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. There's seriously nothing worse, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, than planning a stock on a good deer,
Speaker 1: getting to exactly where you think you should be and
Speaker 1: the place is a ghost town. What I don't like
Speaker 1: about it is just not knowing what happened. Did he move,
Speaker 1: did he spook, Maybe he just bedded down. You may
Speaker 1: never know. That's unless you have a spotter. When planning
Speaker 1: a stock, it's always easier to have someone watching from
Speaker 1: an advantage and doing what I call directing traffic. Hand
Speaker 1: signals can be a great way to guide another hunter in,
Speaker 1: but if you're not on the same page, it can
Speaker 1: honestly be more confusing than it's worth. So this week
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be breaking down the tried and true use
Speaker 1: of hand signals. So text your hunting buddy right now
Speaker 1: to listen in on this podcast because it takes two
Speaker 1: to tango. But before we go there, I'm going to
Speaker 1: share the story of today's late season archery mule deer
Speaker 1: hunt with my wife. I figured, if I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell a hunting story, might as well tell the story
Speaker 1: of today's hunt. My wife and I drew some late
Speaker 1: season archery meal deer tags, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: my wife's like first jump into archery hunting. Earlier this year.
Speaker 1: She just thought she's been on a few archery hunts
Speaker 1: with me and thought it would be pretty exciting to
Speaker 1: try herself. So we got our shooting a bow and
Speaker 1: she actually went out and did some small games, some
Speaker 1: grouse hunting, and she's doing really well and just progressing
Speaker 1: really well, just all in preparation for this tag, so
Speaker 1: she's been really excited. Unfortunately, today was the first day
Speaker 1: we could get out. I was actually had a trip
Speaker 1: already planned in Alaska and just got back, so we
Speaker 1: kind of gathered up our stuff and went out today.
Speaker 1: First morning. I figured out, okay, I'll just we'll continue
Speaker 1: to hunt and I can do these podcasts at night
Speaker 1: whenever after we get back. So we went out and
Speaker 1: not having any time to scout, I just started to
Speaker 1: check a few areas that I'd hunted before, and the
Speaker 1: first part of the morning, didn't really see much. You know,
Speaker 1: we hadn't had a whole lot of weather. Sometimes late
Speaker 1: season hunts can be a little more migration dependent. We
Speaker 1: got some weather, so I thought, okay, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be great, and then didn't really see what we're looking
Speaker 1: for the first part of the day, so we switched
Speaker 1: areas kind of got into a new spot away from people.
Speaker 1: Some weather started moving in its cloudy, snowing cold. Um,
Speaker 1: the fog started to roll into the glass. In visibility
Speaker 1: wasn't that great. But before we lost visibility, spotted a
Speaker 1: couple of bucks down in this this valley like kind
Speaker 1: of in this patch of aspen trees. So I saw
Speaker 1: one buck and he was actually a nice, nice buck,
Speaker 1: pushing some dose in the aspens. Were like, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: go over there. The snow is deep where we were at.
Speaker 1: So we got up to the top and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, it's maybe a mile and a half. Let's
Speaker 1: go over there and stock in. So on the way there,
Speaker 1: we get into a group of deer and my wife's
Speaker 1: just looking to get her first our bow harvest, like
Speaker 1: first bow kill, so not being super picky, there's a
Speaker 1: big fork in horns or like, let's stock this. The
Speaker 1: snow starts moving in, we start crawling in, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the one deer we saw bet had
Speaker 1: turned into about fifteen deer mostly does like, man, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a tough stock. But we're headed for some
Speaker 1: other deer anyway, so let's do a quick stock. If
Speaker 1: we get in there, great if not, no tears. You know,
Speaker 1: there's probably quite a few other bucks like this one around,
Speaker 1: so let's just kind of knock the rust off, get
Speaker 1: a little stock in. It was actually honestly bad stocking condition.
Speaker 1: We didn't get very far before the dose sauce and
Speaker 1: blew out. Thought okay, usually blew up the correct direction,
Speaker 1: so we continued on. As we're now getting closer, we
Speaker 1: hit some patches of pretty deep snow, like three or
Speaker 1: four ft drifts on the back side, and we're like, okay, man,
Speaker 1: if we gotta walk all the way there and then
Speaker 1: all the way back up the mountain in this snow,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough. So we kind of tried to
Speaker 1: navigate to a spot with a little less snow, pick
Speaker 1: a different route over there, and on the way, sure enough,
Speaker 1: here's another buck. Okay, so these other two bucks are
Speaker 1: feeding and like, okay, these are kind of by themselves.
