Ep. 108: September Recap and Listener Q&A

the opps. I used tell everybody like they always got to run at the same time. It's based on daylight and herd health, and like, man, something has got me convinced said it's getting later.

walk a few times. But but it's not the same as having a tag in your pocket or a hunting with someone has a tag and you're you know, you're trying, you're trying hard, you're trying to call bulls and you're trying to get close and have some fun. But but then yeah, like you say, the second half of the of the season was good. You know, two weeks in a in a whole new unit to me and my pals Bradley and Cody and we and we recorded a

podcast on this. I've are probably listened to it. But it started off with a bang, but then you know, it kind of part way, it kind of fizzled, start fizzling. And I feel like what you just said about the rut starting later, I feel like it started pretty early, like we we got the tail end of the of the Goodie out of the rut where we were at, and then by the last handful of days it was, you know, the last three or four days, it was felt like post rut. You know, the woods were quiet,

no bulls bugling on their own. You had to try real hard and be real close to an elk to get them to bugle. You wouldn't get those ones that were half a mile away ripping bugles, you know.

and fifty tags, plus or minus the landowner tags. There are a lot of people everywhere, you know, people driving side by sides where they shouldn't be, you know, and you would get on a bowl one morning and feel like you had it all to yourself and maybe you just discovered that bowl and you wanted to keep kind

of putting pressure on them. And then the next whether it was that evening or the next morning, and all of a sudden, you have five guys around you, you know, coming in from different angles, and you're just like, gosh, dang. You know, it's part of the love hate relationship. You know, you love to challenge yourself, but gosh, sometimes I wish it was just you versus the elk and you had the whole place to yourself. But it's part of the game.

And you know, we would have had in my opinion, you know, read enough situations and being able to hear it and the bulls voice kind of when they break or when they're coming in. I think we would have had some you know, more opportunities there in New Mexico, but just it's tough everywhere we went, even on my special tag. You know, I did have a couple of days where I knew I was the only one that could hunt the unit.

to these on these public land hunts. But that's I guess why we all love them.

You know, you have the low desert floors, you have the ten thousand foot peaks, and the elk live in that band of elevation right around that seven to nine but typically around eighty five hundred feet, so the air is then and a lot of times you know, you're you get out and if you're gonna hunt from the truck, you're gonna walk for a mile or two in an area you're not going to see an elk, or you'll see some scat from last spring, but you're not gonna encounter any elk.

out backpacked in. I'm like, oh, we're going super light. The weather is supposed to be pretty good. Taking my Kafaru super tarp and a piece of tie back, we're gonna lay on that cameraman, Dusty. Now we're gonna share a shelter. Phelps. You and I have shared that same shelter one time in Colorado, so you know, it's very spacious, real roomy. You get to know each other pretty well, rubbing shoulders all night.

all night, two nights in a row. And then on the third day it rained part of the night and and most of the morning. So it was just it was it was brutal. So we stayed pretty dry inside there, except for the conversation inside there. But it made it challenging to get in and out of that little shelter and not get all muddy. And but but I will say during that time, you know, we had bad weather,

but the hunt was pretty good. You know. The first day we called in a couple of bulls and and then had it was on another bowl, and then everything was going good, like, man, we're gonna probably tag out here in the first couple of days, and they'd be going home with what what are we gonna do with all this time on our hands? But then as as as the days ticked by, you know, like, oh god,

we got so much time to get this done. And as you always think, you know, and then slowly the elk sightings and encounter starts slowing down, and you changed spots a couple of times, and and the first spot we were in we didn't have a lot of people there. We did encounter some towards it, you know, I think we spent five or six days in there. We didn't we've seen somebody the last couple of days. But then we relocated to a place that had more elk and

it was a little easier terrain. But with easy terrain comes lots of folks and elk were easy to see, you know, they were you could see them walking across hillsides, you could phone scope them whatever I actually did just scope. I guess we were using it all in did you scope thing for our for our phone? But anyhow, you know, it was easy to see him, easy to make a plan.

But then anytime you try to execute on a plan, you'd go over and where you couldn't see it, and it's like, oh, well, there's somebody else is already on them, or you would get on them and somebody else would come join you. I guess that's kind of the nature of the game public land, which I'm not really used to hunting an area with that many elk. There was a lot of elk there. I will say, I'm used at hunting areas where man, you got to scratch pretty hard to find some elk, but you don't see too

many people either. So lots of elk, lots of people. So it was that kind of a place. But in the end we we came out of there. We didn't we did not none of us tagged in elk. None of us tagged one. The other guys had to go home a couple of days early. Dusty and I held on to the bitter end, and it was just by the time the last day came and went, it was just a ghost town. You know. We saw a bowl fir seeing the morning. We climbed up to where they're at, could not get on that thing, could not get him

to vocalize. When we seen him at bugled at him from a distance. He just looked up and then went back to feeding, So, which was weird. You know, we never did hear a lot of bulls bugling on their own, you know, just you know how you get those bulls just kind of bugling even though just the middle of the day, just lay in their bed. Just we didn't hear any of that. And then the funny part was, Man, these things were pretty call shy, and I don't know

that they thought we were hunters. Maybe they did, but I think they're call shy to each other. I think they carve out they're six to eight cows, and they're like, I'm good with my six or eight cows. I don't need thirty, and if another bowl gets close by, we're gone. We started calling to this one bull and he ran off, and we'd give him tons of space. We didn't push on him at all, and he left, kept going, kept going.

