Ep. 35: Answering Your Questions, Part 5

of great response. This week, we're doing our Q and A and we've got a lot of topics, a lot of questions came in. I think we'll touch a little bit on some of the bear questions that came in. We'll also talk a little bit about gear, We'll go into a little bit of fitness stuff, some general questions, and then uh finish it up with a little bit

of life advice. So yeah, let's get started. And also, I really want to thank everybody before we get too deep into this for for just the the action and the response and the questions and the the email and through social media, a ton of great stuff. I really appreciate it, and I wish I could answer all of them.

But we'll just get going and I think some of these had a few of similar topics, So I would say this first question I got, I probably saw no less than fifty variations of this this exact question, which happens to do with hunting bears. In the false we'll start off with a little bit of bear stuff and then jump to some other topics. This one says, Hey, Remmy, I really enjoyed your most recent episode of cutting the Distance. I drew a false spot in stock bear tag for

unit in Utah. It will be my first time hunting bears. I'm trying to absorb as much information that will be useful for me this fall. Any show information on top of the already great tips you've shared would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. And that's from Garrett. Now, that's a great question, and fall bear hunting can be a really good time to chase them as well. Now I don't know when this particular season is, but if I was to choose season dates in the fall, I would look toward the month

of September. Early September through mid to late September can be the best. Once you get past that, it gets really hard to find specific food sources. Bears disperse. They get into more timber, and I find it hard to regularly find bears. But early fall or even some states have a season that starts in August. While their their coats aren't ideal, then they can be easily pinpointed on

food sources. So early fall, if we're talking September, what I really look for is and it depends your region, but barry berry crop production um, whether it be you know, if you're in the Mountain West, you've got huckleberries, uh. In the Pacific Northwest you've got more of like raspberries, blueberries uh in Alaska blueberries. So like berries can be

extremely good food sources to concentrate on. Now outside of like Alaska fall salmon runs and stuff like that, I would say some other food sources in some drier areas to think about, I know, like Nevada, California, and also Utah rose hips or a great food source in the fall to focus on, as well as things like pine nuts, um, pinion pines, ponderosa pines even sometimes but pine nuts depending on the time of year. Now, fall food sources can

be a little bit tricky to pinpoint. So if you were to just think, okay, well, what food sources I'm gonna find. Uh, it really depends on the type of summer. If there's a lot of water, not a lot of water. A lot depends on what's growing where. So in lean years, lean water years where berry productions bad, I focus more on watered canyons choked with maybe more rose hip and stuff like that, as well as in the fall is

a great time to focus on water sources. There's a lot of food around more wet areas if it was drier, and on hot days, you can even focus on maybe like elk wallows and other water sources, so you'll find them interacting with the food sources, but you also find bears hitting up those water sources, especially when it's hot. I mentioned in one of the earlier podcasts about what I learned, you know, seeing a trail camera in an elk wall and how many bears were actually using that

and it was just shocking and surprising. But I do find consistently a lot of bears in those wetter areas on dry years, and then I focus on in more wet years where the berries are good. Try to find really good berry patches close to thicker cover and possibly in areas where they might move up to um Den, so looking you know, later in the season, maybe moving towards some of those areas that you focus on early in the spring, and so you can kind of play it that way. But the fall can be a great

time to hunt bears. Is just the same scenario, focusing on the food sources that time year. It's mostly berries. You've also got in the Southwest, acorn production can be good some years, and just really figuring out, Okay, what what food sources are popping off right now, and how do I focus on those and find the places where it's good bear habitat. But it's got a high density

of food. If you do that, you'll be successful. Another thing before I get off the topic, one other thing to think about in the fall is bears will will tend to eat more like carry on dead animals that they find um hunter harvest, like if a hunter is shot and left a gut pile of an elk, you know. Even checking back in those areas and seeing if something's it a carcass that you find or whatever is also another way to find bears in the fall. Alright, let's

move on to the next the next bear question. This question comes from Mark in Nevada. He says, listening to your latest bear hunting podcasts, questions for you for next week's Q and A other than cooking bear meat to a hundred and sixty five degrees, do you treat it any different from deer, elk or other game meat. I know some people send the whole thing through the grinder. That's a great question. Bear meat can be awesome if

prepared right. I think some people might find it more off putting because they say it's greasy, and that's probably lends to why it gets put into sausage and other things. Another factor he mentioned, now, if you aren't familiar with the hundred and sixty five degrees, it is because bears can contain trick gnosis, and so if you don't cook the meat to the right temperature, you yourself can contract

