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[Assistant] Worked his way in towards our setup on the ridge and as soon as he came into within view of where Randy was, Randy was set up in front of the shooter and I was back calling. The bull knew something wasn't right and he just left. And over the next few days, things were even slower. I was pushing physically as hard as I could.


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[Assistant] Just to cover as much country as possible. My strategy of just covering country and finding that bowl that's, that's gonna bugle. And I thought in New Mexico,


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[Assistant] It's not as steep as some of the stuff we've hunted in Idaho. I can cover more country.


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[Assistant] And eventually we're going to find that elk that's, that's ready to go. I just kept telling myself it just takes one. But when we woke up on the morning of day four.


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[Assistant] Uh, Randy let us know that all of the exertion, all the hiking that we've been doing.


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[Assistant] Had triggered his liver, uh, to the point that he was forced to stay in camp and recover.


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[Assistant] So he assured us that he was going to be fine. He just needed to rest and get back on top of things. So Marcus and Ben and myself set out.


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[Assistant] For this deep remote area that Randy had mentioned to us and he said he was certain.


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[Assistant] So it took us a few hours to get back into the basin that morning back in that area that Randy had told us about, but it was worth the effort. It was probably close to noon, at least late morning when we finally popped over a ridge.


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[Assistant] And found what we'd been looking for, which was bugles.


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[Assistant] And not just a couple, there were multiple bowls firing off in the draw below us. And with the midday thermals coming up the hill, we were in the perfect position to capitalize on them.


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[Assistant] We had pretty decent cover as we slowly and quietly slipped down towards the bugles, but


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[Assistant] We could see a lot of cows and a few of the bulls on the hillside across from us. So we knew we had to be careful as we moved in. I also didn't want to start just calling from right there.


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[Assistant] Cause if the elk could see the hillside we were on and they couldn't see any elk.


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[Assistant] It'd likely get a bit suspicious and probably not come into the calls.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, as we were slipping down the hill and moving in on the bugles,


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[Assistant] We noticed that somehow there was another group of hunters slipping in on the same herd.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately from the wrong side and with the wind going right to the elk. So within a minute that entire herd of elk moved across the canyon and onto the safety of private land.


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[Assistant] Where they continued to bugle, but now out of reach from being able to hunt. It was a long hike back.


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[Assistant] Out of that basin in the dark, and we got back to camp so late that Randy was sure we must have shot an elk, but we hadn't.


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[Assistant] The day off though was what Randy needed and he was feeling a lot better and said he was ready to go with us again the next morning.


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[Assistant] Since that area that we'd been in was the only place we'd found any kind of bugling action so far, we decided to head back in there and hope that the elk had settled down and maybe moved back onto the public land.


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[Assistant] So the next morning we made the long hike back in there and found that the elk


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[Assistant] Had not made it back onto the public land. They, uh, they were bugling, but they were still well out onto the private.


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[Assistant] Uh, but as we were hiking up around the top edge of the basin, we did get a straggler bull that was in there.


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[Assistant] To respond to my location bugle and after some convincing I was able to call him in or


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[Assistant] At least called to him and then got in front of him as he worked up the mountain to his bedding area.


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[Assistant] We've had so little action and so few opportunities so far.


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[Assistant] Randy forgot to put a call, a diaphragm call in his mouth to stop the bull and the bull ended up walking.


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[Assistant] Right up through the only shooting lane Randy had at about 35 yards and couldn't get him to stop.


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[Assistant] But I'm not sure Randy would have actually given me credit for calling that bowl in anyway.


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[Assistant] And as we're hiking out, Randy convinced me that we needed to drive out to the areas he had hunted before and do some glassing at daylight the next day. So we're on the other side of the units where he had previously hunted and had luck with glassing up L.


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[Assistant] And then when they bedded down, stocking in on them and it was wide open, it was.


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[Assistant] You know, grasslands out on the flats and then the elk would come up into these little grassy.


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[Assistant] Foothills where there was, you know, I would say no cover. There was a little bit of cover, but not, not much at all.


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[Assistant] The next morning, uh, just like he said, we did spot a lot of elk and they were way off. You know, we're spotting elk at two, three miles away.