Next thing, you know, we finally he goes out of ear site, so we go over there about a quarter a mile away. Next time we see him, he's crossed the other rage and running out into the desert, like he's just like changing zip codes to defend these cows. I guess he bugled the whole way. He wasn't like, you know, scared of hunters. I don't think he was

just like, Nope, I don't want to fight. And that kind of seemed like when we first got there, bulls were seemed to be a little bit callable, but then it kind of turned into where man, they just they would kind of just nope, we don't want to have any confrontations. We're good.

there's blaze orange on that hillside. And then they're gonna this guy with blaze orange, and these cows are just gonna like meet. They're like on the same contour line. I don't even think they even knew it, and they get close and pretty sen I watch them blow out of there. But but it was nice to be able to see that guy over there. It was like because I was thinking, I'm gonna go over there and climb up and try to find that herd where those two

cows popped out. Oh, there's probably a big bull in there. And after I seen where that dude was, well, I guess I won't think. I'll probably not not that spot.

we have noble Christmas trees. I don't know if that resonates with all of our listeners, but we have Christmas tree is where it's like it either gets planted in Douglas fur which gets real bushy real quick, or Nobles you can see and do for about twenty years, you know,

up in the higher stuff. And we shot it in a kind of an overgrown Noble patchway up high, and we left a guy, and the orange really helped us be able to like because it was so brushy, you know, in Elk's being big and tall and yellow you can see. But when we're over there in our cameo, like the orange and the bright colors definitely helped us like communicate across the canyon where you didn't have cell service or anything, you know, to communicate to get on the right spot.

So it's a definitely a good little tip to have something that's bright, aside from the joke of being able to see where the hunters are gonna mess your hunt up.

after step. You can only see your feet. And I'm convinced that whether I'm just weak mentally or something, but not being able to see the hill I'm climbing, it didn't feel like it was anything. And then you do it in the day and you're like, this is miserable. So that's another pro tip. Do all your tough hiking in the dark.

two of eighteen. So it's best just to be in the dark, one foot in front of the other, take a little break when you get tired, and we'll be up in the you know, above tree line and we'll have knocked the twenty five hundred feet off real quick quick.

But those are those are my pro tips. A little out of out of context here, but I wanted to throw those in some of these areas where we were trying to get away from people, you know, seem to seem to help made things a little easier, if you know, if nothing else, just mentally getting to the areas where they elk were.

You know, hunters and non hunters can't agree on many things, but we can all agree that hoofrat is horrible, heart wrenching, just tough to watch these elk, So go watch that. But the reason I bring that up is I killed a bowl last year with a fraud break down.

a visible limp. Some of the elk in this episode have pretty extreme cases of hoof frot and they won't even put the hoof on the ground. If you watch, it's almost like these crows and ravens know that that elk doesn't have a long time left. Like you'll watch them in the field and the crows are hanging around

the ones with hoof frot. Whether it's the smell, whether it's the what it's got a pungent and for lack of any other sensory idea I can come up with, has like a human waste type stench to it, but very pungent and like very widespread smell. It's just it's devastating. You know, in some of the bulls we've killed with it, if they've got like a damaged hoof on the right side of the body, the left antler almost always grows the formed one hundred percent of the time if they're

injured on there. If they've got a hoof rock on their left side, the right horn will be you know, non typical or misformed. That's kind of crowd. It's it's it's tough, and we've had it for twenty five years, and I feel like we've screamed from the mountaintops locally, but nobody really seems to care. And now that it's into Oregon, into northern California, and you guys have also

got cases confirmed cases in Idaho. I hate that it took a little bit of a of a spread or more of a widespread, but I think it's starting to get some some attention finally, and we're gonna have to fix and I don't know if there is a solution. That's that's the scary part for me.

This is something I've never really told anybody, and it just kind of triggered a memory for me when you told me these these hooves kind of look like an elf shoe or whatever. My dad was telling about a big buck a friend of his shot back in the nineteen fifties and Idaho, back in the Idaho back country, and the guy shot a big buck and he said

it was the craziest thing. He said that in his mind, you know, it was an old old the buck was so old that his hooves had kind of grown out and turned up on the ends like an elf shoe. But that was a white tailed deer though. Back in the nineteen fifties. So I don't know, man, I don't know if that's even related.

