Ep. 93: Picking a Campsite

camp when you're out cutting. It's a question that I got asked, probably more than most things like where do I camp? You know, or you say you spot some milk in the night before in the basin? Where should I set up my tent, or where's the most strategic place to stay? How will I know that I'm not going to be blowing elk out when I'm camping. I

constantly received these kind of questions. So on this week's podcast, I'm gonna break down everything you'll need to know about hunting camp locations, the types of camps, location options, and how to assess a camp spot based on some key factors. But before we do that, I want to share the story of a deer hunt and what I called a punishment hike back to camp. On this particular hunt, it was an early season archery mule deer hunt. My buddy

Mike and I had applied as a party. I think my brother Jason also is in a party with us now. When it comes to the mule dear, I get fairly picky on the type of deer I want to shoot. I like to go out. I like, if I've got a lot of time, I like to hunt for a really big buck. And this particular year, I had quite a bit of time before guiding to go out and hunt for myself. So Mike's work schedule didn't really allow him to go out at the beginning of the season.

So I went out to the area and just started hunting solo, and then he was going to join me um when he got some time off work. So I was about the first I don't know, maybe seven or ten days. I was hunting by myself and hunting really hard, but I just did not see a buck that I wanted to stock. I had hunted like the entire week and not really put on a stock on anything because I was seeing a lot of deer, but just nothing

of the caliber that I had seen in that area before. Now, this area was kind of like had varying train but fairly high altitude. You could go up to over twelve thousand feet in the valley floor is probably around five to seven thousand feet, and kind of hunting in this

mid range of that seven to eight thousand feet. But there was a backcountry area that I wanted to explore, but I figured i'd wait till I wasn't sure exactly what day Mike was going to come in, because if he could get off work early, he would come in early. So I figured I'd hunt stuff that I liked to hunt, and then when he came in, we could then both pack into the wilderness and check out some other spots. So Mike gets into camp and uh, we hunt around.

I show him a few of the deer that I had seen, and and just you know, it was like, I have we found anything that I want to stalk? So he's like, well, let's go into the world. And I was like, yeah, sweet, sounds good. So we packed up our bags and started hiking in early the next morning. It was a pretty good it's a pretty good climb in there. I think we started probably around seven thousand feet elevation that is where we parked, and we hiked

up to over twelve thousand feet. So we hike up over and go through this saddle, get on this pass, and we start glassing for the evening and I'm glassing kind of back down. We've got our plan is just kind of like bivvy sacks, so we've got all of our food, our camp everything with us, and we're just gonna camp as we go. The first night, we were planning on camping in the saddle because it's a pretty good haul up there, and then we could start hunting our way into some of the back basins that are

really far back there and you can't really access. So as we get up, we're hiking up and before we set up camp, we're like, I'm like, okay, let's go glass off into the these couple areas. We go back and I'm glassing kind of back down where we came from, and halfway up the mountain there's a group of five deer and I'm like, there's a pretty good bucket there. There's definitely one that I would stock. I've hunted over a week and not seeing a deer, I would sneak on.

It was a pretty solid big four by four in there like one plus. I was like, that's the best deer I've seen so far. I'll definitely stock that deer. It's like, yeah, let's go get him. So I'm like, okay, sweet. So we dropped down off the ridge and we had to lose a lot of elevation. We hiked up over five thousand feet gain, and now we're dropping back down like another i don't know, two thousand feet maybe a

little more. So we dropped down in. What I noticed is the deer kind of on this ridge, and I'm looking at the way they're gonna feed him, like, oh, they're definitely gonna feed into the wind. And there's this kind of like cliffy not really a cliff, but like this little um. You could see a pretty good trail that they were near, and like a finger ridge going down and a pretty good like rock pile brush kind of thing in between that trail and the deer. So

we're moving down. We're moving now and kind of keep we can keep them in sight and drop back over the other side of the ridge move in. We stopped it about a hundred and fifty yards and I'm like all right, drop my pack here and sneak in. It's like sweet. I was like, okay, Mike, stay right here, don't move. I'm gonna go down. I'm just gonna set up because like they're feeding up perfect. I bet you they just feed right along that trail and I'll have

a sweet shot. He's like okay. I was like, all right, just stay here, stay with the gear. I'll come back. He's like okay. So I start sneaking down, take off my shoes, like creeping in on the back side of the ridge. They're completely obscured from where I'm at. The wind's really good, and I'm a little bit worried that the wind might shift as the evening goes on, but I think I'll be fine. So the winds actually really strong, so I don't think thermals are gonna mess with me.

