As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance. This podcast is presented by Yedti Built for the Wild. Right now, I just want you to think back for a second. Think back to your very first hunt. How would you get into it? Now?
While you're thinking about that, there's a very large group of people listening to this podcast right now that have never hunted. So this week on Cutting the Distance podcast, I want to give those people the nine steps to get into hunting. Now, you might be thinking yourself, Hey, Remy, I've hunted my entire life. I don't need to hear
this podcast. Well, you'd be wrong, because I'm sure that you'll run into somebody that's interested to get into hunting, or there might be someone in your family maybe bringing your kid up into hunting. This will give you ways to help people get into the sport that are interested in a way that lays it out in a very formulaic plan that everybody can do. Honestly, the barrier to hunting is the fact that it's very hard to get into. I recognize that because I get so many messages daily
about people exploring it. They're listening to this podcast, they're watching videos, They're trying to figure out how they themselves can be a hunter. For me, I grew up hunting. If I were to think back to my very first hunt, it's just a compilation of so many different experiences. I started out before I could even walk, going on hunts with my dad being outdoors. I just grew up into it.
It was something that came natural. However, there are things later on in life, like bow hunting or duck hunting that I taught myself, but I already had the basics down. So for me to tell a story of my first hunt doesn't mean as much. But through guiding and other things,
I've taken countless people on their very first hunt. To me, it's an extremely exciting shared experience because I get to see people go through the process and understand what I love about hunting, about procuring my own food, about being self sufficient. Now, I'd really like to tell you maybe some stories of my first hunt, but I think the
best story is of my wife's first hunt. Throughout my life, there's been no more memorable experience as far as the first hunt goes, than when my wife took her very first year. My wife's hunting journey started long before she ever stepped foot in the field with a gun. Now, you might think, Okay, she's married to this professional hunter. Of course she would hunt. When we first started dating, she was familiar with hunting. Her dad hunted, but she'd
never been hunting her self. Now, I had no intentions of turning her into a hunter. That was just something that happened based on her own decisions. The one nice thing was she loved wild game meat, and I would cook it as often as I could Over the years while we were dating, she kind of started to think, man, I love to eat this game meat. I wonder what
it would be like to harvest it myself. Now, after about a year of dating, she just decided one day that she wanted to try hunting, and without talking to me or anything, she went onto the fishing game website signed up for hunter safety course. Her and actually uh friend of hers I grew up with Sarah. They decided to go take their hunter safety course together and at least that way, if she ever decided she wanted to
go hunting, she would be ready. What wasn't until about three years later she decided it was time to go. Earlier that year, she'd come up to Montana and this was at the point where now we're engaged. So through our dating process she never hunted, but it was just something that was inside of her that she said, you know, I like to eat. I see the process and the respect that my husband has for the animals. But on she thought to herself, she'll never fully understand the experience
unless she does it for herself. She doesn't know if she's gonna like it, she doesn't know if it's something she wants to continue to do, but she thinks at least she should try it. So in order to get her into it, I just thought, well, let's let's do a bird hunt. Now. As the big hunter that I am, I am going to guide her on a bird hunt. One of the things that I'm very careful of when I take a new hunter is I want the experience to be their experience. I don't want to pressure anybody
into anything. I want them to kind of understand the steps that it takes to hunt. I teach them through the process, but then I let them make decisions as well. Now she got a small game license in Montana and we just decided to go for a weekend in between my guiding. Unfortunately, this year, there were no grouse anywhere we hiked. We looked, it was just bad weather conditions. She walked away from her very first hunt with me unsuccessful, and it wasn't for lack of trying. It was just
that we couldn't find any animals. But throughout the weekend we were continuing. Up until that point, she practiced with her gun, she shot a shotgun, she'd shot a rifle. We went through all the process of just getting to that point going out in the field. But I actually think that that unsuccessful first trip really gave her an understanding of Wow, hunting isn't just going out and killing something.
There's a whole process behind it. So we're gonna fast forward A month or two later, we found ourselves on a trip to Hawaii and we had an opportunity where we could go out and hunt access here. It was towards the end of the trip and we didn't have a lot of time, so I borrowed a rifle from a friend. We went out to this hunting area and we started the morning hiking out just looking for a deer, an access dough, or something where she could possibly be
successful and have her first successful hunt. We started the morning working into the wind. There's a lot of tall grass in this area, quite a few deer, but it was just quiet. Everything was in the really thick grass. As we worked, the wind was good, but then the wind started to shift and blew out the canyon that we were planning on walking through, which is never good. It was just a bad set of circumstances. Because the wind changed. We decided to hike up and around and
come out this canyon from a different direction. While doing that, a deer had walked out across the hillside. I got her set up, she got the deer in the crosshairs. He was standing broadside for just a split second and then walked off. In those few split seconds, she knew she had a shot, but she didn't take it. Not because she didn't want to, but she just didn't feel comfortable. Afterwards, she was just kicking herself. Man, why didn't I shoot?
