Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance Today. I'm here with Ryan Lampers. He's back. I think he's the first guest to be on three times, but I always enjoy our conversations. And we're gonna go back. We're gonna look at some q and a's from some of
you out there. We're gonna go back look at his twenty three season kind of anything that it was different, kind of what he had to do, or like any little nuggets he can pull out of those hunts for us, and then dive into what worked and what then, and then also jump into some health and fitness topics and then his recent wolfund that he was just on, and then what he has coming up moving into next year. It's always a pleasure to have you on the show.
Ryan, Welcome, Thank you, Jason much appreciate it. Excited to be back. Yeah.
Yeah, we were trying to record this yesterday and you were on a on a wolf hunt and kind of
pushed us back. So I'm glad to be able to to have you jump on and get on the podcast today, and we're gonna I'm gonna save some of my questions for you on the wolf hunt as we get into the podcast on some of your your food choices you made on the wolf hunt kind of your strategy and you know, to to kind of double up on you know, is it winter range deer scouting and trying to get a wolf hunt like kind of you know, making sure
each trip has multiple reasons and meanings. So we'll jump into that in a little bit, But first we're gonna jump right into listener Q and A. Once again, if you have questions for me or my guests, please email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com, or social media messaging, emails, you know, any of that, and we'll do our best to get them on here. So the first question comes. It was pretty much the same question from both Jonathan you'r st hopefully I didn't
butcher butcher his name too bad? And Lucas Johnson. What does your off season look like as far as workouts, your season prep, scouting, and nutrition.
Yeah, I guess we're an off season, right, I don't. I don't know that there's an off season.
There's not the Yeah, I was gonna say, our off season used to be like November to about July and August, but now it seems like we've figured out a way to fill those fill those in.
Yeah, I mean there's a few gaps, and we're in the gap right now. I'd say, yeah, good question. I think, Uh, you know, I've been asked us a lot, and I don't have really anything exciting to talk about when it comes to exercise and all that kind of thing. You know, I've got a home gym downstairs. I try to keep up with my wife. She gets down there early every morning. You know, this time of year when I'm not hunting,
I spend a good amount of time down there. You know, we've got a rower, all kinds of equipment that we can get after it on. But my number one, and I think it always will be, always has been routine, is just hiking. Hiking with weight. You know where I live out here in the country, so we've got all kinds of space to just roam, and we've got a little loop here. We can take it a mile and three quarters with a weighted backpack, or we can take the longer route or go up on the hill behind
us and put in a good handful of miles. And you know, that is and always will be I think my most effective way of preparing for the next hunt, you know, the future future hunts that I have. It's it's just what you do in the mountains. It's the most important. And you get a lot out of hiking with weight. You know, I think just going out and putting a ton of miles on without weight is good.
But I'm just throwing you know, anywhere from just twenty five to sometimes go up to sixty pounds on the back and going for it, and so that that really helps me out. I think it keeps your core strong, just keeps those muscles tuned in. Those are the ones that you really need to function well on the mountain.
So there's like no secret. You're not like getting up every morning, you slamming down you know your pre workout. You're not working out for an hour and a half in the gym and then you know, doing cardio. It's just it's what you need to do to be There's no secret workouts or you're not you know, crossfitting every day. It's just doing the functional what you're going to be doing in the mountains is it is workouts.
You get up early and we put some time in downstairs. You know, I love the rower. We've just got a cheap old rower downstairs, and I like getting on that thing and just crushing it for forty minutes. It really gets your art right up and it puts the screws to you. So I love that. But then just throwing around, you know, pushing and pulling heavy things. That really helps in the off season as well. You know, I definitely
don't lift like I used to. Used to do a lot more in the gym and things like that, but I'm not a CrossFit guy. I don't. I don't have any secrets there, you know. I just try to stay in as good a shape as I can, and most of that comes from, like we said, there's not a lot of off season now, so we're always spending time in the mountains. We're always having weight on our backs. Now I'm cheating a little bit these days, you know. I turned fifty this year, and last few years we've
started using pack animals a little bit more. You know, We've used things like a lamas, which gets a lot of the weight off your back. Now I'm into the goats and I'm using those a ton. I'll go. When I do my walks, I just take the ghats and they come with me. And just to keep them in shape, because now a big part of my off season is making sure my animals are in shape to keep up with me. And so that's been a lot of fun, and that's kind of a new thing that I'm doing now.
But as far as nutrition, you know, it's always the same again, nothing real secret. We just try to eat clean throughout the year, you know, during the haunts. Outside of the haunts, my wife keeps me on track with that, trying not to pound, you know, too much sugar. We weren't out like one hundred percent off all sugar. We've got kids, you know, we don't We don't do it to the extreme. But I think eating clean to the best of your abilities really helps and it definitely keep
the inflammation down. And you know, we've talked about inflammation almost too exhaustion these days, me and my wife. But it's important and I feel like that's what's really helped me in these later years. I feel better now than I felt in my twenties by a mile. You know. When I go out and do ten days and we're crushing miles, double digit miles every day, I don't come back sore anymore. And a lot of that is some of the supplements I take. You know, I do a
lot of turmeric and CBD and stuff like that. No secrets there. But then I'm not pounding all this this extra sugar during the hunks, so I'm trying to keep from inflaming my joints to where I just don't feel good. And then yeah, just clean eating in the off season and things like that, So no secrets there. Really I like it.
Yeah, it's you know, I'm the yoyo where I eat bad and then eat really like the extreme. And yeah, mental clarity like your inflammation, your knees, your joints, your hips, like everything goes away and you feel better and then you always wonder why you relapse back into that. But yeah, definitely clean eating. And then for me, it's it's just as much of a mental game when you're eating clean there there's no fog a you know, clear mind.
And yeah, yeah, you have to talk a little bit with some of your things too. You've talked, you've probably talked in the podcast about doing carnivore every once in a while and kind of mixing it up and things like that. That's always been really interesting to me.
Yeah, Yeah, and I I now, I I've i've you know, working with your wife. She's she's now my doctor had some you know. I don't beat the drum. I don't think I've even talked on the podcast about like testosterone, Like we talked and I'm, man, why the hell am I wanting to go to bed at seven thirty? Like when we were running the business early on, Like there were days you'd go to bed at twelve or one, just when your work was done. You were done, right,
and like, what is going on? And got with got with doctor Hill and yeah, testosterone like in the high two hundreds for a forty year old guy, and it's like what and uh of change my life?
You know.
And I don't know whether it's a tribute to eating well or it's probably both. You know, got on some testosterone and feel amazing, and then that helped with the inflammation in itself, like just getting the hormones balanced and you know, and then I I kind of she thought I should change my diet a little bit where I was eating real heavy carnivore. And there's a lot of unknowns, right if you're doing carnivore, like can you have elevated
treglisserides and elevated LDLs and is it still safe? And she just got real worried because what without really knowing, She's like, well, maybe we should not eat so much fatty meat. And so we've we've made some changes. But I feel amazing doing it. I just don't want to like feel amazing but then kick over of a heart attack because I got some numbers way out in left field.
