[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By Gerber, uh, go to gerbergear.com and learn about the knives, the vital, the big game vital, the gauge premium, all the things that we use when we're out in the woods, and not just knives, but also some really cool multi tools that they have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Use promo code ALKTOCK and when you do, when you sign up for the insider, you're going to get $50 of store credit. Mad money in their gear shop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that's because I was reading out on your Elk 101, uh, stuff, Cory, about maps, mapping, all kinds of mapping questions. And then I went and searched through all of our Elk Talk podcast emails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My wife was really disappointed when I started using OnX because it meant that my large investment in Papermap had become worthless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think she thought, well, when I, when he dies, I'm going to sell all these paper maps with all these squiggle marks and all these notes and stuff. Now she'll just have to sell my on X.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I use the hunt app on my phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just, I love having the aerial view on my phone that you can't get with a handheld GPS.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for those of you listening who are wondering how do you save battery life, you put it on airplane mode. Your GPS still works on airplane mode. Before you head out, you download the maps to your phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And carry a battery pack with you. I carry one of those little Jackery rechargeable


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Packs, I get about four or five recharges out of it on a hunting trip. And it doesn't weigh very much. And I'm set.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say everything, you should sell one version of everything, but then one version without the stuff Randy did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, because when we get into the mapping stuff here, uh, I'm gonna talk heavily about how dependent I am with maps and mapping for certain parts of the season, but other parts of the season I'm not quite as dependent on. So, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if they use, do you have a promo code for that University of Elkenning course?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want them to have the best gear that makes them the most comfortable so they'll hunt harder within their budget. But I don't want that to somehow be a crutch where they think that's a replacement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I know you probably do way more of the earlier, the three earlier seasons than I do, so I'm curious to know, do you use maps a lot for those, and if so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How, what are you using them for? In what way?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I'm listening to you say that, Corey, the step by step detail that you're talking about there, a big part of what you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't, I don't want to waste time or cause myself to be inefficient while I'm hunting when I could have been doing a bunch of things before season even opened at my computer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That allow me to absolutely be dialed in and have a plan when I get there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know I'm, everything I'm doing is with a purpose and everything that I go and do is either going to show me where elk are or where elk aren't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're talking about how you get it dialed down to one to five percent, I think you said, of the area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'd have way more success with the eventual killing it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you look at my e-scouting stuff, I probably...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take a- an entire unit and it looks...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now by the time I'm done, I bet you I don't, I'm not going to be looking at more than 3-5% of the entire unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've eliminated somewhere between 95 and 97% of the places where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There might be a few elk there, but the way I hunt, my style of hunting, how I like to hunt, I know that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only about 3-5% of the unit accommodates what I'm looking for and that is, it just makes it so much less intimidating. So many people look at this big map and they're like, where do I even this stuff?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You and I get faced with that because we haunt a lot of places we've never been to before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And use those same tools you're talking about to eliminate where, the places where they aren't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it doesn't mean every place that's remaining on my map has an elk, but I know the likelihood of elk being there is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, I even go so far as to use that mapping to finish out my e-scouting of, alright, what is my first morning plan? What is my first afternoon plan? What, and then the proximity of how close are those two each other?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How many different spots in this general area can I check out in a morning? How many can I check out in an afternoon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How far are they from my camp if I'm doing a base camp? And people look at that and ask me, well, why are you worried about that? It's, it all comes back to being as efficient as possible when I'm out there because I only have five days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if I flounder around for three or four of those days, just learning the place and trying to figure out, well, does this look like maybe oak would be here? I'm out there. I'm not filling that tag.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you were talking about things you're looking for at those earlier periods. You're looking for north facing slopes. Yep. With our protection, our coolness, our bedding cover.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're probably looking at north facing slopes somewhat adjacent to at least adequate feed and probably not super, super far away from water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's getting to what do the elk need at the time of year that you are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The needs that the animal has, the elk have at that time of year drive the places where you're gonna do your e-scouting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the same later in the year when it's rifle seasons in the post route of late October and the late season of November, the needs are way different than they are in September. So the elk are going to go to different places on the landscape to satisfy those needs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What if there are, what if you hike in five miles, you got away from all the people, but there's nothing back there that satisfies an elk's needs at the time of year you are there hunting. Yep. And then you kind of get that quiet time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you look at it in that, through that lens, it is really easy to eliminate at least 80% of the unit right there. 80% of the unit is not going to provide the needs the elk have at the time of year you are going to be hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at home, your job is to figure out how do I eliminate that 80%? Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now I am gonna dial it in even more precise and that's how you're gonna get down to that last 5% or 2% or whatever it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, these are the areas that might satisfy their needs. What are the areas that I know with 90% certainty will satisfy their needs? And then how do I find a bunch of them closer together? When I have my remaining probably 20% of the unit left, I'm just marking things all over the place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I'm looking at where are the clusters of these spots I've marked. Okay, I'm going to camp somewhere near those clusters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then if that's now down to 10% of the unit or 8% of the unit, how do I focus on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, this little cluster over here to the northwest, I can hunt that opening morning or I can scout that the day before season or two days before season. Then that cluster kind of southwest, I can scout that the afternoon before season opens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I can get one or two days of scouting in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh man, then my e-scouting becomes even more worthwhile, but sometimes I don't have that opportunity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I just gotta be really, really efficient when I get there and that comes through using my maps in the same manner that you just talked about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's an abundance of satisfying habitats across the landscape more so than there is later in the year. So later in the year, they're not going to be as spread across the landscape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you do find the places they're at, they're going to be in pretty good densities. Whereas my experience anyhow has been in archery season in September.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that helps, uh, locate them once you're there, but still to just show up. We, we hear it all the time. We've experienced it at times where you go to someplace new and you think, well, this probably satisfies their need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you get there, okay, it didn't. You better have more, more spots on your map that you, if you stake all of your hunt on one location,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are really rolling the dice. You may as well go to Vegas and play Keno.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As to go out in the woods with only one location in mind. I couldn't agree more. Yup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you go out, I suspect that even in your archery hunts,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, we're gonna go try this in the morning and there'll be three or four of those spots you have marked that you were talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we don't hear any elk, well guess what? We're not going to stay here and wait for the elk to show up here because it might be three weeks before they get here. You're going to have some other place nearby that you can get to by two in the afternoon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To do your evening hunt. And you're probably either...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crossing dead spots off your map or you're staying focused on the places where you are finding elk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, what you talked about right there I think is very important. You said how many backup areas you have. And those backup areas, I suspect, came from looking at your maps and doing all your e-scouting long before season ever started. A hundred percent, yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for me, one tip I often give people who are starting this e-scouting process with their on-act or their maps, Google Earth, whatever it is, is that, at least in the later seasons,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have summer range, then you have transition range, and then you have winter range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the bulls, as a general rule, are always going to be higher than the cows. The cows are going to, you know, when weather, hunting pressure, whatever it is, pushes them down, the cows are going to be lower than the bulls. So, if you're hunting mid-October,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in your e-scouting, you can almost eliminate most of that lower country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the weather and the food is still, uh, available and allows the bowls to be up higher. So you look at just those bands of what that allows for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, that means, alright, the elk are between 8,000 and 9,500 or whatever it might be in the geography or topography you're at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That means you've just eliminated a whole lot of the unit really quickly based on that one sorting criteria. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or if you're going in November and there's been a ton of snow, guess what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cows are probably already on the winter range, but the bulls are going to be on the transition range in the areas just above the winter range. Okay, they're not going to be up at 9500 because there's 35 inches of snow up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now, just through that same exact process, you have eliminated a huge amount of the unit and you can start focusing more and more detailed, more granular, just by little pieces, little thoughts of how you're doing it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it, again, it gets back to the needs that the LCAP and how they use the landscape to satisfy those needs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know we talk about it and we make it sound super easy, uh, and it's not always that easy. I mean, I've put together e-scouting plans that I thought, oh boy, this is a slam dunk. We'll have them stacked up by noon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then we show up and day five at noon we still haven't got one stacked up and it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to say that everything is fail proof, but I do feel anymore that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't ever, I'm trying to remember the last time I felt that I was spinning my wheels and wasting my time out there. Because in that five days I have, I have a plan for all five days and I'm following that plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, maybe sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time I'm gonna locate elk somewhere in that, that period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we were here at the shop, uh, we were going through