Had the great opportunity, that was probably my only chance. It didn't work. Out, and she's pretty bummed out. At that point. We'd already gone through a couple of unsuccessful hunts, but she had an opportunity and she just didn't act fast enough, which to me was fine. I preferred that she didn't rush a shot and make a bad shot on her first animal. I was very cognizant of making sure that she made a perfect shot. Well, we're about
out of time. I'm glassing way down the valley and I see some deer pop out on a hillside in the tall grass. Look at each other and think, let's go after those deer. This might be our last opportunity. We work over to that spot, and that's so thick there. The grass is way taller than the deer are. We're just sitting and they were out in the open, but now there's no dear to be seen. We're sitting down like they were right here. Let's just sit and wait.
So we sit. Wait. It's getting out to that point in the day where we got to turn around. So we start to walk up a little further, see if we can look down into the goalie a little bit better, and we blow out three deer, Like dang it, that sucks. They run off from across the valley. All I saw were three deer. Like, well, I'm sorry about that. We're just gonna have to go back. Daniel's like, I feel
like there's another deer here. Let's just wait. It's like you sure, and I thought, you know, there's something about hunter instincts. If she feels like she wants to wait, let's wait. So we sit down and wait. We're watching the hillside and a few minutes later, antler tips across the way. It walks out in the opening. I get Daniel set up and I'm gonna stop it because I can see its antlers, but I can't see its body.
It's walking to an opening about three ft wide, and I'm thinking as soon as it hits that opening, I'll try to stop it with a call and she'll get a shot. Well, the deer's walking through the grass. I'm anticipating that the sound's gonna take a little longer to get there. It's about a hundred and fifty yards, so I'm gonna call just before it hits the opening. I call. The buck hits the opening, but it stops with a
piece of grass covering its vitals. She has no shot, but the call turned the buck toward us, and now it's facing us, so I make another mew. Call These access dear. They're fairly vocal animals, so I just make a sound at it with my voice. I don't actually have a call with me, so I just make that chirp sound that the does tend to make. And the buck puts his head down and comes right toward us. And you'll get set up on a bush and the deer pops out at thirty five yards, turns broadside. She
pulls the trigger and drops the deer. She made a perfect shot. It was fast action, and she harvested her first dear. Now she went through a range of emotions because she wasn't sure how she was going to feel. This was the first thing she had ever killed, and she was crying. But when she walked up on it, she wasn't necessarily just sad, but she was also happy and excited. I could tell through the experience and how excited she was afterwards of the whole thing. She told
me that she'd never had those type of emotions. She now understood what it meant to be a hunter. She understood what I go through in the field. The whole process and why I love it so much. And it was really cool for me to see somebody latch onto it the way that I did, to see someone go through the same steps of becoming a hunter. From that
moment on, she was hooked. And for me, that was a really exciting day because I got to see my wife one get into hunting, but to really understand what drives me and why I love to go out there so much. You might have just listened to that story and thought to yourself, that's great, remy, I want to get into hunting, but I'm not married to a hunter. I don't know any hunters. I'm really on this, going at this on my own. Well, you're in luck because what I did was I decided to break down the
steps to getting into hunting. And these are steps that no matter if you grow up hunting or you're new to it, the process and the steps are all the same. Now, you might be lacking that mentor in the beginning, but if I think about my childhood and the things that I went through to become a hunter, or the things that my wife did to become a hunter, it's all the same. So what I did was I really just analyzed even growing up as a kid, What did I
have to go through to become a hunter? What did I do that pushed me in that direction, that allowed me to go out into the field to pursue hunting. So what I did to make it easy is I just broke it down into nine steps. These nine steps
to becoming a hunter. Now, whether you're getting your kids into hunting and you yourself hunt, whether you're a new hunter, you've never been hunting, or whether you have a friend that's just interested in it, I think that these steps will help guide them in the direction to at least go out on their first hunt, get their feet wet,
and see what it's all about. The first thing you need to do, one because it's a legal requirement, and to because it's just important to know, is you have to take a hunter safety course in order to buy a hunting license. Pretty much anywhere, hunter's safety's mandatory. Now, hunting can be dangerous as far as you're using a firearm. You need to know safety rules and procedures, and everybody
who's hunting acts by those same rules and procedures. One to prevent accidents and too, so everybody else out there safe. But that's the very first step you've got to take. If you're even thinking about hunting, or someone asks you, hey, you're a lifetime hunter, how do I start hunting? The first thing you should say is go take your hunter
safety course. Now, if that's you, right after this podcast, whatever state you live in, every state has a Department of Conservation of Fish and Game Office whatever it's called. It's called different things in different states. You go to their website and they will have a place where you can sign up and join a hunter safety class. Now it's pretty easy. There's just a online portion now for most of the part when I did it was a book,
and then there's still a field day. In the field day, they test you, They give you a test, and then you just have to perform some basic skills, not pointing a gun in anything, unloading a firearm. Now, if you're going through the course and you need more information, there's all kinds of websites and links and other things. They can give you more information on what you're learning. It also talks about the basics of the weapons and then as well as some few just ethical ways that you hunt.
