[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You put weight on your back on a motorcycle and you have two wheels, but now you have momentum up high with that weight and every time you go around a corner, it wants to hit you that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Roy said, yeah, there's no way I can carry a heavy load of alchemy. So I ended up packing the whole elk in, uh, three trips on the motorcycle by myself and they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got back in, uh, Saturday night and Donnie said, you know, we're.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sore and tired, we can take the evening off. And so we took Saturday evening off and then, uh, hee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I thought we had all day Monday and Tuesday to hunt and we could drive back Wednesday. So that changed things. So now we're up against a time crunch and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not having a lot of luck finding elk that'll cooperate. So, we hunted, uh, the next day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And no luck sat water no luck monday we located sunday night red and dark again located two balls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And said, okay, we're going after those two tomorrow. There's water here. So we hiked up there. The bulls weren't in the same place, but we went and sat the water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I slipped down to where Donnie was set up and said, Hey, we have two choices. We can sit here on water until six o'clock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then we can go out like we've been doing and glass and try to find a bowl, but all we're glassing is across the canyon. We aren't able to find anything close, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The chance of having anything to hunt tonight is, is pretty low or we can bust it back down to camp, pull up camp, relocate camp about five or six miles away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he thought about it a minute. He's like, you know, we haven't seen anything on water, so we don't have a good feel about that. And if nothing else, we can go hike up that canyon and at least see what it looks like for next time we come back hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we bombed down to camp and this is three o'clock so we get everything loaded up and stuffed into our backpacks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looked like if there was ever a yard sale you wanted to be at, this would have been it. There was some good gear there, but we, we took our backpacks and literally turned them upside down, dumped everything out on, on the ground in a pile through the backpacks back on and headed up this trail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And about six, probably six o'clock or so, we were, uh, two and a half miles up in there and got a boulder bugle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tried for 15 minutes of raking and bugling and nothing was responding. So I moved up to Donnie and he motioned that the wind had hit him in the back of the head and the bulls had put bugling. So we moved up the ridge or the drainage and other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I set Donnie up in front and Roy followed him and I dropped back and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The old lift his head every once in a while and look over at us and then go right back to eating. Dang it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just young enough that he's dumb enough to come into my calls, but he's just old enough to be a little bit wary. So he actually skirts over to Donnie's side of the meadow before he starts coming to me to try to circle around and get to where he can see me. And he gets...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I go over there and now Donnie, in all fairness to Donnie, Donnie, we've tracked some animals with Donnie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we have a little joke in our group that sometimes Donnie aims back towards the heart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because when you get up to Donnie and ask him where he hid, he's like perfect shot right behind the shoulder. Hank shot him in the heart and then maybe he's a foot behind that or so on the tracking jobs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a good shot, the cap pin was right on it and he's like, I think it passed right through and it did sound like a pumpkin shot and passed through. And so we went up there and found his arrow and it passed completely through and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm thinking, all right, pretty, pretty cool. And, but in the back of my mind, I'm still thinking, okay, it's Donnie. Maybe he, you know, shot back a little bit and well, two hours later, we're following a blood trail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When elk gets shot, and this is a good, uh, good thing to learn when you're tracking an elk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I looked at my go hunt maps app and like, huh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're right by a lake, and I thought I heard a splash a few minutes ago, which didn't make sense at the time, but we followed that blood trail to the edge of the lake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, uh, we worked up that bull once we got him out of the lake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Donnie still didn't feel comfortable packing elk meat, so I made two trips and he carried my gear on the second trip. So he made two trips just carrying camp and gear. I made two trips with the meat. But on the second trip out, Roy carried elk meat on the motorcycle and went up this nasty rocky hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you and I talked last night on the phone briefly and you mentioned something about my extravagant stories and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It'd be interesting to see if the grouse are affected by the moon. But, you know, I think, and that's just it, elk are going to be elk, they're going to rut. Yes, the moon can play an effect on their behavior to some degree, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the heat that we've had, they've been clamped down. I mean, they've been held down by the heat. So I think the cooler weather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, like Donnie's Bull, we went to a new area, not knowing what was there, not knowing what we were going to find, and we found a completely different scenario than where we'd been hunting. Over there on the other side, there were bulls all over. We were glassing, like I said, you know, five, six bulls a night, sometimes more, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of them are bugling except for those two six points in the meadow. And we had two other bowls that we heard bugle up on the hillside that we never even went after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I mean, it's just a completely different game. We were four miles away, maybe as a crow flies from where we had been hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But things are different. So, you know, there's a lot there. Don't sit at home. Don't miss out on going. You gotta be there. Don't be afraid to go and find new areas and don't get stuck in a rut and just hunt the same area if, uh, if it's not going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's interesting to me, you know, he landed at that conclusion. It's interesting how many people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you aren't able to control your scent. You just really aren't when you're out hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, all you can really do is try to play the wind, cause if, like he said, if all that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chemical stuff is, is blowing towards the elk. There's enough stink from you coming that's blowing towards the elk and they're going to be able to distinguish that, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're wary about everything, every move they make, every, you know, they're paying attention to the wind because they can't just walk into the middle of a pack of wolves or on a grizzly bear. So all their movements are based on the wind. They just don't take any chances. Uh, their vocalizations, I think they've learned, give up their location. And so they, they don't vocalize as much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So with that, you know, it is a concern and I think I know the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they still go through the same motions, their behavior is just different. So, I think, you know, getting close is going to be the key.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they might not be able as frequently or as loudly, so getting close and, you know, I like using raking anytime else you're less responsive to calling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Raking seems to, if you can get it close and rake, they seem to respond really well to that. I don't know if it's just cause it's a sound that doesn't carry as far.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so they, they're more comfortable doing that and they've learned to communicate through raking that, hey, that bull's over there displaying his dominance, so I'll rake back and we'll work our way in and do that instead of bugling. But I think still getting into pockets of, of really good, some of our best,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really is very specific and timing specific and if they're quiet, it's probably due to predators and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might have to cover a lot more country to get in close and find a deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's never about elevation for me. I don't even look at elevation. We've had people say, hey, I'm hunting Colorado this year. What elevation should I be looking for elk at?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just, you know, there's certain things at certain times of the year at certain elevations, true, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, there's elk from sea level to 14,000 feet and that's, they're everywhere in between. So when I'm e-scouting, I don't put a lot of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Emphasis on what the elevation is that I'm looking at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and he mentioned, we, we, I think he said we've mentioned that elk are usually higher up on the mountains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's little mountains and hills and places where they...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you said, find the feed, find, find the security, those things, they might be founded, like, like he found, elevations that would surprise you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Came from North Carolina to film, has done some deer hunting, but he's like, we've never worried about cooling meat off. So talk to me, why are you doing it? How does this work? And so, you know, we were able to show him firsthand and talk about it and explain it, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Realistically, I mean, for me, the hide on the elk is the key to everything. That's what keeps them warm in the winter. So, you know, allows them to cool. It's a huge insulator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the key is to get the hide off and when you get the hide off, you know, the, the bone holds a lot of heat and that is probably the primary place where you're going to lose meat in hot weather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that the bone on the hind quarter? That's just the hottest part. It's got the most muscle around it. It's the most insulated part of the elk's body is that bone in, uh, in his hind quarter. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, a butcher a while back told me the ill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing he likes to do or would recommend doing is if you get a hind quarter hanging there, you don't have to debone it, but at least take a knife and run it down along the bone and open that meat up so that that heat can escape because it's just being trapped in there around that bone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's like, I've seen animals shot in August, September in very hot weather that if you'll just open that up and let that heat release from the bone out, uh, it's going to be just fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's always been our primary concern in hot weather is get the hide off as quickly as you can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I'll take, and I always build a makeshift meat pole, just put a stick across between two trees to hang at least two quarters on at a time. And whether we are leaving the meat on the bone or taking it off, I always have that meat pole and hang the quarters from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this situation, we had to pack it a long way and we wanted to get it cooled down, uh, so I just basically, when I debone a quarter, I take each of the muscle, each


