Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. On this episode, I'm just gonna run through the gear I've used. Now that season's kind of wrapped up. My Oregon archery el hunt, my Western Washington musli or el hunt, the Montana rifle hunt for deer, as well as my Kansas
arch whitetail hunt. There's gonna be a lot of overlap between the gear I used on a lot of these, but I'll go into the specifics on you know what I used that was different from hunt to hunt, kind of what my layering system looked like, maybe what my
meals looked like on these. I'm not gonna have a guest on this episode, just gonna be me kind of rattling off the gear that I used, how it performed, and in maybe any changes I'm gonna make, So we kind of cover it all from archery elk out west all the way back to an eastern whitetail hunt, where you're gear clothing, all that changes drastically. But like every epid sort of Cutting the Distance, I'm gonna start off
with a few questions. I went to the Phelps game calls messages that we've got and pulled these out of them, but if you have any questions for me or my guests, feel free to email them to us at CTD at phelps game Calls dot com or like where we got these questions from. Hit us up with some social media messages and we'll do our best to get them in. So my first question was from Steve Barker, and he's
asking about broadheads for lower poundages. He mentions that his wife and daughter both shoot forty to forty five pounds and for white tails they've shot lighter seventy five to eighty five grain heads with great success. And he's asking, what would you recommend on ELK. So I want to kind of start off with shot placement, you know, very cliche, but shot placement is ultimate and you need to, you know,
have an arrow. If you're going to go up and wait, you need to make sure you know you got your your the right arrow, the right spine on that arrow to make sure it works. So a lot of times I ask I would ask you, like, is there seventy five to eighty five grain head doesn't meet all the legal requirements for that western state or the state it may not even be a Western state, but the state that you're gonnahut elk in. If they meet all of those and they shoot them very well, I would say
maybe continue to shoot those. Or if you're one of those on the fence about mechanical versus fixed blades, stay with the same weight, but maybe switch to a fixed blade head as long as it meets the minimum cutting diameter and so on and so forth. I'm a big fan of continuing to use what works. Yeah, if you're starting from scratch, some things I would consider on elk, regardless of whether you're shooting a big setup like me. You know, and my big setup comes mainly from having
long arms and and you know, full length arrows. But I would look at like a cut on contact head. I'm currently using iron rolls standards. I like the design of them. I like, you know, the the tounel point, I like how sharp they are, I like how they fly, how they spin. But also if you maybe don't want to go spend as much on iron wheels in the past, I've had some great success with slick tricks viper trick.
It's also a cut on contact. That blade is you know, in the elk before the farrell ever is it's already cutting tissue, and it's got less resistance you know, to some of these non cut on contact heads in my opinion, you know, chisel trips, chisel tips, they talk about breaking bone and stuff better. I'm from from what I've seen. I'm just gonna stick to cut on contact and then get good penetration. And to get good penetration, I'm also going to lean towards a smaller cutting diameter I'm gonna
look for. You know, I still shoot, as I mentioned, the S one hundred, which is the standard iron will. I may be wrong, but it's either one inch or one in sixteenth inch cutting diameter, very small. And what I really want when I shoot a bowl at any angle is a whole in and a hole out. I want that arrow to drive through as deep as I can and ultimately hopefully give me, you know, two holes to blood trails. So I've hunted with Kelly Smith, who's
my good buddy, Charlie Smith's wife. I've saw her shoe elk and blow right through him, and I believe she's only shooting in the low fifties. So I think you stay away from those heavy front leg bones, heavy shoulder bones. Maybe give yourself a little more room for air behind that front leg and make sure you're still hitting square in the lungs. Don't risk it. A forty to forty
five pounds setup should be fine. You know, shot placements important, but with that cut on contact small cutting diameter should should be the trick. Jumping into the next question from Steven Adney, he's asking about overnight trips and what size pack he needs. You know, he needs in order to stay out for three to five nights at a time. So, Steve, you're gonna probably get a whole bunch of answers from a whole bunch of different people. You know, they're the
minimalists that try to pack. You know, I'm not bringing any extra change of socks, underwear, clothes. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna have a sleeping bag and I'm gonna put a piece of taiek over me and that's gonna be their sleeping arrangement. So it really depends on how how comfortable you want to be, how many luxuries you
want to pack along what your food looks like. But I've always been of of the the idea I want as big a pack as possible, and it's not so much for what I'm going to pack in or to let me overpack on the way in. But what it does allow me to do is, uh, if I do kill something and want to get my camp back out on that trip, I've got additional room without having the daisy chain. All of my camp supplies on the on
