Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and today my guest is a longtime sportsman and a sportsman advocate and outdoor writer, lifelong hunter and if anyone wants to know anything about elk hunting, I feel this is the guy. Do you want to get inside his brain and pick it a little bit? Welcome to the show. I have George Betis here today. Welcome George.
Thank you Derek. It's great to be with you, guys.
I've been following George for several years on social media and I've seen a lot of stuff he's written over the years, and I've always thought he was a pretty neat and fascinating guy, and I thought, you know who better to get on the podcast and kind of talk about the good old days of elk hunting in Idaho
and in particular Idaho's Clearwater region. It's kind of a magical place, and I think it's probably arguably one of the most beautiful places to hunt elk there is as far as picturesque quality, and at one time it was a really neat place to go elk hunting just because of the whole experience. But I thought I'd bring George on and kind of talk about those good old days and what they look like back then it may be
contrast to what it looks like today hunting there. And if any of our listeners, if you guys don't know, I'm not familiar with George, I'm going to take a minute and let George talk about himself. And it's it's sometimes hard to brag on himself, but if you were to look at his Facebook profile, it's pretty pretty impressive. He served in a lot of different important roles advocating for sportsmen, among other things, through his lifetime of being
a hunter and a sportsman. So, George, could you give us a little bit of your background.
I'll give you the executive summary. If you want to know more, yeah, go to Google or Facebook. But well, I grew up on a small farm in central Washington. We never had elk there. I remember seeing the very first elk way back when I was in probably a sophomore in college in about nineteen fifty nineteen sixty two. It was a big bowl lying up in the timber. But we just didn't have elk there. We had a lot of mule deer, and so you know, elk was
a really kind of interesting thing to see on the farm. Well, anyway, after high school, I went on to Washington State University graduated. I was in the last required class of ROTC, the Return Reserve Officers Training program. And of course after you finished school, you've got you have to go in the army.
So I served in the Army in the late sixties and in their Interference Artillery program or actually branch, and after that eventually returned to Pullman, Washington, where I started work on my doctorate degree in higher education, and I was there until I retired in two thousand and two. I served in the whole series of positions Director of Housing and Diana Students, and ultimately the vice president of student Affairs. But anyway, my interest in conservation goes back
to my just growing up on the farm. I was always interested in birds and you know, and identifying birds and in animals, and I you know, we had deer and elk deer on the farm and we could see out down in other areas, and so I was always interested in wildlife. And then after I used to say I spent my whole life either in school or in the army, and it was true until after I got back from back to WSU to work on my doctorate. I started really thinking about hunting and other things I
could do. In nineteen eighty four, the Elk Foundation had their very first convention in Spokane, and I had an interesting I was hunting elk in Montana at the time, up around Superior, and it was a bugle magazine and I saw it and the guy. I said, the guy says, where'd you get this? He says, that's the last one. I said, well, you have me more. He said no, he said, you can have that one for twenty bucks.
That's what I about it. Anyway, So I got involved with the Elk Foundation just as a member, then as a as a life member and habitat partner, and ultimately was on the board. It was elected to the board, served as a board chair during some tumultuous times kind of in the with the Elk Foundation, changing CEOs and stuff. Anyway, But parallel to that, uh, I got a call one day from Emmitt Burrows in California and he asked me. He says, hey, here, you like to hunt mule there?
Would you? I'm putting putting together a new Found mule Deer Foundation. I said, really, he said, would you help us organize it and develop the you know, the documents. He said, I've got of six other guys coming to Redding, And so I went down there and I was one of the founders of the Mulder Foundation and then ultimately
served as president. But at the same time, uh in eighty nine, I was invited to become a regular member of the Boone and Crockett Club, and I couldn't do both, so I passed the gabble with the with the Mule Deer Foundation on and and of course at the Universe you had a job in doing. I spent time working, you know, with Boone and Crockett. I've been in a Boone Crockett member for thirty four years, served in i guess, all levels of responsibility except president, and that's been a
great ride. And that connected to me a lot of different opportunities for you know, conservation work the Elk Foundation. When I was on the board, you know, the lands program, I was really involved with that. I was involved with all aspects of it, and I learned all about you know, I was involved in a lot of those major major Elk Foundation land programs as a as a board member and as an individual. And then after I left Boone
and Crockett, actually I left the university. I retired at university in two thousand and one and was hired as a as the executive director of the Boone and Crockett Club. Moved to Missoula. I've been here last twenty years and that gave me other opportunities to reach out and and work with conservation organizations, help foundation on their land projects.
Was was was one of them. After I retired from puding Crockett, I was hired by the Montana Fish, Wallefe and Parks Foundation and was there an executive director and manager of a trust they manage and that in that in that role, we were able to fund millions of dollars of different public access in the churches program. So my flunk retirement four times, and you know, so that pretty much got and all along. When I was at the university, I basically had time to go hunting deer
for like a week and elk for a week. And so then that's when I discovered the clear water. And that's I can tell that story.
Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's quite a quite an impressive list of roles of of that that would consume a lot of time and responsibility, definitely, especially working full time when you're at w s U and you were soon serving those other roles. That's that's an incredible that's an incredible achievement really that I don't think a lot of a lot of people can can do that. I know, I don't think I would be able to be capable of having that much heaped on my plate on it
on a daily basis. So that's that's cool.
A lot of the roles I had at w SU, you know, involve students and student behavior in the residence halls and fra garnities and sororities. And you know, I was on call twenty four to seven, and so I could, you know, typically an elk hunt in Idaho, after I've we figured out, you know that where to go into clear Water, I have a staff meeting Monday morning and meet my buddy in Lewiston with the horses and way we'd go and I'd come back Sunday and be right
back at it. Two weeks later the there's season opened and I'd be a week for deer. That was it until maybe Thanksgiving and then but yeah, but you know I always tell young people to just follow their passion. You know, I don't fish. I hunt. Yeah, And I figured, if you're going to do something, well, you got to keep your eye on the football. And for me, it
was hunting. It was deer hunting and elk hunting. Of course, the brown bears in Alaska, YadA, YadA, and all those other things I've done, But it was all about hunting. Learning your rifles and studying the ballistics and learning to reload, you know, all of that. And so anyway, that's kind of an executive summary.
Yeah, yeah, I love it. So when did you get first get into hunting with horses in the back country?
Well, and the clear waters? What got me into the doors?
Okay, I what year was.
That I went in there? The first backpacked in for elk in nineteen seventy six. Wow. But I started going up into the Cellway bear hunting in the spring, and you know, the guys up in those days, they drove up, the drove up the highway and the cell you know, up to towards the Montana line, and you could you could see bears any morning, anytime, right from the road. And there's a lot of adventures. I didn't like the River. I didn't want to have to go across the river
to get a bear. So I heard about the clear Water, went up to clear clear Water and up to Kelly Creek and killed a giant bear the first year. And that was in about seventy seventy four maybe. But when I was up there in the spring, we'd see and we'd backpack in near Bearning. We see all these help I mean, hundreds of elk everywhere we went, just big, I mean elk We're everywhere. I mean I can tell you every place I went, they were just elk everywhere. And so I started looking at that, and I there
was a guy named of Dell Robie. He used to do outdoor films and yeah, and I remember going to one down in Lewiston at the Lewis Clark Sports Club and they had one of these PVC bugles and they called in a big six point and it was up in Max Walker's guide area and Kelly and they'l come walking in. A guy shout and I said, WHOA, that's interesting.
They were seeing that before. Well anyway, so I started focusing on the Clare later and so my my buddy and I we backpacked way back into the middle of Paradise Meadows and you know, bear hunting, and he had we had to hike over the snow and all that to get in there. But Dirk, it was it was one of the most memorable experiences I ever ever had because we bush whacked because it's the snow, and we popped into this big basin, you know, three miles by
two miles. It was large, it was green, and there must have been three hundred at least cow elk in the meadows with their calves calling back and forth. Wow. And we didn't know it at the time, but these but these big bears were coming in to prey on the elk calves. So we both shot two big bears and skinned them out and then had to use our map and compass to get back to the highway. But when I saw those elk, I said, whoa, I've got to get in here. It's like nine ten miles in there. Yeah,
going to do it. And so I had to put together a group of guys and guys I knew, and guys that were good oukhunters and guys that I trusted in. Uh. There was a there was an orthbetic surgeon from up in Bellingham, Washington, and a friend of mine from Seattle at hunted elk together in Oregon and they camp on the Washington Oregon line. Oregon would open, they'd shoot a spike there. Then they'd come back on the Washington side in the Broom Mountains and shoot a spike. So I
called Andy and Bob. I said, hey, guys, I says, you want to come to Idaho. We need some horses to get where I want to go. And they said sure and so and then one of my former well my my secretary's husband was a VEST student and ended up ultimately in Palmeroy, Washington. And so he had a horse, and so I bought an old apples a rat tail Apple USA from one of the athletes. And so anyway, you know, actually the fall of seventy seven we went
in with horses and tip. You know, I didn't know anything about it, much about it, you know, now, I say we used to pack like sheepherders, because we we had deckers and stuff and we die stuff on and it'd fall off and then not companies. Anyway, it was no those four guys we hunted that for twelve years.
Wow.
