Welcome to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm Dirk Durham and today I have my good friend Bob Towilliger. Happy New Year, Bob, Yeah.
YouTube.
Bob is someone I really admire. He's been doing the backcountry guiding thing for years and he's just stayed active, you know, through his younger days and now in these retirement years, he's still still out there getting after it. And I thought, you know what Everyone's New Year's resolutions at the front of our mind right now. I thought, you know, everybody's wanting to try to get back into shape or get going back on their their workout program
or their diet. And I thought, you know, who better. There's a lot of information out there for all these young ThunderCats out there, you know, but you know us guys that are aging a little bit, you know, that's a different animal altogether, I think. So I thought, who better than to get on here than Bob Twilliger. You've kind of seen the best of things when it comes to fitness and had some setbacks from surgeries and whatnot, and I just kind of thought I'd pick your brain.
And I think our listeners that really like to hear what you have to say. But first, Bob, tell us about your backstory. How did you get into backcountry guiding? Where did it all start?
So? I actually moved to Colorado thirty years ago. It was work related. I worked for IBM for thirty six years, and as time went on in IBM, I started thinking about life after IBM, particularly as Corporate America started looking at moving work offshore and stuff like that, seeing somebodies leave the company, and I just said, you know, I need to be thinking about what's next. And had this passion for outcunning, which I certainly got into hot and
heavy when I moved here. And as time went on, you know, I had some success on my own and then lo and behold, an opportunity came in my way to guide through a guy that actually was a head packer for a group called Winterhock Outfitters. I'd run into on the trail packing my elk out and he said,
you need to come down and work for us. And I thought about that, and I said, you know what, what a better way to spend you know, my life moving on from corporate America and use my outdoor skills and my people skills I developed and IBM to get involved in guiding, So this will actually be my sixteenth year guiding. I don't guide elkhunts full time anymore, although
I did for nine years. I started when I was fifty one, you know, and in those nine years of guiding elk hunts, I was out there seven weeks every fall, going at it hot and heavy. So, you know, later in life, as opposed to some guys do it early. I was able to do it later. But certainly some of the stuff we're going to talk about tonight with fitness, we'll play right into that. So you know, today I still guide. I guy try to guide a couple of
weeks a year, you know, elk hunting. I do guide a fair amount of fly fishing yet and then the remainder I'm still in the backcountry four or five weeks a year between a couple of weeks guiding and then hunting with my son and hunting with other friends and for myself, you know. So I still get after it pretty good.
Yeah, awesome. So I've kind of said before, you know, a person doesn't have to be an elite athlete to enjoy el cutting, but I will say you will enjoy el cutting more the better shape you're in if you've got a few extra pounds, you know, you know, you read a lot of internet forum stuff or a lot of stuff on Facebook. You know, guys are trying to
you know, be minimalists on their backpack, you know. Or they're they're saving ounces here, they're they're cutting their toothbrush handles off, They're doing anything they can to save a little bit of weight on their backpack. Yet a lot of us carry around several extra pounds in the back country every fall. And I feel like, you know, we if we tried as hard, you know, from reducing our body weight as much as we did or packweight, man,
we'd really be kicking some butt. But anyway, how how important do you think it is to stay have to maintain a pretty good level of fitness year round versus doing the old up and down thing. I'm kind of guilty of the old up and down thing. As soon as hunting season closes off, I kind of I kind of go into hibernation mode and try to catch up on stuff at home and a lot of video editing and a lot of work stuff, and I don't get out and I'm not as active as I normally am.
How important do you think it is to stay stay pretty pretty fit year round.
I think it's real important, and I've been actually been fortunate that it's come easy to me. I've been hooked on it. You know. I played three sports in high school and two in college. And you know, I actually use weight training as a means to wean myself off sports. But a key ingredient in that too, even when I was younger, was it helped me manage stress both in the job and at home, you know. And then of
course how that all translates to el cunning. We all know that when you're getting out there and getting after it now. I mean, I tell people it is a physical test like no other. And you know, if the hiking and getting up early and the altitude doesn't get to you, wait till you get an animal on the ground and have to wrestle with that and get the meat out, you know, and then still get your camp out. It's a lot of work. So certainly I'm a big advocate of keeping in shape and trying to do that
year round. That doesn't mean that I don't take some breaks and let my body rest. That becomes more important with aging. The other thing, of course, that becomes more important with aging is that if you don't use your body. There's an old saying, if you don't use it, you lose it. And what I'll tell you is is that as you get older, if you don't keep after it, you don't keep after it, you're going to you can get to a point where you might never get it back.
And I've been really fortunate, like you pointed out, Dirk, just as to provide some example, I'm sixty seven and a half. In the last three years, I've had four major surgeries I've had you know, over time, I've had both hips replace I've had both shoulders worked on, and then last year, probably the most serious, I had a three level cervical net fusion to fix some stenosis in my neck where I lost strength in my left arm and I am a lefty. And the good news is
all that went good. I followed my doctor's orders in my rehab and my cup recovery. But more important than ever, you know, when I got beyond that point, I stayed in the gym, and I stayed with the fitness aspect. And you know, I had my surgery last March, and lo and behold this October I was packing my elk out on my back, you know, seven miles in the
back country. So it's all doable. It's just a matter of prioritizing the exercise to a point where it really is a part of your life and it's your ability to preserve your quality of life as you get older.
