Speaker 1: As a guide an 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. You're on a glassy knob.
Speaker 1: The sun's just about to crack. You and your buddy
Speaker 1: are getting ready for the day. You're excited. You geared
Speaker 1: up for this hunt. Now out west. There's this rule.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the rule of the land, and it
Speaker 1: goes like this. He who spots it stocks it, or
Speaker 1: at least gets the first rider refusal. Well, what's that
Speaker 1: mean for you? That means that you want to spot
Speaker 1: something before the guy next to you. How do you
Speaker 1: do that? This week, I want to teach you how
Speaker 1: to spot animals fast with hypercentage scanning, where to look,
Speaker 1: when to look, and how to focus in and pick
Speaker 1: apart the landscape. I think the best way to go
Speaker 1: about it is to tell you a story about a
Speaker 1: trip I took with four friends down to southern Arizona
Speaker 1: to hunt cous deer. This hunt takes place down in
Speaker 1: Arizona right on the Mexico border. It's the Southwest Desert.
Speaker 1: We're hunting an area where we got these over the counter,
Speaker 1: pretty much tags leftover rifle tags for cou's deer, which
Speaker 1: can be some of the hardest deer to spot, especially
Speaker 1: in early October. The reason is they're really, really well
Speaker 1: adapted to their environment. You gotta picture it. It's a
Speaker 1: big cactus country. There's a lot of these bushes we
Speaker 1: call oka tillo, which is is essentially a spiny pile
Speaker 1: of branches that almost looks like you can look through,
Speaker 1: yet everything behind it can hide the cou's deers coat.
Speaker 1: I would consider it very close to digital camo. It
Speaker 1: blends in it's gray. They call him the gray ghosts
Speaker 1: for a reason because they can just blend into the
Speaker 1: gray rock without having to try. In October, they aren't
Speaker 1: moving around much. They aren't running. They're just sitting in
Speaker 1: their hidy holes off away from roads and other things,
Speaker 1: making them very difficult to find. You might have a
Speaker 1: little bit of movement in the morning, little bit in
Speaker 1: the evening, but for the day you are just glassing,
Speaker 1: hoping to turn up and pick up the slightest piece
Speaker 1: of an animal at a long distance. A hunt starts
Speaker 1: out on a lasting I'm there with three of my
Speaker 1: best friends. We got John, Mike, and Joe. Now my
Speaker 1: buddy John moved down to Arizona, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: what spurred our whole CU's deer or my cuse dear fascination,
Speaker 1: pretty much all of ours, because we figured out we
Speaker 1: don't get a hunt much anymore, so we'll make a trip,
Speaker 1: a pilgrimage down to Arizona, will go hunt the cous deer,
Speaker 1: and uh, it would be a great camp, great trip.
Speaker 1: So John had yet to shoot a couse buck, but
Speaker 1: he've been living down there for a little while. So
Speaker 1: I really wanted John to get a buck, almost more
Speaker 1: than myself because I had taken one years earlier with
Speaker 1: my bow. So we're all out there, we're starting the
Speaker 1: morning out and the rule is simple. It's the same
Speaker 1: rule we have lived by when other people have a tag.
Speaker 1: If you spot it, you stock it, or you at
Speaker 1: least get the first right refusal. And why is that, Well,
Speaker 1: it's because you're the one that found it. Once you
Speaker 1: spot it, you own that animal. So we're up on knob,
Speaker 1: all four of us. We've got our tripods out, we've
Speaker 1: got our binoculars out it's dark. We actually hiked in
Speaker 1: three miles to this perfect little knob away from the roads.
Speaker 1: It's got a good basin and background. The sun is
Speaker 1: gonna be rising behind us. It should just be lit
Speaker 1: up perfect. I think that basin. The term this is
Speaker 1: lit was referring to that basin because it just glows.
Speaker 1: So we're sitting there, the sun's coming up. We start
Speaker 1: scanning for bucks, four of us. Somebody spots some does.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me, but you know what, I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: for does. I was looking for bucks. While everybody was
Speaker 1: distracted with the dose that they'd spotted off to the left,
Speaker 1: I focused in on a spot that looked bucky to me,
Speaker 1: and sure enough turned up two bucks. Now I have
Speaker 1: the option I can stock or I can pass. Having
Speaker 1: been the spotter, I decided to give John the first
Speaker 1: crack at it. He set the whole thing up. I
Speaker 1: knew that he wanted a buck as bad as anybody's
Speaker 1: ever wanted a buck. John makes a stock, makes a play.
