Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm your host Dirk Durham, and today I have a special guest, really good friend, Tom Schneider. Tom and I have kind of connected over social media over the last few years. If you guys have been living under a rock somewhere, you may not know who Tom Schneider is. So Tom runs the Stuck in the Rut YouTube channel and social media pages. Stuck in the Rut. They're based in Idaho. They have a trophy room that I would
say would rival about anybody's I've ever seen. They have a very special family. They're a hunting family that has been super successful across all species of animals in Idaho, big game species, whether you're talking about white tails, mule deer, hell moose, and then Alaska as well. They have family members in Alaska that invite them up and then they've taken all sorts of beautiful animals in Alaska's harshest conditions
and they've documented all this on YouTube videos. If you haven't, if you've never seen their YouTube channel, you got to check it out. Stuck in the Rut. I just want to say welcome Tom, thanks for coming on.
Thank you.
I think people watch your videos and see what you guys are doing, and they think, oh, man, all you guys do is hunt all the time. You must be rich.
Yeah, we just have this unlimited money, you know.
Yeah, you know, but I'm here to say it. You know, his family, they're normal people with normal incomes. But what they do is they work a lot and bank money and bake time to go hunting. So to talk about you know what, what's what's work life look for?
Well, you you've met my dad already.
Yeah, your dad is one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I just love old guys like that because he doesn't seem old, but he's you know, his his years and that he's been on earth is he's been here a long time. But he's he's got a younger soul. And and then he's he's a character.
Oh, he's just a workaholic. And you know we I think all of our family member, all the siblings, pretty much picked that work ethic up from him. I was telling you yesterday, not by choice, because that's just the family we grew up in. Not throwing any family members in a bus, but even my little we crack up and make fun of it a little bit. My little brother too, just at a young age, we just never were like, man, he's he's the laziest one in the family.
He was never going to gain a work ethic. And man, Surevor will outwork anybody out there. You know. It's just really we just grew up in a really good family dynamic. My dad's a workaholic. My mom works hard too. She didn't start working until after you know, she was a stay at home mom and as soon as we grew up and got out of the house. Now she's working full time as well. And yeah, you know, I think dad just really got us into hunting at an early
age two. Again, you're he's hunted. You've hunted a lot of the same hunting grounds he's hunted back in the eighties. Yeah, and you know, and he got to see the Heyday and some of the stories I didn't know or bs or not where he's talking about, Oh I saw that four hundred inch bowl, And I'm like, okay, Dad, Yeah for him, But then you're show me that some of those same areas, like hey, that it can happen. The
genetics are there. But unfortunately, as we as we consistently talk about why you're here in the first place, too, is that we're pursuing wolves because wolves have I don't want to I'm not trying to exaggerate when I say this, but they've ruined their lifestyle and and hunting and finding the animals that we used to see, and you know, I think those memories stay embedded in our minds of like, man, you know, like I remember the days when I'd climb
up on this ridge and I'd have four bills bugling, and you have the habitat, you got the feed, and then all of a sudden, it's just like it's gone. So I kind of got off topic there, but I just I see that, and that's kind of why we pursue wolves, and you know you're up here and that we kind of did a couple of days of that and at a blast. But yeah, going back to you know, our family dynamic. I've been really fortunate to live in a family where we get along for one, where we fight,
We have our moments where we fight. Me working together, I still bounce between Travis and Dad. So Travis has a construction business. He builds houses for a living. My dad works in the woods between logging, between clearing land for other property owners. So I guess it's tough to really give myself a title. Like if you were to ask me, Tom, what do you do for work? I've really had a hard time i give myself a title for that, Like I'm a contractor, i am a fort
I'm in forest management. It just really depends. Like some years, I'm like, I'm done building. This year, I want to switch back to doing some forest management. And I think at the end goal is though, is to make enough money so that we can hunt in the fall. And that's my drive. Like I couldn't just for me, I can't just I mean, I consider myself like a very
hard worker. But if I didn't have those passions and hobbies to keep me going, I probably would just straight up pick up a nine to five and just say, you know what, screwed. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna zombie it for the rest of my life. Get a nine to five, you know, just to put food on the table. But no, I have passions. I have well I don't know if you call it a passion or an obsession. I love to hunt. I'm just passionate about it.
And with the work that we do. It allows us to take off time in the fall to hunt, and then by the end of the fall that money gets Well I was telling you about that, Mike, like towards the very very end of the fall and you have all these taxony bills. I'm like, ah, that is a nice bowl, but I don't at this point, I'm strapped on money. So about time December kicks in, I'm back to have, you know, to make it up for lost time and so but again, it's worth it, It's all worth it.
Yeah, that's awesome. Well you kind of said you got we went sideways or got off track a little bit about when we talk about wolves. But I think that kind of segues in nice to what we're really going to talk about today. And I wanted to pick your brain on rifle hunting. You know, in Idaho, a lot of the units it's in October ends about the first part of November, and some years you may be lucky enough to find a bullet bugles that first few days of October season.
Or not.
And sometimes, especially with being Idaho is so forested, it's really hard to find final if they're not being vocal during rifle season, if if there's not. If they're not an opening somewhere, then you have the big timber to try to locate them in. And I just kind of
want to figure out what your process was. And I know we've talked a lot this week about it, just as you showed me the beautiful country here, but kind of wonder listeners to kind of get a peek on how you find elk in October, whether you know, maybe do some calling and stuff, and then how it kind of transpires from from there.
Absolutely, And I can I switch this off to a question to you. Yeah, so you you spent two full two or three I'm trying to think now the days are starting to blur.
I think I've been here three days, three full.
Days, that's right. So yeah, evening and stuff. So we've you've walked around with me quite a bit. You've seen what the terrain's like. What would you say your average shooting lane is, like? How far of your shots do you have?
I feel like if if I were elk hunting and would having an encounter, most of them would be up close, very close, within fifty yards or less most of the time, or super long distance like you know, six seven, eight hundred.
Yards so that head into that base, and you and I were at yesterday we actually had some long rune shooting opportunities.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny because it's it's never anything really in the middle though, it's he it's brush as all get out, or be here above tree line, and you got some shooting lanes and so yeah, I think it really starts with especially with elk hunting. I think what really helped us out was was watching elk throughout the entire year.
You've talked right from the beginning, you've talked about the type of wildlife we have, right, I say, I I've lived in a very very fortunate where I live in the fact that we have a lot of different species of animals. You know, some areas you hunt, it's just it's an elk area. Some areas you hunt it's a meal deer area. You know, this could be Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. Right, some areas it's just a moose area. We live in one of these very interesting ecosystems where we have meal deer.