Great, how often are you hitting the gym? Are you going every single day? Are you carving out just like a schedule throughout the week. How are you able to do this and get in that gym as much as you'd like to?
You know, that's that's an excellent question because particularly for younger guys with families or you know, just the wear and tear of work, it can make it quite challenging and then trying to have a home life too. But for me now at my point, and what I've always tried to strive for is that I get in there to train four or five days a week, you know, depending on how my body's feeling. That's something we'll talk about. Is that sure? And you don't overdo it, you know.
The idea is to get yourself in shape, not wear your body out, like I've pretty much done a good job of that. But good news is they've rebuilt me and I'm still going. But I try to get in four or five days a week, you know, weight training, and you know, I try to make sure I at least take one to two days off a week, and within there I do some I do some cardio stuff too, but leave it or not. I don't do as much cardio as some people might think, and that's partly due
to the way that I work out. I work out at a fast pace. I do, you know a lot of different exercises, you know, where I super set and do one thing and then go do something else where.
I'm not sitting around like a power lifter would resting, you know, so I get my heart rate up in other ways, and then I still you know, I do a little bit of cardio, but more the high intensity cardio, you know, versus the long range endurance cardio, because that kind of a tendency to actually break your body down and lose muscle too.
So you're saying you do like probably lower weight, higher reps and maybe taple like circuit training type stuff.
Yes, yep, that's that's exactly what I do. I focus on the total body workout. I tend at my age now. I mean I used to. When I was younger, I worked each muscle group twice a week, So if I worked arms or legs, I did that. I had a routine I did twice a week. As I've gotten older,
I do each muscle group one day a week. And what I like about that is it enables me to focus on some of the smaller stuff, particularly like in the shoulders, like your rotator cuff, rear delts, side delts, that kind of stuff, not just the stuff that looks good in the mirror from the front, you know. And then by working each muscle group hard one day a week, you know, I'm getting you know, a full, complete workout on that muscle group. But I give myself a week
to recover before I hit it again. So you know, I'm very very conscious that I don't want to overtrain because that's how you develop inflammation, that's how you develop injuries. And you know, again with aging, that's something you really need to be focused on. And even when you're younger, you know, because you go at it hard, sometimes you just need to back off and let your body recuperate. That's key to really key to getting stronger is on your muscles to recover. Well.
I've seen some pictures of you back when you were a young buck, and you're pretty impressive. You're pretty impressive. You've kind of a specimen, and I've seen some pictures of you these days and you're still kind of a specimen.
So I think it's working. Whatever you're doing. It sounds like now you see a lot of guys doing like you kind of alluded to a little bit earlier, some of the powerlifting stuff, doing a lot of cleans and just like really heavy things do you do I almost take I feel like you have the take on it, like, man, maybe that isn't as beneficial because you can really hurt yourself.
Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely, And probably the one thing I should have said in the beginning I'll say is that I've had some really good help over the years. Probably Number one is my son. Because I'm not a certified nutrition I'm not a certified trainer, but I've been doing I've been working out a long time with my athletic So my son actually has a degree in high performance sports training in kinesiology. So a lot of the information that I'll talk about here, you know, is courtesy of him.
But you're right, some of those exercises and the real heavy weight, you know, you put yourself at risk. And you know, one of the things that I like to say to younger guys is that, particularly because as we're all younger, I did it, you're trying to do really super superman heavy weight. You know a lot of times you can do it, and you think you're getting away with it. But things that you think you're getting away with later in life have a way of showing up.
So you need to you really need to keep that in mind, you know, and and and you know, the other thing I'll say is it relates to exercises. As you get older, some of the more things that you did when you were younger that I would call higher risk exercises. You need to find other ways to work those muscles within a means that's lower risk. So for example, a great example of that is that one thing God has always blessed me with his good legs, which plays
real key into you know, elk hunting. I used to do a lot of squats. I could do heavy squats, you know, traditional barbell squats. I don't do those anymore. My body's not going to take that. What I do do is I'm fortunate the jim I belong to they have a machine called the Rogue Belt Squad, So the belt actually goes around your waist and you're really pulling with your waist and you get the leg strength training benefits that you get from squats, but doing it in
a means that's a lot lower risk. Another one I would talk about is deadlifts. You know, dead lifts, a lot of guys can deadlift a lot of weight. Well, as you get older, you know, and particularly you try to crank that weight up, you can easily strain your back. You know, there's other ways and machines that you can use to do some of the same stuff. Cleans is
probably another great one. You know, if you're going to do cleans as you get older, stay light because that body, that heavyweight jarn you you know it will it will compress your joints or later it's going to show up and it's going to impact your ability to do what you want to do.
So kind of give us some So you said you don't focus too much on cardio, do you ever do do you ever do any rucking? What do you think about rucking? You know, to get in shape for elk hunting.
I'm not sure what you mean.
So throwing a backpack on with a certain amount of weight, maybe forty pounds in your pack at sixty pounds, I.
