Speaker 1: And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: Jason Phelps and I reunite after long September. Short September.
Speaker 1: How how was your September?
Speaker 2: It was awesome, long the greatest month of the year.
Speaker 2: But it's always it seems like it goes by so fast.
Speaker 2: But this this year, you know, I had two different
Speaker 2: hunts and bouncing back and forth between Washington and New Mexico,
Speaker 2: and it was it was good. The elk were tough,
Speaker 2: tougher the normal. We'll get into it a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think that I don't want to be that guy
Speaker 2: with my tinfoil hat on, but I'm convinced the rut
Speaker 2: is getting later every year. And I used to be
Speaker 2: the opps. I used tell everybody like they always got
Speaker 2: to run at the same time. It's based on daylight
Speaker 2: and herd health, and like, man, something has got me
Speaker 2: convinced said it's getting later.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write that down and bring that up again,
Speaker 1: and when prove you wrong someday. No, no, I have
Speaker 1: to agree to that with that at some point to
Speaker 1: some degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it was good. How about how about you?
Speaker 2: I know you we've talked about a little bit you
Speaker 2: started off with a bang on your son's hunt, and
Speaker 2: then you had some a little we both had a
Speaker 2: little delay there, you know, the second quarter of September,
Speaker 2: and then we we kind of grinded it out from
Speaker 2: from the fifteenth all the way through the end there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it started off awesome, good and bad.
Speaker 1: I like to be inept in the September woods with
Speaker 1: a purpose. And when your kid shoots a bowl on
Speaker 1: the second day, and we'd anticipated a lot more hunting
Speaker 1: for the first quarter of September, then that kind of
Speaker 1: freed up some time. I was you know, I did
Speaker 1: make it out and did some scouting trips and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and it took back. Took my bare rifle for a
Speaker 1: walk a few times. But but it's not the same
Speaker 1: as having a tag in your pocket or a hunting
Speaker 1: with someone has a tag and you're you know, you're trying,
Speaker 1: you're trying hard, you're trying to call bulls and you're
Speaker 1: trying to get close and have some fun. But but
Speaker 1: then yeah, like you say, the second half of the
Speaker 1: of the season was good. You know, two weeks in
Speaker 1: a in a whole new unit to me and my
Speaker 1: pals Bradley and Cody and we and we recorded a
Speaker 1: podcast on this. I've are probably listened to it. But
Speaker 1: it started off with a bang, but then you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of part way, it kind of fizzled, start fizzling.
Speaker 1: And I feel like what you just said about the
Speaker 1: rut starting later, I feel like it started pretty early,
Speaker 1: like we we got the tail end of the of
Speaker 1: the Goodie out of the rut where we were at,
Speaker 1: and then by the last handful of days it was,
Speaker 1: you know, the last three or four days, it was
Speaker 1: felt like post rut. You know, the woods were quiet,
Speaker 1: no bulls bugling on their own. You had to try
Speaker 1: real hard and be real close to an elk to
Speaker 1: get them to bugle. You wouldn't get those ones that
Speaker 1: were half a mile away ripping bugles, you know.
Speaker 2: So huh, yeah, it was. It was interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: going from New Mexico, where I really felt the rut
Speaker 2: was late and man, even for a giant unit we
Speaker 2: were in, I have a love hate relationship with public land,
Speaker 2: Like you like to be out there doing it on
Speaker 2: public land, which is all I've really ever hunted for elk.
Speaker 2: But man, even with a giant unit and two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty tags, plus or minus the landowner tags. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of people everywhere, you know, people driving
Speaker 2: side by sides where they shouldn't be, you know, and
Speaker 2: you would get on a bowl one morning and feel
Speaker 2: like you had it all to yourself and maybe you
Speaker 2: just discovered that bowl and you wanted to keep kind
Speaker 2: of putting pressure on them. And then the next whether
Speaker 2: it was that evening or the next morning, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you have five guys around you, you know,
Speaker 2: coming in from different angles, and you're just like, gosh, dang.
Speaker 2: You know, it's part of the love hate relationship. You know,
Speaker 2: you love to challenge yourself, but gosh, sometimes I wish
Speaker 2: it was just you versus the elk and you had
Speaker 2: the whole place to yourself. But it's part of the game.
Speaker 2: And you know, we would have had in my opinion,
Speaker 2: you know, read enough situations and being able to hear
Speaker 2: it and the bulls voice kind of when they break
Speaker 2: or when they're coming in. I think we would have
Speaker 2: had some you know, more opportunities there in New Mexico,
Speaker 2: but just it's tough everywhere we went, even on my
Speaker 2: special tag. You know, I did have a couple of
Speaker 2: days where I knew I was the only one that
Speaker 2: could hunt the unit.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 2: All the good and easy spots are occupied, and so
Speaker 2: it's I found myself just looking at the maps and
Speaker 2: being like, man, I hate, I personally hate hiking up
Speaker 2: this trail that's twenty five hundred feet elevation, but at
Speaker 2: least I know it's me versus the elk there. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, there was a lot of that like mental
Speaker 2: game kind of coming in on my hunt. Even though
Speaker 2: it was a pretty pretty good tag, I still had
Speaker 2: to kind of, you know, work harder than I wanted
Speaker 2: to these on these public land hunts. But that's I
Speaker 2: guess why we all love them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I kind of run in the same thing
Speaker 1: in this area we hunted. This was new new to us,
Speaker 1: completely different kind of uh landscape than what we normally hunt.
Speaker 1: You know, you have the low desert floors, you have
Speaker 1: the ten thousand foot peaks, and the elk live in
Speaker 1: that band of elevation right around that seven to nine
Speaker 1: but typically around eighty five hundred feet, so the air
Speaker 1: is then and a lot of times you know, you're
Speaker 1: you get out and if you're gonna hunt from the truck,
Speaker 1: you're gonna walk for a mile or two in an
Speaker 1: area you're not going to see an elk, or you'll
Speaker 1: see some scat from last spring, but you're not gonna
Speaker 1: encounter any elk.
Speaker 3: Low.
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna have to hike, hike, hike, and
Speaker 1: like you say, you're gonna have to climb a couple
Speaker 1: thousand feet vertical get up there. So it's definitely different.
Speaker 1: We backpacked in, which is kind of out of character
Speaker 1: for me. You know, you know I've done it in
Speaker 1: the past, but I kind of like a nice truck
Speaker 1: camp where I can sleep on a cot because I
Speaker 1: sleep so much better. But man, we the first the
Speaker 1: first couple of nights, two or three nights we camped
Speaker 1: out backpacked in. I'm like, oh, we're going super light.
Speaker 1: The weather is supposed to be pretty good. Taking my
Speaker 1: Kafaru super tarp and a piece of tie back, we're
Speaker 1: gonna lay on that cameraman, Dusty. Now we're gonna share
Speaker 1: a shelter. Phelps. You and I have shared that same
Speaker 1: shelter one time in Colorado, so you know, it's very spacious,
Speaker 1: real roomy. You get to know each other pretty well,
Speaker 1: rubbing shoulders all night.
Speaker 2: You don't you don't both want to roll to the
Speaker 2: inside at the same time because you might become uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might have a moment. Well this especially, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a hard time find somewhere flat delay, so
Speaker 1: it's like it was kind of flat. But I know
Speaker 1: every morning we'd wake up, I'd almost be right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the of the shelter and Dusty was
Speaker 1: almost hanging out the side of it, which wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a big deal normally, but we had rain storms like
Speaker 1: two nights in a row. Like it wasn't just a
Speaker 1: you know, a nice little pitter pattern. It was full
Speaker 1: on gale force winds and just rain like a mofo
Speaker 1: all night, two nights in a row. And then on
Speaker 1: the third day it rained part of the night and
Speaker 1: and most of the morning. So it was just it
Speaker 1: was it was brutal. So we stayed pretty dry inside there,
Speaker 1: except for the conversation inside there. But it made it
Speaker 1: challenging to get in and out of that little shelter
Speaker 1: and not get all muddy. And but but I will
Speaker 1: say during that time, you know, we had bad weather,
Speaker 1: but the hunt was pretty good. You know. The first
Speaker 1: day we called in a couple of bulls and and
Speaker 1: then had it was on another bowl, and then everything
Speaker 1: was going good, like, man, we're gonna probably tag out
Speaker 1: here in the first couple of days, and they'd be
Speaker 1: going home with what what are we gonna do with
Speaker 1: all this time on our hands? But then as as
Speaker 1: as the days ticked by, you know, like, oh god,
Speaker 1: we got so much time to get this done. And
Speaker 1: as you always think, you know, and then slowly the
Speaker 1: elk sightings and encounter starts slowing down, and you changed
Speaker 1: spots a couple of times, and and the first spot
Speaker 1: we were in we didn't have a lot of people there.
Speaker 1: We did encounter some towards it, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we spent five or six days in there. We didn't
Speaker 1: we've seen somebody the last couple of days. But then
Speaker 1: we relocated to a place that had more elk and
Speaker 1: it was a little easier terrain. But with easy terrain
Speaker 1: comes lots of folks and elk were easy to see,
Speaker 1: you know, they were you could see them walking across hillsides,
Speaker 1: you could phone scope them whatever I actually did just scope.
Speaker 1: I guess we were using it all in did you
Speaker 1: scope thing for our for our phone? But anyhow, you know,
Speaker 1: it was easy to see him, easy to make a plan.
Speaker 1: But then anytime you try to execute on a plan,
Speaker 1: you'd go over and where you couldn't see it, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, there's somebody else is already on them,
Speaker 1: or you would get on them and somebody else would
Speaker 1: come join you. I guess that's kind of the nature
Speaker 1: of the game public land, which I'm not really used
Speaker 1: to hunting an area with that many elk. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of elk there. I will say, I'm used
Speaker 1: at hunting areas where man, you got to scratch pretty
Speaker 1: hard to find some elk, but you don't see too
Speaker 1: many people either. So lots of elk, lots of people.
Speaker 1: So it was that kind of a place. But in
Speaker 1: the end we we came out of there. We didn't
Speaker 1: we did not none of us tagged in elk. None
Speaker 1: of us tagged one. The other guys had to go
Speaker 1: home a couple of days early. Dusty and I held
Speaker 1: on to the bitter end, and it was just by
Speaker 1: the time the last day came and went, it was
Speaker 1: just a ghost town. You know. We saw a bowl
Speaker 1: fir seeing the morning. We climbed up to where they're at,
Speaker 1: could not get on that thing, could not get him
Speaker 1: to vocalize. When we seen him at bugled at him
Speaker 1: from a distance. He just looked up and then went
Speaker 1: back to feeding, So, which was weird. You know, we
Speaker 1: never did hear a lot of bulls bugling on their own,
Speaker 1: you know, just you know how you get those bulls
Speaker 1: just kind of bugling even though just the middle of
Speaker 1: the day, just lay in their bed. Just we didn't
Speaker 1: hear any of that. And then the funny part was, Man,
Speaker 1: these things were pretty call shy, and I don't know
Speaker 1: that they thought we were hunters. Maybe they did, but
Speaker 1: I think they're call shy to each other. I think
Speaker 1: they carve out they're six to eight cows, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm good with my six or eight cows. I don't
Speaker 1: need thirty, and if another bowl gets close by, we're gone.