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[Assistant] And watching as they moved out of the grassy flats down in the bottom.


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[Assistant] And up into those wide open foothills to bed down.


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[Assistant] And when I say wide open, I mean wide open. For miles you can just see it's just rolling topography. You know, there were draws and some topography, but there was really no cover to speak of. And after watching the elk move across that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Vast open landscape for probably an hour or two


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[Assistant] For the prospect of hiking miles out across the wide open just to have a whole herd of elk be there with all the ears and eyes and spot us and then


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[Assistant] Turn and run for miles out across the flats without stopping.


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[Assistant] So it was mid afternoon or so by the time we got back to the truck and then drove over to a spot that Randy said, well, if we want to.


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[Assistant] Get away from people and find something steep. This is gonna be it.


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[Assistant] And we left the side by side, started hiking in and it was probably getting late in the afternoon.


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[Assistant] When we made it back into this basin that we were wanting to make it back into, we didn't hear a single bugle, which you know, middle of the day and with the heat like it was, wasn't the end of the world, but I still thought we should have maybe heard a bedded bugle going in there.


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[Assistant] That high desert sun was just so hot, so relentless and just intense. And I, you know, as I look at pictures from that hunt, I was baked. We were.


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[Assistant] You know, sitting out in the sun all day, glassing, hiking, and there was really no.


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[Assistant] No escape, even in the, even in the timber, it was open enough that it was just hot and miserable.


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[Assistant] And it seemed like where we were that day, there was no air movement at all. So that made it just like we were sitting in an oven.


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[Assistant] We climbed up on a hillside where we could get a good vantage point looking across the basin and do some glassing. And each one of us kind of climbed under a different juniper or a pinion tree and just tried to find any little bit of shade we could and wait for the evening and the shadows to cool down and


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[Assistant] I was certain at that point when things cooled down, we were going to hear bugles. It was just too good of an area. Nobody was in there and I remember sitting there bored, frustrated.


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[Assistant] Uh, heat exhausted and, you know, in my boredom, there's not a lot to do. So I just reached out and broke off a bunch of little branches off the tree that I was hiding out under.


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[Assistant] And then using the little pieces of twigs to form letters, I spelled out the words.


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[Assistant] Going like we, we hoped it would. I couldn't get anything to bugle, let alone find anything to call in. I wasn't having fun.


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[Assistant] Don't get me wrong, the company was as good as anyone could ever hope for, but.


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[Assistant] The hunting itself was, it was brutal. From a calling perspective, I'd pretty much struck out every single day. And that night, again, after not hearing any bugles, we're hiking back to the side by side in the dark and Randy stopped and very matter of factly said, you know, we can continue trying to find an elk to bugle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or we could just go back out to the open grasslands and maybe try to find an elk that's in a good position where we can attempt to stalk it.


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[Assistant] The, uh, the challenge, you know, it might've been a baited challenge, but it was a challenge nonetheless. And I wasn't even sure if hunting elk.


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[Assistant] With a bow and not using calls would actually be considered hunting.


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[Assistant] And of course I'm kidding, but I was struggling with that decision to leave the calls behind and change tactics. I'm sure the heat and exhaustion and frustration and everything going on that made that hunt tough led me to finally cave in.


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[Assistant] Without even a shrub to cast a shadow to get under, I might not have agreed to go at all, but shortly after daylight the next morning, we were back there at Randy's Vantage Point and we were glassing and watched a group of bulls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Start making their way, you know, their predicted daily migration out from the flats up into the foothills kind of in our direction. So the bulls kind of got behind a ridge that was between us and them and we thought let's just move in, get as close as we can, maybe even intercept them.


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[Assistant] But then we can keep an eye on them and see where they bed and, uh, end up moving in and trying to get a stock on them.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, we ended up bumping that group of bulls as they came over, you know, probably 150, 200 yards away from us. They came over a ridge and.


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[Assistant] We were skylined and silhouetted there and they saw us and took off running and you can probably imagine how far elk run in that open country when they get bumped. But we did notice one of the bulls peeled away from the rest of them and followed a cow.


