Welcome back to Cutting the dis and today we're recording here at the twenty twenty three Pendleton Roundup with Pendleton Whiskey in the nineteen ten room.
I have to admit I'm not much of.
A cowboy, but I love watching all the events and I just like being around good people, which you're surrounded by at these rodeos. Today's guest is a Canadian professional rodeo cowboy who specializes in saddle bronc riding. He's a three time twenty sixteen, nineteen and twenty two Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association World Champion saddle bronc rider. Additionally, he spent some time in the fall hunting a little and everything
that Canada has to offer. Whitetail, elk mildeer, moves, coyotes, whatever he has a tag for there on his place.
Welcome to the show, Zeke, Hey.
Thank you thanks for having me on. I'm really excited for this.
How was it going here for you at the Pendleton Rodeo.
That's been really good? Yeah? We we we showed up Monday, slacks started. We was in the team roping. Didn't have any luck there. I rode my bronc on Wednesday as eighty six, so we'll be back for the finals on Saturday.
Perfect.
Yeah, it's it's so when when you say when you come to these rodeos, you are there guys that only do you know single events or are there a lot of guys that do a little bit of everything like you like roping riding.
Uh, They're kind of a little bit of both, but mostly anymore rodeo has gotten to where it's kind of events pretty specialized. One guy's kind of kind of throw all their eggs in one basket, you know, But there are all around guys. Obviously, the giveaway an all around world title probably the most coveted title to get, which is Stets and Wright's been when the last few years. But there are lots of lots of time event guys crossover from CAF Open to team rope and uh, stuff
like that. We just we entered this one every year, just gives away really cool all around saddle and it's just it's pretty fun to run one down on the grass.
Yeah. Yeah.
So normally at this time in the podcast we would take listener questions, and if you have listener questions of your own, feel free to email them to us. At CTD, at phelpsgame Calls dot Com, or hit us up on social. But today I'm gonna take this fifteen minutes or so and just ask Zeke some questions about the rodeo, you know, kind of his life and how you get here. So we're gonna do a little pivot and then we'll get back to our normal recordings in future episodes. So, how
do you become a pro rodeo cowboy? I'm having kind of second thoughts on what my career choice would be, and so I'm really curious for myself. How do you become a pro rodeo cowboy?
Yeah, it's it's kind of an unconventional way to make a living, and there's lots of different ways to become a rodeo cowboy. Some of the guys that we ride with just fall into it and see it on TV or something, you know, catch it, catch it somewhere and think that's one of the cooler things I've ever seen, and somehow get involved. For me personally, on both sides of my family have always been very very deeply rooted in rodeo and stuff. So I just grew up in it.
I grew up on a ranch in Big Valley, Alberta. And yeah, just pretty pretty well, just grew up in it. It's all all I can ever remember.
Yeah, so does that start like at a very young age, like when what's the progressions? Like you know, at our local fair there's like mutton buss you know, they throw them on a sheep. So it's like how do you progress through like when you're ready to.
Get on an animal?
Like how how you finally get on a bronc and you know, how does that go?
Yeah, it's it's a little different for everybody. But obviously, you know, being being ranch kids, we rode anything that anything that we could get on, you know, the goats and bottle calves and every everything that was around the around the place. But yeah, there are stepping stones, you know obviously the sheep ridings. I think that's more for
the parents enjoyment. But you know, you go that route and then you obviously probably start riding a saddle horse and learning to riding things and then progress into safety you're riding if you wanted to go that route, or you start roping and uh yeah, just kind of go through the steps until you're okay, where do you want to be?
Yeah, I don't. This is not meant to insult anybody, but we were I was talking with Garrett along with me Eater, he's here at the round up with us, and we were talking about like, you know, the extreme bowls, the bull riding versus Bronc and kind of the tradition and where that came from. Can you tell me a little bit about that, Like the bulls have kind of maybe been for a little bit more show and entertainment, where Bronc really has their tradition rooted into it.
Yeah, So the Bronc riding is what they call the event that started at all as kind of the very first you know, hundred and fifty years ago, there would be you know, say cowboys like at the Penalton round up. You know, when they'd have a round up, they get everybody's cattle together and brand and then sort them off and then you take your own cattle and go sell them.
It's how they used to do it. So at the roundups, whoever had the bronchiest or rankest horse that they were riding, you know, obviously they would start putting wagers on it, and bats being cowboys and seeing who could could ride the longest on the rankest horse, and that's that's kind of where it started. And the blue reading I think it came around after Yeah, kind of more as a w.
W yeah, because I mean what you guys were doing was you know, trying to break you know, crazy horse. Yeah yeah, yeah, where there was no reason you should jump on a bowl all around in past.
Gotcha makes sense?
So, uh, you know, for me maybe in a little bit of an outsider, like we know, there's this local circuit. You know, I got the Saint Paul Rodeo close to me, you know, the Penalton round up. So there's but when think when people typically think, uh, you know, rodeos, they think of the n FR, they think about the pro rodeo, But the p r c A rodeos all lead up to this actual n FR. And can you tell us
how that goes? How many of these you know, I don't want to say minor events because they're not, but how many of the p r c as do you hit in order to make it to the NFR? And then can you tell us how you actually like qualify for the NFR.
Yeah, so there what you would call like a regular season rodeo. I think the PRC has somewhere in the neighborhood is seven hundred regular season rodeos every year. Our season starts October first and ends September thirtieth, and so you just for us mostly we start in January. We kind of when the building rodeos, big winner rodeos start and stuff. So that's kind of when we start, and we'll go all the way to the end of September.
In the BRONC riding, you you're allowed to use one hundred rodeos towards your count and qualifications for the NFR. NFR strictly top fifteen in the world off money won, So the fifteen guys that'll win the most money in that event are seeded into go play at the finals.
So the most I mean, if you happen to go to one hundred events and win money out it, they're taking your top one hundred winnings calculating that, and then that's what determines the fifteen that get to make it to Vegas and December every year. Yes, sir, gotcha, gotcha. So I was completely you know, hopefully everybody knows it was a joke. I never belong on a BRONC or ararible ever. But uh, you know another thing that would
keep me off. I'm not tough enough. You know, one thing that people think about with rough Stock is injuries. How's your career band in that sense so far? I think I believe you're twenty nine years old.
I'm twenty nine. Yeah, And as far as injuries go, I've been I've been really lucky. It's a it's a pretty rough sport. All three of the Roughstock events. You know, you're you're dealing with an animal that that outweighs you ten times, you know, and so it it h You can get banged up, but it's that's kind of part of it. You know, if you're if you're gonna if you're gonna jump dirt bikes or brad Buckham bulls, you're probably gonna get some bumps.
And yeah, and one thing, the injuries seem to differ between Bronx and bowls, where you know, they they twist you off, you go fly in typically and they want to stomp on you. Where you know, watching yesterday a little bit, it seems like, you know, you guys fall off a little more graceful. I mean, they can be some pretty bad tumbles, but there's a big difference between kind of how you crash on bowlvers how you crash on the on the bronx.
Yeah, yeah, the bruncker and it's it's pretty you know, it's all timing and balance, all the events are but the bron grade and they say it's kind of like poetry in motion, I guess is what they call all the time. So it's when when it's working, it's it's really smooth and it looks really good. It's really not rough at all. You obviously will get banged up and and and get into some some recks and situations where
you know, it's unavoidable. For the most part. It's you're not really going to get two big a rex, but knees and knees, ankles and growings are are pretty pretty hard for bron graders. Yeah, they go a lot.
Yeah, I think I've seen more people get banged up off of the dismount. You know, they get the rescue horse or whatever it is comes out. Pick up man comes and gets them off his horse, and then they seem to tumble off the other side or end.
