Ep. 40: Guiding a Hunter to a Trophy Montana Whitetail and Perfecting the Process of Exploring New Country

schedule for the season. Now what do you do? Last week I talked about ways that you could find tags to apply for, find hunts to go on, and then ways that while you're at home you can eat scout and map scout and plan out your hunt by locating areas that really focus on the type of hunting that you like to do. This week is the boots on the ground portion, and it's the first steps that I take when I go into a new area. Honestly, most of the places I venture into the area is completely

new to me. So I have this process that I go through to help me locate the most productive areas to focus my efforts. And then I follow my plan that I made from home. I start by hunting for a place to hunt and confirming spots based on my plan through previewing an area, locating high percentage spots, and adapting to what I find. But before we go into that, I want to share the story of how I found the biggest white tail I've ever seen while guiding in

an area I'd never been. This story takes place in early archery season in northwest Montana. Now, when I was first starting out guiding, I was pretty eager to just get any work that I could. The outfit that it worked for, he actually had an an operation in quite a few different places, and because of that, I got the opportunity to hunt some places that I hadn't really hunted before. At the time, I was very familiar with a couple areas and that's where he did most of

his rifle season hunts and some archery hunts. But early in the season he actually ran an outfit right kind of around the Bob Marshall Wilderness in some of the areas in northwest Montana. On this particular hunt, it was the first week of the archery season and he had some clients coming in looking for white tails. Now, this this one particular area was known for big white tail Bucks, but his mountain hunting really thick timbered country and could

definitely be a difficult hunt. The guide that he had planned for that hunt, something happened to him. He wasn't able to make it, so he needed a guide, and I was really eager to step up and get some work, so I figured, yet I'm in. The trouble was that the season started I think four days from this point that I you that I was going to be guiding up there, and I wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to put these guys on

deer and give him a good hunt. So I pretty much as soon as I got the call, drove all night to the spot, met up with the outfitter I was working for, kind of talk to him about some of the spots that he liked to hunt in places to go. I had all the paper maps for the area, so at the time, there was no note. I mean, there's it's so much easier now when I think back on it, but at the time, you know, I had a stack of paper maps and it had roads, it

had topo lines, and that was pretty much it. I also had a GPS, but the GPS had no mapping software on it. It had no topo lines. It just had you could like pin away point and it would give you coordinates that I could then cross reference on a map if needed. So after talking with him, I also thought, okay, this is this is timbered country. I know what white tails like. They need some of that open as well, especially early season. It was one of those long springs, so the antler growth that most of

the year would probably still be in velvet. So I figured, I'm gonna look for some more open areas. You know, I had heard from talking to people that the bucks tended to be bachelored up still in the high country, and there's still some really good lowland stuff that I wanted to check out. But I looked over the maps and kind of located some areas that I thought looked

really good to me. Then I also even talked to some people who work for the Forest Service about places that had been logged recently and some older logged areas. Because my thought was there was a lot of logging roads and a lot of hiking trails in the area. I wanted to kind of pick some areas that maybe the timber had been cut out a little bit, providing

really good habitat for the white tails. Most of the other areas I'd hut in Montana were burns or more open, so I wanted to find in this real thick timber, some good logged areas that are maybe two years old, a little bit of growth where they felt secure but open enough where you know, it provided good feed and their sensitive antlers for their summer habits wouldn't really be affected. So I kind of focused in on those areas. I then pretty much just jumped in my truck, which was

called the Rambo truck at the time. There's a big, lifted giant dodge that got about eight miles to the gallon I think maybe less Luckily gas wasn't as expensive visit became a few years later, and I would just start driving the logging roads and with my maps in hand, learning where I'm going, and just kind of pre viewing windows, shopping and seeing what's around, what kind of terrain is available,

what everything looks like. There wasn't any way that I could look at it online or anything at that time, and there definitely wasn't any self service either, so that wasn't going to be an option. But I just I used my time to really learn where I was going. And then I even would get to a trailhead or a locked gate, I would put on my jogging shoes and then I would just jog these trails, logging roads, whatever, and just kind of see it's around, what the terrain

looks like. I had my GPS on me, and if there was a spot that looked good, I would pin it market and then every night I would go back on the map and put little pins on places that I thought were good, and then just wrote out a list of notes from what I saw that looked great.