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[Assistant] Up a really steep hillside and then disappeared through a saddle and out of sight on the backside of that hill.


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[Assistant] The bull and his cow had moved off in a direction that required us to completely circumnavigate the entire mountain they were on.


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[Assistant] Just to make sure we had the wind in our favor. Before we tried to get over and actually


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[Assistant] Figure out where they had went, where they had bedded down, and it took us


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[Assistant] Probably an hour or so to get around and get on the backside of the mountain and get in a position where we wouldn't get winded. And I again, I can't express just how open it was. We were.


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[Assistant] Standing out wide open, you know, four guys, even in camouflage, you stand out.


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[Assistant] I knew if that bull was going to be anywhere to be found, we'd have to be able to see him. That's the one advantage where you can see so far, you can see down into all the little draws, unless it went clear over the next drainage, we should be able to find him.


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[Assistant] We were scanning, all four of us standing there with our binoculars and we were looking over the entire valley.


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[Assistant] Out in front of us there, the saddle that the bull and cow had come through was probably


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[Assistant] Maybe 300 yards, 400 yards behind us. And then we were glassing everything out in front of us. And I turned around to look back up towards that saddle and noticed something that I thought was unusual.


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[Assistant] And that was a tree. There was one solo lone tree.


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[Assistant] Just right up on the, on our side of that saddle. It was the only tree on the entire mountain. And as I looked at the tree through my binoculars, I caught movement at the base of the tree and realized that that movement was antlers. And that bull had found basically the only source of shade within miles and had bedded down right there underneath that tree.


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[Assistant] So we quickly made up a plan and I was gonna move around with Marcus back around the backside of a little knoll.


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[Assistant] And Randy and Ben were going to stay down where we were to watch and just make sure the bull didn't get up and move off somewhere else or get up and change positions to, to bed down.


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[Assistant] So as Marcus and I reached the top of the knoll, I slowly just peeked over and could see the bowl was still bedded right there under the tree. I think we were at that point, I don't know, 160, 180 yards from the bowl.


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[Assistant] And the bowl was bedded facing away from us. So I knew I could use the topography and some of the randomly placed just little clumps of grass and some really low lying sage brush.


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[Assistant] To be able to kinda give me a little bit of cover to get between myself and the bull and then as I move towards the bull, I thought I'd be able to cut the distance probably in half. And once I got into 100 yards, 80 or 100 yards,


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[Assistant] It didn't look like I had a lot of options. So I just, my plan was to get in that close and see what options there were.


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[Assistant] I slipped my boots off, which I very rarely do, but took my boots off and then just so slowly started slipping in. It was middle of the day. It's blazing hot.


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[Assistant] And there is no wind at all so every little sound.


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[Assistant] Raise my rear end up and scoot forward six or eight inches with my bow balanced on my lap and then drop back down into the sitting position.


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[Assistant] Reposition my hands and then lift up again and slowly inch forward. It's kind of like a an inchworm, uh, inverted backwards there, but no wind.


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[Assistant] Every little sage brush that I rustled up against made noise.


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[Assistant] The gravelly ground was, you know, crunchy, so.


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[Assistant] It was hard to go very fast at all and not make noise.


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[Assistant] And that lack of wind also made the heat from the sun even more miserable.


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[Assistant] So I made it to, uh, probably 80 or 90 yards from the bowl, and there was a little clump of grass that I'd used to


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[Assistant] Position between me and the bowl and then I kind of slid straight down towards the bowl. So, you know, I'm.


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[Assistant] Basically flat on the ground moving and, uh, that little clump of grass I was able to stay out of sight of the bull. But when I got to that clump of grass, I peeked around


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[Assistant] And notice there was a cow that was bedded right next to the bull, that cow that he'd followed up through the saddle that morning.


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[Assistant] Was bedded there and she was looking straight at me. I'm not sure how I didn't see the cow until right then, but she was locked in on my position. All I could do at that point was freeze and there was no way I could move a muscle if I wanted the elk to not bust out of there. And so that's what I did.


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[Assistant] For probably 30 minutes or so I sat there unable to move at all. My hip flexors were cramping up. The palm of my hands were burning from just bracing myself up on the sharp lava rock.


