Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Welcome back to the podcast everyone.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody's doing good. I know this some of
Speaker 1: this quarantine stuff feels like it will never end. I
Speaker 1: know a few places they're starting to lift to some restrictions,
Speaker 1: but for most of the country we're still just kind
Speaker 1: of in the middle of this. So I thought this
Speaker 1: week maybe I would just touch a little bit on
Speaker 1: some of the things we can do right now from
Speaker 1: home in planning for fall season success that when it
Speaker 1: comes to picking a hunt and picking a spot, and
Speaker 1: this is something that I've just been doing a lot
Speaker 1: of lately. So I just want to go over some
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm doing right now from my house,
Speaker 1: through map scouting, through tag applications, through hunt research that
Speaker 1: will help me be successful this fall. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, I'd just like to share a story
Speaker 1: of a meal deer hunt a few years ago in
Speaker 1: a new area that I kind of stumbled upon by
Speaker 1: doing a lot of preseason research. By this point, it
Speaker 1: was day five or six of my general area over
Speaker 1: the counter meal deer hunt. Now, on this particular hunt,
Speaker 1: I was looking for what I would consider a good
Speaker 1: mature buck, at least four by four, good scoring, big
Speaker 1: mature animal. Except up until this point, i'd hardly see
Speaker 1: any deer. I had seen a few doughs and some
Speaker 1: smaller bucks, but very few sightings in between. I was
Speaker 1: signing a state that I hadn't actually hunted for deer before,
Speaker 1: but before the season really started, I just kind of
Speaker 1: got to thinking I was. I was reading through some
Speaker 1: regulations for different states like I do every year, and
Speaker 1: I just thought, man, this would be a fun tag
Speaker 1: to try. I looked at the season dates, and I
Speaker 1: just so happened to have it open between guiding, So
Speaker 1: I just thought, Okay, I'm gonna pick up that tag
Speaker 1: and give it a shot, give it a run for
Speaker 1: its money. You know, a lot of my hunt planning
Speaker 1: started out. What I was looking for was an area
Speaker 1: that really suited the way that I liked to hunt,
Speaker 1: a good backcountry area. I also looked for an area
Speaker 1: that had fairly low hunter success, but also fairly low
Speaker 1: hunter activity. I wanted to be in a spot where
Speaker 1: I really believed that I could find a mature animal.
Speaker 1: And to find a mature animal, it needs age. So
Speaker 1: I thought, if I pick an area that is very
Speaker 1: hard to hunt for a lot of people, if I
Speaker 1: do end up finding a deer, it's probably gonna have
Speaker 1: some age to it. It's probably gonna have a little
Speaker 1: bit more size, especially being in over the counter tag.
Speaker 1: You know, if I can cut down on the hunter
Speaker 1: numbers and and get into areas where I'm not seeing
Speaker 1: other people, man, I might really have some success at
Speaker 1: turning up a good buck. Once I narrowed it down
Speaker 1: to that, I kind of found an area that had
Speaker 1: fairly low success, and I knew that historically there had
Speaker 1: been good animals taken around that area there. You know,
Speaker 1: I could look through Pope and Young and Boone and
Speaker 1: Crockett and there was a few entries in. There was
Speaker 1: some just overall good genetics. But the area definitely died
Speaker 1: off over the years, as some areas do. So I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the area that I want to hunt now.
Speaker 1: From there, I started just really pouring through maps and
Speaker 1: locating some really backcountry basins and just places that I thought,
Speaker 1: man that nobody would want to go there. And then
Speaker 1: I also kind of picked areas that really lended themselves
Speaker 1: to the way that I like to hunt, so I
Speaker 1: I really looked for burns and some other things. There
Speaker 1: have been a recent fire in a portion of the unit,
Speaker 1: so I thought, Okay, I'm going to go in there
Speaker 1: where the recent fire is. That might maybe deter some people,
Speaker 1: but it might also have some good antler growth, track
Speaker 1: some animals. There probably won't be any other hunters in there,
Speaker 1: and I can give it my best shot. Like I said,
Speaker 1: five days in, I really hadn't seen any deer yet,
Speaker 1: but I also hadn't seen any other hunters either, So
Speaker 1: in my mind I was on the right track. I
Speaker 1: was in a good place that potentially had good deer.