trick gnosis. So it's super important. Now, Yes, I treat it different and deer or cook it, cook it different than deer and other game meat because you do have to hit that high temperature. When I'm cooking elk steak or deer steak, I'm normally pulling it off the grill at I really like it medium, where I don't want to overcook it. So when I do cook bear meat, I always tend to use recipes that I know I'm going to hit that high temperature, but also where it

still tastes good. So for me, a lot of bear cooking is more. I don't do a lot of steaks. I do a lot more slow cooking. I'll do like, um, some of my favorite bear recipes are slow cooked, like pulled pork style. Um, I'll throw it in a crock pot. I'll first season it with some seasoning, all brown it in a pan. Then I'll throw it in a crock pot with a little bit of oil in the bottom and maybe an onion or something. Let it go on high for about five hours to where it's easily pulled

apart with a fork. Then I'll shred it, mix it with some barbecue sauce, make like pulled pulled pork sandwiches. Also, slow cooked roasts is a great way uh slow cooking. You know, it tends to dry other game meat out, but bear meat, it does have that extra fat, and that extra fat isn't bad. It doesn't taste bad, especially once it's cooked down. So you slow cook it in a recipe like that and you've got a really tender, great meat that has hit that temperature, clearly killed trick,

gnosis and safety, eat and taste good. And I think that that's what I like to do. I also will use like the smoker do almost like a beef brisket style recipe on the barbecue. Anything where it's it's kind of low and slow but then gets that temperature over.

That one is a great way to go. Some other options include, like I do a lot of like tacos or enchiladas, stuff like that, where I can slow roast the meat and some enchilada sauce for five six hours, get it super hot to where its shreds, and then go with it from there. All right, we've got one more bear question, then we'll move on to some other topics. So this one comes from Lauren in Texas. She's a huge fan of your podcast. My boyfriend and I are going on a spring bear hunt in Idaho this year

and love listening to the last episode together. So I've got a question, and it might seem extremely elementary, how do you guys find your way through the woods to a hunting spot and back to camp. I didn't grow up hunting or in the woods. But when I'm out in the forest or in the woods, everyone always seems to have a grasp on where we are, but me any tips on directional intelligence or how to navigate through

the field when hunting, especially spot and stock. Yeah, I think that that's actually a great question, Lauren, because it's not super elementary being really good navigating in the mountains in the woods, it takes there. There's a portion of it that that kind of becomes innate, but it can also be trained. So here's some of the things that I always tell people that are just getting into it.

The first one is it depends on whether you're leading or following how much attention you're paying to where you're going. And so if you're by yourself or leading, you're looking around, you're you're analyzing where you're going. When you're following someone else, and and this is just starting out. When you're if you're following someone else, you know you're you're mostly just

going where they go. So what you have to do whether you're following someone else or leading, I think a lot of people like when I'm even when I'm guiding of people following me, and when we get somewhere, they have no clue where they're at. Well, it's because they aren't actively looking around and actively bringing into remembrance where they're going, what's going on. So these tips can be translated.

It's like, if I'm just walking in the woods by myself, is something important to do and there's something important for everyone to think about doing when you're in the woods with someone else or by yourself. Using some of these tips if you have if you're a little bit directionally challenged, So the first thing is kind of knowing your cardinal

directions is huge. Now where the sun is and how you got into an area, and understanding the area that you're out by looking at a map ahead of time really helps you kind of picture the layout of the area. So always before I go in, I'll pull out my maps and I'll look over the area and say, Okay, here's where I'm at, here's where I'm going. Now, kind of think about the road that you drove in on. Now, which direction on the map is that going north, south,

east west. Now, when you're sitting at the trailhead or wherever you are, Okay, which way is the road that I drove in on? Which way does the canyon go? Does the canyon go north south? Does it go east west? Then also understanding directions based on the sun, So the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. Okay, Now, in the middle of the day, it might be hard to tell which direction. But as you're going into an area, Okay, did the sun rise on this side of where I am?

Did the sunrise on that side of where I am? Direction finding where you're at can be easy in really open areas because you'll use landmarks as a very visual visual process looking around, using peaks and identifying peaks and other things around you. The easiest way to get lost is in flat places that are thick and and hard

to kind of pick out a definitive landmark. So what I have always been told, and this I know works really well, is as you're walking around, you know, you want to walk with your head up, you want to be looking around, and as you see things, you kind

of create a story of what you see. Now, what this is doing is it's just using memorization techniques of creating what I would call a memory palace, or making something that you might not notice into something that's familiar by telling yourself a story I'd heard that this was a way that Native Americans had traveled over long distances and learned navigation techniques by just like creating stories about things that they saw, and then they could relay some

