Ep. 118: Phelps 2024 Recap, Highlights, and Gear Used

not have told those hunt recaps. So we're gonna start like every podcast, and if you have questions for me or our guests, feel free to email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com and we'll do our best to get them in here on the podcast. But these are just some of the questions that I've received, you know that that we get throughout the year. I just got this one the other day. If you could redo any of your hunts this year, which one would

it be? And I love every hunt this year. I had had a great time, you know, from start to finish. But if I had to go back and redo one of my hunts here, it would probably be that New Mexico archery out count with Luke Combs. For a couple of reasons. Uh, you know, first, you know, he's he's a blast to hang out with. You know, we're laughing the whole time. But we had I would say, there's some unfinished business on that one. You know, we had

lots of opportunities. You know, Luke passed on some bowls, you know, some arrows were let loose, and uh, I would really like a chance to get back there, and you know the hunt was pretty short. Just kind of redo that one and see if we couldn't, you know, have have a different outcome. You know, found some different areas there towards the end that that we're you know producing you know, as far as beagles and had more elk in the area. So that's probably the one man.

You know, the the Alaska doult sheep is is probably a real close second, you know, one of my dream hunts, the same thing. You know, if I could redo the Idaho Mountain lion hunt. Pretty pretty good hunts and wish wish I could you know, redo those. But yeah, for for unfinished business reasons. In the Mexico tri I'll count with Luke would would be probably the highest on the list.

The next question we get, you know or just randomly throughout the year is kind of what's your favorite new gear, or they'll see a picture, you know, in a in a new backpack or using a new knife. You know, what was my favorite new gear for twenty twenty five? And I didn't get a whole lot. I'm basically gonna give you the list of what I tried new, but it did perform and I was really, you know, kind

of excited about how it works. So first off is one of our our you know, kind of a inside of our own companies doing Montana Knife Company and Steve worked together on a new stubhorn knife. Before that, I was using a bench made S NINETYV. I don't know exactly what the model was, what was kind of my go to I'd been using it for the last four or five years. Really liked it. But the stubhorn not to not to get too far in the weeds, uses

a new Magna cut steel. It seemed like it held an edge a lot longer, it was easier to sharpen, and and it has some really really good, you know, characteristics of a hunting knife for me. You know, I think when I was in Kansas, I used the knife on three white tails, never even touched it up. You have through elk season. We used it on three elk. I think I touched it up a couple of times.

The knife is for me. It's the right weight, it's the right length, and you know these little things as you're breaking down animals, you have the efficiency and the ability to kind of to move a little faster. I really liked that that new knife. And then you know, we we just did an episode on the muzzloaders. I can't say enough about that Remington seven hundred muzzleloader with

the arrowhead breach. And then you take the rules changed here in Washington where we were allowed to use a one x red dot, so I topped it with the loophole freedom alreadys the red dot site and that thing. You know, usually when I'm out with an older you know, let's say five years ago, we were out with a Northwest Addition or style Northwest legal muzzleoader, open sites. You know, I was comfortable to one one hundred and fifty and

very perfect conditions. Yeah, it should be a primitive type weapon. Maybe that's where we should be limited to, but the rules are allowing us to, you know, with modern ignitions, with the use of one x sites, stretch our range

out and just confidence at closer ranges. I was able to loan the gun out to a couple other muzzloader hunters and they just said the confidence they had on one hundred and twenty to you know, one hundred and twenty yard shot one hundred and forty yard shot and to hit the elk exactly where they wanted, and you kind of take some of that air out of what I would say the older muzzloaders introduced h like I said, the the the another I got a new boat, but

really just for the Kansas white tail hunt, I hunted with my my boat from last year, a dart and Verocity thirty five in New Mexico elk and you know, I didn't hunt a lot on that hunt, but I did get a new sequel thirty five ST two prior to the Kansas white tail hunt, and I just I love the boat at draws great. It's you know, got some tunability to get my broad heads dialed in real quick if they're not hitting perfect with my field points, so there's not a bunch of chasing with my sight.

