pinpointing water and those access points. Then
Speaker 1: when his boots on the ground scouting, let's say I've
Speaker 1: got a weekends, it's best. I mean, if you live
Speaker 1: in the East Coast and you've got a Colorado ELK tag,
Speaker 1: it makes it pretty difficult. But I mean, if you
Speaker 1: can get a little summer vacation trip and go send
Speaker 1: the family out, take a little motor home trip and
Speaker 1: get a couple of days out scouting. Sweet. But what
Speaker 1: I like to do, I'm just more investigating places that
Speaker 1: I've pinpointed at this point. So this is kind of
Speaker 1: the next advanced step of like, alright, I did everything
Speaker 1: at home. My first steps are done. Sometimes I'll just
Speaker 1: run out and hit up the unit, even if it's
Speaker 1: five to seven hour drive, Like I'm gonna drive all
Speaker 1: night on Friday, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna scout
Speaker 1: a little bit Sunday or all day Saturday, scout a
Speaker 1: little bit Sunday morning, and drive back half day Sunday. Um.
Speaker 1: And what I'm doing is I'm just like ping I
Speaker 1: just called like ping ponging around the area. I'm just
Speaker 1: fact checking ground checking places that I've scouted, uh digitally
Speaker 1: or places that I've heard about, but really just kind
Speaker 1: of like learning the access. I'll go in like check
Speaker 1: water sources, especially if it's more area, Like Okay, this
Speaker 1: is is this like a good water hole. Is it
Speaker 1: dry already? Is this summer that's was it a tank?
Speaker 1: Is there a good spring? Is that spring running a
Speaker 1: pretty long creek that's like going to be flowing all
Speaker 1: year round? Cool? That'll that'll start narrowing down. Because there's
Speaker 1: times where I've gotten into a place, I've had everything
Speaker 1: planned out, I'm like, sweet, this is gonna be awesome.
Speaker 1: I know exactly where I want to go, this beautifull habitat.
Speaker 1: I get in there, you know, maybe don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of time to hunt, get in there and it's
Speaker 1: just bone dry. There hasn't been water in there in
Speaker 1: three years, and you're like, well, that sucks. If I
Speaker 1: knew that. If I just knew that one thing, I
Speaker 1: could have completely changed not wasted a day like a
Speaker 1: precious hunt day. If I just known, hey, I could
Speaker 1: have spent one day just cruising around the area and
Speaker 1: checking the things that I checked at home. So that's
Speaker 1: that's my step process for when I draw a tag,
Speaker 1: And by doing that, I found a lot of success,
Speaker 1: you know, hunting a lot of I had a lot
Speaker 1: of places for the first time each year. But I
Speaker 1: do put in a lot of time, and there's there's
Speaker 1: many places, like I understand, it's like I haven't got
Speaker 1: out and scouted, or I can't get out and scout.
Speaker 1: I've got five days, and I get I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: those days hunting. I'm gonna start maybe four days after
Speaker 1: the opener is the only time I can get there,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to use those five days during the season.
Speaker 1: But I can do all this like due diligence ahead
Speaker 1: of time, so when I get into the area, I
Speaker 1: have a good plan. And by doing that, I found
Speaker 1: a lot of success over the years. I hope that
Speaker 1: helps you guys. Now, if you have drawn a tag,
Speaker 1: whether I don't care if it's a general tag, whether
Speaker 1: it's a limited entry tag, whatever, reach out to me
Speaker 1: via social media, leave comments on my any post just
Speaker 1: where you drew tag or what you're looking forward to.
Speaker 1: I don't need the specific units or whatever. But maybe
Speaker 1: it's a limited entry tag and you're pretty excited about
Speaker 1: It's always fun to share in that excitement with hunters,
Speaker 1: and you never know, maybe you could mention a little
Speaker 1: bit about state and reach out and maybe somebody will
Speaker 1: have some information for you. Um you know that, especially
Speaker 1: if it's like a pretty hard to get tag, there's
Speaker 1: always there's always people willing to share information. I know,
Speaker 1: like that information always comes back to you if I've
Speaker 1: been in a hunt or whatever, I like to share
Speaker 1: some of that info because inevitably I'm gonna draw a
Speaker 1: tag somewhere that they know or someone knows that they know,
Speaker 1: and I'll be able to get a little bit info
Speaker 1: on the back end. So that's always awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: if you guys, uh think about it, you know, you
Speaker 1: can also kind of do something similar on the comments
Speaker 1: and the section wherever you listen to the podcast and
Speaker 1: help each other out. If somebody drew a good tag
Speaker 1: and you guys want to help each other out, let's
Speaker 1: let's all help each other listeners of this podcast. I
Speaker 1: think that like we could be the most successful group
Speaker 1: of hunters if we all put our minds together and
Speaker 1: uh and kind of help each other out in ways
Speaker 1: that we can. So I'll be pretty sweet. Next week,
Speaker 1: I want to jump into I mean kind of this
Speaker 1: kind of on the same vein of hey drew a tag,
Speaker 1: now what and jumping into a little bit of like
Speaker 1: off season summer archery practice, because that's gonna be the
Speaker 1: first season that hits. It's it seems like I know,
Speaker 1: for me, it seems like it's just gonna happen tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm always like, I always feel like, oh man, there's
Speaker 1: I practiced year round, and I'm like, it's already seasoned.
Speaker 1: I gotta go. I gotta be ready, I gotta do this,
Speaker 1: I gotta do that. So that getting ready, And just
Speaker 1: give you some ideas of some cool practice ways, ways
Speaker 1: to practice like you're hunting. I talked about some of
Speaker 1: this this time last year, but just a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways to prepare yourself for this upcoming archery season,
Speaker 1: shooting your bow and getting better and better every day.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll catch you guys later. Until next week.
Speaker 1: Good luck in the draws and help each other out.