Up on the I usually get all my injuries. You're trying to get off safe, safely Yeah.
So uh as far as a crossover, you know, I make my living as a hunter. You make your living as a as a as a rodeo guy, is it? Do you think there's a big crossover between the two groups and and you know.
I personally, I've seen a huge crossover my whole life. Most most everybody that I know that through the rodeo world, you know, is involved in hunting or fishing, some sort of controvation, you know, of some sort whether you know, it could be just even just ranching, you know, taking care of their place and stuff. But huge crossover. A lot of a lot of the contestants are are big hunters.
Some of them have their own outfits and guides. And yeah, there's there's a lot of hunting goes on in the radio.
Yeah, it seems to be a lot of crossover. And the two the two genres or whatever you want to call them, the two lifestyles definitely have a lot of cross Yeah.
I think they compliment each other quite well. And you know a lot of people that come from Roady, not everybody, but it comes from like a ranch or a farm or you know, some sort of agricultural background and a lot of times with that comes you know, you know, harvesting animals off your own land.
Yeah.
And one of the one of the things that you know here at me Eater, we're huge public land advocates, you know, and and I love it. But one thing we need to do is tip our hat to you know, a lot of the private land. You know, these ranchers, these cowboys that run big chunks of private they seem to take care of the animals maybe better than we can on the public, you know, and give them things they need, you know, food, water, you know all that.
And there there hasn't been too many places I've went where the private land hunting wasn't maybe a little better than the public that's adjacent to it.
So I think we we.
Always talk about conservation, but it's like these private landowners, all the work they're doing for their their livestock also benefits wildlife in an incredible way.
Oh for sure. Lots of lots of our neighbors and people around us, uh, you know, they run cattle and do do all that, but they also you know, sell hunts in the fall and like to take care of their deer and animals because you know, it's also another source income.
Yeah.
Yeah, So what's your biggest and favorite parodial moment if you had to pick one?
Oh, my biggest probably last year. I would say it was my favorite moment tenth round in the NFRUH. I had one ride that it won me a lot, said a set a season's earning record, tied the average record, won the world when the average split the round, and uh, what's the top gun winner at the NFR So.
Nice that was.
That was pretty cool. I don't know if that'll all happen ever again.
Yeah, yeah, one good ride just kind of checked all the boxes there for you. That's awesome. So now we're gonna jump in. We're gonna transition a little bit from from the rodeo into two hunting. So, as I mentioned earlier, it sounds like you hunt a little bit of everything up there, and that's one thing I love about Canada is like you got everything on on on the table. You know, you've got elk, you've got meal deer, white tail, moose,
you got predator hunting. What would be your favorite of the species to go after?
Do you have one?
I don't know, I would my favorite is probably hunting elk. Obviously, when you're you're running around, they're all screaming and and stuff. But I just like it. I really just like to be outside. I enjoy it. But yeah, it's meal, they're hunting. They're all different. You know, it's fun to put a stock on a meal deer. You sit in your tree standway for your white tail. Yeah, it's uh yeah, I like them all.
So how do you how do you how are you able to We'll get back to the rest of the species and strategy and all of that, but how do you how do you balance your schedule with you know, being on the road quite a bit because what the rodeo one stops at the end of September, so you're about to have a little bit of a fall break leading into the NFR Then.
Yes, sir, yeah we'll have We'll still have a few more to go to, a few more events and things, but that is our slowest time.
YEA, sure, that's perfect.
So you have a little bit of your fall fall to hunt if you need to, and take care of the place while you're there. And uh so end of September you're still riding to then do you get to catch some of that elkra or you typically hunting them with a rifle or a bow up there? How does that like, how do you your guys a season structure set up there in Canada? And then what what you know, how do you hunt elk, whether screaming, whether it's with the rifle, and kind of what's your fall lookout?
Yeah, I kinda usually miss most of the good part of the rut by the time we get home from this, but yeah, we'll go after with our bow for an atlerd out gets a draw tag in our area for a rifle me and my brother. My brother had one last year. He killed a pretty nice bull there, and yeah, so then well I gotta I got a draw tag for meal there this year. So imagine we'll try to go kill.
Something win's that season run.
So that's I can I can archery hunt him, and then November first turns into a rifle tag.
One nice nice So where you're at in Canada is it? Are you in mountainous ground? Are you hunt them up in the mountains or do you have some you know, foothills that kind of surround the place.
Yeah, So where I'm at, I'm actually kinda kind of right in the start of the prairie. So I'm in the prairies that kind of runs through the southeastern side of Alberta. Lots of little rolling hills, little bluffs of poplar trees and willows, lots of you know, we got so many hills, We got lots of little we call them slews or whatever. But you know they drive. Yeah, the dry up on dry years, but watch of years they hold water. And yeah, it's it's actually it's pretty
cool country right off the river. Red Deer River runs there. It's got big river breaks, kind of bad landsing, you know, So that country it's pretty cool.
So, uh, white tail as well. And then you know you can hunt white tail every every single year up there. And yeah, so what's your what's your go to tactic on that? Are you guys more spot in stock? Are you sitting in a tree stand a ground blind? Like what's your go to?
You?
Are you patterning on them? Or like what's your what's your go to there?
Yeah, So for us, it's mostly you just you kind of get in the stand or in a ground blind or wherever, and you just kind of hang out. Like for where our white tail are, it's a few miles north of our place where it starts to get quite a bit, you know, you start to get into quite
a bit more cover and and brush and stuff. It gets the country gets a little tougher, you know, so they're not they're not as visible where I think the meal deer have kind of pushed them out over the years because seemed like seemed like you used to catch them out and open a lot more. But uh, we we just you know, you just sit in the stands or whatever and try ears so you can sit on water and.
Yeah, do you do you play white tails during the rut? Are you trying to do like that pre rut and pattern them?
Are you during the Yeah, we had them during the rat. We'll try to rattle them in.
Do you do any calling as far as like grunting bleeding.
Just a little bit, mostly like I I'm not confident enough in my calling to uh, you know, if I need to stop one or I'll use it.
For Yeah, I'm pretty new to white Tony. I always kind of everybody still kind of jokes with me because I always said I would white tail hunt when I turned seventy and couldn't walk around on the mountains anymore.
But I got to go to Kansas last year.
You know, all the listeners have heard this before, but I was surprised, you know, with with some of our new grunt calls that we had put out, you know, hunt around black tails. We have black tails here on the coast, and just how effective it was almost as effective as calling elt. You know, just a little grunt, you know, some popping grunts, some tending grunts, and uh we had bucks come flying at us. And then a couple of times we would get up we had some
elevated ground blinds. We weren't down on the ground, but but just hit the rattle bag and just to have bucks come running like out of multiple directions, you know, kind of like sprinting by us.
It was a lot of fun.
So I was, yeah, and I honestly, I'm not telling you how to hunt, but I think if you picked up a grunt call, like it's super easy.
I love you know, I know a guy, I'll have to know what I'm saying to them with it.
I don't think.
Yeah, there's some popping grunts, some little short ones, and then you get that longer attending grunt. That's all I ever did and had great success with it.
Nice. Yeah, I get on that.
Yeah, I know a guy I'll get I'll get some sent to you. You can give him, give him a run this year. Meal deer. You you all spot in stock or what's your approach there?
Yeah? Usually, and and most seems like if we do, if we're hunting meal dere it's usually, uh, with the rifle, we'll just buy a landowner's tag or something just to just have something to go hunt. But yeah, usually just spot in stock. And my other actually we killed a pretty good meal there a couple of years ago, and uh, yeah, it's just it's kind of fun. We've got family close by, and you know, you get up in the morning and go out for a couple of hours save in the evening.
Yeah.
Yeah, so kind of a long family tradition. You guys have hunted that country for a long long time.