Speaker 1: We started calling to this one bull and he ran off,
Speaker 1: and we'd give him tons of space. We didn't push
Speaker 1: on him at all, and he left, kept going, kept going.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, we finally he goes out of
Speaker 1: ear site, so we go over there about a quarter
Speaker 1: a mile away. Next time we see him, he's crossed
Speaker 1: the other rage and running out into the desert, like
Speaker 1: he's just like changing zip codes to defend these cows.
Speaker 1: I guess he bugled the whole way. He wasn't like,
Speaker 1: you know, scared of hunters. I don't think he was
Speaker 1: just like, Nope, I don't want to fight. And that
Speaker 1: kind of seemed like when we first got there, bulls
Speaker 1: were seemed to be a little bit callable, but then
Speaker 1: it kind of turned into where man, they just they
Speaker 1: would kind of just nope, we don't want to have
Speaker 1: any confrontations. We're good.
Speaker 2: Huh. I mean, not to turn this into a Maverick
Speaker 2: versus pink, but did you at least try the pink
Speaker 2: call to see if that would have I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: assuming it would have changed all of these scenarios around
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say, as much as I hate to
Speaker 1: say it, my guys, you know Cody, he had a
Speaker 1: pink one. He tried, didn't hear any replies to it. Bradley,
Speaker 1: he had your your go to the Green and a
Speaker 1: pink and a maver He had a little bit. He
Speaker 1: had a hodgepodge of calls in his pouch. And you know,
Speaker 1: every time anything it wasn't a Maverick, we would get
Speaker 1: no replies, it was weird.
Speaker 2: They're probably coming in silent, it is what was going on.
Speaker 2: They weren't be going and running they were they were
Speaker 2: on their way. They couldn't catch their breath to b agle.
Speaker 2: They were running in so fast.
Speaker 1: Could have been could have been you know, you know,
Speaker 1: because they know, you know, elk know what a dominant
Speaker 1: force of Maverick is. They're like, nope, now that's way
Speaker 1: too tough for us. Oh that pink thing. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go check that out.
Speaker 2: That it's an inviting call. It's it's a it's a herd.
Speaker 2: It's a herd call. Oh it's welcoming. Yeah. So are
Speaker 2: you a big in this open country? Are you? Are
Speaker 2: you an advocate for Hunter's Orange, so you know if
Speaker 2: somebody's over there before you your head over that way.
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent. And this is funny that
Speaker 1: you say that I was glassing up these elk for
Speaker 1: like two miles away. I'm like, oh, yeah, I watched these,
Speaker 1: like a pretty good herd disappear into the timber. And
Speaker 1: we're watching two or three different herds here in different hillsides,
Speaker 1: and and then I see a couple of cows coming out,
Speaker 1: and then I see him walking across the hillside and
Speaker 1: they look. I'm like, oh, what the heck, there's some
Speaker 1: there's blaze orange on that hillside. And then they're gonna
Speaker 1: this guy with blaze orange, and these cows are just
Speaker 1: gonna like meet. They're like on the same contour line.
Speaker 1: I don't even think they even knew it, and they
Speaker 1: get close and pretty sen I watch them blow out
Speaker 1: of there. But but it was nice to be able
Speaker 1: to see that guy over there. It was like because
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I'm gonna go over there and climb
Speaker 1: up and try to find that herd where those two
Speaker 1: cows popped out. Oh, there's probably a big bull in there.
Speaker 1: And after I seen where that dude was, well, I
Speaker 1: guess I won't think. I'll probably not not that spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, orange we on, Well, we'll get to it a
Speaker 2: little bit. But orange is always if you have a
Speaker 2: little chunk of it or something bright, whether it's white.
Speaker 2: When I shot my bowl, we walked around and left
Speaker 2: a guy because it was a big brush. Like around home,
Speaker 2: we have noble Christmas trees. I don't know if that
Speaker 2: resonates with all of our listeners, but we have Christmas
Speaker 2: tree is where it's like it either gets planted in
Speaker 2: Douglas fur which gets real bushy real quick, or Nobles
Speaker 2: you can see and do for about twenty years, you know,
Speaker 2: up in the higher stuff. And we shot it in
Speaker 2: a kind of an overgrown Noble patchway up high, and
Speaker 2: we left a guy, and the orange really helped us
Speaker 2: be able to like because it was so brushy, you know,
Speaker 2: in Elk's being big and tall and yellow you can see.
Speaker 2: But when we're over there in our cameo, like the
Speaker 2: orange and the bright colors definitely helped us like communicate
Speaker 2: across the canyon where you didn't have cell service or anything,
Speaker 2: you know, to communicate to get on the right spot.
Speaker 2: So it's a definitely a good little tip to have
Speaker 2: something that's bright, aside from the joke of being able
Speaker 2: to see where the hunters are gonna mess your hunt up.
Speaker 1: You know, I might if I have to have it
Speaker 1: somewhere like that there's a lot of people. Again, I
Speaker 1: just might throw on a blaze orange hat. I got
Speaker 1: that blaze orange loopholed hat I could put on, and
Speaker 1: then people would be like, oh damn it, And then
Speaker 1: I feel like they associate like ignorance or stupidity with
Speaker 1: a guy wearing an orange hat in September, so that
Speaker 1: it really keep them out. They're like, oh, that guy
Speaker 1: might shoot me.
Speaker 2: Here. Build a bunch of like scarecrows up there all
Speaker 2: over so it's like, oh, there's a guy on that
Speaker 2: with the orange hat.
Speaker 1: Just take a box. I'll have the folks that loophold
Speaker 1: send me a box of hats, orange hats. I'll just
Speaker 1: plant them all over the hillside.
Speaker 2: You could be one of those like geocash, and eventually,
Speaker 2: like after season, you can give everybody the coordinates and
Speaker 2: then go win a loopholed hat. But until then you're
Speaker 2: just holding your spot.
Speaker 1: That's a great idea, Phelps. I'm glad you brought that.
Speaker 2: We got some marketing synergy going here. A great idea.
Speaker 2: Another pro tip, which I'm going to bring up now
Speaker 2: is hiking steep, nasty trails is better in the dark.
Speaker 2: Don't do it in the daylight. I hiked the one
Speaker 2: trail in the daylight and it was the most miserable
Speaker 2: thing I ever did. But I do it in the
Speaker 2: dark and you can't see the elevation. It's just step
Speaker 2: after step. You can only see your feet. And I'm
Speaker 2: convinced that whether I'm just weak mentally or something, but
Speaker 2: not being able to see the hill I'm climbing, it
Speaker 2: didn't feel like it was anything. And then you do
Speaker 2: it in the day and you're like, this is miserable.
Speaker 2: So that's another pro tip. Do all your tough hiking
Speaker 2: in the dark.
Speaker 1: I agree. I feel like it's hard to tell your
Speaker 1: progress up the mountain and you cannot anticipate you know
Speaker 1: what's coming. You can't be like, oh God, here comes
Speaker 1: that tough section. You just have to like one foot
Speaker 1: in front of the other, and then the passing of
Speaker 1: a time is kind of for me, it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's hard to judge whenever I'm just hiking in the
Speaker 1: dark and I'm not looking at like a watcher.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. And And to add on to my pro tip,
Speaker 2: the camera guy, so I had hunted a little bit
Speaker 2: before early September, and then I came back with a
Speaker 2: different camera guy and a different buddy that was running
Speaker 2: the camera and on switchback number two he pulled out
Speaker 2: his phone to look on X. I said, do not
Speaker 2: look at your phone. The rest is hike. This is
Speaker 2: like switchback number two out of eighteen just walk. It's deflating,
Speaker 2: you know, to see that you're only on switch back
Speaker 2: two of eighteen. So it's best just to be in
Speaker 2: the dark, one foot in front of the other, take
Speaker 2: a little break when you get tired, and we'll be
Speaker 2: up in the you know, above tree line and we'll
Speaker 2: have knocked the twenty five hundred feet off real quick quick.
Speaker 2: But those are those are my pro tips. A little
Speaker 2: out of out of context here, but I wanted to
Speaker 2: throw those in some of these areas where we were
Speaker 2: trying to get away from people, you know, seem to
Speaker 2: seem to help made things a little easier, if you know,
Speaker 2: if nothing else, just mentally getting to the areas where
Speaker 2: they elk were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell us about your bowl in Washington.
Speaker 2: So we've talked about a couple times. But just for
Speaker 2: those that may not, so, I drew a hoof Frot incentive.
Speaker 2: If you haven't watched Me and Cal, we just put
Speaker 2: an episode on a me Eater over hoof Fraud. If
Speaker 2: you don't know what it is, haven't heard of it,
Speaker 2: I highly encourage you to go watch the episode Me
Speaker 2: and Cal just did on hoof Fraught, filmed in my backyard.
Speaker 2: You know, hunters and non hunters can't agree on many things,
Speaker 2: but we can all agree that hoofrat is horrible, heart wrenching,
Speaker 2: just tough to watch these elk, So go watch that.
Speaker 2: But the reason I bring that up is I killed
Speaker 2: a bowl last year with a fraud break down.
Speaker 1: Just quick, real quick? What what's hoof rod on a elk?
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to get into science because I
Speaker 2: don't know it. But basically what happens is the hoofs
Speaker 2: start the elongate and what we call elf shoe, So
Speaker 2: you'll start to get a hoof that deforms on its own.
Speaker 2: It'll elf shoe out, gets very long, skinny and brittle,
Speaker 2: and then it'll slowly start to break that hoof off
Speaker 2: and work its way up into the meat and into
Speaker 2: the bone, eventually very painful. The elk all walk with
Speaker 2: a visible limp. Some of the elk in this episode
Speaker 2: have pretty extreme cases of hoof frot and they won't
Speaker 2: even put the hoof on the ground. If you watch,
Speaker 2: it's almost like these crows and ravens know that that
Speaker 2: elk doesn't have a long time left. Like you'll watch
Speaker 2: them in the field and the crows are hanging around
Speaker 2: the ones with hoof frot. Whether it's the smell, whether
Speaker 2: it's the what it's got a pungent and for lack
Speaker 2: of any other sensory idea I can come up with,
Speaker 2: has like a human waste type stench to it, but
Speaker 2: very pungent and like very widespread smell. It's just it's devastating.
Speaker 2: You know, in some of the bulls we've killed with it,
Speaker 2: if they've got like a damaged hoof on the right
Speaker 2: side of the body, the left antler almost always grows
Speaker 2: the formed one hundred percent of the time if they're
Speaker 2: injured on there. If they've got a hoof rock on
Speaker 2: their left side, the right horn will be you know,
Speaker 2: non typical or misformed. That's kind of crowd. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's tough, and we've had it for twenty five years,
Speaker 2: and I feel like we've screamed from the mountaintops locally,
Speaker 2: but nobody really seems to care. And now that it's
Speaker 2: into Oregon, into northern California, and you guys have also
Speaker 2: got cases confirmed cases in Idaho. I hate that it
Speaker 2: took a little bit of a of a spread or
Speaker 2: more of a widespread, but I think it's starting to
Speaker 2: get some some attention finally, and we're gonna have to
Speaker 2: fix and I don't know if there is a solution.