If you're at a certain elevation, you're a meal deer. You're at a certain elevation, you're in white tails, good white tails, elk wolf, unfortunately black bear. We have grizzlies. We were we were falling grizzly.
Track, arizzly grizzly track first day and Tom, look at this, there's a big old bear track.
Ready to run. A part of the call for wolves. So mountain goats if you're if you just drive probably about thirty minutes thirty minutes east of us, you're in bighorn sheet. So we have a lot of animals, and I'm sure there's a lot that I've missed that I've oh yeah, then going to the Predator's mountain line, bobcat, we do have a couple of links. I mean, again, the list goes on. We have a variety of wildlife here.
And so now going back to the type of terrain we're hunting, you know, it can be really challenging to hunt this heavy timber country. But growing up and watching the dynamic and all these animals and their behavior was really helpful for us. Originally from the beginning, I felt like there was a lot of elk. You and I've talked about this where I felt like there was a time where if you're just a hard hunter, you didn't even have to know elk. If you're just a hard hunter,
you're going to come home with a good elk. But now with the lack of elk that we have and you don't have elk bugling like in the September season, it could be really challenging and pulling an elk with a rifle because the elk are so few and far between. And the one thing that surprises me with a lot of people is people are always asking where do you hunt where? Or they see they see where my pickups parked and they're like, oh, I know where you killed that bowl, so now I know where to go to.
It's like, well, have fun. But if you don't know elk, you're not going to know how to find them because these pockets of elk, I mean, you've got thousands of thousands of acres and you're trying to find one little pocket of bulls like about your group of bowls in the post rat season. And so you have to be able to understand the behavior of elk and why they do what they do. It's not where like, oh where do I hunt? Where do I hunt? The question is is why would I hunt there? If there's elk here?
You got to ask why You got to understand why do elk do what they do. That's really what it comes down to, right, Like, if you follow people, you're going to get people. You want to follow me in the woods, you're going to get me. If you stop following me, stop following other people, don't you want to find elk and get away from people exactly. And so that's what you really need to do, right is to focus on elk, learn about their habits and their behaviors,
and presume from there. And I will be honest and saying that I prefer the archery season just the fact that they're bugling. But sometimes as soon as the bugling stops in October, everybody hangs up the bow and they're like, I'm done for the year because I can't.
Kill a post rut bowl.
They don't realize that there is some really good opportunity in killing a big bowl in the post rut season. Now, Idaho has a lot of opportunity kill them in October. There's places in Montana where the season's actually extended to November, I mean, and then there's places like that in Idaho too as well, and a lot of states too. There's a lot of post rah opportunity with the rifle. But the elk aren't talking. Sometimes talked about sometimes you get
a little a late rut and that's a game changer. Yeah, so and then I know I'm just rattling on right now, but it's just finding out whether they doing and why are they're doing it. Weather can be an issue with that. You have to think of an animal. We talked to you and I both talked to before too. With every species of animal, you have to find their groceries, you have to find their shelter and safety. And those are the three things that I mean just to lay down
a foundation for an elk hunter, mule deer hunter, wilf hunter, anything. Grocery, shelter and safety is what is why an animal does what they do and elk that that definition is different than a meal deer, and elk's safety is different than a meal deer, right, a meal deer, especially in an area possibly you know, with long range shooting, I know, I know a simelies don't hit the openings as much as they used to. However, genetically they're designed to be
out an open country. That's they're they're able. You know, at their long ears, they're able to pick up sound. They're able to spot you along the ways away. When I hunt Co Colorado bucks can spot me six seven hundred yards away and move out of canyon. You know, they're really good. They have really good ice height. An elk's definition of safety is much different, and so so you have to learn about that. You have to focus on that in itself.
So let's say it's opening day, Yeah, and you're out there and you hear a bowl bugle. Oh, and I hear a lot of folks tell me this story every year, Like, yeah, man, I had a bowl bugling, and you know, I just you know, I kind of got to a vantage point and just kind of watched, and you know, and I didn't really see the elk materialize, and you know, I just they kind of slipped away from me, and darn it, I didn't get an oak. What would you do if you hear a bowl bugle in October?
Great question, And I'm not going to answer this question directly, but I'll say this that there's two different types of hunters.
Right.
There's those that are like really aggressive hunters. Those are regressive, they just go and kill. There's the other hunters that are too afraid to move in right, They're like, well, if I move on, I'm gonna bump them, I'm gonna scare them off. I try to find that balance. There's a time, there's a window. You find this window of opportunity and one and Travis is better. I mean, I actually felt like I gained this technique for my brother
because my brother is he charges. He's like charge, you know. I just imagine those war movies were like charge, you know, and you got the guy with the horn, you know, Trav, but charge out a bugle bowl. Yeah, And I learned that from him. And if you have a bowl beegling, and let's say you're in that timber like we were talking about where you got those fifty yard shooting lanes, then absolutely I would just go in there and charge. Don't bugle, don't give out your location. You have a
rifle in your hand. It's different with the bow because you have a lot of obstacles, right, you have to get an archy range, you have to get him pass brush. There's a lot of things that you know, so you're going to try to call on that out. Don't try to call on a bowl when you got a rifle in your hand. This is just me. This is my technique. Right, they're bugle and they're occupied. Just move in on them and then just get a shot, get in it, getting close.
When you you start hitting that bubble and getting really close, start slowing down, moving, you know, pull out your binos, although sometimes you don't feel like in heavy timber country you don't need binos. You do, you pick apart the timber. Sometimes you just expect to see a full boone olk. You're not going to expect to see that. You're looking for an ear, You're looking for an eyeball. You're looking
for a rack. One of the biggest bulls. My brother one of the biggest bulls, not the biggest bulll My brother's killed the bull that he when he shot it, all he saw was like an He knew it was a big bull. But when he snuck up to it, he saw an eyeball, and he saw like a part of the rack where he only saw like two of the front kickers. So he knew was a bull, but he was unable to see in the entire rack. But he was able to identify this is a bull, elk.
This is the herd bull, you know. And so that's what you're looking for, right, But again it's finding that window of opportunity to just charge in there and kill. We've talked about where people don't know how to find that balance. There's those who just they always charge in on everything, where they're just like charge, charge, charge, and they push the animals out of the canyon.
Right.