Yeah.
I grew up with two brothers and so all three of us boys were pretty close in age and obviously had the same interests and stuff.
So were you guys.
And I might, uh this might lend to me not knowing exactly how Canada's laid out. You know, some of those areas in Alberta and Sascotchwan just got giant meal deer. You know, you see the giants that lay down on the wheatfield or the cornfield, Are you guys in that part of the country where they grow just the giant.
I mean, they get pretty big. So my uncle last year just north of us, he lives north of Steller, We live south of Steller, he killed. I want to say, I didn't hear of any in Alberta going much bigger, but he killed the meal there that went to thirteen.
Jeez, that's a giant.
Pretty good. The one that me and my brother killed last year a year before last, who went one ninety eight. So a pretty good, pretty good deer. You get east of us over there, kind of long on the Saskatchewan border and stuff, you can they can run into some big middlegaris, you big crankers down there.
So I have to ask, maybe you don't want to Hunting is.
Pretty good everywhere in Canada. Like, it's not really bad. It's not that bad.
Is there just not as much competition? And maybe you don't know our atmosphere down here. It just seems like the competition for the good things is just crazy down here versus up there. It doesn't seem to be as much for the.
I think just I think it's just the population size and things like, you know, you go to Alberta, there's four million people in Alberta, and it's got a bigger land mass in Texas. You know where you go to Texas, there's thirty million people. Yeah, that's there's a lot more people after after something, you know. I just yeah, I think that's kind of what it is. Bigger, just it's a vast country and and lots of animals.
Yeah, you might not want people to know this if the if the answer is what you're going to tell me it is. But how do how would a guy like me being down here in the States, how do we hunt?
Canada? You'd mentioned, you know, neighboring property selling hunts is there?
Like yeah, you just you'd have to go through a licensed guide. Short and yeah, there's over the counter tags and different things you can buy. Probably not a lot different than me coming down here, you.
Know, So you can go up there, you can get an over the countertag, but you just need to find property to hunt.
Yeah, you have to go. I think there's some sort of regulation on having to go through a guide and you you know, like to have proof that you're up there.
Yeah, you're not up there with without reason.
Yeah, you mentioned yesterday.
We got to talk a little bit yesterday at the met Eater booth here at the at the rodeo, Kyle hunting. It sounds like you maybe do just as much of that is is big game and you enjoy that.
What's your go to? There? Are using e calls? Are you using? Are you? Yeah?
Hand calls like your calls, fox pro whatever. We uh yeah, we kind of hunt them, kind of hunt them however we can. There's Alberta's littered with coyotes. There's coyotes everywhere. You know, the last whatever few years the fur trade has been pretty poor. So there, I mean, it seems like there's becoming even more of them because you know,
they're not really in demand. And but that's something my dad got us poisoned too when we were we were quite young and uh, you know, took us out, called her, called us in a coyote, and uh we all got hooked. And so it's it's pretty fun winter time, past past time, you know. Yep.
Yeah, did that come out of the farming ranching lifestyle? Like take did they harass your animals or was it not that bad or it just kind of keeps them offul landscape or was it.
You gotta you gotta control them to some extent, you know it for us it was never that, you know, they were hard on livestocker thing. You know, every seems like every year they get in my wife's chicken coop, Greek havoc on the chicken. That's about it, you know, but just did it, you know, for something to do and uh, you know, keep the keep them in check, keep everything.
The decline in the fur trade is a big issue with depredation everywhere because you know, back in the day when I say back in the day maybe just twenty or thirty years ago, when when the you know, the high prices were high on raccoons, beavers, you know, coyotes. You had a lot of guys out there with dogs, you know, spending time willing to put gas in their gas tank, you know, which like on the wild turkey
population is huge to to keep those raccoons out. And you know, all of that and it seems like with the fur trade and the fur price is being driven down, you know, nobody's on the landscape anymore. Keeping the keeping the raccoons off of their the coyotes, and it's just nobody's willing to spend that kind of money.
You know. It seems like there's a select few that are still out doing it, and.
Yeah, you're kind of doing it at your own expense anymore. That not not too many ladies in New York wearing fur anymore.
So it's just a few.
Yeah, it, you know, which is kind of a shame because there is a place, you know, for it, but you know, we just we just hunted for fun, and you know, there's there's a lot of them around.
Yeah, anyway, Yeah, it seems like anytime you get around an agriag environment, there's just it's over ran. Well I would consider overran, you know, I don't claim to be a biologist, but just more more than than what's needed on the land.
Just opportunities opportunists to hunters.
Right, so yeah, yeah, there's more on the landscape.
It's somebody with a feed lot that's got a dead pile out back.
You're good, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, we're gonna switch all the way back. We're gonna come back to elk hunting, running elk. So you're gonna get back kind of at that tail end but what's your what's your approach to to running elk? Are you are you running ridges to locate them? Are they in the bottom lands or they just like and set area because you guys are peer puer rockies.
Where you're at right, No, no roads?
Yeah, but where we yeah, so where we hunt the elk though, like I said, we're in the prairies there. So it's that it's pretty tricky wide open Yeah. Uh, you got to kind of get you got to get up and get in some sort of cover and hopefully you get across one and get them coming by you. We don't have we don't get a ton of area to hunt them either, and they move so much, you know, back and forth and stuff. But they're tricky to hunt
around us for sure. But you know with the rifle, yeah, you have a pretty pretty decent ieat even then it's still it's not easy.
Yeah, And so we talked about it on episode I believe it was forty nine with Corey Caulkins who used
to guide on some private land. You just mentioned, you guys have a pretty small area, so where you know a lot of what I teach in the mountains here where you've got endless public is we put quite a bit of pressure on them at times where in the situation where you are, or even if you find yourself in the public situation where you don't want to move these elk out of that area, you guys are probably a little more reluctant to put a bunch of pressure
on them during the archery season because you need them to be on the piece of land you can hunt. You want them to feel comfortable there. You want them to know that you're not existing so that you can hunt them day after day and they're not moved on to the neighbors or a different piece, right.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then once we get into October, you know, you kind you still get you know, there's kind of a second phase to the red and stuff, or you know, at that kind of at the end, you you might catch two or three bulls that are kind of hanging out, you know, starting to group back up. But it is tricky around, Like it's not like you can just go hike four miles and get around them and stuff, you know, because that's your neighbors and your neighbors over there hunting.
Yeah, you guys might all be buddies until yeah, you guys are all buddies. Util it becomes elk season on his property and he doesn't want you over there.
Yeah, noy, They're all pretty good. Everybody's Uh. Actually, last year when we killed that bull, the neighbor was across, you know, about a mile away on his stuff and he was watching them too. He heard the shots and come over and he was all excited. We go, they're hunting the same thing.
Yeah.
So one thing that you know, as far as archie all coming, you know, when win this kind of king right, it controls everything.
What does the wind like?
Prairie hunting would seems to be frustrating because in the mountains, I've got thermals, I've got some prevailing winds. I've got stuff that's pretty I can set my watch to it. You know, where when you guys are out in the prairie, is it is it more sporadic or is it pretty?
Is it pretty predictable?
As far as wind, wind, blow is usually pretty good. Usually out of the north northwest, Uh a lot. But if you if you get down in one of them low spots in like a sleut bottom or something, you know, usually got two or three hillsides around you, you know, you get in there in the wind change direction on you all the time, swirls and stuff. So yeah, I need to go with somebody like you and and have them get one in my lap because I haven't. I haven't had a ton of luck yet.
Yeah.
Yeah, we might have to have to plan that. Like I love hunting the mountains where I can use the terrain and the vegetation to like mask my movement. I'm I'm a little bigger than you, so it's like I need all the advantage I can get me sneaking around.