And during that time we never hunted more than three days. It was rifle. We'd pack in on Monday, when we drive up the trailer head on Monday, pack in Tuesday, set up camp, and the season open on Wednesday. In those days, like last week of September, and the bulls were just really vocal. I mean at night, you could just hear bulls bugling all around you. We were and you know, the first the first three, the first two days we got we got four nice bulls, and uh,
we had too much gear. We ended up boning them out because we didn't have enough horses to do everything. And we backpacked what we could and we and we went out that way, and then we added some horses and added some horses. I got a couple of horses and ended up that we had we had like twelve horses to go in there, you know, all walk to pack out and four guys in your gear. And that was
before lightweight gear. You know. I got a meanium of my blue jeans and my my yellow plastic raincoat, soaking wet yell those but but therek you you know, you were in that country. You hunted that country. But yeah, you know, and of course I went back and I I want to know the history. So I went back. I read all everything I could find about the wildfires, you know, and how the red stem Ceanothus was a
really important winter food. And I mean there were so many elk in there in those days that and if you've been in there, hiked up over Cook Mountain back in that country, the elk trails were two feet wide and a foot deep. Wow, those trails are still there. Yeah. I've been in there a couple of years ago and
then a couple of years before that. The brush is ten twelve feet tall, and I knew where, I knew where the trails were, and I'd be going in there with my horse and pretty soon he'd stumble and he'd fall down into the elk trail. But I mean it was on real We hunted it for twelve years, wow, and you know, we hunted hard. I'd go in there
in the summer. It's funny because my my, my hunting partner from Palmeroy, he was in the Nazarene church, and he'd he could always find a couple of young boys, maybe boys with just you know, a single parent that would want to go with us, and so we'd take them in there and Uh, you know, there were no there's no timber in there, and.
We we uh followed elk trails and we took out and you know, we dug out some downfall and maybe cut a limb or two off of the brush so.
We could navigate in the morning before day and get out away from camp. Because every year the circle got wider. And finally we were killing elk clear over on Cook Mountain and coming back two in the morning. But anyway, Uh, like I say, we all hunted hard. Uh, it was like a military camp. Then the night before, oh, we get all the top of maps and we talk about this, and we talk about where one guy was going and where everybody went. And then as soon as one guy
got it, got his elk, he'd come back. You know, we'd get his he'd get his elk out, or or one of us and go with him and get it out, and then he'd take care of the horses and cook. And yeah, it was that was kind of the drill. But the habitat was lesh. As you said, it's probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Yeah, And now now you know, later and later on we can talk about what's changed.
But you guys were in there in September and that was rifle hunting back then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
Did they even have archery seasons during that time?
They did, and uh, we sell them ever saw a boat hunter, okay, And what happened was after about eight years and Max Walker was an old time outfitter. He was a great guy. And then Gordon Stimmel was back in there, and I knew both knew Gordon, never knew Max. They were gentlemen and there weren't many people that ever go in there. There were a few people going in
with horses, but not many. And the outfitter camp in there in Paradise Meadow was just it was just all trump down and it was really it wasn't really very active,
and we never saw an outfitter. But then a new guy came in and bought the outfit and he didn't like the fact that we were going in there and packing out elk So anyway, we ended up moving elver On on the other side in unk Cook Mountain, and uh, you know, we still hunting the same areas, but uh, and then I always remember, right, we have to ride out through the lodge poles and in the dark and it's real. It was real flat up there, and if
you didn't know your way, you get lost. And my horse knew his way to where we'd ride out and tie off. And then one day we're riding out there and I shine my flashlight on a tree and there's something shining. It's like a it's like a thumbtack with with fluorescent pain on it. And what's that, you know? And then pretty soon I could see another one. Well, bow hunters had showed up and they were putting on
those thumbtacks, yeah, to get on the ridge. And then it was we killed an olk almost every year after that with a with a broad hand in the shoulder almost here. Wow, that's when they showed up. It was probably, uh, you know, uh, eighty two eighty three, and we never saw them. They would come in off the top on to the south where.
We were over towards out of the weedst there, across the weedst there and come up that side.
Of Cook Mountain the Weast bridge, and then the outfit or he he loaded up. He had seventy two hunters in there one year, and he probably he had probably twenty twenty five bowl hunters. I'd looked up this, you know, his information on for service records, and yeah, he had like twenty or more boat hunters. And in those days those help were a lot of elk. They didn't know much about mules anyway.
Yeah, that's a great way to kind of frame up what kind of country that was and how many elk were living there. My dad when he got out of the Marines in World War Two, then he moved to wee Ipe and made friends with some of the locals and they started to go up and going up into Kelly Creek in the late forties and they would take go in there with the horses, and what he described to like the elk trails were just as you described, you know, two feet wide, a foot deep, and there
were elk everywhere. And they never shot bulls for the most part. It was they were they were there for the cows. They would shoot, you know, just the meat. They were just they worried about meat, and they're like, oh, I don't shoot one of those old stinky bulls. We want to We want a cow. You know, if somebody shot a ball then they had to they'd give him a raft a crap about it. But at what there
was kind of a turning point. An outfitter started guiding up Kelly Creek there and and it sounds like a similar operation, like tons and tons of people in camps and all over the hillsides. And he said it got to be kind of a rat race. And he he he was there for the the quiet and the you know, getting away and and not seeing a bunch of people and then good hunting, and it just got to the point he just gave it up. He's like, well, I'm
not going to go back up there anymore. But it's interesting. Interesting.