Really really liked that that bow set up with fairly heavy arrows. I'm not a I'm not that guy that wants to be crazy heavy. I carried my arrows over from my old setup, and you know, I was shooting two and seventy feet per second. But the bow just shot really really well, was really easy to tune, and really really consistent. So I really, you know, like that bow.

You know. Yeah, some people may say it's it's a little long, thirty five inches out of a tree stand, but for for a guy like myself, you know, I like the stream angle at full draw. Everything just fits me well and it's comfortable to shoot. And then really the only the only other thing I used this year. You know, in the past, I was always using a duplex frame from Kafaro. I did use that same pack

on the Dull Sheep Hunt. But in between the Sheep Hunt and starting my all content between August and September, I was able to get my hands on one of the new Kafaro ARC frames with a new Hoodlum bag, and I really really like that setup. You know, I'm six foot three, I am all torso, so the frame was a little short, you know, I think it's only twenty five inch frame. You know, I've been used to twenty six is. And then my buddy Aaron Snyder used to make me twenty eights kind of custom for my

longer torso so I can get some lyft. But the ARC twenty five, even though it's maybe a little bit short for a guy like myself, I would say it's going to perform great for ninety five percent of the people out there. It did a very good job, you know on some heavy loads, both on the White River Uh, I'm reading off my notes here, you know, my White

River Elk tag. And it also did really really well on the Idaho Meal Deer tag, you know, where I had some heavy loads for long trips and it performed as good as can be, you know, expected with heavy loads that are going to be uncomfortable no matter what pack, Yet you have on uh, performed really well. So I was you know, those are really my only new pieces

of gear. It performed really really well. You know, I've I did try some new crispies out, you know, the Mountain bro in the brickstall line, you know, but I've always the brick stalls have always fit my feet well. On the sheep hunt, I've tried those. They they performed really well. So it's not really new gear, but they it was a kind of a new model, a taller boot for me, and I really like the performance of those as well. But that kind of wraps it up as far as new stuff that I tried. I'm a

pretty simple guy. If it works, it works, I don't need to be changing all the time. But but those were, you know, kind of the standouts I do really like, you know, from from first Light. I really liked that three toh eight pant. I'm not just saying that because they're a sister company in the know to Phelps game Calls. I really do like that pant and I believe it's a big improvement over what we've you know, what I've

had in the past from them. So like that. And then if I had to pick a favorite hunt of the year, what would it be. Man In this year of twenty twenty four, I got to check some of my my dream hunts, my bucket list hunts off, and I would say it's a tie. You know. I was probably more excited about the doll sheep hunt just because there was such a long build up. I had booked that hunt back in twenty twenty and it was one

I really looked forward to. So I had four years of waiting for it to get here and prepare for it, and then the Idle Mountain lion hunt was kind of a It kind of sprung on you real quick. You had you know you'd be hunt within a month or two. But it was a chance to finally hunt. You know, big mature Tom's behind the dogs. So I would say it's kind of split the Idaho Mountain lion hunt and then the Alaska doll sheep hunt, and then both of them.

You know, I'm not one of those guys that the experience is important, but I also look at a hunt and like, for how did what we what were the results? And unfortunately for me on both of those hunts, you know, I was able to take very good representations of those species on those hunts. And so yeah, I really like those those two as they'll probably be the only time, maybe the only time I ever get to do it. So favorite hunts of the year Idaho Mountain lion and

Alaska doll sheep. You know, Mountain lion hunt. I loved it. The people year around, great people. Alaska doll sheep, same thing. You know. Matt Snyder was awesome to be around, and just the country that you get to see on that you know, those sheep hunts, and it is pretty dang cool.