I'm like, sweet, this is perfect. I creep down and as I'm creeping on, like ranging this part where I think they're gonna cross, I get like fifty yards creep a little bit closer. I kind of peek over the out ridge and see the deer on the other side, maybe like ninety yards down, and they're still feeding my way and I noticed there's like I think there's like six of them, and and mo like I can only I can see the big buck and like to the

other bucks. And the big buck was in the back, and then the other deer disappeared behind this little ledge. And I'm like, oh, this is perfect. So I sneak in a little bit more like being super quiet, super careful. It's steep, it's rocky, it's alloud, and I'm just placing every foot so carefully, and I get down and range where they're going to cross, like thirty four yards. Sweet set up knocking arrow and I'm just waiting, and sure

enough I start to see velvet tips coming through. I'm like, okay, buck walks out, one of the small bucks range him, boom, perfect, he walks out and just keeps feeding. Next buck walks out, and now those deer feeding at like forty fifty yards as they moved through, and each one of these bucks

stopped at this little grass patch thirty four yards. Munch is a little bit a little bit of mountain mahat, like a little bit of brush there, munches on it and then cruises out a little bit and starts feeding it, like forty something fifty whatever, next set of antler tips. Alright, range it sweet, Okay. Now I'm just like I know the range of everything, and all these deer taking the exact same path, and I'm just sitting frozen waiting for

the big buck to come out. Another deer comes out, another deer comes out, and I'm like, every single one of these deer has taken the same path. This is game time. As soon as I see his antler tips, I'm just gonna draw back and wait. So all those deer come out and I'm like, all right, this is it. I see the handler tips of the big Buck. I'm just about getting ready to draw back. I'm like, there's like one spot where I can see the only tips and then they disappear, and I'm like then I could

see him again. So I'm like I've got it all planned out. All the deer did the same thing. I'm getting ready to draw and I hear something behind me, just rock rolling, and I'm like it was loud, and I'm like, what all those other deer spooked out? The big bucks spooks out. I draw back and they all stop it an unknown range probably year, I just don't even know, and that's it. My stocks blown. I'm like,

what the heck happened? I turned around, and about fifty yards behind me is Mike just like ghost white with this look on his face, like, oh man, I really screwed that. And having like hunted really hard for about ten or twelve days, I was just like, you've got to be kidding me. This is the one year that I saw that I would have shot. And he was seconds away from getting an arrow run right through him, and Mike just blew him out because he didn't stay put.

So I walk out. I'm like fairly ticked off, but I'm like, dude, what the hell are you doing? Man? And in his defense, he's the nicest guy. I mean, that's why we're really he's just the nicest guy on the planet. But he's like, oh, I didn't know what was going on, so I thought I would come down and help your range, just in case they were coming out and you needed somebody to range in which case

that's a very nice offer. But I mean his life was just like, dude, I told you to stay there, and he's like I know, He's like I know, I'm so sorry, and I was just like fairly piste off. I'm like, well, So we walk up to the packs and I'm just like, you know what, screw it. The deer blown out here, and they were they blew out hard. It's like the deer blown out of here. I was like, I'm not as a crappy spot to camp. It's like super steep. I'm just like, screw it, we're camping at

the top. I grabbed my pack and I just start trudging up to the top of the mountain. So we're hiking another like two thousand vertical feet up one of the steepest parts of the mountain just to can't find a flat spot to camp. Not that we couldn't have found a spot down there, but I was like, no, you know what, you blow the stock, you make the walk. So like we just like I just like start hammering

up the mountain as fast as I can go. And Mike's got his pack on it, and i can see he's just falling behind, falling behind, and I'm sure that it's just eating him up, and I'm like, no, he's gonna wallow in it when he walks. So I get up to the top and I sit down and have a break, and I think about it. I'm like no, you know what, Mike's like your best friend, and that's just a terrible punish man. But he probably feels bad enough blowing it. So I looked down and he's still