Speaker 1: It looks like a bachelor group. Maybe we see two
Speaker 1: right now, there might be more, so we slowly crept in,
Speaker 1: but just the I think they definitely hurt us. The
Speaker 1: snow wasn't really I wouldn't say crunchy, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: quiet either. They blew out, so like, okay, well we
Speaker 1: got about sixty yards on those, but she wants to
Speaker 1: get within thirty thirty five yards. It's like this is
Speaker 1: gonna be tough. So we continue onto that bigger buck
Speaker 1: that was in those aspen trees, thinking okay, I just
Speaker 1: saw like a couple of does in a in a buck.
Speaker 1: So we get up over on the hillside where we
Speaker 1: can look into those aspen trees we're glassing, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I see the doughs in there and not the buck.
Speaker 1: So I start moving down the hill that we're on,
Speaker 1: like the opposite hill of where they're at, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: a deer jumps up. And this is just something that
Speaker 1: kind of happens in migration areas where you start getting
Speaker 1: a bunch of deer moving in. In this stage that
Speaker 1: we had to go through to get to where we're going.
Speaker 1: Was just a pocket loaded full of does, probably sixty doughs.
Speaker 1: One blew out and it took the whole hillside running.
Speaker 1: We didn't even get within five yards of the deer
Speaker 1: we were trying to stock. Sure enough, those dose blew
Speaker 1: out scattered everywhere. We couldn't see them because they're laying
Speaker 1: in sage that was about neck high, and there when
Speaker 1: our stock for the day. So like, bummer, this sucks. Well,
Speaker 1: let's head back to the truck. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: deer around we might see something. So we head back
Speaker 1: and we're starting to head out and I spot a
Speaker 1: couple other bucks, but nothing in a good stocking positions. Said, okay,
Speaker 1: we're just not even gonna waste their time like on
Speaker 1: these deer that are just unstoppable. The wind was bad,
Speaker 1: They're better in a good spot, just not in a
Speaker 1: good position for stalking. So we're on our way out
Speaker 1: and as we're we're heading out, I spot antler tips
Speaker 1: coming up the hill in front of us, like buck buck.
Speaker 1: So the buck crosses in front of us and then
Speaker 1: starts feeding. Is perfect. The wind's good and we're already
Speaker 1: fairly close within that two yards, so we creep in
Speaker 1: a little bit closer. She gets within range, but then
Speaker 1: just no shot. It's like, oh man, that was so
Speaker 1: close yet so far away, Like all right, well, let's
Speaker 1: keep going. So we go just a little bit further
Speaker 1: and just around the bend there was this Earlier that
Speaker 1: day I had spotted this really big I called it
Speaker 1: forcas Sours, just a giant forking horn. It was like
Speaker 1: a probably a regressed buck, real mature animal, just a
Speaker 1: big buck, only two points on each side, but very
Speaker 1: tall times just like a cool looking deer. And he's
Speaker 1: with a bunch of does, and there's actually two bucks
Speaker 1: in the group. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stay here.
Speaker 1: I got my camera out. I'm like, I'm gonna guide
Speaker 1: you in because that way, it's just like less people,
Speaker 1: less in the movement. And they're kind of in this
Speaker 1: tall sage mix and a really steep hill, so it
Speaker 1: was kind of hard. It's hard to know where they're going.
Speaker 1: So I hold back and she starts to creep up.
Speaker 1: She's crawling in and now she's like on the steep
Speaker 1: face below. It's pretty vertical, so you can't really see
Speaker 1: until you get close, and I can see she's she's
Speaker 1: creeping up and I'm directing her up and that group
Speaker 1: of deer. There's a buck with some does right above her.
Speaker 1: So as she's creeping in, I can tell she sees
Speaker 1: a dough. She gets down and she can start seeing
Speaker 1: the group of deer. But what she can't see is
Speaker 1: the buck walked up and around and is now on
Speaker 1: the other side of her. So I start hands signaling,
Speaker 1: like right, go right. She looks at me like right.
Speaker 1: I'm like yes, right, she's looking she can see the deer.
Speaker 1: She's like, okay, I'm just gonna trust his hand signals.
