Welcome back, guys to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Today, I got my good buddy, Josh Boyd in the house. We're at the Western Hunting Expo here in Salt Lake City. Beautiful Salt Lake City. Josh and I kind of go way back. We've known each other for I don't know, probably since ten, twenty ten eleven, somewhere in there. Through
love and passion for elk hunting. First became acquainted with Josh and seen some articles he wrote, some web articles on elk hunting, and I immediately loved the information he was given out.
But I also loved the voice.
Different writers have kind of a different voice in their writings, and I always loved Josh's voice of his writing. So I became an instant fan. And then as I get to know Josh over the years, I like to kind of refer to him as the Elk Master. You know, some people know about the movie Beast Master. This guy is the Elk Master. He's probably one of the most humble people you're ever gonna meet, and he would never tell you about his body.
Count on elk.
But let's just say it's up there, and I'm not going to share it because some people don't like to share, you know, with everyone, but let's just say very accomplished elk hunter and I have the most respect for this man, and I'm just happy to sit down and have an
official conversation on a podcast about elk hunting. I mean, him and I can get on the phone or sit there and bs each other at this trade show and ours will tick by talking about elk and it's probably one of the best elk conversational people I enjoyed to talk to.
So welcome Josh. Thanks Derk. Yeah, no, we could. It's an enjoyable top and like you said, I can talk about it for hours and any day, anytime. And I do know my body count, and I've told a few people. But the only reason I know it is because I keep a spreadsheet of where and when and how and how far I shoot HLK and it goes way back, you know, into the eighties, and it's it's nice to be able to go back and look at the drainage,
how far I shot, what it was like. It just sparks memories, but it just just gives me an idea of how things have changed and kind of where I've kind of kind of progressed as an elk hunter, So I do know my body count, and a couple of years ago, I had a number that I was kind of momentous for me, and it was a bowl that was like it took everything in my quiver to get this thing killed and it was perfect. It was perfect, and it was a little rag it was, but it
was a perfect hunt. So anyway, that's what I love about you.
You love big bulls as much or more than anybody, but you also love rag bulls. You love elk hunting just for the pure love of the game. Not it's not about inches, it's not about anything other than this is awesome.
You look up one day it's like, hey.
I'm approaching a monumental number. That's cool. This is going to be really cool. And then to be happy with with what you came home with, that's you know, not.
Everybody has that attitude. So that's I appreciate that. Yeah, to me, I mean success is packing elk meat. I love. I love to carry elk meat out of the mountains. So anytime I can do that, man, it's success. It is a successful hunt.
So yeah, we were just talking yesterday about what makes good elk hunting partners. You know, that's a that's a that's a good conversation. People have a lot and I have a lot with my friends and people who like to talk about elk hunting. And we focused on some key the biggest key takeaway for me there was and we're getting a little off track of what we kind of talked initially talked about. This podcast is going to
be about this. It's elk cutting related, right, but the fact that having an elk cutting partner that looks forward to your success more so if not the same level of his own is imperative for a good elk cutting relationship. And I know, personally I want my elk cutting partner. I almost want them to get an elk more than myself.
And I always feel like that there's no better, greater gift that you can give someone is to call in an elk for him and see the happiness and the joy, you know, successful elk cutting brings.
Yeah, And some of the most tense situations for me, most nerve wracking, or when I'm a caller and there's a bull coming in for a partner and you're just you can't see what's going on, can hear it? And you know it's getting close and you're just like, is this going to work for him? You're just on pins and needles the whole time, just like nail biting. Is this happening? Oh yeah, how can you make this happen? How can you work this bull? How can you get
him in his lap? And yeah, to me, yeah, it's that is one of the most exciting, nerve wracking things for el cutting. When I'm the shooter usually, I mean, I get excited, I have to take some deep breasts tell myself to calm down. Yeah, but it's it's way more exciting when there's someone else, like with the bull coming in and you're trying to get it into their lap, and yeah, just seeing their success is great. But yeah, having a good partner is key.
I sometimes feel like I try even harder if I'm trying to call it out for somebody else, and like I might like if I'm just doing it for myself, I'm like, I don't know, this bull seems like he's not cooperating.
Eh, I don't know.
If we want to put that much effort into it. But if my friend, I'm like trying as hard as I can, like I want we got to get this elk in for him, Like this would be awesome. I remember back to taking my son out elk hunting when he was thirteen, his first year bow hunting, he'd o't he'd rifle hunted the year before bow hunting, thirteen and calling in this bowl and as we're as we're moving in on this bowl, the bulb wasn't getting real hot. He would just kind of chuckle and rake and chuckle
and rake. And if I we messed with this bowl the day before, and if I did a full bugle and got a little bit aggressive, he'd move off. So I'm like, we got to like play this like super reserve. So he would chuckle and rake, and I would chuckle and rake. But every time he'd rake, we'd move up ten yards and move up ten yards, and pretty soon I can see that his antler tips and we're kind of coming up this steep hill, this old, this old loggin skid trail, and he he would rake, chuckle, and
then he'd stare down the hill at us. Then I had this big stick and I would just beat the crap out of this tree and I'd grab the tree and i'd shake it and i'd let him see the stick even moving, and then and then he would see that and then he would just go tear it right back into that tree again and chuckle. And then I tell my son, I'm like, okay, now now he's raking. Now move up. And he's like, Dad, why are you talking so weird? I'm like, what are you talking about?
He's like, you're talking really weird. I've never heard you talk like that before.
Evidently I was excited, Like I got there, he's got his hand down, sneak up. I was talking funny, you know, to him.
But that's that's what you know, trying to get someone else in ELK is all about. I get so excited for them. Yeah, Like it's like there's so much anticipation you can hardly stand it.
Yeah. So yeah, and it's and it's nice to have a partner that feels that way for you, Yes, you know, yes, good, it's good to have that that mix. Yeah. Yeah you reciprocation, yeah yeah, to have that get Yeah, you gotta you better be able to give in also receive. So it's yeah, it is a it's a good relationship, and they're hard
to come by. Yeah, I've I've developed some pretty good friendships in the little you know, in my community, and there's a couple of guys that I can just rely upon to like drop everything and just like, yeah, let's go. I'm ready, let's go hunt. You want to do this hunt over the top of the mountain range and come out the other side like a car to car hunt. Yeah, okay, I'm in. Without blinking an eye, Yeah sounds great, sounds really fun. Oh yeah, I might say you're crazy, man,
it's a it's a suffer fest. But and I know where you hunt kinda and when you when you would offer that up. I don't think there's very many people would take that. There's not there's yeah, there's there's a few guys, but there's not many. Yeah. I mean some people think it would be fun until they start into it. Yeah, and it just becomes it is miss It can be miserable, Yeah, throwing some rain mixed with the brush. It's mixed with bulls that are not cooperative, don't want to talk, yeah,
and grizzly bears and grizzly bears to boot. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.
It's it's hard to get a taker on on those kind of trips, and it all sounds good on paper and until it becomes a suckfest.
Yep.