Speaker 1: I just had to find the deer. And it was
Speaker 1: such a big area, and even though it had burned
Speaker 1: a lot of standing timber, it was very hard to glass,
Speaker 1: very hard to see very far. So there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of pockets in there that I knew deer could hide,
Speaker 1: but I just wouldn't be able to see him. So
Speaker 1: I just had to put boots on the ground find
Speaker 1: more and more glassing spots, check out the spots that
Speaker 1: I had outlined on my map, and really stick to
Speaker 1: my plan because it was gonna be mentally tough, and
Speaker 1: it was at this point mentally tough. You know, when
Speaker 1: you go four or five days without singing animally, start thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: am I just wasting my time? Is this why there's
Speaker 1: low success because there are no animals here? But the
Speaker 1: country looked good. Everything looked good, And on this particular day,
Speaker 1: I found myself in a basin looked better than anything
Speaker 1: I'd seen before. I thought to myself, this is the
Speaker 1: spot where I'm going to find my big buck. It's remote,
Speaker 1: it's out of the way. There clearly have been no
Speaker 1: hunters in here for a while, and if there's a
Speaker 1: buck in here, it's gonna have some age and it's
Speaker 1: gonna have some size. To get into the area, I
Speaker 1: had to work my way straight up a steep mountain
Speaker 1: and then follow this like razor back ridge up into
Speaker 1: another canyon. Once I got up at the top, there's
Speaker 1: this big burned out section there and a lot of
Speaker 1: new growth coming up. There is a south face slope
Speaker 1: and it was just almost knee high grass there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bear grass, which deer don't necessarily like, but
Speaker 1: there was some other green up still because it's actually
Speaker 1: done in pretty early snow. This was early October. On
Speaker 1: the edges of the snow patch, there's some late October
Speaker 1: green up growing as well as just like some good
Speaker 1: pockets of unburnt timber as well. As I thought, oh man,
Speaker 1: this spot has everything I need. It's got cover, it's
Speaker 1: got a creak in the bottom, it's got some fresh growth.
Speaker 1: This looks awesome. And as I started working up that ridge,
Speaker 1: I started seeing sets it to your truck, so I
Speaker 1: just got on alert. I was glassing and still hunting
Speaker 1: through this burnt timber, and I worked my way to
Speaker 1: this little rock outcropping where I could kind of overlook
Speaker 1: the largest portion of this basin, and I sat there
Speaker 1: for a good portion of time. But by the time
Speaker 1: I got up there just was not the ideal time
Speaker 1: to be glass and it was kind of midday, so
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I'm gonna plan on being in this
Speaker 1: spa for the rest of the day. But I also
Speaker 1: just had this urge to see what was a little
Speaker 1: bit further up, and maybe this one little pocket just
Speaker 1: looked it just looked so good from where I was,
Speaker 1: so I worked my way up toward that pocket, and
Speaker 1: now I'm on the ridge overlooking this big burned out
Speaker 1: basin and I've got what now is probably my best
Speaker 1: vantage point. I sit down and I actually was filming
Speaker 1: for Solo Hunters, and I was messing with my camera
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting down and I'm glassing and no sooner
Speaker 1: do I throw the glass up, and it just is
Speaker 1: filled with a buck. I'm like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: is a nice buck too, is the exact kind of
Speaker 1: deer that I was looking for. And then as fast
Speaker 1: as I saw it, it disappeared behind some burnt trees.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, I gotta really just make sure
Speaker 1: that this is really what I'm looking at. I want
Speaker 1: to maybe throw my spotting scope on it. Then I
Speaker 1: spotted again. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna have time
Speaker 1: to get my scope on it. So I get set
Speaker 1: up I range and it's way too far for a shot.
Speaker 1: It's about yards away off on this other hillside and
Speaker 1: it's kind of working its way toward the top of
Speaker 1: the ridge. So I'm like, okay, I've got a little
Speaker 1: bit of time. I'm just gonna watch this dear, because
Speaker 1: there's so much burnt timber in here, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: lose it if I just stopped looking. So I get
Speaker 1: set up and I and I just watched this dear
Speaker 1: and he starts feeding and then he goes over out
Speaker 1: of sight. I sit there for a little bit and
Speaker 1: just kind of think, Okay, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: All right? Decide there's no way if I sit where
Speaker 1: I'm at, I'm not gonna be able to make a play.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take me a little while because it's so
Speaker 1: steep and there's a big canyon in between us. To
Speaker 1: get to where he is, Plus the wind is coming
Speaker 1: from the bottom up the mountains, I'm gonna actually have
Speaker 1: to climb up to the top and around the other
Speaker 1: side and down on him. But I don't really know
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna be able to locate that deer again.
Speaker 1: So I figured, Okay, I'm just gonna go to where
Speaker 1: I last saw him or thereabouts. And because it was
Speaker 1: still a pretty fresh burned there was like ash and
Speaker 1: and dark soil and it was pretty easy to find tracks.
Speaker 1: So I thought, worst case scenario, if I get over there,
Speaker 1: I can start glassing, maybe pick him back up. If not,
Speaker 1: I can try to work my way down to where
Speaker 1: I think I saw him go over and hopefully pick
Speaker 1: up a set of tracks and maybe just track him
Speaker 1: through the timber. So I make a move, and I'm
Speaker 1: like thinking, I want to hustle and get over there
Speaker 1: while maybe he's still standing or moving around, because it
Speaker 1: will make him a lot easier to see, even though
Speaker 1: it's burnt out. It's just like you cannot see more
Speaker 1: than a hundred yards in this stuff. So I get
Speaker 1: on the ridge and I start working into the wind
Speaker 1: down where I last saw him. There was one little
Speaker 1: live pine that I saw on the ridge, so I
Speaker 1: kind of used that as a marker to get okay,
Speaker 1: that's where he kind of went over. So as I
Speaker 1: get to that, I start really going slow. And as
Speaker 1: I creep into where he disappeared, I'm glassing and I'm
Speaker 1: looking for tracks, and I'd seen a few tracks on
Speaker 1: my way down, so I knew that there was some
Speaker 1: deer in the area. And I pick up his antler tips,
Speaker 1: and the bear grass is so tall and the hills
Speaker 1: so steep that all I can see are his antlers.