I haven't ever got to go to the mountains and do any ol kind of out of it. Yeah, that would be so.
Well, talk to Garrett and see if we can't get something Scheduled's right, So, prairie, is there any covered all? Like are there tree rows? Are there? You know fence rows? Do you have anything? Or is it just wide open?
And you know there's there's lots of like so like little pop like they're a variety of popular tree, but they don't get they don't get super tall. They're more of a weed. They like the root systems are all connected. They grow real fast, take on lots of water, and I don't think they live real long. But there's some little poplar tree so they get like thirty some feet tall. So there's a lot of those around. You can get in those and the willows and you know, yeah there's cover for sure.
That's where that's where those al. So they'll come out, correct me if I'm wrong. They'll come out feed in the prairie and the ag and then they're gonna go back in bed.
And yeah, so off the river, so we live about four miles off the river and the river valley. The river breaks are huge, like it's it's a mile to the bottom on each side. And uh so the milk get down in the river and then they'll come up out of the river and then they'll come across to anybody's alfalfa or oats and barley whatever. They get up there and get a feed. That's when we hunt them, and then they usually.
Drop down the river.
So when they're up there on that feed, you're just trying to get fine little crevices and stuff where you can make movement and get close. It just seems like a very very very tough way. It's a tough way to hunt elk, especially if.
They're a really tough way. And then you get down in there and get all them little hills around you and stuff, and you can't hear.
Where, yeah, or where the eyes are going to be?
Yeah, you don't.
Yeah, what herd sizes do? You guys run up there?
Because it buries where we hunt. You know where I'm from, We have roosevelts on the coast. The herd size is they used to be until our numbers are so down right now? You know, they used to carry herds of twenty twenty five elk And you know where you're at. I can imagine all those eyes on you, you know, versus somewhere hunting the mountain. Sometimes it's one bowl to two or three cows. Yeah, Like what's the herd size is there? And then how many eyes we you have to deal with as well?
Yeah, like sim elk that my brother was he was in the middle of last year when he killed that bull, Like I would say, there was I took a video. There's probably forty forty.
Some head hitch so they're running pretty big around.
Forty Yeah, So that really didn't used to be any elk around us around Big Valley, say fifteen twenty years. Like when I was little kid like, there wasn't really any elk you know, in the last whatever amount of years come back, you know they used to be but hadn't been for a long time. Anyways, they're back, and I would say, I don't know, like there's a couple of different herds of you know, you can see sixty seventy elk at a time and there's two or three different herds run around.
So did the do I call them ranchers? Farmers whoever?
Whoever farms all the country there were they are they happy?
They aulcher?
There is it?
Are they becoming kind of a pain with what the population growing like it is for you.
Guys, Yeah, for us, they're not. They don't you know really really cause too much havoc. They they're pretty good. I think some of the neighbors they might get in some of their silage pits and stuff, eat on little feed and stuff. But I don't I haven't really heard. It's not like you get down there on like Shardon, Wyoming or somewhere the Alker half team, you know, and they get in people's stack yards and white out.
White yeah stuff. You know, you see you guys what they reintroduction? I say, reintroduction. There may have been somewhere around, but you know, like with them showing back up in bigger numbers, it hasn't been like a.
Yeah, they say the wolves moved them off the foothills of the mountains and they're coming and stuff.
They're they're finding better country where the wolves don't necessarily want to be.
So do you guys have wolves where you're at or not yet?
D No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't see wolves around us.
No, gotcha.
The odd bear you see the lion and stuff on the river stuff.
I was gonna ask about bears. Do you guys have much bear.
Than you'll see, like the odd barrel fall that river up, you know, traveling whatever, but never really sticking around.
Yep, yep.
Moose is that? I'm assuming that's a drawer? Can you guys hunt those every year? How does your your moose?
Hunting?
Moose is a draw tag? I think you're an eight on that, so, yeah, you put in for eight or nine years before then you get a moose tag. But yeah, lots of moose around, some pretty good moose. Me and my brother killed a pretty good bull twenty nineteen. I think you know, for a Prairie moose. He's it's like fifty nice.
Nice. So so you got they and I don't.
I'm gonna I'm gonna also expose since I've never moose hunted. You've got the Yukon way up north. You know you're big Alaskan Yukon moose. And then you know, I know, we got our shiris here in like Washington that you guys have like what they consider Canadian or you just you just mentioned them being Perie, you're a shiris.
As well, I'm pretty sure.
Yeah. So fifty two inch bowls, I mean really good bowl for.
Yeah, like like yeah, it's not huge by no means, but for for around us. Says pretty decent moves.
Yeah, cool, cool on those?
Are you guys hunting during the road, Are you guys spot in stocking those or on on that sort of.
Yeah, it's usually a rifle tag, so you're just you're just spot in stock and the November hunting them, gotcha?
Are those on your property or when you draw a moose tag, do you start to get permission from some of the neighboring properties.
Yeah, because they come around so so rarely, like you pretty well you ask your neighbors and whatever neighbor that years has the tag, you know, kind of you kind of have permission.
It's a community permission where because you know, not everybody's gonna have one.
You know who's got the tag and yeah, you got full, full permission to shoot wherever you want.
So if you could only what's your favorite? We've talked about everything you get to DOUN in Canada. It sounds like we.
Have to say. I would say could probably be my favorite, but I don't know. I like it. I like it all. It's all pretty fun.
Yeah, I love ELK just for the interaction, you know, just the yeah, the right being able to call these you know, have a seventy eight hundred pounds screaming animal coming in and you know, pissed off at users.
So vocal, and yeah, it's yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, it's a I'm chomping at the bit. You know, we're here.
It is September fifteenth, and uh, you know we're here at the Pendleton Rodeo and yeah, the bowls in these hills about three minutes behind us are just cranking. And you know, I love the rodeo, but there's a piece of me that really wants to be in the mountains right now. So I'm trying to balance this this issue I'm going through right now. So it sounds like, as we talked about, you get to hunt a little bit of everything in Canada, have a lot of fun doing it.
There's a there's a there's definitely a correlation between the cowboys, the rodeo fans, the ranch lifestyle and hunting on which I really meyer and kind of I like that. Like I say, it's it's the rodeo seems to be full of good people. Everybody meet here, somebody'd give you the shirt off the back, you know, good, good, wholesome quality people.
Yes, Salted your type of people. So I'm gonna roll back.
We're gonna kind of close with back to the rodeo, cowboy and stuff. So Garrett along here with me. Eater was telling me that his his uncle back in the day kind of hired you when you were younger to do some trick riding. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what that that is?
Yeah, for sure. So when I was about nine, we started, uh, me and my two brothers started this uh little trick riding kind of Western show type act and we'd go around to the rodeos and do it. There's a little trick riding, a little trick roping as you spin the rope and do tricks with it, whip cracking, and then roman riding, which is where you stand on the back of the two horses and you go around we go
over a jump or whatever. Anyway, so we had a we had a little, uh little show, and we went went around all over North America, you know, performing at rodeos, and yeah, Garrett's uncle hired us. We did the wolf Point Rodeo, did some really really cool things. We got to perform for the Queen of England and for the Princess Kate and the Prince and I met a lot of cool people and uh yeah, I got to got to do pretty cool things as a twelve year old boy.
Yeah that sounds pretty cool. And so when did the when does trick writing like give give way to.
The real real rodeo stuff?
Is there was there a point like, all right, I'm done doing this trick, right, I need to get on a bron.
Yeah, it was, it was. It was pretty cool when we were little, and then as we get we did it from the time I was nine till about fourteen, I think, or thirteen somewhere in there. But yeah, so we did it for three or four years there and it was really good. But yeah, once we started getting a little older and and going on to some different things, we kind of phased out.