of these stories to help other people find their direction. Now how true that is or what, I don't know, but it does make a lot of sense. If you're walking around you see a certain tree or a creek, create a story in a narrative that's easy to remember, that helps you kind of associate where you are with what's going around. The other thing that this does is it gets your head up, gets you paying attention to

what's around you and really critically thinking about it. So when you then come back and see these landmarks or features in the hills or creeks, depressions, trees, strange rocks, just different stuff, it gives you a good idea of knowing that, Okay, I'm on my way back, I'm here there whatever. Over time, you just your your brain kind of starts to remember where you are and you start

to learn based on directional feeling. It's funny because for a very very very long time, I never relied on gps IS and I never had problems finding my way back. But it was just doing it time and time again, and it would just even a place that I've never been, could find my way back every time, even walking back almost on the same routes over long distances, just based on the way that it feels and the direction that I'm going. Your body does over time learn how to navigate.

But when you're starting out, it's just a matter of paying attention, getting your mind critically thinking, always looking up, and then never forget to look behind you where you came from, because as you're walking out of somewhere, you're always looking at a different view. So I'm constantly scanning around and never forgetting to look behind and understanding what it looks like on my way back. And then use your mapping and GPS software, but don't rely on it.

Use it as a instrument to help you. But also, you know, get good at directional sense and just navigation without those electronics, but have it so you can kind of understand as you're going. Looking at a map while you're walking is a great way to understand your direction

and where you're going as well. I might have spend a little too much time on that, but I I really think that that's a skill that a lot of people struggle with and probably don't admit to, or a lot of people admit to it, but they just don't know how to fix it. They just think, oh, people that are good at finding their way or just naturally good at it, and it comes with practice and time. But those are some tricks that you can use to get way better at it. So I really like that question.

All right, let's go into some gear right now. UM, I get a lot of gear questions. Actually I'll read this question, then I'll jump on one that I just saw a lot. This one says my name is Dan, and I'm thinking about getting started on elk hunts that will be camping, backpacking into the mountains for a week or so at a time. What size backpack do you recommend when starting out to have enough room for supplies and to carry out meat when an elk is harvested.

That's a great question. So if we're talking backpacks, it's got to first have a frame of some kind, either internal or external. I think that should just be obvious, but it may not be to some people. So you want a good sturdy pack with an internal external frame. Uh, you want straps they're adjustable, and then a waist belt the fits. Having the right pack is a pack that you can adjust to your specific torso length. Now, outside of that, I really like packs for week long trips.

I'm trying to look for something in the six thousand cubic range. The pack that I use is actually a stone Glacier pack. They have all kinds of different frames and bags and and whatever. The larger the six any bags and that six thousand range seemed to work really good, but I've even gone with bags in the three to

four thousand cubic range. It's just that the stone Glacier pack that I use happens to have like a pull away shelf, so you can actually pull the bag away from the frame itself and slide say a quarter or whatever in between the pack frame and the bag. Having some kind of expandability is huge as far as taking in your gear and then packing stuff out. Now, you've got to realize, if you're going in for a week, most of your weight and bulk going in is going

to be food that you're taking in. So if I run out a room, if I have a smaller pack bag, having something that pulls away from the framework and stuff it in the load shelf. Um, I'll kind of use that to bring my food in, and then on the way out, you know, you don't have as much food, and in that kind of stuff, that's pretty much you've eaten it along the way, so you can use that space then to pack stuff out. Now you might be making multiple trips, but having a little bit extra room

is always nice. So once you go in you can have your camp all your set up, and then on the way out you can at least take some meat, and then you might have to go make another trip once you drop off either your camp stuff or some of the meat, and then make multiple trips packing out. But anything in that cubic range is about is what I would consider a large pack and a pretty good size for any kind of hunt week long where you you're gonna be packing meat as well. Alright, So let's

get into fitness type prep questions. And I think these are great because so much Western hunting can be physical, and a lot of your success is just gonna depend on whether you can go that next ridge, whether you can get up to that spot in time. So I think that this is just a huge part of it that maybe doesn't get talked about enough, So this question reads, thanks for producing some of the best hunting content out there. I find your content informative, inspiring, hard earned, and accurate.