Speaker 2: That's that's the scary part for me.
Speaker 1: Right well, I think, you know, I think who care
Speaker 1: is like the ground, the grassroots sportsmen, they care, But
Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes are our or Christ for help
Speaker 1: kind of fall on deaf ears a little bit. But
Speaker 1: I know Washington State they're starting to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: study this stuff at like WSU and Pullman other places
Speaker 1: as well. Hopefully they can figure this thing out. Anecdotally.
Speaker 1: This is something I've never really told anybody, and it
Speaker 1: just kind of triggered a memory for me when you
Speaker 1: told me these these hooves kind of look like an
Speaker 1: elf shoe or whatever. My dad was telling about a
Speaker 1: big buck a friend of his shot back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and Idaho, back in the Idaho back country,
Speaker 1: and the guy shot a big buck and he said
Speaker 1: it was the craziest thing. He said that in his mind,
Speaker 1: you know, it was an old old the buck was
Speaker 1: so old that his hooves had kind of grown out
Speaker 1: and turned up on the ends like an elf shoe.
Speaker 1: But that was a white tailed deer though. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. So I don't know, man, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's even related.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I need to be careful because I'm
Speaker 2: not a biologist. I'm not a scientist, I'm none of
Speaker 2: the above. I'm just in a observer right that pays
Speaker 2: probably more attention than most. But we didn't have it
Speaker 2: until the nineties. It didn't exist on a landscape. So
Speaker 2: it leads me to believe just being a free thinker,
Speaker 2: a guy that has a scientific type brain, like what changed?
Speaker 2: And you're like, well, we you know, environmental pressures not
Speaker 2: to burn clearcuts anymore. Like I said, I'm just speculating here.
Speaker 2: Nothing scientific. More aggressive force practices both herbicide and pesticide fertilizers, right,
Speaker 2: Elker Browsers, You go to our clearcuts now and they
Speaker 2: are literally a brown sheet of brush with green fir
Speaker 2: tree sticking out of it. You know, there was there's
Speaker 2: this race to harvest a tree faster than we used
Speaker 2: to there. You know, is it a death by a
Speaker 2: thousand slices? Is it a combination of no burning, herbicide pesticide,
Speaker 2: like their immune system weakening so they can no longer
Speaker 2: fight this off. Because my understanding is the majority of
Speaker 2: these hoof fraughts a hoof fraught. There's there's like forty
Speaker 2: different strains from what I've read, and they already live
Speaker 2: in the soil. So it's like, well, if that's the case,
Speaker 2: then they were able to kind of fight it off
Speaker 2: for thousands of years. Why did all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know? Is it a weakning of the immune system?
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm just speculating, but I don't know
Speaker 2: what we do now to fix it. And it's like
Speaker 2: now that they've picked it up and they do carry it,
Speaker 2: it's transmittable, it's communicable, Like can we get a handle
Speaker 2: on it? Do you have to kill everyone with it?
Speaker 2: Like what's the Is there a fix? You know? And
Speaker 2: so I'm just worried for the health of our herd.
Speaker 2: And this is not scientific data. But I've told you
Speaker 2: and I tell a lot of people, like growing up,
Speaker 2: I would have put the densities of elk here in
Speaker 2: my backyard against anywhere in the world just for sheer numbers.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna kill a trophy. You're not gonna kill.
Speaker 2: But as far as like a quality elcunt where you're
Speaker 2: on legal elk, it used to be as good as
Speaker 2: anywhere in the world. And I would say we're probably
Speaker 2: twenty percent or last of the elk we used to
Speaker 2: have when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing that kind of resonated with me when
Speaker 1: you're talking about this, and from what I've heard over
Speaker 1: the years. You know, like you said, elker browsers, they're
Speaker 1: eating the brush, they're eating little tiny, little twigs and
Speaker 1: whatever else. But I know human beings are not elk.
Speaker 1: But let's look at this at a human being perspective.
Speaker 1: All the bullshit and the stuff they're putting in our
Speaker 1: food supply today, Like a lot of our food is poisoned, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of chemicals and bullshit in our food today.
Speaker 1: And look at all the problems in the sickness humans
Speaker 1: have today that they didn't have forty years ago because
Speaker 1: the food supply, what we're ingesting little bits of bullshit
Speaker 1: every day, it's causing all these different problems, hormone problems,
Speaker 1: all these different sickness. Is so to me, if if
Speaker 1: elker eaten little bits of poison all the time, it's
Speaker 1: gonna cause a problem. It's just it's just common sense.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Yeah, I agree, I just I can't like say,
Speaker 2: you know my bye, you know my my medical opinion.
Speaker 2: I don't have any of those biology degrees, but I
Speaker 2: agree like common sense timelines adding up, like I'm gonna
Speaker 2: leave it at that, like I've got I've got some
Speaker 2: other concerns. I'm so thankful WSU's picking it up, but
Speaker 2: I wish I'm just gonna say, I wish there were
Speaker 2: some private research being done just because of the way
Speaker 2: money flows through our state grant funding. I just, you know,
Speaker 2: I always joke like if Elon Musk had to solve
Speaker 2: hoof fraut, we'd we'd have the research done in a month.
Speaker 2: We'd have the solution in a month, and it would
Speaker 2: be implemented and over and the you know, in the
Speaker 2: following month, and we'd be out of this in three months.
Speaker 2: It's just I just wish there was there was no
Speaker 2: you know, strings attached to money to grant funding, and
Speaker 2: there might not be. I'm can a little bit out
Speaker 2: of turn, but I do believe that I don't understand
Speaker 2: why we're there's no like the progress isn't be made quicker.
Speaker 2: I guess, like I said, I don't want to undermine
Speaker 2: what WSU is doing in their research, and you know,
Speaker 2: they've got a prestigious you know, VET program and everybody
Speaker 2: there's experts. I just feel like it's twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: like things can move faster, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think they have their hypotheses of what the
Speaker 1: problem is. But you know, sometimes proving it without a
Speaker 1: doubt one hundred percent, you know, through the scientific manner,
Speaker 1: you know that that's accepted. You know, the standard is
Speaker 1: probably so difficult, you know, like all these common sense
Speaker 1: things says, yeah, that's the that's what causes it. But
Speaker 1: proving it, like where's the proof in the pudding? For
Speaker 1: to have action taken at a state level to ban
Speaker 1: certain practices, they probably have to be so like cut
Speaker 1: and dry and like beyond reproach. They have to have
Speaker 1: so much information so you know, whether it's a you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a grant funding or just like we have
Speaker 1: to prove this beyond reasonable doubt. Just like anything. It
Speaker 1: seems like scientific everything has to be proven.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so yeah, that was a little extra background
Speaker 2: on the hoof front. But I killed a bowl with
Speaker 2: Hofrat last year and WDFW working with WSU or providing
Speaker 2: what was called incentive tag. So if you kill an
Speaker 2: elk with visible hoof fraut. You were supposed to cut
Speaker 2: the hooves off way down by the dew clause, you know,
Speaker 2: basically just at that bottom knuckle, put all four hooves
Speaker 2: in a bag, submit them with your you know GMU
Speaker 2: data kill, you know, some information, and they would pick picks,
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen of the people that submitted, and I
Speaker 2: was lucky. I can remember I was at my daughter's
Speaker 2: fast pitch game in Napavine and the emailed ding through
Speaker 2: that hey, you've been selected for one of the hoof
Speaker 2: frot tags. And then there's a little bit of luck
Speaker 2: involved that, you know, out of the nineteen, you were
Speaker 2: picked in order. So I happened to be number five
Speaker 2: out of nineteen, and I thought for sure the unit
Speaker 2: I wanted to hunt would be gone in the first five,
Speaker 2: but fortunately it got to me and there was a
Speaker 2: tag available. So I ended up with an incentive tag
Speaker 2: for a pretty good area in Washington and this tag
Speaker 2: allowed me to hunt September first of December thirty first
Speaker 2: with any weapon as long as there wasn't an active season.
Speaker 2: If there was an active bo season, I had to
Speaker 2: switch to my bow. If there was a muzzloader season.
Speaker 2: I switched to my muzzloader, which you know was fine.
Speaker 2: So basically a multi season tag, but I can use
Speaker 2: a rifle if there's no other seasons. I had the
Speaker 2: New Mexico hunt from the fifteenth to the twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: which really kind of bit into some of the real
Speaker 2: good days of being there, Like I could have started
Speaker 2: hunting with a rifle on the twentieth, So I didn't
Speaker 2: show up until the twenty sixth. Again, so we've talked
Speaker 2: about the beginning. The unit's very migratory for the bulls.
Speaker 2: The cows seemed to live in there. The bulls seemed
Speaker 2: to come from adjacent units. Nothing big, you know, a
Speaker 2: two seventy type six point, and so I elected to
Speaker 2: not I was going to come back, and we just
Speaker 2: struggled to find legal bulls. The day I got back
Speaker 2: on the twenty sixth, I think we ran through nine
Speaker 2: biggling bulls. Got to put eyes on all of them,
Speaker 2: and they were all, well, there was one little six point.
Speaker 2: Everything else was basically five point or better. You know,
Speaker 2: we either called them in. You know a lot of
Speaker 2: this unit's burnt, like moved to see them, just couldn't
Speaker 2: find a big bull. The following day, you know, got
Speaker 2: on three or four bulls, all five points, sat on
Speaker 2: me and Tyson, my buddy, sat on a growler all
Speaker 2: day long. Thought oh this is the big one. Finally,
Speaker 2: you know, had some decent five point satellites and he
Speaker 2: came out and he was He was a seven by
Speaker 2: six but real small framed and used some kickers to
Speaker 2: get there. Dang it just not what I want. But
Speaker 2: I knew the next day I had to switch back
Speaker 2: to my muzzloader because that muzloader season had kicked off
Speaker 2: on the twenty eighth of September. So back to my mussloader,
Speaker 2: I go and just kind of weeding through, weeding through bulls,
Speaker 2: got trapped in what I call a meth trap. On
Speaker 2: that I was gonna try a new area. I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: This kind of surprised me. And usually I'm a little
Speaker 2: more aware than this. Like you're driving up a road,
Speaker 2: you know, early in the morning on the weekend, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna diverge here for just two minutes
Speaker 2: and then I'll get back on the story. You know,
Speaker 2: in an area that's it's got some you know people around,
Speaker 2: you're close to the bigger cities and you know, big
Speaker 2: bomb fires burning at four in the morning, and U
Speaker 2: haul van's kind of parked everywhere, Like what the hell
Speaker 2: is a U haul van doing up in the woods
Speaker 2: and backed up to these big bombfires, Like a normal
Speaker 2: person wouldn't park their car that close to a fire
Speaker 2: that's huge, just just weird things. Well, we had passed
Speaker 2: two of these U hauls backed up to a fire,
Speaker 2: and there was a corner coming up and I could
Speaker 2: see like reflectors on a rig and like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: just hunt season, right, somebody might be pulled over here,
Speaker 2: there's a clear cut. Well, we get pulled up right
Speaker 2: next to that rig is I'm going around the corner
Speaker 2: and somebody had cut down a bunch of trees on
Speaker 2: the inside of that. And now I'm a little nervous
Speaker 2: because I've got parked right next to somebody that obviously
Speaker 2: they're not hunting. They've been sleeping in their truck because
Speaker 2: there's due all over the you know, moisture all over
Speaker 2: the inside of their windows. I'm now pulled up side
Speaker 2: by side against these guys, and I've now got two
Speaker 2: U haul vans fifty yards behind me on the road
Speaker 2: where I'm stuck in the middle of the road with
Speaker 2: like nowhere to turn around, and I'm like, this is
Speaker 2: I thankfully And I don't know if anything would have
Speaker 2: happened or not, or maybe they just didn't want to
Speaker 2: mess with us. I had a buddy with a vehicle
Speaker 2: that was following me up. He had to go down
Speaker 2: the hill that night. He was gonna hunt with me,
Speaker 2: so it was nice. We had two vehicles, multiple people.