I also checked out some of the lower stuff while scouting and found some good like what I consider basket rack bucks, some of those smaller age class dear, and then I found a spot that had some pretty good trails and had some one twenty one thirty type bucks, so I thought, oh, those would be those would be perfect.

So it was the day before the hunters came in and I was talking without fit Her and he's like, yeah, I guess these guys only want to hunt giant bucks like trophy one fifty type bucks are better, And I'm thinking to myself, I already had this plan in my head of Okay, there's some good deer in this lower country, so we're going to kind of hunt some of that. Hearing that, I'm like, oh crap, Now I got to readjust my plan. So I started looking at some of

the higher elevation areas. There's one area that had a really long road, and I noticed on the map that there was a spot where I could maybe get to what looked like it would be a glassing knob, and I'd heard that after talking four service. There was like some what I was looking for, some of that freshly timbered country, maybe a couple of years old, just logged two years before. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna go try this spot out. I started jogging the road and realized, man,

this is a long ways back here. So I dropped down the creek bottom went up to that point, and sure enough it opened up in this logging area that was many miles on the road to get to. Yet I kind of cross country through some thick, nasty, steep stuff and got there in a mile. I was like, sweet. So I go back to my truck and then just

start checking more and more areas. I think on my GPS I had gone I mean it's long days that time of year, but I think I'd gone close to thirty five forty miles just jogging and hiking and checking out areas. In those days that I was scouting. I was just going like a madman, trying to figure just trying to find animals, but fine spots that looked good to me. So the hunters show up in camp, get them all settled, and I'm actually excited because I'm like,

I've seen some good areas. I think with a little bit of time, we can focus on these spots. So we get out and we check a couple of There's a couple logging roads and things that I had marked early on in the scouting that that looked good. We saw a few smaller bucks, but nothing really that the guys are after. And I got to keep in mind it is also a bow hunt, so it's like a big country, a lot of mountains. It's like a mountainous

white tail bow hunt. So it's very difficult task. But I felt up to it, and I felt fairly confident that we would find something good. After the first day, we actually ended up chasing They had elk tags as well, and we ended up chasing some bulls up in this little meadow park area. I found this really awesome moose shed. While we're in there, I was calling this one bull in and he just never fully committed. Its real thick timber, and I think his cows just ended up wandering off.

And it was one of those experiences we really like, Oh man, that was so close to getting that bull and didn't work out. So the next day I just decided, I know these guys are really into white tails, let's let's go check that spot that I had to drop down to the canyon and then walk up the really steep hillside and get to that point. I knew that

it was going to be not that far. It's like a mile, but to get in there walking on the roads was a lot of miles, and I was like, there's no way you could do that before daylight without just walk starting at midnight and get in there. But that shortcut, I think we can do that. We'll be up really early, but I think we can do that. We get up there. The guys are calling it the

jungle like it was not. They were not super happy about the climb up in there, but I thought, trust me, this is the fastest way and we can just walk the road out if we have to. So we get up into that spot, get set up before dark, and as it starts to get light, glass in that area. And when I was in there the first time, I just like in the middle, it was this little creek

running down. I just thought this is perfect. And there's all these little willows poking up in the creek, and it was like more overgrown in some of that stuff. So I started focusing in that, thinking, well, maybe these deer watering in the morning. And I'm looking in that and all of a sudden, I see as it starts to get like like a flick of a white tail's tail, and I'm like, oh, the guys, there's there's deer in there.

I've got my spotting scope on it. And I see this buck pick his head up, and I'm like that that's a nice buck. It's like a hundred and fifty inch public Land Mountain white tail buck. And there's four other bucks in there that are about the same size, maybe a couple of smaller, couple of little bit bigger. And then all of a sudden, in the back this buck lifts its head up and it's just a giant I mean, it's the whitest white tail I'd ever seen, easily a hundred and seventy five in white tail buck

on public land, Like this is this buck? Would net Boone and Crockett guaranteed it is just a giant deer, And I'm like, oh my god, you guys gotta look at it. Like I wanted to make sure that everybody saw this deer because this is just the deer of a lifetime. And they looked in the scope and it was like, Okay, game time, go time. We gotta try to get this deer. I figured the closest timber where they would get was above them, and one of the