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are there any characteristics to the haunts where we've struggled versus the haunts where everything seemed to fall on our lap?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is going to be an interesting observation, but it held pretty true. When we went in and did


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our success rates are way lower than when we have a base camp and we're mobile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, who I'm hunting all kinds of different landscapes, all kinds of different season dates, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just have had way better success by having a base camp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the proximity of all these general areas where I see the clusters of my e-scouting waypoints.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And having the mobility and flexibility to go and investigate those or cross them off or take advantage of the fact that, wow, look at this, spot A opening morning, the elk are in here, the heck man, jackpot. That's how you hope it goes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's only about one out of every four times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other three times you gotta cross off spot A, maybe B, C, D, E, whatever. Uhm, and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, I've become less and less of a back country kind of person, like way, way back set up camp, uh, and more of a base camp guy because of that. Yup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 12 mile days and that because that's where we knew the elk were most likely to be and you get back there and boom, there they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I certainly wouldn't have loaded the llamas, packed to the gills, hauled everybody way back into one of those places with my fingers crossed and, oh boy, I hope they're in here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if they're not, we just lost three days of our five day hunt. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna find these fish somehow, and then the guy back at the dock is just stacking them up. You know, it's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just feel because of that investment you've made.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've made such a large investment, it's kind of like any, even in the financial world, if you make a really large investment, you're not going to walk away from it very easily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same with the investment of your time and your scarce amount of days you have to do a hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You say, ah, I've got so much invested in this, I'm just not gonna, I'm not willing to pull stakes. And so you stay there, even though your gut's telling you, you know what, I haven't seen an elk track within three miles of here in the three days we've been here, why am I still here? Well, I'm still here because I know that to pull stakes and go somewhere else would cost me a half day or a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was with the guys with Gerber and I told him, I said, you know, this is really high risk, high reward. And yep, it turned out to be really high risk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I marked those. It's like, alright, next September, this is where I'm going to be. Because for whatever reason that I can't explain, they want Ridge number three rather than Ridge one, two, six, seven, eight or nine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And every year, that's where they're back to. And so, back with the old paper map thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know a map is a tool to help you find out in my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I sure can do that with when I have it right there in the palm of my hand and say mark location.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you know, some people will say, oh, I still use paper maps and I don't have any problem with that, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I don't use an old flintlock, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right in the power, you know, the power is right there in the palm of our hands and it just makes such better use of my time. I can't even explain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It also comes into play in areas I apply for too. I do a lot of e-scouting as kind of a generic or a basic approach to where should I apply.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or maybe they don't understand that if you go to onyxmaps.com and you use promo code ALKTALK, they'll save 20%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm at home, I've been at the CPA firm all day on Saturday, kind of bemoaning my plight in life that I have this other job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have this, I have two drawers in my desk of old tags that I've never punched and I threw them all out on the middle of the floor of the Randy room and I got to looking at that and how many are there and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She knew what I was talking about and instantly I could see the look in her eyes that after 31 years of marriage, I know what she's thinking. You know how much money that represents right there? I'm like, move along honey, nothing to see here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't think that you fill every tag. I don't care who you are, you don't fill every tag. And every one of those tags that I didn't fill was a learning experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, the point of investing in myself. My wife might look at it as money down a rat hole. I look at it as...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every one of those represents some place, some time where I did something stupid, rolled the dice, gambled and lost or whatever. And all of that is an investment in my knowledge about finding elk or deer or whatever the species may be, so. Yup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like throwing away your, you know, your baseball glove that you played Little League with or something. That's like, man, I just not being able to get myself to throw these out. I don't know why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I'm going through the pile thinking I'll just throw this out, throw this out, I'm looking at the tag, it's like, no, you know what that represents?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Staring at this pile of just multicolored different papers, different sizes, some Tyvek, some adhesive, every different state in the nation, or at least in the West.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would be correct in that, Cory. Now when I go over to the shop, look at all the elk antlers I have hanging off the rafters or on the wall or whatever, and I get to thinking about those hunts, it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the sixth year I hunted that general unit spot in Montana. It took me not long to figure it out or whatever, but yeaah. That's, that's kinda why I brought up the, the tag soup thing is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and we can tell people that they can leave more of these kind of topics. Uh, how can they do that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I would be remiss if we're talking about maps and we're talking about elk and we're talking about access.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All you people who hunt Colorado and all the Colorado guys are gonna be mad at me here because, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just not too far from Steamboat Springs up in, kind of, if you look at the north central part of Colorado.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there was an old, I think, I don't think it's open anymore. I think it was at one time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Long, long time ago there was a ski resort called Stage Coach. Uhm, and there's an area up there, uhm, called Woodchuck Hill, uhm, and it's right near the Sarvis Creek Wilderness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, along comes RMEF and along comes the BLM with a little bit of money and some of the state park employees and others who all put their head together and they're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's just one of those easy examples. It's hot off the presses there in Colorado. So when you're applying in Colorado this year and you have ONNX, turn on the RMEF layer in your ONNX app.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, hopefully I'll actually get this one thrown in the app here pretty soon. I know they update them as regularly as possible. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So anyhow, I just, I know I wear the banner of RMEF and fly that flag pretty high, but it's with a good reason, uhm, when it comes to access and habitat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know why, Corey, they're having me emcee the Bozeman banquet again here April 4th. I think those people gotta be tired of hearing my corny jokes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, do they know RMEF with their partners that they work with, state agencies, federal agencies, great industry people, uh, like ONX is the, the leading, uh, tip of the spear for RMEF's access program. Uh, that's, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, leave a comment in the places Corey told you about. I don't understand how those things work out there on Instagram and Facebook and whatever, but trust him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, they must be trusting you because my email box, every day I get a whole handful of those and I sort them and I try to read them all. I don't have time to respond to them all, but understand folks, we are reading them and that's what drives a lot of the content of what ends up on this podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll, uh, we'll be sorting those comments and coming up with more topics for the off season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What would you guys recommend for little short period hunts like that? Just something to get out there and get boots to the ground and just try and cover as much land as possible. Those kind of situations.