But that's what makes when you finally do find success. It makes that berry so much sweeter. It's not a bitter bury at all. It's like, man, that was so great and it's a raghorn and I just won the lottery. I'm a I feel like a millionaire right now because because of how hard we work for that.
Then yeah, yeah, there is that sense of well, there's a lot of times there's a sense of oh what did I just do? Oh no, I'm in trouble. And there's a lot of times I'm by myself too, and that when I when I do that, I pull the trigger or you know, trip the release, and you hear and you know, you hear the bull tip over or whatever, and it's like, oh, no, okay, I guess this just got real. Yeah, yeah, it got real. And then you
rely upon those same people to come help. I've got you know, two or three guys that they will drop their whatever they're doing at work, Like, yep, I'll tell my boss, I'll take a day of vacation come help you pack meat, which is I mean, that's worth more than gold. Yeah, you have people like that.
Yeah, you can't pay for that kind of a friendship like you could offer people, I'll give you five hundred bucks to come pack meat and.
Be like, I'm not doing that. That's crazy. I know where that is. It rains, Yeah, it's raining right now. But at the same time, I've done the same. This past year was one of those years where I had some a couple of bulls. I killed two bulls last fall, one in Montana, one in Idaho, and I needed help with both of them, and I had some buddies that I mean, it was weekdays. It was rent one day, the one in Idaho was raining really hard, wind was blowing. We had to pack this thing uphill up this ridge
through brush. There happened to be a grizzly bear right there in the area that came in that night. Like when we went back in the morning, there was fresh tracks like probably within seventy five yards of the meat pole. Wow, and we all kind of got our spidy senses tingling when we saw that. But the bear didn't get on the meat for some reason. I don't know if the wind was not blowing over to the trail the bear came up, but I mean I could see that from
the track. I could see my meat hanging right there. Wow. So anyway, it was a difficult pack, and these guys pulled through. They were laughing and giggling the whole time. I have a picture of them sitting on the hillside taking a break and they're all just smiling, making jokes. And I asked Ford, like a month, I got a text message from I just settled into my hunting camp. I drove a camp up on top of this mountain.
It was super cold, like ten fifteen degrees out, snowing, early November I think, and I was going mule deer hunting and I was playing on a hiking way out on this ridge in the dark, and so I had a fire going in my TP. I was hanging out and I turned my inReach on and I get a message from my buddy Tyler. He's like, I got we got two bowls down over here, you know, ten fifteen miles up the river from where I was camped, but about a two hour drive. I had to go off
the mountain and down into the valley. And I'm like, well, I mean, my first instinct was like, oh, I'm settled in I'm about to go hunting in the morning. There's I want to shoot a big mule here. I know there's a buck out here, but I told him. My reply was like, yep, what time you want to meet in the morning? Yeah, So yeah, I mean, you just gotta you gotta reciprocate. You know, if you're asking someone to pack for you, you have to be willing to do the same for them anywhere they kill one at
any time. So that's sort of the rule I go by. And it all evens, it all evens out. Ye. Yeah, I love that.
So, Josh, for those who don't know you your personal life, what do you do for a living? Tell our tell our listeners a little bit more about Josh Boyd behind the scenes, beyond the elk hunter.
Yeah. So I work for the US four at Service in the realm of hydrology. So what I do for the forest is I monitor water quality and stream health and analyze for any activities that occur on the forest that will affect or not affect water waters and streams and health of rivers and stuff. And so I do a lot of monitoring the streams stream flows in the
spring and summer. I also measure different like different parameters of a stream channel, like to kind of measure the health or the status of that river channel and to see if it's like functioning properly and looking for disturbances, mostly past disturbances that have occurred historically and then try to like remedy those through some restoration efforts. Like it's
like some stream channel restoration work. So some of the stuff in the summer, we implement projects where we're rebuilding like rivers, like installing like re routing the river in places and rebuilding the riffles and the pools and adding wood and rock and changing the slopes of everything and changing the meander patterns of the river. So that's it's real technical work, but it's super just fun to do, and when you're done, it's incredibly satisfying to see the
end results. You know. It's one of those things where it's like hands on tangible results, and we of course we monitor it over years to see how it's functioning over time. Are the fish populations coming back, are our you know, slope patterns profiles of the river maintaining. Are they staying within this this suite of slopes and dimensions that we built it at and just that's super satisfying stuff, just to see the health of some river systems become
improved over time. So and then in the winter, I do a lot of planning designing for those projects, but I also go out and measure the snowpack for a sister agency. We're a cooperator in the snow survey program, so we collect snow data and send it off to the NRCS. It's like starting in like December through a okay, and so that data is used. We use it to plan projects, plan runoff and just kind of look at
like floods potentials. But the NRCS uses it to like forecast like reservoir volume operations, irrigations, like how much water is going to be available to people later in the summer.
So is some of that data, uh displayed on snowtel Yeah, that's that's exactly what snow survey is.
So the snowtail data is just automated sites that measure the snowpack and give you kind of a real time reading sense of what's up there. And a lot of those sites are fairly high elevation, so it's giving a good information at the upper elevations. But the snow course surveys that we do are all manual measurements, and we'll go out at the end of every month and physically measure it by like stabbing the snow with a snow tube, coreing it and weighing that core to see how much
water is in it. And so we'll measure typically three sites in a drainage area and get a high, low, and medium elevation range to see what's happening up and
down you know the mountain. Okay, so you know what's happening, like you know, some winters we might get real warm storms come in and the snowpack builds up pretty hot, pretty decent up high, but in the valleys it's been raining, so up high, say, like right now, we might be at like where I live, we might be at like seventy five percent of normal up high, and that's what the snowtels are reading. But when you go out and measure the low elevation stuff by hand, they might be
like at thirty five percent. Oh wow, So it kind of gives you an idea like how much snow is out there spread across the landscape. So interesting. Yeah, but yeah, that stuff online is just a good way to look at the snow pack and see where we're potentially sitting. Gives a rough idea. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting stuff.
If you guys ever get bored or wondering about eh my ol cutting spot, look on snowtell and you know, for that real time data, it's kind of interesting. And there's some places that get some incredible like in the better Root mountains get some incredible snow packs and linger a long time. It's just you know, different, and you look at different states. You know, there's snow doesn't linger as long, it doesn't pile up as much, but they
have really they're known for big winners. It's just it's so interesting from one part of the country to another. I think if you if you have any kind of interest in that, you can really geek out on that stuff.
Oh yeah, you can spend hours on it. Yeah that's cool. Yeah. You can look at each individual site and it'll display a graph of like what the maximum amount was ever recorded to that site with the minimum amount, and then what the average is. And it's usually you know, like this nice green line through the graph, and and then it'll plot where you're at for that year as a snowpack builds and where you are compared to that that average line, and it's always changing until you get to
that peak point on the snowpack building. But yeah, it's interesting stuff. It's fun to see where you and it'll also show you where it starts to melt out and what the average melt out point is. So it's good for planning like spring trips. I use it all the time for spring bear hunting. I'll look at it and say, oh, yeah, we're definitely on track to melt out two weeks earlier than normal. It looks like so, and kind of plan accordingly.