smaller bucks already started feeding uphill. And the perfect thing was the thermals were now like that. I knew that as soon as the sun started going up, the thermals we're gonna go up. If we got above them, we would be in the right spot. And this little goalie was like just the perfect setup. So I'm like, I told one of the guys, I'm like, which one of

you shooting? Because we have to go. We gotta We're gonna have to go fast because we got to kind of chase the sun they're gonna move up with the sunline. We need to get into position before they get there, and it's going to be a pretty good climb, so we had to kind of go back around the mountain and then just hustle straight up. One of the guys like, oh, he's in a little bit better or shape and he's got the first shot, so okay, cool, So I take one guy. The other guy is just gonna sit there

and watch. And I'm like, I'm setting the pace when somebody's following me, hunting with me, and I know I have to get somewhere. I don't wait on them. I let them like they're just they're just gonna be constantly trying to catch up, especially because I know the caliber of that, dear and how rare it is to to get a buck like that with a bow on public land. And I'm thinking this is our chance. So we work up. He's dragging behind. I'm like, dude, give me your pack,

give me your bow, whatever, I don't care. We gotta like pretty much run to get into position. So I keep getting ahead, getting ahead, and we're like getting there, and I'm just knowing that it's a race against the clock, Like we are going to either be there on time or just miss them. So I marked just visually. There is a couple of trees that hadn't been logged, but

it was pretty much like a big clear cut. So when I got to the backside, I peeked over and I saw those trees that were my markers, and I ream remember that there's like this real brushy spot. They went down to this this log that was still on the ground, and I thought, just looking at it, that looked like it would be within range of that little gully for the deer to come up. So I'm like at the top, trying to get him to hustle, trying

to get him to hustle. We get in and we start moving down to this log and I can see the antler tips of some of the bucks. I'm like, oh crap, dude, like this is gonna happen. So we start creeping down to the log and I know we're just like a little bit behind, but it's gonna be okay. The winds perfect, the deer still feeding. We get set up on this falling log like right behind it. We've got good cover and everything. I kind of peek up and I see their antler tips and they're like thirty

forty yards out. So there's a couple of smaller bucks going through and then the bigger buck. And I see that bigger buck and I'm like, oh, dude, this is it. So I got a crowd down and it's just that perfect angle because they're below U. Since I crouched down, you know, you can't see him. So I just whispered to the guy case he's I popped up and arranged him. He's like forty yards just drawback, stand up and shoot him. Well, I don't know if he got freaked out or what,

just like a little bit of target panic. I was saying, drawback out of sight because they wouldn't be able to see him. Draw back, and then just slowly stand up and shoot. It was just set up perfect. He stood up and just did this huge draw motion, like pulling the bow and moving his arm like sky drawing, and that movement the buck whipped over looked right at him, and that whole hurded deer just blew out. Oh. We

we were both just heartbroken. I was thinking, man, that is probably one of the best opportunities at a buck like that, And to this day, I always there's very few times whereas guiding where I'm thinking, Man, I wish I was the guy with the gun or bow on that scenario. That deer is one of the deer that in my memory. There's probably five deer in my life that stick out just so crisp and clean in my memory,

and that's one of them. And I still have never found a buck comparable to that one on public land. When it really comes down to it, hunting for a place to hunt is as important as the hunt itself. For many hunters. Scouting is a big part of the planning and hunting process. There hunts where you can put in adequate time beforehand, and then there are those hunts where you just can't. So I'm going to cover both.

I really think that there's something fun as well as something rewarding about that idea of being able to go out and scout the area. You know the area better, you understand what you're looking for and what's the potential in the area, and it gives you an idea when that season opens up where you want to be, and a better formulation of the actual hunt plan. But I also know that and this happens for me a lot many of the places that I hunt, I don't have time to scout. It might be a long ways from

my house. I've got other things going on. I might have only a week or five days to do a certain hunt, maybe less, maybe more. But I have the same philosophy of a mini scout within the hunt itself. So what I want to do is I'm going to talk about scouting verse previewing an area. So scouting is what I might do ahead of time, preseason, and then previews what I might do if I don't have time to scout during the season or right before the season.