So those are my favorite hunts of the year. And once again, you have questions for me or my guests, please feel free to email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com, or get a hold of us on social media, you know, any of our accounts, you know, shoot the questions there, you know, personal social media accounts, and that's typically where I grab these questions from. So yeah, so now we're going to roll right into the twenty twenty four hunt recap. You I just talked

about this hunt a little bit. I was fortunate enough to be able to hunt you know, mountain lions in Idaho behind behind hounds. That's that's great. So you're kind of you know, you're he's got some clients in and so you're trying to look at the schedule. How's it's all going to work and when can you know, we hunt whenever we're going to have the right weather. Well, as luck would have it, it seems like at times everything that I do doesn't seem to go to plan.

I know, had a horrible winner with a little bit of early you know snow in early January when we could have got hunting, but you know, had some other clients booked. And then we get into show season consumer show season for both myself and and my buddy Bradley, and so we were trying to you know, match schedules. And one of the mornings, I woke up, you know, I get up around six o'clock, get usually, get my my kids up for school, and you know, kind of

get my morning started. I had a text as soon as I woke up from Bradley says, I think this is our window. You need to get over here. So bless my wife who's able to quickly you know, pivot and and put some more on her plate. Within about an hour, I was packed up completely and uh leaving for Idaho to go you know, chase cats for for a couple of days. You know, we we get there, you know, Bradley's Bradley's doing a bunch of running around

trying to trying to just locate a cat. As we as we're pulling into Idaho, Bradley calls me he's going back to get his dogs. You'd cut a track and to meet us at a certain spot. So we all get there. Yeah, the we I bring. I want to use my bow, which is you know sometimes I kind of chuckle, like, what's it matter to that the cat's in a tree? Why do you know, why does it matter if you use your bow or a gun At that point, it's just pulling the trigger. But I like

it to bring my bow down. And it was in a very steep location and a very tall tree, and so it created all kinds of issues with getting you know, a decent shot angle. And as we climbed up the hill so that we could start to look more level with the cat, his vitals were blocked and we just had some issues. And thankfully we had brought a thirty thirty along just in case the cat, you know, was able to get out of the tree wounded, it doesn't get any dogs or we can finish it, you know, quickly.

So we're we're getting ready, we're kind of walking around, you know, the tree, trying to find a shot angle, and and you can see the cat start to back down the tree and ultimately gets about twenty feet from the ground and bales out over top of everybody's head and we're chasing again. We had run up let the dogs We had already had the dogs, you know, leashed so that the you know, they don't try to chase the cat when it's wounded and everything. So we let

him go. We're we're chasing again. Well, it was pretty awesome a turn of events. The cat ran away and then came right back on its backtrack and walked right under us, and we were able to see from the garment that the cat was gonna so we actually got to watch the cat kind of sneak through and slithered through, and the dogs were, you know, twenty thirty seconds behind it at that point, and came up. And then the cat.

If some of you haven't seen the video on YouTube, the cat ends up, you know, just baying up on a rock. The cat had enough. He wasn't going back up a tree. He's gonna sit there. And then the pressure was on, so the bow was out of the picture. We needed to kill the cat. You know, I can brad these, you know, it's like, hey, you got to make a good show. You know, you can kill my dogs.

And so now I've got this extra pressure. And then they hand you a thirty thirty that you've never shot, and I don't know, you know, I instantly went back to my younger days when I'm out in the yard with my BB gun, remembering, like, man, there's a lot of ways to kind of site these open sites in. You know, did they hold you know, did they sight

in with the front the front post like level? Did they you know, some guys would sit in with like front post halfway through so you can actually see over your target because when you you know, you kind of block the bottom side. And so I start to ask a few questions, and then I didn't want to overcomplicate it.

And then me and Bradley are also talking a little bit about on the animal, like where we need to hit it to grab lung and spine and do all of this stuff so that we don't get any dogs injured. So now I'm I mean, it's thirty degrees out, but I'm sweating to death because I've got to try to make a perfect shot on this cat that doesn't harm

the harm the dogs. And you know, so thankfully, as I as I squeeze the trigger on that thre thirty thirty, kind of made sure to just walk myself through, you know, Squeeze, squeeze squeeze, was fortunate to hit the cat perfect on a pretty steep uphill shot. We went in about mid body and kind of just clipped the spine as it went out the other side and caught the other lung and the cat was thankfully dead as it fell off, you know, maybe a hundred foot rock on the other side.