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So how did you get into bow hunting for elk? Did you have like a mentor in the beginning or how that'll go?
Yeah, that's a good question. So, I mean, ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to hunt. But my dad didn't bow hunt. He rifle hunted a lot. My dad grew up in Wyoming. My dad and his brother were always hunting elk. They you know, they hunted it up in the window of a range as kids and even you know, into young adults. But then they both moved to Montana and continue to elk hunt, and I would el Count with my dad and my uncle and deer hunt and all sorts of hunting. But my
dad didn't bow hunt. But I really had this fascination with archery gear since I was, you know, five years old, and my grandpa made me a little long bow out of a piece of laminated I don't even know what it was. It's almost looked like plywood. But I just walked around and shot everything I could with that thing. And then I graduated to I traded my buddy down the street a fly rod for a bow, like one of those old Seers compound bows. Oh yeah, I remember those. Yeah.
It was almost like they're made like they're almost like plastic. Yep. It was like a compound bow, but it was like fifty pounds and I couldn't draw. I was a little kid. Yeah, I couldn't draw the dang thing. So I'd like sit on my back and I'd draw it with both hands and put my feet on the riser. I'd shoot arrows out in the field laying on my back. But my parents were like, yeah, you can't be doing that. We're gonna get you a bow that fits. So they ended
up buying me a little Martin Bobcat. Oh. When I was a little kid, little little compound. It was a cool, cute little bows. Yeah. So I and there was my best friend down the street. His dad bow hunted and his older brother bow hunted, and they were kind of known in the community of being like successful elk bow hunters. I mean they'd killed a couple elk. This was we're talking eighties right, when like killing an elk with a bow was unheard of. Nobody was doing it really. Yeah.
It was like if someone got one, they were kind of like put on a pedestal and looked at it as like this hunting hero, he's good. Yeah. So I kind of like my buddy kind of brought me down the street and helped me shoot with him and his brother and his dad, and they kind of helped me out. And there was a point when I could finally draw enough poundage where I felt comfortable to go elk hunting
with a bow. I bow hunted white tails across the street when I was twelve, but I don't think I went elk bow hunting until I was probably like fifteen, Right, I could finally draw enough poundage and I was accurate enough that I could probably shoot an elk, you know, out to twenty twenty five yards, and so I'd go
with my friend Dale and his brother Kenny. His brother Kenny was like, I don't know, we're fifteen, he's probably like twenty okay, Yeah, so he you know, he was out of high school and he's kind of living on his own, had his pickup and he would take us out and he was he was a good caller. But I was just kind of tagging along learning the ropes from those guys. And Kenny would shoot a bull like almost every year, and so he he's a good elk hunter.
But I just didn't get any like real good opportunities at elk when I was with him. But I was just learning the ropes, kind of figured it out. So it was without those guys kind of taking me into their wings, I probably wouldn't have been able to go elk cutting. My dad didn't have a lot of time in September to take me out. My mom was great. She helped me out as much as she could while my dad was off. He did some fire a lot
of fire stuff with the Forest Service. He was a for service guy as well, but he did a lot of like fires. She's always gone in September, but my mom would take me out and like drop me off at my tree stand and then come picked me up
after dark. So I don't white tails when I was younger, but for elk cunning, you know, my mom's not going to drag me up in the mountains and or just dropped me off anywhere, right, So they're super supportive and they let me go out, you know, with the neighbor down the street, my buddy and his dad and his older brother, so those are my mentors of the area. But I just remember, like when I was like eleven ten,
eleven twelve, the neighborhood right behind where I lived. I walked back there one time and one of the local guys rolled in with the elk in the back of his truck, and you know in hole rib cage is split open. He had his bow jammed in there. I just visically remembering those orange eastern arrows and a quiver just sticking out of the rib cave, bear razorheads or what people were shooting back then. Everybody's shooting p s
from the local shop over in the Flathead. So it was like when I saw that, I was like, I want to hunt elk with a bow. I want to get all I want to do, and so I've kind of tried to gear my life towards, like my lifestyle to be able to hunt as much as I can hunt elk. I want to live in places where they're available. I can do it every year, and I can do it as much as possible. Yeah, I think I think I succeeded.
Yeah, Yeah, You've done great. You've built a great life around that. I feel like you're you're your career. Your personal career is a very complimentary field to be in to help you achieve those life goals of being an elk hunter. And it's out in the mountains a lot. You probably see some milk side and you probably make a little mental notes and just having the love of the mountains and outdoors as that's so complimentary.
It's just like you live the dream. Yeah. Yeah. Being able to spend as much time as I do outside is just unbelievable. I mean I get to spend a ton at work and then a lot of my free time i'm out. I mean I probably spend counting time at work and hunting and other activities. You know, it's easily two hundred and fifty days a year I'm outside. Wow, that's awesome. But yeah, it's fun. It's good.
Yeah, your beginning elk story is reminiscent of mine a lot. My dad and uncle. You know, they went elk hunting all the time, rifle hunting. They're never bow hunting. In fact, my dad was always, ah, They'm damn bow hunters. You know, he's just you hear all the stories. You know, they'd find it. Somebody'd find an elk with an arrow in it. You know, it's really hard to tell if you find an elk with a bullet. Sometimes yes, so it's always
you know that. At the time, the bow hunters really got a lot of blame.
And I showed interest to it.
And for as long as I can remember, I wanted to hunt elk and deer and anything, you know, the big game. But elk and deer were on the menu for where I lived in Idaho, and my first encounter with elk in September I was I thought I was gonna shoot a bear at this pond and I was fourteen, and my dad dropped me off like an hour before daylight, and I walk over and get it. Sit next to this pond, i'd been sitting bear tracks. I'm thinking, oh yeah, this bear's gonna come in in the morning the first
light and get some water. I'm gonna get him. And I sit there and hear a bunch of brush pop, and out pops these these cow elk and a raghorn bowl, and they come over and get a drink, and the bowl goes out in the pond and splashes around. And I'm like twenty yards from these things, leaning up against a tree with my rifle, hunting elk or hunting bears, and they wander off, and I was about ready to explode, like I have got to get to town and buy buy some arrows. I had a bow at the time,
a yard sale bow I'd bought. It was like a bear Kodiak Magnum fifty pound. But I didn't even have a good arrow to shoot out of it. I didn't even know if I could hit the broadside of a barn. But I'm like, my dad, come picked me up. I'm like, Okay, we got to go to town. We got to buy some arrows. We gotta get broadheads and an elk tag and I'm gonna come back tomorrow. I'm gonna shoot this elk. He's like, you're not shooting an elk with a bow. You can't kill elk with a bow. I said, yes,
you can. I know people, there's the same thing. There's those guys in the community, like they get an elk pretty often with a bow and it can be done. And he's like, no, I'm not doing it. I was so pissed. I was so deflated. I was so mad. That's about the only thing good going I had going. You know, we didn't have anything fun to do. I lived in a town of eight hundred people in North Idaho. There's nothing to do. We didn't have video games. We didn't have I mean, you might get to watch Gilligan's
Island at three o'clock in the afternoon. That was about the highlight of your day, right. I was just like, I was so crushed. I'm like, well, I told him myself, well, next year, I'm working all summer, I'm making my own money and I'm gonna buy my own bow and everything.