But yeah, it's that combination. The last six months has been amazing, like just getting hormones balanced back out eating, you know, and everybody says, well, what are you eating? Because I've lost about sixty pounds in the last you know, six months. And it's just like I think of it, there's no specific diet. It's just like close to the earth, right, like it comes out of the ground, if it lives on the ground, like it checks all the boxes and
that it's just like clean eating. I'm not afraid to have a few blueberries or strawberries here, I'm not afraid to eat sweet potatoes, but like if the rice has got to go through a factory and get stripped of its husks and stuff like, and now I'm very extreme because it's easy for me to relapse and go back. And you know, if it lives on the ground, you know a lot of deer and elk. But just I feel amazing right now.
Well, and that's and that's something to talk about too. I didn't even think about it when you mentioned like your regimen, but you know, finding a good doctor I think is really important, especially when you get up there in age. You know a lot of dudes, guys and gals. Hormones are a big, big thing. And you know a lady like my wife who does a lot of blood work and test people's hormones and tries to regulate them
and get them dialed in. It's really important. Like it's amazing how you can go from like you said, I want to go to bed, really just waking up up without that drive, without that just that winning drive to go. You know, all all that changes when you dial in your hormones a little bit, whether it's the stops around or mestrigon for ladies. So we're very blessed to know Doc Hill because she gets us to that perfect point where you just crush it, you feel like crushing it,
You wake up feeling good. You've got that winning hormone drive. And today it's shocking how many guys out there have low test you know, it's it's just like unbelievable, even guys in their twenties, you know, twenties, thirties. It's not like it used to be. Guys are just whatever. If it's environmental, who knows, you know, the verdict isn't in yet on what's causing this, but a lot of guys are suffering from lack tesk.
Yeah. Yeah, my cousin, you know, very athletic, very active, lifts weights all the time, that he was at similar numbers to me at like mid thirties, and it's just why and how come? But uh yeah, I feel great, you know. With the changes, it's it's all kind of dialed in, and like you know, Hillary asks you these lists of questions like before and after kind of gauge, and I said, it was weird, like you didn't realize how bad it was until you got to see like
the instant change on it. And like my my best analogy was like before my weekend looked like well I might accomplish these one or two things, and I want to sit and watch like hunting on YouTube or or sit around the rest of day. Now it's like, put twenty things on my list and make sure they're checked off before the end of the day. Like this motivation, this drive that I used to always have is like back versus you know, kind of being a lazy ass
around home on the weekends. It's like you've got this drive again to just crank, crank through and get things done. So it's mental as well as you know, the physical changes.
Yeah, I mean, Closter, it's the winning hormone for us, guys. We need it and it needs to be at a certain level for us to just crush it in life. And you know, it's very important. So if anybody gets anything out of this podcast, it's like, man, you know you're feeling rotten and you're off season. You know, you're just like you said, you're just wanting to sit down end of the day, just watch movies and eat junk food and not motivated to go crush it in the mornings.
You know, maybe go find yourself a really good doctor who take your blood through it. Look at your panels, see what's missing.
Yep, yep. The next question comes from my financial advisor, Jeff Bloomquist. He put what are your top three things that you attribute to your consistent success of killing more mature animals. And it doesn't have to be three, just kind of what are your top approaches And and I'm very careful, like we all do this for different and and maybe I shouldn't even have to explain this, but we all we're all out there, like if your goal is just to put a spike in the freezer, we're
we're not saying that's not the goal. But Ryan, any of you, you know, any of you do or don't know it, Like, it's very easy to look at what he does and realize, like, all right, that that top level animal, and that's what you're out there for. You're pursuing that challenge. And so this is geared towards when you get to the level of having all these other accomplishments or abilities below you, like when you target mature animals.
And I would say there's different levels to that, right where some guy might be like I want a four and a half year old dear that scores this, Like Ryan goes out there with an expectation or a challenge to kill, you know, very a top five percenter kind of what what what what do you attribute that success to at that level.
Yeah, you know, I think I think it's different for everybody. I think for me, I just know that I have a drive that might be a little bit more intense than some of the folks around me, you know, some of the other folks that I've hunted with. Even I don't really want to settle, and so my drive is just a competition with myself too really do whatever it takes. Literally, however far it takes to hike, however many days it takes, that's always kind of on the table, and I try
to set these hunts up for that. I always try to do tending trips so that I've got the time to make this thing happen. And you know, while you're in the field, is I think, the willingness to put my body through whatever, go wherever. I'm not afraid to go down to the bottom, you know, twenty five hundred feet down and then right back up to the top. It means I might have a slight opportunity to seal the deal on a mature animal. So I think drive is the one thing that's really hard to explain. My
drive is just very intense when I'm out there. This is My favorite thing to do in life, you know, is to do this thing, and that's target mature animals out through the mountains. And then a lot of it is also, you know, just all the time that you
put into the off season. You know, whether it's your map work, you're scouting, you're dialing into meals that you're going to take with you, the gear that you take with you, all these different things just kind of all add up to being well prepared out there, and you know, in the end, you're not getting pulled out of the mountains prior to you sealing the deal or something trivial.
You know something. I'm also very lucky, and I love to like prop my wife up as much as I can, but the reality of it is, I wouldn't be able to do any of this if I didn't have an amazing wife who literally can She's so independent if she needs to be, she can take care of anything when I'm out there. So there's really no problems that I have to deal with when I'm in the mountains. I'm not out there worried about much. You know, if there is an issue, I'm lucky if she even tells me
about it. On my en reach you know, she just takes care of it. So you know, a lot of the success comes from just having a partner that is at that level, you know, and then having the drive and all the preparedness around that. I think really has helped me in this in this thing.
So let me let me see if I can get to the inside of your head. So this drive that you talk about, this competition maybe with yourself or not wanting to let yourself down. So I mean, is there ever a time is during a hunt where you even have to like, come on, don't let yourself down, you know, or is it just not even a question anymore where you're just this is what needs to be done, We're going you don't even have that conversation with yourself anymore.
Or is there some like thought like is that really the best play? Or you just like we're gonna go over there and see what happens, and yeah, how does that conversation you know, because that's I think if somebody's not at your level, that's a lot of what pops up. Right there's like, well, I really don't know if climbing down in that three thousand feet really gives me a better opportunity or a chance, you know, until you'll talk yourself out of it.
And I think I don't think there's any twenty year old that is going to have that because they don't have the experiences built up. You know, as you as you do more hunts and you have these things happen like I can't tell you how many times, and you've had the same thing happen many, many, many times as well. It's just you keep working at it. It can happen so fast, and with elk hunting, it's it's like to the utmost degree, it just happens in a matter of
like thirty seconds. You go from this low like man, this is this ever really going to happen, and you're just fighting with yourself like I don't know. I mean, maybe these next four days are there just kind of a waste because we haven't had any luck. And then about three minutes from that point, you just arrowed a bull and he's down. And it's it happens like that so often. And I think once it's happened to you a few times or a couple dozen times, you just
it's always there. You just know, like success can happen at any point out there, even when it's the slowest of slow, and you know, the weather's been junkie, and your bulls aren't talking, and there's people everywhere. You know, all it takes is just a few minutes and things
turn on a dime. And when you had that experience, I think that just gets ingrained into you, like you don't get down as much because you know, like one more ridge, you know, next Cooley, you can go last across and pick up that one buck and that's all it took. And so it's hard to explain to people, but I think, you know, we've just been doing this a very long time, so I don't have the mental that I had that I have now. I didn't have
that back in my twenties. You know, I was more willing to give up and just get down, like this hunt is not worth being out here, you know, I might as well go somewhere else. But now as you've got gained all this experience, you just you just know it can turn on a dime. So yeah, that's a big part of it.