We did everything we could to to prevent any interference with the outfitter, and we camped at the far end of when when one outfitters area, and we basically hunted on the on the edge of the other outfitter and frank frankly, we never saw the outfitters up there except when we're packing meet out and it was it was a really we say it out of their way.
And yeah, Well, to this day, if you get on Google Earth and you go to that place that you mentioned, there's a there's a salt like there that's about the size of my house that's still there. And I don't know that there's very many elk hitting that salt lick anymore. But they beat it down so bad back in the seventies and eighties that you know, nothing will grow in that spot.
Well, the outfitter used to I'd never seen big, you know, big one foot diameter or two foot chunks of rock salt. And one day he was coming in with his mules and they're all loaded with rock salt, and there big licks in there there. But now one of the one of the well, one of the two of the biggest
licks are so overgrown they're they're hardly there. And we put some was up two years ago and left him there from the middle of August till both seasons, and on one camera we had a raghorn bull a cow in a yearly and and those you know, the licks are still there that some deer come in. But you know, you know, if you've seen those licks, they dig right down on the ground and they can't they can't salt anymore. But there were, you know, there were a lot of
other I met some good friends. Uh my friend would uh the guy hunted with you asked about hunting partners, but the guy hunted with uh, you know, I was run into these guys from Tilla mcregon way back up and you know in the head of the head a Cook Creek. Yeah, I'd never seen it. So it was the first Elk Foundation meeting and Spokane. I had a banquet and I sat down at this table and there's four guys sitting there and uh, I introduced myself. I
couldn't believe it. They were Tilla mcorgon. They were the guys that were coming in from the lock saw.
Oh no, kid.
If you talk about how many of us were hunting, uh, you know, one great, two is enough. Three will work. And if you know each other and you care about each other and and this, and they're not jealous of each other. Four is a good team, but never more than four. And one of the things we people, well you always wanted to know where we're hunting, well, you know, and then some people get angry if you don't tell
them where you're hunting. People followed my you know, they're looking at my vehicles and my horse truckness and that. But we never took new people into the area just because, uh, you know, there's an outfitter in there. We don't want to bring other people. And if somebody showed up. They showed up. But that was a golden rule for us. We never took anybody outside to our camp. And and
so you know, we hunted with four guys. And after I put hunting the clear water and moved over in Salmon, I hunumber three guys and you have two other guys. But you can get you can get too many people in camp, right right. And the other the other little
thing that comes into a hunting camp is jealousy. Yep, if you're good and you're in good shape, and you hunt really hard and you're successful, we'll have somebody that doesn't take care of themselves and they don't take care of their body and they're not in good shape, and they won't push it the extra mile, and pretty soon that person gets jealousy, you know. So that's that's my old man's wisdom. The partner. Yeah, it's like you've got to have a good one.
Absolutely. It's almost like when you're looking for a mate, you know, you're looking for a wife. You have to vet that that hunting partner so good and make sure that you guys can get along, because I've seen that, you know, the back country can bring out the best in people, or it can bring out the worst in people. You know you can because you know it's not all. Every day is not just easy laying around and enjoying
delicious food and sitting around camp. I mean there's hardships, there's inclement weather, there's difficulties, finding game whatever, whatever the difficulty is. Those those partners have to kind of weather the storm with you. And and the ones that that are really great, they're like worth their weight in gold. And the ones that that that cause problems, those ones don't get to come back next time.
Well, I talk about the three day rule. A lot of people are ready to go home after three days.
Oh yeah.
And uh, dealing with adversity. If you want to be an elk hunter and be successful, you have to be able to deal with adversity. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a horse that's injured or whether you get snow you get snowed in. Uh, you know it's really cold at the elk move whatever, and you got to you've got to go the extra mile. And and when you find you know guys in your party that will do that, You've got a perfect team. And it's a
team effort. And the other thing that I've always said is if I can't be just as pleased with the success of my hunting partner as I would be for myself, I'm not a very good hunting partner, because you know, you share the experience and you share the camp and that I've always I've almost always had ninety percent of the time hunting partners that were that way, and it's a key to a really enjoyable hunt. One of the
questions you had was about mature bulls. Yeah, you know, when I first started hunting in there, there was It was a September opener on a Wednesday, and they were bulls screaming everywhere everywhere. I mean, and I had the first year we went in, I had a guy that worked at WSU that had some horses. He was a guy from North Dakota. He packed me in and dropped me off. He had four horses, dropping me off with my gear, and he left me. I put up my
tent and then he left that same day. That night to night, I'll never forget all my life because we had inadvertently set our camp right at the crossroads in about three major elk trades.
No, No, I didn't know the night.