[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 brought to you by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, ensuring the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat, and our hunting heritage. To become a member, go to RME.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's also brought to you by Gerber, uh, go to gerbergear.com and learn about the knives, the vital, the big game vital, the gauge of premium, all the things that we use when we're out in the woods, and not just knives, but also some really cool multi tools that they have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright folks, I told you that uh, Cory had bailed on me today. Really, he didn't bail. He's, he's not feeling that well. So, I'm here trying my best to carry on conversations that's not gonna bore all you to death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I asked you, I said, what do you want to talk about? And you said elk. I said, well, that's a good thing. Cause the podcast is called elk talk. So, uh, Utah elk. Can we talk Utah elk? Let's talk Utah elk. All right. Are you, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I was lucky. I drew an archery tag here in 2004. I didn't expect that. I was on the alternate list. I don't know if people know that if someone turns a tag back, you might end up


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's this message, you know, I'm so and so from Utah DWR, uh, you're the alternate. Would you like this out tag that's been turned in? I thought it was a crank call.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I ended up saying, yeah, I'll take that. What unit did you end up hunting? Uh, South Cache. Okay. And I had a great time. I went the last part of the season because you guys have your seasons open here in I think like August 20th or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and so I'd planned the last week and I'd hunted four days and was starting to feel like, alright, I'm getting it dialed in. And then my wife got sick and had to have an emergency surgery so I had to go home and I missed the last three days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really great elk hunting, but it's hard to get a tag. And when you get one like you, so when did you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think when I had the South Cache, that was one of those units that they have a targeted, harvested age class between five and six and a half or something. Five and a half, six and a half, something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of things you're learning or that you see that you apply from photography to hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm guilty of that. I go and I fill my tag and then I'm done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when you're a photographer, do you ever look at guys like me who aren't and say, uh, you know, if you would have taken two extra minutes, you could have really had a nice photograph there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love his pronghorn pictures. He must go to Wyoming somewhere. Does he? His pronghorn pictures, and I'm a pronghorn, not even though we're on Elk Talk, are great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As someone who produces outdoor media, I get the question all the time. What camera should I buy? And most of them are asking me from the standpoint of videography.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But two of my videographers are really, really talented still image guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A ton of questions that come your way about, Jason, what should I buy for a camera? What should I have for this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing I find is everybody wants something that does it all. Well, I want to take video from really up close, wide angle out to 400 yards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, uh, how many lenses you want to carry with you? How many bodies do you want to carry with you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Huh, so when you see someone like me who's always in a hurry, oh I don't want this to spoil, like, you know, it's hot, I gotta get this elk taken care of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure you look at composition and say, you know, if you would have done this, if you were to clean the background out, out of the, you know, you don't need four packs and two rifles laying in the background. You know, if you would have tucked the tongue, there's, do you have a cheat sheet list of photographers?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So no, and so I, this is stuff I've, I've learned with my, my crew being photographers, whereas I'm just a hurry up. Yeah, that I took a picture. Well, let's move on. I've got some amazing memories that I wished I would have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, I'm now lucky where I have somebody just walking around taking images while, because you always have that reflective moment kind of feeling that you have, at least for me when I walk up to an animal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At first I have the, oh my gosh, can you believe this happened? Like I'll use, for example, I had a Henry Mountain Archery Bison tag here in Utah this year. And when I first walked up to it, it was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my gosh. I can't believe a dream came true. And then I have this kinda...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thankful, grateful, appreciation moment, and then it's the ho ho, back to the holy cow, uh, and I'm lucky to have a career that's there taking images, so we get a little bit of all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's what's going through my mind at that time. And, and then also we, we try all kinds of different angles. We'll have some from the side, some from the front. We'll have, we've really,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's all about? Yeah. So do you think, uh, as hunters we, and so you're telling, I'm gonna back up before I ask a question. You're telling stories with mostly still images. Yeah. To tell a whole story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seems like there's a lot more than just that culmination of that, oh, here it's dead, let me take a trophy photo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're never going to take it out. Yeah. Yeah. My camera guys have these little things that go on their, uh, their packs, their packs called the cotton carrier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I'll see, I'll look over and they are taking images all the time and I'm thinking why are, oh yeah, their camera's right there, so. And I know a lot of guys who are hunting, they're not going to mess with that. They're going to be like, no, I'm here to hunt, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The storytelling for me, we do it in video, but it's getting to be the part that I enjoy, especially in the off season, I go look through old photos or old videos, I'm like, oh yeaah, that was fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if someone wanted to get a good quality camera that is going to be something that they could


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my home state of Montana, if you draw a moose, goat or sheep, you got a seven year wait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think in Nevada they have waiting periods.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, do you travel to other states to fulfill your elk hunting endeavours?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So do you tag along? You said you've been on like seven or eight months here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because Cory and I were talking about this a while back and I'd be interested to know what your thought is because in Utah you apply for years and years and years to get a tag or you luck out like you said after what, six years?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you feel a lot of pressure when you had the tag?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've done it to myself. I drew an early rifle elk hunt in Arizona for Unit 10.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I enjoyed the experience as much as I could've. Yeah. Because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I had that in my head. Opening morning, here comes a really nice bull. He was narrow, really long beams, really long tines, and he just wanted to get shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, I rationalize it by saying, well, I got to hunt an extra five days. Yeah, well, and that's part of it, right? But did you enjoy those five days? Right, that's the question, right? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every day the pressure felt a little heavier and a little heavier and a little heavier, but you said you shot your zone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, in a hunt like that, all your photography stuff where you're spending days out there with them just photographing. Were you going to school on what you learned there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elk that have their senses on full alert. Well, you guys have some amazing hunting here in Utah. I feel so blessed that I've...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean Cory and I did a full podcast about applications in Utah and Nevada and we lumped them together. Just because we were worried that a lot of people listening who might be traveling hunters who are non-residents to Utah or Nevada