Once you have your hunters Safety then you can go to step two. Step two is just gonna be planning your hunt, so you're gonna have to figure out what do you want to hunt. And just personally, if I think about how I started hunting, or if I'm going to suggest how to get into hunting to anyone else, I'm gonna say start with small game. There's a few reasons. One, wide open seasons. You can generally find small game seasons close to where you live, with easier access than a
lot of big game hunts. It also doesn't take as much investment of time in order to be successful. There's us a lot shorter learning curve when it comes to small game hunting, and there's a lot more opportunity because the seasons are longer and it gives you more chance to get out and try to hunt multiple days as opposed to taking one big chunk of time to focus on one animal with zero experience. So honestly, I'm going
to suggest to most people small game hunting. If I think back to the way I started hunting, it was chasing rabbits, quail, ducks, pheasants, small game with my dad. As a kid, I had hunted hundreds of days before I was ever even old enough to legally hunt big game animals. Just growing up taking a shotgun into the field with my dad hunting birds, hunting rabbits, that was the best way to gain hunting experience. Now in order to plan your hunt, the second thing you need to do.
Within planning your hunt is pick up your states regulations. Every hunter has to understand the rules and laws of where they're going to be hunting. The regulations are your starting point. So you're gonna pick up a set of regulations and read through them front to back as many times as it takes to really understand what are the rules, what are the laws, where do the open seasons? Where am I allowed to hunt? From there, that's how you're going to figure out where you're gonna go and start
planning these hunts. The importance of understanding what is my first hunt going to be? What am I gonna do? If you choose small game, then you can go into step three, which is picking your weapon and practicing with it. If you decide you're gonna small game hunt, maybe you're gonna pick up a shotgun. Jot guns are great for birds, small game like rabbits, or maybe a small caliber rifle.
Maybe you decided, well, you really want to get into bow hunting, so you're gonna have to pick up whatever weapon that you're gonna hunt with and practice with it. If I think about even just myself growing up hunting, my dad took us out skeet shooting, trap shooting. We shot b B guns, we shot small caliber rifles, we
shot our bows all the time. Before we ever stepped foot in the field, we had shot thousands of rounds at targets because we wanted to be lethal and proficient before ever setting foot into the field to hunt an animal. It all goes in with the ethics of hunting. As hunters, we want to show respect to the animals were hunting, so we want to be extremely proficient and well practiced before we ever stepped foot into the field. A lot of people probably think, oh, hunters just grab a gun
and go out into the woods. Well, there's a lot more that goes into the front end of it, and that I believe is why getting into hunting is so hard. People don't understand everything that goes into it. Just going on the hunt is a big endeavor, but building up to that hunt is where it all really comes down to. Being successful. Now that you've decided what weapon you're gonna hunt with, and what you're gonna hunt possibly where you're
gonna go. Step number four is very simple because if you're listening to the podcast, you're probably already doing it. It's to learn. If I think about bow hunting, I didn't know any bow hunters, but I loved shooting my little recurve in the backyard, so I got books on bow hunting. Now there's so many more resources. My resources
were books and magazines. I still believe that those are very strong resources, but there's also things like YouTube videos, podcast If you're listening to this podcast, this is a great hunting resource. Now if you are a new hunter going back and listening to these old podcasts, continuing to listen to future podcasts, it's going to be super helpful because even the people here they are listening that have
hunted their entire lives. There's always something to learn. Even myself, I've done this professionally since I was a young adult. I still learn daily and new tips and tactics, new things. I pick up new things. It's a constant learning. But just learning from others past experiences is a great way to just get the mindset of understanding what you're doing out there now. Step five is very horton and it can be the most difficult step if you really want
to get into hunting. Yes you can do it alone, but it's much easier if you have a mentor. There are plenty of hunters out there that would be willing to take new hunters. The trouble is connecting those people. So I always suggest to people that ask me, how do I get into hunting? Where do I start? If you can find someone that will just show you the ropes a little bit, get you over the hump of the learning curve of when you shoot an animal, now cleaning it and what do I do afterwards? And how