But I will say this that versus that those type of people that do more charging versus the people that are too afraid to move in, the guys that typically charge in and just move into the canyon try to get it done, those guys kill more they do. I feel like one thing that we have I don't want to say we've perfected, but we've perfected more than others is the balance of that where we know when to charge him and we know when than not to. But if I have a bowl bugling and I have a
rifle in my hand, that is the perfect scenario. And that doesn't happen every year. Sometimes they're not doing that and you're timber pounding, or you're trying to catch them in their feeding or betting areas, you know what I mean. But if I had a bowl bugling, I'd say, depending on the scenario, eighty percent of the time, I would just move right in and them being quiet. If I'm breaking a lot of branches, I have a cow, weal
cry to my mouth. Elk are loud animals. If any of you have hunted elk in the woods, if you have, even it could be a calend a calf, and it sounds like a herd of elephants walking through the brush. When you're walking in the brush, don't always think, oh shoot, I mess up the hunt, like you're just another elk. Bet out a couple of cow calls, and just keep moving in. If you feel like you're out a point to where they can hear you, you're not trying to again,
You're not trying to call them in. You're just trying to cover up your sound right and getting in close and getting a shot on this bowl.
So I'm gonna boil that down a little bit. So we hear this bowl bugling and I'm a few hundred yards away, maybe across the big draw or whatever. So immediately I'm like try to pinpoint where I hear the sound come from, and then I'm gonna immediately go to that bugle get and make sure I keep the wind right and for the eighty to ninety percent of the trip to that bull. I'm not gonna worry about being quiet. I'm just gonna get there. I'm gonna move quickly. I'm
gonna snap some trip some some limbs and stuff. But I'm just gonna I'm trying to cover the distance I want to get over to there before that bowl leaves the area. And then as I approach the area where I think I'm getting very close, now I'm gonna slow down a little bit and be a little more mindful of my noise and then start working my way in. But I'm not I'm not Elmer Fudd hunting. Like, I'm not like taking one step, stopping for ten minutes and
then taking another step, kind of like still hunting. I'm moving a little faster than that. I'm like, I'm moving slower, more deliberate. I got my head on a swivel. I'm using my optics to glass ahead to make sure I don't get caught.
Yeah, and when you the Elmer Thud hunting does happen right when you get in that bubble. Right you're in that bubble, you can hear the sticks popping around you. You can smell them sometimes just melling them is enough, Like you can sometimes smell before then you slow the heck down, okay, and then and you're really the binos are in your eyes and you're trying to just scan the brush, like I said. Sometimes, like I know a lot of guys that hunt heavy timbered country that just don't.
They don't pack binos. They don't. There's like, why do I need them? I got my scope, you know, Honestly, I like binos just because I got two eyes and I could Sometimes it's great to use the scope to scan. But a pair of binos, I got two eyes in them, I can see a big I can see a lot more. Right, So I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary. Sometimes it will be tough in September because the brush is turning yellow.
Yeah, the same color of an elk.
The same color of an elk. So, like I said, so sometimes you're not even looking for the yellow body. You're looking for an eyeball. You're looking for something out of the ordinary.
A nose, a nose, that shiny nose, or a flick of an ear.
Sometimes I've what I've seen was steam. So I've had that. Where I'm walking, I smell elk I'm like, I feel like I'm getting close, and all of a sudden, I see steam, Like what's And I look with my binos and it's steam coming out of the nostrils. Oh yeah, I could see that because it's early morning, and I'm like, okay, that's at I'm looking at milk nose right now. Then you're like, there's an eyeball. They'll get the pedestal. Oh there's it has antlers. You see part of a beam.
And It's the toughest thing about this type of hunting is it's really tough to identify how big a bowl is. Now, I've already identified that it's a shoot like you know most states, it's like well Montana, it's brow tyn, it's brow tiner bigger. So if I can identify that it has browtyns in it's illegal bowl, I can shoot it. Right. I don't know if it's It could be a rag bull, it could be a three year old, it could be a big mature monster bowl. That's just something you have
to make the choice of. And I've had multiple times where I get where I would see a bowl that has big fronts, I'm like, oh, that's a shooter bowl. I'd chew and I'm like, oh, well it's a bowl, you know, I'm happy with it, but I could have swore it was bigger. Right, You know, you take those quick shots because by that time, you know you expect it, oh, wait for it to turn its head. By tims turn its head. It's on the run. Yeah, and so then you you just have to make a quick shot on that.
But I would rather shoot it while it's standing still.
Right.
But yeah, like we were talking about delmer thud thing it's using. You know, it's you don't want to waste your time in that long distance. Like, yeah, let's say you heard that bowl beagle in three or four hundred yards away, You're gonna waste her a lot of time taking a couple of steps looking around right, charge in there, getting close, then stop and start really slowing down on
your walking again. Sticks popping is not going to lun them that much, right, Like they're they're ilk, they're loud animals.
Yeah, and if you give an occasional cow call, we're not saying blow your caw call the whole way there, You're not just like if you make a loud stick break, maybe one cow call, maybe two the worst ones.
The worst thing to do is to giveaway or the cation, right, Yeah, so you I mean, but at the same time, you don't want to alarm them either. So yeah, like I said, you want to cover your sound up. But at the same time, if you cow call all the way in, what you end up doing is you have a bunch of eyes waiting for you to come in, right exactly.
They hear you coming like, yeah, you're hey, who's this out coming? This?
They're making a scene. Yeah, And so you don't want to make a scene.
Yeah, you don't want to be out.
You're just like you just want to be part of the hurt getting close. And then when you're really close to that, you do a couple of cow calls. You already got cows all over the woods, right, and that herd bowl, especially in the timber. He can't see all his cows, So to him, he doesn't know any different.
He don't He don't have a number either. He has doesn't say, well, I have six cows and I see six right here.
Yeah, he has an idea, is like I think they're out here, yeah, exactlymore. Now, the other thing we were talking about though, too, is like let's say this is the only time it'd be different. Well, let's say that scenario is we hear a bowl beagling has crossed the canyon, but there's a clear cut nearby, and I sound it almost sounds like he's going to come out of that cut. I might just sit there and wait, or above tree line. Maybe I'm above tree line and I'm seeing the little
patches where i can shoot from. I feel very comfortable shooting long range. In fact, sometimes I feel like my shots are better at long range because you have the time to make a proper shot. Those close strange shots can sometimes be rushed and sometimes takes more than one bullet. I'm going to just kind of responding to haters that have never hunted Timmer country. Some people are like, oh,
you should only shoot an animal with one bullet. I think that's actually in the opposite like and somewhat disrespectful, because no matter how good of a shot you think you are, you wound. You may wound a bowl elk. How many guys do you know have shot an elk and they had a second chance on shooting it, but're like, no, that first shot was good, and they track a bloodshel for miles they had a chance to put that bowl down. They had a second opportunity, and they didn't take it.