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at it and say, well, man, my odds are so slim and I gotta buy here. I think my, uh, license fee is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] $65 non-refundable. Nevada is even more. Yeaah. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I'd listen to the podcast and I'm like, man, we almost really bagged on Nevada and Utah and it's, it's not that at all. It's just the reality of how hard it is to draw a tag. And if you're allocating scarce dollars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where's, where's the biggest bang for the buck? There you go. That's what we're trying to focus on. No, it's the reality of it, right? Do you ever hunt? I mean, Utah has your over-the-counter general tags? Yep, yep. Absolutely. Are they as crowded as everyone tells me? I've never done it. They're pretty crowded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're accumulating them and we're gonna have to do at least one, maybe multiple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, against it? For it? No, for it. Tell me more. Tell me more. I want to come do it. So this year in Wyoming, uh, we find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a couple days, what our Wyoming draw results are. Yup. Uh, I put my second choice as a unit where I'm pretty much guaranteed to draw and I can shoot a cow. Oh, that's cool. Because I want to go down and show people that it's not all about big bulls. I mean, don't get me wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's a big bull standing there and I got a bull tag, I'm happy to, you know. Yeah, you're going to put a bullet in it. Yeah, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I eat a lot of elk meat. And like you said, whether it's a bull or a cow, I can't really tell the difference or if I can, the odds are the stuff that was a little tastier and a little more tender was probably the cow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But so, sorry about those interruptions, folks. But sometimes you gotta interrupt just to move them along.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't, uh, really focus on filling my Montana. I'll tag that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I went out and hunted, don't get me wrong, but I had some opportunities in areas where I could have shot a cow, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I often wonder, do people see that and say, oh, he's too good to shoot a cow? No, it's not that. It's for me. I, I get to hunt a lot. So, and I knew I had that bison tag. I wasn't sure I was going to fill up, but I was hoping I would. Which is cool that you did. That's awesome. Yeah, it was so much fun. And then my son had a Wyoming elk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, if people see us passing on cows when we have the opportunity, it's not because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's something we don't want. You're not against it? No, not at all. I've helped so many people on cow hunts. I just, I think it's great. I mean the very first deer I ever shot was a doe. And I was so excited as a kid and I've shot a lot of does in my adult life so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, if we get back to the core of why we haunt and that being food, which it is for me, is there a better place and a better time to be...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Utah has so many amazing hunters, so many crazy public land hunters, but then there's a few crazies in their congressional delegation that want to get rid of public land.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I tell people, even if you vote for someone because you got other priorities, I get that. But when that person votes on public land, make sure they know how you feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's not a perfect solution, but if you, if enough people continually tell that person, that's how I feel about it, maybe they will change their mind. Yep, yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could not believe how much public land there was, and there were really not many hunters out there, or a few people out in the woods. I was telling some person here earlier, I thought,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I had that tag, I was wondering, am I hunting the wrong season dates or what's the deal here? Cause you guys manage so conservatively that when you do draw a tag, you might see other people in the woods, but they might be a family member or someone helping. But as far as actual tag holders, it's pretty, it's pretty slim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we just got interrupted. We had somebody bring me a cup of coffee. That was nice. Uh, and then some guys stopped us. Are you guys podcasting? We're sitting here with headsets on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, something like that. But uhm, tell me, and this is, I was asking you before the podcast, my son has 15 or 16 points here, and he just likes to go. To him,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only reason he's got that many points is, well, a combination of two things. When he was in college, all I did was buy a point for him. I didn't even apply. Well, and then he gets to the situation where work and everything else, he can only do one hunt a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, your late season hunts are the ones where he would have a pretty good chance of drawing. Drawing attack, yeaah. Are they pretty good?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love coming to Utah because the people I meet are wonderful people. And like I said, all the public land and the quality of the experiences are really, really good. I'm embarrassed to say this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did not know how good the Fillmore Oak Creek deer tag is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We hunted there for a week and never saw another hunter. That's amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boy, there were some tremendous deer there. I muffed it. Oh, did you? Yea, I shot two air balls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, that's a film that we just released out on our Amazon channel and I watch it and I'm like, ugh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Farts like me, and I can say that cause I'm grey as a ghost. Uh, if it was just old grey guys, who it impacted them, fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Draw systems stack the deck against those people. They do, they do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, Cory and I, our next podcast that we're doing on drawing is New Mexico. Okay. Well, New Mexico does not have a point system. Yeah. So, every year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your chance is as good as my chance and I've been applying there for 20 some years. And I'm fine with that. Whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas those of us who live in places like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or wherever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our kids, any of us, can just go buy our resident deer tag over the counter and by the time a kid is 16, he or she has hunted 4 or 5 deer seasons already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I tried this on my son when he was a young one. Because it was really big to me if my dad


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our uncles, we were going camping as part of a hunting or fishing trip. That was way more appealing to me than if we were doing a day hunt or a day fishing trip. The camping part was just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was cool, it was intriguing, and all my friends at school were, oh, you stayed in a tent? Yep. Oh, you guys cooked over and opened first? Yep. And at the time, it really didn't dawn on me what the, how that was affecting me. So I started taking my son out for the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That isn't necessarily, oh, you gotta draw a Henry's Mountain deer tag. Absolutely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost all the really good images we have while out fishing and hunting are his. And uh, now it's taking him into the, now that he's 28, he's, it's an adult.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Passion of his, that really parallels the hunting that we do. When he was home over Christmas, then we were out duck hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but uh, photography I think is, is a very good parallel to hunting and it gets people out in the woods. It gets you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Matthew was always in the video also.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's playing cribbage with me, and I can tell you this, that at the time, watching lots of outdoor TV, binge watching outdoor TV was not therapeutic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I, I said something about, I can't, some Schneid comment probably about how it's never like we hunt, you know, it's never public land, it's never self-guided. And he says, well dad, we could do better than them. I said, yeah, that's why I'm on the couch and they're on TV.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in this over-medicated state, he convinces me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Matthew really enjoyed that part of it. And it was another part of the whole experience that, okay, he's got football, he's got karate, he's got hockey, he's got all these other competing interests.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was very obvious to me that being behind a camera was something he really got into. Whereas if I would have said, hey, it's zero degrees today, you want to go elk hunting? He might have said, like a lot of teenagers, ehh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he put together what's called a, a sizzle reel. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sizzled reel, I took it to the shot show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 2007, and I got laughed out. They're like, good luck with that, son. Went to the Shot Show 2008, got laughed out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good luck with that. Public land, self-guided, ha ha ha. So I, I folded up the tent. Wow. Yeah, I was like, well, and Matthew was heading off to college, I said, well, heck with it, we sold all of our cameras, we got out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, he swings by my CPA firm, I give it to him. Two days later, he's got me on a speakerphone with his editors. This is it, this is the show we've been, this is the silver bullet that everyone's been talking about, and ba ba ba, and if anyone can do it, it's you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a cool story. I didn't actually know that's how this all came about. And here's the funny part. People laugh about this. He said, I've got one show. I need two shows to really make this work. He said, I got


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of those things where however we could spend time together and I wanted to make it fun for him. That's the point I guess I'm getting to with this whole discussion is it didn't have to be fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, like you were saying about you scared some elk away from your dad. Sure. I knew that there were times doing it in a way that a kid would enjoy it. Yep. Was, I wasn't gonna climb 3000 vertical feet that day. Sure. I wasn't gonna go sit on a rock when it's zero degrees and 20 mile an hour wind and glass from daylight till dark. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was an investment, and now I look at where it's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's taken us in that investment by making it fun for him when he was a skeever. I mean, a skeever. The very first time we went out, I still remember it, he had got a chocolate lab for his fourth birthday. Well, when he, the next hunting season, he was five.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A bunch of my buddies invited me on a pheasant hunt in eastern Montana. He's like, well dad, uh, he heard them invite me. He's like, I thought we were going pheasant hunting tomorrow with Copper, his new dog.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I woke him up, I'm like, you sure you wanna go? Yup, yup, yup. So we win, the dog flushes, one rooster, I shoot it, eh, it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The day was meant to happen. That kid is soaking wet. It's maybe 40 degrees. Miserable conditions. But his dog retrieved a pheasant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I think back to that day, it's one of my fondest days of being out there. And I know in elk hunting it's more intense than like that, peasant hunting or fishing, but I think there's ways we can do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me, that's really how I looked at it. It's not a financial investment, but if I can't invest some of my time, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well Jason, what do you want to leave the audience with? Anything special? Anything? I don't know, you know, just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The requirement to do it now compared to what it was. Oh yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. Oh yeaah. Yeaah. And then you would take it out of the camera, you'd go down to Walmart or wherever and you'd get it, they'd develop it and maybe in a day or two you'd come pick it up and you'd open the envelope like, oh wow, one of them is, look one of them is in focus. Yeaah, exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and it cost you a ton of money. Yeah, yeah. So, some of us old guys like me, we were, we're, I think we still carry that bad habit of thinking that these megabytes cost us money. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I like that. I can't come up with a better clothes than that, Jason. Maybe you ought to take over this podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Elk Talk Podcast is brought to you by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, ensuring the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat, and our hunting heritage. To become a member, go to rmef.org.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The podcast is also brought to you by Gerber, uh, go to gerbergear.com and learn about the knives, the vital, the big game vital, the gauge premium, all the things that we use when we're out in the woods, and not just knives, but also some really cool multi tools that they have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boktok Podcast is also brought to you by GoHunt.com. Uh, go to GoHunt.com and sign up for the Insider. The Insider is changing how hunts and hunting information are found. No doubt about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Use promo code ALKTOCK and when you do, when you sign up for the insider, you're going to get $50 of store credit, mad money, in their gear shop.


