Speaker 1: Welcome to Cutting the Distance Field Reports, breaking news from
Speaker 1: the Elkwoods, and now your host, Jason Phelps. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the first installment of the Field Reports here and Cutting
Speaker 1: the Distance. We are in New Mexico with Ryan Callahan,
Speaker 1: and we just finished up seven days, first seven days
Speaker 1: in September. Oh, cutting here and pretty good New Mexico unit.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm just gonna kind of talk about what
Speaker 1: we've seen out there. What was your takeaway from this hunt,
Speaker 1: gl Like, what was the kind of the overarching theme?
Speaker 1: What do we see out there? Well, my first takeaway
Speaker 1: is is why can you do seven days of hiking
Speaker 1: and then and feel pretty darn good really and then
Speaker 1: wake up in a hotel and kind of feel like crap.
Speaker 1: That's a weird thing that we should get into at
Speaker 1: some point, you know, early season New Mexico, where it's hot. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, coming from like the Montana, Idaho methodology of
Speaker 1: try to find where it's cool because that's where the
Speaker 1: rut action is going to start because nobody likes to
Speaker 1: work too hard when it's hot. M I always kind
Speaker 1: of come down here with the idea that it's gonna
Speaker 1: be tougher than you think it is, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was tough and the um like the social activity
Speaker 1: of the elk that we ran into. But it was
Speaker 1: easy in the finding of the elk. So my attitude
Speaker 1: was great the whole time. And I was like, oh, yeah, this,
Speaker 1: how could it not happen? Yeah, we showed up. We
Speaker 1: were here two nights ahead. And then the night you
Speaker 1: showed up, we went scouting. You know, bulls are biggle
Speaker 1: and they were elk were easy to find, you know,
Speaker 1: and close to the road, far away from the road,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, this is gonna you know, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be going. And then we got into the hunt,
Speaker 1: um and things just they we're pretty slow, um, you know.
Speaker 1: They Day one we got into a few you know,
Speaker 1: active little pockets. Um. You know, that was one of
Speaker 1: the few days we've seen some you know running action
Speaker 1: where you know, bull was pushing some cows and and
Speaker 1: kind of right on their tail. But well yeah, and
Speaker 1: and specifically a cow right like he had a It
Speaker 1: was a really cool five point I think anybody would
Speaker 1: love to love to take um. And he was. He
Speaker 1: had a single cow cut off and was working her.
Speaker 1: And there were several other cows in the group. So
Speaker 1: that that's really like the only distinct rut activity that
Speaker 1: I personally saw over the eight days, and we last night,
Speaker 1: we've seen you know, a large, well five point bull
Speaker 1: not large, you know, kind of running a spike off
Speaker 1: of the herd. But like you said, other than that
Speaker 1: one five running one specific cow, there wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: great right activity yet. Um talk about the two biggest
Speaker 1: bulls we've seen. Um, you know, on day two or three,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what day, it was completely solo, right,
Speaker 1: you know, a bigger six point and a very very
Speaker 1: large five point um completely you know, offen a canyon
Speaker 1: with no cows in it. I don't think we ever
Speaker 1: did see a cow on that side. Um. It just
Speaker 1: I'm never wanting to say, you know, ex September the
Speaker 1: Elker udding somewhere, but these two bowls kind of you know,
Speaker 1: knew that the party hadn't started yet they definitely did.
Speaker 1: And we got within let's let's say a hundred and
Speaker 1: if I wanted to be accurate in a lazy way,
Speaker 1: under a hundred and fifty yards for sure of the
Speaker 1: um six point and you know, certainly by body size,
Speaker 1: he'd be a mature bull. And anybody's category, huge fronts,
Speaker 1: you know, lots of mass up front, like just a
Speaker 1: big bowl around his way to being a really big bowl.
Speaker 1: And he got a bugle in his bed and took
Speaker 1: off and ran the other direction. Yeah, and we we
Speaker 1: approached that one um just prior to that, prior to
Speaker 1: the bugle, we had let some real soft calicolls right
Speaker 1: above him. You know, the idea going into that is
Speaker 1: that there's a lone bowl, you know, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of competition. Maybe we can just coax him up
Speaker 1: here with some cal calls. And I think maybe fift
Speaker 1: yards prior to us turned in that corner, we had
Speaker 1: sent some cal calls down to them that chance he
Speaker 1: heard those playing his day, didn't make a peep, didn't move,
Speaker 1: didn't snap a stick, didn't do anything. We moved fifty
Speaker 1: yards forward, let out a little bugle, and the next
Speaker 1: thing we hears him kind of blowing the place up.