He's like, okay or whatever.
So anyway, I got I worked hard, bought my bow, bought a brand new compound bow, bought all the arrows, bought my Easton Orange arrows, XEX seventy five. I had a high Country Trophy hunter bow built in Lowist in Idaho.
Yep. Yeah, that was a big local brand for sure.
Yeah. Bought some camo and my dad's like, wow, you're really serious about this. I didn't squander a penny on anything other than hunting stuff. Bought some diaphragms and bugle tube and he's like, I'll tell you what if you kill an elk, you kill a bull elk, I'll pay it back for all everything you spent. I'd spend it, I don't know, five hundred bucks, which was a lot, a lot of butt money for you know, a fifteen year old kid had been.
Bucking hay bales all summer, sweating like a dog, you know.
And fast forward like third day a season. I bugle in this bowl and shoot it, kill it, and my mom took me out, you know, she's she We had elk close to town, though, so I didn't have to hunt the mountains man. We were down the low country and my mom she was sitting and pick up waiting for me, and she could.
Hear the whole thing.
Me get this bowl, bugle, and she heard all the exchange and then everything went quiet, and then I come back to the truck.
I'm like, I got it, So.
I sent awesome, Yeah, I sent her back to town to get my dad. And she's like, well, get your come along and you're five hundred bucks. They're just shot a bull elk And he's like, no, he didn't, he did, so he grat We had this old beater truck we used to haul firewood in, so we wood truck, wood truck, so four wheel drive.
He brought that.
He had this big change driven come along, you know, and we went. We found the bowl, We recovered the bowl, gut it out. We were able to pull the truck right up to it, load that sucker hole, you know, with the color loaded a hole. And uh, I don't think I ever ever seen my dad so proud, you know. Ever, he was so pumped. He paid. He made it good on the deal, paid me and but local, you know I talk about mentors. You know, I didn't have a lot of mentors. There were some of those guys in
the community. One of my high school teacher I had, uh mister powers. He was.
He taught physical.
Science and math and calculus and all this stuff. And I wasn't one of the smart kids. I didn't take any calculus I had, like I think I had like general math and physical science. So but he was just a dick at school, Like he was just he he kind of talked funny, and he talked fast, and he's kind of hard to understand and and the kids kind of gave him a hard time and he man, he would get mad and just kind of he's a little
bit of a dick. But one day, it was like right after Labor Day weekend, he brought a big.
L crack in.
He's like, I got this bowl, shot this bowl with my bow. And I was like, mister Powers is cool. I think he might be cool. So I went over his house after school one day. I'm like, hey, can I can I shoot your target out here? And he had a target out in his yard. So that that was the year before I started bow hunting. So then he's like, yeah, you can shoot my target.
So I practiced.
I'd go shoot his target, and he'd tell me elk hunting stories about you know, calling in bulls, and and he'd get to he'd get to telling the story and he just started cussing like a sailor, like this mother effort, this yeah, he was dropping like like he had the horrendous language, right, And I was like.
Oh goll, this guy's so cool.
And I and for years, you know, for decades after that, I'd go I'd just go visit him and his wife sitting in their house and visit and so he would I would call him a mentor. And another guy I had of this friend growing up, my agent, his dad. Him and his dad we were into archery big time. And his dad, it's a very accomplished tournament, had shot a lot of elk with a bow. And this is in the eighties in Idaho, the heyday, right. I thought, this guy is like pretty much god a elk hunting yep.
So I'm like, Rick, you got to tell me how help me out here? I got to I'm trying to learn how to call elk and how do you do it? And he's like he's like, I bugle a lot different than everybody else. I'm like, oh my god, this is
this is gonna be great. My brother in law, Randy, who was my best friend at that time when we were growing up in high school, he was there with me and we're just all ears are just like just hanging on his every word and he's like he's like, well, most people they take their tube and they when they bugle, they kind of go to the left.
I go to the right with my tube. And he was just like dead ass serious.
And I'm like okay, and I'm waiting for the rest of it. And that was it. And I looked at Randy. I'm like, we've been had this guy don't know shit about calling ELK. So okay, cool man'll see you later. So we got we had our tubes and her calls and just would blow them constantly, NonStop. My dad and
now were cutting firewood. One time I was blowing blowing my oak tube and pretent a whole bunch of ravens came in, like like ten ravens just came flocking in and like ah, like in the tree and they they stopped and pushed in the trees and were looking down. I'm just ripping bugles and I'm like, I don't think that's a good thing.
I'm calling it ravens something. I think something's dying over here. Oh that's too funny. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah. It was like learning to call was one of those things that like you just some guy, well, well, When I started, people were voice bugling a lot, Yes, carrying PVC plants. They spray painting them. Some of them had special little bit'd heat them up with the torch and put a little bend in, oh to get the sound waves that travel differently or something to a lot of voice bugling.
And then the diaphragm came along, and then we know how that turned out. Yeah, it's changed, change, change the sport for sure. Yeah.
My brothers had a friend named Harley and he was he was a big bowhunter too, and he was telling me about he was one of those voice buglers with the PBC.
Pipe and he's telling me about bugle. This buls along my throat bread. You know.
He was one of the guys that would inhale, you know bugle. Yes, it almost sounds like he was calling hogs. That's the way I had the voice bugle. I couldn't do I couldn't do it blowing out. I had to like suck in and it.
I could do it. So she as a teenage boy, it was a lot easier, but as an adult, No, no, it hurts my throat. I do it. I try to do it every now and then.
And if you like even if you grab your your trachea and constrict it a little bit, it'll help the sound. But I ended up like coughing a little bit, and it sounds like I'm trying to squeal like a hog or something.
Right. It just sounds terrible.
But so tell me, are you are you a do you rely on calling a lot or are you more of a spot in stock do you kind of do a hybrid? What's your go to? That's a little different thing.