Nothing scientific. More aggressive force practices both herbicide and pesticide fertilizers, right, Elker Browsers, You go to our clearcuts now and they are literally a brown sheet of brush with green fir tree sticking out of it. You know, there was there's this race to harvest a tree faster than we used to there. You know, is it a death by a thousand slices? Is it a combination of no burning, herbicide pesticide, like their immune system weakening so they can no longer

fight this off. Because my understanding is the majority of these hoof fraughts a hoof fraught. There's there's like forty different strains from what I've read, and they already live in the soil. So it's like, well, if that's the case, then they were able to kind of fight it off for thousands of years. Why did all of a sudden, you know? Is it a weakning of the immune system? Like I said, I'm just speculating, but I don't know

what we do now to fix it. And it's like now that they've picked it up and they do carry it, it's transmittable, it's communicable, Like can we get a handle on it? Do you have to kill everyone with it? Like what's the Is there a fix? You know? And so I'm just worried for the health of our herd.

And this is not scientific data. But I've told you and I tell a lot of people, like growing up, I would have put the densities of elk here in my backyard against anywhere in the world just for sheer numbers. You're not gonna kill a trophy. You're not gonna kill. But as far as like a quality elcunt where you're on legal elk, it used to be as good as anywhere in the world. And I would say we're probably twenty percent or last of the elk we used to have when I was growing up.

All the bullshit and the stuff they're putting in our food supply today, Like a lot of our food is poisoned, right, there's a lot of chemicals and bullshit in our food today. And look at all the problems in the sickness humans have today that they didn't have forty years ago because the food supply, what we're ingesting little bits of bullshit every day, it's causing all these different problems, hormone problems,

all these different sickness. Is so to me, if if elker eaten little bits of poison all the time, it's gonna cause a problem. It's just it's just common sense.

money flows through our state grant funding. I just, you know, I always joke like if Elon Musk had to solve hoof fraut, we'd we'd have the research done in a month. We'd have the solution in a month, and it would be implemented and over and the you know, in the following month, and we'd be out of this in three months. It's just I just wish there was there was no you know, strings attached to money to grant funding, and

there might not be. I'm can a little bit out of turn, but I do believe that I don't understand why we're there's no like the progress isn't be made quicker. I guess, like I said, I don't want to undermine what WSU is doing in their research, and you know, they've got a prestigious you know, VET program and everybody there's experts. I just feel like it's twenty twenty four, like things can move faster, you know.

proving it, like where's the proof in the pudding? For to have action taken at a state level to ban certain practices, they probably have to be so like cut and dry and like beyond reproach. They have to have so much information so you know, whether it's a you know, whether it's a grant funding or just like we have to prove this beyond reasonable doubt. Just like anything. It seems like scientific everything has to be proven.

elk with visible hoof fraut. You were supposed to cut the hooves off way down by the dew clause, you know, basically just at that bottom knuckle, put all four hooves in a bag, submit them with your you know GMU data kill, you know, some information, and they would pick picks, you know, nineteen of the people that submitted, and I was lucky. I can remember I was at my daughter's fast pitch game in Napavine and the emailed ding through that hey, you've been selected for one of the hoof

frot tags. And then there's a little bit of luck involved that, you know, out of the nineteen, you were picked in order. So I happened to be number five out of nineteen, and I thought for sure the unit I wanted to hunt would be gone in the first five, but fortunately it got to me and there was a

tag available. So I ended up with an incentive tag for a pretty good area in Washington and this tag allowed me to hunt September first of December thirty first with any weapon as long as there wasn't an active season. If there was an active bo season, I had to switch to my bow. If there was a muzzloader season. I switched to my muzzloader, which you know was fine. So basically a multi season tag, but I can use

a rifle if there's no other seasons. I had the New Mexico hunt from the fifteenth to the twenty fourth, which really kind of bit into some of the real good days of being there, Like I could have started hunting with a rifle on the twentieth, So I didn't show up until the twenty sixth. Again, so we've talked about the beginning. The unit's very migratory for the bulls. The cows seemed to live in there. The bulls seemed

to come from adjacent units. Nothing big, you know, a two seventy type six point, and so I elected to not I was going to come back, and we just struggled to find legal bulls. The day I got back on the twenty sixth, I think we ran through nine biggling bulls. Got to put eyes on all of them, and they were all, well, there was one little six point. Everything else was basically five point or better. You know,

we either called them in. You know a lot of this unit's burnt, like moved to see them, just couldn't find a big bull. The following day, you know, got on three or four bulls, all five points, sat on me and Tyson, my buddy, sat on a growler all day long. Thought oh this is the big one. Finally, you know, had some decent five point satellites and he came out and he was He was a seven by six but real small framed and used some kickers to

get there. Dang it just not what I want. But I knew the next day I had to switch back to my muzzloader because that muzloader season had kicked off on the twenty eighth of September. So back to my mussloader, I go and just kind of weeding through, weeding through bulls, got trapped in what I call a meth trap. On that I was gonna try a new area. I'm gonna. This kind of surprised me. And usually I'm a little

more aware than this. Like you're driving up a road, you know, early in the morning on the weekend, and I'm gonna I'm gonna diverge here for just two minutes

and then I'll get back on the story. You know, in an area that's it's got some you know people around, you're close to the bigger cities and you know, big bomb fires burning at four in the morning, and U haul van's kind of parked everywhere, Like what the hell is a U haul van doing up in the woods and backed up to these big bombfires, Like a normal person wouldn't park their car that close to a fire