Do a lot of that. That's that was one of the things I like to do. Is that typically is you know, and sometimes here in Colorado we get off and on, we get breaks in the weather all winter. So I will throw a backpack on maybe twenty twenty five thirty pounds, and I'll go on like a three or four mile hike, you know, up and back and push it. You know, I'm not out there trying to do seven, eight, ten miles. You know, I don't need to do that because all I'm going to do is
wear myself down. I want to try to I want to try to build myself up so that elk season comes around in September, I'm just hitting my peak so then I can really get after it. I don't want to be worn out when September comes. I want to be ready to go. But no, that's a good one. One of the other ones that I like to do where I can get my heart rate up and I keep the weight light so I can really you know, almost sprint when I'm doing it, but I do a lot of sled poles, you know, both up and back.
It works on power in your legs, but it also it gets your heart rate up good. You know, if you got a buddy and you just kind of alternate back and forth, and if you've got a decent place in your gym or somewhere to do that, you'd be surprised. You get your heart rate up really good just doing stuff like that. Rowing machines probably one I like to do if I'm indoors as well, because this total body and I find I can get my heart rate up really quick with that, as opposed to some of the
stationary bikes. I mean these new bikes, you know, where you're using your upper body and lower body, they're more intense. My problem with those for an older guy like myself, you know, the resistance is stiff enough that you know, if I do too much of that, it can get my knees aggravated, So I I try to stay away.
From that right on. You ever do like the stair climbers. I know Jason Selps is a huge that's his kind of go to cardio workout. Is he love He's got a stair climber, and he'll send me pictures of him just dridged in sweat. You know, he'll do it on his lunch break or whatever, and he'll climb a thousand feet or whatever on a lunch break, and they're awesome.
In fact, I'm going to tell you that, you know, I used to when I was younger. I was, I was a much bigger guy. Now I go about one hundred and ninety pounds. I'm back to my high school week, and that's because we just can't maintain the muscle mass. But I was almost two twenty when I was in my thirties and forties, and I was every bit as lean, and I was addicted to running ten k's And the way I used to train for ten k's was not
running on the road, was using that stair climber. No wow, Yeah, And I ran a thirty nine to fifteen ten k in the Boulder Bowler when I was like thirty nine years old at two hundred and twenty pounds. So the stair climbers, they definitely work.
Definitely, Yeah, yeah, definitely. I've noticed that that rucking or you know, throwing a backpack on and especially if it's heavy. Man. It's sure if you can do that before season, definitely leading up to season, it sure toughens up your shoulders, because I know on yours I haven't done that. And the first few days of the hunt, Man, my shoulders
are getting tired. You know, you're putting on a lot of miles every day, and you're you're not used to carrying a backpack, especially one with you know, with all my gear, and I imagine I'd have to weigh it, but I bet it's at least twenty pounds with all my gear, with the water and food and everything included. And like the first couple of days, man, you shoulders, like, man,
they're getting kind of tired. But I felt like, if I've you know, the month or two leading up to elk season, if I've been active with a pack, with a backpack, you know, carrying heavy loads, you know, I'll do a lot of I'll put out trail cameras and I'll put some salt out just to draw an animal there, to get to see what there is on the camera, and in some pretty nasty country and through the summer, and I really love that. And it's a it's a it's a great workout that I really enjoy to do.
But it sure it'll sure tell you where you're lacking, you know, and endurance, the ability to carry a heavy load, you know, bag assaults sixty pounds or whatever, plus all your year, you know, and some pretty uneven terrain.
You know.
It's almost like the same places you would normally would would traverse during an elk an elk season. So it really gets you into into shape. And you know, wherever it's legal, I mean, that's a pretty great workout, but some some states they kind of frown upon that. But anyway, I'll set out some trail cameras and sometimes I'll get some stuff on there, and sometimes I won't get anything, but but it's still it's still fun. It's like Christmas Day every time you open up that trail.
No, I do the same. In one comment I would make there is because you know, not all guys are as fortunate as we are to live in the mountains area, you know, so it can be harder to train. And you know, there's no reason though you can't put a weighted backpack and get on that stair climber, for example, I see a lot of guys doing that. You know, and that's a great way to train for those that
don't live here. I also try to do, you know, at least two backpacking trips during the summer with my son, where it's kind of combo where I'm doing some fly backcountry fly fishing, but also doing some scouting maybe if I'm in a new area, you know, and again we got we got that heavy pack on and you're in the terrain that you're going to be in the fall,
you know. I also use it as an opportunity sometimes not only to scout, but just to go out there with on X and try to find some easy way in and outs to some of the areas that I want to hunt if I'm a newer country.
So yeah, absolutely, yeah, I love that summertime scouting stuff.
You know.
Some folks, you know, they're like, you know, I just don't you know, who live in Elk Country. They're just they say, you know, I don't have the luxury of you know, taking the time away from my family or whatever to go check these places out. And I'm always like, well, you kind of sometimes have to do it like a dual purpose trip, you know, take the family and then
get up early. A lot of times. You know, my family they always like to kind of sleep in when we're camping, so that that leaves you to get up super early before daylight, get out there, get your work done, and get your check things checked out, and then get back to camp about the time everybody comes out of bed, and and it works great for everybody, and and it just makes such a great summer. So that's a yeah,
that's one of my favorite things to do. What are some other things you can think of that that that you had written down there that they would kind of help our listeners get in shape stay in shape? What about like diet? Are you just like chugging beers all the time and and wine and whiskey and you know, just living it up eating cheeseburgers. What what do you what are you doing for your diet? They say you can't outwork a bad diet. How do you feel about that?