Speaker 2: We were able to kind of get turned around and
Speaker 2: get out of there. But when we got back down
Speaker 2: we kind of talked about it. We're like, I think
Speaker 2: they're probably cooking, cooking meth or something on the other
Speaker 2: side of the trees, and then they're using those guys
Speaker 2: as lookouts to let them know, like hey, you know,
Speaker 2: cops or somebody's coming up the hill. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was so anyways, we didn't get to hunt our spot,
Speaker 2: and you know, there was a ton of hikers on
Speaker 2: the weekends, so once again, we just I kept finding
Speaker 2: my self like the best plan I could come up
Speaker 2: with in my head was to hike back up the steep,
Speaker 2: nasty trail. Nobody was hunting up there. The hikers don't
Speaker 2: seem to like that trail. It's you know, it's too
Speaker 2: much work for the views that they're looking for. So
Speaker 2: we went back and and kind of kept crushing that
Speaker 2: one area. We knew there was a decent you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of decent bulls in there, and just kind
Speaker 2: of kept hammering that area like eventually it was going
Speaker 2: to have to happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The rout was still going on, but it was just
Speaker 2: these smaller bowls were running the herds, and so joined
Speaker 2: up with you know, my buddy, Matt Schmidt's and he
Speaker 2: brought a buddy and then we my camera guy got sick,
Speaker 2: so I had to reload. I was in complete dis
Speaker 2: array there for a bit. We reloaded and went back
Speaker 2: up the nasty trail and had some bulls going that morning.
Speaker 2: Just got up to the alpine, had good wind, and
Speaker 2: we were calling back and forth to a bowl and
Speaker 2: he slowly just we didn't push him, he just slowly
Speaker 2: wanted to go up and over the ridge to bet
Speaker 2: on the north side. We had about eight hundred more
Speaker 2: feet to go, so we we be bopped up the
Speaker 2: trail and got back above him. You know, it was
Speaker 2: still early morning shadows, especially on the north side, so
Speaker 2: we knew he had to be a ridge away got
Speaker 2: them to kind of to to re respond and and
Speaker 2: kind of get the game started again. And there were
Speaker 2: two bowls biggling back and forth. They had kind of
Speaker 2: they were kind of doing their own thing, fighting for
Speaker 2: the herd, and and we kind of used that time
Speaker 2: to slip in and get a shot. And as I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, they were they were in a bunch of
Speaker 2: Christmas trees with very limited ability to shoot out and
Speaker 2: very limited ability to shoot out when they were standing
Speaker 2: in the right spot on the other side. So it
Speaker 2: was like, I felt like we had a five percent
Speaker 2: chance that number one, the bowl is going to get
Speaker 2: close enough to shoot with the muzzleloader, and number two
Speaker 2: that like when he did get out in the open,
Speaker 2: I would be sitting in the exact spot that I
Speaker 2: could shoot through like a little teeny hole that I
Speaker 2: had and have arrest and do everything I needed to.
Speaker 2: So Matt was able to keep that bowl big and
Speaker 2: cranking for most of the morning, and then as the
Speaker 2: morning gets you know, a little bit on you know,
Speaker 2: nine thirty. I don't know if you've noticed this, but
Speaker 2: I think most hunters will, like a lot of times,
Speaker 2: your very first bagle, you get a bowl to respond, right,
Speaker 2: he'll respond, and then if you keep bugling, he will
Speaker 2: slowly stop answering you, like he doesn't want to respond
Speaker 2: to you every twenty seconds or thirty seconds. But then
Speaker 2: if you wait for five or ten minutes bugle again,
Speaker 2: he'll typically rip right back off. So we had, but
Speaker 2: we'd kept him pretty active for an hour hour and
Speaker 2: a half as he was rounding cows and pushing the
Speaker 2: five point off and we were kind of just waiting
Speaker 2: our time for him to you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: times you couldn't see him ninety percent of the time,
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of the time he was behind trees.
Speaker 2: He would just disappear for long amounts of time, and
Speaker 2: then you'd see a cow bust back out of one
Speaker 2: of the openings, like all right, he's going to be
Speaker 2: following her. And played that game for a while, but
Speaker 2: he finally started to slow down, even though we were
Speaker 2: still seeing him move over there. He just wasn't interested
Speaker 2: in responding to the bowl across the canyon anyway more,
Speaker 2: you know, And this is why we talked, certain bulls
Speaker 2: want certain things. I would crank out the easy estress
Speaker 2: and he would answer instantly on that he wanted to
Speaker 2: hear that that mature buzzy cow call. And so every
Speaker 2: time we wanted to like make sure he hadn't went
Speaker 2: up and over, because there were ways he could slip
Speaker 2: out of that canyon. We would hit him with easy
Speaker 2: estrass and he'd respond. So we sat there for a
Speaker 2: while and he was still there. Ended up like you know,
Speaker 2: stack and one pack sideways, one stack on the you know,
Speaker 2: one pack on its end, so we could try to
Speaker 2: get like a real stable rest. And finally the bull
Speaker 2: slipped up and came out and stood in an opening
Speaker 2: for long enough for me to get a good range,
Speaker 2: me to make a little adjustment on my scope and
Speaker 2: get a shot. So it was you know, these new
Speaker 2: muzzloaders are a little bit more accurate and got a
Speaker 2: little more range and what I'm used to. And so
Speaker 2: we we were able to shoot this bowl, you know,
Speaker 2: across a small canyon. It wasn't a big canyon by
Speaker 2: any means. You know, a pretty pretty decent muzzloader shot,
Speaker 2: and uh, we seen him take off, but it was
Speaker 2: so brushy. We got to see him maybe for two
Speaker 2: or three steps and then disappeared. And so one thing I,
Speaker 2: you know, to explain to the listeners. One thing we
Speaker 2: noticed that we knew we got a good hit. We
Speaker 2: rewatched the video, but a cow that was with him
Speaker 2: stood above his location for over an hour looking into
Speaker 2: his location. So if you ever see that, that's an
Speaker 2: indicator that that cow, you know, either seen him fall,
Speaker 2: heard something, nose. He's down there and is kind of
Speaker 2: unwilling to leave him, which give us some you know,
Speaker 2: gave us some confidence that he was dead right there
Speaker 2: or in that pile of brush. And the second thing
Speaker 2: was the remaining cows after they heard the shot, over
Speaker 2: about the next fifteen to twenty minutes, gathered up and left.
Speaker 2: Aside from this one cow that was watching his position
Speaker 2: very you know, intently, not moving her eyes for over
Speaker 2: an hour and a half, the other cows all walked
Speaker 2: by the pile of brush. He went into a group
Speaker 2: of trees within about twenty yards, and we were all thinking, like,
Speaker 2: all right, if he's still got anything left, he's going
Speaker 2: to get up and follow these cows, or if he's
Speaker 2: not hit. We kind of watched it and all those
Speaker 2: cows walk up to the ridge line and he doesn't follow. So,
Speaker 2: you know, two pretty good signs a cow that's watching
Speaker 2: his location is in my opinion, he's either over there
Speaker 2: laying wounded and he can't get up or move anymore,
Speaker 2: or he's laying over there dead. And then when the
Speaker 2: cows left without him, it's like, all right, that's another
Speaker 2: great indicator that you know, he's likely not on his
Speaker 2: feet anymore. And we were just patient. We actually sat
Speaker 2: and watched that group of trees for over an hour
Speaker 2: to make sure, you know, you know, put our put
Speaker 2: our bino's on tripods and really just like tried to
Speaker 2: pick it apart. We're looking for any little horn, kept
Speaker 2: an eye on it. And then when we some other
Speaker 2: tips I'd like to share is it's very brush over there.
Speaker 2: So we took multiple pictures of that hillside before he
Speaker 2: went over, drew lines like from indicators, like all right,
Speaker 2: what's our best indicators over there? Like all right, there's
Speaker 2: a clear ridge. We drew a line down that like
Speaker 2: I drew on my picture why I was over there,
Speaker 2: like it should be here, we should have this yellow tree,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever it may be. You know, drew really
Speaker 2: good pictures. And then one thing that you know, not
Speaker 2: just giving, you know, one of our partners a plug.
Speaker 2: Is I've got the new loophole fifty five hundred. I
Speaker 2: don't want to get the name wrong. The new loophole
Speaker 2: fifty five hundred RX I believe is that. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think it's a five thousand. I think it's a fifty.
Speaker 1: It's r X five thousand, five.
Speaker 2: Thousand, Okay, that's why I didn't remember if it's a
Speaker 2: fifty five hundred to the five thousand. But it's got
Speaker 2: the ability to go into their app and I would
Speaker 2: just pin you know, the yelk and we did it
Speaker 2: from multiple angles and multiple shots and it was very
Speaker 2: it was pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: But when so we zapp, you zapped the rangefinder on
Speaker 1: the spot and it communicates to via bluetooth tier on
Speaker 1: X and puts a place marker on the map.
Speaker 2: YEP. It gives you a loopholed pin, so within the
Speaker 2: app you just say pin next, so it knows that
Speaker 2: your very next range will be. It'll transfer you to
Speaker 2: on X. It gives you three dots for a little
Speaker 2: bit while it's thinking and calibrating or you know, figuring
Speaker 2: out the coordinates, and that drops a pin on there.
Speaker 2: I will advise and there. I think there's been some updates.
Speaker 2: I've got a pretty strong magnet in my fob, and
Speaker 2: I'm convinced that you get better results when that thing
Speaker 2: isn't very close to your chest or even I believe
Speaker 2: it even from your chest to your eye is close enough.
Speaker 2: So the technology works great, but I would advise if
Speaker 2: you're trying to get a very accurate shot and brush
Speaker 2: like this, like maybe take off your chest harness when
Speaker 2: you're calibrating the compass and everything inside the range finder,
Speaker 2: make sure you take that chest harness off and put
Speaker 2: it along ways away.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they even recommend stay away from your vehicle
Speaker 1: anything metal. Avoid anything metal, so you know, walk twenty
Speaker 1: thirty feet whatever away from anything metal, calibrate that thing,
Speaker 1: and even when you shoot.