No dogs were injured. Uh, you know, everything worked out great and it was a great, great cat. So yeah, those hunts. I love hunting with Idaho whitetail guides, you know, you know, Bradley Dammerman and Amy to do a great job there and and it's just it's a fun hunt. It's a lot of hard work for him because of the dogs and getting up early and running tracks. You know, we get up early, but we don't have to do

hardly into the work. We just ride around on the side by side or what what be, you know, what whatever it may be, but for that day. But it's a lot of fun. I really enjoy, you know, drinking coffee and hanging out and talking about you know, stories of past for the areas that we're in and you know what he's chased and what canyons. Yeah, so that was that was an awesome hunt. You just got an update from Phil Souse over there in Libby, Montana. He's

actually mountain back cat for me this week. So we've been working back and forth on you know, how it needs to sit and be arranged. You're really excited to see how that one turns out. Then we kind of you know, for us, we change gears a little bit, we go turkey hunting. You know, we were able to

go to Kansas and Washington this year. I do want to share one thing I'm going to talk about on It's not necessarily gear, but it's kind of a new system I've found to keep ticks off of me and then away from me at least on my legs, which is where I would get ninety percent of them. So

you know we would always put gators on. Well, the one thing is if you have any loose spots on your gators when you're sitting down or have your foot bent, if a tick, you know ninety percent of them are going to come up off of your your feet or your boots that are touching their ground anyways. They will climb up, get under there, get under your pant and the majority of them, you know you have where your gators will typically be tight at your shin I was getting.

You know, anything that I had latched on was right at that line, because they would be able to get up under my gator and under my pant leg and go up. So I got on Amazon and they have just these stretchy vell crow things that are made for guys that write, you know, guys or gals that ride bikes, to keep your pants out of your sprockets and whatnot.

So what I do now is I pull my pants down over my boot as far as I can and tighten that thing and I use two on each leg, basically bell crowing or elasticking my boot, you know, my pant to my boot, or you could also use athletic tape anything that you could get extremely tight and basically not allow anything up above that. And then I put my gator up and over as well. And I was able to hunt Kansas and Washington this year with no ticks,

which is a new record for me. You know, I had a couple of lone star ticks from Kansas a couple of years agoing Thankfully I must have not got the old Alpha gal because I'm still able to eat red meat. But it's just it's very nerve wracking when you know that one in fifty, you know, to one in forty of those things could potentially give you, you know, alpha gal which I do not want. I don't want to deal with not being able to eat red meat.

So this system worked, and you combine that with promethrone. I wasn't you know, I don't. I didn't get any ticks on me this year. You know, tuck your shirt in at least your first layer shirt, wear a very tight belt, you know, as tight as you can handle it. I spray my net gator in promethrone and seems to work. Didn't have any issues. The two states though, one thing. You know, obviously you're hunting a different bird, and Kansas

were hunting Easterns and Washington were hunting Miriam's. Yeah. The funny thing is is I enjoy them both, but they're completely different hunts. And Kansas you will walk maybe two hundred yards from wherever you park your buggy or your side by side, whatever it may be. You know, I'm joking a little bit. We will we will run and gun, but a lot of times we're just you know, we're

we're setting up in the morning. Easterns are pretty stubborn, so we'll sit and call, we'll maybe move ridge to ridge, but we don't really want to bump these birds or you know, mess with them too much. So a lot of times Kansas will be a long morning sit. You're typically on you know, gobbling birds and and yeah, you know you don't kill anything by ten you go in

for breakfast. Washington, you're hiking all day. There were days in Washington where you know, we'd put twelve, fourteen, fifteen miles on and I had to had to laugh because our buddies from Kansas that we hunt with their Randy coy Brock, James Harrison, those guys all came out and they joked. They said that for the one bird that they killed, they'd hike more on that bird than all their other birds combined. And it's just it's just that