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[Assistant] Uh, my feet were numb, legs were numb from being tucked under each other in an awkward position. And right then, the bull stood up and I was sure it was over.


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[Assistant] I'm pretty sure he probably keyed into the fact that the cow was locked in on something and he stood up.


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[Assistant] And turned right in my direction and stared right at me, right at that clump of grass. And you know, at 80 yards away, it, it feels like there, well, there was nothing really between us, but it feels like you're just, you're isolated right there and he's looking right at you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After 30 seconds or so, you know, I'm just, I've already felt that let down, like it's over. There's, I've been here too many times before. There's no way that bull's gonna settle down. But he did. He laid back down. And when he did, the cow seemed to...


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[Assistant] Lose interest in me as well and she turned her head and faced back away, uh, looking away from me.


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[Assistant] But unfortunately when the bull bedded down, he turned and petted down so he was facing straight at me.


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[Assistant] And I'm still stuck there in the grass. He wasn't, you know, looking at me, but his body was facing me. His head was turned so that, uh, I knew if I moved, he'd most likely be able to see that movement. At this point I'd been there for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying not to make any movement. I didn't have any water with me. I'd left the water in my pack back with my boots and the heat was just completely unbearable.


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[Assistant] What little patience, you know, that I did have, uh, up to that point had worn so thin that I just, I had to do something. So.


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[Assistant] Real slowly, I just kinda moved my hand and repositioned my leg.


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[Assistant] And I knew the bowl was going to see that movement and just bust out of there any second, but.


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[Assistant] He didn't, so I repositioned my leg and kind of shifted over on my side.


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[Assistant] And there was a little patch of sage brush, probably 15.


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[Assistant] Yeah, probably 15, maybe 20 yards out in front of me. And when I say little patch of sage brush, it's the sage brush that's like.


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[Assistant] I don't know, 14 inches tall, 16 inches tall. It's not the, not the big full sage brush that you can get behind and, you know, kind of hunker over and walk. It's just tall enough to conceal you if you stay down at ground level. But there's a little patch of that off to my right and up in front of me.


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[Assistant] And I thought if I could make it just four or five feet over to my right.


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[Assistant] It would put that sage brush between me and the bowl and provide me just enough ground cover that I could slip up a little closer. As painstakingly slow as I could move, I would literally move one limb at a time. I'd move my foot and leg.


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[Assistant] And then my hand and my arm on the leading side, and then I do like this slow reverse plank and.


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[Assistant] Slide my body two or three inches and then I'd pull my other leg and foot and hand and arm over literally just inching my way sideways on that open hillside and it probably took me


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[Assistant] Ten or fifteen minutes just to move that five feet, but.


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[Assistant] I finally made it, and surprisingly the bull hadn't even lifted his head.


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[Assistant] And at that point, once I got behind that sage brush, I was obscured from the bull's sight. And as long as I stayed.


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[Assistant] Five feet or so to my right, I could start sliding down closer to that sage brush that would now at least provide some concealment.


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[Assistant] It was still mostly calm, uh, the air wasn't moving much, but every.


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[Assistant] 45 seconds or 90 seconds or so, just a little light gust wind would pull up the hill for like 5 or 6 seconds and then it would die back down. So every time the wind would, would just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, that little light gust would rustle the grass or the sagebrush.


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[Assistant] I would move and it provided just enough cover sound that I didn't feel like.


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[Assistant] I was being pinpointed every time that I crushed a little piece of sand under my hand or my foot brushed up against some, some grass.


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[Assistant] When the wind would blow, I would move and when it would stop, uh, I would stop.


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[Assistant] And it took a few minutes, but I was able to get down to the sage brush and get tucked up there behind it.