Speaker 1: And it's just you can't make headser tails that he's
Speaker 1: just not ready to be involved in the game. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we should be clear. Definitely more of a
Speaker 1: locator bugle not I know you're here, I'm speaking to you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick your ass bugle, real real mild wine,
Speaker 1: you know, real quiet, kind of you know, localized to
Speaker 1: that can you know, we didn't want to blow him
Speaker 1: out because we really didn't know if he was even there.
Speaker 1: We were, I think that point kind of just assuming
Speaker 1: he wasn't um and then we hear it blow up,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred fifty yards blow us and get
Speaker 1: to see his tail end as he rolled out of there,
Speaker 1: and I think, Yeah, the frustrating theme was when we
Speaker 1: could locate or bowls were at least talking on their own,
Speaker 1: the they immediately clammed up when you cut the distance
Speaker 1: even a little bit, like even when we need like
Speaker 1: I think we gotta be within you know, three hundred yards,
Speaker 1: but we need to locate again because we're not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: It was really hard to get any storty of conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and on the mountain we talked to a couple other
Speaker 1: guys that hun in this area. Lot Um. One of
Speaker 1: the dynamics that we experienced, and I have to imagine
Speaker 1: it's not how the September is gonna end up, is
Speaker 1: he was surprised, just as we were surprised the bulls
Speaker 1: that were running the herds. This week. It's almost like
Speaker 1: we're in a pre phase or something because I can't imagine, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the bulls that are currently running large herds
Speaker 1: of cows and large groups of cows aren't going to
Speaker 1: have some bigger bulls move in. Um. It made it difficult.
Speaker 1: You know. They they you'd mentioned it last night, are
Speaker 1: one of our last herds of all we got to
Speaker 1: play you know, six six branch bowls together. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and then what I would consider medium two smaller five
Speaker 1: points running herds. UM makes it tough, I think to
Speaker 1: try to hunt and get them, you know, overprotective because
Speaker 1: a lot of these bulls weren't interested in fighting or
Speaker 1: losing what they might have for a very short time.
Speaker 1: So it changed that dynamic of you know being able
Speaker 1: to you know, our our kind of our our go
Speaker 1: to game, you know, locate getting very tight and call.
Speaker 1: We would do that over and over and just kind
Speaker 1: of have them shut up or take their hours away
Speaker 1: or kind of walk away or um. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the you're really finding the needle in the haystack,
Speaker 1: right the bull that wants to play the game even
Speaker 1: though the game's not happening. Because that situation last night
Speaker 1: does sum it up perfectly right. There's six branch handlered
Speaker 1: bulls laying amongst forty or fifty cows. It's like a
Speaker 1: late season heard. Um. None of the big mature guys
Speaker 1: are there, or you know, real big guys are there. Um,
Speaker 1: so the cow calls aren't even that interesting because these
Speaker 1: bulls have been walking around smelling all the cows and
Speaker 1: they're they're not ready yet, and they're they're not willing
Speaker 1: to break off and look. Maybe because the heat, maybe
Speaker 1: because of whatever. I have no idea, but it was
Speaker 1: certainly like took some of the tricks out of the playbook,
Speaker 1: I guess. So. Yeah. You know, one thing we've always
Speaker 1: relied on here in New Mexico lot is the water, um,
Speaker 1: you know, but it seemed like we were kind of
Speaker 1: running in, you know, just on the front side of
Speaker 1: the full moon. Um. A couple of nights we were
Speaker 1: near water, you know, and things started to get going.
Speaker 1: But it almost seemed like the elk here were holding up.
Speaker 1: You know, they were smart enough they weren't gonna come
Speaker 1: to water in the daylight. Um. You know, one of
Speaker 1: our best evenings, I think it was the second or
Speaker 1: third evening. Um. You know, a lot of action, um,
Speaker 1: going to water, a large group of out coming from
Speaker 1: multiple canyons all meeting, you know, so it got pretty active.
Speaker 1: But even then I think they were just not going
Speaker 1: quiet enough that they just kind of dealt with each other.