What scouting is is it's the act of searching for something, often a spot, and also the animals in the area. So many scouting trips are really just hunting trips where you're looking for animals but you just have no ability to harvest. And it's also the to just understanding the area. So you're you're scouting it out, your understanding where the roads go, what are the vantage points. When you're at home,

you can pinpoint some potential areas that look good. Now you're going to go into the field and just actually see what they look like in real life. Certain things look great on a map, But in actuality, you might get there and say, oh, it's that open areas too steep, or it's too rocky, it's too dry, it's too wet, Oh it's heavily timbered. It's not. There's just it looks a lot different and you can get a much better feel for an area when you're actually there. It doesn't

really matter what you're hunting for. Scouting can be a really major portion in being very successful. Like many white tail hunters, they'll put out trail cameras, learn trails, understand what animals might be coming to their food plots, or what animals are in their area. You know, if you're talking about like elk and mule deer hunters, you might just be looking for good glassing areas or high concentrations of game. But scouting can be done anytime up until

the day before the season. You can scout now in the springtime and see just maybe where animals are calving or fawning. You can also see in the summertime where bachelor groups are hanging out. You can see right up until days before the season where animals are in that unit.

You know, maybe taking three or four days before the hunt starts, but if you don't have that time to do it ahead of time, then what I do is I have this what I call a preview, which is just scouting either very short amount of time or during the seasons. It's a quick scout maybe a day or less. Can be prior to the season, but it can also be during your hunt. So if I have five days to hunt or seven days to hunt, I spend one of those days doing a preview and then the rest

of the days hunting. And if I've got a little bit longer hunt, maybe seven to ten days, I might do a preview the first day I get there, and then I'll hunt, and then I'll do a pre If I'm not finding what I need, maybe another preview mid hunt, and then continue to hunt. Now that's not to say that while you're doing those previews you might not see an animal or won't be hunting, but it's just the way that you're looking at the area and what you're doing.

It's not necessarily focusing on looking for animals, but focusing on a place to then eventually look for animals. The first thing that I do when I get into an area, whether it's preseason scouting or previewing is I like to see as much of the area as I can, and hopefully, like we talked before, you've taken at home, You've gone through your maps, You've maybe pinned some depends how you like to hunt. Maybe you like to hunt still hunting, so you've pinned some good ridges that you'd like to

still hunt into. Or if you like to glass, which I suggest on a lot of Western big game hunting, you're looking for little knobs that you can glass from, maybe an opening in the timber where you can see across the canyon. Looking for good glassing vantage is good habitat, maybe places where you can glass into that good habitat. So what I'll do when I previous, I almost consider it windows shopping. I'll go through the area, whether in my vehicle or whatever, and try to cover as much

ground as possible. I'm not even necessarily going into where I'm going to be hunting. I'm just looking at it objectively, saying almost like I'm just looking at a map, but in real life, where I'm cruising enough of the area to get an idea and a really good feel for what's out there. Okay, you know things are going to change a little bit from what you saw on the map to what you're seeing now, and I want to

see as much of the country as I can. I want to maybe hit as many of those glassing points as I can, maybe they're a mile from the road, whatever, I'm gonna just kind of bust in there, look around. If it's during the season, I'm always gonna have my gun or bow with me or whatever i'm hunting with, because you never know, you might get in there and say, Okay, I I gotta focus in on this right now. But for the most part, what I'm doing is I'm just cruising around looking for a spot to hunt. I'm not

necessarily nitpicking and looking at animals. I'm gonna throw up and start glassing major areas that I think maybe we'll show something, and if I see something, great, that's a

good indicator. But a lot of the places I'll be looking at will be in the middle of the day at not prime times, so you know, in the morning or the evening, I'm gonna focus on maybe getting to a good glassing spot in glassing and giving it a place that I think looked a good a good look at those times, But the rest of the day I'm just gonna be spent moving around, just getting a really good lay of the land, understanding what roads go where, what trailheads are there. What does it look like up

that canyon, up that trailhead? What could I potentially run into up there? Is it going to match my plan that I made at home? Does this area have a good feeling? Is it doesn't look a little too barren or um? Is it maybe the creek that I was expecting to be running run dry? Is there something that's changed from my online scouting to my in real life or in person. Is there something that I noticed that

I didn't catch on the map. But you already have that roadmap from at home scouting, where you can then go and start checking places you've outlined off the list and possibly adding some more places you see to the list.