the outside of my pack. So you know, I'm I'm hunting with a pack that's anywhere from sixty five hundred to seventy five hundred cubic inches and people may say, well, that's huge. I have yet to see my pack not compressed down to two thousand cubic inch packs, and that's you know, for a couple extra ounces of material. It gives me the ability to blow that pack way up,
you know. You add the snow collar on and so I can pack my uh you know, really really kind of push my pack up, you know, as I need to. I'm more of a simple guy, so I have one large compartment. I don't have this thing organized down. If I need to do any additional organization, I'll use different dry sacks to to separate things. But for the most part, I'm just I stuff into the bottom. So I would say, some guys if you're very very you know, space conscientious
and and ultra light and really packing the minimum. Some guys can get by on a three thousand, you know cupikinch pack for a three to five nights day. You know, really all your after you've got your sleeping system in there, and and it's really just adding additional food at some point, maybe a little bit of additional fuel, maybe a little bit of additional water storage. But that's really all that changes in my overnight kit. My my base kit, whether
it's one day or five days, looks the same. I've got some sort of shelter, whether it's a it's an ultra light you know. I've been using a seak outside cuban fiber tent, floorless tent that weighs, you know, under two pounds. If I'm grabbing my kafaro saw tooth, if it's going to be you know, with a stove, I'm able to get it in five pounds. I've got to
put those in there. When I'm spiking out, I'm using a stone glacier fifteen degree bag, so I get that stuffed in there, a sleeping pad, and that's really my base and then from there it's really just adding on additional food. You know, on a longer trip, I may throw in an extra pair of socks, extra pair of skivs, whatever it may be. But that's really what my system is. So you really have to kind of find out for yourself, Steve on what you're comfortable with what you need to
have in there. But I would say anywhere from three thousand, but I would urge people to go a little bit larger. It doesn't take up much extra weight. You can compress all that extra space, and I'm one for I can save the weight in minimalizing my pockets. I don't need a bunch of pockets on the outside. I don't need
a bunch of organization on the inside. As long as everything can fit in there, I'm gonna dump all that when I get to camp anyways and have all kinds of room, you know, I can use them zip block bags or whatever to separate other stuff. And that's really my my simplified system for for overnight trips. And you know, we've packed in anywhere from you know, one night to ten night, and I'm using that same pack for everything.
You know, there there's we'll get into it a little bit here as I as I talk about what pack I use on these hunts and why, But I'm really looking for other things, like, you know, can the suspension all the wait comfortably? You know some of those things. Can I get it all in there for my pack out?
But yeah, anywhere from you know, some guys can make it even smaller than three thousand, but I would say for the majority, you're gonna be at that three thousand and thirty five hundred cubic inch all the way up to the larger, you know, expeditions style packs. But uh yeah, you just have to kind of test and find for yourself.
But once again, once again, once again, if you have questions for me or my guests, please email us at CTD at phelps game Calls dot com, or hit us up on social media, send us a social message, and we'll do our best to get those on there for myself, Dirk or any of our guests. So everybody nowadays seems to be doing you know, pack dumps or gear dumps. I just really wanted to go through I used quite
a bit of New Year this year. Some of the stuff's been old, and I just kind of wanted to walk through my four hunts, kind of go over the gear I used kind of start to finish, you know, and maybe some things people don't talk about or things that aren't that glorified, but really just kind of go through what we use. So my first time of the year was an archery Oregon el hunt. The unit I was in wasn't really set up to spike out in.
There were a few spots to spike in there, but I wasn't allowed to film in them, so it didn't make any sense to to you know, spike in or set up for those. So this is what I would consider like a Waltint base camp. I only have a twenty by sixteen Waltint which was set up for me and my camera guy, so there was all kinds of room we did. You know, we weren't worried about grizzly bears or anything like that, so we had our cook system inside that same tent. We had our table inside
that tent. All of our gear easily fit with our two cots inside that tent. Since this hunt was going to take place in the middle of September, we elected not to pack the stove, which takes up a bunch of room and we would have had to gather firewood and whatnot. We figured with the temps we wouldn't need a wood wood stove. About day five or six, when the temperature started to drop into the freezing, we were
starting to wish we had a stove. And it's not so much that your sleeping bags weren't able to handle it. It was just, you know, it wasn't as fun, you know, sitting around in the wall tent and all of your your puffy coats and whatnot, trying to get ready for bed, or just to sit up and have a conversation, you know, about the hunts, that day's hunts, tomorrow's hunts, just conversations in general. What we used to cook on that one. So, you know, a lot of our hunts were back packing.