Speaker 1: They kept their distance, and they all ended up getting
Speaker 1: the getting the water, um, you know, on their own
Speaker 1: or after dark when when we didn't have a play
Speaker 1: on them. You made it difficult in years past here, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think New Mexico has had some maybe
Speaker 1: record rains. I don't know if it's record, but they've
Speaker 1: got a lot of rain here in the last month,
Speaker 1: and it kind of maybe dispersed them. Or there's water
Speaker 1: in different um you know, tanks, man man made tanks
Speaker 1: or natural water. We ran into some water last night
Speaker 1: we didn't really think would be down in that that drainage. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think it's maybe got these elk a little
Speaker 1: more dispersed than normal, which could also have played into
Speaker 1: you know, a little less red action um and normal
Speaker 1: just when you get all those elk into one spot,
Speaker 1: where you get that one cow into the one spot
Speaker 1: with multiple herds, it kind of gets gets things going.
Speaker 1: And we didn't we didn't seem to have is concentrated
Speaker 1: herds you know on that water, um, you know, compared
Speaker 1: to what I'm used to here in New Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was I mean just some absolute amazing ELK viewing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd get up on a high spot, uh
Speaker 1: and you're gonna find elk. It's like kind of relaxing
Speaker 1: in a way that it's like, Okay, the finding is
Speaker 1: almost guaranteed. But you know that we had mid day
Speaker 1: scenario on a SMA all our five point when we
Speaker 1: were getting towards the end, you know, thick brush, a
Speaker 1: scenario that that I really capitalize on when I find
Speaker 1: it elsewhere, and was was honestly very excited about that one.
Speaker 1: So we slipped in really thick brush. We're just gonna
Speaker 1: do some soft cow calls, um, knowing that we were
Speaker 1: going to be close proximity to a herd, and eventually
Speaker 1: got a cow to come up. But never heard a
Speaker 1: single bugle, no brush raking, no nothing um from a
Speaker 1: bowl that you know just had to have been, had
Speaker 1: have been to have been within the earshot in there,
Speaker 1: you know, very very close on that said, you know,
Speaker 1: I've ought to guess within a hundred yards when you
Speaker 1: set up on on that setup and just you know,
Speaker 1: not to have them just come check out the middle
Speaker 1: of the day. You know it was we were in
Speaker 1: on that same elevation as them. Uh, you know it
Speaker 1: was cool. You know, well, if it's in the shade,
Speaker 1: you can find the hot fox. It was warm outside
Speaker 1: but not general zone. It was was really cool. And yeah,
Speaker 1: to not even have that bull respond as we moved
Speaker 1: in that close, and to you know, have the colcum
Speaker 1: and just not even respond by like checking your win, right,
Speaker 1: who didn't didn't try to like cut up around us
Speaker 1: and and win the situation or smell of the cow
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden started talking and because none
Speaker 1: of his other cows were talking. Um and I do.
Speaker 1: It's all based on assumption. And we've both been able
Speaker 1: to see bulls react to calls and how they react
Speaker 1: to calls and and a lot of times it is
Speaker 1: way different than the scenario that you put together in
Speaker 1: your head. But that being said, I have to come
Speaker 1: back to you have like this freshman class of Bowls,
Speaker 1: the JV team, Let's say they're in with the cows
Speaker 1: right now, they've already gone through their hierarchy and settled
Speaker 1: things out. The cows aren't playing the game yet, and
Speaker 1: they do not want to be challenged right now because
Speaker 1: they're having the time of their lives. They've been eyeballing
Speaker 1: these cows. It's rut season. Their testosterone, their hormones are going,
Speaker 1: and they're holding onto what they have and they're not
Speaker 1: willing to take any risks right now because the big
Speaker 1: boys are gonna show up, the seniors, the upper class,
Speaker 1: the starters are going to come in and take and
Speaker 1: take the cows, and and these guys are just holding
Speaker 1: onto the good life for as long as they can.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting we talked about stuff that we've
Speaker 1: experienced in the past, is even when those big bulls,
Speaker 1: you know, I think they do a lot of night checking,
Speaker 1: right they come through a night, they run ridges, they
Speaker 1: check these cows. They know it's not worth their time
Speaker 1: and they'll come back later and check on them. We
Speaker 1: couldn't even find the bigger bulls like off to the
Speaker 1: side though. Besides, you know those couple of times so
Speaker 1: I've heard in this area. You know, maybe they come
Speaker 1: from a different area, they dropped down off off the mountains,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. But that was one thing that
Speaker 1: we couldn't even necessarily find bigger bulls. And as you
Speaker 1: mentioned that that JV class and they just don't play
Speaker 1: the game like we're used to. We had a couple
Speaker 1: of scenarios throughout the hunt. Um we ran the program
Speaker 1: perfect right. We get in very tight um me and
Speaker 1: you have both seen it in multiple times when you
Speaker 1: get I call it kind of getting the bowl to break.