that's huge, just just weird things. Well, we had passed two of these U hauls backed up to a fire, and there was a corner coming up and I could see like reflectors on a rig and like, oh, it's just hunt season, right, somebody might be pulled over here, there's a clear cut. Well, we get pulled up right next to that rig is I'm going around the corner and somebody had cut down a bunch of trees on

the inside of that. And now I'm a little nervous because I've got parked right next to somebody that obviously they're not hunting. They've been sleeping in their truck because there's due all over the you know, moisture all over

the inside of their windows. I'm now pulled up side by side against these guys, and I've now got two U haul vans fifty yards behind me on the road where I'm stuck in the middle of the road with like nowhere to turn around, and I'm like, this is I thankfully And I don't know if anything would have happened or not, or maybe they just didn't want to mess with us. I had a buddy with a vehicle that was following me up. He had to go down the hill that night. He was gonna hunt with me,

so it was nice. We had two vehicles, multiple people. We were able to kind of get turned around and get out of there. But when we got back down we kind of talked about it. We're like, I think they're probably cooking, cooking meth or something on the other side of the trees, and then they're using those guys as lookouts to let them know, like hey, you know,

cops or somebody's coming up the hill. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it was so anyways, we didn't get to hunt our spot, and you know, there was a ton of hikers on the weekends, so once again, we just I kept finding my self like the best plan I could come up with in my head was to hike back up the steep, nasty trail. Nobody was hunting up there. The hikers don't seem to like that trail. It's you know, it's too

much work for the views that they're looking for. So we went back and and kind of kept crushing that one area. We knew there was a decent you know, a couple of decent bulls in there, and just kind of kept hammering that area like eventually it was going to have to happen.

Just got up to the alpine, had good wind, and we were calling back and forth to a bowl and he slowly just we didn't push him, he just slowly wanted to go up and over the ridge to bet on the north side. We had about eight hundred more feet to go, so we we be bopped up the trail and got back above him. You know, it was still early morning shadows, especially on the north side, so we knew he had to be a ridge away got them to kind of to to re respond and and

kind of get the game started again. And there were two bowls biggling back and forth. They had kind of they were kind of doing their own thing, fighting for the herd, and and we kind of used that time to slip in and get a shot. And as I mentioned earlier, they were they were in a bunch of Christmas trees with very limited ability to shoot out and very limited ability to shoot out when they were standing

in the right spot on the other side. So it was like, I felt like we had a five percent chance that number one, the bowl is going to get close enough to shoot with the muzzleloader, and number two that like when he did get out in the open, I would be sitting in the exact spot that I could shoot through like a little teeny hole that I had and have arrest and do everything I needed to.

So Matt was able to keep that bowl big and cranking for most of the morning, and then as the morning gets you know, a little bit on you know, nine thirty. I don't know if you've noticed this, but I think most hunters will, like a lot of times, your very first bagle, you get a bowl to respond, right, he'll respond, and then if you keep bugling, he will slowly stop answering you, like he doesn't want to respond

to you every twenty seconds or thirty seconds. But then if you wait for five or ten minutes bugle again, he'll typically rip right back off. So we had, but we'd kept him pretty active for an hour hour and a half as he was rounding cows and pushing the five point off and we were kind of just waiting our time for him to you know, a lot of times you couldn't see him ninety percent of the time, ninety five percent of the time he was behind trees.

He would just disappear for long amounts of time, and then you'd see a cow bust back out of one of the openings, like all right, he's going to be following her. And played that game for a while, but he finally started to slow down, even though we were still seeing him move over there. He just wasn't interested in responding to the bowl across the canyon anyway more, you know, And this is why we talked, certain bulls

want certain things. I would crank out the easy estress and he would answer instantly on that he wanted to hear that that mature buzzy cow call. And so every time we wanted to like make sure he hadn't went up and over, because there were ways he could slip out of that canyon. We would hit him with easy estrass and he'd respond. So we sat there for a

while and he was still there. Ended up like you know, stack and one pack sideways, one stack on the you know, one pack on its end, so we could try to get like a real stable rest. And finally the bull slipped up and came out and stood in an opening for long enough for me to get a good range, me to make a little adjustment on my scope and get a shot. So it was you know, these new muzzloaders are a little bit more accurate and got a

little more range and what I'm used to. And so we we were able to shoot this bowl, you know, across a small canyon. It wasn't a big canyon by any means. You know, a pretty pretty decent muzzloader shot, and uh, we seen him take off, but it was so brushy. We got to see him maybe for two or three steps and then disappeared. And so one thing I, you know, to explain to the listeners. One thing we

noticed that we knew we got a good hit. We rewatched the video, but a cow that was with him stood above his location for over an hour looking into his location. So if you ever see that, that's an indicator that that cow, you know, either seen him fall, heard something, nose. He's down there and is kind of unwilling to leave him, which give us some you know, gave us some confidence that he was dead right there

or in that pile of brush. And the second thing was the remaining cows after they heard the shot, over about the next fifteen to twenty minutes, gathered up and left. Aside from this one cow that was watching his position very you know, intently, not moving her eyes for over an hour and a half, the other cows all walked