Speaker 1: So there happened to be two bucks in. The bigger
Speaker 1: bucks circled around and went to this bush. So I
Speaker 1: just started hand singing, like she's looking at me. She
Speaker 1: can't see above her because the hills steep and the
Speaker 1: brushes thick, so she's looking back at me. I'm hand
Speaker 1: signaling over. Up she goes, and I just start directing
Speaker 1: her in, and I can see the deer because I've
Speaker 1: got this this wide view, this panoramic TV view of
Speaker 1: seeing everything. So I direct her right to the bush
Speaker 1: and she gets down, and then I can tell she
Speaker 1: sees it antler tips right on the other side of
Speaker 1: the bush. And I mean from from my view because
Speaker 1: the two of them are stacked together, it looks like
Speaker 1: the deer's five feet away. It ended up being fifteen yards.
Speaker 1: So now this is her first opportunity at a meal
Speaker 1: deer buck, and I can tell she's pretty excited. So
Speaker 1: the bucks moving right, I guided her right in to
Speaker 1: the perfect spot. She draws back, the bucks now feeding,
Speaker 1: and it's just gonna walk out right broadside, perfect, but
Speaker 1: instead turns and starts going left, not like moving fast,
Speaker 1: just milling and feeding. So she's already at full draw
Speaker 1: and she creeps around the point of the bush and
Speaker 1: I can see her settle the pin and she shoots
Speaker 1: and it just hits the bush right in front of her.
Speaker 1: Her site picture was clear, but the bush's trying to
Speaker 1: shoot around. She didn't notice that her arrow is lower.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, no, the things you learned
Speaker 1: archery hunting. I mean, I've made that mistake, probably myself.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how many times I did it
Speaker 1: on a doll sheep in Alaska. Once just hammered the
Speaker 1: rock right in front of me, two feet away, And
Speaker 1: since that that time is just one of those like
Speaker 1: experiences where you just have to have those experiences. You think,
Speaker 1: at fifteen yards there's no way you can miss, and
Speaker 1: yet you you focus in so much that you don't
Speaker 1: realize your arrow doesn't clear the tree branch right in
Speaker 1: front of you, and you've got that deer right in
Speaker 1: your site, dead to rights, and something goes wrong. And
Speaker 1: I said, welcome to bow hunting. I mean that right
Speaker 1: there perfectly describes to me what bow hunting is. It's
Speaker 1: it's everything combined of so many things you need to learn,
Speaker 1: so many things you need to do, and even when
Speaker 1: everything looks so perfect, there's still those little things you
Speaker 1: need to pay attention to that can go wrong. But
Speaker 1: you know, if she would have just kept creeping on
Speaker 1: those other deer, she would have completely had no opportunity
Speaker 1: at the buck. Because I was sat back and was
Speaker 1: able to direct her. And even though she thought, okay,
Speaker 1: those I can see, dear here, they've got to be
Speaker 1: right here, just following those hands signals, it was able
Speaker 1: to get her within range, within fifteen yards of a
Speaker 1: buck that she probably would have messed up or not
Speaker 1: even she would have even known that that buck peeled
Speaker 1: off and win another direction. Um, has she just been
Speaker 1: stalking in or had I been stalking in with her?
Speaker 1: So there was a huge ability to just like helping hand.
Speaker 1: I call it like a helping hand guiding her in
Speaker 1: to the deer when I could take that original view
Speaker 1: and see everything from the director's chair and kind of
Speaker 1: helped direct her into position to get close enough for
Speaker 1: a bowshot. Now, I'll be real honest with you, I
Speaker 1: have had a love hate relationship with hand signals for
Speaker 1: a very long time. For me, I generally hunt alone.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of solo hunting when I'm hunting
Speaker 1: for myself, so I don't have somebody else helping direct
Speaker 1: me in or even know what happens if I stalk
Speaker 1: in and then lose the animal or can't find it.
Speaker 1: I think that often the best way to stalk you
Speaker 1: end up losing sight of whatever you're stalking at some
Speaker 1: point through the stock because you have to go around
Speaker 1: the backside, come in from the top. You've got to
Speaker 1: adjust your plan, and you're gonna lose sight of him
Speaker 1: at some point. That's where having somebody there to watch
Speaker 1: really can pay dividends. Now for me personally, I've gotten
Speaker 1: used to hunting without that, but I do when I
Speaker 1: hunt with other people, I realize what a benefit it
Speaker 1: is to be able to help guide people in. Now
Speaker 1: there are some states that allow radios two a communication.