do I get to that point? Just having somebody that's been there before cuts the learning curve exponentially. And this is where if you've hunted your entire life, you come in because you can be this mentor that links up with somebody that wants to get into hunting. Now. I think the best way to meet other hunters is to
go to where hunters are. If you start back at step three, you're practicing with your weapon, You're gonna be at rifle ranges, trap clubs, archery ranges, you're gonna run into other people that are have the same endeavors, the same passions, because as you start to shoot and get better with your weapon, you're gonna enjoy the experience of shooting practicing, and there's other people out there that are
doing the same thing. But another great way to run into hunters, to intersect with people that do this a lot and are very passionate about it is through conservation organizations, things like backcountry Hunters and Anglers, pint Nights um, volunteering for Rocky Mountain, Elk Foundation, Duck's Unlimited Wild Sheep Foundation. Become a member of a conservation organization that has conservation principles based in hunting, and then find days where they
need volunteers. I mean there's everything from I've done volunteering with the Meal Dear Foundation collecting seed samples. You can do things with Sheep Foundation, building guzzlers. You can even do things where they might just be holding an event or a fundraiser. But it's a great way to interact with people who are passionate about hunting, who are passionate out conservation and have probably been hunting or their lives
revolve around hunting. Now if you intersect with those people and show them how eager you are to learn and the steps that you've gone through. You have your hunter's safety, you've been practicing with a weapon. It's a great way to find a mentor. Now you can go hunting without somebody that's done it before, but it's much easier if
you have somebody to show you the ropes. When I think about if I were hunting mentor if somebody came to me a new hunter, I think a lot of hunters the only reason they might be put off by, say a new hunter taking someone out, isn't because they don't want to get people into hunting and they don't want to help. It's because they probably don't want to give up their spots. It's a weird thing, but once you start hunting, you realize how hard it is to
come by good spots to hunt. And I think that one of the natural barriers to entry to hunting is that other hunters don't want to give up their spots to people they don't know, because a lot goes into those spots. So I always suggest to new hunters find a spot. Okay, So number seven is find a spot because a lot of hunting is about scouting now, whether you've hunted before or you've never hunted, find an area where you can hunt. Go back and listen to podcasts
understand ways to find animals. Go before the season even starts, without a weapon, Go for a hike, look for areas and find animals that you're gonna be hunting now. If you decide you're gonna go quail hunting, scout out areas where you might find quail where it's illegal to hunt. Get an onyx map app, find some public land, find some spots. Whether you've hunted before or not, you can go for a hike before the season and find areas
where you think you might get into animals. Later, then when you run into somebody that's a lifelong hunter, if you're more willing to say, hey, i've never hunted, I'd really like someone to show me the ropes. I've been out a few times before the season. I've been looking at some areas. It would be cool. Why don't you come to one of these areas that I've checked out. There are a lot more apps say yeah, that sounds great because their knowledge combined with you being willing to say, look,
I'm not trying to hunt where you hunt. I just want to get into it, and I'm really investing into this. I'm really serious about it. They're probably more likely to be like, yeah, let's go there, I'll show you how to hunt it. Most guys just using their knowledge, it's going to be exponentially beneficial to you finding success early as well as just learning the ropes on what happens when you're shoot an animal, how you gut it, how
you clean it, how you process things. So that's a great way to really get a mentor to say, yeah, man, I'll go out hunting with you, especially if you're investing and putting time into scouting. Now, if you put that time into scouting, you may not even need somebody to show you the ropes because you're putting in that time. You're finding the animals yourself, and you're gonna be successful by putting in the work. Now that you've got the spot,
maybe you've got a mentor maybe you don't. Step eight is it's time to hunt. It really just involves taking what you've learned through your research, taking your practice shooting, and then going into the field when the seasons open with a tag or a license in your pocket and hunting. A lot of hunting. Once you start doing it, you're gonna find that it's very instinctual in some ways and very new in others. But that's the part of the process.