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[Assistant] And at that point there was nothing between me and the elk. They were there laying underneath that tree and there wasn't even clumps of grass. It was just little dry sheet grass there between me and them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just laid there behind that little patch of sagebrush. I rolled over to my side and, uh, pulled up the binoculars and was watching the elk. You could see his eyes closing and opening back up and he had turned his head from time to time and lay it on one side and I thought I'll pull out my range finder. So I pulled out the range finder and, uh, was surprised to realize I was at 43 yards from the bull. I was well within shooting distance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the bull was bedded facing me and there was no shot at all. He had his one leg out in front of him, the other one tucked back behind him. And, you know, there, there was absolutely no vital shot exposed. So my only option was to sit there and wait for him to stand up and then hope that when he did stand up,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'd give me a good shot angle and that'd be able to get full draw without being spotted, which seemed like a pretty long shot at that point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I waited and again, just laid there in the wide open in the blistering sun. Uh, my skin felt like leather. The sun was just relentless and as intense as I can ever remember feeling the sun, especially for that long, I was just baking and after several more minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I couldn't take it any longer. I was out of patience, I was hot, I was out of water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been on that same hillside with the elk for...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, three hours or longer at that point. And I was as close as I could get to the elk. There was no way I was gonna be able to draw my bow without being seen. If I even got up on my knees, I would be twice as tall as a sagebrush. And I knew that that movement was, was gonna be too much, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was as close as I could get, uh, even if I was able to get drawn back, I didn't have a shot unless the bull stood up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when he did decide to stand up, I doubted he'd just stand there as I raised up from the sage brush and came to full draw. So that point, um, I was, I was mentally at a point where I was ready to make something happen. I wasn't going to wait any longer. I couldn't, I couldn't mentally wait any longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no matter what option I played out in my mind, none of them gave me much of a chance of getting a good broadside standing shot at the bowl. I couldn't move off to the side and get a different angle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could hardly draw. If I drew, he would see that. And I just knew that as soon as I drew, he was gonna.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bump up and go straight from his bedded position to a sprinting position. I finally decided, uh, I was just going to draw my bow back, lying there in that awkward line on my back position I was in and hold it out to the side, draw it back. And then being at full draw, I would rotate over to my side onto my hip and then push up into a kneeling position and be at full draw, ready to shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, I knew that I could get drawn back probably.


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[Assistant] And sit up, but as soon as I sat up, that movement was going to alert the bowl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And being in the wide open like that, I just knew he was going to come out of there like he was shot out of a gun. I'd been...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Relatively calm up to that point as I stalking in, you know, I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm getting close for a shot. I just, you know, I kept moving in slow and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And had stayed calm, but my heart really started pounding as I realized.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was getting ready for a possible shot and, you know, that adrenaline, no water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Muscles all just shaking from being so tensed up and not moving and everything kind of all hit at once and


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[Assistant] My movements up to that point had, you know, I think had been really controlled and well calculated and smooth. But now with everything, it just seemed like, you know, my vision got really narrow and my movements seemed like they were jerky and uncoordinated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I laid there and listened and as soon as I heard that sage brush start to rustle from another gust of that hot air moving up the hillside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just jerked the string back on my bow from my lying position there on my back, trying to stay as flat to the ground as I could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And surprisingly my bow came back to full draw a lot easier than I expected it to. And without even pausing to think about my next move or hesitating at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just instantly rolled to my side and up onto my knee and raised right up into a full draw shooting position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm pretty sure the elk were more surprised than I was, uh, when I just appeared there out of nowhere, but contrary to what I had predicted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bull just stayed bedded rather than jumping up and bolting out of there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I had my bow raised, you know, I came to the kneeling position, had my bow up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where I thought the bull would be when he stood up and so I had my pins locked up a little higher anticipating that he would be standing by the time I got to where the pins were on him. But when I found him still lying there, I just started dropping my bow arm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, dropping my pins down to find the bull in my peep site.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I'm dropping my bow arm, the bowl got to his feet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think my pins just continued descending right under the bowl, uh, as I shot and I missed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I rushed the shot rather than waiting for the bull to stand all the way up and getting my pins settled on him. I just, you know, rushed a shot and after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those hours of mustering up all the patients I could ever imagine I ever possessed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had gotten impatient and blown that opportunity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But surprisingly, the bull just stood there, almost like he was trying to blink the sleep from his eyes to verify if he was really seeing what he thought he might be seeing. And he gave me just enough time to grab and knock another arrow and come to full draw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And right as I came to full draw, he started trotting off, quartering away a little bit. Uh, and I gave him a couple of cow calls and to my surprise, he stopped and turned back almost broadside, quartering away a little bit.