Speaker 1: Me personally, even in states where it's legal, I don't
Speaker 1: use it, and I don't like to use it, partially
Speaker 1: because I don't know, just personal preference, But I feel
Speaker 1: like the hand signals are a little bit different because
Speaker 1: it's a it's more of an archaic form of guiding
Speaker 1: someone in, and if you've ever done it, you can
Speaker 1: realize that a lot can go wrong even with hand signals,
Speaker 1: and I think that the thing that goes wrong most
Speaker 1: is poor communication and poor pre planning between the two
Speaker 1: people trying to signal each other in. So if done correctly, however,
Speaker 1: I will say that it is extremely effective at getting
Speaker 1: someone into position, and it's a way that you can
Speaker 1: communicate back and forth silently, and the person with the
Speaker 1: director's chair the big view can help guide the hunter
Speaker 1: as things move. So I think that if we're gonna
Speaker 1: break down hand signals, we've first have to talk about
Speaker 1: the basics. What hand signals are is you've got someone
Speaker 1: watching and someone's stalking, So the hunters stalking. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: person watching is is seeing hopefully has a view of
Speaker 1: where the animal is and can then pick up the
Speaker 1: hunter along the way. The person signaling his job is
Speaker 1: to direct the hunter to the animal. Obviously, So you're
Speaker 1: gonna need some standard commands. Here are the commands that
Speaker 1: I think are necessary, and I think any more than
Speaker 1: this is kind of unnecessary. So your standard commands are
Speaker 1: gonna be up down right, left. You need something for yes,
Speaker 1: something for no, something for I don't know, and then
Speaker 1: you need something to communicate. It is the same, it
Speaker 1: has changed, it is over. So I'll jump into the
Speaker 1: like breaking this down here. So the signal or the
Speaker 1: way that I think works the best, and what you
Speaker 1: need is to people to be on the same page.
Speaker 1: That is the number one key tactics. So whether you're
Speaker 1: a signal er or you're the stalker, you need to
Speaker 1: have this down, memorized and understood before you embark on
Speaker 1: a stock and before it's game time. So the way
Speaker 1: that I operate hand signals is the signaler should always
Speaker 1: direct where the person needs to go from where they're looking.
Speaker 1: So the direction of travel needed. So if I'm looking
Speaker 1: out at the mountain, I've got the hunter at one point.
Speaker 1: Let's call the hunter at point A and the deer's
Speaker 1: at point B. Point A from my view, he needs
Speaker 1: to go right to get to point B. The hunter
Speaker 1: needs to move right to go to the deer. I
Speaker 1: put my arm right if he needs to go up.
Speaker 1: I put my arm up above my head if I
Speaker 1: need he needs to go down down below my head,
Speaker 1: and left left arm out so as he's looking, he
Speaker 1: can look back at the glass er and he goes
Speaker 1: the direction that he's pointing. So okay, he's looking, and okay,
Speaker 1: I go that way. Um now, now don't want to
Speaker 1: be pointing at the animal, but you're using your arms
Speaker 1: as directions. So left, right, up, down essentially covers all
Speaker 1: the directions on a hill that a person can go. Now,
Speaker 1: you also need something where you can communicate back and forth,
Speaker 1: because this is where hand signals fall apart. The person
Speaker 1: doesn't know if the deer's where they were before, if
Speaker 1: the deer has changed, anything like that. So I like
Speaker 1: to have an easy way of communicating these three things.
Speaker 1: It is the same, it has changed, it is over
Speaker 1: when the hunter leaves the glass or I like to
Speaker 1: set up something where at a glance, they can understand
Speaker 1: how or what I'm looking at without having to make
Speaker 1: any signals or anything. So the way I do that,
Speaker 1: I generally have like a even if I'm archery hunting
Speaker 1: or whatever, I have an extra blaze orange vest in
Speaker 1: my backpack, or I use a game bag like a
Speaker 1: white game bag, something easy to see before the hunter leaves.
Speaker 1: I said it on one side of me up maybe
Speaker 1: where either tied on my pack, or maybe there's a
Speaker 1: branch or something I can put it on. So if
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down looking at the hill, I generally put
Speaker 1: whatever I'm using, my orange vest or game bag to
Speaker 1: the left of my body, so it'll just be sitting
Speaker 1: there constantly, always to my left. That means that what
Speaker 1: we're looking at when the hunter leaves, it's the same.