Speaker 1: You know, he finally we're done playing this back and
Speaker 1: forth and he comes at you and you would think,
Speaker 1: you know, you're like, oh, this is this is a
Speaker 1: done deal. I see him disappear below a dip you know,
Speaker 1: less than seventy and then they get that mass moving
Speaker 1: ye in a concentrated way, and it's like, oh, that
Speaker 1: is a committed animal. Yep. Yeah. And and so you know,
Speaker 1: you you're ready, put a little a little bit of
Speaker 1: tension on the string and you start to pull on
Speaker 1: your release a little bit and you're like, I should
Speaker 1: see him any minute. And then it was a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes go by, like he's taking his time. You're listening,
Speaker 1: like you should be close enough. Here's you know, cracking
Speaker 1: a stick, moving grass and in some of these situations,
Speaker 1: he just you never know what happened. He rolled into
Speaker 1: that thing, and he obviously didn't go your direction. He
Speaker 1: didn't go my direction. He must just peel back to
Speaker 1: his cows. And it's like that's what we were dealing with,
Speaker 1: that he was. At one point we had him convinced,
Speaker 1: and then he goes back. He's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to lose my cows that I've already gotten. You know,
Speaker 1: he peels off. You know, we got to work a
Speaker 1: different bowl. You know, you got I went was able
Speaker 1: to to go up after him, and you were able
Speaker 1: to watch from across the canyon, and you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're I felt because I couldn't see the bowl that
Speaker 1: like we were fired up, like we were in the match.
Speaker 1: I got within fifty yards of his cows. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: he was within a hundred yards, like the perfect scenario,
Speaker 1: as close and as tight as you can get. Never
Speaker 1: made a peep besides rolling a few rocks down the hill.
Speaker 1: You know, but he didn't know we existed, the cows
Speaker 1: that know he existed. We hammer him with a challenge vehicle, um,
Speaker 1: from very very close range. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: had asked me, my oh, I had him ast fired
Speaker 1: up and ready to go, and then your your observation
Speaker 1: was completely different from the bull is standing in his
Speaker 1: bed resting his head on a limb that I can
Speaker 1: tell he does all the time, Like it's a well
Speaker 1: worn limb and he's resting his head. They're bugling off
Speaker 1: the limb. And then I mean he did rake brush
Speaker 1: a couple of times. But you could just tell that
Speaker 1: guy was like I don't really want to do this,
Speaker 1: but eventually you did get him to come. But you typically,
Speaker 1: like if you were to write it in a book,
Speaker 1: the most succinct way to say it would be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're a bull challenging another bull for the cows. Get
Speaker 1: as close to the cows as possible. The bull is
Speaker 1: going to come check you out. And it's like that
Speaker 1: was the perfect scenario. You were within forty two yards
Speaker 1: of headed cows to get one of his cows. And
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. Like when you run the game
Speaker 1: that way and you're closer to his cows than maybe
Speaker 1: even he is, and and you know he's not between
Speaker 1: you and his cow, it's like that's that's like the
Speaker 1: slam dun. That's the you know, and it just it
Speaker 1: didn't pan out. You may not get a shot scenario,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna get a bowl coming in scenario. And
Speaker 1: and just like you know, always seems to happen. It
Speaker 1: was a five o'clock stock. We knew we were playing,
Speaker 1: you know, with the wind. Um, we we held it
Speaker 1: for long enough, but he stalled just long enough. I
Speaker 1: could finally see him coming down. Um, but he stalled
Speaker 1: just long enough that you know, and he caught the
Speaker 1: wind before I felt the wind. But you know, I'm like,
Speaker 1: why did he turn? He was coming down to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, ultimately ended up getting winded on that.