different reference of you know, hunting public timberland ground. We're you're gonna have to put miles on, you know, to get into the good spots. Where in Kansas, you know, hunting more ag ground, it's easier to get on the birds, you have to move as much. And Washington, the time we were hunting there, we were early in Kansas, which

seems to be better. And we were a little bit later into May and Washington and so the hunting was good all day, and so we kind of hunted all day, put on a lot of ground and we're really trying to strike those birds in the middle of the day. But I was fortunate on those two hunts. I'm mounting my first trick he ever. I was able to kill a great four year old in Kansas. And the Washington bird that I killed was probably the biggest Marriam I'll

ever kill. But it was later in the season and he was you know, his uh you know, chess was all you know, all the feathers were had fallen out, and he was pretty rough, had a lot of pitch on him, and so I elected that he was a very pretty bird though. But probably my two best representations of those birds that i've i've you know, will ever kill or maybe you know they were good birds. Now. I always joke where it's like, yeah, they're a little smarter,

but I don't know when I'm shooting. When I'm shooting them, you I just know that they're they're a long beard and it could be a two year old and they just happened to be four year old, so no great great turkey hunts I really enjoy. You know, some people don't like turkey hunting. That's fine, you don't have to like. I like getting out in the spring. It's also a good reminder on how bad out of shape I am from from the Christmas carry over in the in the

show season. So it's a little it's a good little reminder to get my butt back in the gym, back on the stair climber, and get ready for for fall seasons. We had a quick little stop next in spring bear in Idaho. It was later, you know, in in June. So I just love watching the dogs work. You know. Bradley started to give me a little bit of grief that every time I show up we have long races

on bears that bay up and won't tree. So my very first time with Bradley, we let off on a dog and I think we till two or three in the afternoon trying to get all the dogs back off a bear that just refused to go up with a tree. You know, a lot of his dogs were banged up. So fast forward to this year, we let off on the first bear we we get on and he takes us into no man's land. There was no easy way to get to this you know bear from any direction, and he would never tree. He was just bouncing back

and forth and back and forth and roadless country. There were roads on kind of each side, at least three sides of them. Roads not so much on the other side. And thankfully that bear cooperating didn't go out of the country. But that you know, a bad bear ended up being about a two hundred pound boar. And as I mentioned on on the lion hunt, is there's some danger to the dogs on wounded animals, and so me and Bradley, we're able to get the fourlers close to these, you know,

to the dogs and the bear as we can. And it was just a mad dash to some cliff country, you know, sprint and running as fast seat can. And we got down in there and Bradley, you know, I was we were right behind him. But Bradley decided on this one he was just gonna, you know, take the bear. He doesn't like to as the guide, but he's always

got a tag and able to. The bear was so beat he was just laying in a puddle in a creak and the dogs were still being pretty aggressive on him, and Bradley was able to kind of shoot down on the bear and dispatch that one. And then you know, for the next couple of days the dogs ran great, but just long chases like some that took us way out of the country and you know, just just long chases with it, you know, hard on the dogs, you know,

moving a lot of ground. And then we were able to treat a couple, but just some small, small, young bears. But once again, you know, just getting to go over there and watch the dog's work. I really really enjoy that.

Next up was the Alaska Doll sheep. Like I mentioned earlier, booked it in twenty four I always kind of joke I didn't think my wife would know how much the hunt cost if I paid for it for you know, over four years and just made installments and it wouldn't seem as bad as that was my That was my joke, and I wanted to selfishly be the first hunt of the year with Matt. So the idea was, I'll book far enough out that I'm the very first hunt of

the year. In my mind, it helps you with you know, with a good summer scout and the sheep haven't been bothered by every hunter that you know, the legal ram has been pushed around. I was a little worried going into the hunt because there was a time on the third installment where they he said, just keep your money. The sheep aren't looking good. We don't even know if we're gonna have a season. So now I start to get worried, like, because you're gonna have to refund my money?