Speaker 1: We're all sitting there on the knob watching him, and
Speaker 1: Mike went over to do the stock. While they're doing
Speaker 1: the stock, I'm just continued glassing, John ends up getting
Speaker 1: too close to him, takes his shoes off like a
Speaker 1: true bow hunter, Wood even though we're rifle hunting, sneaks
Speaker 1: in within range and shoots the buck pretty much within
Speaker 1: bow range, one buck down. While they are cutting that
Speaker 1: buck up, I turned up another buck over on the
Speaker 1: other side of the range. Well, I decided I could
Speaker 1: either stock it or pass. Yea, I might as well
Speaker 1: keep looking. It's the first morning, so my buddy Mike's
Speaker 1: up to bat. He sneaks in, makes a perfect shot
Speaker 1: buck down. We've got two deer down and it's the day.
Speaker 1: Now we're continuing hunting. The next day, we go to
Speaker 1: a different knob glassing. It's just me and Joe left
Speaker 1: at this point glassing, I turn up yet another buck. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm in a good position. This is a wider buck,
Speaker 1: a better buck. But I've already shot a deer in
Speaker 1: the past, so I wasn't too concerned. Nobody else had
Speaker 1: taken accused deer buck at this point yet, so I
Speaker 1: was like, Joe, you can take it if you want.
Speaker 1: Joe sneaks in, gets set up, boom, perfect shot. Third
Speaker 1: buck down. This is on a hunt that has very
Speaker 1: low success for CU's deer spotting or for coming home
Speaker 1: with a buck. Because of the time of year. Now
Speaker 1: it's the next day, Joe and I decided to go
Speaker 1: on a mission. I'm looking for a better deer. We
Speaker 1: go on a big hike, get to the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain. That evening we're sitting glassing side by side,
Speaker 1: and there I go again, spot the fourth buck of
Speaker 1: the trip, which happens to be the biggest buck. I decided,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take it, move down, get the rifle set up,
Speaker 1: make the shot. Buck falls just tagged out. Out of
Speaker 1: that entire trip, I ended up spotting every buck first.
Speaker 1: Now you might think that's a coincidence, but I think
Speaker 1: there's a few tips that I do that allow me
Speaker 1: to spot things before other people, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: share those with you. So when I talk about glassing,
Speaker 1: you have to first understand the game. Animals are really
Speaker 1: only in about ten of good looking country. So what's
Speaker 1: that mean. That means that you have to know the
Speaker 1: places to pick out within that good looking country. That's
Speaker 1: the war. Now, when we're talking about fast glassing or
Speaker 1: spotting something before someone else, this whole tactic can be
Speaker 1: used when you're by yourself or with other people. It's
Speaker 1: because there are certain times of the day when you
Speaker 1: need to glass fast. Think about most game animals we chased,
Speaker 1: their pretty crepuscular. They move in the or at least
Speaker 1: move in the open the hours of dawn and dusk.
Speaker 1: So what that means is you have to really focus
Speaker 1: your attention on the places they are while they're there.
Speaker 1: The key to spotting things before other people is reading
Speaker 1: the situation and critically thinking. There is what I would
Speaker 1: consider a formula to finding animals, especially finding animals fast,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're going to talk about. To outglass
Speaker 1: the guy next to you, you really just have to
Speaker 1: read the situation, then adjust your glassing based on the where, what,
Speaker 1: and when. You got to break down the critical thinking
Speaker 1: of where you're glassing and where your efforts should be.