Yeah, I have my rookies. I'm lying there in the tent and it just gets dark, and I hear this this water splash, and I hear this bull just scream. He's like ten feet from my tent. Oh man, And whole night long, and the elk come down. They'd be splashed in the creek. They'd smell me, they'd be beautiy. I mean all night long. I ain't sleep all night. And but there most all the bulls we shot ninety were mature bulls, mostly all sixes. And uh, you know we didn't We shot the first really legal bull we
could get. He didn't turn down you didn't turn down a five point because because but there weren't very many five points. I mean, you know, there were so many mature bulls in there in those days. I've never seen anything like it since. Wow.
Did you ever see you that were just remarkably large, like giant? Like wow? That today? You know, people is always looking, you know, throw they always throw around big numbers, you know, four hundred inches or three hundred and fifty inches. Would you ever say you saw anything of that kind of caliber back in those days?
There was one in there that would have probably gone three sixty or more. That some guys from Oregon killed. The biggest bull I killed in there was just short of three forty. My buddy, uh Jerry, he killed one the same night, just just short of three forty. But that you know, those are the biggest bulls we saw. Yeah, most of were three hundred class six points. Okay, maybe you know, but you know, I'm a I've been a Boonakracks score. So when I spick at a bull and
I say he's a three hundred, he probably is. I keep I'm amused at how Boonakracks scores.
Oh, it's funny depending on who you talk to. It's like, if I'm talking to one person, they said, yeah, I saw a three hundred inch bowl. I usually sometimes I'll I'll subtract about twenty or thirty inches and I'm like, okay. So you know, because a lot of people, as soon as they see a nice six point, they're like, oh, there's a three hundred bowl. Well that's and three hundred bowl is a really nice bowl. That's a big heavy horn bowl, good beams, good porns points. That's a pretty
nice bull there. They don't they don't grow on every tree that's for sure.
No, but back you know, and the days we were hunting in there, you can almost always find a nice six point the first or second day. Wow, three days and we packed meet the fourth day and when I pack went home the next day because I had to be at work on Monday. Yeah, you know you asked about ask about the the condition of the forage and the habitat, Yes, was per it was ideal. You know if you go back and read about you know, the fires that burned in there and two successes of different
big fires. Uh, the conifers were really burned, and there was there were brush fields, but the brush fields were immature. Uh you know, if you could you could find a ten foot in this one great big open area where all these guys were. There were huge meadows and a lot of ferns and would grow in those meadows and stuff, and there was a lot of water, but uh uh
no conifers at all. And then if you've got the conifers where there were there were a lot of immature conifers, uh, you know for mostly for some him lock in there. And uh I remember, uh there was one one really steep trail or ridge we had to pack meat on and it was hard to you know, to figure out where you were. And so uh, I mean once in a while we nip the top of a little like a three four foot Christmas tree, just cut the top off. Yeah about that? And is it because you know you
could see that and you'd look for that. Now those trees are are fifty twenty feet doll and you could see you know, they've got triple tops or something. But yeah, and there are hillsides we I mean we could shoot across. I always hunted with a three forty weather bean. I knew the ballistics and we can shoot across from one side to the other. Now you couldn't see an elk on that hillside across there, and then well, what's what's happening? Well, I've gone in there for really religiously just to go
in there. Sure, and uh and look and see it's such a neat place. I took my kids in there, my daughters, and we'd go in and camp. And I was in there three years ago and we probably rode I don't know, seventy miles through there with the horses. Found one elk track. Wow, And used to be able to ride an ATV from Cayuse Creek, you know, uh, clear across to the lock Saw. Yep, and the roads were just there were elk trails coming down the cutbank and they just trails foot deep with elk are coming
down the cut bank, crossing the road and going across. Yeah, it was about seven years ago. I never saw an elk track on that road all the way to Cayus Meadows from the lock Saw. It's yeah, and the elk just aren't there. So what's the you know, what's the deal, what's the you know, what's the deal with the wolves and what's the remedy. About the time I quld hunting there, the elk numbers were down, but there weren't any wolves
there yet. And uh the black bears. I shot a lot of blackberries in the clear water because he could shoot two. Now we'd go in early and if I got a brown one, then I'd hunt for a black one and we shot. We've shot blackberries with you know, after just minutes after they killed an elk calf. But then Mike Schlegel did the study on the on the elk depredy or they very you know, the depredation by bears.
They're back and I'd see my cup there in the cell away and stop and look at his data, and uh, you know they had mortality signals on their on their on their calves. But at one time the elk mortality in there was like seventy eighty percent on my calves. And the black bears killed a lot of calves, right, and of course then you've got lions. Well, it's a habitat issue as well. I mean people want to blame the wolves. Yeah, the wolves are in there, but you
can't just blame the wolf because it's a combination. Jim Peak is a wildlacbologist that I have always respected, and he'll talk to you about the Batholithic soils and how the burn just really burned the soil and the conifers and the brush is coming back and that's not good elk habitat. So anyway, and then you know we know about the wolves. I mean, when they're in there. There are a lot of photos on Facebook and stuff of the wolves killing slaughtering elk down right on the river.