by the pile of brush. He went into a group of trees within about twenty yards, and we were all thinking, like, all right, if he's still got anything left, he's going to get up and follow these cows, or if he's not hit. We kind of watched it and all those cows walk up to the ridge line and he doesn't follow. So, you know, two pretty good signs a cow that's watching his location is in my opinion, he's either over there laying wounded and he can't get up or move anymore,

or he's laying over there dead. And then when the cows left without him, it's like, all right, that's another great indicator that you know, he's likely not on his feet anymore. And we were just patient. We actually sat and watched that group of trees for over an hour to make sure, you know, you know, put our put our bino's on tripods and really just like tried to pick it apart. We're looking for any little horn, kept

an eye on it. And then when we some other tips I'd like to share is it's very brush over there. So we took multiple pictures of that hillside before he went over, drew lines like from indicators, like all right, what's our best indicators over there? Like all right, there's a clear ridge. We drew a line down that like I drew on my picture why I was over there, like it should be here, we should have this yellow tree, you know, whatever it may be. You know, drew really

good pictures. And then one thing that you know, not just giving, you know, one of our partners a plug. Is I've got the new loophole fifty five hundred. I don't want to get the name wrong. The new loophole fifty five hundred RX I believe is that. Yeah, I don't think it's a five thousand. I think it's a fifty.

I've got a pretty strong magnet in my fob, and I'm convinced that you get better results when that thing isn't very close to your chest or even I believe it even from your chest to your eye is close enough.

So the technology works great, but I would advise if you're trying to get a very accurate shot and brush like this, like maybe take off your chest harness when you're calibrating the compass and everything inside the range finder, make sure you take that chest harness off and put it along ways away.

really close over there. But from the center of the point, I'm like, well, I'm just going to pick the center of this, and ended up being fifteen feet away from where we thought where were we last seeing the bowl. So we walked around using the pictures, using a guy that we left over there, and using those pins because it was brushy, like it was very very brushy, hard to tell where you were at. So I was able to ultimately take you know, a very good mature six point,

which is kind of what I was after. And I think there were bigger bulls in the unit for sure, But when I've dreamed of hunting this place, I dream of hunting it up in the mountains. Like it's when you go hunting. You can go try to kill the big bowl, or you can kind of hunt the areas

and the places you want to. And so I was able to kind of mix us I really wanted to do it, you know, off my back, you know, kind of more of that backpack style, and so I was able to kind of mix those to find a really good mature bowl and do it kind of up in the mountains where nobody else that I had seen all year was hunting, and was able to get it done, and I was thankful that was the first day we had four guys up in that country, so I was real thankful to have four people to help, you know,

pack pack that thing out, and you know, took a lot of pictures and and broke it down. And uh, we're gonna get some muzzle er experts on the podcast here coming up soon. But man, that these new guns are are dang good, even with one X scopes. You know, I shot this this bowl at you know, three hundred plus yards and had a full pass through, hit him right in the lungs and with with the good rest. So I shoot the fury three hundred and twenty grain bullet out of out of this one. It's got a

you know, blisted cofish and a point two six. It's a big old fifty cal bullet, but it's it one hole in, one hole out hardly, no no meat wastage, and hit them perfect. And you know, like I say, the bull, the bull literally took three running steps and tipped over dead.

which is an all copper system. But I feel like muzzloaters are where getting a hole out the other side is the most important thing, and so I am willing to use you know, the peer coppers, whether it's Barns or this year. You know, uh, the more I learned about muzzlers, you want something like the Parker or the Fury three twenty, you know, something that's more of a of a board to fit, you know, you know, I don't know how people say Sabo or sabots or whatever people want to call them.

use in this gun. You know, we're getting that three hundred and twenty grain bullet up to twenty one hundred feet per second. And so you know, we were able to add one X scope store guns this year, which I just feel like, aside from the one X, that's the only thing limiting you. You get a good rest.

I h we have a real good gun range here in pel It's all in meters, so it's a three hundred meters shot, which basical ends up being three hundred and thirty yards, And there's a little ten inch high by twelve inch wide gong at three hundred and thirty yards and I hit it both shots, you know, just dial my scope up, dial it to certain to shoot twice at it and ting ting and you know, the red dots kind of covering the majority of the ten

inches at three point thirty. But you know, you do a little fanagulon know that you're in the center of it, and it's just these things are very effective.