Yeah, you know, that's a that's a great point, you know, and you know, I'll put it in context here that one of the discussions I like to have on this subject is that you know, particularly for you guys that are younger, you can you can get away with a whole lot when you're younger, you can get away with eating a whole lot of stuff that you as you get later years, you're not going to be able to
eat unless you want to weigh three hundred pounds. You can get away with drinking more, you can get away with even getting away from exercise. But as you get older, those things will all work against you if you do them. And of course drinking is one of them that I like to talk about. I mean I like to have I'm not I've never been a beer guy, but I know a lot of what I call these new high test brews or micro bruise. You know, these I p as a lot of younger folks are drinking. You know,
they're they're fine and moderation. But if you go out and you really tear into those, you got to realize that. You know, in a sixteen ouch plint, you're probably talking about three hundred and fifty calories of pop or more, depending on the potency of that beer. I tend to more take a little nip a whiskey or two. You know, I enjoy that, particularly in the back country because there's not a lot of weight. The other thing that you'll find as you get older, if you want to get
up and hunt the next morning. You don't want to be drinking a lot of beer before you go to bed because you're going to spend all night going to the bathroom. And that's another that's another subject for another day. But yeah, certainly alcohol is one. Diet's another one. I mean, I'm gonna tell you I eat well, but I try to eat balanced. I try to make sure I take in enough protein. That can be really hard to do.
There are some magic numbers around protein, depending on how you talk to They talk about one point five grams of protein for every kilogram of body fat. So I'm one hundred and ninety pounds, that's roughly eighty six kilograms. That says I should be taken in one hundred and thirty grams of protein a day. If I'm working out hard, that's easier. That's easier said than done. You've got to really focus on what I'm taking into your body, you know.
And you do got to eat, you know. But what you don't want to do is you don't want to beat and a bunch of fried foods. If you've got a sweet tooth, that's going to work against you. Those are just empty calories. That are going to, you know, work against you in the long haul. You know. The one thing I will say, though, particularly as you established the habit and you get working out on the schedule that works for you and a routine that works for you, is that part of the fun of exercising is you
can eat what you want now and then. And I strongly encourage cheat days or when you go on vacation, you know you're going to splurge a little bit. I mean, that's that's cold living. But you know, the bulk of the year, I try to keep it between the boundaries. You know. I make sure I take in enough food, but I'm not overdoing it and I do you know,
I do. I don't worry too much. For me, I have a high metabolism and sometimes if I put on a little bit more weight during the winter, I know I'm going to burn it off when up there and start hiking at elevation. But for some guys, that's that's not an option. So you're going to need to really tune into the calories you take in and make sure you're taking in the right calories, not stuff that's just gonna put extra pounds on your midsection.
Yeah, Yeah, good point. I'd like to take a moment here to remind everybody if you have any questions for me or Jason Phelps or a guest, email CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com and we'll read your question on air and see if we can get anybody to answer them for you. I don't have any of those today, Jason, He's been kind of clearing out that that bucket of questions,
So that's been good. So other aspects of the hunt, you know, I've I feel like there's a lot of people doing a lot of big lift like heavyweight liifts. What you're telling me makes more sense because you're kind of doing a complete body workout. You're built, you're kind of building staminay, you're building some strength, but you're not
overdoing it. You know. Some of those exercise I see people doing, they're pretty risky, Like let's say a whole bunch of those pull ups or maybe those weird pull ups the crossfitters do though, just man, they make my shoulders freak out right. Yeah, So how I feel like pull ups probably, I mean, they're a pretty good workout
for a lot of muscle groups. But and I just try to picture in the back country, what I'm doing every day in the back country, and what kind of exercises I'm going to need to get me to the elk once they get the elk killed, get the elk worked up, hung up, and then extracted from the woods.
Do you have any tips, you know, for for some of those for you know, once you get your elk down, or or maybe some of those maybe some little key workouts that you've really seen that really benefited some of the some of the things that that you actually have to do when you're elk hunting, Like there's like, you know, you got this little secret exercise you really like that You've seen some difference. It moves the needle for you doing l hunting things.
Yeah. Sure, yeah. I mean, first of all, I'll say that for elk cunting, you know, a strong core, a strong bat, strong core, strong back, strong legs is absolutely essential. I mean you got to really work on that. So you need some leg strength, you know, and certainly stuff like squats, lunges, leg press, glute races. That's another one that blutes is you know, gals work on glutes a lot, right, but a lot of guys you don't see guys work
on their glutes, particularly younger guys in the gym. And what I can tell you is where I learned about glutes is when I had my hips replaced. You know, I got after you know, I got going again pretty quick after that. I tried to guide full time that fall, and lo and behold, my knees started acting. But I never had much trouble with my knees, thank goodness. And what I really learned from that is that I didn't work my glutes, and from those hip replaces, my glutes
got really weak. But glutes are where you get your power going uphill. Blots are where you're going to be able to carry those heavy loads. So that's one area I would definitely hone in on. And there's a lot of great, you know, leg strength exercises. What's really key because we're all built symmetrically different. Certain machines might work well for me, but maybe not for a guy that's
shorter and thicker than me, and vice versa. So you've got to explore and get some help on those things, you know, to find out what's going to work for you. But you really like strength, and that core strength is important. Upper body strength the course is important. You know, you're shooting a bow, you know, you really want to work on your shoulders and your back muscles, you know, and uh, you know you're gonna need to be strong up top too. You get an elk on the ground, you gotta skin
this thing by yourself. It's not easy, you know. And I can about the last three I've done. Unfortunately, I've done by myself. And it's not like when I was younger and I could just throw these things around. Not that I was throwing them around like a white tail, but I can move them around pretty good. And now it's a lot more challenging. So I got stuff like extra paracoute sure parachute cord in my pack. I'm cying off legs, or if I got to roll one over and he's you know, I got to roll him up
hill because of the way he died. To skin the other side, at least I can get a rope on each leg, front and rear and tie it to the tree uphill and kind of get him halfway up the hill and then get underneath it. So it's a little stuff like that that is really going to be important to being able to deal with it. You know, as you get older, and even for for younger guys, you know, if you're not as big and strong as some of the other guys out there, you know.