a long way. He's down the mountain, and so I think to myself, well, I gotta make it right. So I hike back down the mountain, maybe another thousand feet I don't know, and he's dying. He's like he's struggling. He's on the struggle bus, like he just came in from lower elevation and this is like charging up the mountain. And I've been living there for like a while, and so the elevation didn't really bother me at all. So I'm like, all right. I was like, Mike, give me

your pack. He's like, no, can't I let you do that. I was like, Mike, give me your pack. I chose the camp spot, I dropped the pack. I made his trudge up here. I'll carry your pack the rest of the way, and begrudgingly he did it, but the hike was still pretty bad. We got up and we just rolled out her baby sacks and made a nice dinner and just laughed. He was just laughing. He's like oh man, that was punishment. He's like, I get it, I get it.

I won't do that again. And to this day we still laugh about that story when Mike decided to sneak in on the bucks, blew him out and went on a punishment hike back to camp. I honestly think if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me where to camp, I would have a very sizable collection of dollars. I'm not saying I have a million dollars,

but I would have a lot of dollars. Uh. I think for the most part, I really didn't think too hard about that question, because for myself, it just seemed like you just it was so situational and and really I didn't I don't really think about it too much. And then when I really did start to think about it, the answer kind of became extremely complicated because there's no set answer and it depends on a ton of factors.

So I figured I cover most of the things that involve camp selection, and then that way you can be your own expert, and when you encounter a scenario or something, then you kind of know, okay, this is the right move to make. And I really think that this is primarily a question from people who this is their first time this type of trip, and it makes sense you go, like, Okay, I get out there, like I see some elk, Where do I do? I do I hike back three miles and set up a camp? Do I? How close is

too close? How far is too far? So I just want to cover kind of uh an intro to to setting up camp, but also kind of some of my thoughts and things that I do when I am setting up a camp or a base camp. But before we do that, I say that there, I mean, there's so many hunts myself that I've gone on and I've had a pretty subpar camp, and then there's others where I just go back to that spot to hang out camp for the weekend. But before I really get too deep into the types of camps, I think we kind of

need to go over camp definitions. So let's first talk about the places that you might camp. I broke I would break that out into two sections. So either front country, so I like to call that like this is anything you can access by a road or vehicle, So it could be a four wheeler, could be a truck whatever. That's the front country. And then The second would be the back country, so anything that you'd have to non

motorized to walk, ride bike. It could be off of a gated logging road, it could be whatever, but it's just a type of camp where you can't bring your vehicle. Aside from that, a few other camping terms you should know are like the types of camps. So the first one would be a base camp, and this kind of the definition of that would be your main camp. This could be a large camp, but um, it doesn't have to be a base camp. Is really the way I define it is just a camp that really doesn't rove

very often. It's kind of in one place. You set it up at the beginning of the hunt and you take it down at the end. It's kind of where you base your hunt's out of or from now. This might mean that you hunt out of it every day, or it might mean that you leave and kind of keep it set up and camp somewhere else. With the next type of camp, which I would call a spike camp. This is often a smaller type camp and can be

out of a base camp, but it's it's lighter. You're often going deeper and probably more into that back country. You can definitely have a base camp in the back country. You can definitely make a lighter set up a base camp, but that spike camp would be kind of any kind of camping out from that base camp where you may stay a few days in one spot and then pack up and move somewhere else. Um, so it's a little bit more mobile. And then the third type of camp would be like a bivvy camp. This is what I

would consider like a lightweight camp. It's carried around every day and then re pitched every night where you stop. So if you're baby hunting, you're kind of like camps always on your back and wherever you are at the end of the day or wherever you find or wherever you end up, that's kind of where you're setting up camp. I would say I do a mixture of all these types of camps. I think the size also varies depending on the type of camp. So like a large base

camp could be extremely sizeable. You might have a trailer, a wall tent, a truck bed, or even like a small pop up tent. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be a large camp, but it's somewhere it's like, hey, this is a good spot. Maybe you found like a sweet camping area, a campsite um, maybe something near river or whatever. Maybe it's just got like, hey, there's some

fishing here near a lake. So you set up a good base camp and it's generally gonna be for good duration but also gives you access to a lot of areas to hunt. And then that spike camp is often smaller, lighter, and used to get into an area that I would say like um set up and hunts maybe a little bit deeper. So it's like I would do that, and this is probably the common type of of back country camp. It's fairly light. You might hike in one to five miles whatever, set up a camp, and then hunt out