You see a lot of the jet boils or the MSR reactor stoves or whatever little system we use with the iso buttane. On this one, knowing that we were gonna have a base camp, we we grabbed a five gallon bottle of propane and we just packed along a two burner camp chef stove to be used on this hunt. And rather than have to have a bunch of pans and cleaning them, we elected to just have the griddle insert. So this is what I use on all of my my trips to the dunes with the family. We do
a lot of cooking on this. It's easy, it's simple. You know. Around home we use a blackstone, but you know, we're camping. The camp chef's a little more durable and I don't care as much about it breaks down a little bit easier, so we just throw the camp chef in the back of the truck. It's kind of indestructible, always reliable. So yeah, just use that camp chef for
all of our cooking. It got a little boring. It was a lot of uh, you know, burgers and hot dogs and uh you know brought worst and then we'd go back through burgers. We did have steaks one night and uh my camera guy Dave's brought some brisket for the first night, so we switched it up. But it was a lot of canned vegetables, you know, burgers and stuff like that, which was which was plenty for us
as far as food on a normal hunt. On a normal year, I eat a lot of just whatever, you know, uh, you know the Belvida breakfast bars, you know, any of those you know, nice bars, any kind of just glued together corn syrup tight bars seemed to kind of fill my pack. This year, I went a little bit different direction. I was trying to eat a little bit more healthy, try to get a little bit more fat me and a little bit less quick carbs. So a lot of what I ate this year was a lot of keto
nut mixes, a lot of bags of nuts. We brought some like hard parmesan cheese. There were some ultrafat packets that used to be like f bomb packets, but now they're like ultrafat packs, which is like a macadamia nut mixed with some with some coconut oil, you know, heavy calorie type stuff. A lot of meat sticks, so I bought a lot of There's a Bavarian meats company. They make these little short Lndieger's, like two in a bag.
I'd throw one or two of those packages in my pack every day and then really just kind of really boring food selection, but kind of just grinded it through the hunts with just minimal you know land Dieger meat sticks,
nut you know, bags and nuts. And then I was eating I don't remember the exact brand, but they're like a baked protein bar you know, like sixteen the thirty thirty grams of protein per bar just to it was kind of a little treat throughout the day, a little bit, you know, satisfy that sweet tooth, but that was really all I ate through the day. And then we'd come home and have kind of a big, a big meal
on the camp shift. So that was kind of my eating a lot different than what you see a lot of these guys pack or what I've packed in the pass where it's you know, a bag of sour patch kids, gummy worms, you know, whatever you can find and get to. Really just kind of went a different direction this year and tried to try to be a little more healthy throughout the hunt, and I see, I think it kind
of kept my energy levels higher and more sustained. Maybe I wasn't as good you know on a on a steep incline or a quick run up a mountain, but overall start to finish, I felt a lot better. We mentioned our cots and sleeping bag and the wall tent. So when I'm in a wall tent, I've got my canvas cutter system, and then I've just got my Kafaro fifteen degree synthetic bag. Kind of stuffed in that it's plenty warm on a hunt like this, the fifteen degrees is plenty. It does a good job keeping me warm.
The canvas cutters outfitted with four inches of memory film that kind of lays in the bottom, and I just kind of keeping an old pillow stuffed in there, a real you know, I don't even know what it is, a cotton pillow or whatever the heck. You know your old standard cheap pillows are made out of and that that system is great. I do. I do have an old school caught. I need to upgrade to get a little bit of a bigger one because it seems like I'm touching all four sides of this thing. But that's
just kind of my system. I actually sleep better sometimes on this cotton sleeping bag with the FULM system than I do when I get home on my bed, so real comfortable and just kind of makes it gives me a good night's sleep. As far as when I got to this hunt, you know, what was I going to be shooting this year? You know, in the past, I've been shooting some psc options. This year, I went back. My good buddy Corey Miller is working for Black Eagle
Arrows and Darton. I went to a three D shoot with him and Eastern Montana and got talking with him and Randy Kits, the owner of Darton and Black Eagle, just a great guy, and we talked to them and like, yeah, I'll go ahead, and you know, I haven't shot at Darton forever. I've never shot a Darton, but let me let me shoot you guys, got let's make sure we you know, we like them, and and so yeah, we just kind of to try something different. So I ended up shooting a Darton Vera City. I don't know if
it's Verocity or Veracity thirty five. Really liked it. It's a little bit heavier than like the PSC thirty four mock thirty four that I shot last year, but I held the bow a lot better. Lighters not always better, especially when it comes to keeping a bow on target and how much the bow's reacting. At least for me, I felt way more confident in this bow. The bow shot where I wanted it to, and one of the
big bonuses it tuned up very very easy. Now it may have been because I had, you know, Henry Bass come to my place and get it all tuned up, you know, a great, great archery shooter. We also kind of knew tuning it into into where the new arrows were going to be, that there weren't gonna be a lot of changes between a broadhead and we were shooting them side by side as we got them tuned, so right off the bat we basically had our bow broadhead tuned as well as shooting field points great. We didn't
mess with paper, which is something I really liked. We just went straight to shooting broadheads and field points and got them to dial in. I really liked that system because from when I switched from field points to broadheads full time, everything was just kind of dialed and ready to go. Really really liked that bow. Like I say, it's a little heavier to pack around, but I will trade a little bit of you know, in the grand scheme of it. What's a half a pound a pound?