For me, it's like some people are like, oh, we don't want to waste meat. It's like I've put, you know, in some scenarios, I've put fortified bullets in a bowl elk and I've wasted probably a quarter pound of meat. If you're shooting lungs, there's not meat, there's not much there. Right, You're fine, just put you want to anchor them down and it could be all lung shots, right, you know what I mean. Right, but you want to make sure you anchor that bowl down.
Yeah. I've always said, you know, if the bowl is still standing or moving, keep shooting, Yeah, till they fall, and then as you approach, be ready to shoot again.
Exactly.
I wanted to touch on something real quick for you. Talked about using your binoculars to scan instead of your scope, and I think that's really smart and it's really safe, especially if if you're not familiar with how the difference between a real elk bugle and maybe a hunter's bugle. So it's super important to make sure you're being safe by using yourars. I've had people scope me before I'll.
Be it's the scariest thing.
It's a scarce thing. I'll look up and I see a dude up on the ridge and he's pointing his rifle at me, and I immediately hit the dirt. I mean, you scare the crap out of people when you do that. But I knows. I mean, you can buy binoculars for them a hundred bucks to two thousand dollars, right, there's a binocular for everyone, everyone's price range, get them, use them, be safe, don't scare the crap out of people, or
maybe even take a shot and shoot a person. You know, be aware of what you're shooting.
You have to know your target. Another thing that bothers me to know when is when people's like and it's a lot with wolves more than anything is people are a little bit more trigger happy with wolves. Right, So you hear wolves, how and you see the brush moving, people want to just pull the trigger.
Yeah.
I've had guys say I just blaze the brush just started shooting. Now I'm just like, well are you doing?
Yeah?
Like, what if that was me trying to hold on in a wolf pack?
Like that?
Is stupid? Always know your target, but it doesn't take, like I said, with ELK, doesn't take much. It could be heavy timber, but you can already identify. You see an eyeball, you see a nose, you see the you see the rack. It's you may not see the entire ELK image, but you've already identified what you're shooting at. You already identify. Like I said, if it's Montana and it's brow tyne only, don't just shoot a big yellow body. You have to identify, Okay, I see brow tines on
the bowl. At least. I don't know if it's a fie point. I don't know if it's a ten point, I don't know it's if it has kickers like a big red stack. I don't know what that is. But I've at least identified that it's the legal ELK and
I could shoot it. There's no reason you should be shooting at things you can't see and then going back to the long range, I feel a lot more than this is Again, this is so controversial, and I don't know why I feel more comfortable taking a long range shot at six hundred yards than taking a close up shot. I feel like my shots are a lot more. There are a lot more thought through. I'm a lot more stable. I have time to calm my heart down. I can make a very very good shot at six hundred yards.
My odds and killing a bull at six hundred yards comfortably with one shot are much higher than a close up shot. But you just can't help it when you're in tavy timber country, right, You like you have to take those shots. Some guys are better at others and taking those quick rush shots. I give credit to my big brother Travis. He can I've told you some of his shots that I've watched. I'm just like, wow, that
was pretty impressive. But you know we've I think we've all had misses too, right, right, you kill you hunt enough animals, eventually a miss happens. Sure, But hunting timber country is a challenging himself. But people are really intimidated by it and avoid it. And but if you learn how to do it, you can you can get away from a lot of people. In fact, there's still areas I hunt to this day where I'm the only boot tracks in the mountain and this is public land. Do your cell ones?
You know what I mean? Right?
And just people are intimidated by even the grizzly bears. Right, how many people that I know are like, I'm not hunting that there's grizzly bears in there, especially if you're hunting that those areas where you have all this close range shot. Everybody's afraid of bump in a grizzly. Just get good life insurance, you know, for your life.
Set your family up so they won't struggle with.
Exactly because we're all going to die someday. I don't you know, there's no reason that we're Like I used to really worry about hunting Grizzly country, you know, you were you were kind of talking about like are you kind of worried about para con. I'm like, huh, I got good life in Turails.
It'll be fine.
He'll be okay. But I've yet to I mean, our knock on wood. I'm the only family member that well, me and my mom both, I guess. But my mom doesn't spend a lot of time hunting. But I myself, I am the only familymembo that hasn't been charged by grizzly So I hope to keep that record.
Yeah, it's a game of odds.
That's a game of odds.
I think as many times you're out there, it's eventually gonna happen.
Yeah. I will say this. The first time Travis ever got charged by a grizzly, it was an inland grizzy in Alaska. He came home and he took every single sling off our guns. You probably notice that I don't have a single sling on a gun. Yeah, Trev took all those things off the guns. He said, you don't want to. He's like, if I had a sling on my gun and goes on my shoulder, I'd be dead.
Yeah.
So you did that to every single gun.
Wow.
But you know, sometimes when I can try to hike to the meal your elevation, my gun is my pack. But you want to be packing heat somewhere. If it's a little pistol or something, you got to have protection. Right in Canada, unfortunately they don't allow pistols, so everybody has to pack pepper spray. It's not my recommendation. If you got a pistol, it's nice, but it's something right. Pepper spray is another thing. But again, I know sometimes
I get off tangent. But with the going back to long range shooting, I do prefer it if I have a chance and if I see it, if I see the scenario, I'm like, hey, I think I can get this bull out in and opening, I'm gonna shoot. But if not, I'm just going to charge right in right vel Awesome.
I love that. Now I'm going to talk a little bit more about this long range shooting. To do this accurately and to do it consistently, and to do it ethically. You're not just taking your rifle with just your normal everyday rifle and be like, well, I think he's about six hundred yard. Yeah, I got my range for six hundred yards. I'm gonna aim three feet over he's back, because you know, I kind of looked at the ballistic chart one time, and I think that should drop that
bullet right into where I need to aim. You're not doing that, Like, how how does one like make those ethical and accurate long range shots?