But the combination is is the sticker. But now you know, I Mike Schlegel is a really good friend of mine. He's a wild lacabology. It really is studying that right now. And I'm known the fire manager over on the Clearwater, he laid out a whole series of burned and in the places that really needed to be burned, he dake those out. I saw where they were. He you know, I saw his maps. Guess why people don't like smoke.
And you know now they haven't done any of those burned simply because of the you know, the the image and the social pressure that people put on the Forest service because of smoke, and and and he finally left. But there's there are all kinds of burn units laid out all over that clearwater that haven't been burned and should be burned, but probably never would, so you know, it's a tragic thing. The other the other issue I
I've encountered up there is the motorcycle access. Okay, you know, I'm not an anti ATV motorcycle person, not at all. I had eight I've never had a motorcycle. But the last time I was in there, we camped clew up and the head a Cook Creek and came in from the lock saw and the next morning I wanted to go ride clear back acrossover and drop into Paradise Meadows and go down where camp was, and we're going across Windy Ridge early in the morning. And my horses are
really gentle. They don't you know, they motorcycles and stuff don't bother me. And the one horse I had was trailing. He kept jumping around every once in a while, and all of a sudden I figured out there's a motorcycle right behind. And the trail had the trail had been had been x evated with those mini excavators. It was two feet wide. The brush was cleared three feet to
each side of it. And there must have been a dozen guys from Missoula, and not that was a bad place, but there a dozen guys, you know, there were in all their their plastic protection and they had chainsaws. They were riding from Windy saddle on the lock. So over all the way over into Cooked Mountain, down onto the the road, all the way down to the wheat and up the wheatas and back up through uh this cabin, and all the way back in one day and the four service, I mean, it was a motocross. That was
a great motocross trail. And to the worst part was we left an eight pack of cold smoke and the creek. Oh, don't you know it's our favorite Montana beer. But anyway, when we walked about fifty yards up the creek from what we camped, and we we ditched it down in underneath in the water and go back there bowt hunting, and these there's a trail crew in there. They're they're cutting trail. I mean they're cutting brush out of the trail. And the nerdy buggers drink are cold soak.
Oh no, but now it's you know, if you've got a bike and you like to ride the back country trails, it's it's the epitome.
I mean it's the best there is. Yeah. And then uh, the next day we're clear out and Cook Mountains. Some guys from polatch Idahope. I could hear him coming, and my horse isn't you know, he's not spooked. But this guy come ripping around the corner and laid his bike down right in the trail so he didn't run into me. And the guy said to me, he says, wow, he says, you're the first guys I've ever seen up here on
the horses since uh since pre wolf. Anyway, you know, the clear water is uh it's an absolutely special place. And you know, I've got a few friends that are still getting some really nice bulls out of there. Yeah, you know, I know kind of where they are and and uh, you know, they don't say much. They just go in there and and hunt.
H it's a it's a daunting place if you've never been there or never hunted country like that.
I know.
Yeah, there's some some people who live there close by or or have spent a lot of years up in that country hunting that that they'll find success. A lot of a lot of folks who hunt from out of state will come up and never been there, and they will they might spend ten days without even seeing an elk, just just because it seems like it's kind of the
population elk is a little bit pockety. Like you may go miles and miles without seeing anything and then one little pocket that they either the elk feel really safe.
Or.
Maybe the wolves don't bother them there, or people don't bother them there, whatever reason, they'll have a little spot they like to be and you'll find some milk. And it's like winning the lotter and finding one of those spots.
And as far as wolves, there used to be a lot of wolves in there. You could hear wolves solid every day, and now, yeah, you don't hear them very often. Sell them I think back where.
Yeah, I think they follow the food, you know. And as as the elk numbers decline and they keep moving to try to find find food, they probably move closer to town, for sure.
I'll chase one. I'll chase one side rabbit, and then we'll talk about my book, if you'd like. But I used to run into some guys from Pennsylvania clear out on the backside over there, and they had a gun that looked like it was it was a six point five weather or yeah, six point five whether it be
w W H now it's in the oldies. It was the Weather be right Hoyer long range rifle and had a bench ress set up in front of their tent and they had a basically walton and a bench dress spotting soap and they were shooting elk eight or nine hundred yards across the canyon. Yeah, And I asked him how many they lost. And this is the problem is we get over there and the brush is thick, we can't find some of them. Anyway, I mentioned it, and I was talking to Mike Schlegel about it. Now, there's
a limit on the way to the gun. You can use a rifle, you can use. But so with my book, I'll just be fairly short. It's called The Hunting Horseman. It's available at Western Hunter on the website. On the Western Hunter website, you can just google it and find it.
Yeah, what's the title of your book.
It's called The Hunting Horseman. Okay.
And so after I, after I had left Moon and crock and stuff, Ryan Hatfield is a guy hired.