Am I even gonna get the hunt? But Matt was able. You know, anybody that's got to hunt with Matt or knows Matt like he's he's determined, he's a hard worker, and he was still getting his clients all shot opportunities. So the year before I went twenty twenty three, all three hunters got shots to hit. One missed the three hundred. I believe a three hundred dard shot or a doable shot.

So I was excited. I had looked forward to this one for a long time, gotten you know, really good shape and uh the logistics the Alaska or an additional you know, in addition to the experience, you know you fly up there. For us, we were able to just do a turo rental, which is uh, you know kind of cool. I was able to, you know, find a truck that had four drive, and you know, and then it's a long drive in Alaska. You know, you've only got a couple of airports, and you know, it was

a six hour drive from the airport. But then it was time to sheep hunt. It was everything I could dream of. It was the country you've seen, you know, the steepness of the country, the ruggedness of the country. The sheep are just absolutely you know, beautiful animals, and I was I was stoked to get to hunt that way. I also love the idea that it's a spike out hunt, right I at times I missed those hunts, but you know, I loved that we were going to load up food

for seven days and that was our hunt. Like we were leaving with seven days and when that food was gone, we were either gonna have a sheep or not. We were living on the side the mountain. We were going to live with them. You know, Matt had a pretty good plan. He was able to go into this country and make sure there were some legal rams and then we just had to figure out how to hunt right off the bat. I was a little nervous though, and

you could tell Matt's and experienced guy. You know, he kind of felt us out and could see that we could zip up through the rocks pretty well. But then we got into these big screen fields and if you're not from Alaska or haven't spent a lot of time navigating that, when you looked across the canyon, then he kind of showed us our route. I kind of questioned him. I'm like, are we we really going to be able

to or are we gonna you know? And so we we get across there and from it's not as bad when you get there, and you when you finally get confident enough that the big steep screen fields that you're in are eventually gonna stop rolling and you're you know, you're only gonna drop a foot. And yeah, I mean there were a couple of little cliffy areas to navigate, which which had some you know, risk involved, but for the most part, once you get over there, you're able

to do a lot more in the rocks. And you could think just looking across at him and it's just man, I know, it's it's you know, financial, you know, there's some financial constraints on everybody being able to do that. Hunt in Alaska. But man, I'm I'm ready to go back. I don't I don't necessarily say I've got the Alaska bug, but I'm definitely looking hard at doing a moose hunt or something of that nature, just to get back to

Alaska and kind of an experience. It's it's wildness and just how big it is, and it's just it's I liked that. It seems like it's kind of it hasn't been touched. It's it's still fifty sixty seventy years behind where we're at down here, you know, in the in the lower forty eight. And I really like that about Alaska. Well White River Elk tag. So I killed an elk in twenty twenty three that had hoof. I was put into a incentive draw. I was one of the Lucky nineteen.

And then within that lucky nineteen, I was able to get the tag that I wanted, which gave me an incentive tag which I was I was stoked about, was the unit I wanted to hunt. So you get all of your your trail cams out and everything where you'd seen elk, and just the report from the trail cams was a little bit dismal. Nothing big was shown up, or we thought it would. Nothing as big as in past had shown up, so we kind of go on

a little scouting mission. My whole idea going into this is we'll just go up there on September first, and you know, quickly kill an elk when it's patternable before the rut really gets going. Well, guess what, there were no mature big bulls to kill, so we basically spent six or seven days up there walking and hiking with nothing really worth hunting. I had to leave for the New Mexico archrailll Count, which I'll get to in a little bit, and then I was able to come back.