you know, able to make a good shot. But they're they're very impressive me and you talk about this all the time, like technology changes that may limit seasons. I'm a little worried with the ability of some of these muzzloaders and a lot of guys getting more into it that you know, the season date and placement, you know, and it was a special tag. So usually in the rest of the units in the Washington State, you can't

hunt with the muzzloader that early. So I think, you know, with our elk now kind of being you know, slightly getting out of the rut, it's it's maybe not it doesn't have that big of a of an effect, but I always worry, you know, do these do these mussloaders ultimately affect take and do they affect season dates and and lengths and you know in the future. But they're they're daying good. They're they're way more effective than the

old muzzloaders. I used to shoot where I'd have to aim for five seconds to see if I was gonna have a hangfire, and you know, the gun goes off to two seconds after the primer or the percussion or the musket cap goes off, So yeah, by that time, things like that. You know, I like to think I'm tough and don't flinch, but there's no getting around it that I flinch after that thing, you know, eventually clicks off, and but no, it was it was good. You know, a big bodied bowl, got a got a ton of

meat off of him. The neck gross were like fifteen pounds a piece. I think by the time we chunk those things off. And like I said, I'm glad. I had four guys and you know, two of them were firefighters, so it's uh, you know, I took a hind and a head and one of the guys grabbed a hind and you know the other guy grab it. Was it was a lot of meat and got it packed out and the knees were barking at the end of that twenty five reversing that twenty five hundred feet down, But it was good.

a good time. You know, it's so cliche to say, but there's nothing like everybody's sitting on that tailgate one after another, like unloosing their belts and letting that pack fall down. And to have a little Pendleton down with the truck together and celebrate was was pretty awesome.

a question or or a comment. You know, you might just say, you know that the pink call, Jason's favorite call, the one with a little Juggernaut on it. You know, it's it's not as good as he says. You know, it's more of a Maverick type of a type of a thing you like to use for that for your hunt. I gotta give you hard time, though, So I'm gonna see, I'm gonna try real hard to see if you can hear these these questions. So and me too. So here we go. Question number one is a brand with I'm

wondering trail heads. Where do most people park?

best way there. There's no trees in your way, Especially in the area you're talking about, there's blowdown jackstraw, burnt trees everywhere. Going off trail in there to make ground up when you're not hunting is going to be like the most non you know, inefficient way to move about in there. So you're gonna want to take the trails to get to an area until you can get up

and out of that brush. One thing I do different is I don't like to use trailheads if I can avoid them, if I can figure out a different area to get into a little niche basin or into a slightly different drainage, and I can get away from all

that pressure on that trailhead. I just feel that that pressure at the trailhead pushes elk into areas that may just be off from the trailhead, you know, one or two ridges finger ridges away, and as long as there's a spot beg enough for me to pull my truck over, and people can get a horse trailer by or their own vehicles. Like you're you're allowed to and I don't

know if I'm getting to the exact question. You're allowed to park wherever you want on four service, as long as you're not interrupting traffic flow up and down that road. So some of my favorite spots might just be a half mile off of a trailhead or a mile off of a trailhead. May get me into the same general area, but does give me a different look or a different hunt on the way to that area. So I don't know if there's anything to add, Dirk, but that's kind of my you know take. If I need to be

on that trail I'm gonna park at the trailhead. If i'm hunting the area around the trailhead or you know, areas adjacent to the road, then I'll just park wherever I've got the ability to and go.

about you know, identifying non motorized trails and stuff. So if you get your get out, you're on X maps and and and go through the different layers. You can select the state and then select the different features on the map and trails and and roads and such as.

You have some options there to where you can you can identify quickly and easily which trails are are motorized and which are not, and you can click on those trails or roads and a little a little screen will pop up there and I'll let you kind of read about it. Some trails you know, during during certain times

of the year, uh, they do allow motorized travel. But it'll have the dates on there for the most part, so you know, maybe maybe August thirtieth, the motorized juice discontinues and then it's it's foot traffic or horse traffic from then on out for the rest of the year. But you can identify those things pretty quickly, pretty easily.

the Forest Service. Like if I've got my game plan down to spots A, B and C, and there's certain trails in the area, I will go to the Forest Services page and say what you know, go to their recreation tab and go see what it says that trail could because that's where it'll give you the seasonality of those trails, and it just lets you kind of double check on exes because on X is right ninety nine

point nine percent of the time. But I believe the way that the you know, some of the old Forest Service trail maps may feed the system, there's sometimes a little bit of there could be some discrepancies.

a lot of times. What I'll do is also you can request a paper copy of the of the travel management plan for that particular area and it'll have a map and with the legend that shows you which ones are are are motorized and which ones are not. So all right, color number two.

seen anything. I just want to know what your thought process is for when you determine that a specific area just isn't holding any elk and when you want to move on to somewhere else. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the podcast. It's been super educational for me. And keep doing what you're doing.

that with unless there's there's like a deeper area. Let's say, you know, some of these areas you go into, like you can't cover the whole thing within you know, a

five day span. It's just it's too deep. But if let's say it's a three to five mile hike, I know, within that hike, if I hit the right areas, if I'm hitting the ridge lions, if I'm hitting mid Soiak trails, and if i go check out the meadows or the fringes or the wallows, like if I've if I'm able to identify low passes in the ridge meadows where they should be feeding or alpine areas where they should be feeding water, and then on some of these fringes, I

know within a day if I'm gonna hunt there again or if it's worth my time regardless of bugles. Like if you let's say I don't hear a bugle, like I I could be very confident in an area if I do or do not hear a beagle. There should be scat on the ground. There should be tracks on the ground. There should be this year's rubs or you know, last year's rubs in the area. And there should be some sign you know, if you're at a wallow, they should be used. It shouldn't be crystal clear water with