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[Assistant] And gave me another, probably a confused look, just wasn't sure what it was that was right there. I took a little more time on that second shot and the bull ran.


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[Assistant] Maybe 80 yards before he piled up just over a little rise and out of sight, but I could see a big dust cloud when he hit the ground and I knew he wasn't going any farther.


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[Assistant] Looking back, I still can't believe it turned out like it did. I give credit to Randy and I'm grateful that he convinced me to switch gears and


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[Assistant] Spend that last day, last hunting day in New Mexico, trying a different tactic.


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[Assistant] When it comes to elk hunting success, confidence is critical. And confidence in my gear and my equipment is something I'm just not willing to compromise. And that's why I shoot a prime bow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a mechanical engineer, when I first saw the technology Prime was designing into their bows, I was intrigued.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cam lean had always been an issue on other bows I'd shot, which made tuning the bows and ultimately getting consistent arrow flight nearly impossible. But four shots into my first prime bow, it was tuned and my arrows were flying perfectly.


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[Assistant] The draw cycle was smooth and the back wall was solid and they didn't stop there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the years since I've started shooting a prime bow, they've added center shot technology, which allows the bow to lock on the target and keeps my pins from wandering around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've also recently designed a new cam that completely eliminates cam lean that was previously caused by the offset cable design.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prime Bows are continually leading the way when it comes to new technology and technology that makes a difference, not just some marketing gimmick that a marketing department can use to advertise a new model. There's no doubt that the stability of my Prime Bow


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This improved my accuracy, extended my range, and increased my confidence.


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[Assistant] To learn more about Prime Stability or to shoot one for yourself, visit your local bow shop or go to g5prime.com. And now, back to reaching your peak.


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[Assistant] When you find a tactic or a strategy you're comfortable with, it can be hard to change, especially when that tactic's relatively successful.


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[Assistant] And it seems like the longer that you learn to rely on that one particular strategy, the harder it is to part from it. But that's exactly what we need to do especially


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[Assistant] If we want to extend the reach of our success and spread success across


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[Assistant] A wider range of conditions and uncontrollable factors.


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[Assistant] I'm always going to be an elk caller at heart and given a choice to call or to stock in on elk.


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[Assistant] I'm going to choose calling every single time, but sometimes despite how confident or arrogant we might've become.


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[Assistant] And the sooner we can learn to adapt to the conditions we're faced with and pick up or try out a new tactic, the better off we're going to be.


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[Assistant] We all want to experience the thrill of the rut, but it's important not to get stuck in a rut, especially when it comes to our style of elk hunting. Use what works when it's working, but if it's not working.


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[Assistant] Don't be afraid to abandon one tactic and implement a new strategy.


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[Assistant] I'm sure we've all heard the classic definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.


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[Assistant] While elk hunting is absolutely a pursuit of persistence, there's a fine line between persistence and insanity. And until next time, I'll see you guys on the next ridge or mountaintop or wherever the elk are bugling.


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[Assistant] Or as it was in this case, under the only tree on the mountain where the elk might be bedded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Welcome to Reaching Your Peak, an educational storytelling miniseries of the Elk Talk Podcast.


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[Assistant] Reaching your peak is brought to you by Peak Refuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're looking for delicious, freeze-dried meals that are made with 100% real ingredients, including premium USDA meats, you've probably already heard of Peacree Fuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their meals have nearly twice as much protein as the competition, which is important for fueling your body in the backcountry. There's no fillers, no empty calories, just premium nutrition that truly meets the needs of elk hunters. And the taste is second to none.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My personal favorites are their homestyle chicken and rice and the beef stroganoff, but they have a huge selection of other incredible meals like chicken alfredo, biscuits and gravy, chicken coconut curry, sweet pork and rice, mountain berry granola, and a whole lot more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to taste the difference, visit peakrefuel.com and use the promo code ELKTALK to save 15% and get free shipping on your next order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right. Well, welcome back to another episode of reaching your P.