Yeah. I think one of the tough you mentioned, like the slow you know, the slow times and there I think it's different, like if you're on a hunt that is just on fire the whole time, but just opportunities not coming like that will keep people more involved. But in the end, those super slow hunts that you finally find your first elk on the eighth day and you still kill it. Like, the results still the same. Right, we went there, We accomplished what we wanted to, but
the hunt ahead of time was different. I think that's what you know, what you had mentioned kind of kind of resonates with me, is that I'm still able on you know, six or seven days. Yeah, you get down a little bit, but you keep kind of grinding, and you know that in the end there's the possibility this is still going to end up in the same spot of the very action packed hunt or the it's the
same result. And and we've proven that we had twenty chances throughout the hunt, but none of them you're able to capitalize on where you capitalize on the one it it Yeah, it works into your mental game and then in future hunts you're like, well this, I've been here before. I don't need to quit, Like we've been in this exact situation and know how it's going to play out or can play out.
Yeah, yeah, I think and this is so cliche to say, but you know, I think if you find yourself throughout the day on a hunt just continually saying things like how this sucks, Like, man, this is never going to happen. You know, this is brutal. You're just you're you're screwing with your head. And you know that's one thing that I found now, you trying to stay positive is very important. Just knowing that it could happen, and just expecting it could happen at any point. It's all on your head.
But if you do, if you are out there and you have a hunt partner that's just so down and sour and always like looking for a reason why it sucks to be out there and throughout the day, it's just a lot of negativity. That is a surefire recipe to have a hunt fail and either pull you out of the mountains early or you're just not doing what you should be doing. You know, you should be positive and you should be willing to just know that, man, it's just could be that ridge, it could be one
more hole, it could be tomorrow, weather could turn. I mean, you should be out there expecting it to happen and waking up and again cliche, but waking up and just this is the day that it's going to happen. And with that comes success for sure.
Yeah, and we take it to the point where it's like overly positive, overly optimistic. You might not see a deer in your area for the last seven days, but you wake up tell your buddy like, hey, this is a day we kill a big you know, we both we double up or we kill big bucks. And it's like, I won't to say it's a little fake, but you're just like you're you're just reminding yourself like this is a day we're going to get up, like you know,
maybe maybe pick everybody up and keep them going. And yeah, the positive mental and we've we've talked about a ton on here is having good hunting partners where if one guy does get down, the other guy won't let him get two down, and you're able to feed off of each other. And and it's it's definitely worked in the past to kind of keep somebody going or not want to. And you know, the worst thing you'd want of somebody. You're trying to talk somebody to quit and they say, oh,
let's go, like it's over. But if that guy is you know, mentally strong at that time. It's It definitely helps.
People over the years. I'm sure you have as well that are just negative people. Right. It may be fun at times, but they're just negative people. That's the last guy I want my hunting camp. I just I just walk away from that. I'll always love you, know, I have. I have a very small list of guys that I hunt with today. I still love hunting by myself. I really love enjoy hunting with my daughter, but I've got a small group that I hunt with. And the guys that I hunt with now, you know, some of their
skills are just that they never quit. They never give up. They're not ones to say, I'm I just want to give up and go back, let's just get out of here. These these guys that I hunt with now, they don't do that. They will go that extra mile and they will go wherever it takes to make success happen. So I think that's extremely important, and it's a hard thing to kind of weed out those guys that could be
just too negative. But success is determined by having a really good hunt partner sometimes for sure.
Next question comes from sentiment out of Tall Timber productions. Have your tactics evolved or change over the last decade or so, Archie L Hunting. Have you found yourself changing the way you did it or is it still pretty consistent how you started?
Do you really want me to talk about this Felks Felks game calls you.
I know you're we're going to talk up a little bit about Raken and a little bit more spot and stocking.
But let's yeah, let's hear it.
Yeah, it has changed. It has changed a lot, and a lot of the change has come from where I am now versus where I used to be. You know, I came from your neck of the woods. You know, we were Washington guys and uh thick country hunt rosies and in timber and very much a calling game, you know,
very much a calling game. And so I was. I was basically taught like the best way to get big bulls in was to pick a fight, you know, leaving the cow calls to the other guys and going in with just these threatening bugles and picking fights with the with the herb bal And I learned that in Washington. I learned it in the north country of Idaho, where it's just absolutely so thick that that's that's the best
method for getting these big bulls in. Now, since then, I have changed, you know, I've moved over here to Montana, and even when I was still a Washingtonian, I I started hunting areas that were a little more open and where I was able to glass more. And you know, these days, I find myself seeking out those type places. You know, I'm not hunting the thick, thick country as
much anymore. I'm looking for states. I'm looking for opportunity hunts where I can go try to glass up more bulls or even just you know, I can still be out there, and I'm you know, I chuck a lot of location bugles out just to get an idea where the bulls are, find the herd, you know, find the best bull and then I put a lot of work into glassing and trying to figure out a strategy on how I can either get in between, you know, or just figure out a to get an arrow in that
bowl in more open country. So I really enjoy this time where I'm chasing you know, her bulls in open country. I'm not calling as much, not even close. I'm still doing a lot of location googles just to find them because they're always there's always pockets timber, and you know they they love being in that timber. But I don't try to work bullth in as much as I used to, for sure, and I think that's been probably the biggest change for me, especially with the bigger hurtles. But I
really do enjoy calling, calling elkin. It's a lot of fun. But man, the spot and stole game for me right now is kind of where I'm at.
Yeah, no, and I'm I'm in the same boat where you know, growing up hunting almost exclusively Southwest Washington, we called everything in and it seemed I don't want to say easy, but it almost seemed easy. At times you'd located and got in tight and you could eventually get him to close the distance. As times went on, it seems like you're trying to force us. We're pegging around hole at times. Now we've still got them cranked up.
We've killed a lot of great bulls, but it's just not even when we started hunting out of state, and you know, over the West, it seemed easier just ten years ago. And I don't know if it's if we're to blame pressure the calling industry everybody out there calling, you know, whether you got a tag or not, Like I don't. I'll shoulder some of it. But the elk aren't as callable as they used to be.
You've turned a lot of into pretty dang good callers. There's a lot more better, like really good callers out there in the woods these days. He'll fool yeah, for sure, there's some really good deal.
Yeah. And as much as it hurts, we've turned into a little bit more of a I ten years ago out of never question should I bugle right now, or should I col call or should I go silent? And now that's like my common routine, Like do I really want to be agle here? Because it hasn't worked the last sure four or five times, and things are privy to it and heading the other way. And you know, like this year is the first year ever I located a bowl, went completely silent and snuck into forty yards.
It's like, as much as it hurts me to say I knew as a hunter, like I've got this skill set, maybe not near as good as you were. Barn here guys a spot in stock all the time, but it's just it's an animal that I just can't let see here or smell me right, Like, it's a very simple equation.