Yeah, So I mean where I the local herds that I haunt. I'm a caller. It's thick, it's brushy, heavy, deep timber, and if they're not talking, it's really hard to kill an elk. So I rely on calling when I'm hunting local, local elk. I've haunted elk in a bunch of places, and I find that the more open ground there is, the less I call, and the more I rely on just dogging, just kind of shadowing a
herd or shadowing bugles, working in close. Some of the bigger bulls I've killed my bow have been in more open country, like you know, east side of mont Towna or central part of Montira southwest, a lot less timbers, timber just more patchy. They spend more time in the open, so you can get visuals on them. You can see where they're going to bed, you can you can hear them in their beds, or you can hear them when
they get up from their beds. So I tend to do a lot of like just strategic dogging, placement of myself between them and where they want to go, or just you know, creeping in next to the herd and hoping the activity of the chase will will bring them in. So I kind of rely on a little bit of both when I'm hunting that more open country and places where there's more elk. You can just you can get by with not calling as much. It's not I'll locate a lot of times and then I'll sneak in. But
I love to call elk. I mean, it's one of my favorite things to do. And I love calling brush brush country bulls like some of that brushy stuff you know in western Montana or you know central North or North Idaho. All that stuff is, it's thick, it's steep, and man, you'll have a bowl fifty yards away and you can't see them, you can hear them. You know, they're coming and you don't know what it is. And I think that's a big part of the draw for me is I don't know what it is till it
shows up, and then it's always a surprise. Sometimes, you know, you'll call a bull in or you'll think you're on like a small bull because they're being timid and they're squealing, and next thing you know, it's just this dinosaur just turns this turns his attitude on and spins around. It is like I've had enough and we'll just growl on your face and push through the brush and it's like, oh my god, this was the bull I was chasing. I thought I was just going to try to kill
this rag horn up here. But yeah, I like to call. That's my preferred method. But I try to be well rounded as much as I can. Yeah. I like to be as good a hunter as I possibly can. And if I silo myself into like one particular technique, then I don't know. I don't so I'm all that well rounded.
Yeah, Yeah, I like that. I think that's super important and for for folks to realize is, yeah, calling will take you so far in a certain type of train. But like you you mentioned that that open country. Yeah, you definitely it's great to locate and stuff, but you're probably gonna have to do a lot more shadowing, a lot more strategic movement without calling. Maybe you call again when when the time is right, right, but maybe not. It's just being smart hunt smarter, right. I think some
people kind of don't understand that. They think, oh, well, I can just I can see those up from you know, five hundred yards away across this open country. I'm just gonnall call him and call him in. But more of times than than not, then they're probably gonna go the other way because they can see there's no elk over there, right, but he's it's almost like a chess game or or some kind of a poker game. I'm like, you got to really hold your cards tight until the time's right.
Yeah, And I think that, you know, in that open country, there's there's just more elk, and there's just those bulls don't really they don't care that much about the other bulls. They're just more concerned on what that herd's doing. So they're not they're just they don't I mean, they're callable for sure, but they're just not as concerned with another bull coming into the herd to check stuff out, They're like, oh, that guy's way over there. I'm not worried about him
at all. Right, the cows are right here in front of me. I just got to sneak in there and peel one off, right. So yeah, in the in other places where it's thicker and there's less elk densities, there's just not as many elks, so the bulls are more susceptible to, Like, all right, i've got these two cows. I'm keeping that bull out of here. I'm going to be more susceptible. He's going to be more susceptible to going over to a call.
I feel, yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree with that. Do you think how much just elk hunting changed since you started, especially archery l hunting? How much has it changed? And you think technology, how is it affecting? Is there any kind of technology you're concerned about?
Like, I mean, yeah, I mean there's always that slow creep of technology and changing. It's hard to tell how it's changing and how quick it's going to come, or even to foresee that it's going to change it until it actually happens. But I mean it just seems like there's like there's been a slow creep of electronics on on bows. You know, there's been some state I know there's states at outlaw like electronic sites and stuff like that.
There was one I think Garment made one where it had a rangefinder'er built in and it would a pin would light up at the range and it just it made to me, it's like that's just it's kind of taken away the I don't know, some of the art of bow hunting. Yeah, and bow hunting to me, is supposed to be hard. It's not supposed to be efficient. Yeah, I kind of like a little bit of struggle to go along with it. Don't get me wrong. I like
to kill elk and I don't. I want to make sure I do it efficiently, but that just means I need to shoot effectively, and I limit myself. I don't need to shoot at eighty yards. I'm not effective at eighty yards. I can do it, but I'm not going to kill anything efficiently. So I don't know. I think just there's a little bit of I don't know, there's stuff in the zeitgeist out there right now that people think they need to shoot long distance, and I think it would be nice if people would just kind of
dial that back a little bit. It's great to practice at long distance, it's great to be proficient. It makes shooting something at thirty yards a slam dunk. And I think just so just that slow creep of technology is changing things, not saying it's good or bad, but as soon as bohunters start to become like more effective at killing animals, they're going to the fishing game. Agencies are gonna try to dial that back some way. They might they might put equipment restrictions in place, or they might
just start issuing fewer tags. So I don't know. I just think that the creep of technology is it's slow and steady, and it's hard to hard to tell what it's doing until it actually kind of happens and it kind of comes into comes into fruition and more focus. You know, people start to realize what's going on around them. So that's that's changed a lot. I mean, technology in archery equipment has changed tremendously since I was a kid. Yeah, and I started, But so is rifle. Yeah, technology, and
is it good is it bad? I don't know, it's hard to say, it seems like I don't know, it seems like the success right for archery hunters hasn't changed that much. No, I think the elk have kind of adapted to people's techniques, right, I don't know. I know they're not as callable as they were right back in the day, so they're just more tuned in too, like people's hunting styles and the dangers that are out there. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I agree with all that.
I agree, like absolutely, you should practice eighty yards and one hundred yards and become super confident and super proficient with your gut or your bow that way. You know, those thirty yard shots are just they're just a slam dunk. Forty yard shots of a slam dunk. But a lot of a lot of us practice in our backyards on a very controlled environment. You know, the distance, it's e you're comfortable, there's no pressures.
You go out.
It's like, yeah, I'm really feeling like shooting, you know, and I feel like shooting long distance today. And man, you know, I was shooting my bowl and I can hit good at one hundred yards or one hundred and twenty yards or you know, the sites and the technology we have today for these bows. You know, we can get the slider sites, we can you know, move them
and do all this these crazy accurate shots. But I will say this, I've been to a lot of these elk training camps where we have shooters there, you know, whether they're season vets or people who are new, and when they sign up, they have to put down what's your maximum effective range? And some guys will be like fifty yards, some guys will be like seventy yards, some guys thirty yards. So day one we say, okay, hey guys. You we guys wrote down a number. We're here at
the archery range. Got your bows?
Cool?
You call them out. Hey, Josh, you said you could you could shoot effectively to eighty yards. We're standing eighty yards right now. There's the elk target. I want you to draw your bow back and shoot, make a killing shot on this elk. And you got thirty other people standing there looking at you, judging you, wondering about you.
The pressure's on.
Dirk pulls out his cell phone and starts videoing you for about six inches away to make you uncomfortable. Okay, you said eighty Let's do it at fifty. You know, we're just gonna start at fifty. We're gonna help you out. We start at fifty. I don't know how many times like it the fifty yard mark, but most of the class said, you know, fifty yards they're dynamite. Sometimes they don't even hit the target, and if they do, it's like in the ass or in the neck, or you know, they
barely hit it. You know, very few are lethal killing shot. And the whole point that we're trying to get at is what we're trying to like get that like dose of reality. You know, you're here in comfortable clothes on a flat ground. It is uncomfortable to shoot in front of people. It's intimidating. There is a we have We've raised your heart rate, You've we've made you uncomfortable. You couldn't make the shot. You think you can execute that you said you can execute. So let's let's get real
with ourselves. Let's let's take a closer look at ourselves. And I think a great way to do this is go to like events like tack. Yes, you know you're one. You're like such true life type shots. And there's some shots that stretch out like hey, there mister, mister accuracy guy, we got eighty yards straight downhill thirty degrees or whatever through the loge pole, through lodge powle.