Yeah.
Yeah, So one thing, my wife thinks, I'm on the road a lot, but I have to imagine listening to your schedule, you're on the road a whole lot. How many days a year would you say you're traveling two rodeos, are doing you know at rodeos, and then between.
Yeah, between I would it's it's somewhere between two hundred and between two hundred and thirty to two hundred and fifty days a year, you're probably gone.
So you're home one hundred and.
I spend a lot more time with my family than a lot of people. Have a place in Texas that we go and spend the winter at, and they come with me when we're at the winter rodeos. But if it wasn't for that, we'd get about sixty days.
Yeah, so what's the balance.
I know your kids are here with you at this one, and Garrett, it really commended you on, like, you know, taking your kids to a lot of these things and having them kind of live the lifestyle. So are your kids traveling with you on most of these are now that school like is are they school age?
Yeah? They don't go a lot my family, they catch quite a few in Canada. Like I said, they go to all the winter rodeos for the winter. And then yeah, I'll take the kids one or time, one or two times a year, just me and the you know, one of the kids, and they'll go with me for a week or so. But for the most part they're at
home and we're out here doing this. But get to bring them with us for this week to Pendleton and you know, it's pretty fun ten days to bring the family and hang out and do this with you guys.
I'm gonna have to let my wife know when I when I get back and talk to her that you're gone for two hundred and fifty days a year.
See if you see, I don't know if it will help it all.
I will make you a week long I'll hunt look a lot.
Yeah.
Uh.
So we talked about injuries earlier. One of the questions I asked, so, how long into the future do you foresee yourself doing this. Do you have like a set date? Is it just until your body holds up or what are you thinking?
Yeah?
I don't, I don't. I don't hardly have any set date. I think I think my body will probably will always be there. I don't think the broncer, I don't go away. It'll probably be a matter of just you know, getting over the travel and not wanting to be gone for my family and want to be home and do that thing a little more.
Yeah, is there will there be any competitive decision? Like if you want to be are you that guy that wants to be able to compete or you're like it was that going to aid in the decision? If you're not at the top of the top of your game like you are right now, is it gonna Yeah?
I want to. I want to go out on top for sure. I don't want to. I don't want to fizzle out and go out. You know somebody that they didn't remember used to be good, you know.
Yeah, So here at me Eater, we encourage everyone go follow Zeke's journey to the twenty twenty three NFR where you sitting at currently on on points for this.
Year and like right there, third second or flirting second and.
Second and third.
So if you go in second and third, there's still a way you can win. Does it start fresh the guys.
Yeah, anybody if you make it, if you show up there, you have a chance to win them. Last year, I come from one hundred and sixteen thousand back and so.
It's basically the aggregate of everything you want up till September and then what you add on at the NFR.
Yeah. Yeah, so ten rounds, thirty thousand round the average paced seventy two thousand. I think the average is the highest score on ten head or nine head or whatever whoever whoever has that. And yeah, so there's some money to be one out there and we're uh, we're called so yepful we get out there and yeah, get it going.
Yeah, So follow Zeke twenty twenty three NFR. If you want to root for someone who's a hunter, open the door for your mom. Just be a great salty the earth guy. Uh, Zeke's Zeke's you got to root for Zeke. Tell people how they can find out more about you.
Follow you.
Yeah, you can catch me on Instagram. I think it's official. Zeke Thurston. I've got a Facebook page. I don't. I don't uh, I don't run it a lot. But yeah, we're on social media. Check us out, look us up, give us a follow.
Yeah, well, we wish you luck here on Saturday. I'm going to get terminology all wrong. You're in the short or how does the short round? The short round, shot round or finals or whatever you want. So that was like one hundred and twenty of you have roaded throughout the week and then they take the top to twelve guys, twelve scores, and then you all get thro right again Saturday.
Yeah, well, good luck on that Saturday. Wish you the best of luck.
Really appreciate it having you on the show today and we'll be here rooting for you.
Hey, awesome, Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it, and this is a lot of fun, and thank you.
Welcome back to a special addition to cutting the distance. We're just gonna do a quick recap here. Just got done here in Oregon hunting one of the Big three, I guess, but it wasn't as easy as everybody liked liked to make it out as as a pretty tough hunt. I'm joined here with Brian Sanders Oregon backcountry outfitters and David Frame, who's my camera guy in this hunt. We're just gonna kind of go through the recap, try to figure out.
The you know, the the.
Positives of this hunt and then a lot of the negatives and some of the difficulties and struggles we had on this hunt. Welcome to the show, guys, Hi Phelps. Thanks Jason, so Brian you you guide in this unit as well as the Winnaha Walla Walla kind of all across the eastern Oregon.
I think it.
I mean, it's it's a good hunt, it's got good balls in it, but it's not necessarily what it's made out to be. It's it's a lot more difficult than than just getting a tag in the Big Three thinking you're going to find a big bull behind every corner. Kind Of what's your opinion on this unit and kind of what people can expect if they are to draw this tag.
I'm organ back country outfitting by the way.
Folk, Oh, but outfitters and outfitting it's close kind.
Of similar in Jason's world. I think that the reputation is a little bit false on how great the unit is, how many quality bulls there are, how much privacy you're going to have in the woods that other hunters all the things. I personally think Mount Emily is probably one of the worst because of the access. You can almost access everywhere in Mount Emily. You can go to the same point that every other hunter can. You can bogle an archery season and get an answer below you, behind you,
beside you, what have you. I just think that it's a little bit I don't know, it's pretty tough, and the quality of bulls is a little bit tough too. You know, we think of Oregon's Big Three and everybody's thinking three eighty plus bulls. Then the fact is you're looking at three twenty bulls NonStop. You know, they just are cookie cutter bulls. Every time you hear a Bugley comes in, he's three fifteen, three twenty. I mean, you get the three forties on occasion, but it just starts
getting fewer and fewer. There's some amazing bulls killed in each of the units in the Big Three, but far less every year with the impact the walls are now having. It's just it's tough, yep.
And that was one of the things we noticed right off the bat on this hunt is you're kind of balancing quantity of bulls in some areas in this unit, it seems like a lot of the bulls want to end up in the same spot, or you go deep to some of these spots that might have fewer elk less people, but then you're you're getting maybe one play a day because you're not on as many elk and in those spots that have the high quantity typically easier
to get to, it seems like. And then there are guys everywhere some of the stuff that you know we hunted back in twenty nineteen. There are trucks and people everywhere. There's no way, and there's no way as you mentioned this Zenit there's roads everywhere at least where I could hunt on this tag. There are some conditions on the tag that I had Specifically, you just cannot get away from the people. And it was very apparent right off the bat. These elker call shy. You could do everything right,
and they just they're not going to come in. They've been called to, they've been called to and been winded, they've been called to and been seen, and you're kind of fighting all of this as the hunt goes on.
Yeah, I agree, I think that most of the real big cow groups are in those areas that are easy to access because the cows are kind of using that easier terrain, you know, the deep canyons, the kind of pockets that hold eight or ten cows. There's one bowl to bulls with them instead of there being eight or ten bulls, that's working seventy cows. So that's that's the tough end of that. And like you said, they are call shy. I mean, I think that there might be
a few factors in that. I think that the wolves have changed their habits a little bit over the last few years, because you'll be on bulls that are just screaming one night, the wolves come through that night the next day for two three days in a row, you don't hear a peep. I mean, they're still communicating obviously body language, but they just kind of they kind of get paranoid for a few days. But I agree the hunters, you know, it takes so long to get this tag.
I think that you get a few hunters that are less experienced than other hunters that go over the counter every year, year after year. They're avid bow hunters, they don't maybe have the call experience that yourself does, and they do. They sound a little bit off as far as elk sounds go, and they get call shy, they get when did they get seen? Like you said, So it makes it tough.