And one of the conditions of this tag is you can hunt with any weapon when there's no other seasons in this unit. So you know, before archery between archery and muzzleloader. But if it's archery season, you have toent with your bow. If it's muzzloader season, you have to switch to your muzzloader for that time, and then you know, you can alternate back and forth. So I had a couple of days left when I got home from New Mexico to hunt with the rifle. I'm thinking, all right,

it's September. I don't remember what day, twenty fifth or twenty six. I had a couple of days left, chasing bugles everywhere, bagland bulls in all over, but nothing with any size. Starting to get pretty frustrated. Well, we end the you know, it's the night before muzzloader starts, and we sit on what sounded like a big bowl turned out not to be a very big bowl. And so now I've got to switch over to my muzzloader and

make things a little more different. You know, you got Now you've got a lot more people out in the woods with you, albeit only I believe eight or ten or something, I don't know how many, but you've got people with new energy, maybe more willing to get into the areas that you wanted to. Once again, still nothing showing up on my trail cameras. And so it was a We spent you know, a couple of days with the muzzle order looking for for elk and just couldn't

find big ones or big enough ones. And then finally we hiked back into where we had heard the big bugle the last night of the rifle and was able to there was a new bowl in the area, you know, a mature six point and it was it allowed me to hunt the way I wanted to. You know, we were two and a half hours in on a trail, you know, in there pretty deep, and I just I

didn't want to in this unit. You could kill smaller bulls or even decent bulls off the road or near road, and this was the way I wanted to do it. And so I was able to take a great bull in some beautiful country, some rugged country and get that one out. So we talked about that new Mexico archery. I'll count with Luke. So the probably the if I had the most you know, my most requested question of the year is probably how is Luke in real life?

And I think everybody's, oh, you know, he's awesome because he might be listening to this, but you could convinced me that he isn't a guy that grew up right alongside me in my town. Super funny. We always cracking jokes, keeping everything light, which I really appreciate. And he's just I want to hesitate using the word, you know, redneck or you know, he's just a country boy that loves

doing country things. He was very interested and wanted to know a lot so I like people that don't just want to you know, it could have been just real easy, you know, him tag along with me and Jeremy, but it was really a He was asked a lot of good questions, like he was paying attention. He wanted to know why they were doing this or why we were doing that. So it made for a really fun hunt with a new hunter. And I have a ton of

respect for Luke because we talked about it. He could have hunted anywhere, anytime with any weapon, you know, with with his ability and resources, and he elected to come do it on public land a lot side of a bunch of other hunters, and we made the most of it. You know. He passed on a couple you know, chip shots on some legal bulls. We've had some chances of some bigger ones. You know. I just really enjoyed hanging out with Luke and then you know his buddy Carl

that was there. It was it was a lot of fun, and uh, I hope to get to do it again this year. We've got some plans in the work. So yeah, in the next to ourcher. It was tough though, you know, to recap the hunt. People driving side by sides where they shouldn't, you know, areas where we had spent the time and energy and effort to hike into and then to get you know, elk bumped by, side by sides,

just kind of a kind of a bum deal. There are a lot of people in those units, you know, the elk were all kind of congregated to the water. So typical typical public land elk hunt. You got to deal with people. Just unfortunate that some of them weren't playing by the rules at times. Another strong runner up for one of my favorite hunts. So after all of that,

we go to Idaho meal deer. It was a had a strong runner up for one of my favorite hunts because we lived off of our back for eight days straight on this This Idaho meal deer elk hunt was a collab that we're going to do with tall timber productions, focus on elk and we can find deer when convenient or when available. And I would say it flipped really quick when we were seeing elk everywhere without mature bulls, and the bulls we were here in Beagle were still spikes,

and we were seeing some pretty good deer. And so the Idaho meal deer or the Idaho hunt turned into a deer hunt really really quick, and I just I love hunting and on hunts that the logistics are a little difficult, like you might have to drive here and side by side to here, and then hike to here, and then every morning you've got to pick a different mountain top to go glass from, and you know, you after day one you start to learn, you know what faces,

their aspects or have deer on it, and then you know where's the sunlight. You don't want to glass into the wrong spots. The hunt was unseasonably warm, so we we also knew that our morning glass and you know a little bit at night had to be we were only going to see animals for for very short windows