Don't let him see you here, You're smell you. You're gonna be all right, and just put a you know, put the sneak on him, put a you know, put his head behind a log or a standing tree that was big enough for me to hide behind and walk into forty yards. And it is getting different. I would say, I'm in the same boat as much. I still try to at least force it early in a hunt, like I'm going to call these things in.
But you know, like this, it's important to have all the tools in your toolbox, right sure, I think you know you want to be really competent in your in your calling. You know, this year's bull just happened to be a bull that it was in much more open country still September. But you know I got in between him and his betting area and I was able to get an arrow in this bowl. Last year. You know, I went in trying to be silent, silent. I just wasn't able to get in to where this bull was betted.
And uh, and I called that bull in. You know, I got in tight, just like the old days. That worked so well, I got in tight, made just an absolute uh you know, monster threatening mule at him, and he came tearing in, ready to ready to kill me, and that worked in that situation. So, you know, I don't want to eliminate any of the strategies. I think. I think having them all in your toolbox is really important. And you know, there's going to be times in the future where I calf call a bull in uh that's
what's going to work that day. And so I think just you know, not putting anything aside. Everything's got to be on the table. But I'm trying, definitely trying to do less calling in a lot of the areas that I'm on now.
Yeah, And I think being you know, being a skilled hunter in that situation is recognizing like what you should maybe do, like are they in a good stockable spot, and recognizing that, like that's more important than being a good caller having all these tools that you're not you're not you know, leaning on your caring primarily, or you're not just leaning on your spot in stock like at any time if that situation, you know it dictates you should be doing this or should try this, you know,
being able to do that or execute it. Well, yeah, I agree, if you have all those tools and don't limit yourself to one style of elkonny.
Absolutely, And you know, I look forward to one of these years, I'm going to get back to the to the old haunts that I used to hunt. And I don't know about Washington, but Idaho, you know some of the thick country, and and I guarantee there's going to be times where I want to pick a fight, or at least pick a fight with you know, a limb and start raking. I really like rake and too. It works so well for so many years back in the day. I don't know if it works as well now in
those places in Washington we're raking in a bull. I think a lot more guys are doing it, but you know, they may be keyed into a little bit more than they used to be. But yeah, all the tools, I think they're important to have and and no one situation is always going to be the same.
So, yeah, we had you on back on episode thirty five what we did the spring Bear episode. So this question may have the answer in there, I'm sure, but maybe you can give like a real quick cliff note version. How do you go about locating spring bears early in the season. This comes from Parker Batista.
Yeah, early season. I love that very very front end because it's just my opinion, but I feel like that is your absolute best time to locate those older bores. I don't know what the science shows, I don't know what the professionals say, but it feels like and maybe maybe you got some data this, Jason, but I am fine in the biggest bores, Like the biggest ones on the mountain are the first ones I see, and after that, you know, come to mediums and then the thousand cubs
are kind of the last to show. Has that been a case for you, because it sure has for me. I always feel like that it's always going to be one of the days in April where we just, you know, we lay eyes on that first bear. He's usually a monster. And you know where I like to focus my efforts is in you know, big drainages with a lot of water. I like to be there just ahead of green up
and those big bores. Man, I've found in the places that I've hunted them, they just they really it almost is like they're on that green line where the green is just coming up. Sometimes even above it a little bit like you don't even know what they're doing up there eating, you know, avalanche lilies and things like that.
But yeah, I wish I had as much spring bear experience, but I've hunted five times. It's all been in Washington, down in the Blues, and we get to such a late start May. Fifteenth year, I drew it was the COVID year where they didn't even evidently they thought we were gonna get COVID out in the woods, and then we didn't want to give it to the bears, so
they made us start really late. And so all of our experience has been more that mid May with still kind of fighting that snow line, you know, pretty low at least the one year we did have early, I think those bigger bores we've seen them earlier in the trips, and then as we went back trip after trip and tried to make it happened, I think the bears were
getting smaller. So I would agree with that. I just don't have as near as much experience, like into that early April early May time frame where we're typically if we're starting right off the bat, it's middle of the May, and usually we elect to wait a little bit because there is so much snow where the access is so hard.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think you know where I really like to focus my efforts for big bores early season. I love that April timeframe, and I don't want to be too late in the season, like May is great too, and then into June. Some guys love hunting the rut. I just like being on the front end, you know, just best opportunity. You don't see as many bears. But I really like that time where almost everything is brown, it's just a little bit of green, just barely starting
to show up. I just that's that's the time frame for me where I feel like I'm going to have my best luck at the biggest bear on the mountain.
So, okay, gotcha. Last question. I'm not privy, do it. Maybe you are tell us more about the trekking pole glassing method. Maybe go Hunt had just talked about it. I don't know if there's a specific method or something different than than typical, but enlighten me.
Yeah, I don't know either.
That came from That came from Nate Stevens.
Okay, I don't know. I'm not sure what what they talked about. Over at go hunt, Yeah, trek and pull glassing thing. I'm assuming it's just running your nyls on top of the trekker, right, I do.
It all the time, I would think, yeah, yeah, or on top of your bowcam or whatever you've got, you can lean into the ground.
It's a real quick way to just like get solid real fast and not have to pull the tripod out and get your binos on the tripod. So no, I use it all the time. And uh no, I mean it's almost just as good as a tripod in many cases.
Yeah, but does your do the peak design? Do the sissy sticks have a thread in the top yet like the old Eastern trekking poles did, where you can like thread them on and use it. I don't know if that's patented, but something you guys should look into for sure. They had that like five eight stud that would like you have a cap that would go over your trekking poll and then you could just dread your your holder on when you didn't want to use them, that cap
would come back down. Just throw that out for you guys. I didn't know if you guys did, or I knew an old set of Easton's I had did have those, but it made it slick back when I had my binos hooked up and you could just thread them on real quick and then you don't have to worry about like holding on or you know, you could if you're going to set up for a little bit longer.
Yeah, there you go.
I'll pass that on. I don't know if you're going to answer these questions or not. It was a pretty popular question. But now that you're not in Washington, are you willing to give up your meal deer and Roosevelt elk hunting spots?
Yeah, surprising how many people have reached out with that one, Jason. But it was more like right after I left Washington, there was a lot of guys like really thinking that I would just give them the spots. So you know, my best hunting buddy who I've hunted with more than anybody, and that's Joey Pyron, he's still over there in Washington. He he knows all the spots. We used to hunt these spots together and for years I I told him, I was like, because he kind of he got into
this waterfowl thing. He does a lot of fishing. Now he doesn't do the big game hunting that we used to do. It's gonna hate me airing this out there for him, but it's true. He needs to hunt big game more. But I told him, like, look, there's a little window here. You better keep getting after these spots. You know, we have some really good old hunts that we used to hunt. Otherwise I'm gonna have to give him up. So he's got a little bit more time.