And you know, I had to refer to Dave multiple times on this hunt, like a guy that's supposed to have all these answers right when it comes to calling elk. I would look at Dave like, do you think we should caw call to this one or should we beegal to it? Because we were just getting beat so many times. It's like when you thought, in a normal situation that we should get in close and beegle because it's a
herd bull, he would take his cows. And then it's like, all right, next time we're going to go on in this herd bowl, we're going to caw call. That didn't seem to work, and so it had me even questioning these bulls were you know, so call shy, Like how do you approach these? You know, I asked you on the phone because you had some success earlier in the week calling in quite a few bulls, and and I'm like, Brian, what are you.
Doing, you know to get these in?
We were just kind of talking back and forth, and you know you were playing the game the right way, you know, whether if you know, you started with a cal call and they answered, But it would seemed to be few and far between where you'd actually get the
bulls to play the right game. Me and Dave had a couple good hunts, more of the remote stuff where people hadn't mess with these elk, but you were only dealing with one bowl, maybe one herd bul no satellites, or the one herd bowl that we did get on had a few satellites, and it.
Just made it tough.
You're either in not very many elk or you were in, you know, a bunch of elk with a bunch of people, and so you're you're trying to weigh that that decision on being in the middle of elk or be by yourself.
And like Dave can Dave is.
I love Dave as a camera guy because he's a very I mentioned in the last podcast, he's a pretty smart elk hunter. He gets it. He's a great guy
to bounce ideas off of. But there were just times where, you know, there were days where we dropped fifteen hundred feet into a canyon or a thousand feet and like we were going for broke, and then there are other times where we just didn't know what to do at times, and and we kind of had to change our mentality here the last couple of days when we finally got it done. But what do you think, Dave? What was
your takeaway from this hunt? As far you know, of course you're behind the camera a lot, but you get to make the same decisions and be in the same same scenario as I am. What's your opinion of the Big Three? You grew up in the Blues, but on the Washington side it's a special place to you. But the OLK hunting, I don't want to say it's overrated, it's it's a great spot to hunt elk, especially in comparison. So I'm not sounding ungrateful, but it's just maybe not what it's it's made out to be.
At times it can be good, but.
Yeah, these organ organ units are a little different in the Washington side, just a lot a lot more hunters. You're definitely hunting pressure dell, super call shy and then throwing inconsistent wins in there, and and it's pretty hard hunt. Yeah, towards the end there we were we were pretty much just going silent and trying to get as close as we could, almost sudding them like Mealy's.
Yeah, yeah, we we definitely had to change change our tactics there a little bit.
As as the hunt went on. We you know, it's like, dang, you know, my.
Call sound good, like they would locate, but when you would get in tight, I didn't know what the right answer was. And and so ultimately we went to a little bit of spot in stock with maybe a few cow calls and in certain situations and it it just uh, it made it rough. And and the other downside is in my numbers might be a little bit iffy. But there's about fifty five tags given in Emily, Is that right, Brian?
I think the fifty fifty five.
Yeah, and that's so fifty five and that's big bull tags. But then they give out three hundred spike tags.
Yeah, they give out a bunch of spike tags. So that doesn't help things.
And we're we're in these spike guys.
You hunt spike bulls, you find spike bulls just like you do big bulls. Right, you're locating the herd bulls the satellites and you're moving on these herds, trying to call these spikes way. So, in my opinion, you've really got three hundred and fifty five guys out in the woods plus or minus if you you know state tag holders, you know guys with tags like mine. You've got three hundred and fifty people in a unit. That's it is
a big, vast unit. But a lot of these guys are concentrated, and you've got a lot of guys going after you know, a barely.
Small amount of bulls.
When it when it all boils down to it, it just makes that pressure really real tough.
Yeah, I agree in the one all haul wall, while I think is a little bit better, but yeah, it's it's pretty tough. You get all them guys attacking the same herds and they get call shy fast.
Yep, I'm gonna I'm gonna back up a little bit because I think the audience needs to like dial into what you call big bulls. So you you know, as an outfitter, you're trying to kill the absolute best bowl for your clients, right, and you're a guy that's been
lucky enough to kill a lot of big bulls. So I don't want to discredit the unit for not having what most people would consider like balls of a lifetime, you know, at that three twenty three forty, but you're talking about trying to find those bulls that are at a very uprand. You're you're looking for three fifty plus and you're even trying to find a few of those three eighty to four hundred type bulls in some of
these units. So so break that down kind of We've had this conversation a lot because my definition of a giant is way different than yours. A guy that gets
to live here see a bunch of these bulls. So explain that a little bit, Like the percentage is kind of what you can expect to see if you come to Emily, Like you're probably not gonna lay eyes on a four hundred, Like, explain that hierarchy, you know, the amount of bulls you're going to see, what you can expect to see if you're just a Joe blow that doesn't do a whole lot of scouting, maybe a couple of week weekends and just take it on in September.
Yeah, that's all. I guess I kind of know what you're asking here, But in my opinion, the very first thing I tell my hunters is you have to come with realistic expectations, so your abilities have to align with your expectations. Number one. Number two, you're exactly right when I say big bulls. You know, in my head just because we work hard and we're a little bit spoiled at being able to be out in the woods all
the time. So we are looking for that three p fifty three sixty and even a lot bigger like you say for some state wide auction tags things like that. But when you come to this unit, you're going to see that three twenty bull and as Jason said, that is a bowl of a lifetime. I mean that is realistic expectations for all these big three units. I always tell my hunters, you know, this is our this is
our goal, but this is realistic expectations. You come to this unit and three twenty three thirty bulls are the big bulls. You know, they're they're genetics, especially on the mount inly side or some of it, you're not gonna get different genetics that get a lot of inches. So you need to come looking for mature bowl that you're happy with. Don't come looking for inches, you know, don't get stuck on inches because they have to have a bunch of extra stuff, and some of these units don't
have it. The genetics just have straight sixes, straight seven whatever I mean, Is that kind of what you're asking?
Yeah?
Yeah, just what if a hundred puts in draws Emily, you know, you see a lot of these. You know, everybody's coming over here. It seems like everybody, if you look at the internet, comes over here and kills a three sixty bowl, right, It's what it seems like, or what they make it seem to believe. But being in the unit twice three times now, I've hunted with you
twice this year, I didn't hunt with you. But the reality is, you guys are working your tails off to find a few of these three fifty three sixty bulls, and the normal guy probably should come over here expecting more realistically, And I think a lot of guys, you know, the ones we've talked to here this week, they're happy
with those three twenty bulls. But I think where a guy may go wrong or a gal whoever's here, is you know, passing on what they would see as a three twenty three three because you might not get another chance at something better is the reality, Like a three twenty bowl is probably what most people are going to have a chance at, you know, those those bigger, mature satellite bulls.
Yeah, I would agree one hundred percent if you if you got a three twenty bowl and you have this tag, it's a shooter. I mean nine out of ten times, unless you've done your scouting or or you have a target bull in mind, which, as you said, we work our tails off, so we have some target bulls in mind, and we're targeting those bulls specifically, and we're not going to shoot until we kill one of them unless we're
running out of time or just capabilities. So you come to the big three, I would say any of the Big three a three twenty bulls a trophy bull. And I mean it wasn't very many years ago, a three hundred inch bull wasn't even heard of really, So I think, just you right on, expectations need to be more realistic. It's just a little bit blown out, and I think that a lot of people even sell it as that, but it's it's definitely a three three forty and under unit.