So yeah, use those loads leverage points and and I've I've worked up a lot of elk by myself and parachute cord man. That's really saved the day in certain circumstances steep on super steep ground, for instance. Yeah, tying off that that elks and to keep it from sliding down the hill and further. But once I've got that thing anchor, it's pretty good. It seemed like it was really steep ground. It seems like I could maneuver the bowl, you know, back and forth, side to side pretty well.
But you know, making sure you do that before you get to rolling the thing around too much, and you save yourself a lot of work. That thing starts tumbling down the hill and gets wedged between a blowdown in the ground, and now you've got to you got your work cut out for you.
Yeah, no, no, no doubt, no doubt. The other thing I do too, for packing them out is that you know, I didn't used to worry about this. I mean, there are times I put two lank quarters on my frame pack and packed it out bone in. As I've gotten older, you know, I bone everything out, you know, And that's one thing I'd encourage guys, particularly if you're way back
in or an older hunter. You know, there's lots of great videos out there on YouTube on how to you know, bone out a quarter including the front shoulder and one nice piece you can roll it up and keep all the clean meat against clean meat, use good quality game bags and you're getting rid of a lot of weight
that way, you know. And it also makes it easier to get it and you're cooler and get it chilled down too without that bony, you know, depending on where you are and what you're doing and what your packing abilities are.
Right there seems to be a lot of information or ideas on the internet of how much how much meat or does a guy actually pack out of the back country, because you know, there's there's all these different takes on, oh, it's a twelve hundred pound animal and a boil is a twelve hundred pound animal, or it's an eight hundred pound animal, you know, and then people try to figure out the waste difference between you know, guts, hide and
feathers versus meat they're actually going to pack out. But kind of what I've I've found and I'll i'll let you weigh in on this too. Is so if you do the gutless method and you leave the bones in the in the front shoulder and the hind quarter cut off at the knee, no heide on it on an app And then this is these are Idaho measurements. So an average Idaho five point or a big out of a five point average smaller six point, you're going to look at about a sixty five pound hind quarter and
about a forty five pound front shoulder yep. And then with all the neck meat, rib meat and the backstraps, your total weight you're going to be anywhere from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pounds. Would that kind of would that kind of jive with what you've seen over the years.
Yeah? Absolutely, And you know I did shoot a nice six by here in Colorado. I guess it was a couple of years ago now, and we boned it out and we weighed all the meat because we we ended up you know, we had a packet to where my remote camp was, and then I've got a couple of mules, so that my buddy brought them in and we threw the meat on mules. But we made weighed all the meat, and it was two hundred and twenty five pounds of meat. Now, so sometimes it can be bigger. Yet you know, you
shoot a good one. Yeah, yeah, I'd say your numbers are right on that. Sixty sixty five pounds is about average for a hind quarter in front quarter, you know, depending enough, if you got the neck meat and the flank meat all attached to one piece, or forty five pounds is definitely in.
The ballpark, right. And then I think a lot of people kind of get caught up in like, man, you got to pack all this meat out, you know, right away before it gets spoiled. I don't know if I can do it. And you know, because they start thinking about that two hundred fifty pounds or maybe maybe they've heard other people say, you know, you're going to have three or four hundred pounds of meat to pack out, which maybe on a giant, like the biggest bull in
the world, I don't know. You have to look at like what a big shyris moose, you know, ways here in the lower forty eight. You know, you get too much, you get to inflate in the numbers too much, and you're looking at how much of moose weighs right of how much meat use is going to have on it. But honestly, I think it's very doable. Like let's say you have that sixty five pounds behind quarter. You cut
out all the bones. You've probably dropped what would you say, fifteen pounds a bone out of that thing?
Oh yeah, easy, easy, yep.
Yeah, So so you subtract that out. Now you're getting down into a party manageable load. And like you said, you know, you've packed out a lot of two quarters at once. I've done that too, and it's it's a lot, it's a lot of weight. But this isn't like a This isn't a race like a speed race. This is a marathon. You to you have to finish this race. I always tell people, you got to finish this race.
So don't try to overdo it. You know, have your temper, your expectations, like, Okay, what can I carry comfortably where I can go out? Make another trip back, go out, make another trip back, go out. You know, maybe that's forty fifty pounds a load, you know, and during your training sessions you've been carrying a forty or fifty pound load out in the summertime, and it's like, well, yeah, I can do that. You know, it's heavy or whatever.
It's a lot when I'm when I get on this deep stuff, but I can do that, and you're not going to kill yourself. I think some people kind of get they try to do too much. Maybe the first trip they're like, oh, I'm gonna really I don't want to have to pack too many too many loads here, and maybe they kind of fizzle out on that first load and trip and then it becomes a really bad experience.