Speaker 2: I think you should stay away from metal. Like it's
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of a pain, but like hike
Speaker 2: your gun away, or you know, hike some of these
Speaker 2: things with battery and magnets in them away and then
Speaker 2: take your shot. But I ended up taking three different shots,
Speaker 2: and through some triangulation, I'm like, well, these three shots
Speaker 2: are you know, thirty feet apart, which gets you really
Speaker 2: really close over there. But from the center of the point,
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I'm just going to pick the center
Speaker 2: of this, and ended up being fifteen feet away from
Speaker 2: where we thought where were we last seeing the bowl.
Speaker 2: So we walked around using the pictures, using a guy
Speaker 2: that we left over there, and using those pins because
Speaker 2: it was brushy, like it was very very brushy, hard
Speaker 2: to tell where you were at. So I was able
Speaker 2: to ultimately take you know, a very good mature six point,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what I was after. And I
Speaker 2: think there were bigger bulls in the unit for sure,
Speaker 2: But when I've dreamed of hunting this place, I dream
Speaker 2: of hunting it up in the mountains. Like it's when
Speaker 2: you go hunting. You can go try to kill the
Speaker 2: big bowl, or you can kind of hunt the areas
Speaker 2: and the places you want to. And so I was
Speaker 2: able to kind of mix us I really wanted to
Speaker 2: do it, you know, off my back, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of more of that backpack style, and so I was
Speaker 2: able to kind of mix those to find a really
Speaker 2: good mature bowl and do it kind of up in
Speaker 2: the mountains where nobody else that I had seen all
Speaker 2: year was hunting, and was able to get it done,
Speaker 2: and I was thankful that was the first day we
Speaker 2: had four guys up in that country, so I was
Speaker 2: real thankful to have four people to help, you know,
Speaker 2: pack pack that thing out, and you know, took a
Speaker 2: lot of pictures and and broke it down. And uh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get some muzzle er experts on the podcast
Speaker 2: here coming up soon. But man, that these new guns
Speaker 2: are are dang good, even with one X scopes. You know,
Speaker 2: I shot this this bowl at you know, three hundred
Speaker 2: plus yards and had a full pass through, hit him
Speaker 2: right in the lungs and with with the good rest.
Speaker 2: So I shoot the fury three hundred and twenty grain
Speaker 2: bullet out of out of this one. It's got a
Speaker 2: you know, blisted cofish and a point two six. It's
Speaker 2: a big old fifty cal bullet, but it's it one
Speaker 2: hole in, one hole out hardly, no no meat wastage,
Speaker 2: and hit them perfect. And you know, like I say,
Speaker 2: the bull, the bull literally took three running steps and
Speaker 2: tipped over dead.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 1: You know that bullet performance is so key on on
Speaker 1: muzzleloater because I know a lot of the guys that
Speaker 1: you shoot, you know, the all lead bullets and Idaho,
Speaker 1: we hit forever. We've had to use all lead bullets,
Speaker 1: and and they're just kind of subpar for performance. You know,
Speaker 1: you hit them just right and they they tip over dead.
Speaker 1: But if you hit them a little bit, I mean
Speaker 1: not even just perfect. You've can have you have a
Speaker 1: trailing job, and it's it can be tough.
Speaker 2: I I've you know, we had to use you know,
Speaker 2: bullets in the past that didn't perform. You hardly ever
Speaker 2: get an exit, you hardly ever get blood out of
Speaker 2: the entrance. And mussloaters have always been like real frustrating.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a huge copper bullet fan. You know,
Speaker 2: you got the Barns is you know, last year I
Speaker 2: used the Federal borlock. This year I'm using the Fury,
Speaker 2: which is an all copper system. But I feel like
Speaker 2: muzzloaters are where getting a hole out the other side
Speaker 2: is the most important thing, and so I am willing
Speaker 2: to use you know, the peer coppers, whether it's Barns
Speaker 2: or this year. You know, uh, the more I learned
Speaker 2: about muzzlers, you want something like the Parker or the
Speaker 2: Fury three twenty, you know, something that's more of a
Speaker 2: of a board to fit, you know, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know how people say Sabo or sabots or whatever
Speaker 2: people want to call them.
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, I'm not too fair. I'm not fancy
Speaker 1: enough to call me. I call it. I think sabbot,
Speaker 1: but I think I do too.
Speaker 2: But I think everybody that's in the no calls them sabo.
Speaker 1: But I also say case Adela and Salza as well.
Speaker 2: So so we're gonna we're gonna dive into this more
Speaker 2: in a future episode. But like these bore like specific
Speaker 2: boor sized bullets, you know, getting them to touch the
Speaker 2: rifling and getting the plastic out between them and the bullets,
Speaker 2: like when you're trying to really you know, we change
Speaker 2: out the breech plug in by Remington Ultimate. We've got
Speaker 2: more powder than anybody says you're supposed to, you know,
Speaker 2: use in this gun. You know, we're getting that three
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty grain bullet up to twenty one hundred
Speaker 2: feet per second. And so you know, we were able
Speaker 2: to add one X scope store guns this year, which
Speaker 2: I just feel like, aside from the one X, that's
Speaker 2: the only thing limiting you. You get a good rest.
Speaker 2: I h we have a real good gun range here
Speaker 2: in pel It's all in meters, so it's a three
Speaker 2: hundred meters shot, which basical ends up being three hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty yards, And there's a little ten inch high
Speaker 2: by twelve inch wide gong at three hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: yards and I hit it both shots, you know, just
Speaker 2: dial my scope up, dial it to certain to shoot
Speaker 2: twice at it and ting ting and you know, the
Speaker 2: red dots kind of covering the majority of the ten
Speaker 2: inches at three point thirty. But you know, you do
Speaker 2: a little fanagulon know that you're in the center of it,
Speaker 2: and it's just these things are very effective.
Speaker 1: Oh this was a red dot site.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a red dot one x so. And I
Speaker 2: I had sighted the gun in on the lowest setting
Speaker 2: because it makes the dot the smallest right with the
Speaker 2: less flare. Well, I was shooting from the shade to
Speaker 2: the sun and had to crank my dot up a
Speaker 2: little bit, which then made it grow on the elk.
Speaker 2: But still at you know, the yardage I was at,
Speaker 2: I still had plenty of room to know I was,
Speaker 2: you know, at what vertical level I was in and
Speaker 2: you know, able to make a good shot. But they're
Speaker 2: they're very impressive me and you talk about this all
Speaker 2: the time, like technology changes that may limit seasons. I'm
Speaker 2: a little worried with the ability of some of these
Speaker 2: muzzloaders and a lot of guys getting more into it
Speaker 2: that you know, the season date and placement, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was a special tag. So usually in the
Speaker 2: rest of the units in the Washington State, you can't
Speaker 2: hunt with the muzzloader that early. So I think, you know,
Speaker 2: with our elk now kind of being you know, slightly
Speaker 2: getting out of the rut, it's it's maybe not it
Speaker 2: doesn't have that big of a of an effect, but
Speaker 2: I always worry, you know, do these do these mussloaders
Speaker 2: ultimately affect take and do they affect season dates and
Speaker 2: and lengths and you know in the future. But they're
Speaker 2: they're daying good. They're they're way more effective than the
Speaker 2: old muzzloaders. I used to shoot where I'd have to
Speaker 2: aim for five seconds to see if I was gonna
Speaker 2: have a hangfire, and you know, the gun goes off
Speaker 2: to two seconds after the primer or the percussion or
Speaker 2: the musket cap goes off, So yeah, by that time,
Speaker 2: things like that. You know, I like to think I'm
Speaker 2: tough and don't flinch, but there's no getting around it
Speaker 2: that I flinch after that thing, you know, eventually clicks off,
Speaker 2: and but no, it was it was good. You know,
Speaker 2: a big bodied bowl, got a got a ton of
Speaker 2: meat off of him. The neck gross were like fifteen
Speaker 2: pounds a piece. I think by the time we chunk
Speaker 2: those things off. And like I said, I'm glad. I
Speaker 2: had four guys and you know, two of them were firefighters,
Speaker 2: so it's uh, you know, I took a hind and
Speaker 2: a head and one of the guys grabbed a hind
Speaker 2: and you know the other guy grab it. Was it
Speaker 2: was a lot of meat and got it packed out
Speaker 2: and the knees were barking at the end of that
Speaker 2: twenty five reversing that twenty five hundred feet down, But
Speaker 2: it was good.
Speaker 1: You were probably happy for those switchbacks on the way down. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's did it straight down.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, the switchbacks were good, you know, no big
Speaker 2: steps and the little celebratory pendleton at the at the
Speaker 2: truck was was nice, you know, sit down with all
Speaker 2: those guys and and my buddy new buddy Andy came
Speaker 2: up to the trailhead and kind of and he wasn't
Speaker 2: able to make it that day, but it had been
Speaker 2: helping quite a bit, and so it was. It was
Speaker 2: a good time. You know, it's so cliche to say,
Speaker 2: but there's nothing like everybody's sitting on that tailgate one
Speaker 2: after another, like unloosing their belts and letting that pack
Speaker 2: fall down. And to have a little Pendleton down with
Speaker 2: the truck together and celebrate was was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, speaking of pendleton, I think we have some
Speaker 1: pendleton whiskey Q and a uh time to dive into
Speaker 1: You got time for that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, Let's see these uh these questions are called
Speaker 1: into our hotline. And if you guys ever have any
Speaker 1: questions and you don't want to send an email, you
Speaker 1: just want to pick up the phone and call us
Speaker 1: and ask us a question, you just dial to zero
Speaker 1: eight two one nine seven seven zero one and uh
Speaker 1: we'll read your question here on on air and answer
Speaker 1: it best we can. Or if you're more of an
Speaker 1: email type person, you can always email us at ct
Speaker 1: D at Phelps Game Calls dot com shoot us over
Speaker 1: a question or or a comment. You know, you might
Speaker 1: just say, you know that the pink call, Jason's favorite call,
Speaker 1: the one with a little Juggernaut on it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not as good as he says. You know,
Speaker 1: it's more of a Maverick type of a type of
Speaker 1: a thing you like to use for that for your hunt.
Speaker 1: I gotta give you hard time, though, So I'm gonna see,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try real hard to see if you can
Speaker 1: hear these these questions. So and me too. So here
Speaker 1: we go. Question number one is a brand with I'm
Speaker 1: wondering trail heads. Where do most people park?
Speaker 3: What's the best area to go for non motorized vehicles.
Speaker 3: If you guys give me put that, greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'll let you, uh answer this question. I'll let you
Speaker 1: start with it. I know we have some ideas on this.
Speaker 1: We've we've been to the mountains of Colorado before.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, parking at trailheads like some I don't want
Speaker 2: to oversimplify it, like sometimes there's nowhere else to park
Speaker 2: but a trailhead. If that's depending on how you're gonna hunt,
Speaker 2: If that's your way into the area, you're kind of limited.