It really and I'm not trying to because the one thing my dad always says, you can't buy yourself an ELK, but to an extent, you've got to have the proper equipment right right, you got to pay for it. You're not going to cheap out on a long range gun, right you've got to have to have a really good long range rifle. For us, we've originally started with gun Works, and gun Works has taught us a lot about long
range shooting. You know, before Travis started off with these charts where he'd print off the ballistics and he'd have the radicals inside the scope, which are just if anyone doesn't know what a radical is, it's the hash marks inside the scope. Lot people don't know what that's for those are trying to explain this the best way possible, maybe you can even explain it better. The hash marks in the scope. It really depends, but most of those
are measured in MA, which is minutes of angle. And what minutes of angle is it's a minute, and it depends how much you doe. So like let's say i dial my scope into where it's zeroed. I'm hitting the bullseye at one hundred yards. One hundred yards one one hash mark should be one minute, and then beyond that the range it's different, correct, and so you have to
it's a little bit of a learning curve. But after you learn these things, then you know, okay, with this animal is at six hundred yards, I need to be shooting for this, but there's a lot of obstacles and now you know before back in the day when you need those charts, there was a lot of mistakes that would happen, for example the barometric pressure, which is another thing I can get into, like for example, the temperature. You know, there was a white This is when like
it's good with anything, like people getting the archy. Hunting mistakes happen right there was a white tail buck. This was the first year Travis was ever hunting. It was negative thirteen degrees. Travis had this gun dialed in when it was like probably forty degrees in October. So now he has a buck it's negative thirteen. He's made the shot multiple times. Monster whitetail about twenty five inches wide. He shot right over its back. He didn't know why
at the time. That the temperature change is also has a lot to do with it too. Gunworks has created a system inside the rangefinder that does all the calculations for you. Where really it I don't want to say I'm a dummy, but it it takes a lot of the homework out of out of your shooting practices. You don't have to be a mathematician, you don't figure it out. Yeah, let the range finder and the equipment do that for you. I can put my mom on a on a rifle and she can drop a white She did this, like
there's a nice white tail buck. And I had her sit on the gun and she dropped it six hundred yards And it was really the equipment. If I would have given her a fixed scope that I picked up the gun's story. Now, well, your range is pretty much two hundred yards if that you know. So it really does have to do with your equipment and what you're shooting.
And every time I start thinking that I know what I'm doing with long range, I sit down with some of the guys that run the gunworks operation and they start talking about all the variables that could happen in a shot. It's over my head, right it is. But I'll say this that at long range shooting, usually if I range the animal and I shoot, I'll never it should never be above or below the animal the shot. Usually the real obstacle is the wind.
Right.
The wind is really what makes it so tough to make those shots At six hundred yards. The wind doesn't do a whole lot, but when you start getting farther and farther out there, then the wind has a lot to do with your shots. So anyone that's getting a long range or is his first time shooter, always be aware of the wind. That's the biggest, biggest thing that's
going to mess you up on long range. If you have, like I said, the same system like we have, or you got a built in radical, or you have the turrets on top where you dial it the rangefinder, you plug in the system pretty much the profile of your gun in there. So you know. So gunworks they had a they a had the BR four monocular that they had, but now they just created a binocular the Revic binos, and now you can plug in the system in there too,
which is really nice. So now rather than carrying a monocular and a pair of binos, now I just have a pair of binos that does all the homework for me. So now I got my binos that I can timber pound with and pick apart the terrain. Or if I have a long range shot, I ranged the binoculars that tells me exactly what the dial from my MA and you just dial and shoot. But you also have to be aware of your wind.
Long range shooters that are comfortable accurate with their shots. That's they don't just buy a gun by them loaded up and head to the woods when you know, they spend some time behind the gun, right, You have to undertand like you're talking about the wind, learning how to cope with wind conditions, and no one if it's too there's too much wind or not, you know, or if it's good and you can send it, or it's like, okay, there's a little bit of wind and I can compensate.
You don't learn that just by not practicing. You have to practice with your gun. You have to spend some time understanding how that wind affects it. You know, whether let's say the wind's blowing on your side of the ridge this way, it could be blowing a different opposite way over there, you know, and identifying wind currents and all that. I mean, we could go down a rabbit hole for a couple hours on just wind in itself.
But I'm just trying. The point I'm trying to make is you have to spend that time with your gun to understand it and become a proficient shooter and then understanding how to execute a perfect shot. I could get on a rifle and shoot at a at a distant target, and I could probably hit okay, by somebody who is who has been practicing and using the right techniques and body postures to shoot, is going to outshoot me in it every day because they execute the shot so much differently.
So there's a lot to it. It's not just holding the gun up and looking through a crosshairs and squeezing the trigger off. There's a lot of best practices while doing that to execute that shot as perfectly as possible so you get those those really good hits at distance. So yeah, and.
I'm going to compare it to our tree hunt to just because I do. We do a lot of archery hunt. People see a long range shot, it's like, oh, you should try to do with the bow. Well, watch our videos. We do a lot of archery hunting. The one thing I'll say with archery, it's the same thing. If all you do you sit at a target and you sit in your bow and you take it to the woods.
I mean, I can't tell you. You know, I know people that seem to like wound a lot of animals at the bone and narrow and they're just not practicing right that all they're doing is sit at a target, they dial their bone and it's like, oh, I got my twenty thirty forty fifty dial, Okay, I'm good for hunt season. Yeah, you haven't practiced shooting. No, Like you're just dialed your bow in and then you hang it on the shelf and you wipe the dust offf and
ready to go hunt. Same thing with the rifle. I feel like a lot of people they zeroed it in at the target range and then they put it in the gun, saye like, all right, when hunt season comes, I'm gonna go shoot. I can't. I mean, it cracks me up. And again I'm not trying to make fun of people, but I'll see I'll drive down the mountain, I'll see some guy shooting beer cans with his rifle.
Just make sure his gun is on. He shooting twenty five yards and then he's about ready to go l cut and it's like like this guy's going to be in the woods with me. You know, like go to a big grun range and practice, you know, get your hundred yards dialed or if you want it at two hundred yards whatever you prefer, get it dialed in, zero it in and then go from there you have to practice.
You know, the guys that I see that actually do really good with archery, or the guys that attend these archery shoots, right, I think it really does challenge you. I really love doing archery shoots because I go and I was like, wow, Like it gives me confidence. I'm shooting downhills, I'm shooting uphills. It's good to practice that if you have a range where you can practice. Okay, because downhill shots are different than shooting uphill. Practice all
those angles. Practicef you're doing long range practice, shooting in the wind, don't shoot like I'm only going to shoot on a calm day and then all of a sudden you have a fifteen million hour wind and then you know what I mean. If for me, when I make a shot, I have to be comfortable shooting. There is no and I think everybody tries to ReadWrite what ethics are? Right, right, Everybody's like, this is what ethics are. The ethic is
if it's over this range, you should not shoot. That is not There's no written rule in what's ethical and what's not and how far are you shooting the animal?
Right?