Absolutely, I fully agree, you know. I mean the other thing it can be too, as you will understand Durky, it can be a safety issue too. You know, you're back in there a long ways and if you trip and fall and you know you're stepping over lowdowns and whatever and get into the trail of you know, it takes you down to where the trail head is or where you're hunting at. You know. I definitely like to use trek and poles. I never did when I was younger.
Once in a while I pick up a walk and stick, but I felt like I didn't need it because I could just power through it. But with age, I use trek and poles every time because on Steve faces you get wet, slippery snow. You know, anything like that, you know it's going to help. And the trucking polls that actually help take some weight off your lower body, you know.
And then the other thing that helps nowadays too is that these new backpacks carry so much better than those old freighter frame style ones that you know, you talk about digging into your shoulders, those things will kill you and digging into your hips. But there's so many good backpacks on the market now, and it's it's a matter of just finding one that fits you right and fits your budget. Even if you buy it used, you don't have to buy news a lot of good stuff out
there on eBay or you know, Facebook, marketplace wherever. You know you'll find that those are going to help you out play a bit toobes. You know.
I feel like we should have some bonus material here instead of just talking about fitness and stuff. I mean a lot of people are really like to talk about that, but like to talk about elk hunting. So tell us a little bit about guiding guiden elk hunters. What are some things that you can give our listeners maybe that who've never hunted elk before, maybe they've they've wanted to do a di I Y or maybe they've wanted to
do a guided hunt. What are some things that they can they can do or maybe some expectations that they're going to have when they come to the tel camp that maybe they didn't realize before before they've ever experienced el cutting.
Okay, yeah, sure. One of the biggest things that you know, although we say we're going to talk about elk hunting, fitness comes right into that. Yeah, you're if you're not in shape, and I'm not again, you know, you made the right point, Dirk. You don't have to be a world class athlete to do this. I'm not saying that at all. But there's no doubt about it that the better shape you go in, the better time you're going to have, the more you're going to enjoy your hunt,
and you're gonna be able to hunt harder. And I don't care if that's a you know, do it yourself or a guided hunter or a drop camp. You know, you pick it, you go up there and you get up at ten thousand feet. You know in Colorado sometimes I'm hunting higher. I'm mounting up eleven thousand feet, maybe even a little above. It definitely plays a role. So coming to shape is definitely a key aspect. I would
say that. You know, of course, a guide hunt is going to cost you a lot more money, but you know you need to be you know, do your homework on what outfit or you go to. But you know, if you haven't done it before, you haven't hunter mustards where all you've ever hunted is white tails. You really you might want to give a guy to hunt some serious thought because it's way different and hunting white tails. You know, in other parts of the country. You know
we're hunting on the move all the time. If you talk about archery, you know you can cover six, eight ten miles a day is nothing, and you know it doesn't require some knowledge about how to hunt these animals, how to call to them, and when to call to them. So there's there's more to it than meets the eye. Rifle hunts, certainly, if you go second or third rifle
and you're doing it, do it yourself. You know you're going to get out there and try to find animals and then find a place where they're crossing and get a place where you can see and shoot and glass. And you know you certainly can have success that way. But still, you know, it's it's not easy. I mean, you look at the success rates across these states and it's definitely a challenge, you know. I mean, I think you're in Colorado, the average going rate is about a
twenty percent success rate. If you talk archery, it's like ten percent. So it's tough. There is there is a learning. But the thing I'll tell you is, once you do it, I don't care if you do do it yourself. You do a guide you're going to because you don't want to come again, because it's an experience like no other, and it's just a lot of fun to be out there in the open and see these animals.
And maybe that's uh, maybe that's your why and why to get ape or stay in shape. Is is that your motivation? Elk cutting? Like once you once you taste that that elk hunting for the first time, you're like, like you said, they're hooked and right now now it's like, okay, I'm gonna get in better shape. I'm gonna stay stay in better shape. So here's one. Let's say, let's do calling. So you do a lot of archery elk hunting, whether whether whether it's you and your son or with clients.
When you guys are calling in bulls, do you do you guys separate? So your collar shooter scenario and how far in between the collar and the shooter do you guys normally set up?
You know, a lot of that can depend on the terrain and where we run into them, as you know, but all things being equal, you know, I like to be I like to be sixty seventy yards behind my shooters, you know, simply because I don't want to be if I can help it, I don't want to be pinned dot. I want to be able to move elk. Don't stay in one spot. I'm snapping limbs. I've even walked in water before. Try to sound like animals. So I like to be able to move around. I'll go from one
spot to the other, use different cow calls. Maybe I'll, you know, if I got a bullet's hung up, I might, you know, even back off and do a long distance you know, do a location bugle at first, and then move back up, wait a while, do some do some some estrous cow calls, and when he answers me back, I'll scream over top of him, and I'll tell you more than once I've had him come charging in those circumstances, you know, particularly if they have n't been over hunting,
which you know, honest, that is getting harder to do here in Colorado. But I did have some fun this past fall with that kind of stuff because I hunted in one of the units where it's very tough to draw, and those elk weren't near as educated. It was like the good old days, So I had one with that. But now I definitely like some distance. But sometimes you
can't help it. Sometimes you get up there and you let a call, and I tell my hunters all the time, you know that you have to be mentally ready one hundred percent of the time, because you can be going along and not hear anything, and all of a sudden you just let out a simple faint cow call, and all of a sudden, here's this bull that's inside forty or fifty yards in the timber, and he's screaming at you. And you got to be able to ready to pick a set up and go with it.