Speaker 1: But he may have heard me a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then he I see his head go down. He starts
Speaker 1: feeding again, like oh perfect, this is perfect. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: how am I going to get a shot At this point?
Speaker 1: He's only maybe seventy yards, so I'm looking around and
Speaker 1: it's full standing. The most that I would ever be
Speaker 1: able to see is his head in his eyes, but
Speaker 1: I cannot see his body because of the grass and
Speaker 1: the slope of the hill. So there's this big down
Speaker 1: tree right in front of me that'd fallen over. I think, man,
Speaker 1: if I just get up a little bit higher, so
Speaker 1: I wait for the buck, I set my pack down
Speaker 1: and just like creep up to this log and then
Speaker 1: wait for him to feed again. As his head goes down,
Speaker 1: I crawl up on the log, staying low and just
Speaker 1: make sure he's not looking my direction. And then I
Speaker 1: stand up and I'm just gonna have to take an
Speaker 1: off hand shot because it's the only way that I
Speaker 1: can actually see the box above the grass. So I
Speaker 1: get ready. Actually, I locked my arm into my body
Speaker 1: and I practice off hand shots a lot. I used
Speaker 1: to shoot off hand rifle competitions in high school, so
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I've done a lot off hand shooting,
Speaker 1: and he's less than a hundred yards. This is no problem.
Speaker 1: I line up the crosshairs on his shoulder, squeeze the trigger,
Speaker 1: and the buck drops as I walk up to the buck.
Speaker 1: It was everything that I wanted, and it was just
Speaker 1: as exciting because it was a general area and it
Speaker 1: was just this idea of I planned this hunt months before,
Speaker 1: just thinking about, Okay, this is the type of experience
Speaker 1: that I'm looking for, this is the type of deer
Speaker 1: I'm looking for, and to walk up on that deer
Speaker 1: put that entire experience into reality. Like the plan that
Speaker 1: I had made months before, the research that I'd done
Speaker 1: all paid off right here on the mountain. Although this
Speaker 1: lockdown and quarantining stuff does suck in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: there might be some silver lining to it in the
Speaker 1: fact that many of you may actually have a little
Speaker 1: bit more time to plan out and do a little
Speaker 1: bit of research for some hunts. I know it's something
Speaker 1: that I do every year, but this year I've just
Speaker 1: been spending a little bit more time trying to find
Speaker 1: some new spots and some new hunts. So what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do is just kind of walk you through my
Speaker 1: process of what I'm doing right now, not only in
Speaker 1: applying for hunts, but maybe planning for some over the
Speaker 1: counter type tags as well. So I'll kind of take
Speaker 1: you through my process of how I find hunts and
Speaker 1: what I look for when I'm planning that hunt. Really,
Speaker 1: I think that I could break it down into three steps,
Speaker 1: So the first would be identifying your options, then it
Speaker 1: would be mapping it out, and then planning it out.
Speaker 1: So let's start with step one, identifying the options available.
Speaker 1: I'm a paper and pen guy, and so for planning,
Speaker 1: it just gets really messy, and I like to write
Speaker 1: out all my options and kind of keep like this
Speaker 1: master list when I start the whole planning process. Underneath
Speaker 1: this identifying our options idea, there's gonna be two options
Speaker 1: that will eventually come out. One would be draw type
Speaker 1: tags and the other would be what we call over
Speaker 1: the counter tags or tags that you can get fairly easily.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can just purchase them before a certain date
Speaker 1: or pick them up on your way to a hunt.
Speaker 1: So we've got those two categories. Let's start with the
Speaker 1: draw category. How do I identify a hunt? What I
Speaker 1: do is I start with reading through all of the
Speaker 1: different states regulations and just see which hunts are available.
Speaker 1: This gives me an idea of what kind of opportunities
Speaker 1: are out there, So I'll go online. I'll pick the
Speaker 1: states that I'm interested in. For me, I mean, I
Speaker 1: try to research almost every state, so I'll look at
Speaker 1: New Mexico, I'll look at Idaho, Montana, Nevada. UM. Right now,
Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot of research for my Nevada
Speaker 1: tags that are coming out, but that that's my home state,
Speaker 1: and that's probably the one that I do the most researching.