Go ahead and take that shot.
Yeah, And it's astounding of how tough those shots are. And there's some people that can make they're they're still great, but still that's a foam target. The factor in this is day seven of a hunt. You're dehydra You just you just sprinted three hundred feet straight up this hill to a bugling bowl. You're out of breath, your heart rates pounding, you have a pack on your back, and here comes the biggest bull you've ever seen.
In your life.
And if your wife told you, if you come home without it, without any elk meat, you're a dead man. You can't tell me there's any more pressure than that, right, how about that eighty yard shot?
Yeah? I feel like you have to like police ourselves.
And look internally and be like, we can only take the most ethical shots that we know that we're gonna put that that elk down quickly and humanly.
And even on.
Good shots, they throw thirty yard shots, twenty yard shots, they can go awrye Yes, easy chip shots can go awry through no fault of the shooter. But things happen. Elk move, They're a living animal. They can't whurl, they can move, they can they can do something different than you anticipated and make an easy good shot into a bad one. And now we have a tough tracking job. And if you're eighty yards, all that stuff just amplifies.
So I think everybody just needs to really be honest and and and really look eternally, like, you know, I want to have a good experience at this I want to have I want to have a best hunt ever, and I don't want to taint it with taking bad shots.
Yeah, no, I hear you. I try to be conservative with my shots. I mean that being said, I've made bad shots, but you know what the ones I have made have been like kind of like get that stretched out distance. Yeah where? And when I say bad shots, I'm talking like a shoulder right, you know, seems pretty superficial.
You know, at the end of it, I'll always follow up regardless, you never know, but you know it, usually those shoulder shots end up in being a bull walking away, probably sore, maybe a little tender in that front shoulder, but never it's never fatal. I've never seen them be fatal, and it's like you just have to like step back and reevaluate, like, Okay, what went wrong? Why did I like, why did I feel I could take that shot? And what am I going to do different next time? Yeah?
So back to your mentorship and people who got you into hunting, and did you have someone who instilled ethics and etiquette into your hunting persona. Did you have somebody that like your was it your dad, your uncle or grandpa, or maybe you're one of your mentor friends down the street that said, hey, this kind of behavior is unacceptable. We only do this kind of hunting etiquette to other hunters, we only take these ethical shots.
Or this is what ethics are all about.
Did you have somebody mentoring you with that or did you kind of have that internal thing where just maybe the way you were raised as a kid that they kind of set that bar for you.
Yeah, I mean I think it was a little both. I mean the way I was raised by my parents is well, I mean they're very ethical people, but you know, as a kid, you kind of always are a little bit rebellious and you kind of want to, you know, kind of push away from your your parents' thoughts and ideas and whatnot. But peer pressure is a big one. I mean that drives ethics. For sure, you kind of
behave like your peers, especially when you're a teenager. Sure, but like some of the ethics I learned from, like my best friend down the street and his older brother and his dad. One of the biggest things was like hunting spots are sacred. Yes, well, we're going to take you here and we're going to enjoy hunting with you, and you, you know, have as much fun as you want, but don't bring anybody else here, and don't tell anybody else that you're hunting here. And if you do want
to come back, ask yeah. I mean it's public land. Everybody has the right to go hunt there, but not everybody knows where to go hunt. So just don't don't spread the word. If you want to go back there, hunt ask us, and you know we'll say yay or nay. But I've kind of lived, I've taken that to like the next step. It's like I never try to invite myself on a hunt with anybody, and I try not to, like, uh, go back if I get taken to a spot, even
to this day. Man. That's like I was brought there as a guest, and I'm going to treat it as that. I'm not going to go back and trump do that area without that person like saying yeay or nay. Yeah, man, I've done. I've been back to places that I've been shown by other people, but I'll call them up say hey, man, do you mind if I go in there back? And right, you know, we're I know we're hunting in there together in archery season, but I was thinking of going in
there for rifle. Are you okay with that? Yeah? Oh yeah, go for it. So I yeah, it's sort of that.
That's the big ethic in my area is like if you're shown a spot that's not your spot, you're a guest, You're more than welcome to Gohna, but please just you know, ask And even like some of my best friends were that way still yeah, so and yeah, I kind of learned that from the folks down the street and my you know, my best friend Dale, and you know, there's been some stuff that like you see stuff in the community of people doing sketchy stuff, and you hear people
doing sketchy stuff and I don't know, I you just tend to develop, like ethics. As you age too, you kind of realize that, you know the repercussions of your actions and how they affect everything, and they really affect your, uh,
your reputation. Like as I got older and it became more successful as a hunter, you know, I started thinking, it's like, man, I can't I can't make a mistake, Like like I if if I if I got busted for like shooting something after hours or you name it, shooting something out of the truck of my you know, my truck, which is illegal, it would like people would be like that, dude, everything that you've done up to that point is now suspect, Like your whole record is
now suspect. Like oh, yeah, I knew that guy was shady he shoots out of his truck, or yeah, he trespasses and everything he kills is on private kind of you know, So you just yeah, I just I just kind of came to that conclusion, like your reputation is everything, and once it's soiled, it's hard to get it back. So don't soil it and just try to be as ethical as possible. Make mistakes happen, honest mistakes happen. Absolutely.
There's some people that do stuff nefariously, like and they're doing it on purpose and trying to break the laws, trying to trying to weasel their way into success, and it's just I don't know, I just don't want to like have this animal tainted by any of that. Like one of these animals I kill, I just don't want them tainted by cutting corners right to speak. So, I don't know, I've just developed that as I've aged, for sure. It's just been one of those changes in my mindset, like, yeah,
your reputation is super important at least mine is. I feel like it.
Yeah, yeah, I have a lot of Yeah, I've I've so I have a lot of self respect for myself to where I don't want to do stuff to make I want to be able to hold my head high and people to.
Be like, hey, there's there's Dirk. Hey he's a good guy. I don't want to be like, oh, hey there's.
That asshole it yeah poached, right, he did all this crazy stuff, he did all you know, all these things it's like people would look down on I don't want to be known for that.
Yeah. Yeah, And I I know, like you know, I've been fairly successful hunting, you know, elk and deer and black bears and whatnot. And I've heard rumors in the community about myself, which I find quite funny. But I've heard, oh, he shot that white tail over bait, or he totally shot that in the spot. I mean, it's like, dude, it's when you do stuff legit, the rumors still calm, right, And if you got caught doing something illegal, it's only gonna like be magnified. Everybody's told you so yeah, I
told you, I knew it. I knew it. Yeah, yep. So the guys that I hunt with, I you know, they're all super ethical, they're all very restrained on how they operate in the in the mountains. And yeah, we just try to do the same. We try to act the same and and feed off of one another.