Speaker 1: So for if he's stalking a bedded buck and he
Speaker 1: looks back at any point during the stock to check
Speaker 1: in and sees that that game bag or orange vest
Speaker 1: is to my left when he's looking at it to
Speaker 1: be to my right obviously, but you do it while
Speaker 1: he's there, so or he or she's there, so they
Speaker 1: know where it's at. They know that it's the same
Speaker 1: as when they left, so they're gonna plan their stock.
Speaker 1: You're gonna plan a stock, and you're gonna assume that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stalk into this animal like everything is the
Speaker 1: same when they left. Now, if things change, I move
Speaker 1: the game bag or the orange vest to the other
Speaker 1: side of me, so at a glance, the person can
Speaker 1: look and say, Okay, something has changed. They are not
Speaker 1: in the same place, or maybe not the exact same place,
Speaker 1: but not in the general vicinity. It's moved. I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to reassess the stock and use more hands
Speaker 1: signals to go in. Now, if it's the hunt's blown,
Speaker 1: I generally take that thing and either put it away
Speaker 1: or put it on, or put it above me or
Speaker 1: wave it around something to signify that, hey, we need
Speaker 1: to regroup the stocks over you either blew it or
Speaker 1: it's so messed up. At this point, the animals move
Speaker 1: so far that we need to regroup and reassess and restock.
Speaker 1: The hand signals are no longer going to work. Just
Speaker 1: having that where the hunter can check in and identify
Speaker 1: that takes out a lot of communication problems and communicates
Speaker 1: a lot of information very simply, and a lot of
Speaker 1: information that's important for directing a person in When you
Speaker 1: think about hand signals and directing people, it needs to
Speaker 1: be something simple and it needs to be in a
Speaker 1: way that you can communicate clearly. And really all you
Speaker 1: need to communicate is direction of travel and whether things
Speaker 1: are working or not. So I have a couple of
Speaker 1: signals that I use for yes, no, and I don't
Speaker 1: know yes. I got from when I was scuba diving
Speaker 1: trying to communicate underwater. Just putting your hands in a
Speaker 1: circle above your head. That means everything's okay, Like making
Speaker 1: an O with your arms around your head. That's what
Speaker 1: I use. It just says okay, everything's okay. Yes. It's
Speaker 1: a way of communicating positive. I use my hands as
Speaker 1: an X to communicate no. So if they're going somewhere
Speaker 1: or they're pointing in a direction, I use the X
Speaker 1: as no, uh, something's wrong, look at me. The X
Speaker 1: is no go. And then sometimes things happen where you're
Speaker 1: the glass er. You look, the deer's gone. You don't
Speaker 1: know if he's there, you don't know if he's not there.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of shrugged shoulders w shape, like the
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's I don't know, arms up to
Speaker 1: both sides, like it would make a w between your
Speaker 1: head and your hands, just like I don't know, is
Speaker 1: you there? Maybe? Um? And that's a good, that's a good.
Speaker 1: Having those three things to communicate back and forth with
Speaker 1: hand signals is huge, But it's also something that's easily
Speaker 1: identifiable over a long distance. Now, when we're talking about directions,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you've gotta understand that you might
Speaker 1: be five six hundred, seven hundred yards away, so you
Speaker 1: might be hard for the person stalking in to see
Speaker 1: the hand signals that you're doing as the director, as
Speaker 1: the person giving the hand signals. A lot of times
Speaker 1: I'll just take a game bag out, use that white
Speaker 1: game bag for the direction, so it's easier to see. Now,
Speaker 1: what you have to make sure is you have to
Speaker 1: have some way of communicating back and forth that the
Speaker 1: person needs a signal, so as the glass or you're
Speaker 1: gonna be watching the person stock in. One thing that
Speaker 1: I do, I often use my hat to get the
Speaker 1: attention of the glass or so I'll use I'll flash
Speaker 1: my hat to say, hey, give me a direction. Am
Speaker 1: I good? Am I okay? What's going on? If I
Speaker 1: turned my hat backwards and saying I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: where I'm going or what I'm doing, and I need
Speaker 1: some more direction. The glasses responsibility is going to be
Speaker 1: to continually direct the person who's stalking. In this best
Speaker 1: works with the spotting scope so you can have your
Speaker 1: hands free. The glass will be sitting there with the
Speaker 1: spotting scalpe watching and then constantly giving direction like up, down, left, right,
Speaker 1: toward the animal. So at any point the person stalking
Speaker 1: can check in with their binocularcy okay, I need to
Speaker 1: go this way, and then continue on the path. One
Speaker 1: thing you have to definitely think about is you need
Speaker 1: there to be time to communicate over long distances with
Speaker 1: these hand signals for the person stalking to look with
Speaker 1: their binoculars, check in with you, then put them down.