Speaker 1: Although I apply for a lot of different units and
Speaker 1: species in Nevada, most of the ones that I apply
Speaker 1: for I've actually never been in those units or haven't hunted.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of this research that goes into
Speaker 1: figuring out where I want to apply, and that all
Speaker 1: starts by reading through the state regulations, the proclamations and seeing, okay,
Speaker 1: what tags are available, and really understanding each state system
Speaker 1: and what's available to me as a hunter. From there,
Speaker 1: I then match what's available up with what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: So as far as draw type stuff goes, those are
Speaker 1: not ssarily tags that you can count on, But what
Speaker 1: I look for is maybe a tag that might be
Speaker 1: easier to draw, that might be a little bit more predictable,
Speaker 1: but maybe is kind of being underserved or other people
Speaker 1: aren't looking for it. Other things that I might look
Speaker 1: for is just say, hey, I'm looking if I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to this state, if I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to Idaho for an elk hunt, then I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a really good elk hunt. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: research areas that I think have really good success rates
Speaker 1: good bulls, and you know, maybe that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: So let's just start with talking about how do I
Speaker 1: even do any research on maybe areas to apply for.
Speaker 1: Where do I start, Because especially if you're out of
Speaker 1: state or maybe you're planning your first Western big game hunt,
Speaker 1: it's gonna seem very daunting. There's thousands of areas, so
Speaker 1: many units. How do you know which one is the
Speaker 1: one that you want? How do you know which one
Speaker 1: is going to be good? You don't really know just
Speaker 1: looking at it on paper what's going to be good.
Speaker 1: So you really have to understand what options do I
Speaker 1: have and then dive into it and dissect to those options.
Speaker 1: How I like to research a draw tag? Is I
Speaker 1: first start by looking up Almost every state, like phishing
Speaker 1: game website has some kind of statistics. Most of them
Speaker 1: are pretty good, especially for limited draw tags. A lot
Speaker 1: of them have to be a report, like the success
Speaker 1: and harvest has to be reported, so a lot of
Speaker 1: them are really good at, you know, giving you these
Speaker 1: research items. I mean, even in like the California Hunting Proclamations,
Speaker 1: it has a lot of this research in it. Some
Speaker 1: of the sites you actually have to look up a
Speaker 1: little bit more in depth, but you can find it
Speaker 1: pretty much for every state that I know of. So
Speaker 1: what I like to look for. The stats that I
Speaker 1: key on are the draw os, the harvest success, and
Speaker 1: then harvest data, So that would be stuff like maybe
Speaker 1: they've got information on the size of animals harvested, the
Speaker 1: if it's elk, maybe the number of points or the
Speaker 1: average main beam length if it's sheep. All the sheep
Speaker 1: have to get plugged and checked out. So some states
Speaker 1: have their check out summaries where it gives you the
Speaker 1: exact sheep that were harvested that year with a score,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of compare, Okay, what size sheep
Speaker 1: are they? Or at least a lot of states will
Speaker 1: do length of horn and massive base. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take that information and I'm gonna start looking at it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not necessarily looking for one particular thing, but
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for is a hunt that matches what
Speaker 1: I'm interested in that moment. So it could change from
Speaker 1: year to year, it could change from state to state.
Speaker 1: It could change from your looking at um Wyoming or
Speaker 1: Colorado or Idaho this year. Okay, So what kind of
Speaker 1: hunt do you want? Maybe you're thinking, i've got some time.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look for a hunt that is easy to draw,
Speaker 1: but if I draw it, I might have an okay
Speaker 1: chance if I hunt hard at a six point bull.
Speaker 1: Or you might be thinking I don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of time this year, so I just want to find
Speaker 1: a hunt that might be hard to draw, but if
Speaker 1: I get it, it's going to be so worth it
Speaker 1: because there's big elk and a good chance of success.
Speaker 1: So that's where I kind of break this down into
Speaker 1: what am I looking for? And then I dissected those
Speaker 1: stats that line up with what I'm looking for. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I've been spending a lot of time on
Speaker 1: my home state, Nevada, and the one that I've been
Speaker 1: really researching is desert sheep. I'd love to get a
Speaker 1: desert sheep tag, and my thought is, I want to
Speaker 1: do it with my bow. So I'm kind of looking
Speaker 1: for an area that has decent success, doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be large rams, but has really good odds of drawing
Speaker 1: for myself with the amount of points that I have.
Speaker 1: And so I'm narrowing it down to units based on
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for and what my goals are. Now
Speaker 1: let's jump into the other option, the over the counter route. Now,
Speaker 1: I think of over the counter tags is something that
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like it sounds, you can
Speaker 1: pretty much be guaranteed that tag. Now, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of places that might have tags that are fairly easy
Speaker 1: to draw or maybe have to purchase them by a
Speaker 1: certain date. I would still classify those over the counter tags.
Speaker 1: And I also kind of lump in some units that
Speaker 1: might have se or better draw odds into this over
Speaker 1: the counter type area, Like it's it's a readily available tag,
Speaker 1: the odds are that you'll get it. Some areas that
Speaker 1: have that kind of ability to get a tag. I
Speaker 1: kind of lump into this this idea of the over
Speaker 1: the counter route. I do something very similar when I'm
Speaker 1: researching over the counter type tags. If I really think
Speaker 1: back to all the hunts that I do every year,
Speaker 1: very very very very few are a limited entry tag.