This person works full time and they're hunting times a little bit short, but they've identified some productive areas, you know, using some of the scouting techniques, found some places with some good elevation gains that they're hoping will have less pressure. So to take advantage of those I'm kind of paraphrasing her, but to take advantage of those off road hunting opportunities

in more steep country. They're trying to get into better shape, and so they've got two routes in town that they can walk with a pack, and he does it three times per week. He says. The first route is four miles nearly two miles uphill and then the same distance downhill, with a very short distance on the flats. The elevation gain is moderate. His second route is three quarters of a mile total round trip, and his leg burning steep. He repeats that six times and then he's got his

four miles. In my experience, which one of those routes is more effective training steady elevation gain over distance or short but steep gain repeated multiple times. That is a great question. That question is from Scott from Idaho, and that's that's a great question, Scott. So in the past, I think that one of the ways that I kind of trained to get in really good shape to keep going, especially before guiding season or whatever, is I would pick a really steep hill and and work that hill where

you get that leg burn. I'm not an exercise physiologist by any mean, but what I have found is that once you get that lactic acid building up, working through that really builds up your endurance that you kind of need for the hunt. So I found just starting out there was a steep hill and the first time I'd have a pack on, I'd walk up it and it was it was a pretty it was probably longer than some of your hills sounds like, but it was one of those hills where I'd start walking and it's like,

oh my gosh, my legs are burning. I need to stop. And then I would stop and see how long it's taking me recover, and then keep walking. So what I found was I started one day just had this idea that I'm gonna walk up this steep hill, and no

matter what, I'm not going to stop. So I would walk up it and it's like my legs would be burning and almost want to stop, and I would just kind of like start walking different any way to keep moving and not stop, just keep that leg burning, burning, burning, and I would actually like go walking normal and it's like, oh my gosh, I have to I can't walk, And then I would turn around and start walking up the hill backwards. Were like sidestepping anything I had to do

to keep going, just not stop. It's like as long as I kept some kind of forward motion and just press onto the top. The next day do the same thing, and over time I then became where it was just like walking up that hill was just like walking on flat ground. What it did was it built and strengthened the muscles and my legs, but also taught my legs like how to It just gave me a little bit more endurance space, and that steep hill did it in

a lot shorter time. It also helped build up my lungs and train the way that I controlled my breathing. So as I was going huffing and puffing, I would intentionally try to slow my heart rate and slow my breathing while my legs were burning. By doing that, over time, I just got better at going uphill, doing it fast,

doing it efficiently, and really using my oxygen better. So that's just one way that I've trained, and I think that doing that made me so much better at hiking, where to be honest, I almost prefer to go uphill in many instances than downhill or side hill or even on flat ground because I just have done that training for that steep uphill, which seems to be the stuff

that I encounter elk and deer hunting. Now, I think that because you have both options, I would do the steep uphill twice and then the long gradual once a week. If I was doing it three times a week, that way gives you a little bit of everything. And if you can find a longer, steeper hill, find that something where you can go up, up, up, and it's like you feel like you have to stop, and then kind of measure your progression based on how far you can

get without stopping. And at some point it's gonna become easy to go up that one hill, and at some point you're gonna now be able to work on your breathing, work on your lung capacity, and that's just gonna translate into being able to do that all day long. I

think so that I would give a try if you can. Now, if you're the type of person that lives somewhere where you don't have access to hills, I mean even I don't know, I mean like treadmills on inclines and kind of trying to do that maybe a little bit faster pace in a jog or I've never really used one, but those like stair masters, I know some people have used that in the same like stair climb or climbing up sets of stairs through stairwells and other stuff that

can really help. So just building that endurance for being able to push your body when it wants to stop, just saying okay, keep going, keep moving, and just it doesn't have to be fast, but just don't stop. I feel like that's the best way to train and keep yourself going. I asked UH last week for a little bit of life advice if anybody had some or wanted some stuff that just you know, anything, And this one I think is really timely for what's going on right

now with a little COVID thing. He says, Hey, Manny, big fan of the podcast. Question for you. I've been hunting a small farm for wild turkeys for the past two seasons. Obtained permission by cold emailing the owner, and it's been a good successful spot so far. I've had some text exchanges with the owner when the season was going, mainly saying when I'd be there when I was gone,

and I haven't corresponded with him since fall season. My question is this, with this coronavirus madness going on, is it weird or insensitive to text him after a few months to ask about the spring season. I'm trying not to be a dick, but i also want to turkey hunt. Thanks a Prentice. That is a great question because it really takes into consideration a lot of things, and yeah, we're in a situation where we've never been. Here's my thought on it. I think that it's never a bad thing,

especially in this time, to reach out to people. You know, you may not have actually ever even met this person, just through emails or texts or whatever, but you know, keeping those relationships up is is always a good thing. And with what's going on right now, if you have uh, you've had permission in the past. You know, if this wasn't going on, you would probably feel free to reach out. But I say reach out with a genuine, um pretense of how are they doing? You know, say, hey, I