If he doesn't start taking advantage of his time over there into these places where he used we used to kill big bucks, I might start having to give these spots up. But yeah, at this point, you know, I have plans, like I really will. I will come back to Washington one of these years. I want to just come back and hunt some of the older you know, in late October there like we used to. And I really want to go back and see if anybody has found these air there is you know it, really I'm
really curious about that. I've heard there's a lot more hunters over there stomping around in the mountains these days than there used to be. So yeah, you know, it really intrigues me to see how things have changed and if there are still some big old bucks and these really secluded places, but no, selfishly, those those areas are probably going to be just for us folks that have been there before.
Yep, yep, I don't blame. And then somebody else wanted to know about your hair held routine on ten day backpack trips.
But if you've seen the videos, you know there is no routine. It's it drives my wife crazy, Like the dreadlocks I have to rip out at the end of the trip, just drives you crazy. My daughter's trying to get me to pack a hair brush. It's just it's just nonsense. It embarrasses them, but it's kind of why I do it. So no, no routine, no brushing.
And say, if your daughter starts, is your daughter starts to backpack with you more and more, she'll have to pack the brush and you can just take advantage of just.
Tried to get that brush in my hair. She definitely packs her brush on the trips that we take, so yeah, I just keep it out of my hair.
All right. Well, I appreciate answering all those questions. Ryan a little longer version of our typical question and answer for our guests, but we went out specifically looking for these. Once again, you have questions for me or my guests, please feel free to email them to us at CTD at Phelps game Calls dot Com, or hit us up on social media, send us a message and we'll we'll do our best to get those thrown in. Stole a little bit of my thunder there with some of their questions.
We're going to talk about health and fitness. You know, your training, diet, but we really covered that, and so we're just gonna kind of jump into kind of your season recap twenty three. You know, I think we go all the way back. We were both on Mexico kus deer hunts. I don't think on the episode thirty five on the Bear Hunt we even really got into that.
So have you start with like your CU's Whitetail trip, your spring bear season, and then we kind of fast forward to it our old season used to be our fall seasons where you went Alaska, Moose, Alaska, Blacktail, Montana, elk and deer, and just kind of give us a rundown of those six hunts and if there was any anything technical or tactical that you did specific to those hunts or maybe change in you know, elk behavior or deer behavior moose that kind of you had to adapt
to and change to it. That kind of maybe helped you out on those hunts.
So we're going back to Mexico. Is that where we're going to start.
Yeah, yeah, we'll start. Yeah, we'll start in Mexico. I don't think we ever talked about that here on cutting the distance. Yeah.
So, you know, it was my first year down there, you know, acrossing the border. I've hunted queues on the north side of it for a few years, handful of years, and just had an absolute blast. This is the first opportunity that I've ever had to get across the order and go down and chase cues, and we had a blast. You know, this was a place where, you know, I didn't really know what to expect. There were four of us, myself, Brian, Brad and Hunter went down and it just felt like
a wilderness where we were. It was so wild and there's just nothing around, you know, getting way back into this country, that felt like just nobody's looking at this these places and not many people have seen it. And so you know, came down to glass and honestly, and for most cues deer hunters, I think they degree you know, just spending time behind the glass can't be stated, you
know enough, because uh, really good glass. I always run the higher power by knows when I'm down there, a little bit more power spot or when I'm down there, you've got to be so diligent with Cou's deer. You know, every time I end a cues deer hunt, it's the same thing. I walk away thinking, Man, it was all about the time spent behind the glass, because those the
little buggers just disappear on you. I mean, you could be literally staring at a at a great buck, take your eyes out of the glass, go back, and he's going forever and you just have no idea where he vanished to. But I think being being very patient is a big virtue in Inku's deer hunting. If you don't have a lot of patients, might be a tough, tough trip for you. So the particular trip that I went down on this was not a high density area. I saw very few deer, very few bucks overall, which was
a little bit shocking, but it was cool anyway. We were still finding good mature bucks, just not many deer in general. Now, I don't know if it was because it was it was a very wet year last year. There was water everywhere, and so you know, obviously kind of makes sense that they'd be spread out a little bit more. They're not so focused on these certain drainages. I don't know, we'll see because we're going to the same place this year and we're going to check it out.
But I think with Cou's deer, I always come away with, Uh, it's all about the time spent behind the glass. And if you're not a very diligent glasser, if you're not willing to just keep those things you know, slammed onto your head like just all day long, willing to do that, you're probably not going to see the deer.
And uh yep.
You know, we've hunted with those guys that don't see many and they just end up letting you do all the work and find them.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm in the same boat like I've. I feel like I'm three times as good a glasser now that I've qu's deer hunted. When I come back to meal, your hunt like this is easy now at this point because of the strategies we put together down there. You know, you're either always in your biyos and I love setting up spots where if I climb up the mountain,
I've got some good shoot shooting lanes five hundred. But then my glassing kind of goes across canyons, right, so I'm able to have a hunt that morning or that night, but then my glassing goes from a wolf or not here. Now I'm glassing for the for a stalk, and I usually go from tens. I didn't bring like twelves or fifteens or eighteens. I went from tens right into my spotter. And so my my glassing requires me to be in that spotting scope all day and just sit and walk
and walk the spotter. And similar to what you said, there were times where I would spot a deer try to like get somebody on them. So I'm looking for landmarks and trying, and then I would look back in there, I'm like, damn it, it left, but it hadn't left. I just couldn't respot the deer or was just stand it like you just couldn't pick it up, or you know, last year a buck was pushing a dough and so then you're kind of really fastly tracking them around the
clear cut and you'd lose them at times. And or what we found on that time was we've been glassing this clearcut only seven hundre dards a way not too extremely far with the spotting scope, and that buck went and found all these five or six dos for us on the hillside. We had never seen a deer on and it was just it's it's glassing at a different level. But I love it because I I it makes me
better glass. It lets me know that you're looking for ears, you're looking for horns, you're looking for a leg kicked out in a bed like it just it prepares you for when I come home black till hunting or meal deer. Like it's nothing for me to just sit in my spotter for an hour compared to five hours at a time down there. And yeah, it definitely makes you a better, better glasser.
I mean, those little ghosts, they could just be standing all over hillside and if you're not really tuned in, you'll just run your bionos right over them. What I what I find unique is you know, they're so similar to a mal deer. I hate that they're white tailing, just but they're so similar because you know how and
for whatever reason. Some some of the biggest bucks that we've seen, they will statue for so long, Jason, Like, you can watch a buck statue up for forty five minutes and he doesn't move a muscle and he's just he's just there. He's in the in the you know, in the oak brush or whatever. And if you're looking for movement or if you're looking for the backside of the deer things that are obvious, you're going to go
right over that buck. So you really got to slow it down, really got to pay attention to the details with coos deer. And they're so tiny, yeah, so tiny.
Yep, Yeah, we see the same thing. Like even though you're in the middle of the rut, like some of those bigger bucks, they just yeah, they just sit and I'm like, why aren't you chasing? Why aren't you moving? But they'll sit there for for twenty twenty five minutes and just look or you know, pay attention to what's going on the hillside.
And yeah, and when they get in those okts, like some of the biggest bucks we found have just been in thek t is for whatever reason. They love it and you're just looking for something a little bit unique you know, you know those everything is up, you know, vertical, and then you're just looking for an antler off to the side and they will just statue in that stuff. And like you said, the doz, I mean they just disappear, they lay down and you're looking for years go and that's about it.