I've I feel like right now, every year there gets to be there's growing more and more division in the hunting community, and I think a lot of it is around ethics and etiquette, and I feel like a lot some of it, maybe all a lot of it is.
To blame to a lot of these the new.
Adult onset hunters who haven't had that mentor to guide, to guide them, you know, to say, hey, you know, we don't do this. That's not cool, to treat another hunter this way, or to take these kind of shots, that's that's not acceptable. You know. They don't have grandpa or the guy down the street that's telling them, hey, this is the right way to do it. You don't
do it that way. Maybe they didn't have the an upbreaming where mom and dad you know, taught them right from wrong right, but now they found interest in hunting as an adult. And lately I dwell and I think of I think on this a lot, like the turmoil and the division and hunting, and I feel like people need to really think about instead of like tearing each other down and beating each other other up, especially on public on social media, instead of doing that like what what can we do?
Well?
What I can do? What you can do? And I think it's like, hey, be that mentor that you always had or that you maybe wish you had but you kind of had to learn the hard way. Be that mentor to some new hunters. Maybe there maybe it's a forty year old person, fifty year old person is just getting in the hunt, but they don't have that point of reference and understand those ethics and etiquette, help them out right teach them, tell them, yeah, i'll take you hunting,
but it's it's a sacred spot. If I catch you in my spot, it I'll kill you. You bring somebody up here, it's going to be bad. Whatever. However you how are you going to explain it to them? But let them know that's unacceptable and that's that's that's what's accepted among the whole hunting hunting crowd. And I think if we can help help each other mentoring out if you're in a position to mentor do it. And sometimes we're really guarded, I think as hunters because we don't
want to share any of our secrets. But maybe sharing the right secrets and sharing some some things with people in a positive light on how to act and how to behave in the woods would go a long ways. And I think I want I really want to kind of like really almost start a movement. I don't know
if I want to. I don't want to start the movement, but I really want to open that conversation and people that listen to this, I really want them to like think about that and kind of think you know, I could probably do better helping people out, being better, I think. I think I think we all just need to start treating each other better. Yeah, because anti hunters looking at us, they're like, look at these jokers, we can take them
down so easy. They're two so busy bickering with themselves about stupid shit that they're an easy target.
Yeah, we really are. I mean competitive, I mean hunting is competitive if by nature, especially when you start throwing multiple people out into the same area going, you know, chasing a limited resource. And I think if people people
just need to be more polite to one another. I mean that's what it all comes down to, just being polite and just more just, I guess, more aware of like what other people are thinking, feeling, doing, and uh, I don't know, just kinda just take a step back and and think about how you would want to be treated in that situation. Yeah, I mean, because it is getting competitive out there, and people do some kind of crazy stuff. Some people lose their mind over I mean elk, especially,
people really lose their mind over ELK. They'll do some dumb, dumb stuff to get an ELK. I mean, they're hard to kill, they're hard to they're hard to come by, and some guys only get an opportunity once every so many years, and they will just they will push their grand kid out of the way to shoot a bull, you know, get white kid up shooting. Yeah. So yeah, it's almost like a fever takes over. They lose their mind.
I've seen it. I've seen guys do it. But I think if you just people become a little more just self aware and aware of other people, I think it would go a long way. I mean it's a good starting point. Maybe. Yeah, But man, I see some stuff online, some bickering going on and just some shots low blows back and forth, name calling. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. People get so heated. Yeah. Yeah, well we're all passionate about it. Yeah.
Sometimes, like let's say you had to have something to say online and push pause for a minute, think about it, put your phone down for a little bit, think about it, and be like, how can I tell this other person they're an idiot without telling them they're an idiot and have give them something.
To take away of value.
If I call you an idiot and you're to your face or just on social all you're gonna do is I'm gonna walk away.
You're gonna walk away mad.
Escalate it, yeah, or escalate it, or if I try to have that conversation like hey, you know, I understand maybe where you're coming from, but did you think of this or that? And just try to maybe maybe put your opinion out there in in a polite way to where it's non confrontational, but for them to to think about that. I think I feel like you are really
good at like those kind of conversations. Me and you hear at the show have had some conversations I kind of get off the track a little bit and like
I start like getting pretty opinion. I start from an opinion, and you're like, yeah, oh yeah, and what did you you know there's another thing to think about this and that we're talking about wolves and habits and help dying and all this stuff, and and it's so easy to get really ingrained into this this my set, and it's so good and refreshing to have someone point out another point of view in a thought process in a constructive way that someone starts thinking about it like you know what,
he ain't wrong, And pretty soon I think it caused you to think deeper. You know, if you're the opinionated guy that's kind of trying to, you know, get a little bit puffed up. So if if you want to correct someone and help them out, maybe don't call him an idiot or a jackass.
It'd be better to like give them, give them another way.
To think about something in a polite way, maybe like your grandpa might have done, or maybe your favorite person would give you a different way of think to think about something. That's how real change happens. That's how real that's how relationships build. Yeah, yeah, I mean putting people on the fan.
I mean when you start just attacking somebody, immediately put them on the fence, and you're not going to change their mind, right, I get that way. I mean, it's just it's how things get delivered to me, makes me if I if I if it's livered a certain way, I can stop and think about it. And I always I try to be very open minded with different thoughts and ideas. Yeah, I'll try to think about it as
much as possible. But yeah, attacking somebody, it never works. No, it's like trying to It's like trying to convince your grandpa that he's wrong. Yeah, you know, when people get so like conditioned in their mindset. It's just like, well, hear him out, think about what they said, and maybe just throw out something that they might not have ever thought about. Try to throw it out in a way that they'll they have to chew on it for a little bit.
Yes, yeah, and I'm for all all transparency. I'm not going to try to set up on a pulpit here and say I've never been that other guy at the hot head. I'm all hot headed, you know, and I've probably said some things online before that It's like, you know, that was that was kind of kind of an asshole. I probablyhouldn't have said that, But I'm trying to have more self awareness. And if I can't, if I can't
change me, how can I change anyone else? So I think all of us can take that look in how do we change things for the better in ourself and our fellow sportsmen?