Even when I know, I draw that bow back and in my mind's at ease because that pins just kind of sitting where I want. Really liked it. Shot great. We'll get to the shot on the bowl and you can't ask for much more than that. At the end, arrows I shot blacks black eagle, X impacts for those of you who don't know, I've got a thirty two inch draw and it's all of thirty two inches. If bows would let me go farther, I could probably get
another half inch, if not more, out of them. So I'm shooting a two to fifty spine, a very stiff arrow, and these arrows are full length, so I don't cut them. Thankfully, the Black Eagle, you know a lot of times that the imperfections come at the ends. Thankfully for me, the Black Eagle X impacts pretty straight all the way through. So we just take a full ink shaft, get them
prepped up, and that's what I'm shooting. We add some weight to the tip, so along with that iron will s one hundred, I'm adding some weight to to the tip on the insert as well as the the I'm gonna get this wrong, and hopefully I'm shooting basically a half sert. I believe we've got basically a hidden system down inside that then attaches you know, to that, to that arrow, and it's great. I can if I need to. I don't get too hung up on tuning my broad
heads or getting everything to match in. But but that system gives me about two hundred and twenty grains I think plus mnus in the front. So I end up shooting about a five hundred and seventy to five hundred and eighty grain arrow, thirty two inches of draw at about seventy two and a half pounds, and we're shooting at you know, mid to eighties. So I'm not one of those guys that just chases crazy high arrow weights.
I build my setup backwards, so I look at the bow's rated speed, know where it's going to be, and then I just kind of build my arrow to put me at the mid two eighties. I found mid two eighties. Keeps my pin, my pin GAP's pretty tight, but also make sure that tune in broadheads isn't too much of a pain in the neck. And so just kind of sat there my rest on that that bow is a black Gold Ascent Pro. One thing that I do a little bit different than others is I shoot all green pins.
I set up my twenty thirty forty for an one to nine pin, and then I set up my fifty yard pin as an nine all green. Some people are like, well that's confusing. I just it's easy to keep track and it keeps me honest. I just I have to count, you know, twenty thirty, forty, and then trust me. After a while, it just becomes second nature. You know. If you're Hayman thirty, you're using your second pin and so
on my fifty yard pins my slider. I don't think I ever slid my site all year, aside from getting my site tape set. So it's there, but I hopefully never have use it, and I never intend on using it unless the situation, you know, requires it. But for the most part, don't like to mess with that cider. I use tight Spot's new five arrow quiver light. It's
got the rubber hood with some cutouts on it. And then for a rest, I had the rip Chord microadjust drive cage, and for a stabilizer, I've got like a ten inch spider with four or five ounces on the end. Really kind of settles my bow down for me and balances out pretty nice. So that's really all I've got going on with my bow. We got the Dart and Varasty black Eagle arrows, iron Will broadheads, gold black Gold Ascent Pro, We've got tight Spot, and then we got ripcord.
Pretty simple and for me as much as I like this bo, my ultimate goal when I get shooting this thing is to have absolute confidence at any range that I'm gonna shoot an ELK that that that I'm gonna hit that thing within that kill zone. And I haven't been as confident in this in one of my setups since I shot my Elite thirty five whatever that was
ten years ago. This is this has had me, you know, very I guess my Voked thirty five from PSC I was pretty confident in, but got really confident in this bow, which is for me is ultimately what matters when I'm out in the field. I know I'm gonna make a shot when the shot prevents itself. So what's on my feet? For boots? I usually I've had all kinds of issues with boots over my years. I've tried almost every mountain boot and then ultimately settled on Crispy brickstalls we've used.
They used to have the Black, which were like a Flex Level five, and then they had like the Brown, which I believe were like a Flex level three. Brown was non insulated. Black had two hundred Graham's inslation. Well, fast forward to twenty three, Krispy brought out a bunch of new boots around the Brickstall series, and one that really caught my eye was the Brickstall pro Gta. So it has a synthetic a synthetic fiber on the outside, same last, same everything else as a bricks all same
lay system. But we had a synthetic fiber, and we also had the gore tex. And one thing I didn't know if I was gonna like it or not, but it is a light gray boot. They added two undred grams of insulation to this boot, which for September August September hunts. I'm like, I didn't know if I was gonna like it, but I didn't notice any issues throughout the hunt. These boots were dang near perfect. We had just a little bit of separation of the rubber ram.