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Separate muscle off of the, off of the bone. Why don't take it all the way off in the heat like this? I'll just break it off from the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when we get the other side done, we pull those quarters off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Complete the deboning on the first side, you know, while they're hanging there, put them in the game bags and do the second side. And this time we actually didn't put them right in the game bags, we put the game bags on a log.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the time we got done with the second side of the elk, we went over and I showed Roy, like, come feel these with the back of your hand. Feel this fresh quarter we just brought off on the outside. It feels, yeaah, fairly cool. You know, still got some heat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But feel these pieces have been sitting here airing out and they were cold. I mean, they felt cold and clammy. All the heat had escaped from there. And then I cut open the hind quarter that we'd just taken off the second side and said, now come feel the bone in here, how hot it is. And you know, it was, it was very,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've always known it's a stark difference for him. He's like, oh my gosh, it's almost like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The outside of that same quarter feels like, yeah, it's warm, but it's not in danger of spoiling. And then those individual pieces that were sitting out were completely cool to the touch. And those are the ones once they cool to the touch, we put in the game bag. And once they've cooled down, there's, they're good and there's no concern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And putting the ice on top, cold air drops, hot air rises, so by putting it on top, that cold air is able to go down to the bottom of the cooler and affect all the meat, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, like you said, I mean, sometimes it's better to leave it hanging in a tree in the shade and let the air circulate around it than just to put it in a cooler.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That just creates a huge mass of, uh, muscle there that's trapping the heat in the middle of that pile. And some of those pieces don't cool very quickly, so that's why it's important to let them air out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And sometimes I'll leave the bone or the meat on the bone, on the quarter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, with that meat in there and the two temperatures coming together, yeaah, that inside temperature of that cooler might be in the 40s or 50s at best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you're transporting it on the road for 12 hours or something, a cooler is, is a must have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I did just find something here from Alaska. They said that the internal body temperature of a moose is 102.2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have never personally harvested an elk that had a gamey flavor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've just, I've never, all the elk have been good, even big bulls, you know, old bull, middle of the rut, you know, old timers always say, ah, don't shoot that rutting old bull, it would be so tough and taste like dirt and, you know, I think the only time I've ever tasted an elk that had gamey taste was when the hide stayed on it for a long period of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uuuh. I have always wanted to go up here and check this out. You guys should go check this out for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm looking forward to that more just because with it being such a limited hunt, I think, you know, I cautiously am optimistic that we're going to have a lot of bugling action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when I, I think a hunt like that, I'm not...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I need to kill something. I need to shoot something. I can enjoy the experience. I can pass up elk. I can, if I come home with my tag, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't, I didn't spend 18 points to go and fill the freezer with an elk. I spent 18 points to have an experience during September that hopefully will be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Donnie's going, he's gonna pack a video camera and a bugle tube.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, Ben Potter from Con Outdoors who filmed the linguist and put that together. He's going to film for us. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I was talking to him a couple weeks ago, he's like, I am just so excited because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now he's excited to come back and hunt with us, having an understanding of what's going on and so it'll be fun on a lot of levels there to team up with him again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Welcome to the Elk Talk Podcast with Randy Newberg and Corey Jacobson presented by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Elk Talk podcast is also brought to you by GoHunt.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with that, Cory, we are ready to get into it. Let's jump into it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Welcome to the Elk Talk Podcast with Randy Newberg and Corey Jacobson presented by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The goal is what little you and I know about elk hunting, we


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, did you guys get 22 inches over the weekend like I did?


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[Assistant] As a guy who, I'm gonna show, the audience can't see this, but I'm showing you my shark bite on my arm here. Yeaah, that's impressive. And uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm in this brace where my right hand is not supposed to bend or nothing, no, nothing over five pounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My wife, she, uh, came and looked outside, she said, I'm going back to bed. I'm like, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's code word for you should go do the snow even with your one good arm. Yup. So I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. And here's how stupid I am. About two weeks ago, I have two snowblowers. I have a little single stage Honda Jabi and then I have like a great big track one that looks like two snowmobiles mounted together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, ah, you know, any snow we get now, I can get with this small one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. I couldn't even get over to my shop to get that big one out of there. The drift blowing up against the door were like four feet high. I'm like, well, heck with that. I'm going to have to use this little one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, he leaves me a berm big enough I can't even get my truck through it. So, I'm back out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this has like chunks in it, so my auger is in this little, so I did it by hand. And my neighbor Michael sees me out there, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I got the shovel, I'm pushing it with my left hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I, I can't use, so my right hand, they make me sling it when I'm doing stuff. So I'm not tempted to use it. So I'm in a sling. So I take my right boot underneath the snow shovel and I kick it up and I kick it up in there and I push it forward at the same time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got the whole end of my driveway cleared out like that, but it took me a long time. So I had, I had all the neighbors walking by like, you, you, you're going to do, are you okay? Are you going to do this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I don't know what she was doing, but when I came in the house, she said, what were you doing? I'm like, I cleaned out all the snow. Oh my goodness, yours be ba ba ba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we're supposed to get three to five inches of snow every day from, well, today's Tuesday through Saturday morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I, if we lose any elk, it's mostly going to be, I think the old of the old and the, and probably some.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my gosh. I, I, I mean, in Bozeman right now, it's like there's no place to put the snow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They must have hit a chunk of ice or something that took out his driver's side window?


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[Assistant] I guess all the fishermen I'm talking to are like, boy, we'll have good water flow this summer. Oh yeah. It doesn't, doesn't flood you out in Washington.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the audience asking us what


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[Assistant] You know, kind of what's the state of condition of the animals with the winters they've been hearing about. And I think we kind of covered that. If this was Antelope Talk Podcast, we'd be saying, don't even bother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you look at Wyoming, their proposals for deer, for pronghorn especially. So pronghorn numbers are already about half of what they were 15 or 20 years ago in Wyoming. And now they're cutting tags in a lot of units or cutting them 40 to 50% again. Wow. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he ain't, he and Tre ain't gonna pan out very well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so we, we gotta, we've been doing some research here at our office and I'd be curious to know what Idaho does. In bad winters like this,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wyoming right now they're, they're doing the public.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meetings, they do every year. Here's our proposals. What do you think? Blah blah blah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most units, they're like, come here and shoot more cow elk. I mean, I can't believe the increases in cow elk numbers that Wyoming is proposing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Since it's all over-the-counter out-cunning for the most part, I don't know how you can cut those tags.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks cannot adjust numbers even if they wanted to, unless it's a limited entry unit. That's managing by politics and not science.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, if you're coming to Montana deer hunting in 2023.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Idaho, are you guys going through like a season setting process or a quota type process or? Nope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but here's the good news of a lot of this moisture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico that had been in, well, probably 30 year droughts, but the last four years, you know, 18, 19, 20, 21 were like really, really bad droughts. They got really good moisture in 2022. This winter they're getting excellent moisture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So those states do adjust tag numbers a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean every year they're up and down based on, and they're more moisture sensitive in their numbers. We're more like cold and snow sensitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you give Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, maybe another.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two years of good moisture. Yeah. And history has said that Arizona and Nevada particularly will raise their numbers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm hoping we get that moisture and I hope that their numbers rebound enough that they can get back to where they were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put a little bright spots out there that there are some agencies, unlike Montana and Idaho, that go to every species for every district, every year, and they adjust up and down. Or maybe they keep it the same, but they, it's a conscious decision to keep it the same based on what they want for a harvest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you guys publish your regulations in two year cycles, right? I download your booklet. It's good for two years. Yep. Okay. Well, people think we're picking on them. It's just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you, when you have demand on a resource and you have all these other factors of habitat encroachment, development.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 2023, it's a little harder to say, well, that's how we've always done it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not picking on you, we're just saying this is how it's working in each state. And, uh, I admire those states that go through that work and go through that effort every year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we might complain about the years that, oh, can you believe they cut tags? You know what? They have to. They really are doing the right thing. And when they bump tags and increase tags, we should be there giving them the pat on the back when they do that also.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, man, I ended up in a really crazy debate on that topic last week. Oh, did you? Yeah, I got sucked into one of those. Wow. You know, mother nature will take care of herself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. If all of us would just pack up and leave the continent, restore it back to how it was before Columbus hit, you know, shores in 1492. You know what? Yeah, it worked back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you move all the elk and deer and pronghorn and everything else to the very margins of what their traditional habitat is, and you make them crossroads and highways and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, new reservoirs and you disrupt their migration corridors and you do everything else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where they really don't have a natural path to follow. They don't have the escapement. They don't have all the other things they evolved with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you say, well, we're going to throw a bunch of, you know, whatever it is. I don't care. You can say wolves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and say we're not going to manage that part of it. You know, everything will have its nice, easy, natural cycle. No, it won't. That is just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, mother nature is on hospice. I like that. Uh, but that is where this person and I agreed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he said, you know, there's just too much human encroachment for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I don't know if we said too much. I think we, it was kind of agreed upon that the impacts of humans are significant and having an impact beyond what


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I implied I'd buy the person a plane ticket to leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just, I don't know why, I must've really been bored that day, but it was someone who has.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A pretty large following and I'm like, this is BS.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know it is, it doesn't fit the popular narrative.