Speaker 2: You got to get on that trail. It's going to
Speaker 2: make it most efficient, it's going to make it, you know,
Speaker 2: the easiest way in the trails. Usually, you know, the
Speaker 2: best way there. There's no trees in your way, Especially
Speaker 2: in the area you're talking about, there's blowdown jackstraw, burnt
Speaker 2: trees everywhere. Going off trail in there to make ground
Speaker 2: up when you're not hunting is going to be like
Speaker 2: the most non you know, inefficient way to move about
Speaker 2: in there. So you're gonna want to take the trails
Speaker 2: to get to an area until you can get up
Speaker 2: and out of that brush. One thing I do different
Speaker 2: is I don't like to use trailheads if I can
Speaker 2: avoid them, if I can figure out a different area
Speaker 2: to get into a little niche basin or into a
Speaker 2: slightly different drainage, and I can get away from all
Speaker 2: that pressure on that trailhead. I just feel that that
Speaker 2: pressure at the trailhead pushes elk into areas that may
Speaker 2: just be off from the trailhead, you know, one or
Speaker 2: two ridges finger ridges away, and as long as there's
Speaker 2: a spot beg enough for me to pull my truck over,
Speaker 2: and people can get a horse trailer by or their
Speaker 2: own vehicles. Like you're you're allowed to and I don't
Speaker 2: know if I'm getting to the exact question. You're allowed
Speaker 2: to park wherever you want on four service, as long
Speaker 2: as you're not interrupting traffic flow up and down that road.
Speaker 2: So some of my favorite spots might just be a
Speaker 2: half mile off of a trailhead or a mile off
Speaker 2: of a trailhead. May get me into the same general area,
Speaker 2: but does give me a different look or a different
Speaker 2: hunt on the way to that area. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if there's anything to add, Dirk, but that's kind
Speaker 2: of my you know take. If I need to be
Speaker 2: on that trail I'm gonna park at the trailhead. If
Speaker 2: i'm hunting the area around the trailhead or you know,
Speaker 2: areas adjacent to the road, then I'll just park wherever
Speaker 2: I've got the ability to and go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And I have to
Speaker 1: apologize to our caller that we weren't able to answer this,
Speaker 1: you know, in season. I know he was on his
Speaker 1: way to hunt elk right when he sent that, uh
Speaker 1: that question, but unfortunately we were we were out hunting too,
Speaker 1: and and didn't have access to internet so we could
Speaker 1: listen to these questions and then record in a timely fashion.
Speaker 1: But hopefully this will help you for next year. And
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right, And then he had a question
Speaker 1: about you know, identifying non motorized trails and stuff. So
Speaker 1: if you get your get out, you're on X maps
Speaker 1: and and and go through the different layers. You can
Speaker 1: select the state and then select the different features on
Speaker 1: the map and trails and and roads and such as.
Speaker 1: You have some options there to where you can you
Speaker 1: can identify quickly and easily which trails are are motorized
Speaker 1: and which are not, and you can click on those
Speaker 1: trails or roads and a little a little screen will
Speaker 1: pop up there and I'll let you kind of read
Speaker 1: about it. Some trails you know, during during certain times
Speaker 1: of the year, uh, they do allow motorized travel. But
Speaker 1: it'll have the dates on there for the most part,
Speaker 1: so you know, maybe maybe August thirtieth, the motorized juice
Speaker 1: discontinues and then it's it's foot traffic or horse traffic
Speaker 1: from then on out for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: But you can identify those things pretty quickly, pretty easily.
Speaker 2: Yep. And I will say just because some of these
Speaker 2: on X trails, like Dirk says, a seasonal one, sometimes
Speaker 2: on X may or may not pick up the seasonality
Speaker 2: of those. They may just say it's motorized and you
Speaker 2: get there and it's closed on September first, on some
Speaker 2: partnership or it's sometimes worth if it's Forest Service to
Speaker 2: you know or whoever it may be the owner is
Speaker 2: to go do a little research on that trail on
Speaker 2: the Forest Service. Like if I've got my game plan
Speaker 2: down to spots A, B and C, and there's certain
Speaker 2: trails in the area, I will go to the Forest
Speaker 2: Services page and say what you know, go to their
Speaker 2: recreation tab and go see what it says that trail
Speaker 2: could because that's where it'll give you the seasonality of
Speaker 2: those trails, and it just lets you kind of double
Speaker 2: check on exes because on X is right ninety nine
Speaker 2: point nine percent of the time. But I believe the
Speaker 2: way that the you know, some of the old Forest
Speaker 2: Service trail maps may feed the system, there's sometimes a
Speaker 2: little bit of there could be some discrepancies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there could be an update that's changed everything. Wildfires too.
Speaker 1: This year, Man wildfires created a lot of issues for
Speaker 1: folks hunting just because different areas were shut down, different
Speaker 1: roads systems and trails were shut down. So yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: like Jason said, go to their website and if there's
Speaker 1: no trail, if there's no well, wildfires threatening the area
Speaker 1: a lot of times. What I'll do is also you
Speaker 1: can request a paper copy of the of the travel
Speaker 1: management plan for that particular area and it'll have a
Speaker 1: map and with the legend that shows you which ones
Speaker 1: are are are motorized and which ones are not. So
Speaker 1: all right, color number two.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jason and Dirt, this is Riley from Colorado. I'm
Speaker 3: doing my first season of boat hunting for help, and
Speaker 3: the question that I have is, at what point do
Speaker 3: you decide to move on from a specific area because
Speaker 3: of too much pressure from other hunters or you're just
Speaker 3: not seeing any elk? You know, I'm on day two
Speaker 3: or two full days and inspecific area and I've seen
Speaker 3: barely any sign, but I just nothing's talking. I haven't
Speaker 3: seen anything. I just want to know what your thought
Speaker 3: process is for when you determine that a specific area
Speaker 3: just isn't holding any elk and when you want to
Speaker 3: move on to somewhere else. Thanks a lot, I really
Speaker 3: appreciate the podcast. It's been super educational for me. And
Speaker 3: keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: So Riley from Colorado want to know when to move on?
Speaker 2: Do you want I take a little crack at it
Speaker 2: and then you want to add too. Okay, sure, so
Speaker 2: I'm for those that don't know me like I've got it.
Speaker 2: I've probably got a little bit of low, low grade
Speaker 2: ADHD and I cannot. I like, I either need to
Speaker 2: be an elk or I need to be moving on.
Speaker 2: And I sometimes I think it's to my benefit. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it might actually be to the detriment. But I feel
Speaker 2: that with unless there's there's like a deeper area. Let's say,
Speaker 2: you know, some of these areas you go into, like
Speaker 2: you can't cover the whole thing within you know, a
Speaker 2: five day span. It's just it's too deep. But if
Speaker 2: let's say it's a three to five mile hike, I know,
Speaker 2: within that hike, if I hit the right areas, if
Speaker 2: I'm hitting the ridge lions, if I'm hitting mid Soiak trails,
Speaker 2: and if i go check out the meadows or the
Speaker 2: fringes or the wallows, like if I've if I'm able
Speaker 2: to identify low passes in the ridge meadows where they
Speaker 2: should be feeding or alpine areas where they should be
Speaker 2: feeding water, and then on some of these fringes, I
Speaker 2: know within a day if I'm gonna hunt there again
Speaker 2: or if it's worth my time regardless of bugles. Like
Speaker 2: if you let's say I don't hear a bugle, like
Speaker 2: I I could be very confident in an area if
Speaker 2: I do or do not hear a beagle. There should
Speaker 2: be scat on the ground. There should be tracks on
Speaker 2: the ground. There should be this year's rubs or you know,
Speaker 2: last year's rubs in the area. And there should be
Speaker 2: some sign you know, if you're at a wallow, they
Speaker 2: should be used. It shouldn't be crystal clear water with
Speaker 2: no you know, recent tracks around the edge. Uh, And
Speaker 2: I'm out. I'm just going there's somewhere else in that unit.
Speaker 2: There's somewhere else around me that the elk are being active,
Speaker 2: and then the the beagles are just kind of icing,
Speaker 2: you know, on the cake, Like that's that's the guaranteed
Speaker 2: they're there. And if I've got beagles and there's enough elk,
Speaker 2: and then I also weigh in pressure, like there's as
Speaker 2: Dirk had mentioned earlier some of his Idaho spots, like
Speaker 2: I'm not willing there could be one hundred elk and
Speaker 2: you know, a hundred bowls bugling and just but if
Speaker 2: there's a hundred guys also hunting. I'm gonna go find
Speaker 2: the one or two elk that are bigling and maybe
Speaker 2: nobody's hunting, because I feel like, honestly, that's my better
Speaker 2: chance at killing a bowl. And we don't talk about
Speaker 2: this a lot. We did it in New Mexico a lot.
Speaker 2: We do it. You know, I did up my Washington
Speaker 2: hunt that the best check mark or the best way
Speaker 2: to test is bigle into the area at night. We
Speaker 2: don't talk about a whole lot, but if you can't
Speaker 2: get a bagle in there, you know from when it
Speaker 2: gets dark to about an hour after. And I've found
Speaker 2: that that works better than in the morning. A lot
Speaker 2: of times I would I would just leave the area.
Speaker 2: I would go find somewhere else. That's that's my answer
Speaker 2: on that. I'm I'm quicker to pull the trigger or
Speaker 2: pull up the anchor and move on than most and
Speaker 2: but I just want to be in action every morning
Speaker 2: and every evening.
Speaker 1: I agree one hundred percent. Yeah. Like like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, you're checking all the the boxes for sign
Speaker 1: and stuff. When I look in an area, I look
Speaker 1: at all the likely places I'm going to find an elk.
Speaker 1: Especially in September, it's usually kind of warm. You got
Speaker 1: some warm mid days, evenings can be cooler, but a
Speaker 1: lot of times it can be really warm. So I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna target those north facing slopes on the landscape
Speaker 1: and i'm gonna I'm gonna check the boxes on each
Speaker 1: one of those north facing slopes in an area and
Speaker 1: make sure so just because you go to the first
Speaker 1: north facing slope and there's no sign, no fresh sign,
Speaker 1: no bugles, that doesn't mean the one around the corner
Speaker 1: is not going to just be loaded. So but if
Speaker 1: you're if you're looking at a mountain range or or
Speaker 1: an area that you can effectively hunt within a two
Speaker 1: or three day period, if you had to spend some
Speaker 1: major time in there, you could you can maybe touch
Speaker 1: those those bases pretty quickly. Like the last two days
Speaker 1: of elk season here in Idaho, we went and we
Speaker 1: hiked in. We earlier in the year, we had earlier
Speaker 1: in the season, we had backpacked in. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not deep enough to where we have
Speaker 1: to back back in, So we're just gonna go light,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go fast, and we're just gonna go check
Speaker 1: everything we can and then dig in. So we'd left
Speaker 1: no stone unturned. We hiked, we got high, got up
Speaker 1: on top of the ridges, and then once you had
Speaker 1: that elevation, start checking off all those little every little
Speaker 1: north facing pocket. And this area was easy because the
Speaker 1: north faces all had timber and everything else had grass
Speaker 1: and sagebrush, so it's easy to identify those places. So
Speaker 1: you go there and check those spots off. And if
Speaker 1: if you're just not hearing bugles and not seeing fresh sign,
Speaker 1: fresh scat, fresh rubs, we move on and within a
Speaker 1: short amount of time you can be like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna hunt your I'm not gonna waste any more
Speaker 1: time waiting for more elk to move. In some areas,
Speaker 1: a lot of elk will move come and go. They
Speaker 1: they they're pretty nomadic. But I'm not gonna probably spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time waiting for elk to come back
Speaker 1: in the spot. I'm gonna I'm gonna quickly move on
Speaker 1: to another spot to where I'm finding fresh sign hand
Speaker 1: or bugles, yep.