[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 brought to you by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, ensuring the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat, and our hunting heritage. To become a member, go to rmef.org.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Does anybody have a question? So here's how it's gonna work. So there's a little orange box up here. You have to come, the first person with a question comes and picks that box up and then the second person needs to walk over and grab the box or somehow we exchange the box. It says catch box, I'm guessing they can throw it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you can. We saw that yesterday. And then, uh, if you have a question...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll do our best to give you a truthful answer. Odd that we're going to make it up. Uh, but you have, we have Gerber knives here for anyone who asks, and then we've got Rocky Mountain hunting calls somewhere. Over here? Over here. So, who's first? He wants to do the Gerber.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the question is, uh, or the comment, uh, I'm an impatient hunter and I spook a lot of elk. What's the strategy to slow yourself down? Uh, how old are you? Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially in a sanctuary period like the post rot or the late season. Are you rifle hunting or are you archery hunting?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both. Okay, I'm referring to mostly rifle hunting. Uhm, the elk that are in the dark timber can't stay there forever because there's just not enough food there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very, very low foods. So there will be elk in there, but the elk densities are far lower than probably what you're going to see in other parts of their terrain and habitat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think about what a sanctuary consists of for an elk. It's got really tough approach, whether it's noisy, it's whatever, and then for him, it has really good escapes. So I know because of that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me just walking around and trying to cover ground, I'm going to see, I'm going to spook a lot of out because of the places they select for sanctuary at that time of year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 44. Okay. And I'm 54. And Cory said something about, you know, running up and down hills or something. I can't remember what it was, but I said, well, wait till you get to be 55. And Larry is 77 and he's over there coughing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I appreciate what you just said there. Okay, so here's a question to you, Corey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're, like Cory said, they're going from the places where they're focused on food to the places where they're focused on breeding. So, in a very short period of time, their primary need goes from food to breeding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we got the Charlie Daniels of the turkey call here, uh, saying, why am I not the Charlie Daniels of the elk call? Is that right? Alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's for you, Cory. I'm glad all these calling questions are here. I'm just sitting up here relaxing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, for me, I try to think about, alright, what is the time of year I'm at? And what are the essentials for that time of year? Because I would have a tendency to more overpack in a late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always say knowledge is confidence. Confidence is success. So if you have knowledge about the conditions and the experiences you're gonna have, you're gonna have confidence that you have your gear. A lot of times, at least for me, I would overpack because I didn't have confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I would say when I first started elk hunting, I didn't even realize that, oh man, I'm in a special situation here. I've got bulls here and there and I've got cows bedded nearby or whatever it might be that created that situation and I screwed up every one of them. Every single one of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're just over this little swale, like 70 yards over there. It's really thick, so I'm not worried about being spotted, but it's about, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two and three in the afternoon and the thermals are pretty steady except in this little shaded spot. I'm like, aww, they're not going to smell me. It's only ten yards across there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're going to be using one of those very small parts of shade in their daily pattern of going to water, come back to bed, feeding along the way, getting up, going back to water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even in a wet year like this, if you're archery hunting,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then if the wind isn't quite perfect, do you try to side hill or somehow?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go after them and not wait for the wind to be perfect. Did I cover them all?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your experience of struggling to find animals where domestic sheep have come through mirrors mine. I've really struggled when


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you have the elk coming towards you, but is not in your range, what tactics do you use to get him to keep coming and get within range? You know, are you talking archery? Cause if it's rifle, rifle, it's a little easier answer. Uh, so I'll, archery. Okay. So there you go, Corey. How are you going to bring them in closer?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me, it's all about shade and wind, and one, getting it cool, because at night in most of the West, your temperatures are going to get down in the 40s. You know, even at high 40s. Well, there's not much spoilage that's going to occur if you can keep that neat temperature low.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have no noticeable difference of elk activity between full moon, new moon, half moon, quarter moon, whatever. Uh, but what you do have in that early September period is heat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and so the risk of running into a very hot temperature period is high. I had a tag in New Mexico last year, same dates.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because a lot of times they'll bump off to the side and if I still had the wind in my favor and I knew that the bigger part of the herd with the herd bow in front of me was not going to smell me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By about 10 o'clock in the morning that bull will go and that group of cows and that herd bull will bed. And a lot of times you'll hear them bugling from their bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That herd bull will get up silently and solo and go in and water in the middle of the day?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't give up on the idea of setting up on the periphery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And taking advantage of the fact that that bull likely, if he's really active and it's warm, he has to water multiple times a day. Just the water he might get in the morning before they head to bed or in the evening. A lot of times it's not enough and he has to expose himself to danger by going and watering at midday. And that could be another possibility of where you could get him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was funny before Cory officially came in and was an office mate in our creative space.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is interesting that there's three of us in there that all are content producers and providers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, no, I don't think, I mean I know guys, I never was a guy, I never went to the NFR, I never went to the PBR finals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was a single guy and I'm like, I can live on 25 grand a year just fine. And, and it was never, if you're doing it to get rich, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. It's much like hunting. If you're doing it just in my opinion, if you're doing it just to fill the freezer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not the only reason you should do it. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a whole list of reasons and it's kind of the same, same thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we're not going to tell our secret. We got a pretty good way to get in there in the front of the line. And yeah, I remember just like looking back behind us and you could see headlights because it's a midnight opener, see headlights all the way back to town. And it was just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember once Corey and I climbed up on top looking back kind of over the valley and the two hills that kind of came down into the bottom of this drainage and it was just, you could see all these beams of light everywhere. It was like a fireworks show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I usually end up selling them. I kept them for quite a while and then all of a sudden, our two car garage, we could only park one car in it. So it was time to unload. You had a whole garage stall full? Yeah, like a bay full of antler and I was like, okay, it's time to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of people that don't, like Steve and Lenny. Lenny just now is kinda getting the bug, but Steve Speck, he'll...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'll be like, you guys are going shed hunting? Okay, I'll go. I don't, I don't want to pick anything up. I just want to go hike. So we'll go on like a backpack shed hunt and he will care, care less. He can't even spot a shed first of all, but he just wants to go just to hike. And he's like, anything I find, I'll just give to you. I don't care. He just wants to go. He could care less about the shed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I think, I think it's like winter, this winter range country up here, you know, most of those bowls I think just basically follow the drainage down. And if you find a 400 inch set, you can pretty much know that bowl is somewhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three thousand foot above in that, I mean, it's a pretty good chance that they've just wintered down the hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would be exciting. It is like a dream of mine to shoot a bull that I've got sheds from. I've never done that. And I think that would be so cool. That's one of the reasons I sometimes hunt the country that I hunt is in hopes to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I'll spend, I'll spend a lot more time looking for elk sheds because it seems like it takes a lot more deer sheds to add pounds, to make pounds, but I'll spend like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, maybe a week trying to find mule deer sheds and maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three or four days trying to find whitetail sheds and then I kinda save, save, save the time to look for elk sheds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, about the same actually. I grew up, I mean every time I'd see a shed growing up on the ranch I would definitely pick it up, but I never was. I'm going to go hike and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can try to and until I start archery hunting then I'm like, I started getting pretty serious about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, in the spring, I've literally, like, spring bears open. There's several times where I'm like, well, I should pack a rifle because I might see a bear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've done that and actually seen wolves and then kicked myself for not having the rifle. So I'm going to try to be more disciplined to make sure I take a rifle when I go into that kind of wolf country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And through all that too, it wasn't, we just didn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, show, we just shot a wolf, there's a dead wolf. We showed also the four bulls that we had found that were wolf kills leading up to that. And I think that was like, even if you're, you know, an emotional knee-jerk kind of people, when you see all these other