But I also wore these boots for sixty plus days in the mountains. You know. All over performed flawlessly. We we did some did some touch ups with some marine goop, cleaned them out, and they're backed as good as new. Everything else on the boot held up great, So I can't complain about about those. But while I'm giving you recommendations on boots, I also need to caveat this with do not take somebody's recommendations for boots unless it's like
maybe on the durability, everybody's foot's different. Everybody's got a different last that they build their boots on. Even within the same brand, Like all the boots won't fit the same. They'll put one on one last one on a different one. So that's take it for durability. But I'm not saying that everybod needs to go out and try the crispy brickstalls. But for me, a guy with a lot of foot issues, they worked great. Maybe just as important as the boots
or the socks. What what you've got on between your your foot and the and the boots. I've used to be a smart wool guy. I've I've tried all of these different brands and ultimately ended up on darn tough full cushion socks. They they have a way tighter you know, weave or a knit or whatever you want to call them. They're tighter, they're more comfortable, they're more durable that I just don't have heel issues, blister hotspot issues with darn tuffs on, and so I don't know if it's a crispies.
I don't know if it's a darn tuffs, but whatever it is, those two are going to go in a combo and I'm gonna stick with them. So darn tuff full cushions inside the crispy brickstalls are a month system for me. What's on your back? We talked a little bit earlier on one of the listener questions. I'm still using an old school I've got a forty four mag from Kafaru and I've got a Cavern from Kafaru, which is about a sixty five hundred cubic inch pack. I
no longer carry a big hood. I found that I just ended up stuffing it full of too much crap that I don't need. So I just ran a Kafaro Cavern big open pack and it works great for me. And what I really like about the Kafaro is I've been using them since twenty eleven. The suspension has never ever let me down. Well, I shouldn't say never. I had one issue on my Oregon Bowl in twenty one where one of my load lifter straps had broke a buckle.
It wasn't anything that I couldn't get taken care of with some five fifty para cord and then Kafaro took curve of it right away as soon as I got out. So it's not ideal to have equipment break. But I've also, in whatever it is a thirteen years now, only ever had one issue, and I'm not gonna say that it wasn't mine, because when you switch packs around and have to reconnect everything, I may have, you know, messed something up on how I connected that loadlifter, but been super
happy with the Kavaro. You know, my packs squeak free, which is one of the things that I used to drive me nuts about my old packs, and then that one pack. I like how it's organized. I've got a spotting scope pocket on the outside. My tripod attaches very easily, very quick to get in out of, and we'll pack way more than I ever will be able to. Another thing that I do when I when I have meat as well, a lot of people like this pack will
separate away from the frame. I carry a one hundred liters dry bag and I just drop all of my meat into that dry bag until I get out, unless it's going to be a real long pack out, and then I've got to try to figure out how to get some air to it. But packs worked great for me. As far as clothing. On a September hunt, I like
to be able to layer. And whether it's an archery hunt in September, whether it's a rifle deer hunt in ten degrees, I like to try to get by on three lays, you know, three layers I like to have. Like in September, it's usually gonna be the wick against my skin. If is it gets more colder, we may move into the kiln or even into some heavier you know, first light stuff, whether you know it's a furnace or
you know, some of those other ones. But usually for me it ends up being the wicic early season, and then we go to kiln, you know. After that, then I like to go with either a fleece or you know, whether it's the origin hoodie or like the klamath over top of it. And then from there I go to the big coat, whether it's you know, for me right
now it's the chamberlain. You know, we're we're we're going into that With those three layers, depending on how I mix and match them, I should be able to get through, you know, any situation early season all the way to late season. I was able to test out first Slight's new pattern this year. The circle pattern kind of built for new Western open environments, and I tell you what, at least on the Oregon Elkin, it blended in great with some of that open yellow grass more open country.
I'm not real thick dark timber seemed to perform really, really well. As far as my harness. You know another sister company I've worked with Paul well before we ever joined up at Meat Eater. You know, I'm using their front opening bino system. On my right pocket since I'm right handed, I've got my rangefinder pocket, and on my left wing, I've got an E three pocket and they I've got a little velcro strap in there and that
allows me to hold my thumb release. So I've got my archery release on my left pocket, my rangefinder on my right, and then my binos straight down the middle optics I used. I use these on all my hunts, a loophole ten by forty two binos. I used to use the BX five's. They've got some new range finding binoculars out now, the BX four range finding binoculars. I'm still using some old prototypes that I was given three years ago out the glass and I really really like them,
so that's what I'm still continuing to use. And then for a rangefinder on the archery, I ended up with the r X five full draw range finder. I love that thing. It's quick, it calculates my my true horizontal distance, and I can trust that thing whether I'm shooting hundred yards you know, on a three D course straight downhill, always seems to give me the right answer. So once we did find some success on the hunt, my knife that I use was a bench made hidden canyon hunter.