Yep. Yeah, I'm excited. We're going to a new a new ranch this year that not we have. We were at a ranch that had maybe a higher density it sounds like, but maybe not the up end of Bucks. So we're gonna we're gonna mix it up this year, go try a little different area and see if we can't maybe find some bigger, bigger Bucks. And I'm excited. It sounds like. The nice thing about Mexico is private land public like compared to up here north of the border.
You know, there's always a chance somebody else's hunted it, right, It's like if you have a general tag, you can go hunt somebody's private or if it's public any like Mexico's nice because if you don't have one of the four tags, that's good for that ranch, Like nobody can dare hunt that the rest of the year, like it's left alone and we're going to spot. I don't think it's been hunted for like six years anyways. And then so we're gonna see. We'll see what it.
We'll see what it's.
It's Uh, it's kind of a slower hunt. It's a great time to go down to, right, it's kind of the off season. Yep, it's always a little bit warmer. It's usually in the minus temps here in Montana at that time. So just a fun time to get down there. You know, I never, handfully, years ago, I never expected that I'd ever even hunt Mexico. Always wanted to, always thought about, you know, opportunity to go hunts an oora or whatever. But last year was my first opportunity to
do it, and I'm I'm addicted. I absolutely love it. Yeah, a lot of fun.
That's awesome. And so from Cou's Deer you rolled into spring Bear, which coming into this year, real low snow packed pretty deep. Howd that pan out for it? And did it change a hunt at all?
Yeah?
It was.
It was a tough year, honestly. You know, the crew had a real rough go. You know, on the front end, you say the snow was wanky. We ended up we struggled. Like the first bear I took, I think I was gosh, I want to say, I was like sixteen days into it before I took that first bear, and I took a one of the best bears I've ever taken, just an absolute stud. But I had to spend a lot of time, and we had bears that would spot and they just disappear on us, you know how it goes.
And they were moving off of those south facers so fast. They just weren't putting in the time. They weren't giving us time to get to them before they just move off. They were traveling. It was kind of just a weird year like that. I hadn't seen that for a while. But in the end, Yeah, I took a couple of good bears, had a good season overall. I ended up with the wolf on the first trip and a cat at the same time, So I think we talked about that. But yeah, yeah, that was that was a heck of
a trip. It really it really like it forced us to be diligent on that one because it was it was a tough go. Yeah, we had to put in a lot of effort, a lot of work to fill those tags.
Yeah, so now you're you get to our fall seasons. Alaska. Moose was first on the on the dark Heads.
Actually we went up and did a little black tail trip up in Alaska with my daughter before them. Yeah, so that was an August trip. So we went up there in August and uh, kind of a first for me, something I wanted to do, but went up there. Good crew, a guy, as you know, I met a couple we had met up in Fairbanks the prior year when we were at mooseh Dalton and his wife Tabitha, and we hooked up for a hunt and went out not really knowing what to expect, just kind of located a pothole
and went after it. Landed on a pothole in some alpine country in southeast and and we had a heck of a trip. My daughter absolutely loved it. You know. I prepared her for the worst, you know, weatherwise, just made sure I let her know, like this could be a trip or we don't see the sun for a while and it's going to be slippery, it's going to be steep, you know, just just be ready for that. And Jason, we got there and we had five straight days of sunshine and beautiful weather. It was fairly warm,
and we had deer on the mountain. They were shining like diamonds. They were red coated. She took She filled both her tags. I filled both mine. We all feel our tags that we had ended up with seven bucks and had one of the funnest trips you could possibly have. And my daughter just absolutely loved that trip. And you know, it's funny. I was talking to Delton the other day and he's like, Hey, you want to do that trip again?
And I was like, no, I don't. I don't ever want to be that trip again because we're going to go back and it's going to be a letdown. We had the best we could possibly have on this trip, Like it could not have gone any better. We're going to go back and we're going to be a little bummed out because the weather's going to be sour and we're not going to see the quality bucks that we saw on that trip. So I was like, you know, Dulton, it's one of those hunts that it went so well,
I just I'll go somewhere else. I'm just going to leave it. Yeah, yep, I'm going to leave it. And I think that was that was really like a quality hunt with my daughter because we had a country with Steve, but we didn't have to put the miles on. That absolutely just crushed her soul. And we had, you know,
opportunities to get fairly close on these bucks. We went in with rifles and and you know, it was just a good opportunity for her to get behind the glass and her to pick up these bucks on our own and made good shots and and have just a heck of an experience. And we got it all on that one.
So yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, she really enjoyed it.
And then came home, reloaded.
Road went for moose and that was a trip with Brady Miller, myself and Brian Call and we went up. This was year two in a row, totally different location, new area, and uh again we had a heck of a trip. It was a lot tougher area than the area we'd hunted in the past, much more open, but this place was thick. We found some bulls, not many. We ended up getting a great bowl. Brady took a great bowl. It took us quite a bit of work
to get this bull out. It was miles in and you know, I know, the smart thing to do is not kill a bull moose too far from your pickup or your boat or but we did and we were just like, we're going to do whatever it takes to get this bull out and we did. You know, we got it out of there. We had some bear issues, unfortunately, our first load out was taken from us. Went back with load two and yeah, a bear got on and
took three of the bags and buried it. As we got close back to the first drop, we kind of hit a meadow that we had across through before we got to where we dropped the meat, and yeah, we had a bear that there was one piece of meat just out in the middle, like out in the middle of this meadow. That were like, how we didn't that didn't fall out of our pack, Like how did that get there? It started kind of looping around and looking.
I saw this area within the meadow that was just all shredded and he had buried all that meat in there. So we had to make a new pickup point for the plane and all that. But it's quite an experience, had a heck of a go I learned a lot, you know, totally new country from where we'd hunted prior. So already looking forward, to next year. Every year, I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to do these
mouse hunts and uh and that's been a challenge. They're not you know there, they cost you a little bit, but uh man, they are a lot of fun, a lot of work. Though a lot of work. There's nothing easy about a moose hunt. So I would I would recommend it to anybody who you know, is getting up there in years and thinks they're going to do it when they get, you know, into their sixties, it probably
ain't gonna happen. Moving moose meat is not easy, So I want to get it in while I can body is still to do it.
And then you normal fall season rules around. You've got your Montana, elk and deer tags right, yeah, yep, yep, And so you come home, uh September and roll right into your elk.
Hunt, right into the elk hunt. Yeah. I went and did that. Had had a ton of phone, put a lot of days into my archery elk season and found a really quality bull that I wanted. And it was sixteen days that I went after this thing and I finally see the deal on this just absolute heavy horned stud of an old bull that I wanted, and that trick couldn't have gone any better I had it. It was all to myself, Jason. There was no film crew, There was no camera guys, you know, there was none
of that. There was no hunting partners. It was just me and I really enjoyed that. It was a lot of fun.
That's awesome in that sixteen days. So if I didn't know, you're, like, what took so long? Or if people did it was it was it a balance of like getting him in the right spot or just failed attempts or just shadowing not to screw it up, or was he moving major distance between days? Like what happened within that sixteen days.