of that camp. So it's like a spike campaign a base camp all in one, and then that baby camp that real light one. I mean there's been times where I've essentially started out in a base camp, camping out of my truck, spiked in with a lightweight set up, and then from that lightweight set up, busied out with just like my sleeping bag and a tarp and gone out and explored some new areas. And this is gonna be your lightest set up. It's super mobile and always

back country. I would say that every hunt, where you camp and how you camp depends on the type of hunt in the area. So we need to kind of break down what makes a good camping spot in general. And here's what I look for when I'm camping where things that I think are kind of at the top of the list. Water, shelter, access to the hunt area is super important, and then flat spot if possible. That's always like the cherry on the top. If you can, if you can camp somewhere flat sweet because it just

makes for an easier night of sleep. In back country, I like to camp where I can easily get water, but there's always this balance of that and then access to the hunt area. So one nice thing about camping near water is these are things that you need in I mean not only just survive, but to be successful. To hunt hard, you you're gonna have to have water,

and water is super heavy to carry. If you can have it ner camp, it makes it easier for cooking, it makes it easier for filling your water bottles for the day, It makes it easier to drink at the

end of the day. Now, I say that that's a balance between access to the hunt area because many times, like let's say that early season deer hunt that I was talking about before, most of the deer we're living up at the high elevation, but the water was two thousand feet below the top and the basins where the

deer were living. So in that case, okay, do I hike down every day to get water or just fill up a lot of water, hike up to the top, camp for a couple of days, and then when I need water or maybe find a new water source up at the top somewhere that I didn't know about, and if not, hike down and then hike back up with the water. And that's kind of one of those things where you can balance that where you aren't carrying so much water if you camp near water, so you're saving

a lot of energy. Um. But then there's other times where it's like, hey, I need to get to this, Like it's better for me to be up glassing in the morning. I get to this glassing knob every day. Maybe I can camp there and then have better access to the ridge behind and maybe find some water somewhere else. But for the most part, camping near water helps in a lot of ways. For weight carrying, weight savings, and just it's something that you need. You need it for cooking,

you need it for drinking. So I like to plan my camp spots based on that where I can get water, and if I'm doing that ahead of time, I try to find, Okay, here's a stream, here's a creek, maybe here's a spring. I don't I won't camp like on a spring, especially if it's something the animals are using. I definitely stay away from that. But camping where there's a little bit of water water nearby is definitely a

plus or of bonus. Another option to in the back country is a lot of times, like if it's um earlier in the season, why you're camping towards snow line or snow melt, like, you can use that snow to make water. So that's that's another option. Now. Shelter One thing I think of shelter in a couple of ways. One is kind of trying to get out of the wind. It does a lot of good to be able to get your camp out of the wind. It makes it easier to sleep when that tense flapping and just ripping

and kind of terrible. It makes for a hard night's sleep, and if you don't get a lot of sleep, then you kind of lose that energy. You get tired in the middle of the day, and some of those midday glassing, the times that you could be hunting, um you you end up dozing off. There's like I mean, I don't know how many times I've been on a hunt. It's

like you wake up, you get ready. By the best glassing times, you're like nodding off in your binoculars and you're in a sharp So having good night's sleep is awesome, but getting out of the wind makes that a lot more possible. Now, another factor of shelter is not just getting out of the wind, if possible, that kind of concealing yourself, concealing yourself from the animals that might be around, and sheltering yourself from the elements, but also from an

area where the deer elk, whatever it might be. So tucking in and and getting a good spot one thing that I think about too, when I'm picking a camp spot, I like to think of it like, okay, shelter, but I also want to watch out for danger. So I don't like to camp where there might be things like trees that could fall from sheltering and protecting myself from stuff like that. So many times, if it's like a burn area, I will camp as far away from trees

as possible, or an area where trees can't fall over. Actually, last year I was setting up a camp and as I'm setting it up, I'm like, Okay, i gotta find a spot where there are no dead trees, which was nearly impossible. And as I'm setting up camp, trees are just falling all over the place because the wind was blowing. So I ended up cutting down a couple of the trees that could have potentially fallen in my direction and