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[Assistant] And then come talk to us next week and we'll see what, what we got. We'll get you two more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ugliness, if you want to call it that, by human standards, but the reality of what a natural world is never has been this comfortable place. And then you take humans,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm, I raise my hand as I'm one of the contributors to it. I'm here. I've got a house. I drive a vehicle. I demand resources. I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm as guilty as everybody else, but you can't deny when you have that collective amount of humanity.


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[Assistant] Putting pressure on resources, on space, on habitat, on just the quiet and serenity that these animals need, you can't deny that it's a broken equation.


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[Assistant] We'll never get the equation back to how it was before, you know, settlement, but we have a responsibility to do the things we need to do.


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[Assistant] Yeah, hunting, how we adjust season types, how we set seasons and management of the predator side of the equation. And I know people want to just focus on that predator side of the equation. We're all, you know, we can all be guilty of it, but it's a necessary part.


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[Assistant] You know, I, I can't tell you how much of my time I spent trying to get Wolves delisted through the whole, when the whole congressional thing was going on in 2009, 10, 11. It was like what I lived and breathed for three years. And then we get delisting.


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[Assistant] Because I know you hunt wolves a lot, Cory. A lot? I haven't, the last couple years I haven't got out and done it. I used to do it a lot. And, uh,


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[Assistant] That's why Uncle Puskat isn't out there. Because it's a lot of work. I tell people that if I hunted elk as hard and as many days as it takes me to get one encounter on a wolf,


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[Assistant] I'd fill four elk tags with that amount of effort. Easily, yeaah. And, uh, but for me, having hunted them a lot,


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[Assistant] And having trapped a lot, I do have a ton of respect for them. I mean, people don't have to like them or whatever, but I tell people.


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[Assistant] They're a cool animal that when you think about


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[Assistant] Going and tackling a six hundred pound bull elk with just your teeth?


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[Assistant] That's one side of the equation and this is the other part of the equation because tonight I'm going to my local RMEF chapter meeting is what are we doing for habitat?


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[Assistant] And I know some people think that conservation and habitat is like this nebulous,


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[Assistant] You know, fuzzy thing, we just use the term cause it's cool. But you know, there's.


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[Assistant] Logging and thinning treatments, there's prescribed burns, there's the spraying of noxious weeds, there's, you know, all kinds of things that make the landscape more productive for wildlife.


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[Assistant] And none of that is easy and none of that is inexpensive. None of it's cheap.


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[Assistant] Yeah, they've got 11,000 volunteers, 11 to 12,000 actual volunteers, uh, and they've got 200 and.


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[Assistant] It bounces probably 230 or 40,000 members. So one out of every, yeah, one out of every 20 members is an active volunteer. And, and I get it. You know, I, I understand. I go to our committee and I'm just.


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[Assistant] And they're already busy people. It, it, it reproves the statement that I learned back in college. If you want to get something done, ask the busiest person in town. Yup. These folks who volunteer for our committee, you know,


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[Assistant] They've got businesses, they've got families, but they're still getting it done.


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[Assistant] So I, I'm just so struck by what remarkable people they are. And I'm, I'm just, you know, our little committee here in, in the Gallatin Valley of, you know, we've got about 20 of us, 25 of us, but you replicate that in all these other places. And so that's, that's the other part of this that I, I would like to encourage people to think about what are you doing? Okay. I kind of ridiculed.


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[Assistant] My Uncle Puskat for not going out and hunting wolves.


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[Assistant] And uh, am I, am I gonna get in trouble for using that term? That's the term my dad used to use. Anytime he saw some, and my dad had a big beer belly, cause my dad drank a lot of beer, so anytime he saw somebody bigger than him, that guy's a poscott.


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[Assistant] It comes off my tongue like, you know, and button four, you know, it's like just part of the vernacular where I grew up. So when I saw you just about fall out of that chair, I'm like, Oh, I threw one out there. I might get in trouble. I was kind of making fun of that part of it.


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[Assistant] And there's some sincerity to the message I'm trying to get across is on the Predator side, we got to be doing our part there. But one thing we know.


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[Assistant] All the science has proven is that the better the habitat, the more resilient


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[Assistant] The herds are, and this is deer, elk, pronghorn, whatever. The more resilient they will be to predation, to the effects of winter, the more abundance there will be for hunting.


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[Assistant] All those things are a function of the habitat side. So we got two pieces we can, can put, you know, put our effort into and I hope people are doing that. That's.


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[Assistant] On the RMEF website, they just updated the project calendar for March. There's a project in Oregon, one in Virginia, Washington, St. Helens, Mount St. Helens, Washington.


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[Assistant] And that's just the updated ones. There's an ongoing list there that.


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[Assistant] And they're, they're a ton of fun. Me and our crew, we've went out and done quite a few of these fence poles and other stuff and they're just a lot of fun.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so for me, and this is, so people are probably wondering, where does this come from? Well, we got, I don't know how many emails we've gotten the last two weeks. It's crazy. Uh, and thank you all for doing that. But a lot of them were on these issues of.


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[Assistant] Abundance of elk and competition for tags or a competition for opportunity. And people get tired of me saying it, but.


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[Assistant] If you want to increase the odds of drawing a tag by 50%, put 50% more elk up on that mountain.


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[Assistant] Is that a positive effect? That's the route some would want to go. You and I have had this discussion, Corey, that you and I are abundance thinkers, not scarcity thinkers.


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[Assistant] So we view how can you solve the problem? How can you create more? How can you feel like


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[Assistant] You know, this is better tomorrow than it was today compared to the scarcity thinkers who would say just what you said. Well, let's get rid of all the hunters or half the hunters. You know? Oh well. And so.


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[Assistant] Those of us who've studied those abundance and scarcity mindset things, do you know that


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[Assistant] The abundance thinker and the scarcity thinker will look at the same problem, same facts, same everything and come to two different conclusions about what are the causes and what are the solutions.


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[Assistant] I don't, I don't want to call these debates exchanges that I got into. Uh, someone was saying that, you know, public access is getting harder and harder and harder. And I agree, you know, we're losing a lot of our private hunting lands. They're withdrawing from.


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[Assistant] Like your state program of Access Yes, same program Wyoming has, Access Yes, Montana's Block Management.


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[Assistant] If I told you that we could come up with an idea that would


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[Assistant] Give us access to four million acres with one little state legislative action.


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[Assistant] I, you think I could get much support for that?


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[Assistant] There's almost 3 million acres of state trust lands in Colorado, those little blue sections on your map. And in Colorado, hunters cannot hunt on those state trust lands.


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[Assistant] Whereas in your state, in Idaho, Corey, you guys have the best state trust land rules in the West, hands down by a mile. Yep.


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[Assistant] You guys have always been able to hunt those lands as far as I know. There's never been access issues. So in 1993, this is going to age me a little bit. The very first legislative session I went to, I'd been in Montana two years and I'm like, well,


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[Assistant] I know it's tax season, but I didn't take this huge pay cut to lose access or to have


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[Assistant] Less places to haunt and there's a bunch of these guys who came up with the idea that


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[Assistant] You know, that would pay a few teachers. That'd buy a few school buses. And so through one act of


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[Assistant] ...of legislation, and there's still some hard feelings about this, uh, some people will never forgive, but we as the Hunters...


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[Assistant] And if you live in Colorado, you call me or email me and I will show you the roadmap we used in Montana.