I like to have a big, heavy duty blade that's that's sharp. I get in there and try to do quick work. I used. I love, you know, havalons and stuff when you're when you're caping or around the face or the heads, or but for skinning quickly making sure you're not cutting to hide, I'd much rather take my bench made hidden canyon knife or those type of knife, you know, those five inch type fixed blades that you can rip, you know, rip and tear and kind of
get through that animal really quickly. Maintains a great edge and it's very very easy to sharp. And I also carry in the same pocket a work sharp field sharpener just with the you know, real easy to touch up that knife and get things back to the way they were to start with. And we'll talk a little bit on the meal deer hunt when you're when you're having some success and you're you're ending up on all of
the on all the processing. You know, we we had to get through five six seven deer with those and that work sharp field sharpener just works quick calls. I can't I can't go through through what we use without mentioning mentioning calls. So we release that new unleashed two point zero this year. And while a lot of guys like I still just love the metal bugle tube. I love the ring, I love the residents we get out of a of an aluminum material. So I ended up
sticking with our metal bugle tube this year. I threw an easy sucker on form my external. I actually didn't pack a Mini X. I don't believe if I did, I didn't use it a whole lot. And then for diaphragms, I ended up using a combination of the Pink amp, which is my signature call the Green amp, and then also threw in a Pitch Black two occasionally on that hunt. So I don't pack a lot of calls, don't need to,
but that was kind of what we had headlight. When things got dark, I was actually using the lead lenser MH eight style headlamp. I like it because I can charge it. If I get back to the truck after dark, I can hit it up, hook it up to my USB charger, get it charged up for the rest of the day, and if I happen to be out too long or can't or can't you know, get it charged. I can take out the rechargeables and dump in normal
double A batteries and we're right back to going. It also comes with the case that acts as a battery pack, so when we're on at least for the first couple of days, you know, if we're not using our headlamps a lot, I can recharge that thing, you know, three or four times and without having to dip into to the lithiums and get that thing recharged. You know, game bags, everybody's what game bags you use. I'm like, I using the sordid grab bag over all these years. You know,
I've got some Margali, I've got some tag bags. I've got some that Loophold sent me. We've just got a big mix of game bags and after washing them and having forty different bags kind of sitting in the shop, I'd usually just grab and they've all worked fairly well and uh, you know, don't have any complaints there, so you know, aside from that, that's really kind of the gear. The main gear that we used on on this, uh
you know, archery l hunt on X was used. One thing I didn't mention, which you know, we did use a lot of on X. You know, depending on whether we were next to property boundaries, need to figure out where we're at how to get access, so a lot of on X was used to make sure we're staying in place. And uh yeah it was that. That was the gear that I use on that, And a lot
of this is gonna carry over. So then my next hunt of the year rolls into like a Washington rolls into my Washington muzzli or hunt really similar temperature to Oregon archery hunt. So a lot of the gear is gonna stay the same. But one thing I do want to kind of highlight is the muzzloader that I've always used. The Traditions Northwest edition. You know. So we used to
have some stricter rules on traditional muzzleloaders. A couple of years ago they changed those rules, and so this year I was able to use a Remington seven hundred Ultimate muzzleloader. For those of you that haven't seen it, I think it's a short and three oh eight case with a magnum rifle primer as your ignition system, and then the gun.
I need to be careful what I say. The gun doesn't say it's designed to use Blackhorn too O nine, but I move forward with black Horn two nine, so I'm not endorsing it, not saying it's it's okay for it. I do have a new breach plug coming for it, which is set up for Blackhorn too and nine. But I used that original ignition system inititional or that original
breach shot Blackhorn two O nine. Ideally you should be measuring your powder by weight on a scale, but I was using one hundred and five grains by volume, which I don't even want to get the math wrong. Ends up being somewhere between like seventy two to seventy five grains by weight, a fairly light load. But because I didn't have the breach correct that stock Remington seven hundred. Ultimate breach isn't designed for black horn two nine, and
I didn't want a gas cut that breach. I kept it pretty dang light, and then I this year elected to use Federal Trophy copper borlock two seventy, very easy to load, very very accurate of my gun. So with all of that being set up, worked very very well, and I'm actually sitting here holding one of the mushroomed bullets. Performance was amazing on boat first bullet from long distance, you don't quite get the expansion that bullet passed through.