was thinking about you. You know, I just want to check in on you and your family. Hope all is going well, you know, say, you know, with whatever is going on, you know, all this craziness, I'm looking forward to getting out and was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I hunted this spring season there, you know, say, you know, with whatever is going on, I understand either way. Um. Also, if there's anything you need or I can help you with, please let me know. Because it's a great it's a

great time to reach out. I think it's probably the best time and and a better opportunity to reach out. I think if you just said, hey, can I go hunting? Am I in h what's the deal kind of thing? Yeah, that might be taken wrong. It's like everybody's got their own stuff to think about, but you know, reach out to them, Uh, see how they're doing. You know, mentioned the fact that obviously it would be great to get

out and go from there and see if they need anything. Um, there's probably a lot of things that they could do or whatever that might help them out as well. So you never know, you might build a better relationship. And if they say no, hey, that's cool and uh, you know, maybe reach out at different time. Maybe now is not the time, but I think that there's never a bad time to check in on someone to um be cordial, and I think that they'll probably uh respond well to that.

I thank everybody for tuning in. Gosh, it was a lot of great questions. I try. I'll try to answer some more of them, the ones that have come in through social media and stuff. I'll send you guys messages

on some of that. But I tried to pick some of the questions that really hit topics that I saw asked a lot as always, feel free if this brings up more questions, or you have more questions of your question wasn't answered, feel free to shoot me a message because I like to try to read a few of them in the closings after every every week, just maybe

touch on a couple that I didn't get to. And also, you know, I love the interaction because it gives me an opportunity to understand what people want to hear about the kind of topics that people want to hear, and it gives me an idea of what to talk about

that I think will benefit the most people. Um next week, you know, I'm not actually set on what I want to talk about next week, but I'm thinking there was a lot of questions about thermals and wind and I did actually touch on that a little bit in a previous Q and A, but it would be cool to just go a little bit deeper into that. Maybe we'll talk about that. I've got some other topics that i'd love I like to talk about, persistence being one of them.

You know, some more scouting from home ideas, especially with a little bit of downtime and applications going on, some of that kind of stuff. So if there's some other things you guys want to hear about, shootout. I've also got a lot of stuff planned for the future as far as a lot of the stions that come in

or about elk and mule deer. So that's why I try to talk about those a lot um and we will before this fall kind of hit on some some serious Elk tactics because I love talking about that, and that's a lot of fun, and I think that that's probably one of the things that everybody's dreaming about or thinking about right now fall seasons. I know a lot of you are gonna be turkey hunting. If you've got if you use some of these tips, or you've got hunts planned, reach out. Let's let's make this a two

way communication. You can always get me on at remy warrant at Instagram if you're looking for some stuff to do, you're a little bit bored, maybe you're home quarantined. You've listened to all these podcasts four times. I think I got a few comments of people that have already listened to about every Cutting the Distance episode for the fourth time. Now we've got the solo Hunter TV show that I do. We've got we put all our episodes that we have

so far on both YouTube and Amazon Prime. So if you haven't seen those, you can check those out, or if you have seen him, you can go rewatch them. There's some there's some cool hunts on there. Maybe get get stoked up for something that you're gonna do this fall. I know I've personally been kind of checking out different videos. I've watched a few Spring Bear hunting videos. I've seen

some cool stuff. Man, I'm missing the rower in New Zealand, and so are many of the kiwi's because the public lands were pretty have pretty much been shut down for hunting right now until all this blows over. So although I missed the roarer this year, I think everybody did, so it's kind of a combined ouch. Actually right now is supposed to be in Argentina filming a Sacco Great Hunt Series video for red Deer down in Argentina, and I just like super excited about it, and obviously, you know,

plans change. But what I'm really looking forward to now is I'm gonna do some additional turkey hunting this year. It's one of those things that I kind of always put on the back burner, but it is a lot of fun. A lot of you out there, you know, talking about it, pumped on it. So I'm kind of getting pumped up for that. Been watching some turkey stuff

and and a lot of spring bear stuff. Kind of getting excited about that because normally I'm gone this time of year in the South Pacific somewhere hunting tar red deer, fali deer or something like that. So uh, to get back and do some a little bit earlier season spring bear hunting, all those tips that I talked about, that's the way I'm gonna be hunting. And I'm pretty excited about that. So feel free to reach out communicate with me,

and yeah, well we'll get through this. I'm I'm excited for some of the future episodes, and I just really appreciate everybody's comments, ratings, you know, he definitely um. If you're listening and you you aren't a subscriber, feel free jump on hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you you listen to the podcasts and then share them with some friends. If if you got some guys or gals out there you know might enjoy this while they're at home,

please share it up. All right until next week, Catch you guys later.