Now for backcountry hunts, I do something similar. You know, if you're at home scouting and you've decided, Okay, I'm gonna go into the wilderness or this road, this area it's five or six miles in there, and then I'm going to hunt this basin in these canyons, It's harder to preview it because you got to get in there and then that takes time. So what I'll do is I'll do one of two things. If I've got an

area where i'm thinking of I've got multiple options. Say I've got one canyon that looks good and I've got another canyon that looks good, and I can't decide between the two, I might just go in day hunt that canyon for the first day, or just if I'm out and hike up but take a look around, hike down, you know, maybe do a ten mile day. But I don't have a heavy pack on, so I'm just previewing it.

I'm just cruising up there, seeing what the trails like, seeing how to get in there, seeing once I get in there, Okay, is there enough country that I think I can successfully find something in here? Or does it look not like what I was expecting. Now, if it's one of those places where okay, I've got I've focused in, I've picked this canyon. That's where I'm gonna go, then I'll just go ahead and pack in there, and I do the same thing or a similar thing once I

get in there. On the trail in I'm paying attention to what everything looks like. Maybe there's something on the way in that I find interesting that I might have

not thought about. Then when I get to my designated camp spot, i'll set up camp, I'll kind of lighten my load, maybe do a little glassing in the evening or whatever, depending on how much energy it took to get in there, And then I might just go check some spots within that back country canyon or basin and just really understand what the area looks like, so I know that when it's time to hunt, Okay, I'm gonna

focus on this area. Or I've got this glassing knob that looked good, I check that out, and I just start checking stuff off the list and getting a good idea for what it looks like, because I don't want to spend the majority of my time hunting one spot and not getting to the other spots that might be better or might be more productive or might look better once I actually get there. Then the question comes in, well,

how do you identify these high percentage spots? So what I'm looking for when I'm scouting is what I would consider high percentage spot or what areas held animals, what areas had the habitat I was looking for, and also factors of time of year and when I'm scouting. So if I'm summer scouting, I'll be in the summer range, but I've got an October tag, then I really need to think about, Okay, what's going to be a high

percentage area Later in the season. They aren't going to be up in that summer basin anymore, so I'm going to try to scout out high percentage areas or spots for the time of year that I'm hunting. So you really have to break it down into thinking as you're previewing an area or as you're scouting ahead of time, looking into the areas for the type of habitat when

that season is going to be around. Like, a high percentage spot to me would just be an area that's most likely to hold animals during the season that you're hunting. So examples would be, if i have a let's say, uh elk archery tag, and I'm scouting in the summertime, what I'm gonna be looking for is probably areas with lots of cows. Now, the bulls are probably gonna be up higher in some summer range, and and also cows might be as well, and that can still be a

good time to hunt. In September, but you might find some more like resident cow el kurds that the bulls will come into. Like those cows have their territory, they might have a little bit of a home range, especially if it's an area that they don't migrate a lot, and then the bulls will start coming into those cows later in September during the rut. That's something to look for. Or you could even scout in the summer for a late season hunt, maybe a November hunt or a migration hunt.

So you'd just be looking for maybe some good winter range habitats, some south slopes that are open and are going to have grass, or if it's like muled, or maybe some some really good winter range habitat that has tall old gross sage and buckbrush where they can have

good feed, they can also feel safe. Or like if I've got an early season, maybe I've got an early season archery mule your hunt, Well, I'll just go up on the summer range and say, yeah, these deer probably still going to be in the summer range, so I can scout that time where they'll be during that season, and then through that I'm gonna try to take that and use my maps that I outlined earlier and check out good glassing vantages, and then from those glassing vantages,

understand how to get to where I might need to go. So if I've got a glassing vantage, and I'm looking across the canyon and there's openings and meadows that I think will be great to glass, where there's a good area that looks like maybe here there's some water down in the valley and this bedding area over here, And then if I see something there, what's the easiest way to get there? Do I walk from here? Do I go around and catch another road or trail? Like how

do I get to where I'm going? And mapping all that out before you get in there and really start picking apart during your hunt if you don't have time to scout ahead of the season, like if you've got to just do what I consider the preview, where you go into the area and kind of spend that first day in the area scouting it out and just looking over the lay of land, getting a feel for what