Speaker 1: So you also have to keep in mind you want
Speaker 1: to target high percentage spots, and that's the key. While
Speaker 1: other people might be wasting their time looking over all
Speaker 1: that country, you're going to focus on the ten based
Speaker 1: on a database of information you have on places you've
Speaker 1: seen dear previous times. But also it's the way that
Speaker 1: you glass the places you look first when we talk
Speaker 1: about glassing. If somebody is going to give you a
Speaker 1: glassing article or glass and seminar, one of the things
Speaker 1: that they're gonna throw out there is this this idea
Speaker 1: of gritting. Now, what gritting is, I'll just define it
Speaker 1: real quick, is it's where you would take your binoculars,
Speaker 1: say on a tripod, and you go whatever is in
Speaker 1: front of you. You create like a grid pattern. So
Speaker 1: you go, you start at the top, and you go
Speaker 1: left to right and you cover that, and you drop
Speaker 1: down slightly to where you couldn't cover last, and then
Speaker 1: go right to left and then back and you cover
Speaker 1: the whole mountain. Now, while there is a time and
Speaker 1: a place to glass for that, let's say the mornings
Speaker 1: and the evenings are not that time or place, or
Speaker 1: when you're trying to glass faster than the guy next
Speaker 1: to you, that might not be the time and place.
Speaker 1: Now there's this also this other term shotgun glassing. That's
Speaker 1: where you've got the binoculars up and you're just ping
Speaker 1: ponging around, you just throwing them here, throwing them there,
Speaker 1: and you're hoping that something lands in your view. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not a very effective way to glass. If you're
Speaker 1: comparing it to gritting, right, because you're just kind of
Speaker 1: hoping to get lucky. So what I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you is my personal secret. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: I should be giving these secrets out. You guys are
Speaker 1: very lucky. You probably won't even This will be the
Speaker 1: one episode that doesn't get shared because you aren't gonna
Speaker 1: want your buddies to know this this information. Now, while
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different tactics to gritting and
Speaker 1: really picking apart the country, when it comes to what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, spotting something before someone else, my
Speaker 1: tactic I like to call strategic shotgun glassing. So what
Speaker 1: that is is, I'm quickly scanning the high percentage areas
Speaker 1: where deer or elk or whatever I'm looking for are
Speaker 1: most likely to be, and by doing that, I'm covering
Speaker 1: that ten percent of good country while someone else is
Speaker 1: looking over the whole of stuff that looks great. So
Speaker 1: let's break it down into a simple strategic way for
Speaker 1: you to start your approach. So let's start the glassing
Speaker 1: out like this. We're gonna execute on the knowledge that
Speaker 1: we have about how animals move, where animals prefer to be. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start by looking for the easy animals to find. Now,
Speaker 1: that seems simple, but you can fast scan those areas,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of high percentage areas where
Speaker 1: if something's there, you'll see it right away. This includes glassing, ridgelines, skylines,
Speaker 1: major openings. What you're looking for here is you're able
Speaker 1: to move fast over these spots and look for the
Speaker 1: animals that stand out like a sore thumb, the one
Speaker 1: that you go yep, should have seen that, the one
Speaker 1: that everybody should see, but they're too busy focusing in
Speaker 1: on other places. These are areas that you can cover quickly,
Speaker 1: yet high percentage of seeing something because they are not
Speaker 1: necessarily hiding that well. Think about first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: some of the first places I look when I sit
Speaker 1: down would be on that skyline because whatever is up
Speaker 1: there sticks out like a sore thumb. You don't have
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of time on it, but you
Speaker 1: can continually keep scanning these areas ridgelines. Another great travel
Speaker 1: corridor or betting area where animals like to be is
Speaker 1: on finger ridges or other ridges coming down. These are
Speaker 1: often easier to see as well as like meadows, openings,
Speaker 1: mornings and evenings, places where deer or elk or other
Speaker 1: animals would frequent those times a day. I got to
Speaker 1: think about what an animals doing mornings and evenings are
Speaker 1: generally feeding. So I hit up those open areas first,
Speaker 1: scanning areas where I'm expecting animals to be. Yet they're
Speaker 1: also fairly easy to see in those places. Now as
Speaker 1: the day moves on, right, that's not gonna work all
Speaker 1: the time, so you're gonna have to move your gaze
Speaker 1: to a closer look and look into areas where the
Speaker 1: animals will move from to the areas that they will prefer.
Speaker 1: So these are those areas where they're going from feeding. Now,
Speaker 1: say in the morning, we started the day out, we're
Speaker 1: on the Now we're going from this feeding area to
Speaker 1: now more of a betting type area. Well, think about
Speaker 1: where animals like to bed and where they might move to.
Speaker 1: You got to anticipate in playoff animal behavior to start
Speaker 1: scanning those areas next as a day starts wearing on,
Speaker 1: or scan those areas midday or like evening before they
Speaker 1: come back out to feed. These would be your betting areas.