Speaker 1: Most of the limited entry tags would just be in
Speaker 1: Nevada where I live, because there aren't any over the
Speaker 1: counter big game tags. I apply in a lot of places,
Speaker 1: but I don't draw a lot of tags. I've drawn
Speaker 1: a few good tags in Alaska, but outside of that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never drawn a tag in Idaho. I've
Speaker 1: never drawn a tag in Utah. I've drawn one tag
Speaker 1: in New Mexico and the however many years. But there
Speaker 1: are other options, and we're talking about draw on a
Speaker 1: tag like a limited entry tag. Now, in a lot
Speaker 1: of those places, I have either picked up leftover tags,
Speaker 1: over the counter tags, or you know, a tag that
Speaker 1: was really easy to draw that I pretty much was
Speaker 1: sure I was going to get. So most of my
Speaker 1: hunts are that over the counter route or those general areas,
Speaker 1: and there's some phenomenal hunting in there. You just have
Speaker 1: to really research it, do a fair amount of like
Speaker 1: map scouting, and then have some time to hunt it.
Speaker 1: But through those tags, it's a lot easier to make
Speaker 1: a plan ahead of time. So when I'm looking at
Speaker 1: different potential over the counter tags, which i've I've been
Speaker 1: looking a lot lately and maybe trying some new places,
Speaker 1: some new areas or a state that I haven't spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in. I'm looking for those type
Speaker 1: of tags that using similar research to the draw tags,
Speaker 1: but just kind of matching the type of hunting experience
Speaker 1: that I'm looking for. So in the story that I
Speaker 1: told about the meal deer, I was looking or the
Speaker 1: type of experience where I could easily pick up a tag,
Speaker 1: I could hunt without running into other hunters and going
Speaker 1: into it would know that it would be very hard
Speaker 1: to find a deer, but if I did find one,
Speaker 1: it might be a really good deer. I don't do
Speaker 1: that on every hunt. There's there's many over the counter tags,
Speaker 1: like for elk, where I think I love to eat elk.
Speaker 1: What I want is just a good opportunity at harvesting
Speaker 1: any bowl. So in Montana most of the time I
Speaker 1: look for areas I hunt a lot of general units
Speaker 1: that you know, just have a lot of high elk
Speaker 1: population and a good chance of success. Maybe I'll go
Speaker 1: in there archery season and think Okay, I know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be guiding later in the fall, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna look for maybe the first legal bowl I see
Speaker 1: that that's good enough for me. So every hunt is different,
Speaker 1: and I really just plan out my hunts based on
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for. You know, there's a few antelope
Speaker 1: punts that I try to do every year, and for those,
Speaker 1: I just look for an area where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a tag, I can go with my bow,
Speaker 1: do some spot stock, and find an area that has
Speaker 1: maybe not the highest population, but also you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a mix of not as many hunters because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be spotting and stocking and I don't want them chased
Speaker 1: up a bunch, So maybe finding an area that has
Speaker 1: lower populations, maybe a little less success rate, but also
Speaker 1: fewer hunters. And so by going through the websites and
Speaker 1: just really picking out what I'm looking for. So what
Speaker 1: I'll do I mentioned earlier, I like to write it down,
Speaker 1: so I'll just I'll have my idea of what I'm
Speaker 1: looking for. So I'll say, okay, let's say I want
Speaker 1: antelope archery. I want to spot and stock hunt it,
Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily want to run into a lot
Speaker 1: of hunters, but I wanna, you know, an average amount
Speaker 1: of success. So I'll kind of figure out that's my
Speaker 1: goal for this. Then I'm going to start looking for
Speaker 1: things that line up for that, and then jot down
Speaker 1: the units within that over the counter or general type
Speaker 1: hunt that align with that goal in mind. Once I
Speaker 1: have my list of open zones or other areas, then
Speaker 1: I moved a step two, which is mapping it out.
Speaker 1: We'll go back to the draw real quick. The map
Speaker 1: it out section you aren't sure you're gonna get a tag.
Speaker 1: But when I'm planning on potential areas to draw, I
Speaker 1: will always do this little map it out process as well,
Speaker 1: so I'll be doing the same thing with a draw.
Speaker 1: I'll find an area that has statistics that really line
Speaker 1: up with what I'm looking for. I'll write down the units.
Speaker 1: Then I'll go on my on X hunt app and
Speaker 1: I'll go to that exact unit, look at the unit boundaries,
Speaker 1: and then what I'm looking for, whether it's over the
Speaker 1: counter tag or a draw tag for me, I look
Speaker 1: for units that have good access, and I look for
Speaker 1: a lot of public land. I don't want my hunt
Speaker 1: to be dependent on me asking permission. So if the
Speaker 1: area doesn't have anywhere that looks like I could hunt
Speaker 1: on public land, I kind of just write it off.