Speaker 1: Then the glass or needs to then check in with
Speaker 1: their binoculars and see if there's any other communication that's needed.
Speaker 1: If they don't understand, they could give the shrugging motion
Speaker 1: and I don't know, or they can understand or reply
Speaker 1: that they get what's going on by giving the circle
Speaker 1: or the X saying no, I don't get get what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I think one of the signals that I
Speaker 1: want to know the most is if the stocks blown.
Speaker 1: If I'm stalking in and the animal blows out, have
Speaker 1: some way of communicating at any point as the hunter
Speaker 1: checks in that hey it's over, and so that might
Speaker 1: be you know, before you go, have a pre chosen
Speaker 1: sign for it's over. A lot of times, like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, I moved that that indicator, whether it's that
Speaker 1: game bag to the left, the right, or just put
Speaker 1: it away. But you also don't want the person to
Speaker 1: be stalking and not see that and come back, Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought it was blown. So you definitely want to
Speaker 1: be able to check in. Wave your arms. Hey, we
Speaker 1: call it off. It's no longer good. We need to regroup.
Speaker 1: If I were to give you five tips to keeping
Speaker 1: hand signals successful, the first would be to keep gestures
Speaker 1: to a minimum, stick to directions yes, no, maybe, and
Speaker 1: then the sign of whether things are the same or different.
Speaker 1: You should be able to communicate what you need to
Speaker 1: with those. When people start ad living, when they start
Speaker 1: thinking that they're communicating something with their hands at a
Speaker 1: long distance that wasn't pre talked about, confusion sets in.
Speaker 1: I've had that happen so many times with people that
Speaker 1: are knew that I've hunted with friends that I've hunted with.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can think of more times that it
Speaker 1: hasn't worked out because somebody's done something like, oh, I
Speaker 1: was trying to tell you that another one came up
Speaker 1: behind you and you should draw back and look at
Speaker 1: that one and then shoot and go that way and
Speaker 1: watch out for that. And there's just it's too difficult
Speaker 1: to communicate too many things. Keep it simple, stupid like
Speaker 1: that's just how it works with hand signals. Have your
Speaker 1: directions to the animal from where the hunter is. Direct
Speaker 1: them to the animal, make sure everybody understands that, have
Speaker 1: ways to say yes, no, maybe, and then let them
Speaker 1: know whether it's how it was when they left or
Speaker 1: if things have changed, and that just keeping it simple
Speaker 1: like that is going to lead to a lot more success.
Speaker 1: The next thing is you know what the plan is
Speaker 1: ahead of time. You know, plan the stock with the hunter.
Speaker 1: Don't Sometimes the person hunting just goes off and like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get over there, and they don't really plan
Speaker 1: the stock out Let the person who's glassing know what
Speaker 1: your initial plan is. Obviously things change, but it can
Speaker 1: be very difficult to pick out somebody that's crawling and
Speaker 1: staying hidden in camouflage. UM. It also could be difficult knowing, Hey,
Speaker 1: what route are you gonna take? Where are you planning
Speaker 1: to get to? Where do you want to get to?
Speaker 1: I think where stocks go wrong as people only think
Speaker 1: about getting to the animal, not getting to a place
Speaker 1: where they can shoot from. So before I leave, I
Speaker 1: really plan out the stock with whether I'm the signal
Speaker 1: er or the person is stalking, we plan it out.
Speaker 1: We say, okay, look the deer's there, he's betted, he
Speaker 1: should stay bedded there. I'm gonna go up around the
Speaker 1: back side. I'm gonna pop over at this tree and
Speaker 1: look for you. I'm gonna check in there and see
Speaker 1: if I can get hand signals or if it's moved.