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[Assistant] And you guys should have access to that three mil, three or whatever million acres of state trust land in Colorado. So the person is like, well, I don't know if we could do that. Why not?


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[Assistant] Right. And you know, in Montana, it's a recreation access stamp. So we're talking anglers, hunters, hikers, you know, and it's, it is non-motorized access.


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[Assistant] Okay, you, you can't just go, you know, riding your ATV off into the middle of nowhere or a mountain bike or whatever.


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[Assistant] But you add all those people together now that pay that stamp in Montana and it's a significant chunk of money. And here's what it did to those trustees. If you're a trustee of the school funding system, how are you going to tell


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[Assistant] I want people to understand that there are still places in ways that we can be working on access.


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[Assistant] And there is some really good state land in Colorado that when I drive by it, I'm like, if I lived here.


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[Assistant] You look at any of our states, there's probably things we can be doing that aren't as big of a lift as it might seem, especially if we engage our state based, you know, on our angler groups. And we can make a difference.


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[Assistant] Now, when people think that that wasn't that big a deal, I say, okay, in Montana,


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[Assistant] Let's just take 5.4 million acres out of the public access domain and tell me that isn't a big deal.


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[Assistant] In the entire state of Montana, it's pushing 40 million acres if you count that state line.


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah, that 40 million includes state trust land, BLM for service, everything.


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[Assistant] So, and what would it cost at a thousand dollars per acre to go and buy three million acres? You gotta change that million to a billion.


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[Assistant] Uh, there's things like this that we can be doing collectively as hunters.


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[Assistant] What I call giants of conservation in Montana that gave us the stream access law that were the leaders of this one I'm talking about.


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[Assistant] And I show up there and I am so green.


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[Assistant] Corey, I thought I was going to pee my pants when I got up to the podium. It was all I could do to hardly even say my name, say I live in Bozeman.


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[Assistant] And I'm here in support of whatever the bill number was, uh, but afterwards these guys


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[Assistant] And this is where it got me, it really dawned on me how generational and how forward thinking


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[Assistant] This group of guys where I'm talking, Jim Pazowitz, Tony Schoonen, Jack Atchison Sr. There's a whole cadre of them that if you live in Montana, they're like, uh, if we had a Mount Rushmore of people they'd be on there. And they all came and they were so excited to see a new face there. And when you hear their stories,


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[Assistant] They said, we're doing this because someone before us did something similar.


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[Assistant] And we want to do something and make it better because our days, you know, our days of hunting and fishing, they're, they're pretty short.


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[Assistant] But we're willing to do this and we want to do this for the next and the next and the next and so.


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[Assistant] Forward thinking their view was about, it wasn't about them. It was about.


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[Assistant] Seeing me as this 29 year old punk in the back who had a, you know, 3 year old kid. To them, they said, this is why we do this stuff. And they pointed to me.


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[Assistant] And it's, even though that was whatever that'd be 30 years ago.


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[Assistant] This whole advocacy thing, I know people don't want to get involved in politics. I know you don't want to be involved in this or involved in that and neither do I. Ah, trust me.


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[Assistant] Cory, you and I have better things to do than for you to have just written that letter that you were talking about that you wrote to your legislators.


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[Assistant] Do what we did in Montana 30 years ago, because it's just to me is ridiculous that there's, you know.


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[Assistant] I, I should look up the true numbers. I thought it was more than three million, but.


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[Assistant] Say it's three million acres of inaccessible state lands in Colorado.


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[Assistant] Would Colorado's pay 10 extra bucks a year to have access to that?


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[Assistant] And I'm sure somebody's going to say, Newberg, you don't understand. Things are different in Colorado than they are in Montana. You know what? I get it. They are different. Yup. Bye.


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[Assistant] I'm here to tell you there is a solution to that. And you start knocking out chunks of, of access to the tune of a million here and three million there.


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[Assistant] You want to know the funny part of that was, uh, some of our CPA clients laughed or mad.


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[Assistant] Well, it just goes back to that. Fortunately, it wasn't many of them. It was just a couple. You know, like in every large population, there's a few cranky people.


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[Assistant] Well, I don't know what that has to do with outgunning other than...


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[Assistant] Well, and if we're paying more towards it, it lessens that argument that those folks just... Exactly.


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[Assistant] Just used to get that done, but anyhow, we got any elk hunting tips for today? You can tell my mind has been stuck in politics now that the Montana legislature is in session.


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[Assistant] Oh, I'm sure some of the neighbors probably have that video clip. In fact, if it snows nine inches tonight, I'm going to do a video about how to be a one arm snow shovel operator. It actually works really good if you have the right shovel.


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[Assistant] And it's gotta be plastic cause you don't need any additional weight, like a metal shovel blade. But, uh, the downside is my snow banks are getting so high, I can't hardly kick it over the snow bank anymore.


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[Assistant] Then you're going to be all sorts of messed up. Oh man, don't tell me that, Corey. But I've been going to PT, uh, I went to PT yesterday and she said,


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[Assistant] You know what? You are so far ahead of where most people are at this point. You should go do that Alaska bear hunting thing. Really? I'm like, obviously you're not married.


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[Assistant] So I came home and my wife's like, man, you're pretty happy today. I'm like, yep. PT just told me I'd go to Alaska. I'm going.


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[Assistant] So, you know, I thought I was going to have to shoot left-handed.


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[Assistant] She said as good as you're doing with your dexterity and the strength you're showing in your, in your arm right now, yeah, you can probably shoot right handed.


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[Assistant] I did tell her that. I said, you know, you might be working on my left shoulder here because over the weekend I just about wore it out shoveling snow with one hand.


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[Assistant] I kind of wish I was like the ball joint on your vehicle. You know, you need a grease or where you can just plug a grease gun on there. Cause it's got a little crooks and pops and tweaks and sounds like a rusty door hinge or something.


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[Assistant] Well, I cover some of this stuff in my outdoor class that I did on rifle alcohoning, but I didn't get to that point. It never dawned on me until I just listened to you say that. I talk about how


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[Assistant] In a lot of the country, mostly like New Mexico, Arizona, maybe Nevada, where it's not all alpine elk. The elk based on moisture disperse horizontally.


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[Assistant] So, you get a really wet winter like they've had and if it continues,


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[Assistant] Compare that to a really dry year like they've had in 2020 or 2021.


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[Assistant] The areas of greenness of forage they're seeking are very, very small. So you'll, in those places you'll find elk in highly concentrated areas, but they won't be used in a lot of areas on the landscape.


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[Assistant] The amount of water that exists concentrates them cause it's scarce.


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[Assistant] And the amount of green forage that exists is scarce.


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[Assistant] Maybe you take the same number of elk, but they're concentrated into smaller areas. And so when you do find them, yeah, there's a lot of them.


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[Assistant] Well, you get wet years like this and now there's free water in a lot more places. There are.


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[Assistant] Grass and greenness all across the landscape. So now the entire landscape becomes available habitat to them. So you're not gonna see big groups of elk in a really moist year like this.


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[Assistant] But you're probably not going to have to work as hard to find where they're at because they're more like.


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[Assistant] Polka dots across the landscape instead of just one big blob, so.


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[Assistant] You give a general concept or a trend or a general notion of behavior, someone will say, well, that's not what I saw. No, we get that. We're just talking about these general trends.


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[Assistant] When I'm sitting there using my terrain analysis tool for the Elcon I already have, uh, I'm going to be taking all this into account.


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[Assistant] I know, but here's, here's the thing, right? I have my loyalty point and I have my Hunter Ed point. So I don't go back to zero. I start out at two, once I draw. And then they give you two choices. So I always make my first choice something, lots of that.


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[Assistant] But, then you get a second choice. And my second choice?


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[Assistant] Some people will say, oh, that's a crappy hunt. You don't want that. You don't want this. And so I'll make my second choice.


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[Assistant] You know, something that's 15% and as I build more and more points, it gets closer to 30%.


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[Assistant] So if one of my choices has 30% odds,


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[Assistant] I figure every five or six years I should draw.


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[Assistant] And yeaah, I'm not applying, trust me. This is not a rifle run. No.