Yeah, yeah, but I agree, I think we need to be more unified, because you know, we're not the antis are going to be antis. They're going to attack, and they've got their their techniques on how they're going to
go about change. But the way they're starting to change things is they're bringing stuff in front of the voters, and you have to realize the majority of the voters are not anti hunters, they're not pro hunters, they're neutral, and we need to we need to figure out how to convince them to vote against the anti's agendas that they're pushing through. Super important. I mean, the majority of people kind of have a favorable look at hunting until it looks unfavorable or until it's in a spotlight that
looks nasty, gross, tantacky. There's some stuff here at the show that I walk around and look at, like, dude, if some neutral media that we're just kind of like, I want to see what this is all about and put it online or put it on the local news network. It's like, do they need to see Iguana's getting shot in the head, Monkey's getting shot in the head with an air gun on a big screen on the back of the of the convention center. That is not a
good look. Now I has something that you know, I don't know the context of what that stuff was filmed in, but it just has a bad look, and it's like, let's just maybe keep that stuff to ourselves. I'm not saying censoring, but we just need to think about our image and how it's present to the non hunters, because those are the people who are going to decide the antis are going to vote, you know, for their ballot
initiatives every time. Right, It's like, how are we going to convince the rest of the general public who are non hunters? How how are we going to convince them to vote for us? Right and preserve what we have because this, I mean is super important we continue this North American model wildlife management. It's like what drives this whole industry right here that we're sitting at. But it also it's more than that. I don't the industry is whatever. It's for me. It's like how I maintain my sanity
in life. Yes, I need to go to the mountains and hunt every year. I need to spend this time by myself thinking through problems of life and working through stuff that's occurred and how I've treated people in the past. That all gets worked out in my mind and I typically come out with some type of resolution in my brain like Okay, now I think I might be a better person and I would handle that differently. And when
you're hiking around doing stuff, you're not just thinking about hunting. No, you're thinking about all sorts of stuff, and it's just a way to just yeah, it kind of like grounds yourself back to like who you really are, what's really important. Yeah, yeah, So anyway, I need that. And if hunting seasons go away or they get reduced, trimmed down to the bare bones,
maybe you know we can only do it. Say, if you could only elcunt once every five years, because the permits are cut back so much that you know you have to draw for them that. I don't know what I'd do. I'd be hurt. I think I would just start doing drugs. I might be down here on the sidewalk living, you know, in rags. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, I don't know. There's there's something to it that keeps my sanity.
And those shocking videos and stuff. For us, people who have hunted their whole lives, we've seen animals die, if we've seen them dye our own hand, we're not as sensitive to those things, right, But for non hunting people who have never experienced this lifestyle, it's very shocking. They've never seen a wild animal, any kind of animal die in real life, and to see one die and and maybe a manner that's not super respectful.
That is that's hard to watch. It's hard to.
See, and I would I have to think it gives people immediately like, like you said, you use the word gross, they would say, that's gross, that's that, that's shocking, right, that that made me feel something inside And I don't ever want to see that again. And I don't agree with that. Unfortunately, that all gets slumped in with all and all hunting in general. So I think, yeah, you just got to be mindful of it.
Is it legal? Yes? Right? Should everybody see it? It's not.
It's maybe not for everybody to see, right, Maybe it's maybe you want to show people that you got to go into a little area that's just not blasted all over the whole show, right, or you know.
Keep it amongst your friends, the ones that be fun or cool to see.
But yeah, the stuff, just keep it tasteful, Yeah, keep it tasteful, keep it keep it classy, you know, like the like yeah, like the pin up girls of the fifties. Right, that's completely different than what's going on with that type of material these days.
Yes, back in the fifties it was a little risk gay.
It's pretty classy today there's some real nasty stuff. Yeah, so yeah, thinking of mind, And also, how how would you how would you go into you know, like local church and are using a bunch of foul language and be very insulting and be very revolting to a lot of the people in there.
You wouldn't.
So if you have that like restraint in a setting, then why would you talk like that in another public setting or show things in a public setting that could be of ex offensive to people who didn't know about hunting. So just I just think you should keep it classy. Yep, I agree. So if you could tell your twelve year old Josh anything about elk hunting, if you could go back and say, Josh, here's I'm from the future, here's some information, what would you tell yourself?
Oh man, Well, one, I would tell myself build points wherever you can ear. But as far as just like general l hunting, I would probably tell myself just be prepared to work hard and success is gonna come if you do that. And I would I would give myself the information of like, all right, stretching yourself out and doing hard hunts is mental, so just work on figuring out how to like get more mentally comfortable hunting elk, like way in the back country, and you're gonna have
more bulls. You're going to kill more bulls if you can do that. So, I mean, those are the things that when I first started, like getting away from the road and the truck was like, we're way out here. This is if we get an elk, what are we going to do? I didn't realize. I mean, I hadn't killed her many elk when I was you know, I killed my first elk when I was like thirteen with a rifle and it was a cow, and we mean
we got elk out hole. My uncle managed a ranch down in southwest Montana, so I got to go hunt that ranch in rifle season, and I did hunt it a couple times in both season after I got like a little older. But I mean elk we killed down there, we'd go shoot them out in the sage brush, you know, as they're coming up out of the meadows in the morning, heading up to the timber, and we'd just go pick them up in the truck. So everything came out hole
right to hang them up with the tractor, skin them. Sure, they had to walk in cooler we'd hang them in there while we were down there. It was awesome. It's awesome, unbelievable. But when I started hunting on my own off in other places, I just didn't realize like how much work it was going to be. And I was scared. I knew how much work it would be, but I was just scared of putting that much work into it and
how punishing it could be. And so I think I definitely limited myself on where I would go and how far I would go. And it wasn't a good elk country I would hunt, So I would probably tell myself, Man, it's not that hard work at it, and it's gonna you're gonna be successful, more successful. Yeah, So that's what i'd want for for the young Josh be more successful when he's younger. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Man.
This has been a great conversation. Yeah, but a lot of people find you on it on Instagram. You still you're still writing.
So I do gear reviews for Rockslide, So you can find me on Rockslide, which is you know, kind of gear backcountry centric kind of discussion forums. It's a forum with like gear reviews and articles like on the homepage, but it's mostly just like a forum. Yeah, so you can find me there user names just Josh Boyd. There's articles on the main page you can find that I've written, you know, shelters, backpacks. I do a lot of gear reviews on like backcountry gear, yeah, which I love. You know,
I'm got gear geek. So you can find me there, and you can find me on Instagram. I've reluctantly been on social media. I remember years ago, you and I were talking at Attack and You're like, are you on Instagram? Like, no way, Derek, It's like you should get on it. I'm like, I don't know. And that might have been like the next year Brinker and Ryan Holme for Mystery Ranch both kind of talked to me about it's like you should get on it, Like okay, so I'm on it. Yeah.
Back then, it was a whole different, different world.
Instagram was like cool pictures and yeah, the little little stories and stuff peopled right and have photography was king and that's what I loved about that.
That's what kind of got me. That's what kind of convinced me. It's like, I like looking at cool images from people that I you know, respect and have you know, they have a lot of talent, and now it's like ads and videos and just stupid stuff so shallow. Now yeah I hate it. Yeah, but you too.
It's one of those those uh those things necessary evils, yes they call it.
So yeah. Yeah, what's your what's your your handle on Instagram Josh underscore boyd underscored MT. Maybe something like that. I could look but a bit. If you looked at if you just wrote in Josh Boyd MT as in Montana, you'd probably find me.
There'll probably be a few guys on skateboards in the city, though with that same name there might be no just could Oh man, thanks so much for taking the time to join me here. It's been been a great, great pleasure catching up and then recording this podcast.
Yeah, it's been great. I've loved our conversations this whole week. So yeah, awesome, this has been a good one. Yeah, we'll travel safe back home. Thanks. Thanks and