Speaker 1: If it hasn't moved, then I'm going to stalk to
Speaker 1: that rock just off the left side. It looks like
Speaker 1: that's down wind of where I'm going. It also looks
Speaker 1: about twenty to thirty yards and maybe a clear opening.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get there and wait. You know, if it
Speaker 1: does and look like I can get any closer, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait there so long as it hasn't moved. Now,
Speaker 1: if it moves, which way. Do you think it might go, Well,
Speaker 1: I'd say, oh yeah, as the sun comes up, it
Speaker 1: might go rebed in these trees over here. So if
Speaker 1: I move the pack to the moved side and then
Speaker 1: you know he's moved, maybe we'll do the okay symbol
Speaker 1: if he moves to that spot. So that's Those are
Speaker 1: just ways to pre plan the stock and pre plan
Speaker 1: your communication based on what might happen. You don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what's going to happen, but you have a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of some of the options. So stick to
Speaker 1: a plan, formulate a plan, and it makes the communication
Speaker 1: a lot easier between the signal er and the hunter.
Speaker 1: The next thing would be wait and look for the signals.
Speaker 1: And if you think about it, even like a two
Speaker 1: way radio, only one person can be on channel at
Speaker 1: a time. So the trouble that I find is a
Speaker 1: lot of people get confused because one guy's signaling, the
Speaker 1: hunter's signaling where do I go? I don't know? Do
Speaker 1: I go this way? And the signalers signaling to the
Speaker 1: hunter this, this, this, go, do this, do this, and
Speaker 1: they're doing it at the same time. Yet they aren't
Speaker 1: far enough to visually see with their eyeballs, So you
Speaker 1: need to make sure it's one person signaling and then
Speaker 1: the other person signaling, give look, look at each other
Speaker 1: with binoculars whatever, get in the optics, confirm that they
Speaker 1: can see you, do your hands signals, then look back,
Speaker 1: and when they understand they should give you the Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I got what you're saying. Now I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: So communicating back and forth one at a time and
Speaker 1: then confirming whether you receive the message or not. The
Speaker 1: next thing would be the hunter needs to check in.
Speaker 1: So many times I've been the guy doing the hand
Speaker 1: signals and hunter's like, Okay, I'm gonna do this stock.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go up there, and and then they never
Speaker 1: check in. They never look back at the person signaling,
Speaker 1: I will have moved my thing, saying, oh the the
Speaker 1: animals moved, and they continue to get so focused in
Speaker 1: on the stock that they forget to check back in.
Speaker 1: You think, okay, that's very simple. They wouldn't, but it
Speaker 1: happens so many times where they don't look back. My
Speaker 1: wife did a really good job on her stock, and
Speaker 1: the reason she was able to get fifteen yards from
Speaker 1: that deer as opposed to not even get close to
Speaker 1: the deer. Was as she got close, she kept checking back,
Speaker 1: checking back, is it right? Am? I? Okay? Does everything
Speaker 1: look good? Yeah? Everything looks okay, everything looks good. The
Speaker 1: next thing would be small gestures don't really translate over
Speaker 1: big distances, but also the reverses. You don't need big
Speaker 1: gestures at short distances. So on this particular hunt, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: could be having the same thing but just smaller instead
Speaker 1: of having to go big over your head. I was
Speaker 1: actually not that far away. She could see me with
Speaker 1: her binoculars fairly easy, actually probably with her her bare eyes.
Speaker 1: So just giving the okay symbol like finger, thumb and
Speaker 1: index finger you know, okay, typical like yep, it's okay
Speaker 1: finger xs no, you know, using my hat instead of
Speaker 1: the game bag hat forward means it's the same hat
Speaker 1: backwards means it's different having those for different, uh, different distances.
Speaker 1: But then also realizing if you're looking five yards you
Speaker 1: need binoculars to see the person. Small hand movements don't
Speaker 1: translate well over big distances, so you really need to
Speaker 1: exaggerate one way. As it gets further, what I do
Speaker 1: is I use my not only hand signals, but my
Speaker 1: body movement. So I hold my hand right and walk
Speaker 1: right from where I'm at as they're looking at me,
Speaker 1: hold my hand up, walk back just ways to show
Speaker 1: that they need to go up, they need to go down,
Speaker 1: they need to go left, they need to go right,
Speaker 1: but over a larger distance where it's easily translated into okay,
Speaker 1: that's what I need to do. And then the last
Speaker 1: tip would be to trust your signaler, but don't blame them.
Speaker 1: So many times I've been hunting with guys, or I've
Speaker 1: been the guy stocking and somebody has been directing me.