What's ethical is where you feel comfortable shooting. How far do you feel comfortable shooting? Some some people may only feel comfortable shooting forty yards with a bow. Some guys they can droll bulls at eighty yards all day long. Now, if they have a bull elk that's eighty yards, I'm not gonna I'm not going to be upset if I see them take a shot like that, because I know they're comfortable at doing it right. It's the same with the rifle, Like if there's guys that suck at shooting
over five hundred yards, they shouldn't be shooting that range. No, absolutely, But if you're if these are guys that are at the range and they're shooting thousand yards all day long, and then they have an animal at seven fifty eight hundred yards, by all means take the shot right you feel comfortable shooting, do it. There's very very few times in my life that I've taken a thousand yard shot on an elk. Actually only one time, and I wasn't planning on it. It was either it was a it
was a scenario thing. It's like, okay, like should I try to get close to the bull or should I shoot from here?
You know?
And Travis and I were just kind of talking with amongst each other, like, just take a rest and see how you feel. I rested on the ground. If I didn't feel comfortable, I wasn't going to take the shot. The bull was raking a tree. He was completely occupied. I rested, and I told Travis, I'm like, I am so still like I am rock solid. So Trav like, well, if you feel comfortable, there is no wind at all that's going to disturb the bullet. You know, we probably
I said that range a lot. You should take the shot. This bull's breaking a tree. He's not going to walk out of the screen. So the other step I'd like to do, too, is you don't want to do this with bow. You never want to drive fire bow, but it is okay to drive fire a rifle, right, So take the bullet out, Just shoot it a couple times.
Try and make to snap two empty dry fire shots.
Yeah, a couple of dry fire shots until you feel comfortable. I've done this with friends that have never shot a long range before, where they're shooting like or like, I'll tell you about my friend who had a mountain goat tag. I was telling you about that. He was the last mountain goat tag of this area. Never show a long range gun. Before we get to the mountain go at four hundred yards, I said, hey, how do you feel
that shooting? He's like, I'm actually a sucky shot. And I'm like, at first, my heart's thinking like oh no, oh no, this is gonna be bad. But four hundred yards is a cheap is a easy shot with this gun that I had. So I'm like, all right, let's do some practice trigger pulls. So we took the bullets out, and the goat's not going anywhere. He's on the hill side, you know. So I'm like, all right, pull the trigger. See how you feel he shoots? You know, he shoots,
he it clicks right, no bullet in there. I was like, okay, how do you feel? He said. I closed my eyes. I was like, do it again. He did it again. Click. It's like, how that feel better? Like, do it again. We did it like five or six times. By the sixth time, I was like, how do you feel? Like that goat would have been dead? I was like, pens thrown around, thrown around. He drilled that goat. So sometimes it calms the nerves too. Yeah, whatever it takes to
calm the nerves you have. What's great with long range you have the time. When I edit a video, I try to make it entertaining. But if if you're actually to watch the whole video, we're sitting there twenty to thirty minutes on an animal to where it stands at the perfect time, is not going to walk out because that bullet takes time to get to the animal. The animals walking and you're shooting a long range, it can you can go from being a perfect shot to a wound.
Right.
You want to find where the animals occupied. Is it eating? Is it laying down something that like I said, the bullouk for me it was raking a tree. He was raking a tree, completely occupied. I sent it shot it drilled him right behind the shoulder. So something that occupies him is another thing. You take your time. You have all the time in the world. If it's a rushot, if it's an animal walking out of a clearing and it's eight hundred yards, you just don't shoot right. It's time.
You're going to have to move in close to get a shot on him. So there's a lot of obstacles with long range shooting, but it's it's We've talked about this before. It takes practice and it takes time. The one thing I really like with gun Works is a simplify it for the average person in the sense of, like they do the reloads for you too. You know, someone who works a lot, Sometimes a person doesn't have
time to do reloads. And what reloads are is you're pretty much you're assembling for someone who's never done it or know what that is. You're assembling the brass, the gunpowder, and the bullet yourself, right. And there's a lot.
Of technique and technical work there too to be identified and executed to have a really good round to shoot.
It is, and I'll be honest and saying that you'll always get a more accurate load with a reload than any other way. However, there is some good factory loads out there. There is some and gun Works they've kind of perfected in their own way where they have found that if they do it this way with this caliber, it works well, and so they can they can produce it to where they can get it to you and
you don't have to do those reloads. And so I have a Gunworks round where I didn't have to reload those and I'm tinging thousand yard plates all day right with that? And and so if you don't have the time, like I said, some people just work. They don't have the time to sit there and take a full day off to try to figure out what load your gun takes. Well that's another option for you is to go through them.
And again, I'm not trying to be like an you know, like by gun Works, but I'm trying to be a commercial. I'm not trying to be a commercial. I'm just saying that you use, that's what I use. And I've we've been using gun Works on and off for years, you know. So we went with Gunworks originally and then we tried some other stuff and we came back the gun Works just because we know how they work, and we they're very innovative. We really like what they do. And and
you what did you think of the gun? So you you for a couple of days we've I've had you. You're holding a couple of different my guns, and you held the seventh psalm last night from gun Works. What was your opinion on that?
Guy? Well, we're walking along, You're like, what do you think of that gun? I said, this is my new favorite gun, Like, I need one.
Of these things. What was What was it that you liked about that sound?
It's compact, it's light. I don't like a big, long, heavy rifle. A rifle with a barrel that's twenty eight inches long, thirty inches long, that's that's just it's hard to maneuver, especially in the kind of country I hunt, and in the kind of country you hunt, you know, big timber. It's just hard to pack around a big, heavy gun through the woods constantly. This thing was light. It pointed really easily and quickly, you know, when you
shoulder it. I was on target right away. And then if you're packing a gun without a sling all day long, your arms get fatigue.
Yeah, imagine a fifteen pound gun in your arms.
Oh no way, how did just said?
Tom?
No, I'll use my knife. Yeah, I'm gonna kill this ball with a knife. I'm not going to pack that gun. Yeah. So I loved it. It was a really really lightweight, compact gun.
So, and yes, I will agree in the sense that, like, you know, heavier guns, longer barrels, it seems to they say more accuracy. But you know you're asking me, like, well, how far is this gun get out to. You know, it's a light gun. It's an eighteen inch barrel. I'm like, I was. I smoked my meaee at eighty last year, one shot. Then my friend I gave him the gun. It was like I think it was either eight forty eight sixty and he shot his mealy with it. Yeah,
And I was like, that's a trading accurate gun. And that thing is just it's nothing. It feels like a toy gun.
Yeah, it does feel like a toy gun.