From Council, Idaho as assistant director of a big game. And he left and he went to work for Eastman's and such, and he ended up with Western Hunter and they wanted to start a new Elk Hunter magazine. So he called me and asked me if I would be willing to write an article every month or whatever. I said, well, yeah, But he said, I want to write about horses. I said, well, Ryan, I said, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there about saddles and how to pack horses and smoke.
Elser's got books out, and you know, Joe Back wrote the original one and all that stuff. So really about horse packing, the techniques that's uh, that's pretty well covered. But I so I said, you know, if you want me to write something, I'll write about using stock in
the backcountry for hunting. Period. Yeah, and so I started writing some articles twelve years or eleven years ago, and so I wrote all that I was writing these articles and they were published, and then kind of in the middle of that, I wrote an article that was entitled packed like a Hunter. Okay, well, if you're going to go into your hunting camp every year, only there's certain things you take every year. There's certain things you can
weigh up ahead of time. You don't need to be manning everything up and having all these fancy nots, and there's a lot of ways to do it. Anyway, that was a really interesting article. But anyway, so I got my health changed dramatically one year ago February Valentine's Day, and we didn't know what how much time I had, and so presenting publisher of Western Hunter called me. So Georgie says, what do you think about putting all your articles in a book? Said, yeah, that'd be kind of cool.
And so we spent some time last February and March and they compiled all of the articles I'd written for the Western actually start out Elk Hunter, then it went to Western Hunter. H yeah, and uh so they put it all together and uh it turned out really not really well, it's it's uh, it's got it's just full color, the whole thing it. It has some some tribute friends have written The Hunted with me, but uh, you won't
find another book like it. It's it's gotten stuff and things in there about access and and it's got things in there about new conservation issues and stuff, but most of it's about hunting and uh, everything from how you put up a wal tant with polls, you know, where you where you sit, you camp. But it's uh three hundred pages.
It's good reading and uh and uh, anyway it turned out, I'm wondering, are those guys going to have uh those available at the Western Hunter Expo or Western Hi Expo in Salt Lake City next week.
Well, Chris just got back from sci and I'll suggest that you have some available. Yeah, it was limited production of like a thousand, but I'm going to talk with you about it. Yeah.
Yeah, I'll have to go by their booth. And I always like to try to track those guys. Chris and Nate and those guys from Western hundred count anyway, and give them a ras them a little bit, and and I hope they got the book. I've been wanting to pick it up. So maybe I'll be able to pick one up there. If not, I'll just order on the website.
Yeah, it's it's a book you'll you'll keep or you'll pass on to your relatives their children. I like to hunt because it's a basic boy scout manuel but not really.
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, so any last comments on the Clearwater country And you know, you know there's been some wild fires in the last decade there, but maybe they're not I haven't been strategic to where it would would
still help the elk population rebound. What needs to happen to get that elk population rebound in the clear the Clearwater region, What do you think it's going to look like in five ten years from now, because I know there's a lot of that timber that's maturing, and if you spend time up there, you'll see a lot of deadfall between from Beetlekill or and then there's some of the wildfire as well. But what do you what do you think the future holds for the clear water.
It really depends on the Forest Service. It really depends on the Horrort Service because there are a lot of things they could do up there that are you know, good good forest practices. But UH, in order to create elk habitat, you have to have open areas. You have to have you know, feeding areas in betting areas and treat canopies. But there has to be grass that they eat and when it is all brush and so you've got to burn that brush. The brush has to be burned.
And they know how to do it, but the social pressure UH and the current leadership in the Forest Service has not seen they have not seen fit to do it. But they have a plan and it's all been mapped out and it's a habitat issue number one. Fishing games, dealing with the wolves. You know they've gone in there with the trapper and taken some out with with you know, the other cop outfit. But it's a big time thing, is the habitat, and somehow we've got to figure out
figure that out. But we know what to do. You know. The sad thing is we know what to do. Mike Schlegl and I've talked about this forever and he's made charts about how important that elk resource was to the economy of Idaho and all that he's charted the you know, the decline and the herds. But any biologist that knows that country, we'll just tell you it's a habitat issue and we've got to we've got to burn some of that stuff. You know, you can't.
You can't just fix one thing and expect everything to be be to work. You got to multiple things. You got to fix, whether predation, habitat, access, all of it. Fix everything, and then you know those animals are gonna flourish again.
Yeah, you know the two bear limit or you know the opportunity from hunter two bears and a reduced tag. That's really important for fishing game. It's very important because there are a lot of bears in the career. And you know, in the old days, the sky Ralph Flowers used to used to be a bear hunter for Warehouser on these on the westcat to Washington, and you know, bears will strip bark off of a young.
You know, ah.
Two foot diameter tree and they stripped the bark off to get to the canbyan and that's why you know Flowers was hired to kill bears in the warehouse or forest because they're stripping cambyon or stripping the bark. You can go up there you're been talking about, and the trees are all stripped. I mean they're stripped everywhere, and you know, tell it, you can see it, and if
you want to go rounding, it's it's a good spot. Yeah. No. And then I don't know conservation organizations, you know, I don't know what the Elk Foundation could do to fund some stuff in there, but but they've got to work hand in hand with the Forest Service. The Forest Server doesn't give the go ahead, you know, it can't, it won't happen.