Speaker 1: The person that's looking at the hills doing the best
Speaker 1: of their ability. It's not always easy to tell um distances.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when they're stacked up against each other, they're they're
Speaker 1: directing you based on the way that they see it.
Speaker 1: Communication is limited in one way. When you leave the
Speaker 1: person signaling, you have to have the assumption that I'm
Speaker 1: going over here to stock. This person will tell me
Speaker 1: if it's gone. This person might be able to help
Speaker 1: direct me in if I get confused or if the
Speaker 1: animal moves, But I'm not relying on them for my
Speaker 1: success or failure. You're it's still hunting. It's a team
Speaker 1: effort at this point, you know, blaming your hunting partner
Speaker 1: because oh, you didn't understand their signal or whatever is
Speaker 1: a horrible way to go. I've seen I've seen many
Speaker 1: hunting partners get hit each other's throats because one guy
Speaker 1: was a bad signal, or he didn't understand what he
Speaker 1: was doing. He did a terrible job, the stock was blown,
Speaker 1: he would have done better with it. It's just like
Speaker 1: I've seen that happen. But also trust the guy signaling.
Speaker 1: He's got a way better advantage than you. Um, so
Speaker 1: you know, trust in what they're saying. If they're saying
Speaker 1: go right, go right, there's now there's are times when
Speaker 1: you're on the ground you need to make different decisions.
Speaker 1: But trust that your signal is saying okay, at least
Speaker 1: directing you to where the animal is and giving you
Speaker 1: a better idea of where you need to go. So
Speaker 1: trust them, but don't blame them. If you do those things,
Speaker 1: I think that you'll find yourself a lot more successful
Speaker 1: it being guided in or guiding in your hunting partner
Speaker 1: on your next stock. If you really think about the
Speaker 1: hunting trips you go on, most hunting trips people are
Speaker 1: with friends, with a hunting partner, unless you're by yourself.
Speaker 1: But it's a great advantage to have to really nail
Speaker 1: down these hand signals ahead of time, to be on
Speaker 1: the same page to communicate these things. You're gonna find
Speaker 1: yourself a lot more successful guys that have hunted and
Speaker 1: done this a lot together. I mean, it's very hard
Speaker 1: starting out. You might like it seems difficult starting out,
Speaker 1: but the more you do it, the more you practice it,
Speaker 1: the better you're gonna be at it, both as the
Speaker 1: hunter and the signal er. That's what makes a really
Speaker 1: good hunting team is people that can communicate well without
Speaker 1: the use of electronic devices or having to talk. They
Speaker 1: can just give hand signals. They understand what they're doing,
Speaker 1: where they're going, and they're gonna be a lot more
Speaker 1: successful that way. So find a good hunting buddy, get
Speaker 1: on the same page, work these signals out, practice them
Speaker 1: in the field, use them as often as you can,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna find that you're gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: more successful for it. I think we're coming into the
Speaker 1: Christmas time next week. I'm gonna do what I like
Speaker 1: to call my Christmas special, So there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: gear giveaways like I did last year. I like to
Speaker 1: reward everybody who listens to this podcast. So I got
Speaker 1: some some cool stuff to give away, nothing huge, but
Speaker 1: just a little give back thank you. Try to make
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier odds of winning than some
Speaker 1: just mass giveaways on social media. So um, good luck
Speaker 1: at that. You'll have to listen in to figure out
Speaker 1: how to claim your prize. It's gonna be I think
Speaker 1: as Christmas Eve is the next one, so you know
Speaker 1: you'll probably be enjoying it with your family. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do the giveaway within like the that week of Christmas
Speaker 1: even on so you don't have to. But if you
Speaker 1: want to listen on Chris to see Christmas whatever with
Speaker 1: your family or whatever, that's cool too. But enjoy the
Speaker 1: time with your family. Hopefully you're thinking about hunting, I'll
Speaker 1: give you some some good uh. I like to think
Speaker 1: about some good holiday stories and then maybe some good
Speaker 1: tips on that hunting. Between Christmas and New Year's maybe
Speaker 1: getting some family out, whether your kids or just people
Speaker 1: in your family out, and some just some fun hunts
Speaker 1: that you can do with other people that may hunt
Speaker 1: that may not hunt. That maybe thinking about getting into hunting,
Speaker 1: just some fun stuff to do and maybe some ways
Speaker 1: to cook up what you take home, so look forward
Speaker 1: to that until next week. Keep them pointed in the
Speaker 1: right direction.