So have you seen much buck fever kind of overtake hunters, You know when when a bull starts coming in and they just watch them walk by instead of drawing their bone.
I have, and I talk about that, you know, I say, once you know that it's an animal that you want to take, you need to be thinking about where you're
gonna shoot them in terms of the opening. You know, you need to be thinking about the distance where you're gonna hold on that animal, and you want to be focused on the spot you know you're aiming at that animal, and don't be looking at his horns, don't be thinking about how he's going to look over the mantle to your fireplace, because those are all recipes for a miss or maybe to not even get the shot off, you know.
So there's a mental checklist that guys really need to go through to prepare for those moments where you think about, you know, shooting openings, distance, where's going to be your draw points, if your arm when that bull steps behind that tree, it would be an opportunity for me to draw. Getting yourself turned in the right direction before they get
too close. All those kinds of factors you need to be thinking about in advance, And I really encourage guys to think about that before they even come on their hunt, and think about it when they're out there in the field practicing, because what happens is when you get in the spur of the moment that bull is screaming, you know,
and there's steam coming out of his nose. You know, if you're fortunate enough to run into those, you know, your heart's going to be pounding out of your chest and you want to be able to just where it's muscle memory and you're not having to think through that stuff because you may not even get the shot off, and lord knows, they don't give you much time. It's it's seconds, it's it's not a long time in most circumstances, particularly in calling situations.
I think that visualizing is very key in your visualizing success right, and you're visualizing big. I always tell any of my friends that we're hunting together, especially if they're pretty new at hunting, I tell them, don't just think this is going to be some raghorn bull that's coming in, maybe has a wi wimpy bugle or whatever. But I've I've always kind of like, try to temper my expectations. I think it's going to be a big one. This is going to be a really big bull. How am
I going to keep my crap together? Like, okay, I'm going to focus on all the things you just said. That's the same things I focus on.
Okay?
When where? Where is that bowl going to walk out? Where am I going to draw my bow? Where am I'm gonna have to pick a spot, you know, and my whole before I draw my bow? Am I hold my bow? Ride?
You know?
We've got to make sure my hand placements right on the bow, I pull it back level by level my bubble, you know, make sure my strings on my nose at my anchor point. I'm looking through my peep site, making sure the peep site and the the site housing are centered, and then finding finding the target. How far was he? Because I already arranged everything, okay. Put the pin on there, okay, and then don't just hammer the trigger. You know, I'd
make a make a good controlled shot. See it sounds like a lot and when it when it works, it seems like man, that was easy. And when it doesn't work, you feel like I'm never going to kill an elk. One thing I see on folks who uh, because I watch a lot of YouTube videos. I love elk hunting. I like to watch a lot of other people's hunts. And one thing I see a lot of folks do is they draw their bow way too early. And I'll be watching the video, I'm like, like the first appearance
of the bowl, like and he's a ways out. Many rip that bow back and I'm like, no, don't do that.
You know, it's interesting you said that because you touched on two things there. And I preach this to clients all the time. I preach it to my son. You know that YouTube is such a great tool for so many things in life, but with elk hunting in particular, watching guys like you, Jason, you know, Jermaine Hodge, you know, and these YouTube videos where guys hunting elk, watching how they handle setups and shooting information, you know, the born
and raised guys. You can learn so much about when to move you know there and really visualize their thought process as to when they draw, when they shoot, you know, when they don't shoot. There's so much to be learned just by watching those videos. It's entertaining to watch them because you want to see somebody kill a big bull. But there's a heck of a lot to be learned just by watching how other people react to those situations.
Yes, whenever I first started el cunting, I didn't. My dad he didn't archery ill cunt. He he was against. He's like, oh them damn bow hunters. That was his. That was his take on bow hunting, right, And I was like, I was telling him. I'm like, I'm I'm going to shoot a bull elk with a bow. And he's like, you can't. You can't do that. That's like such themost unattainable thing. But then I watched these videos and these guys did it, you know. But and I
watched these videos over and over and over. Back then it was these old VHS videos and they're so terrible quality. But what I what one of the big takeaways was I I watched was elk behavior as bulls came into the setup, body language, demeanor, their eyes, those kind of things. Once you start, once you've been in that red zone enough or you've watched enough videos to watch what bulls are going to do and how they how they how
they act. Are they coming in alert, are they coming in mad, like they have their head down, they're they're not really alert for like, they're not looking for danger. They're they're coming in to fight. You know what is that bull's demeanor? And I'm when I have a bull coming in that that's going to dictate when I'm going to draw my bow. Right typically draw mine at the
last possible second. I I look at the where I see the bull coming the very first glimpse I see him coming, and I'm trying to figure out his path to where. Okay, he's heading towards an opening. At what point do I need to draw my bow to where I don't have to hold it for two minutes. I'm gonna have to pull it back. He's going to walk into the opening and then I'm going to stop him and shoot him and stopping him too, you know. I that's a that's a really big thing, is getting that
bull stopped. You don't want to shoot that bull when he's walking. You want to you want to get him stopped that way because when a bolt, if he's walking and he's and he's taking a step, and if you're not following through with your swing on your on your shot, shoot you can shoot six eight ten inches back further than you really wanted to, just because the amount of movement in a bull elk step and you could go from a good hit to a gut shot real easy.