Speaker 1: I'm not the type of person. Now, maybe you're the
Speaker 1: guy that likes to go knock on doors and aster
Speaker 1: permission and you're good at that. That's not my strong suit.
Speaker 1: I've never been good at that. So I look for
Speaker 1: areas where I don't have to ask. So once I
Speaker 1: narrow that down, then I go, okay, well, maybe this
Speaker 1: area is not for me, or this one is this
Speaker 1: area has got some public land, or this one's half
Speaker 1: private half public, but it looks like there's some access
Speaker 1: points where I can kind of hunt the edges and
Speaker 1: around some of the private So I do that as
Speaker 1: my initial assessment of whether it's an area that I
Speaker 1: really want to go for or not. When I'm looking
Speaker 1: for public land, what I'm talking about is I'm sure
Speaker 1: most of you know this, but you know I'm either
Speaker 1: looking for for service land BLM land. So for services
Speaker 1: generally always green on the maps. BLM is generally like yellow,
Speaker 1: and a lot of state land it just depends on
Speaker 1: the state, could be blue or purple or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I look for those types of lands, and then
Speaker 1: you know, you can also look into you might have
Speaker 1: a unit that has, you know, some kind of refuge
Speaker 1: or something like that. Those you kind of have to
Speaker 1: look up that specific refuge or that type of land
Speaker 1: and see what the hunting rules are on that. Most
Speaker 1: for Service and BLM just standard for Service and BLM
Speaker 1: lands are pretty wide open for hunting. You know, you
Speaker 1: can always look into each individual ranger, district and whatever.
Speaker 1: Once you if you already have a tag, if you're
Speaker 1: getting over the counter tip, you can look into that
Speaker 1: a little bit more. But mostly, um, you know, that's
Speaker 1: why I like to look for the BLM and the
Speaker 1: Forest Service because they're all open to hunting. So now
Speaker 1: we've got this stage where we map it out, we
Speaker 1: just give it a brief overview, and I'm just looking
Speaker 1: for access. Um, is there actually somewhere I can hunt
Speaker 1: in this area? And does it have maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of what I'm looking for, Like is it a
Speaker 1: mountain type hunt? Is there some areas away from roads?
Speaker 1: Does it have kind of the things that I like?
Speaker 1: And if it passes the stage, then I green light it.
Speaker 1: I take that unit and I write that into my
Speaker 1: potential units to do my research and my planning stage,
Speaker 1: which will bring us to step three, the planet out. Now,
Speaker 1: this is where I kind of try to narrow it
Speaker 1: down and pick a unit. This this really comes into
Speaker 1: play on general tag or over the counter time where
Speaker 1: you can hunt like a half the state during certain seasons,
Speaker 1: you know Montana general ELK tag. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different units that you can hunt every year, and I
Speaker 1: may hunt the same unit, I may go to a
Speaker 1: different area and try to explore something else. So what
Speaker 1: I do is I like to pull out my maps
Speaker 1: and really this is where I get down to the
Speaker 1: nitty gritty of the planning portion. And this is why
Speaker 1: it's nice to find some of those over the counter tags,
Speaker 1: because I generally won't get to this stage in a
Speaker 1: draw a tag until I've drawn a tag. But this
Speaker 1: time of year, right now, a lot of draw results
Speaker 1: are coming out. Maybe you're a lucky guy that you
Speaker 1: put in for a new Mexico ELK tag and drew it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know some other draw results should be popping
Speaker 1: out pretty soon, Utah, you know, who knows what Whatever
Speaker 1: you put in for, maybe you've got a tag in
Speaker 1: your pocket now now you're going to jump into this
Speaker 1: planning stage. So I use the Onyx Hunt app a lot,
Speaker 1: and then I also will jump back and forth to
Speaker 1: Google Earth just to use a more a little bit
Speaker 1: more three D. I like using the Onyx because it's
Speaker 1: got so many different layers. One, it's got the unit boundaries,
Speaker 1: which are super helpful. You can go between satellite and topo,
Speaker 1: and then I can also do different layers like wildfire layers,
Speaker 1: clear cut layers, you know, historic migration. There's just all
Speaker 1: kinds of different features that are really specific to hunters.
Speaker 1: So that's why I do a lot of my planning
Speaker 1: on that app. And also I can do it on
Speaker 1: the computer as well, which is sometimes nice to have
Speaker 1: a little bit bigger view. But I get asked the
Speaker 1: question all the time like there's so much land, where
Speaker 1: do I even start? And so I would say, you
Speaker 1: start with habitat, and then I also get the question like, well,
Speaker 1: how do you know animals will be there? And the
Speaker 1: real answer is you don't. Um that's where the exploration
Speaker 1: portion comes in. But if you think about it, every
Speaker 1: good exploration has to have a plan going into it.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be a lot more successful that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could just show up and just uh kind of
Speaker 1: start randomly spinning your wheels. But if you have some
Speaker 1: form of a plan based loosely on an idea of hey,
Speaker 1: I've already kind of scouted this in a way where
Speaker 1: I've found an identified good habitat, then when you get
Speaker 1: into the area, the exploration and execution of that plan
Speaker 1: comes into play, and now things might change, but it
Speaker 1: gives you a good baseline to start from. So what
Speaker 1: I look for personally is I just look for similar
Speaker 1: topography and terrain that I like to hunt, and for
Speaker 1: a place that resembles where I've seen animals before. Now,
Speaker 1: this might be a little difficult if you've never Like
Speaker 1: if you're hey, I'm new to LK hunting, new to
Speaker 1: mule deer hunting, I'm from the East Coast, I've never
Speaker 1: hunted out west, that might not be the best advice
Speaker 1: because you don't really know what you're looking for. So
Speaker 1: what I'll say is, as of right now and in
Speaker 1: the future, I'll touch a lot more on some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. But um, you could go back to episode twelve.