no you know, recent tracks around the edge. Uh, And I'm out. I'm just going there's somewhere else in that unit. There's somewhere else around me that the elk are being active, and then the the beagles are just kind of icing, you know, on the cake, Like that's that's the guaranteed

they're there. And if I've got beagles and there's enough elk, and then I also weigh in pressure, like there's as Dirk had mentioned earlier some of his Idaho spots, like I'm not willing there could be one hundred elk and you know, a hundred bowls bugling and just but if there's a hundred guys also hunting. I'm gonna go find the one or two elk that are bigling and maybe nobody's hunting, because I feel like, honestly, that's my better chance at killing a bowl. And we don't talk about

this a lot. We did it in New Mexico a lot. We do it. You know, I did up my Washington hunt that the best check mark or the best way to test is bigle into the area at night. We don't talk about a whole lot, but if you can't get a bagle in there, you know from when it gets dark to about an hour after. And I've found that that works better than in the morning. A lot of times I would I would just leave the area. I would go find somewhere else. That's that's my answer

on that. I'm I'm quicker to pull the trigger or pull up the anchor and move on than most and but I just want to be in action every morning and every evening.

lot of times it can be really warm. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna target those north facing slopes on the landscape and i'm gonna I'm gonna check the boxes on each one of those north facing slopes in an area and make sure so just because you go to the first north facing slope and there's no sign, no fresh sign, no bugles, that doesn't mean the one around the corner

is not going to just be loaded. So but if you're if you're looking at a mountain range or or an area that you can effectively hunt within a two or three day period, if you had to spend some major time in there, you could you can maybe touch those those bases pretty quickly. Like the last two days of elk season here in Idaho, we went and we hiked in. We earlier in the year, we had earlier

in the season, we had backpacked in. But I'm like, you know, it's not deep enough to where we have to back back in, So we're just gonna go light, We're gonna go fast, and we're just gonna go check everything we can and then dig in. So we'd left no stone unturned. We hiked, we got high, got up on top of the ridges, and then once you had that elevation, start checking off all those little every little

north facing pocket. And this area was easy because the north faces all had timber and everything else had grass and sagebrush, so it's easy to identify those places. So you go there and check those spots off. And if if you're just not hearing bugles and not seeing fresh sign, fresh scat, fresh rubs, we move on and within a short amount of time you can be like, yeah, I'm not gonna hunt your I'm not gonna waste any more time waiting for more elk to move. In some areas,

a lot of elk will move come and go. They they they're pretty nomadic. But I'm not gonna probably spend a lot of time waiting for elk to come back in the spot. I'm gonna I'm gonna quickly move on to another spot to where I'm finding fresh sign hand or bugles, yep.

they're going to move into later in the season. So you're trying to but that really takes. It's taken me a long time to get comfortable knowing like I'm not writing that off first. I'm going to write this but off, you know, spot off, and I may come back later. It's just yeah, it's I'm also not hunting like low density. Like let's say we did a two or three day loop and we got one bowld of Bugle, I'm probably not gonna like, I want to go find a higher density.

I want to have more options than the one bowld at Bugle. You know, seven miles in on my big loop hike. You know, I'm gonna go find something better because I feel like I need my odds to be higher than screwing up on one bowl unless it's the one. You know, some guys are out there looking for specific elk, you know, you might be willing to stay, but for me, I'm gonna move on quicker than most.

and the elk could destroy the trees in there. I was like, we got to kill we got to kill an elk for the sake of the trees, you know, do it for the trees. Nobody's looking out for the trees, you know. But anyway, but you couple that along with howlds the scat well, the scot was probably three four weeks old, So in my mind, the bulls or wintered, they summered up in this area, spent most of their summer.

They they kind of did that pre rut thing where they got they were hanging around each other, they were rubbing a bunch, and then once that first sweet smell of September, the cows coming into heat, they all vacated the area and hadn't been back. There was no fresh sign that had been there. And then one thing that

kind of proves my theory as well. In this one spot, I found some dude's trail camera and he didn't lock it, so I didn't tamper with him bother other than I did pull the card and look at his card, and you could see there hadn't been anything on there within the last three or four weeks. So that just that made me think, yep, they're them things were here were Our timing is wrong. If we'd have been here opening week a season, we probably would have been in some

pretty good bowls. But at the end of season, those elk are not there and they're probably not going to come back until the next year. So looking at those signs and kind of doing a little bit of you know, the art of deduction like Sherlock Holmes would do, you could would kind of lead you to your next plan of next plan of attack. All right, Collar number three, Hey.

little bit until the weather starts to hit. So pretty short answer might not even be the right answer, But as a hunter, I would always assume that that sow with cubs is going to be in that same general area for you know, during that September season into into early October, before she you know, moves spots. But Dirk may may have a better answer.

specific areas that they know. He's like, I can go up there any day in the fall and we can see a grizzly to multiple grizzlies. It's just they really like certain areas, probably in the fall. And I'm wondering, you know, if it's due to the berry crop, you know, the huckleberries. There's obviously some food source, maybe maybe even you know, maybe they're just away from where people are going to really bother them too much. There's a few different factors there, I would imagine. I do know bears,

grizzly bears can wander a lot too, you know. I feel like male bears cover a lot of ground. I'm wondering, like the age of the of the cubs, if they're real young, they may may not travel as much. They may just kind of have their little home homestead staked out there to where they they feel safe and maybe they don't have to move around as long as it's

got a food source. But I know other friends who have talked about running like I just did a podcast with my good my good friend ron Najoelik out of wyoming, you're gonna want to listen to this that one. It's if you haven't listened to it already, you don't want to listen to it. Because he had he encountered forty one grizzly bears this September twenty some under thirty yards I think, or under fifty yards. It's a crazy story.