slept a lot a lot better. But it's always good to find um, you know, figure out where the prevailing wind is, pick a spot it's out of the wind, in a little sheltered spot, and it's going to be a lot better camp spot. And then of course the bonus of all bonuses flat. It's very hard to set a tent in camp for a prolonged period of time on a steep hillside. I've done it, I don't like

to do it. There's been times like Mountain Goat Hunt last two years ago, we were just babysack hunting but we were like at the dark by, We're gonna stop and find a camp and then we couldn't find a spot that was protected, sheltered out of the wind or flat, and it made for a rough night of sleeping with just the wind ripping and sliding all over the place. So if you can find those things, that's those are

things that make a good camp spot. Now we also have the considerations of the type of hunt you're doing. So one thing I would think is like, Okay, am I doing a back country hunt? Am I doing a front country hunt? What is the optimal camping scenario or where how close to where I'm going to hunt? I

want to be camping. If I'm hunting the front country, I want to be camping more in an area where I can easily get to the places that I'm gonna want to hunt are places that I'm gonna want to check out, but far enough away where you know, I might have access to a few different areas. I'm picking my spot more based on access and a nice camp

spot than somewhere that's just like convenient. Now, if I'm like the back country, I kind of pick a spot that's more convenient closer to where maybe I'm gonna be hunting and a little bit more based on like the area that I get into, because I've got everything on my back, I'm hiking around and I might find kind of a good spot and where the animals are simultaneously, and I kind of picked my camp spot based on that.

Now there's gonna be some hunting consideration. So those hunting considerations are kind of the question that a lot of people get into is well, how far from the animals? How how close is too close? So let's just call it a back country scenario. How close is too close? Well, first you have to use your judgment, But I've honestly camped as close as a few hundred yards from places where I've seen elk and deer, and then as far as a mile. Um, it just really doesn't depend on

one factor. But I would say the first thing you want to think about is what type of camping are you doing? And that's gonna kind of tell you how close the camp that you're gonna have. Now, if you're gonna have a big base camp, maybe you've got like a bunch of friends, You're gonna you want to have a fire, you want to be you know, hang out at night, cooking dinners, talking all that kind of stuff,

making noise, enjoying yourself. I'm not saying you can't enjoy yourself with no noise, but in those scenarios, I just pick an area that's a ways away from where I'm gonna hunt and travel to the hunting area. When I do that, I just pick a spot that's a nice camp, a nice flat spot near water. How's the things that I like make it a comfortable camp, and then go out from there every day. Because that noise and that that activity and maybe maybe people going back to camp

to cook up lunch or whatever. That kind of stuff will cause pressure in the area if you're too close. So for the most part that kind of camping, I just do where it's convenient to get to multiple areas. And if I'm gonna hike in a long way as well, maybe it's somewhere am I all down the road. It doesn't really matter. I can drive, I can plan my hunt accordingly, I can leave it with enough time to get into where I wanted to go, and then I have a nice, comfortable camp with friends and hang out,

have a fire, have whatever. And it's not necessarily in the hunting area. I've seen people set up that kind of camp though, like wall tent right near the meadow where elk are coming out, and for the first day of the elks still might come out, but after that it kind of puts a damper on the hunting area. So I would say it depends on the type of camp you want to do. Now, if you're doing like a babysack kind of camp, you've got um, you're gonna run a quiet camp, which is what I like to do,

no talkie, no talkie mostly so solo. It's the easiest. But you've got maybe just a MSR stove, jet boil whatever. You're doing a dehydrated meal, and you're just gonna be quiet. You're just setting up your tent and the quiet. You aren't making a lot of noise. You are not having a fire. I mean not that a fire necessarily would spook things, but it's just like that disturbance that gathering

the wood to doing all the stuff. You're just setting up a camp, you're finding a place to sleep, you're gonna eat a meal, you're gonna get up, and you're gonna hunt. If that's the case, essentially you can pick a spot that would be no different than where you would be glassing from and not disturb the animals. I wouldn't go within sneaking zone. I wouldn't set my tent up hoping to open it up and shoot something from it.