Speaker 1: I talk about topography a lot. I don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the time to recap all of it right now, So
Speaker 1: go back to episode twelve. That's new to you. For
Speaker 1: everybody else, I'm saying, the first things I look for
Speaker 1: is just similar topography and trained to where I like
Speaker 1: to hunt. Now, I also when I'm looking into areas,
Speaker 1: I know my style of hunting and I know what
Speaker 1: I like to hunt. And some of this also depends
Speaker 1: on the type of animal you're hunting. But I like
Speaker 1: to glass, so I gravitate towards that kind of country
Speaker 1: areas that I can cover with binoculars optics from a
Speaker 1: good vantage point and see a lot. Now, if you
Speaker 1: like to still hunt, maybe you grew up in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest and you know the idea of glass ng okay,
Speaker 1: but you're just a lot better sneaking around still hunting. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, look into the areas that kind of suit
Speaker 1: your style of hunting. You know, maybe you're gonna look
Speaker 1: for more south facing slopes that have good timber pockets,
Speaker 1: or or whole mountains with good tim brood areas and
Speaker 1: maybe a flat bench of topography where ELK might bed.
Speaker 1: I also did a little timber topography for ELK podcasts.
Speaker 1: You go back and find if that's you know, if
Speaker 1: you still hunt for deer where you're at, you want
Speaker 1: a little bit of different ideas on still hunting for elk.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's your style. Now focus in on the areas
Speaker 1: that's your style. Maybe you're coming out Western you want
Speaker 1: to stand hunt. That's completely possible too, you know. So
Speaker 1: what you'd be looking for something that suits your style
Speaker 1: of hunting. If you're gonna hunt from a tree stand,
Speaker 1: maybe you're looking for water holes if it's an arid area,
Speaker 1: or maybe potential wallo spots. Maybe you're coming to hunt
Speaker 1: white tails, so you're gonna be looking for tree stands.
Speaker 1: Um you're gonna be looking for river bottoms. Now, once
Speaker 1: I've got the units, hone in on places that really
Speaker 1: help the way that I like to hunt, and it
Speaker 1: could be different for everyone. So because I like to glass,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna identify glassing knobs. I'm also gonna switch between
Speaker 1: layers of fires, topos, satellite, the hybrid, maybe a clear
Speaker 1: cut layer, because I know that those areas that might
Speaker 1: be more open from fire and other things. It might
Speaker 1: used to be timbered, but now it lends itself to
Speaker 1: glass and because it's open and burned or there's a
Speaker 1: new clear cut and I can find maybe a glassing
Speaker 1: knob into that clear cut. So I'll now take that
Speaker 1: the app and I'll look for areas where it looks
Speaker 1: like I can look into other areas to really help
Speaker 1: the way that I like to hunt. So then I'll
Speaker 1: go and I talked about it before, but I'll maybe
Speaker 1: drop a pin on potential glassing knobs and then I
Speaker 1: can take that pin and go check it on Google
Speaker 1: Earth and kind of sit myself in that spot and
Speaker 1: see what I can see from there, and then I'll
Speaker 1: mark those glassing knobs and that'll build out my plan
Speaker 1: for where I'm going to hunt when I get into
Speaker 1: the unit. So I dropped pins on places that look
Speaker 1: good from afar, and then I like to kind of
Speaker 1: hone in on places that might be far from the roads.
Speaker 1: But I'll even highlight a few places that have easy
Speaker 1: access good access that I can kind of preview. These
Speaker 1: will be spots that I look at when I preview
Speaker 1: the area. And what I mean by preview the area
Speaker 1: is my first steps when I get into a new
Speaker 1: unit for scouting and hunting. I don't really have time
Speaker 1: to cover that this week, but we that will be
Speaker 1: a future podcast. So As of right now, we're finding
Speaker 1: areas at home, and then we're kind of planning out
Speaker 1: that hunt based on the ways that we like to hunt.
Speaker 1: Once we have that, then we've got our game plan.