Yeah, I'm with a few exceptions that the hood above that mark and it's got the ability to grow in but it takes a lot of age, it takes some special genetics. All those things have to kind of add up to get that bowl there. And then they're like, you say, they probably make up what one or two percent of the bowls in the entire unit. I would say, yeah, I'm gonna jump over and talk to Dave here a little bit about kind of what we went through on this hunt.
A lot of ups and downs.
We've we had good weather to start with, but we it seemed like we were in an area some of the spots we wanted to hunt right off the bat very very over pressured. We thought we were in there deep ran into too get you know, two firefighters from from Eugene area. It's like, dang it, you know, we thought we had all of that, and then you know, later in the hunt we went more more isolated, way out into some deep stuff, long drives just getting away where we could hunt in the unit and a lot
less bulls. We you know that one day, I think we did what fourteen fifteen miles and we got on what two bowls that entire day. Yep, So a lot of bootleather to find just a few bulls, and it's new country. We hadn't been in there, we didn't really know how to win. Laid in, and then progressing through the hunt, we hit it weird where it was nice
one day, rain the next day, nice the other. So we had all these different systems moving in and I'm this is all joking, but at one point I about threw my bow down the mountain because we would literally try to walk three hundred and sixty degrees around the bowl and you could or where you were trying to get to you maybe hurt a bowl beagle or whatever you were trying to get to a spot, and you could not keep the wind right. I know one time, you know, because you can fill the wind in your
face as you walk. You know, we've all did that before. But I would puff my wind and be like, all right, we're good. I'd give Dave a thumbs up, and then he would ten minutes or ten seconds later, he would look at me and then he'd puff his wind and it was hitting us in the back, you know. And we fought that all week long or ten days long.
And how frustrating was that, you know for us, because I know you could probably sense of frustration with me, you were getting frustrated because you know, as a camera guy, you have to take all the same steps I do. And so have you ever played with fickle winds to that extent that we did.
No, I've never seen wins that inconsistent before. And it was pretty frustrating as a cameraman. Like bulls and elk all around us, but all week you're just they're just out of arms reach as far as like getting footage of them and stuff. Yeah, filming, I'm here and there at half mile away with long lens, but yeah, those callings are pretty sweet to get on film, and it's just hard to get those.
I feel a little bit responsible because Dave. Dave has talked about this, you know, behind the scenes with me. He's like, I love it because I've always got a tag, But he doesn't necessarily have a tag to kill the animal. He's got to take the photo it, you know. And I felt bad because we would get on bulls, we could work them, but it seemed like right at the last second, they would bump or we would get the wind wrong, and Dave, we just weren't able to capture footage.
No, no fault to you.
It was a rough hunt, and I feel responsible for that, and then I feel even more responsible at times where we're climbing, you know, thousand feet down to go chase a bugle. Maybe a bad decision I made blows them out, and then we're hiking back out and you're you're there with me, You're kind of getting pulled along. But it's all part of the game. And we were just we were really really struggling with that wind. I think we
were on elk every morning, every evening. We were playing it right, just could not seem to get everything to work.
Yeah, we were able to locate elk every day, but just getting them to play with us played the game was a struggle.
Yeah, And one thing we another takeaway which a lot of people need to recognize, is elk aren't necessarily dumb. Where we were finding the majority of the elk, they seem to be in these pockets where that wind was three sixty or there was no way to approach any direction you went. You weren't going to get in on them because the wind was eventually going to get to them. It was kind of it was kind of interesting, you know,
something we've always known. They always seem to bed in areas where they can't you know, where you can't sneak in on them. But a lot of these areas seem to be really really you know, in flats or pockets or bowls where the wind would just swirl and hit them.
And then yesterday.
A lot of these hunts come down to a series of decisions, right, are you gonna take the day off? Are you gonna take it easy? Are you gonna go hard every day after day? And one thing we should talk about is just like the physical demand that that this unit will put on you. There are some easy spots to hunt, but if you're going to get into some of the steep, breaky country, it's gonna wear you down. And you need to be able to come to this unit and do it day after day. And I don't
you know, you're in great shape. We were able to make it, but uh, you know, there were some there was a lot of effort put in for some days it just didn't really pan out or materialize anything.
Yeah.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of vertical in this country and uh yeah, just a lot of work, a lot of miles, yeah yeah.
And then going back to that decision, making all these little decisions yesterday, you can kind of I don't know if it was a sense of urgency. We had what four day five days left, but yesterday, if you look on you know, you've got a smart watch, I've got an iPhone, you start to look at what we did yesterday. We were to the point where we weren't we weren't We needed to like hit that turbo mode, right, We needed to just go. We needed to give more than
we had been. And so we started biggling off into this deep country and we were chasing every bugle like, oh, that one's too hard to get to. We're not gonna go chase that. So we went after every single bowl we heard yesterday and and just kind of gave it our all. You were even and this is where having you're not necessarily a hunting partner. You were more of my camera guy, but we were hunting together.
You know.
Sometimes I would pick you like hey, I think we should do this, and then you were like, hey, Phelps, we should definitely go bigle off here. And it was a lot of that back and forth kind of keeping each other positive and like hey, we need to go try this. That really kind of added to our success.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it was fun getting to help out on the hunt in this hunt and uh yeah.
Yeah, And and so I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of wrap us up with how we ultimately killed this bowl. I can't remember a bowl that I've never called in with archery equipment. And as we were grinding last night, it was just before six o'clock. We had literally an hour day. Like we had stopped down one little side road, you know, we're driving down the road looking on X. Dave's like, well, this kind of gets us above that one area we had been hunting or we had checked
out the first day and never been back to. We we you know, hurry out there. We checked for bugles and we get two different bowls biglan and we drop pins. We're like, well, the wind's bad, we're above them. Let's let's boogy around. And we were kind of calculating like all right, we can get back the truck in five minutes, we can get down there in ten and it's gonna be tight, like real close to dark.
And so we made it. We and then.
We're able to kind of fly up the ridge, especially for my pace, you know, get there fairly quickly, got parked.
Made it all the way to the bowl.
And the nice thing was this bull was beegling on his own occasionally, not very you know, feverishly, wasn't baglan all the time, but he would give us just enough. We knew about where it was on this On this instance, I elected to not make any calls. We were just we had a lot of wind. The wind was blown down. It was let us be pretty quiet, go under. But
we were able to follow this bugle. And we get up to this meadow, beautiful meadow, and I spot a cow maybe one hundred and twenty yards away, yeah, and we're kind of like, all right, we got to slow down, we got to kind of get our heads, you know, our bodies out of the way so she can't see us. And about that time we spotted some horn movement. This bull was betted down and thankfully he was on our side of the meadow, not the far, not the edge.
He was right in line with that cow. At that time, it was about what's seventy yards away.
Maybe, yeah, I think so.
Fortunately had a pine tree and me and Dave do some real quiet talking and hand motions. I'm like, let's get behind me. We'll walk in a single file line, and thank god, this tree was big. I'm a fairly big guy, and I was able to just keep that bull's head behind a pine tree. We had a couple of loud ass sticks we had to, you know, and trees and stuff to get over. We were able to see the bull's head, and a lot of times when a bull's betted, you can't really tell real easily if
he's looking at you or away from you. You're trying to figure out what's going on with which direction he's facing. And we kind of get in a straight line and we just start moving towards him. And the nice thing was is you could see his horns out one side of the tree as you were walking, so you could tell if he was picking up on your sound, your noise. We get through the sketchy section of that tree and
he's still. Everything's good. I'm ranging it. We're at forty nine fifty and I want to get to forty that way when he gets up out of his bed. We had about a half hour a day light left and wanted him to get out of his bed on his own without having to make a cow call. And we get to just under forty of the tree, but I figured he's bedded past the tree, so he's going to be a little bit maybe right up forty maybe just
a little bit over when he gets up. And we were in a section of pine trees, and anybody's hundred pine trees knows if you dropped to your knees, you're now able to shoot under him. And he was under a pine tree, we'll be able to shoot under the limbs to him. And I wasn't as graceful as I wanted to be going to my you know, down on my knees, and that that bowl kind of caught some noise. But just like we've talked with Brian multiple times, he almost thinks it just walking around at times and letting
that bowl here you walk. He bugled as soon as I got to my knees, like he turned our way, but then he bugled like it didn't scare him, it didn't bother him. He bugled at us and then slowly got out of his bed and walked to his left.