But it's like, hey, there's many times where I've ducked on the back side of a little glassing knob, or I've stopped and been glassing and said, Okay, I'm gonna camp from here. One thing that I will say is, you know that distance doesn't necessarily like there's no hard and fast distance. Let's say I've seen elk coming out in this one meadow feeding every night. I get up and I've got a glassing vantage, uh say four hundred

yards away whatever. I wouldn't just camp right on that glassing vantage, because I wouldn't stand on that glassing vantage while I'm standing. But I would tuck back in the trees right there, set up a camp, be quiet and not think twice about it, or even set up a camp that maybe is in a baby camp, just like a spike type camp that I'm gonna leave and know that it will be fine. But I'm not really like putting a lot of um I'm really not doing a

lot around there. I'm just sleeping, making a simple meal and waking up and starting to hunt. I'd say how close to camp to the animals also really depends on hunting pressure and the animal's location and movement, and then the wind as well. So I obviously don't want to camp somewhere where the wind is going to be blowing

into where I think the elk are. I want to pick a spot that's down wind, just like I mean common hunting sense, being like if I wouldn't go there during a stock, if I wouldn't go there during glassing, if it's something that I wouldn't do throughout the day, I won't do it throughout the night. I'll move out to a spot where I would be comfortable standing up, where I would be comfortable, you know, staying for a prolonged period time, where I'm not going to get winded.

So I generally like to find those places that are out of the way, down wind and not necessarily going to impede the patterns of the animals I'm hunting. But that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be miles away. And like I said, how close I can't might depend on the hunting pressure. Sometimes, if there's a lot to hunting pressure, I actually prefer to kind of camp close to where I'm hunting, because then people go, oh, somebody's

camping here maybe, and then they move on. Um. There is also that thought of though, if there's a lot of hunting pressure there's animals might get pressure and running into that camp or having that camp there as their patterns start to shift and change might cause them to no longer use that area. So that's just one of

those things. It's very situational, and you kind of got to decide, Okay, if I'm camping a mile away and every day guys like past my camp and are up kind of in my area before I get there, maybe just move your camp a little bit closer so they think, Okay, well, he's hunting this basin, not that next basin that was back there, that other base in to the left. It might just be an easier way to kind of claim a spot. But I definitely wouldn't get too aggressive with that.

In areas that are there's more hunting pressure, I'd be more cautious of where I camp and not spooking something. In areas that get a lot of pressure than areas that don't um. If you're in a back country setting and it's like, hey, there's no one else back there, there's not gonna be those animals are very unpressured. You can oftentimes get away with kind of camping closer. One thing that I have found generally I like to hike up to hunt and down to pack, so I find

it easier, but it's it's not always the best. But when you camp in the bottoms, like let's say I'm hunting this basin instead of hunting like camping up on the ridge on the top, unless I've got a good glassing vantage and the wind is good for that, I'd probably just camp down in the bottom near the creek where I've got shelter away from whatever animals might be

popping out. Where I'm hidden kind of in the trees, I'm probably closer to find water, more cover options as well, less wind disturbance, and generally that scent isn't going to make it to the top of the mountains, so being down in those canyons can be good. One thing I mentioned, you know, you want to camp in your water if you can, but you definitely don't want to camp on springs or isolated water holes. You want to be at least a quarter or a half a mile from something

that deer want to be using to drink. I just like to give them a night. So a corner mile isn't that far. It just depends on topography and other things. In areas that it's like, very few water holes, very few water services. In places where there's a running stream, it's not necessarily a big deal whether you can't fairly close to it or not, because they have plenty of places to water. I would say, like, if you're asking yourself, am I too close? Is this a good camping spot?

I would say, just a good rule of thumb, like worst case scenario, say seven hundred yards at the minimum would be as close as you want to camp to a good hunting area. But you know, if you're in a spot you're gonna be a quiet camp. You can

bring that a lot closer. When I'm babysack hunting, I generally just camp where I stopped, like I pull off into like if I'm last year, for example, I was hunting a new area, just through everything in my backpack, hunting deer in a backcountry area I hiked in I had to drop down in this long, big ravin the first night, I just camped in the bottom. The next day I start hiking up. I kind of run out of water. I'm a very long way from the valley floor.