My follow up shot from sixty yards mushroomed out perfectly and was lodged in the opposite shoulder that that worked great and you couldn't ask for a better performance on the bullet We did recover h on this one, we we a little bit different style. I haven't been able to get an elk out hole in a long long time, but this el cap and to die and some property
that we had permission to get to. So on this hunt we used a retrieval vehicle which was we have a can am which actually my daughter's can am Trail one thousand. She likes to put around the yard and go for little nature drives and whatnot. So we hooked that up. We're able to get to that bowl and ultimately get that bowl out hole, which is is real nice, you know, it's it's nice to clean up when you get back to to the We have a meat shop with an eight x ten you know, cooler and and
all of that. And so got it back to the home and was able to break that thing down and the can am came in real nice because the property owner didn't necessarily want to take our truck out there, but didn't mind if we had a small little UTV and so that that worked out, you know good. But yeah, everything else aside from that was very similar. The same clothing, same boot, same pack, same everything aside from the weapon.
That one was right in my backyard. So you also switched up camp and you ended up you ended up just staying at home, and it's kind of nice being able to come home, get a good night's rest and then you know, get up an hour hour and a half before daylight and get going. Next hunt on my my list was my Montana rifle deer hunt. This is kind of always one of those ones I look forward
to every year. It's always a great fun hunt with my family and uh so this one on this one we uh the weapon we ended up using the our brothers. It's a custom built rifle. I used to be in Washington, then went to Utah and now he's ultimately in Texas. But we used in our brothers custom built gun and seven short action ultramag. So I had that gun kind of custom built from Mountain hunts, you know, elk capable, shoots really well, defiance action, you know, uh, jewel trigger
proof barrel. And then all three of us ended up shooting our deer with that same gun. All one shot, one kill, very very minimal meat damage and a lot of people are going to be surprised. A lot of people don't like the one ady Burgers. But to this day, with that gun, I've had very very many, very very few animals make it more than ten yards. Most of them die on impact, and if they don't, they pile up pretty quick. So very happy with how that performed.
My wife shot her deer at five hundred and eighteen yards, hit it perfectly right behind the high point on the shoulder, didn't damage hardly any meat. My son shot his buck at one hundred and fifteen yards with it, and I shot mine at about two eighty all one shot one kill and placed very very well one ad Burgers. We reload that gun with r L twenty six. One thing. We actually we reduce that load in the off season.
R L twenty six is an alliant powder and it's very It's supposed to be temperature stable, but it's as crazy as it gets at times. It doesn't like to shoot in cold, doesn't like to shoot in the hot. We've had pressure signs. But it does give you ultimate performance. But we were able to kind of curb those issues or kind of make them less of an issue by reducing that seating the bowl a little bit farther and that gun just shoots lights out. So yeah, we reload
that one top that gun off. That gun has my maybe my favorite scope of all time. It's the Loophole Mark five five to twenty five by fifty six a thirty five millimeters two. That gun has tracked perfectly all the time. It dials up where you want it, it drops back where you want it. It's easy to get on target. It's got a great eyebox, especially for me. It's maybe
not as big a issue. But for my wife and son that are shooting the guns that also have the cheek piece set right where it's good for me, they can always acquire their target very quickly. And been really happy with that scope number one. It's repeatable. Uh number two, it's got some great glass in it and never never let me down. So I really like that set up. That hunt. I don't know if anybody have been in Montana when it's uh after a snow or a freeze.
That hunt on a few days pushed my raptor to everything that it had, you know, all four and we didn't try to tear it up. We were trying to sometimes just get turned around, you know, four wheel drive differentials locked and you know, traction control off, advanced track off. That thing with without a U t V or the ability like that got us into some areas, you know, even even some of the county roads were a little bit sketchy. But that hunt ultimately dried out and it
became real nice. But yeah, I that one. We also used the loophole spotter the and I'm gonna get this wrong, the I use all straight. I believe it's the Essex four. I could be wrong. Yeah, SX for spotter from loophold straight. You know, it's a great glass. Let's just sit behind it for a long time, and uh, you do all the spotting there trying to think if there's any other gear on that hunt that we used a little bit differently.