It's a learning experience every time you go out. If you aren't successful the first time you go out, what did you do wrong? Did you not find anything? Okay, maybe you need to find another spot, or maybe you didn't find anything, but you know that you've seen animals there in the past. Maybe you go back to that spot, maybe you hunt at different time. You know, you just go out hunting and then you learn from your experiences and if you are successful or aren't successful, step nine
is you repeat the hunting. A lot of hunting comes down to persistence, even for guys that are really good at it. The more persistent you are, the more likely you're going to be to find success. Now, maybe you're listening to this and you're a lifelong hunter, Well that's perfect because you're the exact type of mentor that new hunters need. I've spent my entire life hunting, and I was very fortunate that my dad got me into it. But he did it the right way. He let us
decide that hunting was for us. He never pressured me into it. He always let us be a part of the hunts. He let us make decisions. He made it fun for us. He didn't push us too hard, but he let us know that this is something that's difficult. It's a task that is very serious and if you want to do it, you have to take it seriously.
But on the other hand, he made it fun for us. Actually, a brother in law in mine just this holiday season was like, hey, man, if I wanted to get my kids into hunting with all the other stuff out there, He's not a hunter, but he said, how how would I do that? How would I go about getting my kids into hunting? And started thinking about it was like the way that I got into his the same nine steps that I just gave. Do those steps get maybe
a B begun? I started shooting a little red writer b begun at cans, And that's probably what got me into hunting the most, shooting cans with a red rider be begun in the desert with my dad, you know, because I could then visualize that going into hunting, and then going on trips with my dad, going out hunting,
being a part of that experience. One thing I've noticed through guiding and just taking new hunters out is it makes me a better hunter because when you're teaching somebody something new, you really analyze the tactics that you use and verbalize them, and what that does is in your mind, that creates a deeper learning and knowledge base of what you know by just having to verbally tell someone else and take them through that experience, the best way to
improve your skills is to teach someone else what you know. Honestly, when you're a guide or when you're taking a new hunter, you start thinking about all the little things because what you have to do for a new hunter is you kind of show them the ropes in a way that you make fewer miss steaks because you're not just hunting for yourself. You're taking somebody with no skills or brand new abilities and trying to make them successful. And through
that process you learn a lot more. You pay attention to a little bit more, you're telling them ways and things that work for you, and as you're doing that, you're getting better as well. So if you are a lifelong hunter, if you want to up your skills, take somebody new hunting It's a great way to not only improve your skills as a hunter, but to just help
hunting overall. If it's a sport you love, the more people that can get into it and understand what it's like for themselves, just like my wife did the moment that she became a hunter, that she took her first animal, she understood the emotion and what it is to me and why I go out there. You know, she really verbalized it better than anyone I know when she said it was like the most vivid experience I've ever had. It was so new, but yet felt so familiar at
the same time. And that's just an experience that only a hunter knows. So if you can make somebody else experience that and be there and help them through that process, I think it's a win win for everyone. Now. I hope that whether you're a brand new hunter or you've hunted your entire life, you took something away from that podcast. I really appreciate everybody's input, you know. The messages that you send me are a lot of times the things
that become podcasts. I got so many messages from people that are like the reason I'm listening to this podcasts I'm a new hunter, and I also get a lot of messages from people that have hunted their entire life and listen to this podcast. So I don't want to alienate anyone, but I also want to make sure that everybody has some kind of takeaway. You spent your valuable time listening to me, so I want to make sure that you walk away with something that you deem is valuable.
And I really think that today's podcast is valuable for a lot of different people. It doesn't matter if you've hunted your whole life or not. If you are kind of interested in hunting and somebody pointed you to this podcast, do yourself a huge favor. Just subscribe, keep checking back, download the new episodes, and listen to them on your own free time when you get the chance. Because just
listening throughout the year, I've covered so many topics. And the way I break this podcast down is two ways. I like to tell a story because as hunters, hunting stories and that's what got me into hunting, really just hearing stories of my dad and uncle going out hunting, and then me and my friends telling hunting stories growing up, like trips that we've been on. It's a huge learning process and experience just listening to stories, but it's also
entertaining and I hope that it's entertaining to you. And then I try to break down some tips for all types of hunting, and a lot of those tips should translate into other forms of hunting. Now, maybe you're listening and you live in Australia and you hunt red deer and roosa deer, but a lot of the tips from the glass ng and the mule deer hunting and the elk calling like those can trans late to so many species.
So maybe I'm not covering your topic today, But overall, if you listen to everything is a collection, you're going to become a better hunter. And that's the whole point of this podcast. So I really appreciate you guys listening in and thank you very much for your time. As always, feel free to reach out, give me some input, tell me what you like, tell me what you want to hear, because those will be future podcasts going forward. So until next week, keep learning, keep hunting.