Speaker 1: So when we get into the area, we're going to
Speaker 1: be more efficient and probably most likely more successful. I
Speaker 1: hope that helps you guys. I know, I've been spending
Speaker 1: in absolute ton of time researching hunts, and I've never
Speaker 1: spent so much time deciding on units that I'm going
Speaker 1: to apply for. I actually got my Idaho sheep application in.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about doing elk deer antelope again, but
Speaker 1: I normally do sheep, and I stopped for a little
Speaker 1: bit it. Now I'm like, okay, I found some spots
Speaker 1: that sound good to me, So I got that application in.
Speaker 1: Did a lot of research, and obviously on that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, I mean, the odds are so minimal anyways,
Speaker 1: you're almost just better going for broke. But I thought, okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's fun for me to look at
Speaker 1: maps over potential areas and while doing that, maybe discovering
Speaker 1: something that you could use later on, or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: you have a friend draws some tag and you go, hey,
Speaker 1: I've already looked at the maps a lot on that.
Speaker 1: Let me help you out, I don't know, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of for me. It's just a lot of fun
Speaker 1: of researching areas. I've spent a lot of time on
Speaker 1: pretty much every fishing game website, reading through all the regulations,
Speaker 1: all the potential hunts for so many different states, and
Speaker 1: we start adding different states to the list. I've got
Speaker 1: like this messy piece of paper that has hundreds of
Speaker 1: ideas that I've already confused myself four times on. I
Speaker 1: sometimes on a lot of states wait till the last
Speaker 1: minute to apply because I'm just like, I'm so in
Speaker 1: evolved in the planning process. Once I apply, then I
Speaker 1: kind of lose that thing to look forward to of
Speaker 1: just checking more spots and new spots and keep planning out.
Speaker 1: And obviously I've got a couple of tags in my
Speaker 1: pocket for this year. I haven't drawn anything. The states
Speaker 1: that I have applied for I haven't drawn, but I
Speaker 1: did pick up a couple of general tags. So I've
Speaker 1: got a general tag in Montana, and I'll be hunting
Speaker 1: general elk and general deer and just looking for a
Speaker 1: few new spots for potentially antelope and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I've I've been having a lot of fun just
Speaker 1: going over maps, finding new spots, highlighting some new areas
Speaker 1: I want to talk about. Maybe not next week, I
Speaker 1: do want to do a Q and A because I've
Speaker 1: been getting so many questions. So maybe next week I'll
Speaker 1: do a Q and A and then we'll jump back
Speaker 1: into like, once you have that tag, what are your
Speaker 1: first steps in the unit? So we'll take you know,
Speaker 1: your your your first steps in the research we've just
Speaker 1: talked about. Now let's just go but with a little
Speaker 1: first steps in the unit. But maybe we'll do a
Speaker 1: Q and A first next week. Sounds kind of loose
Speaker 1: and goosey, but I haven't decided. We'll see which way
Speaker 1: the wind blows. I just I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good questions that people ask and I do want
Speaker 1: to get to those. I don't want to let them
Speaker 1: sit too long. So oh, I'm hopefully going to be
Speaker 1: able to do a little bit of turkey hunting here
Speaker 1: in the coming week, which would be fun. Maybe if
Speaker 1: we do a Q and A, I can talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about turkeys as well. I haven't hunted him
Speaker 1: in a long time because I've been hunting other stuff
Speaker 1: spring bear or in New Zealand or Australia. This is
Speaker 1: the first time I haven't gone to Australia or New Zealand. Well,
Speaker 1: New Zealand it's been I've hunted their fall there for
Speaker 1: the last I think ten or eleven years, so that's
Speaker 1: the first time I've missed the hunting season. But even
Speaker 1: if you live in New Zealand, you're missing the hunting
Speaker 1: season this year because of the lockdown. So it's just
Speaker 1: a strange time for me. I'm not actually used to springtime.
Speaker 1: I haven't been in spring and many many years, almost
Speaker 1: a decade, because I normally go where it's fall during
Speaker 1: the spring, so it's kind of cool to maybe go
Speaker 1: chase them to since I'm here this spring, I've just
Speaker 1: been waiting for some restrictions to lift. So if you
Speaker 1: got any questions or you know whatever, feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out via Instagram. That's pretty much where I do
Speaker 1: most of my answering messages and stuff like that. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, feel free to if you don't subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast, if you like it, subscribe, give us a
Speaker 1: comment or like, really appreciate that, and maybe cruise through
Speaker 1: if you, if some of this is new stuff to you,
Speaker 1: cruise through some of the past episodes. I know there's
Speaker 1: I touched on a lot of stuff in earlier episodes,
Speaker 1: and I'm always kind of afraid of repeating. But I also,
Speaker 1: I mean, half the stuff I talked about I don't remember,
Speaker 1: so it's never bad to kind of rehash some really
Speaker 1: good tactics. All right, stay out there, I mean, stay
Speaker 1: in there what I don't even know. Gosh, this quarantine's
Speaker 1: got me all objecked. But I've got my Onyx app
Speaker 1: up right now, and I'm about to go apply for
Speaker 1: a couple of deer tags. Fingers crossed, hope, I draw
Speaker 1: good luck to you all. A hand counted the candle
Speaker 1: countr