I'm going to the top, and I just sleep mid mountain. There was some deer out in this basin. I just tucked back into the timber, set up a small camp, tried to get out of the wind, slept, woke up, and those deer were probably three yards above me in the morning. They had no clue I was there. I had no clue they were there. There's actually some bigger bucks in there. I did a stock, almost got a shot,

got into like I think fifty yards um. It was bad wind and just not a great cover option, and there's a couple of deer looking my direction when I drew back, but ended up not getting a deer there. But it was like where I was camping had no bearing on them getting spooked off or any of that. They were just being deer and I just so happened to kind of camp tucked back in the trees, just on the back side of the basin that they're hanging out,

And it didn't really affect any of the hunting. Now, had I set up like a big camp and me and my buddies were hanging out there every night for a week, it definitely would I would say, probably disturb their patterns. But you just really have to use your judgment narrow on the side of not spooking stuff. But I honestly, when it comes to picking a camp spot, I don't get too paranoid about it. I just I don't think about it that much most of the time. I just like tuck into the trees and treat it

like if I were glassing or um. Sometimes we're like it's like, hey, this would not be convenient for a spot and stock hunt. I wouldn't. I wouldn't approach from this way, I wouldn't hang out here. Then I won't camp there, and I might even hike a long ways to find a spot where I would camp. And that's that's the way that I think about picking a spot to sleep, picking a spot to camp. And when I'm setting up a camp, I like it to be in a spot where it's convenient, where I can access the animals.

I prefer to hike. Start hiking up hill. It's nothing to start hiking up. You know, you hike up every morning you start hunting, You hunt up, and then it's a lot easier to get back to camp in the evening, is a lot faster and a lot better packing to just start hiking down. So when I'm thinking about setting up a camp, those are a lot of the factors that I consider, And there are things that I think as you get out there. I think it's one of the things that I think people ask it because they're

nervous about doing the wrong thing. It's one of those things once you start getting out there, you realize it doesn't necessarily matter so much. The only way of matter is if you camped, Like, if there's elk using a meadow, don't camp in the middle of the meadow. If there's elk using a water hole or a wallow, don't camp near that. Find a spot that's tucked out of the

way but close enough to access the area. I mean, there's been many times where I have glassed from where I'm sleeping, and there's been a few hunts where I've actually a goat hunt. A couple of years ago, when

we actually slept on that steep spot. We're making a meal and I look up, there's a good band of goats walking across the hill ninety yards above us um that I've actually shot a moose while packing up our camp one time, and there's been many times where I've picked spots that I camp just a quiet camp, just tucked away where I just essentially can glass from my

sleeping bag in the morning. That's the nice thing about a backcountry style hunt is you actually get a lot more sleep because you're kind of camping and hunting right in the same area, Whereas if you're kind of front country hunting, there's a lot more hiking involved. Some people think that like, oh, back country hunting is the hardest, and honestly, I think you cover more miles when you're you've got like a big base camp out of the back country because for the most part, once you get

into your area, you're there. You aren't moving a lot. There might be some tough country, but for the most part, you're kind of like glass and camping and right in the zone where you want to be when you want to be there at the best times, and you just make a meal, go to sleep, wake up, and repeat, where you don't have to start glassing and hiking so far every day, So there's some pluses and minuses to that.

But I think when it comes to setting up a camp, don't let it deterior, don't get afraid of it, don't worry that you're doing the wrong thing. Just kind of treat it like, Hey, I'm hunting these animals where it's going to be a spot that I'm not going to spook them. And if along the way you find an awesome place that looks nice, it's got a flat spot with some water, some shades, some cover, feel free to set up a camp and then start hunting from there.

I hope that helps a few of you. I know that sometimes if you're doing something new, or maybe you got a tag and it's just a new thing for you, you've never done a back country hunt. You've never actually um gone somewhere else to hunt where you didn't need to camp. Maybe most your hunts are based out of your house or a cabin where you you know, family has a cabin where you hunt or whatever. Um, this

might be all new concepts. So I appreciate these kind of questions because it's the things that these kind of questions that come in that I know Okay, people are interested in understanding my thought process on this, and I just want to help kind of check that off the list. So anytime you guys have questions, feel free to keep them coming my way at Remy Warren on social media or Remy at the meat eater dot com. Social media is probably the best way I can check that a

little bit more often. It's a little bit easier for me, but whatever floats your boat. Um. I thank you guys again for all the support, all the questions, and until next week, don't pitch your tent on a red Aniel. That's just a story for another time. Catch you guys later. M