It did start to get cold on that hunt, so you know, you start to I'm I'm a big cis when it comes, you know, to to gloves, and so I always end up I don't know, I believe there. We weren't using the brooks down. We were using the heavier, the alpine cold weather glove on this hunt. And then there's I think I had the Alpine cold and then my wife and son had the grizzly two point zhers. Just we we added heavy gloves. We we were in
our chamberlain a lot more on that. And then this is where we start to switch to the kiln series from the wick. We start to go to a heavier mid layer, and then we started to chain on top. Especially when you're doing long glassing sets without a lot of movement, movement really kind of seemed to be the answer. Trying to see anything else on that rifle hunt that we did a little bit different now. I think that's about it as far as different gear, you know, same
thing boots. We were still rocking the Krispy brickstalls. It wasn't that that twiner grams and insulation kind of kind of knocked that edge off when it starts to get cold. Everything else is similar those hunts. We we airbnb it my wife and kidder along. I want it to be enjoyable for them, so and don't get me wrong, I like to to have a comfortable camp and be able to shower every morning. So I kind of like like those ones. And then just we just finished up our
Kansas archery hunt once again. Our biggest change is our weapons kind of going back and then our clothing on this one. So I went back to the dart and Varasity thirty five, same exact arrow setup. Anybody that paid attention during Whitetail Week, I did a little blurb on the bow I've been using for Whitetail, and I just don't change my Western setup. It's it's a monster out here. I don't need to shoot any faster. I don't switch
my broad heads. One thing I did run into a little bit of an issue when I went to shoot my buck. You know, you get in these blinds, whether it's a tree stand, you've kind of got all kinds of room. You're in a blind, You've got limitations. You know. I'd always draw my bow. Sometimes my elbow would hit. And one thing that happened right when I was going to shoot my buck this year is I've got that ten inch spider stabilizer on it. Sometimes it's hard to
draw your boat. You know, you got your arrow kind of hanging out the windows even to get your bow drawn, just so things aren't in the way. And I didn't realize my ten inch stabilizer was going to hit off of the windowsill the inside. And so next year I may look at before I go to whitetail hunt, coming up with a different stabilizer system, you know that maybe has more weight but on a shorter bar, something to that effect, to prevent, you know, any of that from happening.
I've never felt cold enough yet that I couldn't draw my boat back. You know, even when I do get chilli, I I kind of practice make sure I get my boat back, and I haven't had any issues yet. So knock on wood that that nothing all happen there So clothing changes up a lot when I'm not Western hunting, when I can't get up and walk and go to to warm myself up or or you know, create some of my own heat you're stuck in a tree stand.
So one thing that I did this year, you know, last year it was really really cold and I kind of barely just got buy on my Solitude set up. So this year the Solitude kit worked great. You know in that forties I would say forties, the thirties on that one, I would put my Kiln hoodie on on the bass layer. I would wear my Source jacket over it, and then I would play with zipping or unzipping or walking to my stand without my Solitude coat on. But then I'd have my Solitude bibs on for the majority
of the hunt. One thing I also change up all my white toe hunts is my boot system. Those those crispy mountain boots. Even two hundred grams installations just aren't gonna cut it. So I've got some lacrosse. I can't even I believe there are sixteen one hundred grams and insulation. And let me, I'm actually searching Google right here while I'm I'm looking at it. I believe they're the Alpha Burley pros that are in Yeah, Alpha Burley Pro sixteen
hundred grams in first light cipher. I believe, so where those and I also just wore my darn tuffs in those and they seem to be enough to get me through those thirty to forty degree days. Yeah, I mean we used We used quite a few Summit tree stands. We used a lot of Millennium tree stands. You know a lot of these are already set up on the hunt. My buddy Randy that owns the proper, but he's also got some red neck blind set up. You know, we're
using Summit harnesses, safety harnesses on those hunts. We did add to Dave Smith decoy. I don't know it's one of the bucks. I don't know if it's like a I don't know the exact name of it, but uh, it worked on a couple sites. We've had some bucks coming bristled up. But there are times where you know, maybe some smaller deer, some dozeddn't necessarily like it when
they kind of show up out of the blue. So it worked on the bucks that it was meant to work on, but kind of you know, was a little suspect to some of the gear that didn't want to see that buck that close to the stands. But uh yeah, Dirk had some better success with it than I did, and and some bucks that really committed to that thing. Yeah. Other than that, that's kind of the gear we used. We don't get too crazy, too fancy with our gears.
Kind of the same stuff year after year. There's not a lot of major changes that I want to make to my gear. I'm I'm I try to put more attention on the on the hunting better and different than I do and my gear. So that's really what we've got. You know, the calls on that white to hunt, I guess we need to talk about that a little bit. I used the beta as well, but we also tested some new calls. You know, we've got some new calls coming out for twenty four with some pretty cool features.
You know. We also got to test our rattling bag, which seemed to at times have gear running by us. So the rattle and bag worked really well. But yeah, that was what we used in Kansas. That's kind of what I used for all of twenty three and if twenty four seasons. Started tomorrow. I wouldn't hesitate to go right back out in the field with it. There was no gear that I used that I thought really really failed me or that I wanted something better. So yeah,
thanks for listening, cutting the distance. That was my gear for twenty three. Feel free to send us an email to CTD at Phelps game Calls dot com if there's any gear you want opinions on or like us to test out or take a look at. I'm always interested in what's new and what's out there and maybe something that we're overlooking. But I appreciate y'all. Good luck if you have any Fall hunts left, and we'll catch you on the next episode.