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[Assistant] And, and I get it that some people say, look, if I'm going to spend the time to go to Arizona, I want an early rifle or an early muzzleloader or I want this archery tag. I get it. If that's what you want, I just want to go. I'm an old man in a hurry.


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[Assistant] But I've been spending a lot of time and I'm taking into account, so, uh,


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[Assistant] Brady Miller out at Gohan, I don't know if you saw the recent article he did about the value of moisture maps and drought maps and snow-tel maps.


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[Assistant] Anyone who hasn't seen that needs to go and see it. And I've got them all bookmarked.


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[Assistant] And it's a crazy amount of moisture that Arizona is getting. Yeah. I'm like, okay, this creates some benefits.


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[Assistant] It's a big arc. It stretches through Nevada, Arizona. Well, I think the whole Rockies probably. And, uh, but it does create some challenges about the fact that now the elk could live anywhere on that landscape. It's like, huh, there's going to be so much feed. There's no place that they don't have as quote unquote usable habitat. So I'm going to have to be way more mobile to


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[Assistant] To find these, you know, the bowl that I'm looking for.


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[Assistant] Whereas before it's like, okay, I know, you know, what I said earlier, how they get condensed in drier years. So it's changing my approach.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'll be there the first week of, uh, December.


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[Assistant] And, uh, the primary need is sanctuary because it, you know, they're trying to survive hunting seasons.


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[Assistant] Right. Cause when you, when you find the feed, you find the cows and the bulls are looking for the cows. So, but yeah.


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[Assistant] I'll be looking, all my waypoints are sanctuaries.


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[Assistant] And they're looking for those nasty spots that are still going to have a little bit of feed. So maybe there's a canyon with a little corner to it where that corner didn't get dried out in the dry summer. It's still a little more lush. Okay. Those are the pockets I look for in a dry year. Now, as I, well, every tank is full of water. Every little bottom has water. There's going to be grass growing everywhere. These things could be anywhere.


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[Assistant] I've seen an elk in there and you don't want to pack it out of that. But you know what? I'm driving 1300 miles. I don't care where that elk is.


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[Assistant] I got two strong camera guys and a couple llamas. I'll get that thing out of there. There you go.


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[Assistant] Anyhow, that's just, I, I throw that out there as it's kind of a sequence of how my season gets planned out, you know.


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[Assistant] That's not going to happen, but hey, uh, but then here are the things that as we're e-scouting.


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[Assistant] And using the tools that we've worked with to build out there at Go Hunt. This is how.


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[Assistant] Year round, you're bringing in information, you're processing it.


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[Assistant] Probably not even worth what they paid to listen to this podcast.


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[Assistant] Alright. Well, and if they want to see me, see how I do it on a map, I did it in my outdoor class.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I did an outdoor class course on pronghorn hunting.


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[Assistant] We, I started scripting it about two years ago. We filmed it last August and they've been editing and doing all their pretty little graphics and all kinds of other stuff that editors do that I don't know how to do. Uh, yeah, it releases, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, and then, uh, some day we gotta have Barclow on here. I know we've had Barclow on before, but I just did a podcast with him because his course on, uh, backcountry mission planning just dropped also out on outdoor class. And I had him on my Huntalk radio podcast and we went through each chapter and it's like,


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[Assistant] Whoa. There's a lot of stuff here, John. This is like, you could have made this like three courses. Yeah. And, uh,


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[Assistant] But your name did come up on that podcast.


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[Assistant] Yeah, we're talking about certain things about comfort and safety and how you can get yourself in situations where you now realize that, hey, my safety level


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[Assistant] Might not be as good as I'd normally like to be comfortable.


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[Assistant] Are real gems for, and I don't care if you're a back country hunter.


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[Assistant] Or if you're a, you know, as they now call it, front range hunter.


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[Assistant] Your university course is out there. So the Pronghorn course is there and John's course and.


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[Assistant] And if you want to have access to all those e-scouting tools we were talking about, draw odds and all the other crazy stuff that, you know, go hunt insider. They'll put $50 a credit in their gear shop. If you sign up, use an out talk. Yep. What else we got an out talk promo code for?


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[Assistant] Yeah, we, we just assume that everybody would honor outtalk as a discount. Uh, if they don't let us know folks, we'll get on them. Wait, if we, I'm, I'm a CPA and I'm a typewad, I don't pay full retail for anything. So.


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[Assistant] That, that motto of don't pay for retail has extended into my life as this, you know, podcaster video guy.


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[Assistant] If I can't find a promo code, I don't feel like I'm doing my audience, you know, fair shit.


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[Assistant] It's too much snow, my archery range, well between my bomb hand and my archery range being under five feet of snow, I haven't been shooting my bow. Have you been shooting yours?


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[Assistant] More to keep my arm in shape, so. Yeah, people don't know that you and I, we just record the audio for the audience, but we can see each other cause we do it on a video call. Uh, but I saw UPS man come in behind you and drop a package off on your folder. Yeah.


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[Assistant] My biggest temptation when I'm shooting my bow is my neighbors have chickens.


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[Assistant] They come strolling by when I'm out in my archery range and all I can think of is, boy, that's just about like a grouse. I was just going to say, yeah.


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[Assistant] Uh, but I haven't, I haven't shot one of them yet. I don't think Karen and Myron would really care if I did. My dog ate one of their chickens one time.


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[Assistant] Yeah, they're wonderful people. One time, uh, their, their daughter and son-in-law lived the other side of me and the chickens were in my yard and I stepped in a big wad of chicken poop.


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[Assistant] And I was cussing because you know I got chicken poop on my shoe and I gotta get to work and I chased the chickens out and their daughter and son-in-law must have heard me because the next day I get a bang on my door and here's Karen with three dozen eggs. Wow.


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[Assistant] Uh, yeah, if you're in my neighborhood and you got chickens, trust me, someday the temptation is going to be more than I could bear.


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[Assistant] Man, they start quivering and twitching and all kinds of stuff by that. So far they've been safe, but if you read about the Bozeman newspaper, you know, some guy shot his neighbor's chicken with a bow. Uh, it just...


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[Assistant] Yeah, I know. I, I get whatever you want to call it.


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[Assistant] Anyhow, I'm coming to your home state, Idaho, this year, and I'm going to shoot as many limits of prairie, er, of, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, don't, don't be setting the expectations too high Cory. Cause if I go back there and I flub it up and I can't find an elk, I'm going to, you know.


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[Assistant] Well, they're going to be moving a bunch of the rifle tags to the late season. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And then they're going to have that late spot in stock archery season in December. So that might be an opportunity.


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[Assistant] For somebody to snag a tag that they otherwise wouldn't have got. Yep. And, uh, and then let's see after that we got.


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[Assistant] You know, we still, you still got a point for some of these things. If you would apply again, you'd have a second point.


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[Assistant] And he's got some hopped up idea of where we can go with llamas. I don't know. In Oregon? In Oregon. The guy ain't right.


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[Assistant] What's Nevada this year is May 10th? I like Nevada though because they turn it around within eight days.


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[Assistant] Montana, we do it in like two weeks, but then the problem in Montana, we get ourselves in a hurry and we issue more tags than what the quota was supposed to be. Like one, one year, everybody who applied in this pretty high demand unit got a tag or it said you drew. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And they're like, oh, now what do we do? Yeah. Well, they gave a bunch of extra people tags like last year. It's the same thing. They're like, oh yeah. Oh. Hmm.


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[Assistant] I don't know why this is so hard in Montana, but we have not had a draw in the last four years that was according to what the regulations were.


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[Assistant] I didn't draw that year that that company made that big mistake, but this is going back a ways.


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[Assistant] When I heard that Arizona might honor their applications, I hired an attorney. Really? I hired an attorney and said, look.


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[Assistant] All the rest of us read the instructions that this is where you mail your application. Why penalize us for, you know. So, uh, I got a call from their commission chairman.


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[Assistant] Saying, don't worry, we're not, we're not gonna give, they're all gonna lose their loyalty point and we're not gonna give them a point. Okay. Cool.


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[Assistant] I thought it was clean living, now you're telling me that it was because of a lawsuit.


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[Assistant] Well, I would bet if you could go to Vegas and place a bet of whether or not there'll be some mistakes in the Montana draw.