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[Assistant] And, uh, if you're listening right now, uh, as this comes out, archery elk seasons are open and pretty much.


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[Assistant] All of the western states, so for those of you that are out hunting or gonna be heading out chasing elk here soon, good luck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And be sure and tag us with the hashtag Elk Talk Podcast on Instagram with pictures from your hunts. And to kick things off and back by popular demand, uh, Randy is back joining me in another episode today. We had a lot of comments about.


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[Assistant] Randy being able to draw a lot more details out of my storytelling. So he's back for more today.


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[Assistant] That's right. You're the one that interrupts me and be like, now hold on.


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[Assistant] A lot of, a lot of comments, both the email on the YouTube, you know, everywhere.


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[Assistant] Everyone was saying we like both versions, but we think we like Randy being there a little more because it just feels like we're getting more, more substance out of it, so.


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[Assistant] You're uh, you're voted in. I'm, I'm in the spotlight now. You're in the spotlight.


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[Assistant] So this one took place in 2007. So, uh, however long ago that was 16 years, something like that. And it was in Idaho.


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[Assistant] And coincidentally was the first year that I hunted with Donny Drake, so.


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[Assistant] Donnie and I have been official elk hunting partners for 16 years now and this was the first season.


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[Assistant] We'd hunted together the previous season. My area that I normally hunted caught on fire and Donnie.


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[Assistant] I worked with him and he said, Hey, I've got an area that I've hunted for a long time. I've never killed an elk there, but I, I get into elk all the time and I hear him bugling all the time. If you want to go there, you know, go try it out. So I went there and I killed an elk the first morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, kinda felt indebted to him. And so I said, well, next season I'll, uh, you can come hunt with, with, uh, my buddy, David Burdette and me, and we'll see if we can get you an elk. And he just happened to pick.


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[Assistant] Well, we happened to pick the, uh, one of the worst elk seasons that I had in Idaho.


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[Assistant] 2007, we hunted our tails off for probably...


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[Assistant] I don't know, eight days, seven or eight days and, uh, had very few encounters, very little bugling. Uh, they'll just weren't.


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[Assistant] In their normal spots and we were moving all over. We went from one side of the zone to the other and back and forth and we just weren't getting into much.


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[Assistant] So I think it was day eight. Donnie only had, uh, I think a week off from work and he said he had to get back to work. But I think, uh, what, what really happened was.


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[Assistant] We were coming down a steep hillside and it was just a bunch of blowdowns and thick alders and all of a sudden Donnie was behind me and I heard him kind of moan and yell and


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[Assistant] You know, I've heard it several times since then, but that was my first time experiencing it, but he went, uh.


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[Assistant] Heels over tea kettles over a blow down tangled up in some alders and ended up twisting his knee pretty good. And he's still to this day.


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[Assistant] Blames that instant, you know that very instance for his knee problems. Wow. He still relies on his knee problems to get out of.


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[Assistant] So, so this is definitely a memorable hunt for a lot of reasons, but that, uh, that night he, uh, I, he had been saying he had to get back home the next day. So he decided not to hunt the next day and to head back home. And it was my last day to be able to hunt. And, uh, so I decided I was going to go all the marbles in and go deep.


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[Assistant] We'd connected so many dots that were non-productive, I thought, okay.


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[Assistant] We aren't finding elk here. We aren't finding them here. There's this spot back in here that I've always wanted to hike into and never had. And it's several miles back in there and that's where the elk are going to be.


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[Assistant] That's, I've just got to get back in there and get away from the people, away from the roads. It was hot. Uh, that year.


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[Assistant] There were bears all over in town. The bears were coming down into town. It was just so dry. The huckleberries had all died and fell off the bushes. There was no water. And so there were bears literally.


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[Assistant] We were staying at Burdette's cabin, uh, out of town.


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[Assistant] And he had bears walking through his yard at night and getting into garbage. We were bumping bears during the day. I mean, there were.


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[Assistant] Just bears everywhere. And so that was an indicator to me that, hey, something's different this year.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I thought I've got to find some consistent water and someplace cool and so.