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Animals getting killed, it's kind of like, okay, well maybe there is a slight problem. I mean you don't have to have much common sense to see that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I went to Colorado and came home and kinda, it was a rough, rough hunt in Colorado for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, actually hit a, hit a bowl in the shoulder and first bowl I've ever lost, I'd ever lost. So it's like, that's a hard, that's a hard pill for me to swallow. Came home kinda bummed out, but we had a couple days left in the Idaho season and Corey was in the office and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I kinda told him the story and he's like, let's go, huh?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, as a whole new, I've never hunted this style of hunting that we did, ever. I was always like a backpack hunter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had a little different style of hunting on this one out for a day hunt. Just went out for a day hunt instead of like big, you know, overnight, two night, three night. And anyways, had a bull hit us and, and, uh, and tried to get on him and he kind of fizzled off and another


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And most of the time I always get two tags. One is like my project tag, you know, for whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was awesome, and Cory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did an awesome job just working him and apparently all the elk in the woods thought there was an elk party going on there because after that bull dying and died immediately all of a sudden we heard another bull bugle and he sounded like a pretty good bull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I went up there in my mind like, okay, if this bowl isn't an exceptional bowl, I'm not gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not going to shoot him because I had this project planned to take like my wife hunting and uhm, stuff and when this bull came in he was good, mature, I mean the biggest archery bull I had ever shot and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he came in screaming just like an old dinosaur and I could not pass it up. Yeah. And so I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shot him, and at this time I had a broken back, so I was fairly...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeah, so I shot that ball and then Cory was like, I have to go to a football game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he had to, he had to go. So I'm like, that's alright. So luckily I have some friends here in town and I recruited, recruited him and I'm


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And meanwhile, Cory's at the game, he went, and I got back, started breaking the Bulls down, and uhm, yeaah, Cory, here comes Cory in the dark, pretty much, with, and he found another guy, Ross Seve, who's our office mate also, and Donnie showed up, and it was like a whole pack crew, and shoot, we had both those Bulls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's a whole point, that's a point of contention, especially like with deer hunting sometimes, and that's a whole other podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. I see that as not as much with elk, but I see that as a major problem with deer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like a lot of Alistair guys will come, which I'm totally fine with, but they'll buy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think some of the country's burnt, you know, you can get in some places where it's burnt and you can see a little bit, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had kind of been, there's a program called Rover, and I don't remember exactly what the acronym, Regional Outreach for Veterans, and it's for, it's just an organization that helps vets kind of basically


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Several years ago, a person that was involved in that contacted our group Pure Elevation and started the ball rolling to do a hunt. And we're like, we're all for it. You know, we can't do a lot for them, but that's something we know. We know hunting and we know how to take someone out and just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of honestly thinking we're going to be doing a lot of babysitting and encouraging and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These guys came out not necessarily in shape to do it and we hunted hard. Like we had 17 mile day, a 15 mile day and these guys just, there was no quit in these vets. That was the most impressive thing to me is they didn't have a clue how to hunt elk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, we got one tag filled and it was super awesome to see this green brace standing above this bowl, uhm, just so appreciative of the moment of, of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The country, the elk, it was super rewarding and it was an honor to be a part of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we got it all in film, it's uh, we're gonna submit it to the Full Draw Film Tour, hopefully it's accepted. And yeah, we're gonna make a cool little film about it, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the whole point of the film I think just to bring awareness to, to vets and, and what they've been through and what they go through and little ways we can, we can help when they get home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was super cool. There's several, I mean, there's several quotes in some interviews we did at these vets. There's one that really sticks out that uhm, one of the hunters, he just, he said, you know, he looked at us and just said, you know, I feel normal again for the first time in a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Totally, the same, I mean along that same line, these guys said, Randy, uh, the guy that said that he feels normal again, said, man, I can take this home because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, me coming out here, he said, I, I realized that I can do this. I can still do, it's hard. It's so hard for me and I realized that I can do it if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. He said, I'm going to take that home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I'm up against something hard or, uh, you know, I have a bad memory come back or I start feeling, um, intense or anxiety. He said, I can remember that. Hey, I can do this just one step at a time. And it was super cool. There's so many one liner and quotes that I mean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm gonna hold on to and, and, and use, er, it was great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cory and I's hunt, where I killed the two bulls is actually, uh, it just got released from FullDrawFilm Tour and I recently uploaded it, so it's there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's fixed now. It's awesome. Like zero issues. Really? Wish I'd have done it years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, my wife and I always made a deal, we're not gonna push it on them. Like I don't even have any of my pictures, my buckle, anything. And uh, just if they decide they have a passion for it, then we'll support it 100%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, this year, my daughters a couple years ago decided they wanted to, then my sons this year all of a sudden, they decided they wanted to start getting pretty serious about it. So here we go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My oldest daughter is 13, then we go 11, and then my other, my boy is 8, and my youngest boy is 6.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't. I own six horses and I do not use them to pack out. I don't use nothing. I don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Close to bulls, I don't want to walk back just cause I'm like, I got to take care of more. I want to sleep right there. And I hate the thought of taking care of horses. If I ever found a person that's like, hey, I've got horses and I'll just stay in camp and you can just show up whenever you want and I'll take care of the animals, I would probably be all in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have no doubt that I'll utilize my horses one of these days, but I'm, I'm still physically fit enough. And honestly, I'm one of those weird guys that kind of enjoys the painful pack out. I mean, I kind of find comfort in that misery a little bit. And it's, I have fun. So as long as I can do it, I'll probably put it on my back and hike it out. Cause one of these days I won't be able to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm spending more time, uhm, I'd like to get where, I mean, I love, we've, as a group, we've been