Speaker 1: So now, logically, think about where an animal likes to bed.
Speaker 1: He's gonna want to bed in the shade, right Oftentimes
Speaker 1: he's gonna want to be comfy while he's betting and
Speaker 1: looking downhill, so he's gonna want the wind at his back.
Speaker 1: He's gonna want to be in the shade, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna be wanting to survey what's down below n because
Speaker 1: he thinks that he can see that way better. So
Speaker 1: picture those places that fit that description and start moving
Speaker 1: your gaze towards those areas. Another great spot for betting
Speaker 1: would be a finger ridge or what that would be
Speaker 1: as a ridge that comes off of a main ridge.
Speaker 1: The reason is because an animal has a lot of
Speaker 1: escape routes when they bed Safeties are number one concern.
Speaker 1: So you've gone from feeding to now focusing your gaze
Speaker 1: on areas or potential areas where they would be betting.
Speaker 1: Now they're going to be moving to those areas, so
Speaker 1: it's a lot higher likelihood that you can pick them
Speaker 1: up quick while scanning those areas. Now the days we're
Speaker 1: on it's mid day, Okay, now we can break out
Speaker 1: our gritting because you're gonna want to take that close
Speaker 1: in depth look at animals or try to find animals
Speaker 1: that are bedded and the best way, the best use
Speaker 1: of your time, the best way to spot something before
Speaker 1: the guy next to you is to start taking that
Speaker 1: close look into those betting areas. This is when I
Speaker 1: would break out the bigger binoculars or the tripod to
Speaker 1: really zoom in and look into the shade, look into
Speaker 1: those areas where they might be betted, and to effectively
Speaker 1: cover that. Now we're slowing down, we're changing the pace
Speaker 1: from earlier in the day to now just gritting, going left, right, up, down,
Speaker 1: back forth, covering an area, moving on, covering an area,
Speaker 1: moving on. The best places to focus will be places
Speaker 1: that you've seen them bed before, or hill orientations, or
Speaker 1: near places where in that same area, whether it's that
Speaker 1: same exact spot or not, look similar, because that's how
Speaker 1: you can identify the ten percent of the country that
Speaker 1: they like. Where are they now? And then go find
Speaker 1: a spot that looks just like that somewhere else in
Speaker 1: the area or the next day, look in similar places
Speaker 1: where you saw them the day before. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be the same place, but just something that has
Speaker 1: the same hill orientation, the same wind direction, the same
Speaker 1: type of shade throughout the day. Maybe it's the same
Speaker 1: type of food or an area where there's water, look
Speaker 1: at the places where they're most likely to be simple,
Speaker 1: but you can do it more effectively by targeting and
Speaker 1: scanning those hypercentage areas, using the tactics of not just
Speaker 1: looking for animals, but looking for the places they're most
Speaker 1: likely to be. Then covering those first eliminates a lot
Speaker 1: of time scanning a huge area. It will get you
Speaker 1: on the board faster and make you the one that
Speaker 1: gets to pass or stock. Honestly, you want to be
Speaker 1: that guy. You want to be the guy that has
Speaker 1: the option, and that's how you do it. Now, next week,
Speaker 1: I think I want to talk about how to find
Speaker 1: animals before you even step out of your house. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go over looking at topo maps and a little
Speaker 1: bit of east scouting, because if you've got a hunt
Speaker 1: coming up, the best place to start is honestly from home.
Speaker 1: Based on my schedule and all the hunts that I
Speaker 1: go on, most of the places I go are general
Speaker 1: areas that I've never been, and I can pretty much
Speaker 1: day one walk in and find animals. And the reason
Speaker 1: is because the time I put in understanding and knowing maps.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you well, I won't give you
Speaker 1: everything I know about it, but I'll give you a
Speaker 1: darn good place to start. So until next week, outspot
Speaker 1: your friends and don't be a jerk. You should share
Speaker 1: this with your buddies. They need to know it too,
Speaker 1: because then if you're out there together, maybe they'll be
Speaker 1: the guy that spots something that you didn't see and
Speaker 1: passes it on to you. Or maybe they are the
Speaker 1: guy that spots it and awesome, you gotta go help
Speaker 1: them be successful. So sharing his caring Kids, sharing his
Speaker 1: caring until next week