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[Assistant] That's how good the odds are that the history says something's going to be messed up. Did you see, uh, March 22nd was supposed to be the deadline in New Mexico, but they had a server crash.


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[Assistant] So, but don't count on that as kind of your way to get an extended deadline. But I appreciate that Montana has been turning it around quicker. I just wish they'd stick to however many tags got approved. Yeah. You know?


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[Assistant] A plus or minus 50% really isn't, you know, helping things out a little bit here.


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[Assistant] Other than that, the last state we got, Cory, is your home state of Idaho. Yep, June 5th.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well I gotta figure out what I'm doing in Idaho. You guys have never given me a controlled permit.


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[Assistant] We're pretty stagey with them. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Let's say an average of $150 per license, plus tag fees, application fees, and then


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[Assistant] He charges that goofy transaction fee.


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[Assistant] Not, I mean, any money I don't spend on the hunting or hunting gear is mostly a waste.


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[Assistant] Remember I told you that Mattson's labs, when they heard about my arm, they sent some flowers to my house and I came home on a Friday and my wife was


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[Assistant] You know, usually I'm a little more astute than that. I really felt low down. I'm like, boy, I'm slipping bad. So any of you young guys who don't believe in the flower gig, try it.


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[Assistant] Uh, I said, you know, one day you had to get that gal some flowers. Oh, she doesn't want flowers. I'm like, look, I'll make, I'll make you a deal. I'll pay for the flowers.


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[Assistant] And have them delivered to her office in front of all the other people in the office.


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[Assistant] And you call me on, I do this on Friday afternoon, just after lunch, and you call me on Monday and tell me whether or not.


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[Assistant] So I talked to him on Monday, I'm like, uh, what do I owe you for them flowers? Nothing.


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[Assistant] Well, I'll, I'll just tell you this. You got about another five or six years of her still caring about what comes out your mouth.


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[Assistant] And then after that, it's just a roll of the eyes.


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[Assistant] I'd like for everybody to have success this fall, but I hope that in Montana we cannot have really high success rates because we sell 180,000 elk tags and there are only about 35,000 bull elk running around here, so.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think I got to go. I got a call from the sporting goods store that I got another firearm I got to pick up. So what?


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[Assistant] Good for you. I know. I've got three safes here. There's a group called Steelhead Safes. If you need a good, good gun safe, Steelhead Outdoors in Minnesota, they make these modular safes.


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[Assistant] Man, there's still another slot in there for another firearm, so I better, I better, you know, I didn't buy this safe capacity just to let it collect dust, so.


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[Assistant] Well, as long as it doesn't come out of her money or the household money, she doesn't even ask anymore.


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[Assistant] Well, at least I'm not dumb enough to say, honey, I bought a rifle for you.


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[Assistant] True. You know, that's like, that's like marriage, that's something you do in your first year of marriage. If you do that in your second, third or beyond that year of marriage,


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[Assistant] You probably have a short life expectancy in terms of how long this marriage is going to last. That is true. But no, I, I gotta get down there because by the time they do the background check on me and everything, I'm, uh, I don't know what, how long it's going to take, but I'm pretty excited today. Very cool. Yeah. And I, okay.


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[Assistant] People probably wonder how many, have you ever heard anyone ask, this is like the dumbest question, but if your wife asks it, don't give this answer.


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[Assistant] But if your buddy or the neighbor or your brother says, well, how many do you need? That's grounds for like kicking them right in the knee.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, I, you know, my, my grand, great grandfather Isa left Finland in 1913 because he is going to get conscripted into the Russian army. And so he came to Northern Minnesota.


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[Assistant] She's, you know, I'm the oldest grandson, so I kinda am supposed to be the keeper of all the family things.


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[Assistant] I wonder, I'm like, grandma, what's the deal with like your wedding picture, your 25th anniversary picture?


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[Assistant] So she goes into this long family story about her dad having to leave Finland and blah blah blah and she said,


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[Assistant] When he came to America, he said he will never again be a peacefully disarmed citizen. And so he just collected firearms. So.


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[Assistant] I come by it naturally. Naturally. And much like grandpa Isa, I am never going to be peacefully disarmed. And if they think they took enough of them, they have no idea how many of them I have and how many places I have them. That's great.


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[Assistant] And look at what I'm doing, and I'm donating to conservation today, Cory. Yep, you sure are. There's an 11% excise tax going to be charged on the manufacture of that rifle.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and then I'm gonna, you know, who knows what else I'm gonna buy.


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[Assistant] Yeah, no, it's, I mean, I, I'm, if I ever ran for political office, you know, I think it was Calvin Coolidge ran under the promise of a chicken in every pot is what he called it. For me, it's a gun in every safe. Yep.


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[Assistant] Yep. And when you get my age, you need all the sleep you can get.


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[Assistant] Yep. I ain't going to the beach to get a sunburn. If I'm going to get a burn, it's going to be a powder burn. Okay.


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[Assistant] Every time I drive by the beach, you know, I go to someplace, I'm like, you know how many firearms that guy could have had? No, he got suckered into going to the beach.


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[Assistant] What he should have done is send his sister-in-law to the beach with his wife.


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[Assistant] Saved the sunburn and he could have bought two or three new guns.


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[Assistant] Oh, well, I actually, uhm, I had to have my wrist essentially completely rebuilt because, uh, I tore all the tendons in there and a lot of ligaments so they


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[Assistant] They had to open it up on both sides and then they took some of the, I guess, tendons from inside my forearm and then drilled holes in all those little bones in my, uh, wrist and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wrapped the tendons in there and then reconnected the missing things and then screwed the tendon to the, the new tendon to my forearm, to my radius, so.


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[Assistant] When did they do that? Uh, three weeks ago. I actually, I, I damaged it last year, but uhm, I found out, it was like, you know, just standard man stuff where I was like, oh, I'll tape my fingers together.


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[Assistant] And he's like, when can we schedule you? And I was like, how long, you know, I was like, what, how long does it take? He's like, you need six months to recover. I was like, what? Uh, then we're going to wait. We're waiting until February. Uh, so I went through the whole hunting season with it. I had a, I kind of hated it a little bit because I, I've got, I had like a brace if I needed to do stuff, but I still did all my guiding and everything.


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[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah, it was kinda, it was kinda painful, but at some point you just kinda get used to it. And then, now it's, uhm, so hopefully it's gonna all be, uh,


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[Assistant] Working here in a little bit. So I get this thing cut off at the end of the month and then I'm going, uh, to chase some red deer in Argentina the very next day. So we'll see how it goes.


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[Assistant] The burning question. Yeah, it's, uh, I think it was a, it was a compounding thing. Uhm, the fir- what set it off was, it's really embarrassing. Uh, I, I-


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[Assistant] A little bit of time it wore out, uh, or it had been torn and then, you know, just using it a little bit. We had our, I had a baby girl and just holding the baby I think like really got it kind of messed up. And then I was on my first hunt last year, I guess it was the beginning of August.


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[Assistant] Uh, sheep hunting. And I was just like using my trekking pole and the steep shale stuff and the wrist just gave out and just bam, went right into the heel. So I think that's what dislocated the bones after that. And then, um, and then, and then I was just like, okay, you know, and then I'm like, well, I'll just use my other hand, my left hand.


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[Assistant] You hit all the key points there. Uh, no, I mean, I think, uh, it was one, I was actually in an area where there's not really big bulls, um, you know, so.


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[Assistant] I wasn't expecting, I was actually not hunting for a big bull, I was hunting for a bull. Um, I'm sure you guys have been in areas where you're like, yeah, you know, mostly kind of top end bulls 270 to 300, you know, looking for, I was looking for a six point and then, um, we had one encounter that day.


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[Assistant] Got call in, uh, we're on this ridge and this little burn and that bowl was, you know, bugled right on the other side, maybe 20 yards, but doing that thing that's like,


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[Assistant] It was early September, so it was the first couple days of September.


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[Assistant] Just kinda ended up going the other way. I think just, you know, whether you, I don't know if he actually had a cower, if he was just trying something new or didn't wanna, didn't wanna come in where we could see him or if he got spooked, whatever.