Speaker 2: And I'm always making mental notes like if I go
Speaker 2: into an area and kind of check it and it's
Speaker 2: it doesn't have elk sign, but maybe it has some
Speaker 2: old stuff or you know, we've did it enough where
Speaker 2: it just looks like it should have ELK. I won't
Speaker 2: write that off for the whole season, but I might
Speaker 2: give it a week and then come back. Like like
Speaker 2: Derek said, if it's got the things that needs, they
Speaker 2: just might not be there right now, or you just
Speaker 2: never know. You know, is there pressure, is it somewhere
Speaker 2: they're going to move into later in the season. So
Speaker 2: you're trying to but that really takes. It's taken me
Speaker 2: a long time to get comfortable knowing like I'm not
Speaker 2: writing that off first. I'm going to write this but off,
Speaker 2: you know, spot off, and I may come back later.
Speaker 2: It's just yeah, it's I'm also not hunting like low density.
Speaker 2: Like let's say we did a two or three day
Speaker 2: loop and we got one bowld of Bugle, I'm probably
Speaker 2: not gonna like, I want to go find a higher density.
Speaker 2: I want to have more options than the one bowld
Speaker 2: at Bugle. You know, seven miles in on my big
Speaker 2: loop hike. You know, I'm gonna go find something better
Speaker 2: because I feel like I need my odds to be
Speaker 2: higher than screwing up on one bowl unless it's the one.
Speaker 2: You know, some guys are out there looking for specific elk,
Speaker 2: you know, you might be willing to stay, but for me,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna move on quicker than most.
Speaker 1: And another thing to do is identify how old the
Speaker 1: sign is and how relevant that is to when elk
Speaker 1: are going to be back there. For instance, in Idaho,
Speaker 1: we found some places. I don't think I've ever seen
Speaker 1: so many rubs in my entire life. Literally, these areas,
Speaker 1: these bedding areas had every frickin' tree rubbed from like
Speaker 1: olden days to like recently. It was. It was insane.
Speaker 1: It's just like you get in this little pocket on
Speaker 1: one of those north faced slopes, on a little flat
Speaker 1: and the elk could destroy the trees in there. I
Speaker 1: was like, we got to kill we got to kill
Speaker 1: an elk for the sake of the trees, you know,
Speaker 1: do it for the trees. Nobody's looking out for the trees,
Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, but you couple that along with
Speaker 1: howlds the scat well, the scot was probably three four
Speaker 1: weeks old, So in my mind, the bulls or wintered,
Speaker 1: they summered up in this area, spent most of their summer.
Speaker 1: They they kind of did that pre rut thing where
Speaker 1: they got they were hanging around each other, they were
Speaker 1: rubbing a bunch, and then once that first sweet smell
Speaker 1: of September, the cows coming into heat, they all vacated
Speaker 1: the area and hadn't been back. There was no fresh
Speaker 1: sign that had been there. And then one thing that
Speaker 1: kind of proves my theory as well. In this one spot,
Speaker 1: I found some dude's trail camera and he didn't lock it,
Speaker 1: so I didn't tamper with him bother other than I
Speaker 1: did pull the card and look at his card, and
Speaker 1: you could see there hadn't been anything on there within
Speaker 1: the last three or four weeks. So that just that
Speaker 1: made me think, yep, they're them things were here were
Speaker 1: Our timing is wrong. If we'd have been here opening
Speaker 1: week a season, we probably would have been in some
Speaker 1: pretty good bowls. But at the end of season, those
Speaker 1: elk are not there and they're probably not going to
Speaker 1: come back until the next year. So looking at those
Speaker 1: signs and kind of doing a little bit of you know,
Speaker 1: the art of deduction like Sherlock Holmes would do, you
Speaker 1: could would kind of lead you to your next plan
Speaker 1: of next plan of attack. All right, Collar number three, Hey.
Speaker 5: Dark, Jason brand Schmidt's North Idaho hunting steep and deep.
Speaker 5: I just got a question kind of revolved more hunt
Speaker 5: and elk around Grizzly Country. Bumped into the sow, three
Speaker 5: cubs still alive, luckily, Just when you're going in areas
Speaker 5: like that, and how often I guess I don't know,
Speaker 5: would you guys even know do ge bears usually typic
Speaker 5: hang out around the same areas. I mean, I've been
Speaker 5: back in there after a herd bull calling in the yards,
Speaker 5: hung up right behind the tree, and yeah, it's just
Speaker 5: a little eerie.
Speaker 3: Going in there.
Speaker 5: Haven't had any run ins with her lately, thank god,
Speaker 5: But just yeah, you guys know if bears kind of
Speaker 5: just hang ou around the area. I mean, obviously there's
Speaker 5: Oulton there and they all love the same spot. Regarding
Speaker 5: that anyways, thanks, I'm going.
Speaker 2: Grizzly bears and herd bulls and whether they hang around
Speaker 2: the same spot. So thanks for that question, Brandon, And
Speaker 2: I'll preface this whole answer with I'm not a grizzly
Speaker 2: bear expert by any means, but.
Speaker 1: You play one on TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do hunt Grizzly Country a lot. I've I've
Speaker 2: tried to become, you know, bear aware, I'm always paying attention,
Speaker 2: I'm always looking. But I think this time of year,
Speaker 2: you know, within a sea in their their food source
Speaker 2: isn't changing much. The area they're probably inhabiting isn't changing much.
Speaker 2: So it might not be the answer you want, But
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that grizzly bear is going to be in
Speaker 2: that general area for for the foreseeable, you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit until the weather starts to hit. So pretty
Speaker 2: short answer might not even be the right answer, But
Speaker 2: as a hunter, I would always assume that that sow
Speaker 2: with cubs is going to be in that same general
Speaker 2: area for you know, during that September season into into
Speaker 2: early October, before she you know, moves spots. But Dirk
Speaker 2: may may have a better answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm definitely not a grizzly bear expert at all.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to regurgitate some information I've I've learned
Speaker 1: from other people just because I have I've never had
Speaker 1: the privilege of living around grizzlies, even though I've hunted
Speaker 1: around him a couple times. But North Idaho, my good
Speaker 1: buddy Tom Schneider, who lives in North Idaho, they've hunted
Speaker 1: and around with grizzlies. Their whole life in the area
Speaker 1: they hunt, and he said there's very there's a couple
Speaker 1: specific areas that they know. He's like, I can go
Speaker 1: up there any day in the fall and we can
Speaker 1: see a grizzly to multiple grizzlies. It's just they really
Speaker 1: like certain areas, probably in the fall. And I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's due to the berry crop, you know,
Speaker 1: the huckleberries. There's obviously some food source, maybe maybe even
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they're just away from where people are
Speaker 1: going to really bother them too much. There's a few
Speaker 1: different factors there, I would imagine. I do know bears,
Speaker 1: grizzly bears can wander a lot too, you know. I
Speaker 1: feel like male bears cover a lot of ground. I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: like the age of the of the cubs, if they're
Speaker 1: real young, they may may not travel as much. They
Speaker 1: may just kind of have their little home homestead staked
Speaker 1: out there to where they they feel safe and maybe
Speaker 1: they don't have to move around as long as it's
Speaker 1: got a food source. But I know other friends who
Speaker 1: have talked about running like I just did a podcast
Speaker 1: with my good my good friend ron Najoelik out of wyoming,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to listen to this that one. It's
Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to it already, you don't want
Speaker 1: to listen to it. Because he had he encountered forty
Speaker 1: one grizzly bears this September twenty some under thirty yards
Speaker 1: I think, or under fifty yards. It's a crazy story.
Speaker 1: He had a wild September. But he talked about encountering
Speaker 1: a grizzly in a certain spot and then a few
Speaker 1: days later encountering them again in the same spot. So
Speaker 1: I feel like they kind of have their little hangouts
Speaker 1: where they like to be just from information I've heard
Speaker 1: from other people. But they will travel quite a bit.
Speaker 1: But I would definitely anticipate seeing If you've seen grizzlies
Speaker 1: in one spot before, you'll probably see him again, I wish.
Speaker 1: And that's probably not the answer you want to hear.
Speaker 2: He's wanting to go back in. Youre after that heard bowl,
Speaker 2: But I'm like I would, I'd be looking for a
Speaker 2: grizzly bear if I went back in.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh definitely, all right, last question calling them before.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, I doing.
Speaker 4: My name is Ron Hoppy. I've work and live out
Speaker 4: here in Wyom, southern Wyoming. Why do I know your
Speaker 4: thoughts on early season bulls when you find them and
Speaker 4: get into them, you know, early September and then middle
Speaker 4: of the late September, a lot of them bold are
Speaker 4: gone due to pressure. Curious your thoughts on how far
Speaker 4: do you think they go from their original bedding area,
Speaker 4: you know, a drawer or two over? Do they go
Speaker 4: miles or you know? Or do you think they stick
Speaker 4: around closer to their home.
Speaker 1: Turfs than versus they think?
Speaker 4: So, I know a lot has to do with it
Speaker 4: with pressure, But curious your thoughts on how far they
Speaker 4: travel once they get spooked or pushed or smell.
Speaker 2: A human so like to show appreciate it, thanks, How
Speaker 2: far they travel once they get pressured? Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna wind this back to before they
Speaker 2: get pressured, And it really depends on how close everything
Speaker 2: is they need, their to their food, to their betting
Speaker 2: or security, which we're talking now about their betting insecurity
Speaker 2: because of pressure. So food, water, betting, in security. Right,
Speaker 2: are the three things I always look for when when
Speaker 2: I'm looking for elk so unpressured, it depends on how
Speaker 2: close those things are you know, in the Northwest it
Speaker 2: can be really tight because we seem to have food everywhere.
Speaker 2: We seem to have you know, water everywhere and mainly timber.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that's exactly, you know, I've
Speaker 2: never hunted up north with dirt, but I'm assuming it's
Speaker 2: fairly similar. Your your food, your betting, and your water
Speaker 2: is all fairly tight. Now you go to New Mexico,
Speaker 2: your water is now two miles from your bedding, and
Speaker 2: the food may be scattered anywhere in between. And so
Speaker 2: those elk are already moving a mile two miles plus,
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit more of that nomadic style.