So within that sixteen days, Like I didn't find this bull right away. Now, this was a bull that we think we may have seen in the summer but in some of our scouting, but we're not one hundred percent sure. You never know. I think the front end of that, I wanted to just see as many bulls as I possibly could. So I was very non willing to commit
to a bull, you know. I wanted to put in a week, a week's worth of glassing and just looking around and scouting because I had the time, So I didn't want I just didn't want to hunt to end too early. And so a lot of that sixteen days was just me trying to find the right bull, in the right scenario, in the right situation. And you know, this was a this was a battle of public and private.
You know, we were you'd see bulls out on private like you always do, and and I usually don't hunt too close to private, but this time I was, and I wanted to. I wanted that challenge. And yeah, there were some times when I finally found this bull, I was about ten days in and and at that point, this bull was literally traveling, traveling five miles from where he would bed to where he would feed, and he
would run all night. And so there's this huge distance between between that and you know, he would some days he'd call a lot, some days he wouldn't call hardly at all in his travel from uh feed area to betting area. And there was a lot of different It was a maze of koolies that he would travel. He wasn't always doing the same one twice. I find it funny when people say that Ali, He's going to go through this one spot every single time. Man I've never
found that to be the case. I I they always do something a little bit differently, especially when you're trying to get him with a boat. So you know, sometimes I just picked the wrong candy, you know, trying to get in front of him. And I did not feel like this was a bull that I was ever going to be able to call in. It was fairly open country, he had a lot of cows with him, and the way he's cool, he's laid out. I had a really good opportunity if I picked the right one that I
would get a nice close shot. So I played that game over and over and over, and I screwed it up more times than I succeeded. But in the end I finally got it right. I picked the right one and it was a day that he was just fired up because there was another big old studhurd bull with his cows not too far away. It just kept him going the whole time. And I stealed the deal that day. But yeah, just a great bull stud bowl. But I
really wasn't willing to settle at that point. Once I found that bull man, it was it was like I was going to do whatever it took to to go after him so.
And that in that six days where you actually were hunting him, Like, do you go at it aggressively or are you playing the long play? Like my goals not to let him see me, not to ever bump them, not to let him smell me, Like you're staying. You're making sure that you're not going to screw it up for that time or in the future.
Yeah, I think I play it extremely slow and extremely patient. You know. I know there's times to be aggressive, but I am very, very lucky. I know how lucky I am to have the time to spend out there, and the last thing I want to do is screw up an opportunity on a big bull or buck, whatever it is. So I play the slow game frustratingly probably to others, But I am really, really, really conservative, especially on the
spot and stock stuff. You know, a little bit more aggressive when it comes to calling, but when I'm just doing the spot in stock thing, I really want to make sure that I'm not blowing this bull out, really focused on keeping the wind right. If it's fifty to fifty, I'm not doing it, you know. And all that changes if my time is more limited, you know, if I only have a weekend. Man, I'm going to be the most aggressive guy in the woods that day. But when you have the time, and I did, Man, I was
taken all the precautions. So there was times where my day would be over as soon as he got to his betting area, because this is a bull that would not make a peep. He wouldn't moan, he wouldn't do anything once he hit that bed, just wouldn't say anything, give me no opportunities to sneak into him. And he had a huge group of cows, so there.
Was Yeah, that was a problem as well, and he wouldn't come out of the betting area till late. Until he was just late over the wind would be wrong.
And they were practically run. They'd get up about three point thirty and they would basically, I mean they would just fly to back to that feed zone and they would go from public back onto private. Once they go onto the private, it's game over. And the other direction as well, I had to wait for them to get onto the public. So it was Yeah, it was a chess game for sure.
A lot of fun, gotcha. And and the other thing that probably weighs in your decision is that you were in a spot where there weren't people, right, if there are other people around, you may had to be more aggressive or tried to capitalize on their screw ups or then messing things up. So that's another bonus. So being able to go deeper, get into these areas it's not comfortable to be in or survive in for for a long time.
Yeah, that's a good at luxury good factor.
I mean the fact that if there were people there and I felt like this bull is in jeopardy of getting arrowed by somebody else, Yeah, your aggression is going to go up one hundred percent. I would have I would have went out it a lot differently, but I had nobody in the area. There was nobody in there, and it just felt like my best opportunity is to play the slow game. So that's what I did on
that bowl and could have been very different. If there were, you know, another group of guys chasing that same bowl. I probably would have been a lot more aggressive, for sure. But all those factors kind of weigh in on how you approach each and every you know, mature bowl that you're going for. It's it's always a little bit different. But that's why I hunt nonethelested animals and these these
somewhat remote places. This one, this area was pretty remote, but you know it was only it was only a few miles in and and then it took me, you know, seven eight miles in, but you know, it was it was pretty remote. It just wasn't anybody there.
So gotcha, gotcha, And then you got to Yeah, I don't know what you did early October, but then I know you and Paley went back out for you guys's Montana deer hunt. It was that. Was there anything in between? There was it. We had a bit of a rest there.
She had drawn a buck analog tax, so we went out. We had one day to do it. We went out there. We had we had a busy schedule. So yeah, we went out there for a day, not too far from the house here, and and got her her first buck. Antelope. That was a ton of fun. You know, antelope are you are just different? You know, it's not like the
biggest challenge in the world. But when you're hunting with your kid and you get to go through all the things, you know, crawling in on a buck, trying to get as tidy as you can, and just playing the patience, game, playing the wind. All those things just ends up being one of the funnest hunts of the year, even though it just lasted the day, And so we got her a really nice buck and you know, being last day it was November, I want to say twelve. There's something
like that. You know, those sheets come off pretty easy at that time of the year. And he was already missing one of his sheets. Uh, and then pale when we got up to it. She went to move it and she grabbed that one sheath and she tried to move a little bit and popped right off. And we got to talk about that and when they lose those things and how they regrow and all that kind of thing.
So fun experience. And then yeah, after that, we went you know November we always hunt here in our home state, and we had a great trip, you know, Me and Uh, this was our maiden voyage with our new goats this year. I'd been putting a lot of time in hiking them out around the house here on trails and getting them in shape, and this was a trip that we got to take them out. It took all six and me, Kim and Paley went out and had three deer tags,
filled them all. I had a ton of fun. My daughter impressed me even more than she did the last time. You know, she made a perfect shot on a buck that she glassed up herself, and she actually passed on it because it was the first day when she first found it, which is pretty good. Kind of warms your heart, you know, a fourteen year old she's passing on bucks, pretty good bucks, just wanting to see what's over the
next bridge, you know. So we spent the whole next day out there looking at quite a few bucks, probably another dozen deer that day, and by the end of the day she determined, you know what that buck that I passed on was was one that she was pretty excited about. So we went back and we relocated it, had him bet it up, and I let her take betted buck shots. Now she's such a good shooter that, yeah, this thing never even never even got up again, two
in a row for her on betted bucks. But had a heck of a time, and you know, we were again, We're very lucky on the weather this year, Jason. I mean, I don't remember a November in Montana where we were dealing with weather in the upper forties and in the fifties right now, we were still getting the ruddy bucks. But man, you're expecting like wind. We had no wind ever, and like we had one little snowstorm come through, but
for the most part, it was sunny. It was warm, unseasonably warm for November, and it was almost too easy, and we had a heck of a heck of a
fun time. But glassed up a ton of deer and you know, just another hunt that I got to spend time with Payley and just try to teach her everything that I possibly can about glassing a deer, where to look, what to do when we see him, like asking her questions about how do you think we should approach this buck, things like that, and it's just ends up being a good learning experience.