in the morning and night. But I really really liked that we were able to take two really good bucks out of the area and just really enjoyed, you know, hunt with my buddy Tyson and just meal deer in the mountains where I feel like it's a real level level field and uh, yeah, I really enjoyed it. Met some great people in and around the area. Yeah, there were a lot of people, but the deer hunting was

still pretty decent. If you worked for it. You know, we we all took decent bucks on that hunt, and you know, the tall timber guys, and you ended up with a with a couple of bowls there Towards the end, we ended up you know, leaving, but really excited to try to do that one again this year and then to finish up my season, uh, we'll go to Kansas again and our white tail hunt that we do with

our buddy Randy and Brock and Koe every year. I've really grown to like the white tail hunt for different reasons. I said, I really like the Idaho Meal dear hunt because we were backpacking in and then I really like the white to hunt because it's the opposite. I sleep in a bed warm house, you know, stoven of and a barbecue, we got the you know, the the gas stations, got pizza, we got breakfast when we want it. It's the complete opposite. And it's really made by the people

in the place. Some of these areas of Kansas, the people you deal with are just salt of the earth, as good as they get. You know. Some of our our friends that we get to hang out with are just great people, great storytellers, and I really really like it and you know, just being around them in the atmosphere. And then there's just something about sitting in a tree stand, you know in the morning when it's dark and kind of letting the world wake up around you. I really

enjoy that. And just you know, the rustling of the leaves and you know, hearing a deer come from one hundred yards away because you can hear them in the oak leaves. Just everything about it, it's just, you know, it kind of excites your different senses than then maybe sitting behind binoculars or a spotter all day when you finally spot the one you want, it's different. And so I was very fortunate this year that one of my favorite stands, my favorite areas I get to hunt on

the top is what we call it. I was very fortunate within an hour to have you know, my best white tail come in and put a perfect arrow in it. Uh touch on the My favorite gear from that that Dart and sequel thirty five st two and iron will. You know a lot of white tail hunters, I would say the majority of them are shooting expandables nowadays, and they they talk about you know, bigger entrance holes and bigger exit holes and you know, quicker, quicker, you know,

the deer expires faster. I'm I'm gonna start hitting stop watches or or go back and review some of this footage. I ended up shooting three der on that hunt, you know, one buck and two does, and uh, the iron Wheels performed amazing, Like I yeah, I don't know if if an expandable would have killed them any faster. You know, the buck was dead within seven seconds, maybe seven to ten.

The dough I could, you know, within seven to ten on a dead sprint, made it one hundred fifty yards, and then the one dough you know, died on arrival. You know, hit it, hit it kind of a downwards frontel through the shoulder, you know, was able to kind of just plant it and anchor it right there. So I really like that set up. Iron Wills do great. The bow was super comfortable to draw. I mean, I can imagine even if it was you know, cold, and

people have trouble drawing their normal draw away. Like just really easy to to make work on that hunt out of a tree. But that's kind of my wrap for twenty four. I don't know what twenty five brings were able to, you know, secure some tags already. Well, we'll see what Washington brings and then we've got I've got some really good odds of drawing the tags that I've been waiting for, and Montana, Colorado and Utah. So I'm gonna have to kind of figure out what i want

to do. But I'm kind of you know, we're just getting over with twenty twenty four and I'm already in twenty twenty five planning mode. So if you have any questions, is you know for us, you know, I kind of nerd out on planning and I've got, you know, in this state, I'm going to do this in this date,

I'm going to do this. If you have any questions on the draws or applications, we'll probably throw a podcast out on that coming up, just on how we think about it and how we manage all of the applications and what we're looking for in each state, and you know, we can give our opinion on what each state provides, but feel free to shoot those questions over to us. But we hope you all had a great twenty twenty

four and here's do a great twenty twenty five. And I can't thank you all enough for tuning into cutting the distance, take care of the times wish