It's yeah, sup lightly And I got it built like that for purpose, just for the sense of like, you know, I hunt in the best both worlds of hunting, the timber country and the open country. That was probably one of my you know, originally when we first got in the long range, we were packing those heavy guns around
in the timber. Yeah, and then you have this big scope where it's like five and a half power by you know, twenty two or twenty three power that you're in those five and a half power and you know, when you see that elk in the timber and it's point blank, you pull up and you're like you're seeing hair and you're like got to try to find the kill zone. But I like, you know, for me, in scope choice, if you're so, if you're in the market of buying a scope, it's like, Okay, what can I
buy for the best of both worlds? I like a scope that at least three power three power, I can shoot really good at that close range. I like three power, and then I try to get the farthest power possible that Leopold I have. It's a it's a three. It's a three by eighteen.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you shoot Leopold too, right, yep? Yeah, And what's your opinion on that?
Yeah, I'm the same of the same thoughts, especially for new shooters if you haven't shot rifles a lot. In in heavy timber conditions or even sometimes open open countries, like a new hunter, sometimes it's really hard to acquire the target, right, So having that three power, you're not looking at hair right, you're look you you look through the site picture and it's like, okay, I see you know, pretty wide view. Oh there's a there's a deer. Okay, I see it. Now it's easier to acquire your target.
I guess they should say a little easier with that lower power, especially in big timber exactly.
And the also too you want to do is you always even if that long range and you're zoomed up. I'm just throwing this out there. Anytime you make a shot, zoom back down really quick, because what happens is you shoot an animal. Like I said, you zoomed up. It's great because you can see detail. The downside of being zoomed up, it's harder to find your target. Right, the more zoomed up you're, the harder to find your target.
So people shoot then they're like they need to make another shots, Like I can't find the animal as soon as we shoot. The first thing we try to do is they get back on the animals you don't see it zoomed down, find them again. And if you have time to zoom up due if not ranging, make a shot zoomed down. If you're zoo the farther you zoom down, the quicker is to find the target.
Yep.
The end of story.
Yep.
So that's just happy. You have to get yourself into these habits can be done. You could train yourself with these habits now before you end up in the woods. When you have a scenario, you have a bowl of a lifetime. You mess up and you're like, oh, shoot, I could have would I should have? Could have? You know, you should have figured that you should have done all that practicing before you ended up in the woods. Have
your equipment so again. And I also brought up a story yesterday about a really good friend of mine I went to high school with, and I saw his success change from when he was in high school to now now time. What's different now because before you were struggling with killing stuff, Now you're you're whacking and stacking. What is it you doing now that you weren't before? He says, Tom, I'm put putting in the time. And I'm like, that's really like the biggest foundation for hunters is putting in
the time. You need to put in not just the time in hunting your animals, but the time and knowing your equipment and shooting it. I said, I know really good hunters, So it's fice. It goes both ways. I know guys that are really skilled shots, but they suck at hunting. I know guys that are really good at finding animals, but they suck at shooting. Yeah, and you gotta you gotta prefect both. That's what's going to make you the ultimate killer.
There's no there's no cheating it. There's no short cuts. Yeah, I mean I think there's some shortcuts, as in you can learn from other people and maybe be mentored or take some courses, learn these things and then but you have to put them in practice. You can't just be like, oh, yeah, they told me this and then think you're going to go out and accomplish it. I mean, you still have to put put in the time. You have to put in the time scouting, you have to put in the
time hiking, you have to put the time shooting. And I love this part. You were talking earlier about shooting your bow in your backyard, and this relates exactly with with rifles too. Everyone is a pro and they're about own backyard. Everyone probably shoots really good at the range right that you have a nice solid rest, you can calm yourself, you can shoot very accurately. It's like, man, my gun is awesome. Man at one hundred yards or two hundred ards wherever, however far the range is, it's
a it's a set distance, it's never changing. It's a very comfortable place to shoot. Now you go to total archery challenge with your bow in your backyard. Oh, I drill hundred yards targets all day. You go to the Total Archery Challenge, it is a whole different world. So you have to really temper your expectations of what you're what you think your your maximum shot distance is, whether
it's archery or rifle. So when you get to and you put yourself in these situations like, oh yeah, I can hit I can hit an elk at of eighty yards because I do a hundred in my backyard. Well, you go to the total Total Archery Challenge and you have to shoot at a thirteen degree downhill angle and all of a sudden, your arrow don't even hit the
elk or it hits it in the butt. Right, hold on from everything from shot execution to maybe you don't have your third access dialed on your site right same with rifle, Like I know, I've got good friends that do a lot of long range shooting. Once they got there, Okay, I'm on paper, everything's dial and my gun is grouping. I know it's accurate. Now. They don't sit there at the range and just pound targets at the range all
the time. What they do is they go out in the field and they go to areas it would be similar to where they're hunting, and they're starting to make those same shots that would be similar to what you would make in real world conditions. They find a big rock bluff, you know, maybe they're taking a very vertical shot up or down a long distance. It's windy, it's a big canyon, there's different wind currents from one side to the other. Now they're testing. They think they know
about shooting long distance, and it's very surprising. It's like, wow, I can hit really good at the range, but I need to make I need to do some work out here in the field. So you understand how to hold for wind, you know, or dial for win, and you start understanding your limitations. You start understanding, you know, your rifles performance, how just laying differently, squeezing differently, holding the gun differently affects your shot so dramatic compared to sitting on a bench.
Exactly. And you've brought something up really important too. So when we anytime, so for example, we got a hunt that come you know, if we were hunting Wyoming, that train is so different. You're in higher elevation, different altitude, different barometic pressure, everything there's a lot of things that go into by going into a new area. Right, we like to pop a rock before the hunt starts over there. We're like, we're in a new area. Let's see how
we're shooting. Yeah, see if the gun's on. If it's not, then we have to figure something mouse out before the season starts. We like to go into a hunt a couple of days early. Now, are we doing it in area we're gonna hunt? No? Are doing anrew where other people are camp. No, We're really careful where we do that at. And we want to make sure that. We just want to make sure that when we hunt the animal, want to hit it now. Can mistake still happen? Absolutely?
And the one thing that I want to bring up to is, let's say you do wound an animal and you can't find it. Don't let that and don't let that each you apart to where you put your gun in the safe and you never want to touch it again. I've seen the same thing with bow hunters. Some guys like they wound an animal and they can't find it. They did the scourage, they feel really bad about the yelk and they hang up their bone. They said, I'm never going to go our chan again. That just felt
too bad to wound an animal. You know, do I feel bad when that happens. Absolutely, I get sick to my staf But I think important. It's the most important thing is to get back on the horse and just you should just learn from that. Like, Okay, that sucked. I don't want to do that again. What can I do to make myself a better shot?
What went wrong?
Well?
How do I fix it?