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[Assistant] So there's another bull bugling across the way and so we drop down and do that thing and it's like bugling back and forth and that bull's up on this point just kind of stand like just there not moving and it sounded like, you know, it was like a bunch of lone bulls trying to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I dropped down in bugle and I hear that bull bugle off on our side now. So I was like, oh, he's, he's kind of coming. So we start, I didn't want to give away our position and be in a bad spot. So we started moving up toward this other bull and it's just really thick.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and I, I, there wasn't a good opportunity for a shooting lane. So I was going like super quiet. I didn't, I didn't want that bull.


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[Assistant] To, uh, to come to us where I couldn't get a shot. So I found this, there's like a little old logging road and it's so steep in there and really thick. And I thought, okay, if I cross this little logging road, there is a burn, a little burned out patch and I can call them right there. It'll be perfect. So I crossed just as I crossed, there's two guys filming and they were like stopped on the logging road.


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[Assistant] And I hear the bull bugle like 15 yards away from us like, oh crap. And he's walking down that logging road. Now I've got no shot. He sees the other two guys and just, it was such a bummer. You know, where you're like everything, you did everything right. And it was a matter of seconds.


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[Assistant] But I don't know, it's kind of a tactic that I use a lot, especially early where I'm just hoping that there's a bull that's bedded, maybe he's with cows, maybe he's not. And then I get him to just come out of his bed. Sometimes when you get right up in their zone, uhm, they just pretty much run right in. So we were doing that and, uh, got into that area.


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[Assistant] Letting out calls, just, you know, every few, probably pretty much every 100, 100, 200 yards because it's just thick enough where I didn't think the sound would travel very far. And, uh,


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[Assistant] I'm going to, they're recording and everything and I'm like, Hey, I'm going to call again. And if he's closer than we know, that bull wants to play. And I make a cow call and he bulls at half, bugles at half the distance he was and like jump in the bushes. We jump in the bushes and 45 seconds later he comes out screaming and I shoot him at 47 yards.


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[Assistant] I mean, it was a bull. I actually got him scored, uh, shoot. He scored, uh, his official score was 388 and change and netted 378.


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[Assistant] Before he walked out, did you have any idea? Nope. I saw him walk out and I said, that's a giant. And then, you know, and I was thinking like, I mean, it's so thick too. I just knew it was a big bull, but I was like kind of in my head, like 360 type bull and thinking, wow, that's,


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[Assistant] Uh, cause I didn't think that we were gonna, it wasn't gonna, the wind wasn't gonna hold for us. And so I pretty much had to take that opportunity. The nice thing was the yardage that it was is essentially like when I step out of my door, I've got a target that I call like my home target that essentially it's right at 47 yards. So I shoot that distance.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so I mean, I pretty much got my start as an elk guide, uhm, I'd say probably since I was like 18, uhm, my full time thing was just guiding elk hunters mostly, I mean all over the place, uh, New Mexico, Montana, mostly Montana. Uhm, now I also have an outfitting business in Montana.


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[Assistant] And uhm, yeaah, I did a lot of writing, uhm, did some writing for, still do, for Western Hunter Magazine.


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[Assistant] Sportsman's and outdoor channel, uh, so just kind of would go out and do some self-filmed hunts. And then, uhm, yeaah, now I've got a podcast as well, Live Wild podcast, uhm.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, just kind of do a lot of, a lot of different things, but really cut my teeth and made essentially.


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[Assistant] When you're kind of on the Elks, I like to make...


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[Assistant] I think that there's, uh, yeaah, I guess there probably are people. Now if I, it just depends too. If I saw some elk and I was like on them and they moved into a spot that I was like, well, maybe I'd have a better chance of getting them in the evening, then I'm not going to go in there. But if it's a situation where, hey, I'm having trouble finding elk or I'm having trouble


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[Assistant] Whatever, then I'm gonna go to places where I'm pretty sure they're gonna be and, and throw out some calls that I think will definitely work.


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[Assistant] And I found a lot of success doing that. So I tried to just to play it on what the Elker doing and, um,


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[Assistant] In my opinion, just really a game of proximity and you know, understanding what the elk are going to do and their behavior and the easiest way to kind of like when they're sitting there, you can get in their bedroom and you can be in proximity to where they want to come in. When it's morning time, you, you're probably chasing, like you say, you're chasing them. It's hard to get ahead of them.


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[Assistant] I call really aggressive. Uhm, yeah, I mean, I've always had like the philosophy. I think, you know, we've all heard this, like, people say like, oh, they're call shy, they're call shy, they're call shy. And I think a lot of the people misinterpret elk behavior for elk. Like, I don't know, hunters, we in our mind think that,


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[Assistant] I like to bugle elk in. That's just my personal way that I like to hunt. It's the personal way that I like to kill elk. It's the personal way that I feel like


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[Assistant] You know, I was like, maybe there's, you know, tactics and things that I could do where, you know, it's not that, but I love that bugling interaction. So I get aggressive with calling. Uhm, I bugle a lot. I call a lot.


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[Assistant] I mean, I hate to say it, I definitely know that I'm not the best elk caller in the world, but I'm good at calling an elk. Uhm, and I think that you can maybe make the best sounds and whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And maybe still not calling as many Elks because you're right, it's that like.


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[Assistant] You know, I, I, I just think of it like if I, I just put myself in the place of that animal. Like, okay, I am pissed, I am a bull that's pissed, and whatever. And acting, and then not even that, but just timing and proximity too has a lot to do with it. Of just knowing where to be, when to make a call, uhm, as opposed to like what calls to make, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, like you said, there's, you know, if you like to call, I mean, there's me personally, like if I'm elk hunting and I'm like just, I'm just out by myself, I'm elk hunting and I'm like bugling and I see some elk that just don't want to bugle. I'll be like, Oh, I could sneak in there and kill that bull. I'll just walk past them and go find one that wants to play. Like I just have no, I have no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be honest, like, I mean, it can be really effective to sneak in. I think Elk are really easy to sneak in on. So it's like, it can be a super effective tactic and a great way to kill big bulls, but I just generally, if it's like September and I have the option to call them, I'm just not interested in it. I'd just rather go find one that wants to play or wait until that one wants to get fired up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, I've been there many a times. But that's the fun, like when I, when I'm guiding guys or whatever, I say, like my philosophy is I'm looking, I tell them, we're looking for someone that wants to play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We might go five and in this amount of time, we're going to find a bowl that wants to play. And that's our goal is like just finding the bowl that wants to play. And I like that because it's like we're, we're seeking a certain type of encounter, but once you get those encounters,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By actually passing up other opportunities to do other things, you really get a lot of experience calling and working bulls and knowing what works and, and then sometimes you know.


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[Assistant] I bet you I could get that bowl fired up at midday if I do this. Or you know, just playing different, playing with different tactics, uh, trying to figure out what, what gets bowls fired up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I, I kind of, I mean, I, in my opinion, there's no such thing as over calling because I'm trying to find a bull that wants to respond to a call. And uhm, my podcast this week is actually about the way sound travels in the mountains. And I called it, can you hear me now? But you can't call in a bull if it can't hear you or you can't hear it.