Yeah, Yeah, that's my That's one of my favorite things, you know, taking my son hunted. You know, he's fourteen, and you know, like asking him, like, there's a deer here, we want to go shoot that one light and then you might pick the wrong route or maybe pick the right route. And then is just throughout the week he's starting to pick like better outs. So I'm gonna go there so he can't see me the whole way and then I'm like, well, how do you know you're going
to be close enough? He's like, let me see your range finder, you know, and so he can like shoot the two spots. He's like, well, it's not a straight line, but it should be about here, you know. Or he's like, well, if I had on X, I'd be able to just look how far that ridge is to where I think he's at, you know, And so it's cool to like see it start to click in his head versus just doing what Dad says. He's like, all right, I'm going
to start figuring. I'm going to start giving you my answers and then confirm it her or give me some other advice. And for him, you know, same with my wife, she shoots a lot of bedded bucks because for me, it's absolutely easier if that thing's not moving to just get the gun, you know, dialed in like you're you're such a good shot. But that's one thing I found with my son we need to work on. It is like target acquisition, you know, where it's like us, we've
did it so many times, like it very quickly. If a deer takes off one hundred yards, I'll have it in the scope very quickly and at least have a chance where we had a white tail zipping around like Hunter couldn't get on it. It's like that's like that was a weak link and the game where yeah, maybe maybe we shouldn't be making it such a hurry, but at times, if it's the right animal and that's your
only opportunity, you need to try to capitalize. But yeah, yeah, that's target acquisition is our big down for right now. You do everything else right right to that time, and then you can't get the gun on them when they're in there.
That's tough. Yeah, that's that's the same with Paley. You know, target acquisition. You know, you know, you and I are really good at I mean, you could have it at ten power and get your rifle you know, immediately on that that deer at whatever one hundred yards, two hundred yards. But you know, Paley's really good about backing that thing all the way back out to four and then finding it and then just swilling it in and she's gotten
really good at that, so she's figured it out. But yeah, I love I love having that opportunity to just ask her questions, like, so, what's your gut tell you we should do right here, like where do you think that buck went? You know, in these places that we've already been to, and she's getting pretty good starting to figure it out.
Awesome. Yeah, that kind of wraps up, wrap up your season some of the the you know how to's or what mattered on these specific hunts and what's next. So I know we'll I probably won't get to see this year at the Western Hunt because these show promoters decided to put everything on the same exact week this year, So I don't know if I do the short straw off. It's just because I live Fortunately, that's really an unfortunately on Western Washington. I'm gonna get stuck at the Portland show.
Derek's gonna be out there, but you'll probably be at the at the Western Hunt. And then you've got some pretty exciting stuff coming up on the Bear.
Yeah, we're doing a little bear instructional.
Yeah, it's kind of something different than than I never wanted to do this. Let me put that out of there right now.
This is not my thing.
I don't like it in front of people. I don't like eyeballs on me. But somehow the fella's talking me into this. So we're doing a little Western Bear Tour involves three states, so we're doing one in Missoula, we're doing one in Boise, and we're doing one down in Salt Lake City. And these are all in the month of March. They are two day events and we're gonna have a lot of fun with it. This is kind
of a total immersion into bear hunting. You know, we're gonna talk about everything, and you know, for for guys interested in I don't need to go through all the details of it, but you know, go to Tree Lane Academy dot net and you can kind of see what the Western Bear Tour encompasses. It's very detailed on everything that we're going to talk about, you know, everything from just having Q and a's to very very detailed discussions on everything bear. And that's gonna involve me, Mark Livessey,
Brian Call, and Brad Hunt. And yeah, we're gonna have fun with this. It's gonna be I mean, I'm gonna be nervous as heck just getting in front of that many folks talking about stuff, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna, i guess, get out of my comfort zone and do this thing.
So Yeah, that'll be fun and different. It seems like bear hunting is a topic of a lot of it's either picking up steam or and what I am going to sign you guys up for, what you don't know is I'm gonna sign you guys up to come talk with the WDFW commissioners when you're done with your little bear tour and you can like summarize what you found about bear hunters and people wanting to get into it for them.
Yeah, we should do that, right man, guys over in Washington. But yeah, I think I think overall we're gonna have a lot of fun with this. I think anybody who attends, they're going to get a lot out of it. We're gonna have a little movie night in there too. Brian's put putting together some some films that'll be seen there. And yeah, two day kind of all immersion into bear be things.
So yeah, and a guy being lucky enough to attend three of your hunt summits now I believe maybe two. If it's anything like your guys's Western hunt summits, like this thing, should you guys knock it out of the park, it'll be well worth the time. So head over to the what's the link again, Ryan, It's for people to check out and find out some more information.
So if you go to Tree Lane Academy dot net, there's a link there that takes it to the Western Bear Tour page there and all the sign all the information is there for it, and there's different passes that you can kind of look at as far as what you're looking for, but a lot of information.
Nice. Nice. I was lucky enough I was gonna guarantee I was gonna do some idahospring bear hunting this year. But I was lucky enough to draw one of the state wide houndhunter permits, So I'm stoked to go over there. I'll get to chase some cats really, and then I might just end up running behind some you know, following the dogs around on that bear season as well. While I got my like one year past to hunt Idaho. That's so cool animals behind a hound.
So I can't wait to hear about it.
And I'm excited, yea excited excited for that.
Well, we all know how much Ryan loves to talk to people. So if you're at Western Hunt, you guys can go find him, probably in the peak booth and if you don't see him around there, you can probably check one of the tants. He likes to hang out there and get away from people in the in the tents and then go out go check out his his bear summit that they're going to do in those three locations. And and if you want to learn more about deer Elk, he's got the Western Hunt summits. I believe both deer
elk are mixed or archery. I don't remember how they're all broken up now. Usually just go to the Elk one, but yeah, there are lots of ways to get there Ryan, And don't let him fool you. He he loves to He loves to talk to you guys, just more on a one on one, not so much in in a group setting.
That's it. Yeah, I can handle it when it's just like a one on one and we're talking. That's why you know. I do these summits and and they're a ton of fun. But I don't like differn presentations. I do like having conversations in the backdrop though. Yeah. Western Hunt Expo is is kind of next and uh, that's the that's the show that we're going to be doing. And we always have a ton of fun down there. You my wife go down with the kids and we will be hanging at the Peaks Booth this.
Year, so yep, yep, And unfortunately I will be in No. I always have a great time at Portland as well. It's just sometimes it kind of sucks. The Western Hunt's such a good show. But but well, we'll have to catch you on the next Western Hunt show. Hopefully the promoters get their stuff together and not over schedule on top of each other. But as always, Ryan really appreciate
having you on. Great, great answers on all those questions, and then it's always nice to kind of relive your season, so appreciate it and good luck on everything coming forward. And twenty four.
Yep, thanks Jason, you as well.
Yeah yeah bye here