Yeah? How do I fix that? And then move forward? That's what makes a good hunter. You can look at it. I don't care how good of a shot you are. Look at every hunter that you know. It could be on Instagram, it could be YouTubers. Everybody at one point makes mistakes. I will laugh in someone's face if they said they killed twenty bullok and they've never wounded an elk, I will laugh in their face because I know it's not true. Every person has made a mistake at one
point in their life. And you know it's just the question is is how many? How many of those animals you killed were killed successfully? You know what I mean? Mistakes do happen. You just got to move forward and make sure it doesn't happen again. You always focus on that. Yeah, so and I'm all about that, all about just like being a better hunter. Yeah, And look, even I could this year if I feel like I'm the best shooter in the world, I don't hang up the gun because
you can get out of practice pretty quick too. I've noticed that with archery hunt too. If I like skip a year, it's like, Okay, I've been shooting every day with my bow. I feel really good. And the next year I'm like, oh, yeah, I know what I'm doing. Then you don't. I don't shoot my boat for a bird time. It could be four or six months, and I take it to the archery shoot. All of a sudden, I pick up bad habits. I'm like, why am I
not hitting the targets. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm like I'm shooting my trigger rock, you know what I mean. And the one thing I noticed, and again I'm kind of getting off topic, but I was noticing something this spring. I was like, you know, I was a little out of practice. My bow got stolen last fall, and so then I went a few months without a bow. I got a brand new bow, got a new release. In this spring. I was doing an archery shoot. I was all over the place the first four targets, and I'm like,
what am I doing wrong? All a sudden, I just started paying attention to my trigger pulling. I realized that I wasn't my finger wasn't even on the trigger. By the time, I would be like this far off away from the trigger, like just like a quarter inch. And then I'd hit my trigger right when I felt like my creussers are.
On, you're just punching it.
Just I was punching it. And as soon as like, Okay, chill the freak out, Tom, keep your finger on that trigger and just pull slowly, you know, And then I started doing that and big change, Like my then I was hitting where I needed to, you know, on the targets throughout the course. I'm not a professional archer, but I can kill the target, you know what I mean. That's my goal is to kill the target. Right I'm not I'm not a ten X shooter, but I'm always
trying to kill the target. That's kind of how I do that. But just going back to shooting, like just because you feel like you're a good shot now because you've been practicing, doesn't mean to hang up the gun. Just consistently shoot same thing. With long range, you can easily get out of practice rush shots. People just it's good to have a second guy. It's fine versa. Sometimes Travis is there with me and I'm like, I'm getting antsy.
I want to shoot this this bowl elk and he's at eight hundred yards and I feel like he's getting away. Child's like, calm down, Calm down, you're too wiggly. I see you shaking. Calm down, you know, like like Adam on his sheet this this year or last fall. I was like, Adam, I see your heartbeat through your shirt, Like you need to calm down at him. So it's good to have extra people there too, to be there
to help you out. Because long there's a lot that does go into long range shot and and so that's another like if you were to long range shoot, I feel more comfortable to taking farther shots if I had somebody next to me, right, Like, there's some shots I won't take. I'm like, if I had somebody next to me, i'd take it. But means I don't to spot my shot. I'm not going to risk the shot. I'll just getting closer.
That makes sense, Yeah, absolutely well. I love it well man, Thanks Tom, I appreciate you coming on. We're hitting an hour here and we don't typically like to go any further than that. I feel like we could. I honestly feel like we could talk all day about what you have. But we've been hunting for three and a half days together, and we've talked NonStop, like two schoolgirls about elk hunting, this,
elk cutting, that, mule deer hunting, wolf hunting. Like we've covered the gamut of every kind of hunting that you guys, you and your family have done, and we're still talking about new stuff today. Like we haven't talked about this stuff much.
Well, And I see you're passionate about oh cutting too, because it's like, you know, because you're running a Phillips game calls and stuff, and sometimes you think as somebody hunts an animals so much, it's like, ah, yeah, it's just another elk. But you're when I hear you talk about elk, it's it. I can see. It's your life and your blood, Like, yeah, that's all that's on your mind.
You're just like you're telling me stories, just stories after story after story of all these elk experiences you have and some are big bulls and some some bulls are like average bulls. Yeah, but like some of those bulls like that you've killed that were average are sometimes, like I say, like I could tell like that was more of a memorable experience than some of the bigger bulls
that you killed, Yeah, just because. And I think that's really neat to see your passion and elk hunting and and that you know, it's like it shows me that you really love what you do.
Yeah, And I'd like to say the same thing about you too, is like your enthusiasm in which you talk about your stories and you tell all about all these different experiences you've had. And then I see your trophy room, which I don't know if you can hang another set of elkhorns or deer horns on the wall here, but this isn't all of them.
I mean.
Then then this is your this is your dad's house in the in in his in his downstairs trophy room. Then he's got like a workshop area and the walls are covered with antlers in there, and I know you and your brothers all have antlers at your house's it's incredible. And then when you you talk and you show me
to the places you hunt. Like you take one look at this country and you immediately, in my mind says, there's nobody that's going to kill anything here unless you are one hundred percent committed and passionate about climbing up through these nasty, thick forests, you know, up these steep slopes to the higher elevation, or just you know, punching through timber whatever. It takes a lot of dedication. And I feel like sometimes people see success and they don't
understand the work that that goes behind that success. And I and I and I and I know this firsthand, but spending this time with you this week just really reinforces that. It's like, I think you and your family are incredible people. Besides just the hunting accomplishments, your family is just amazing.
You know.
I've enjoyed so much, you know, spending my time here visiting with them, and only got to see you know, part of your family. I haven't even got to, you know, spending time with your other brothers. Yeah, so I look forward to that at some point too.
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, most everybody's working. I guess Travis is sheep hunting right now. And yeah, and everybody's kind of like gone doing other things right now, but trying to get ready for Archie Elk season.
I guess, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, this this episode I kind of messed up, but I didn't read any any listener questions. Okay, but I'm just gonna throw this out there for for some of the next episodes. If you guys have any questions you want to hear me or my guests answer, email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com and give us your question, or better yet, I have a super secret phone number you can call in and you can leave a message. You leave a
detailed message, it can't be over three minutes. And then that mess ask the question. Ask your question about whatever it is, whether it's calling or hunting tips or whatever, any kind of big game animals or predators, and we'll do our best to answer that that question, and that super secret phone number is to zero eight two one seven seven zero one, and leave that message, keep it
under three minutes, and we'll zero the best. So anyway, thanks again, Tom, It's been a pleasure, and look forward to our new next adventure together in the near future.
Absolutely, thank you.