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[Assistant] So the topography and the way the trees are and everything plays a huge factor in whether a bull can actually even hear that call and that depends on like my call frequency. So if I'm in an area, I might be calling, calling, calling until I actually, you know, like moving spots and I kind of like to find spots like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would think of a glassing spot where you get, you know, really good glassing. I think of like sound spots where I get really good sound where I can hear back and cover a lot of country with my calls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just effectively call, you know, use a lot of location calls to try to get to a bull to fire up. Then it's like, okay, I know there's a bull here. I know there's a bull here. Knowing where those elk are is the start of it. And then just once I get those bulls fired up, you know, working those elk or maybe finding multiple places where I've got bulls where I could just go there and just get them, get them started at least.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elk are gonna do elk things. You know, they have to, they have to bugle, they have to breed, they have to find each other, they have to do certain things. And so, you know, if elk are doing elk things, like, you know, if I'm calling at every point where I think that, you know, I gotta call into this ridge and call into this ridge and call into this spot and call into that spot,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not really, I'm not really buggering anything up. If they aren't making noise back, they aren't making noise back, but they don't necessarily care what that elk over there is doing if they don't care. And if they do care, then they're going to bugle back. Uhm, and so I'm looking for those bugle back bulls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but it's different, you know, different styles too. I mean, I imagine if you don't call and you just spot in stock and you hear somebody like just all this bugling going on, you're probably like, oh, I dunno.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a good question. I generally, I mean, I don't know if I do a lot different. Uhm, I mean, I've called them big bulls in end of August, you know, like in Nevada. Uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, but I also like kind of try to match the temperaments of the elk that I'm calling to too. So like, like you say, you got to find one that wants to play, but also it's like, well, what are the elk kind of doing where you're at?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if they aren't making a lot of noise, then I kind of, I use different calls and I kind of use different setups and I focus on different areas and a different type of calling. Because it's not that those elk aren't like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, earlier sometimes I found, like, if they're, if they're bugling, then I'm, I immediately go to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finding a lone bull and actually lone bulls are the easiest bulls to call in. So sometimes it actually is beneficial to hunt those early seasons because you can find elk that are in their summer patterns still. So it's like, you know their locations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you can kind of single out those big bulls before they get big groups of cows. It's actually, in my opinion, probably the best two times a year to kill big bulls are probably like the beginning of September and the end of the beginning of October. I think because they're just kind of like that's when they're by themselves and they're easiest to get in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I'm calling, I can only do, I always like kind of think of it like this, like when my brother and I go out elk hunting, if there's a bull bugling, we'll probably kill that elk. It's like 90% chance that we'll kill that elk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's because one of us knows how to call and the guy that's shooting knows how to set himself in a position or knows when to move and when not to move. Uhm, and I think a lot of people actually get kind of too timid where they hold back too far and, and when they need to move forward, when they need to make a move, when they set themselves behind something, when they need to set themselves in front of something. They, uh, mostly though it's like they need knowing when to move


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get closer to that bull because it's like, hey, that bull's, I can tell that bull's hanging up. He's not coming any closer. He's going to go to where he's going to go. And I want you to go to where he's going to go as opposed to waiting right here in front of me. Uhm, you know, so that whole like just understanding when to move and how to be aggressive, uhm, I think kind of hinders people. I think also like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, most of the elk they end up killing. I'm pretty close to the collar only because I'd rather take that because people setting up is so bad. I'd rather actually just like help them say like, okay, I'm just going to treat it like I'm calling an elk by myself, trying to kill it myself, you know? Um, but yeah, it does make it difficult.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, factoring in the wind, knowing how to set up and then, you know, having somebody that can work the bull makes it, makes your success rate go up considerably. Absolutely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I will say, so I mean, I guess I didn't clarify earlier when I said like the best time to kill a big bull would be like that beginning of October. And that's, I would say that that's for guys that like to spot and stalk. Uhm, because they aren't as, like the big bulls generally, well, it depends on the season. Sometimes, sometimes they're fired up and, you know, it just depends on the year really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But most of the time, like once the herd, like the main breeding's done, the real big bulls kind of pull off from those groups and they just, they've had their butt kicked. They've been, they're isolated. Like they don't want to really mess around too much. Maybe if like there's some cows come cruising through.


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[Assistant] They're super easy to sneak on, obviously, and then they can be, you know, susceptible to certain calls, uhm, or at least out of, like, curiosity, especially when it's like, oh, maybe some cow's like, ehh.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so you know, I think there's a lot of guys out there that's like, hey, I'm going on one or two El Khans and I just want to be successful. Maybe the, maybe the stalking tactic is your tactic. You know, I, I'm not, I don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I've got a guy for five days, so I have to hunt him to the best of, to get him an elk. You know, when I'm hunting myself, it's a different game. You know, it's like I play my own game, I play by my own rules, I do what I enjoy.


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[Assistant] You know, when it's with someone else, then, you know, the tactics change, the things, uh, the things that I do change and I play it, you know, there might be times where I say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the most part, if you have a tactic that you really like to do and you do it all the time, you get really good at making that tactic work. Guys that I know, some of the best elk hunters I know


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, I for sure see that a lot. I also think, you know, what you see a lot is like, uhm,


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[Assistant] People, I mean if you, if you come in from somewhere and maybe it's a new area or whatever, and you're just getting into it, like,


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[Assistant] Maybe you hunted there one other time, you don't really know, like the trouble is finding where the elk are and you might think that they were here last year, just like you said, they were here last year, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Conditions were different last year. You know, maybe it's a dry year and they're up way higher. So all the elk were going crazy here and they aren't adapting for the particular conditions that are there. They're just going off of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's kind of the hard part is so you got seven days to hunt.


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[Assistant] I don't know, this is so hard to say. The one thing I do, I love calling elk and hunting elk, but I also, I think on the like challenge side, I think I love hunting mule deer. Uhm, like the spot and stock game of it is, especially with my bow, I think it's pretty challenging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uh, I don't know man, there's, it's, it's probably definitely, it's definitely between elk and deer, but if it was me with the bow in my hand, I'd probably go for the mule deer, because I know that I could go call for a hundred people during the September and be super stoked on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're always like, you know, how, how much do these tactics between elk and red deer interchange? And I'm like,


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[Assistant] Hunting elk. Hunting rusa and sambar are very similar as well. Like, they aren't as vocal. The rusa can be pretty vocal.


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[Assistant] But, uh, the Sambar are like a little less vocal, I would say, uhm, a little more solitary. Uh, but I would say, yeaah, very similar in a lot of them. The Fallow Deer, I love hunting Fallow Deer, especially during, when they're croaking.


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[Assistant] It can be, it's a little bit different though because they, they don't exhibit the same behaviors as elk do, so they're more like, uh, they're super, super aggressive and they can definitely be like called in. But they also have like these rep pads that they stay on. And so you might get a, uh, uh, fallow that's just croaking, like he's got his pad and he just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, it's, it's, it's really cool. Like their rep behavior is, I would say different, but it's like a fun, it's something else that's like, they're so aggressive that it makes it really fun. Uhm, and then yeaah, a lot of, a lot of the, the axis deer,


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[Assistant] They're just more of like a, a big herd animal. So they're just in a lot of herds. I would say that they're like interactions are not the same as, as elk. They kind of have like different habits and it's more like you, you use the calls to locate them, but you aren't really calling them in very often because they're always in groups of a hundred or more, if that makes sense. Yeah. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, yeah, you gotta be very sneaky. That does, you actually do bring up a good point though. I think one thing that people underestimate


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[Assistant] When it comes to being successful elk hunting is picking the spot based on the style of hunting that you're going to do. You know, if I talk about elk calling, like where I hunt elk in September is not where I'm going to hunt elk in October. Uhm, you know, like I like calling, so I like to pick those places where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You aren't going to spot elk. You're going to, they have to be vocal. And so I hunt really thick stuff in September. Like I love.


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[Assistant] I do that with a lot of species. It's like, man, I tailor my where I'm going to hunt based on the type of topography and the type of hunting style that I want to do at that time.


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[Assistant] Uh, because otherwise you're kind of chasing your tail from the beginning of like, ah, you've got, you're trying to force your type of hunting into a scenario that just does not work well for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, uh, really I like to be able to share these kind of tips and tactics and things that I've picked up. So uhm, it kind of is two parts, like I share a story generally every episode.


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[Assistant] And so a little bit of story. And I feel like a lot of people, I kind of started doing that because it's a little bit of an entertainment factor, but also people learn a lot from stories. You know, one of the fun things that I've, I never thought of, uh, with solo hunters, people, like the main comment would be, man, I've learned so much. Like I got an elk because I watched your, and I was like, what? I was just hunting and that's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I realized, man, people are learning by seeing it or hearing how something went down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think, you know, stories are very educational, uhm, but also, you know, can be pretty entertaining as well. And then kind of dissecting some kind of tips, often times it has to do with the story or, you know, maybe this is a tip that I use or a tactic that I use.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's what I do in these scenarios, uhm, you know, and make it where it's like a guy that has five days to hunt.


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[Assistant] I really like to be able to just talk to people about their questions, making the podcast kind of like, I want it to be where I really want people to be more successful. And so if somebody's got, there's a lot of questions that people have that I don't even think about. I mean, a question that I answered before was,