it looks like. Yeah, you'll be hunting at the same time, but you're mostly just looking for a good spot to go hunting, a good spot to really focus your efforts on that's where you're pre at home. Scouting is going to come into play a little bit more because you want to have a really definitive plan on places of checks. So when you get into the area, you've got that day to just really look it over and get an

understanding of what things look like. It might even mean I've done this many times where I get into an area and I'm planning on packing into a backcountry area that might be far away, but I noticed that if I get way out in the flats and get a good view of the mountain, I can take my spotting skill about and I'm I'm not looking for animals. I'm too far to even look for animals, but I might be out of the trees far enough away where I can look at this mountain and say, Okay, that's kind

of the basin that I'm going into. Looks like that left side of the of the range has just big rock slides and not what I'm really looking for. But the other side's got kind of some sparse timber, and maybe the top of that ridge looks good. I know I can't see in there, but I can kind of get an idea of the type of cover, the type of terrain, what it might look like in there. I might look and say, oh, man, that's it's a lot of green, and then there's that big yellow patches every

every once in a while, and east sides of the hills. Okay, maybe there's some aspens in there that the elk are gonna hang out and bed in and and might enjoy a little more riparian area in there. Okay, that that's got some of the things that I might be looking for.

And just being able to preview that area and get good sense of what you're going to go into, and then compare that to how your online scouting went and just kind of see as much of the unit or as much of the potential areas you've outlined as possible to get a good feel for it. Some of it might just come down to, man, this spot looks good, this spot feels good. This is where I'm going to focus my energy. And it's a lot better to do

once you actually set foot in the area. Now, the final step in this scouting or previewing is you also have to adapt to what you find. The best laid plans do change, and you've got to adapt to some real time data, but also don't discount what you learned and what you saw. So it's good to have a plan, pick a spot, and then hunt it. The amount of time you stay in one area really just depends on the type of terrain. And I get asked the question

all the time, well when do I move? The answer is, really, do you believe you've covered it? If you feel like you've covered it, then yeah, clearly move on and maybe check one of the other spots you've outlined, or try another area. But what time is invested in Do you have enough time to go somewhere else? And also is

there something that you haven't seen? If it's just this wide open area and you think you look at it and you've spent two days there and haven't seen anything, you go, if there was something here, I would see it, then by all means, then it's time to move. We also want to take the information you get while previewing, while scouting, and then compare it to your home plan and exactly what you see. And then once you've got that from scouting, you've got Okay, I found deer in

this canyon, I've got elk in this other canyon. I've got a good glassing spot here. Now you're gonna take that and create your hunt plan. Now that could happen if you're previewing the area, You're going to do that in the first day. If you've got time to scout, you're gonna do it. After you've scouted, you might not see what you're looking for, so you might have to readjust remake an online plan map scouting, and then when you get back to the area in the season, you

might have to preview and find a new place. But with that on the ground information, that's how I normally form my hunt plan for when the season actually happens. Just a few tips for making these plans. If you've got time to scout early, what I like to do is I'll scout early, and then I'll try to extrapolate, like, okay, from what I see now to when the season is going to be, where am I going to put myself in a good position when I show up, and then

focus on those areas. If I don't have a lot of time to hunt early, but I'm gonna be, let's say, hunting from opening day on. If I'm hunting opening day, I like to have one or two days before the season to kind of figure out where I want to be opening morning, especially if it's a general area and there's a lot of pressure. If I'm showing up mid season, that's not so much the case where I would then just say I'm showing up mid season, I've got five

or seven days to hunt. I'm gonna hunt all those days during the season, and I'm gonna take that first day I show up in the area to just get an idea the lay of the land, understand where some of the roads go, and figure out how to get to the spots that I outlined at home. One thing that you really want to look for or like pay attention to, is you don't want to worry about what else might be out there. I think everybody can be

guilty of this. Once you've you've picked a spot, you've made a plan, kind of trust that in some ways and don't start chasing your tail. I'm guilty of it as much as most, maybe sometimes more. But in those previews and in those scoutings, like, oh, this looks like a good spot. That looks like a good spot, and have all these good spots, and while I'm hunting in