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Putting out content and creating content for quite a while, but we have all had our normal jobs and as, as my, my business, I have a commercial residential painting company, the more established that gets and the more people I get in place to run more, the more time I can spend on just gathering and creating content, which that's really my fun passion to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, yeaah, I hope every year to try to increase a little bit more of that and just keep doing that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is it, the Northwest Mountain Challenge? It's a triple crown, 3D mountain archery shoot. We do it on ski mountains, uhm, here at Tamarack in Donnelly, Idaho and then Hoodoo, Oregon, outside of Sisters and Stevens Pass, Washington.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, it's just a, it's kinda, it's, we get, you know, over a thousand, thousand people at them. We had three thousand people total last year between the three shoots. Cool. And yeaah, just a mountain bow shoot. That's all it is. Four courses, just go pound foam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have people, a group come from North Carolina, some people come from Florida last year, had some Lassians come down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can they find you? Uh, find us at Pure Elevation Productions on Instagram and Facebook and the YouTube channel and, uh. Website? Website is pureelevation.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Northwest mountain channels is on Facebook, Instagram, not YouTube. I don't really know. I don't think I need to create content for that one too. Really? Well, I mean, Instagram content.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, actually I do, I think we do have a YouTube channel and it's got our pump video on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's on, I think I did make a Northwest Mountain Challenge YouTube channel just to drop that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Video. Okay. Just like a 30 second commercial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think me personally I'll either, I'll either get too intended by moving up and getting good lanes because I feel like animals are going to see me and I'm going to blow them up. And so I end up finding myself trapped. I think, I think that's my number one thing is not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what my first archery hunting experience, that's a lesson that I learned that I feel like I'm continuing having to relearn is, is setting myself up on a bad spot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's my number one thing I think. I'm super anal about the wind. I never feel like I pay attention to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get too cautious or I get too careless of where I'm putting myself. I think that's my biggest mistake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uh, I think like this year, two bowls, like you said, everything's so different. I, I had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But maybe I should have got there in the first place. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. That's, that's, that's, that's the million dollar question for me is, where should I go?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I go there, he might see me, so I stay here. If I stay here, he won't come past there, won't have a shot yet. That's the most head-banging situation for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's been times where I spot and stalk, hunt them like a mule deer and spot and stalk them because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I just, maybe at one point, especially early in my bowling career, I didn't have confidence in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, no, I'm super excited. Yeaah, I'd love this year. We got, this year we got a couple elk hunts and we're going to Alaska. Oh yeah, what are you doing in Alaska? Caribou, huh? Yeaah, except it's in September, so that's kind of painful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well at least you're there for like the guts of September.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think ours is the 7th through the 7th through like the 20th or something like that. Like that's going to be, I hope, I hope the migration is not slow because I'll find myself mentally wandering really bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was getting to get my second and we're on the mountain. I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to get my second tag. And by the time we got down off the mountain, they were sold out. And it was like the 15th of September.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, honestly, I think, I can honestly say I probably killed more animals without face paint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More concealed and or or if it helps you in your mind think you're going to be more by all means do it. I need every advantage. Maybe I think I can possibly get and if it's if it's that then maybe I'll do it and I'll have more confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All elk. All the time. Only elk. Only elk. Well, it's us having conversations, so we usually go down some


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright folks, welcome to another episode of the Elk Talk Podcast. Randy and I are split up once again geographically here, but we are connected remotely and looking forward to today's discussion. Randy, how are things in sunny Bozeman?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We need a change in the weather. Last year we had a ton of snow early and then it all warmed up and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It made it a mess because you couldn't get back in where the elk were still at because they hadn't come down but there was too much snow to drive back in there and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then it melted and we're, uh, we got a little snow early here this year, but not nearly like last year. And it's I think supposed to be 61 or 62 here in the mountains today in Idaho. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And why we wanted them to be partners of ours in, in what they do and what we're doing, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Sitka has been making hunters comfortable in the field and, uh, I remember back in 2006, my first time wearing Sitka gear, uh, it really opened my eyes. I'd always thought of camouflage as a camo pattern and, uh, Sitka I think kinda


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definitely, uh, the, the layering systems that I use, there is nothing that compares and allows me to, to go all day and be comfortable in any kind of weather and be able to micro-regulate that throughout the day. So SitkaGear.com is the website and, uh, again, check them out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Navigation, when it comes to informational layers, when it comes to technology in the field. And I know I'm slow to adapt to technology. And, uh, I have not, I don't even know where my GPS is anymore because on my phone I have the Onyx app.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that app allows me to do anything I need to do navigationally. I can see topo, I can see aerial, I can see everything I need to see in the field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Rocky Mountain Hunting Calls is the original designer of the pallet plate diaphragm. So back in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely, and that's kind of the benefit of GoHunt is it puts it all in one place. And I was just gonna say, Idaho has all of that information and they have a lot of the harvest statistics in one place that's easy to find.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They also have the herd demographics, you know, the bull to cow ratios, the population objectives, all of that, but it's not as easy to find. You have to kind of search it out. So being able to go on go hunt, jump in there and see all that is handy, but I'm, I'm the exact same as you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I go to the state fishing game website and see what information is there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, you know, back it up with GoHunt because a lot of times there's extra information or at least some insight or.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your expectations or needs, it narrows down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Areas within the area pretty quickly and you're left with, you know, it's not like you're left with a hundred options. It's, you know, you, you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can narrow it down pretty good and then take it from there as far as how you want to scout it, whether you're e-scouting or.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going there in person, but archery I think is, is exactly the same and I'm a calling guy. So for me, I'll go anywhere. I know a lot of hunters though, that they like to glass and spot and stock. And so that limits the areas they can hunt within a, within a unit. They've got to find that open country. They've got vantage points and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Changes the, the opportunities and the options a little bit there, but yeah, I think it's, it's the exact same. What do you want? What are you looking for?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, narrow it down based on that and you'll have only a handful of options probably left to actually go and choose from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they aren't there one day, two days later during archery season, they might be there because they do move a ton. Those bulls go from their staging area into, you know, they're hanging out right by the cows. Then they actually establish the harems. Then they move with the cows sometimes for, you know, the peak rut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so they are moving and sometimes it's, you know, only a mile, half mile. Sometimes it's 10 or 12 miles. And so it's, it really does change day to day. And you know, you can't really eliminate areas on the map. You can say, well, they weren't here today, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't like to walk by elk and I do because of the way that we locate elk. You know, in archery season it's primarily all calling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that doesn't mean there aren't elk there. It doesn't mean you can't kill an elk there. It's just by the end of the season, everybody on their ATV or their truck has driven up and bugled from the road or set up camp there or shot their rifle sight in a den, whatever it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look for the sign. And if you're, you know, your style of hunting dictates that you set up in glass, you still hunt through timber. You just, you know, you kind of have to let that dictate where you're going and how far back in you're going. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's loaded with elk. And you know, you can catch elk crossing the roads right at daylight or right at dark at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other than that, you're gonna catch me in the open because they know how to survive in that area. It's more difficult to hunt them because of the area that they live in, but they're there and you know, they've learned how to survive with that pressure and it gets a ton of hunting pressure, but there's still a lot of elk there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I agree and I actually went out yesterday morning again trying to find some elk to take my children since we only get Saturdays basically to hunt with them. I'm trying to do some homework during the week and find where the elk are and where they aren't so we're maximizing our time but I went to an area


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did I look at the calendar wrong? There was no one hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I went to this area yesterday, which we are...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would have been a completely different story. And so I'm up high where I can glass. Uh, there's a burn there. There's some good pockets of timber for them to bed in, but they were completely gone out of that area. There was no fresh tracks from the last week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just getting into the elk, you're just, you're using those two days to find where the elk are, to look for sign, you're crossing areas off your map.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you have to go back to work and by the next Friday night