Do you think we could get enough rally enough Sportsman two put pressure on the fish or not the fishing game, but the Forest Service to maybe take a look at some of those kind of things. You know, I feel like it seems like the people that don't want you to burn they have a they have a bigger voice than the people the other side. You know, I feel like just getting organized and getting enough people involved would would maybe help turn the tide a little bit.
What do you think, Well, hunters just don't speak up, right, I mean, we just don't speak up. We don't write letters, we just don't speak up. And you can look at any of these issues, like with the wolves right now in Montana, you've got thousands of letters being sent to a fishing game to reduce the wolf. Howres well hunters. We'll go to public meetings, we complain, but we're not very aggressive. And I guess you know, the the young hunters that are coming on, if there's anything that they
can take away from this podcast is get involved. Get involved with your local sports organization and get involved. And you know, the Oak Foundation is a great organization. You get involved with that, But don't just go to a banquet. You don't talk to these people and you get a hold of their lands people and and like in the clear Water. You know, I was one of the guys that put together the lists in banquet years ago. It's the fifth banquet they ever had and a fifth place,
and I have a thousand people in Lewiston. But you get those people rallied up about the clear water, you know, and you've got to You've got to it's about numbers. And you don't go there and holler at a public meeting, you go to the people that can make it happen. But you know, this whole future of that, you know, is in the hands of our young people, especially our
young hundred conservations. You know, it's one thing to go hunting all the time, but it's another thing to spend some time helping raise money for you know, while life and conservation issues too. You can do both. I did. Yeah, you got to have a side hustle for conservation along with your job.
There you go, yeah, I like that. Yeah, And you know, people don't they think, oh, I don't have time to you know, write letters or reach out or call call your representatives or your legislators in your state or whatever. But it doesn't take any time. I mean, you can pick up the phone and start calling and spend thirty minutes on one particular day, or you could take you know, you could type out a a professional sound and email
within within an hour or maybe two. And and there's so much you know, if maybe you don't feel like you're you're not a great letter writer today, there's there's all this AI, you know, for all of us young people. There's all this AI technology that will you know, that will like chat GPT that will help you write of the best sounded letter anyone could write. And then you know, send those letters to these organizations and let them know
what you're thinking. Because if the opposition is just crushing us with their letters, man, folks on our side of the table gotta got to stand up and do some stuff too. So I appreciate you bringing that up.
Well, that's the future really is. You know, our young hunters are very enthusiastic about going farther into the back country and hunting the way back off the grid, and they've got the latest, you know, like weeight gear and camel and sleeping in hammocks and sleeping in in hot tents and all that. The thing that makes me makes me smile is I see them nicular back ten miles off the grid over an eight thousand foot summit and they don't have a clue how they're going to get
their elk. Kind of that's a.
Whole that's a huge undertaking.
Yeah, But anyway, Derek, this has been been really a nice visit with you. And yeah, call me and if you want to share my you know, my Facebook stuff. People can get a hold of math. People call me all the time, about you know, hunting and different things, and sure you know your rifles or whatever. And I always help. I'm always willing to help. Uh.
So people can look you up on Facebook and it's George Battis. How do you say your last name?
Beat us? Beat uses? Okay, okay, enough, okay?
And do you have Instagram?
I do? Yeah, I think it should beat us Instagram?
Okay, right, well that's great man. I've really enjoyed, uh this conversation. And and as you described that country back in the old days, my man, my head was just spinning thinking about you know those bulls b you going all night long and you know the meadows full of elk And if you've seen that country, it just it would it makes makes your makes your head spin. And to see what it is today, it's it's a very
stark contrast. Like you could probably give people a map and say, oh yeah, go ouhunt elk up there, because you're not really giving anything away at this point. They're just not not much for elk up there.
But uh, it's I still like to go back and visit those old spots and go to where old Gordon stim while you to camp and different places and you know, where I used to camp and then go ride a loop down down towards the wheats and that. Uh, it's just there's some there's special places on this earth where you've been me usually hunting, and there's a special feeling
you get there. There's the smell, you know. We used to have grass two feet tall at our camp, right and after after you know, you just turn the horses out with the hobbles this there need eat grass. They already walk under the yards tent. Now, well, the same place you go. It is so dry on these rich stops, and the cows of eating out the rapid areas. You got to pack your own feed. And that was it was so neat about that camp. It was and pressure
hunting pressure. You know. There were a few guys that would hike in with most guys would use the road system. And I mean I never saw anybody else other than a few guys I knew that had versus there in all those years. Twelve years.
Wow, Well it's an amazing place for sure.
Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you involving me, and I can do anything else for you or any of your listeners.
All right, well, thanks so much for coming on here. It's been a pleasure for sure.
Thank you much, thank you