an area, thinking about all the other spots. I know, sometimes it's better just to if you're in a spot and it looks good and the data that you found while scouting and previewing everything looked good about it, you know, don't necessarily start thinking about all the other places. Focusing on the place you're at, hunt it, and then once

you've ruled it out as a good spot, then move on. Also, as your previewing areas and scouting areas, like scouting, you cover a lot of country and you look at a lot of land, but you look at a lot of country and land at non prim time times, So you might be glassing in one spot in the morning and glassing in another spot in the evening, but throughout the middle of the day you're looking over a ton of

country that you aren't seeing anything in. And sometimes we get in our mind that, oh, those areas didn't have anything. I didn't see anything there. Oh I spent hours there and didn't see a single animal. But you also didn't see a single animal because it was not a good time to look for animals. So one thing you want to try to avoid it, whether you're scouting or previewing an area, is to not discount good looking areas based on looking at them at non prime times, by formulating

a plan at home and then actually getting into the field. Now, if you can do it ahead of time, that's great and scout it out, or whether you just have a little bit of time during your hunt to preview a lot of the areas, you're gonna be well on your

way to being more successful. That way, you've got a good idea and a good grasp of the unit where you have your tag, and you've got a good plan and play ace that can then be executed based on some real time information from the information you have while scouting, or even just the information you have while previewing the

areas that you previously outlined at home. I hope that that helps everybody get their mind around maybe some planning some scouting trips this summer, or even just when you've got a new tag for a new area in your pocket, kind of how to approach going into that area and executing a plan based on what you've kind of found at home, and then getting in there and just really giving it a good look over and seeing what looks the best to you. I hope everybody is doing well

amidst the whole COVID thing. I think if you're anything like me, you've got a little cooped up feeling and you're ready to just get out. I actually just got back from a short little turkey hunt. It was a

lot of fun. I haven't been around in the springtime turkey hunt for a very long time, so because I've been in New Zealand or Australia, I've kind of I've actually, i think it's been probably close to a let and or eleven years since I've experienced a full spring, so it's interesting to me, like I've i haven't really chased turkeys in a very long time because I haven't been around in the springtime. But it was a lot of fun.

I end up getting a pretty decent tom the first day, and then I was on some like agricultural land down in the bottoms for private stuff. And then I went up in the mountains and tried to find some birds up there, but they were signed. They just I don't know if it was the weather moving in or what, they just really shut up and I didn't want to cooperate up there. So it was a lot of fun. It was cool. It was great to to have some turkey hunting action while I was feeling pretty cooped up,

pretty penned up. So yeah, I think I'm looking forward to next week. I want to do a Q and A. I've got a bunch of questions lined up, and I know that there will be more coming in. So what I'll do is I just kind of try to keep as many of the questions. I look through them as well and say, oh, here's here's a common question and try to answer those. So if I don't answer your specific question, and hopefully I'll answer your question through someone else's question or what have you. So feel free to

keep shooting those over. You can send them to Remy at the meat Eater dot com, or you can send them to my Instagram at Remy Warren and a lot of those ones that the at Remy Warren. If I can't answer them on the podcast, I'll try to shoot your message back if I can, or or answer them in some ways some form, some shape, or maybe it'll just give me an idea for a podcast topic in the future. So yeah, I'm really excited to hear what

you guys got going on. Maybe some tags you draw, if you draw some good tags, or you've got hunts planned or whatever. Shoot me, shoot me messages, send me whatever. I'd love to see that kind of stuff. And if you've got some had some Spring success. I've got a ton of people that have taken some of the bear advice out in Canada and in the US and been successful with it. Some people that have struggled hunting bears and said, hey, the tips that you gave on the

Spring Bear hunting. So I just I love to hear the success store rais or even just maybe something new that you're trying after listening to some of these podcasts. So I really appreciate you guys. Thank you very much. Also, if you feel the urge or feel the need, or if you listen, I don't know where everybody listens, it would be nice to know. If you you can always just tell me where you're listening from, whether it be

Apple or Stitcher or whatever. But if you're on those apps or platforms, feel free to subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a comment, share it with a friend. Maybe there's some topics, so are certain ones you like. Send it to a buddy that you're gonna be hunting with so he knows what you know. And then you guys can be a more successful team together. So until next week, keep on scouting