Speaker 1: But it just those scenarios, you know, I get so
Speaker 1: frustrated with myself. But it's like, man, you look back
Speaker 1: on him that I don't know what I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: did anything different. I don't know what I could have
Speaker 1: did you know what we should have did different? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, same same for you. We did get some opportunities. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you had a bold same thing yards tipping
Speaker 1: his head coming through brush like it's a done deal.
Speaker 1: And then you know we went back around, I mean
Speaker 1: starts moving down. Yeah. We uh, we had opportunities, But
Speaker 1: I guess my the overall consensus is for how hard
Speaker 1: we worked to come up with a few of these
Speaker 1: opportunities didn't seem to like it doesn't make a whole
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Like we we did get some, but
Speaker 1: we worked a ton and for how many bulls we
Speaker 1: were and we covered a lot of elk. That's the
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's not like one scenario a day,
Speaker 1: which is still great elk hunting. This is just like
Speaker 1: spoiled kids stuff down here. We ran into a lot
Speaker 1: of elk. We were able to run the snare ereos
Speaker 1: a bunch and yeah, it's definitely definitely like humble Pie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a big, big slice of it. Um it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've never wanted to say the ruts not going yet,
Speaker 1: or it's late or the moon's got it. I don't
Speaker 1: really you know, buy into a lot of that. I
Speaker 1: mean it does affect it, don't get me wrong, But
Speaker 1: I just feel like the things just aren't going quite.
Speaker 1: It isn't in the full rut. Yeah, things you're just
Speaker 1: kind of pre rut. We did move camp three times,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe the answer is just moving a
Speaker 1: fourth time. Yeah, So yeah, it is happening somewhere absolutely,
Speaker 1: Um yeah, it was. It was. It was a tough hunt.
Speaker 1: I don't know, a big, big humble pie doesn't taste good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: m incredibly fun. Would do it again a hundred percent. Um.
Speaker 1: I just I think if I had some do overs,
Speaker 1: it would just be even though it sounds extreme right now,
Speaker 1: because we did cover a lot of ground, and it
Speaker 1: would be to just hit more pockets and and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to do. Uh, kind of growing up like
Speaker 1: you and I have in very lean times of ELK
Speaker 1: where it's like if you hear a bugle, that's a
Speaker 1: amazing win for the day, amazing day. Um, you got
Speaker 1: to like disregard ELK and keep moving like be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this isn't a great scenario. Uh, these bulls don't want
Speaker 1: to play, and and kind of being more more ruthless, right,
Speaker 1: And it's it's hard hard to walk away from an ELK. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we we mentioned it multiple times, and it's
Speaker 1: tough to leave out to find out you know, one
Speaker 1: of those scenarios like why would we leave elk that
Speaker 1: we were on, but some of them weren't in great
Speaker 1: spots and weren't killable, and at some point you can
Speaker 1: only invest so much time on certain ones, and so
Speaker 1: you know that your idea of we just maybe could
Speaker 1: have just kept walking and find the right party, find
Speaker 1: the right pocket, find the right cow um. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what we were doing. Unfortunately, one of the one
Speaker 1: things we fought too in this last area, which seemed
Speaker 1: to have the most amount of elk that we hunted,
Speaker 1: um was terrain like terrain and vegetation. You know, there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a burn that went through there,
Speaker 1: and so why they were elk on every open knob.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it made it very very difficult to
Speaker 1: play the game or even get in a position without
Speaker 1: being seen. So we spent more time, you know, looking
Speaker 1: on X trying to figure out like, yeah, he's probably
Speaker 1: gonna see us there, and then you'd get there and like,
Speaker 1: yeah it's probably you know, we we had to do
Speaker 1: a lot of just like you know, hope, you know,
Speaker 1: cross through real quiet um, which which adds a level difficulty, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you're we're playing out in the open. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I look back, like a takeaway from this hunt, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we did. You know, one one instance,
Speaker 1: I maybe called to a bowlt too early, but we
Speaker 1: ended up you end up getting to play on him
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter, So it wasn't a complete loss. I don't
Speaker 1: think we did anything different or I wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: different as far as like you said, maybe just try
Speaker 1: some different areas, try to find some different pockets. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing, like great tag in your pocket, you know,
Speaker 1: great unit, the elker here, and it is still elk hunting.