He had a wild September. But he talked about encountering a grizzly in a certain spot and then a few days later encountering them again in the same spot. So I feel like they kind of have their little hangouts where they like to be just from information I've heard from other people. But they will travel quite a bit. But I would definitely anticipate seeing If you've seen grizzlies in one spot before, you'll probably see him again, I wish. And that's probably not the answer you want to hear.

because of pressure. So food, water, betting, in security. Right, are the three things I always look for when when I'm looking for elk so unpressured, it depends on how close those things are you know, in the Northwest it can be really tight because we seem to have food everywhere. We seem to have you know, water everywhere and mainly timber. And I don't know if that's exactly, you know, I've never hunted up north with dirt, but I'm assuming it's

fairly similar. Your your food, your betting, and your water is all fairly tight. Now you go to New Mexico, your water is now two miles from your bedding, and the food may be scattered anywhere in between. And so those elk are already moving a mile two miles plus, you know, a little bit more of that nomadic style. They're so dependent on their water. The water is only so locations, and then there's got to be a mix of all of that, right, So it's just that proximity.

When they start to get bumped, I feel that elk for a day or two will forego or give up some of those things. Now, they may still need to find water, they may still need to have food, and they still may but they're they're now prioritizing security, right, and they're willing to give up a little bit of their best food source. They're willing to give up the absolute best water. They may go get it for you know, in the dark. It really has hit or miss around home.

The elk won't really go anywhere when they're pressured because they've got so much timber, they've got so much cover. I've been up in some of my spots in the cascades of Washington, or I've been you know, in Idaho, Wyoming, and you put some pressure on elk and you may see him moving three to four miles over the ridge line, but they're going to a spot that they either know or there that they've already been that has those same three things water, food and security, escapement betting to go

and get away from the pressure that you've provided. So I know I am answering the question without answering your question. But I don't think it's as simple as you know. These elk might go, you know, two minutes away, or these elk might go two miles away. It's it's really just hit or miss on where those elks think that they can survive without pressure and and get by.

who knows where. So typically for me, where I've had trail cameras around the tenth to the fifteenth of August, once I see one bowl on camera, Let's say I've had like a whole bunch of bulls on this camera all summer long, and then the first bowl I see on there that has its velvet shed, I typically don't see any more bulls. They like, once you see that want first one hit, they let they leave, They're gone.

They leave mid August and I may not even see them again until October November back on those same cameras. So and there's there's some of these areas I've had in places where there's pretty low ELK densities, But I've had a lot of bulls in the summer. Come September, you try to find them, I don't. I don't know where they all went. Like you would think, oh, the next ridge over the next drainage over it is going to be plum full of bulls. No, I think those

things they go out to seek their fortune. You're gonna find some cows somewhere else. And especially if there's not a lot of cows in the area, you may they they may they may scatter to the wind pretty far. Each bull may disappear quite a ways. If there's a lot of cows around, they may not have to go very far at all. They may just go, you know, a half a mile away or a mile away. So just depending on your elk densities could depend on where

they're they're gonna go. Now. I do have a buddy who had pictures of Giant Bowl down in southern Idaho. Every year, he'd been watching this giant bowl, like a three to ninety tight bowl, every every year. But about about every year about the same time, the thing would disappear, and they just they looked high and low throughout that unit, trying to turn that bull up, and you could never

find it. Well, a couple of years later, you met some guy in from Utah, and the guy from Utah was showing him pictures of this bowl and he's like, whoa that that's my bull That bowl literally changed mountain ranges and states. It went from Idaho to Utah and go to Utah to rut every year. You know, it's like a twenty five mile trek over to where this this bowl was at. So you just never know how far those things are going to go and turn up. But one thing if you can, if you can get

your trailcam game going, is find the cow groups. It's fun. I love seeing the bulls on the camera because look at that one. Oh, I'd like to shoot him. But you know, cows are kind of boring to see on a trail camera. But if you can find that the cows in the summertime and to kind of figure out where the cows spend their time, you're going to kind of know where those those bulls are going to disappear

to come September. Well, I think that wraps up our Pendleton whiskey Q and A. Do you have any other any thought, Jason on any of these topics.

and being an elk packer spotter for Tyson. But everything everything goes right, might might get a chance at an elkre I at least have an elk tag in my pocket.

that same area here. But unfortunately, I'm not going elk cutting in that spot this year.