So and it's hard sometimes, you know, sometimes people get caught. I've even got caught with my pants down. Don't even have a call in my mouth. Let's say I was I wasn't the shoot, I wasn't the caller, right, But any kind of a simple noise, you know, you can do like the white tail guys do go or make a little noise like that, or a or a little like a bark or even you know, just something to get their attention to stop them. There's times I've had bulls.
I had a heck of a time getting them to stop, you know, I'd made a couple of cow calls and they didn't they didn't stop at all, and finally had to bark at them or say, hey, get their tenent. There was on such a mission. But body demeanor, you know. There again, if you're washing the body demeanor, it's kind of gonna tell you how much how much of a noise you have to make.
Right, you know. And the other thing we didn't talk about as a release to the calling. Is that because we see this more times than not now in Colorado, they'll bugle at you from a distance. But if they're coming in and they're going to come in with a shooting range, a lot of times it takes time and they come in silent. You may not even you may not even hear him come in. It's like all of a sudden, you see this antler coming from behind a tree from nowhere. You say, how did he get here
without me hearing them or seeing him? You know, it's just they're like ghosts. So being mentally prepared is so important. You know, when you're out there, you always got to think that will could step into the picture at any moment. I need to be ready.
Yeah, well when you're hunting with buddies too, you know everybody's they I want to be, you know, whoever's shooting. I want to be the shooter out on point right. I want to be the first guy that's set up to where that if that bull comes in on a textbook scenario, he's going to come to me first, right right.
But I think some of that, you know, especially if the bulls have been pressured to bed or they're a little tight lipped being the second shooter maybe down wind aways from the first shooter being down wind fifty yards, you know, on an alternate route, that might be the that might be the way to go. Or I don't even mind having a second shooter stand right next to me as the caller, because especially if you're hunting thick country.
I've I don't know how many times I've had the ball make it back past the number one shooter up front and make it all the way to me as the caller, And a lot of times I don't even have my bow with me right as the caller, I don't have a bow, and the bull walks back to me and stands around, look's around.
Dang it.
If I'd had another shooter here, or if I'd had my bow, I could have smoked that thing. But yeah, yeah, the setups are so incredibly important. I feel like a lot of folks have a lot of really good luck colling elk up to a certain point and they're set. If they're set up, isn't isn't dialed. That's where everything just kind of falls apart, And it falls apart from me too, you know. It's not like I'm some perfect, perfect expert or something. It falls apart for me as well.
But you know, guys get nervous when they don't see when they've hurt him, and they don't see him and they end up moving, and that kills more setup scenarios I think than any one thing. Is guy's moving in.
The wrong time, you know, yeah, yeah, go stand up there, you stand right there, Let me do the calls. I'll do I'll work the bowl, get him across, and then nothing happens for a long time, and the shooter moves right. But the whole time you're painting a picture as a caller, you know, to where this bowl thinks, Okay, this is what's going on, and it's going to drag him through
a certain spot. And maybe if if that, if that shooter moves it and really makes it, makes it tough or you know, like you say, if they haven't been the ball hasn't been calling a lot. If he's up there, you know, the shooters up there scratching his head and kicking dirt, you know, not paying attention and moving around a lot, they can get picked off super easy.
Yep, exactly.
It's kind of hard to do those standing in one place, especially if you're on Steve.
Pretty soon your ankle, the positions were so darn uncomfortably say, just hoping you'll be able to move soon. But you got to, you got to, you got to got it out, you know.
Oh yeah, I've set there for it feels like an hour, you know, but it hasn't been an hour. But man, my feet will be completely numb because I'm standing at a weird angle on a hillside, and and I know if I move, I'm gonna be nailed it. Just I gotta wait just a little longer. It's that self discipline, you know. It's like, man, this sucks right now, but here in ten minutes, it's not gonna matter anymore, right because I'm gonna either shoot this bowl or we're gonna be on the chase again.
Yeap, no doubt.
Well, Bob, this has been great having you on here. I've always said when I grow up, I want to be like Bob Twilliger. You're my hero, and I appreciate you coming on here, sharing, sharing your insight and your wisdom from all the years of just doing it out there. So where can people find you on social media? Are you on social and much.
Yeah, I am. I'm an active user on Instagram Bob T seven fifty six. I'm also on Facebook as Bob Twilger and certainly any questions you have, glad to help, particular you aging guys. I've got a lot of experience with it and I feel that I can offer you some some tips. You know, there's a lot of you know, a lot of the young exercise stuff, you know, particularly
the group orient and stuff like the CrossFit stuff. You know, you need to keep in mind that that's a lot of that stuff is aimed at younger bodies, and our soldier guys need to we need to find other ways to keep in shape, but do it in a way that doesn't break us down or get us injured, because you know, once you get injured, the held back can be steeper or climbed. So certainly feel free to use me a resource. I'm here for you.
Awesome, awesome, Well, thanks again, Happy New Year, and I look forward to Senior Adventures in twenty twenty four.
Likewise, Derek and thank you guys for all your help. Really appreciate it. It's good talking with