Speaker 2: They're so dependent on their water. The water is only
Speaker 2: so locations, and then there's got to be a mix
Speaker 2: of all of that, right, So it's just that proximity.
Speaker 2: When they start to get bumped, I feel that elk
Speaker 2: for a day or two will forego or give up
Speaker 2: some of those things. Now, they may still need to
Speaker 2: find water, they may still need to have food, and
Speaker 2: they still may but they're they're now prioritizing security, right,
Speaker 2: and they're willing to give up a little bit of
Speaker 2: their best food source. They're willing to give up the
Speaker 2: absolute best water. They may go get it for you know,
Speaker 2: in the dark. It really has hit or miss around home.
Speaker 2: The elk won't really go anywhere when they're pressured because
Speaker 2: they've got so much timber, they've got so much cover.
Speaker 2: I've been up in some of my spots in the
Speaker 2: cascades of Washington, or I've been you know, in Idaho, Wyoming,
Speaker 2: and you put some pressure on elk and you may
Speaker 2: see him moving three to four miles over the ridge line,
Speaker 2: but they're going to a spot that they either know
Speaker 2: or there that they've already been that has those same
Speaker 2: three things water, food and security, escapement betting to go
Speaker 2: and get away from the pressure that you've provided. So
Speaker 2: I know I am answering the question without answering your question.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's as simple as you know.
Speaker 2: These elk might go, you know, two minutes away, or
Speaker 2: these elk might go two miles away. It's it's really
Speaker 2: just hit or miss on where those elks think that
Speaker 2: they can survive without pressure and and get by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. Now he he you
Speaker 1: got you answered kind of pressure. I'm gonna talk more
Speaker 1: about move for the rut. So sometimes that first week
Speaker 1: of season, you'll find those bowls, maybe solitary, spread out
Speaker 1: and where they pretty close to where they spend their
Speaker 1: summer once they kind of once they have their little
Speaker 1: argument with all their buddies and split off from each other,
Speaker 1: and then once they leave from that, it can be
Speaker 1: who knows where. So typically for me, where I've had
Speaker 1: trail cameras around the tenth to the fifteenth of August,
Speaker 1: once I see one bowl on camera, Let's say I've
Speaker 1: had like a whole bunch of bulls on this camera
Speaker 1: all summer long, and then the first bowl I see
Speaker 1: on there that has its velvet shed, I typically don't
Speaker 1: see any more bulls. They like, once you see that
Speaker 1: want first one hit, they let they leave, They're gone.
Speaker 1: They leave mid August and I may not even see
Speaker 1: them again until October November back on those same cameras.
Speaker 1: So and there's there's some of these areas I've had
Speaker 1: in places where there's pretty low ELK densities, But I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of bulls in the summer. Come September,
Speaker 1: you try to find them, I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: where they all went. Like you would think, oh, the
Speaker 1: next ridge over the next drainage over it is going
Speaker 1: to be plum full of bulls. No, I think those
Speaker 1: things they go out to seek their fortune. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find some cows somewhere else. And especially if there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of cows in the area, you may they
Speaker 1: they may they may scatter to the wind pretty far.
Speaker 1: Each bull may disappear quite a ways. If there's a
Speaker 1: lot of cows around, they may not have to go
Speaker 1: very far at all. They may just go, you know,
Speaker 1: a half a mile away or a mile away. So
Speaker 1: just depending on your elk densities could depend on where
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna go. Now. I do have a buddy
Speaker 1: who had pictures of Giant Bowl down in southern Idaho.
Speaker 1: Every year, he'd been watching this giant bowl, like a
Speaker 1: three to ninety tight bowl, every every year. But about
Speaker 1: about every year about the same time, the thing would disappear,
Speaker 1: and they just they looked high and low throughout that unit,
Speaker 1: trying to turn that bull up, and you could never
Speaker 1: find it. Well, a couple of years later, you met
Speaker 1: some guy in from Utah, and the guy from Utah
Speaker 1: was showing him pictures of this bowl and he's like,
Speaker 1: whoa that that's my bull That bowl literally changed mountain
Speaker 1: ranges and states. It went from Idaho to Utah and
Speaker 1: go to Utah to rut every year. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like a twenty five mile trek over to where this
Speaker 1: this bowl was at. So you just never know how
Speaker 1: far those things are going to go and turn up.
Speaker 1: But one thing if you can, if you can get
Speaker 1: your trailcam game going, is find the cow groups. It's fun.
Speaker 1: I love seeing the bulls on the camera because look
Speaker 1: at that one. Oh, I'd like to shoot him. But
Speaker 1: you know, cows are kind of boring to see on
Speaker 1: a trail camera. But if you can find that the
Speaker 1: cows in the summertime and to kind of figure out
Speaker 1: where the cows spend their time, you're going to kind
Speaker 1: of know where those those bulls are going to disappear
Speaker 1: to come September. Well, I think that wraps up our
Speaker 1: Pendleton whiskey Q and A. Do you have any other
Speaker 1: any thought, Jason on any of these topics.
Speaker 2: No, I think I think we covered it, you know
Speaker 2: pretty well. Getting packing today, so as soon as we're
Speaker 2: soon as we're off here, I'm going to load the
Speaker 2: trailer up on the side by side and all my
Speaker 2: gear again, man.
Speaker 1: Is that why you're giving me that funny look like ry?
Speaker 1: I want to get going?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I reserved. I had this reserve till
Speaker 2: till now, so we're we're good. No, just just on
Speaker 2: to the next one. This one is a meal deer
Speaker 2: slash elk hunt combo, going with my good buddy Tyson,
Speaker 2: and I'm since I've already killed an elk, I'm kind
Speaker 2: of just back up elk hunter and then really just
Speaker 2: kind of focusing on meal deer. But if the hunting
Speaker 2: is good and the elk cooperate, might might have a
Speaker 2: chance at another elk there. But I'm not you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going in with with the intent of a muzzloader
Speaker 2: and being an elk packer spotter for Tyson. But everything
Speaker 2: everything goes right, might might get a chance at an
Speaker 2: elkre I at least have an elk tag in my pocket.
Speaker 1: A mixed bag if you will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I have ten ten days in the back
Speaker 2: country of Idaho. This one's gonna be a little bit
Speaker 2: more spike out. You know, live off your back, live
Speaker 2: out of a tent for for ten days. So even
Speaker 2: though these ones aren't as luxurious as as most of you,
Speaker 2: know the camps are. I always look forward to these
Speaker 2: ones that are just a little more rough and you know,
Speaker 2: it's fun. I like, I like mixing it up. So
Speaker 2: this'll be more of our backpack hunt for this year.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised, Tyson. I'll goell hunting or just hunting with
Speaker 1: you in general and Idaho because I know the last
Speaker 1: time you guys got together, it was like you almost
Speaker 1: froze to death yep, and almost snowed out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but last time we all kind of together. Though
Speaker 2: he killed that great like three point thirty bowl, I
Speaker 2: called in for him and then he didn't return to
Speaker 2: favor and call me one, and so I shouldn't go
Speaker 2: to Idaho with him anymore?
Speaker 1: What a jerk.
Speaker 2: No, we we we have a lot of fun. He's uh,
Speaker 2: he's a skilled glasser, so he always challenges me to
Speaker 2: to really stay in the glass and make sure he
Speaker 2: doesn't spot everything before I do, or I spot stuff
Speaker 2: before he does so I can get a shot at
Speaker 2: the deer. And uh no, it'll be it'll be fun.
Speaker 2: Ready to go hunt hard and see what we can't
Speaker 2: maybe dig up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm on that same moat here. As soon
Speaker 1: as we hang up on this call. I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: getting my poop in a group and getting packed for
Speaker 1: for Idaho deer and then elk as well with a rifle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. I'm gonna try to do kind
Speaker 1: of a hybrid. I'll probably spend some days some nights
Speaker 1: on the hill, you know, camped out and bivvy style
Speaker 1: or spike camp, and then probably have some nights in
Speaker 1: a in a base camp.
Speaker 5: Two.
Speaker 1: But looking forward to uh, maybe reaching out and touching
Speaker 1: one with a with a rifle. I'm hoping I hear
Speaker 1: a bugle or two, but who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they should still be bugling a little
Speaker 2: bit maybe to start. The first couple of gun shots
Speaker 2: will probably shut shut them up real quick, but hopefully
Speaker 2: they'd be go a little bit to get the game started.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Last this last Saturday, so it wasn't any hunting
Speaker 1: season at all. My my brother in law Randy, and
Speaker 1: I were out on a dirt bike ride and doing
Speaker 1: a little little bit of scouting too, if you will,
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, there's this one spot I really
Speaker 1: want to go check out and bugle intwo. So we
Speaker 1: hiked down into the spot and bugled nothing about the
Speaker 1: third bugle.
Speaker 4: I heard it.
Speaker 1: Down on the bottom, like, oh yeah. So we just
Speaker 1: kind of sat there bullshitting a little bit and did
Speaker 1: a little bit of more Collin and I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of talking and looking. Of course, neither one of us
Speaker 1: broad binoculars because we're dirt biking, right, And I looked
Speaker 1: down probably two hundred yards away. I'm like, there he is.
Speaker 1: That bull walked right out like dang it. Man, if
Speaker 1: it was rifle season, we could have just shot that joker.
Speaker 2: But is that how it's gonna work seven days from
Speaker 2: now on the fifteenth, man?
Speaker 1: I hope. So if I could be that lucky, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go buy a lottery ticket.
Speaker 2: Well you a couple of years ago, you called them
Speaker 2: in for your wife, right the Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: it could happen.
Speaker 1: We've kind of kind of a curse on that in
Speaker 1: that area where I called in that one for my wife.
Speaker 1: You know, she messed this bullet like forty yards. I'm like,
Speaker 1: did you hit it? She's like, oh, yeah, I hit it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, where were you aiming? She's like,
Speaker 1: uh uh, I don't remember. Of course she missed it.
Speaker 1: And my son missed one at about forty yards in
Speaker 1: that same place, big six both big six points and
Speaker 1: then I missed one at about seventy five yards in
Speaker 1: that same area here. But unfortunately, I'm not going elk
Speaker 1: cutting in that spot this year.
Speaker 2: Get out out of the dirt or the Durham triangle.
Speaker 1: But there's yeah, we got to get out of that place.
Speaker 1: But there is a curse upon calling in elk and
Speaker 1: missing them with a rifle. So though I did say, well,
Speaker 1: I will say I did calling a bowl to my
Speaker 1: to my tent in Wyoming in a few years ago
Speaker 1: and shot him from the tent. So that was that
Speaker 1: was cool. Yeah, I think that thing was blind and dumb, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, good luck on your your Idaho hunts,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna go give it our all and hopefully
Speaker 2: we see if we can't see if these apple maggots
Speaker 2: can't bring a couple Idaho deer and elk back to
Speaker 2: our state.
Speaker 1: Man, you better hide those horns. You can drive through
Speaker 1: this state. People be thrown rotten eggs at you, guys.
Speaker 1: I love it all right, Well, good luck and we'll
Speaker 1: catch everybody next time.