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those out could be long gone. They, you know, regardless of whether it's archery, whether it's late season, whether it's post-rut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those elk are moving throughout the, you get a weather pattern through their, um, you know, you get a rainstorm on the weekend, the elk conquer down. It's just, it's so tough to string.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's any way you can, you know, even if you can't take a whole week, but even three days vacation and hunt Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then fill it with the weekend.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two days is just, uh, it's almost desperation mode trying to find elk and hope you bump into one and get a shot. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna say and if you know someone who consistently kills elk every year only hunting the weekends, put a GPS tracker in their vehicle because they have a spot figured out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean that's really what it comes down to is they have an area that they know and they know those elk and their habits. There's, I would be very surprised if there's anybody who's just going out blindly and lucking into success year after year, hunting just the weekends. It's tough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, just to give you an idea, Saturday and Sunday were the only weekend we've had so far in the Idaho rifle season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the road that I hiked in, it's gated and then you hike in about a mile and a half and I walked in on that road, actually took my mountain bike. But there were probably 10 or 12 boot prints on the road in the mud and in the soft dirt. So it had been just hammered with people walking in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there are four of these roads that kind of wrap around the mountain at different elevations and all of them just, you could tell tire tracks going into the gates at each of them were just, there'd been several vehicles there on the weekend. I went yesterday morning and drove all the way to the top of the mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why I said, if you can, if even just two or three days vacation, take it towards the end of the week because the woods have settled down, the elk have settled down. And if you're going to hunt Saturday, Sunday, and then take off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the elk are still, you know, feeling the effects of the pressure Monday even into Tuesday. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then I also like the last couple days of the season because you're more likely to have weather that's going to get the elk moving. You're going to have snow to be able to see tracks and see where they are sometimes on a daily basis with a clean slate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it kinda, for me I think is a toss up as well and this year with the rut being a little later, I put a lot of eggs in that basket of the elk still bugling October 15th and I think they might have been, they just weren't bugling where they were the week before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so now I'm kind of switching gears and saying, okay, we're getting some weather next week, supposed to get snow. Now what areas should I be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I would agree. And based on what we see in the spring shed hunting, you know, it matches that the bulls don't winter in the exact same place as the, as the cows. I know last year we had the snow early, like mid October, a lot of snow, like 18 inches and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was probably two weeks later, the cows showed up. So where I live, we live up on a ridge that overlooks the valley. And the cows showed up at our house about the first of November and they milled around there for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably two or three weeks, and we didn't get more snow, but about Thanksgiving time frame mid November to third week in November, they moved down onto the flats and they get fed down there during the winter. And there was probably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At our house, 50 to 60 cows and then they moved down and joined up with another group and there was probably 110, 120 cows down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the bigger mature bulls were back in another probably three or four miles in a drainage and just stayed in the deep snow back there. And I think that there's definitely phases of the migration and depending on what part of the herd you're in, whether you're the cows and the calves, the spikes or the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The raghorns or the herd bulls, I think they migrate differently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that brings up another question for you. Do you feel that it's snow or extreme cold weather that gets the elk moving?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, I honestly, I don't wait until it's 10 below to build a fire. If it gets down to about 40, I'm building a fire. Huddling around it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can sit, you can whisper comfortably. You can, you know, when you're hunting with somebody, you enjoy being around, you can have a conversation. Whereas in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] September or something, it's run and gun all day. We don't have time to stop and share stories or reminisce and you know, you get into October rifle season and a lot of times it's just, you know, still hunting, not as much glassing maybe and covering more country. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Late season hunts are definitely a fun hunt in a different way. Yeaah, when you talk about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going out and glassing and not seeing anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm excited for this next week or two here. Hopefully the weather changes it and it gets the elk moving and a little more visible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've actually seen them, you know, where they'll rut down in some of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, foothills type area where it's got a little timber on the backside and then it's mostly sage brush.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've actually seen them leave that and move up the mountain to where they winter, where they get up into some of the windswept rocks if there is a little bit of snow or there's, you know, just thicker jungles and pockets and less navigable areas. I've seen those bulls especially move up in elevation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty drastically and dramatically to where they winter from where they actually rot and maybe spend the summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More with mule deer migration. And I'm not a mule deer guy by any means, but one of the hunts that we have here in Idaho is a late season archery mule deer hunt. And it's really predicated on the migration. So if we get an early snow, it just makes that late archery hunt incredible. Cause all the deer down on the winter range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They stay up higher. You know, it takes more to get those elk, especially the bulls, moving. And I know the mule deer guys are saying, well, a big old mule deer buck will stay up in deeper snow than an elk, and that's probably true. But I think the main migration, it just seems like mule deer are a very


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weak animal when it comes to weather, and the first indication of cold weather, the first skiff of snow, they start migrating. You can see the trail, you know, you can see, you know, migration, interstate 144.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coming down. And if you can time it for that archery hunt, when they're migrating, you'll have just piles and piles of bucks coming by you on those migration trails every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 3,000 feet, 3,500 feet. So they definitely travel a good distance and I'm sure they have to have migration paths that they follow. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just going to say, you said if you're, if you're really good at Google, I'm not really good at Google, but I typed in elk migration route just while you were talking there. Yeah, incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess there's a couple ways of looking at it. Whitetail, and I'm not a whitetail expert, and you know, we're in the west, so we aren't even eastern whitetail. I'm not even an expert in western whitetail, but from my experience in talking to the guys who are,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And their home is a much smaller area, whereas elk, you know, we're talking 20 mile range sometimes or even more from winter ground to summer ground and they're stopping everywhere in between. So I don't think that they necessarily have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, you know, during the winter, they're bedding in the same beds all winter pretty much, you know, they aren't going to travel too much, they aren't going to expend too much energy. This time of year right now, from what I've seen, the bulls are going out and feeding on the same ridge and they're going back in the same pocket of timber and they're bedding down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think they do have, you know, that tree that they want to lay under and, and if you find those areas, it'll look like cattle's been in there and, you know, they do have actual beds made up there that they live in. With that being said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They move a lot and sometimes they won't come back to those areas if they get bumped out of them, uh, you know, to that bed. But with that being said, I've also had the experience, um, as with someone that shot an elk with a bow and unfortunately didn't recover it, it lived. We, we know that. Um, but I put a trail camera up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And seven days later, that same bull showed up back in that same bed and stayed there for over a week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think, you know, and I, I think they just have different areas, you know, they, they're on circuits or continually moving, but they'll come back to the same areas and they bed where they're safe. And I think they know those safe areas and they'll go back to them. But as far as finding them day by day, every day in the same area, I just, I haven't seen that really at all. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, maybe six or eight different places that they go to bed based on what the winds do and based on the conditions, whether it's storming, whether the thermals change early, you know, they have all these different


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, factors that they have to have met in order to stay alive and so they aren't gonna go bed in their bed just because that's their bed if the thermals are wrong and they aren't gonna be protected from danger. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well the other good thing is we may not have very many answers, but I think we're creative enough that we can make up answers that sound believable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would be the first person I would call for advice if I was looking for that post-rut late season, which I did three years ago and followed your advice and my son shot an elk, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, you've brought back a very vivid memory. We, uh, when Isaac, when we went in and shot that bull three years ago, it's that same place I'd mentioned earlier that we hike in on a closed gated road about a mile and a half the road ends and there's a huge basin back up, uh, that you take off hiking into from there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We actually rode mountain bikes back in there. And as we were pedaling the bike almost to the end of the road, we look up and there's two guys walking in front of us. So we got off the bikes and just parked the bikes there and kind of let the guys go up in glass on the point and just stood back to see what they were going to do.