Speaker 1: You don't know what's going through the animal's mind. You
Speaker 1: don't know what just happened to them, um prior to
Speaker 1: you getting there. Um, you're making the best educated guests
Speaker 1: that you can. And so did I call too early?
Speaker 1: Well maybe, but also maybe not. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: there's it's just it's so hard to be definitive in
Speaker 1: this game because we'll never really know what's going on
Speaker 1: between those fuzzy years, you know. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: great hunt. Um. You know, we didn't blow out a
Speaker 1: lot of elk. We didn't get winded, like our wind
Speaker 1: was good the time. Um, you know, we we moved in,
Speaker 1: got closer. It was just it was interesting. Um, you
Speaker 1: know how everything played out. It's it's like like you said,
Speaker 1: you got a great tag, Um just didn't necessarily you
Speaker 1: know work out in our favor too many times. So
Speaker 1: now it was fun hunting with you. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: everything on your cow and uh yeah, that's something I
Speaker 1: was thinking about last night because we've at least run
Speaker 1: in the same circles for quite a while and it's, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't can't believe we haven't hunted together prior to this,
Speaker 1: because this was a lot of fun. It was all
Speaker 1: of fun and um, you know, I think we were
Speaker 1: on the same page the time. So it's fun to
Speaker 1: helpt with somebody that thinks the way you do or
Speaker 1: you know, and and a guy that thinks about every move,
Speaker 1: you know, like some of my buddies, Like we're just
Speaker 1: running straight you know, straight line, a two beat out,
Speaker 1: heck with the wind, heck with if they can see.
Speaker 1: And so it's nice like you know, hunting with a
Speaker 1: guy that you think nine you know, we're on the
Speaker 1: same page and most of the time like we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this or the winds doing this. We've got to
Speaker 1: approach this way and so um, not a lot of
Speaker 1: disagreements and approaches and it makes things efficient, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: which is still like another like kind of knife to
Speaker 1: the gut like we were for two guys that haven't
Speaker 1: hunted together a lot or ever. Sorry, Um, prior to this,
Speaker 1: we we hit the ground running. You know, there wasn't
Speaker 1: any head butting, any strategy differences, both both willing to
Speaker 1: roll with with the idiosyncrasies and and go and and
Speaker 1: so I can't. We just didn't lose a lot of
Speaker 1: time anywhere we we're going, despite the monsoons at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and despite the heat for the rest of the week.
Speaker 1: And ah, shockingly, I mean maybe one or two elk
Speaker 1: we blew out, which is just bizarre, bizarre, like I
Speaker 1: mean so um, and we were trying it at I
Speaker 1: would say we hit low, mid, high, and maybe we
Speaker 1: just missed out on extreme high elevations. Yeah that's it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this unit, you know, we'll get better, um
Speaker 1: with some time, you know, move the more mature bowls
Speaker 1: in and have some of those more semimature satellite bowls,
Speaker 1: you know, pester and number pestering each other. I think
Speaker 1: this unit is gonna get a little bit better. But
Speaker 1: you know, good hunt um difficulty, you big sized humble pie.
Speaker 1: But h September's early, you know, we're still really early
Speaker 1: in September. September it's only September eighth, ninth day, um,
Speaker 1: and so I have a feeling by time we report
Speaker 1: back here in a couple more weeks, um, Except you know,
Speaker 1: the ruts gonna be rolling on the back side of
Speaker 1: the full moon. All the good all the little things
Speaker 1: that have, you know, little contributing factors, we're all going
Speaker 1: to be in the elk Hunter's favor. So exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's uh bowls definitely died this week. We didn't do
Speaker 1: the killing. Um. There's people having success and lot to
Speaker 1: other units and lots of other states and this unit. Um,
Speaker 1: But it's only gonna get better. There's gonna be as
Speaker 1: these like harem changes take place and the dynamics, the
Speaker 1: social dynamics of these bowls running into each other and
Speaker 1: clashing and the reorganization of the pecking orders come into play,
Speaker 1: and these cows start coming into astros. You may be
Speaker 1: the one who just falls right in that big o
Speaker 1: rupt party. Should should get good. Well, appreciate having you here, cow. Um.
Speaker 1: It's been fun, and the next time we'll have to
Speaker 1: go go find somewhere in the mountains to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially uh dinky bowls and units where anything is a great,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks, thanks and