I remember the wind a couple of times was on our back, and it's like, oh, well, count down to five seconds and he's going to be out of here.
Yeah.
I was very ready to shoot quick and I remember looking back at Dave like, gosh, dang it, we just need this wind to hold. But it was one of those times where the wind was predominantly down slope the whole time, but we were getting uphill pushes because these systems were moving in kind of changing the wind. And I think we got lucky because the wind would blow up, but then it would switch and come back down and wouldn't let that that wind get to him. So we
risked a little bit. That bowl gets up. I had a very narrow shooting lane, probably twelve inches wide at the bowl. I was able to get drawn and settled, fortunately very quick Dave. I was able to rewatch the footage. Dave is able to like time it perfectly. As I get my bow drawn, Dave like he's perfect, We're perfectly
in line because we were both paying a tree. Dave just like inches out to the right maybe eight inches, and gets gets the shot and everything on film had a little bit of a rough go no blood for you know, one hundred and fifty yards hit the bowl really well. We we finally start picking up blood. We follow those tracks to the point where we've got blood, and we we we made a bad decision at this very point in our night. I'm gonna blame it on Dave.
As we were getting ready, Dave's like, are we leaving the packs here? I'm like, yeah, let's know, I take all responsibility. I said, let's leave the packs here. I hate you know, it's just nice sometimes to be able to go light and nimble, beagle to bow. Dave grabs his camera and to change the batteries and we're just we're out. We realized that searching for blood with your iPhone light is not the greatest, the greatest solution to track in blood. We get on some real good blood.
It's got it's got bubbles in it. We know we're either in lungs or heart. Everything's looking real good. He bleeds great for one hundred yards.
Yeah, yeah, I think so hundred and fifty.
Yeah, I'm kind of down in the dumps, even though I pride myself in blood track and Dave took the lead because I was a little bit just I was a little discouraged with the blood trail and a little just like, hey, this is best. Just to let Dave, Dave lead it, like you're doing a great job. I helped a couple of times where we'd lose some blood. My light was a little bit brighter, was able to
pick up some blood. And we get to a point where we got our last few specs and where there's just nothing, and my good buddy Brian Sanders text me and I we didn't have very good service. It just somehow randomly got through, like hey, update, And I was able to get a call out real quick to him. And it wasn't a great call. If he wouldn't have if you would have been quiet and let me talk for He asked me, why didn't you shoot the bowl? He asked me, why didn't have my bow drawn back?
If I could get my boat drawn back? He asked me all these dumb questions. And by the time I lost reception, I couldn't give him a pin or tell them where we're at. So then we needed to back out anyways, because we were we didn't have good lights, and it was supposed to rain at eleven this is
about eight thirty. We climbed back up to the meadow where we shot him, had good service, was able to get a phone call into Brian, and he was going to come up with lights and because we and maybe bring our packs up, but I couldn't tell if I could get my truck unlocked from up there using the old Ford you know Ford Pass. We were gonna use technology, Like, hey, Brian, I'm gonna I'm gonna un unlock my truck for you. So we we just I call him back, like, hey, Brian,
we'll just meet you at the truck. It's only a mile walk down. Maybe maybe, and we'll just meet at the truck. We're going to charge our phones, get our packs, and we'll meet you and come back. So we asked for some water because I was pretty low on water, and I'm almost positive that Brian set me up here. So I'm I'm dying. I needed some water, and Brian's like, no, don't take it out of this plastic jug. Take it out of this black thermos. He's like that one, it's heavier.
I don't want to pack that. I pour this into my water bottle and almost burnt my hand it was so hot. And he swears he didn't do it on purpose, but I'm positive he did.
I didn't. I won't say either way. I would say Jason and I have a special friendship.
So I head back up on the mountain with boiling hot water.
But we regroup. He brings his brother. Me and Dave go back up. We now have our head lamps, we've got bright lights. We head back in there, and I'm never Me and Dave are never ever going to live this down. He thinks we set him up. We had already found the bowl maybe and just called him up there to help pack. But we get to the last Blood and there's an obvious I mean, when you track bulls, there's an obvious direction.
They're going right.
We were kind of on it and we were sitting there. I hadn't even put I was still standing at Last Blood, trying to get my pack all situated.
Brian walks down. He makes a first he's complaining, which is typical of Brian. Not really, He's about his He's tough as nails. But Brian's like, is it all this freaking brushy down here? He gets I think he got to that edge right, and You're like, is it all this crappy? And I'm like, yeah, at least in that pocket you can go left or right of that. And it wasn't less than a half a minute later. Brian's like, your bull's right down here dead. Explain your theory and how you stumbled into it.
Well, I kind of told Jason that they have hoofs, and the hoofs make tracks, and if you just follow the tracks from last Blood, you'll find your dead bull. But he kind of disagree with me.
Oh no, I claim that you didn't follow its tracks. You just stumbled into it because you came a different direction and found the blood later. But regardless, there were elk tracks.
And if anybody knows me, I'm like the littlest human compared to Jason, and he couldn't see me through all that brush, so he has no idea which direction I came from and not.
I'm not trying to I didn't find the bull, so I'm not trying to like make excuses for myself. But Dave, we were probably five yards away from that. We thought that there was a bear. I thought he had tumbled, which he didn't. He never did tumble. He went to
his bed to lay down and died. But right above that there was an old log tour apart, and I'm like, oh, it looks like he tumbled through here, Dave, and I went down there with my little iPhone light earlier, like there's nothing and it was literally you push you that brush and he was laying there dead.
No, yeah, you guys are right on track. It's just you didn't have lights. And it's nice to have fresh eyes and a positive attitude and all the things you bring.
You bring a positive attitude. Yeah, it was.
It was awesome to have you guys there. Brian's pretty damn handy with a knife. His brother Justin was awesome. Dave's Dave's a pack animal. He's always uh, you know.
Taking care of the situation.
He's grabbing bags, you know, legs, taking video pictures, doing his job. Why we're trying to cut up meat. So it was an awesome little team there to to finish that up. And Brian asked if I could tell everybody how much weight he packed out on the pack out, because he's he's wanting there.
We know how tough he is. But Brian took.
All the way.
We don't need to tell anybody anything packed out. It was fun.
We all packed, But Brian for being what one hundred fifty pounds, maybe so can we he uh, he probably had one hundred and fifty pounds on his pack. I really appreciate all the help, you know, Dave justin. You guys all packed higins. I had the head and a front shoulder and we made pretty quick time out from the time we left the truck nine to forty five. We were back at the truck by eleven forty five. It was a it was a hustle in. We broke them down really.
Quick, by like five minutes.
Yeah, yeah, so it was. It was a great hunt.
Had to change tactics a little bit, so you know, we always talk about being aggressive, getting close in the situation where it's just not working. I encourage anybody to change up tactics and do what you have to do to find success. But uh, I can't thank you enough Brian for for helping your pack, thank for coming on
here today and talking about the Big Three. And as always, Dave, you take twice as many steps as I do on these hunts and don't ever get to pull the trigger, but you get to hit the record button and really appreciate you having you, having you here. So thanks everybody. That was just a real quick add on to cutting the distance. Just wanted to have a quick update from the from the field on my my organ arch.
We'll count
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