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[Assistant] I picked a spot and I told Burdett about it and he said, uh,


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[Assistant] Why don't you take your, uh, your walkie talkie with you and I'll take mine and I'll just, I'll go up on the other side of the canyon and I should be able to hear you bugling from back in there, which of course there's no way I was.


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[Assistant] I climbed and climbed and I was not finding any sign at all. So I just kept going farther and farther than I knew it was my last day. So I wasn't able to turn around and just, you know, go back down and be like, Hey, let's drive to another spot for the afternoon. It was, I was all in on this, this hunt and I hiked, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So probably 10, 30 or 11 and sat down and had some lunch and I'd bugled and cow called the whole way. I wasn't seeing fresh rubs. I wasn't seeing tracks. There was nothing in there. All of the wallows that are usually.


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[Assistant] In this marshy swampy area, we're completely dried up.


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[Assistant] And there was a main creek drainage down to my left, so.


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[Assistant] Hiking up this creek drainage, I got up after I'd ate lunch and hiked another hour or so. And it was probably.


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[Assistant] And across the canyon, across on the other side of the creek, a bull answer.


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[Assistant] And it's on the north face. There's a nice bench up there. So I was like, okay, the bull's bedded up there.


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[Assistant] He answered my first bugle when I popped out here on the point, so.


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[Assistant] Good chance I can slip in there and, and maybe have some, at least an encounter, which had been few and far between. So I dropped down, crossed the creek and happened to notice these little pools. You know, the creek was pretty dry, but there were still little pools in the creek. They were full of brook trout.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Full of brook trout, so I still haven't been back there to fish in the fall, which every time I tell the story, I think I've got to go back and fish that because, you know, it was, it was, the water was low enough. They couldn't go anywhere and they were just in these pools just.


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[Assistant] This was a Saturday if I remember right, and he headed back Saturday morning, had to be back at work Monday.


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[Assistant] Uh, I had to be back at work Monday also, but I, uh, I definitely wanted to go one more day of hunting. So no, no sore knee excuse or work excuse or anything here. So Donnie went back, Burdette's, uh, several miles away. And at this point I'm probably seven miles from the, from the road back in. So I'm a long ways back in.


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[Assistant] The thermals were going up the hill, so I had to go up canyon a ways.


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[Assistant] Get up above him so I could sight hill across and come into his bedding area there.


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[Assistant] And as I got in pretty close, I'm thinking, okay, he's going to be just around the ridge from me here.


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[Assistant] So I cow call and he answers and he's pretty much above me. He's off to the left a little bit as I'm facing up the hill.


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[Assistant] But not enough that I'm super comfortable because he could come around to my right.


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[Assistant] And get above me and win me. So I had to scramble up the hill to my right a little bit.


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[Assistant] And I got up there and had a perfect shooting lane off to my left. I thought, okay, he's going to drop right around. There's a great big rock bluff above me, probably 40 feet tall.


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[Assistant] And he's going to drop right around that and come out on this little shelf. Everything's inside 40 yards.


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[Assistant] And so I give him a couple of cow calls to finish him off and I can hear him, you know, I can hear rocks up on the hill above me. And I think this rock bluff is going to be.


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[Assistant] Just the perfect barrier. It's going to keep my wind going right straight up it and it's going to force him to have to come around it to see me.


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[Assistant] And so I've got an arrow on and I'm looking right there in my shooting lane.


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[Assistant] And all of a sudden right straight above me on the rock bluff, I hear hooves. And I look, uh.


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[Assistant] And he is right up there, 40 feet straight above me, looking right down at me.


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[Assistant] And he didn't, didn't read the script. So thermals are going up. He winded me, his eyes got about as big as a silver dollar and he spun out of there and was gone. Didn't Google anymore. So.


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[Assistant] It's, uh, I spent, you know, I probably spent another hour there trying to follow him to see if he'd lead me into another bugle and...


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[Assistant] Nothing. I didn't hear another bugle. His was the only tracks in there. There were some rubs on that bench, but I think he was the only elk in that area, so.


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[Assistant] I'm looking back across the canyon realizing, uh, what.


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[Assistant] What lies ahead and it's a long hike out of there and my oak season's over. And at this point, you know, it's 2007. I had shot my first Dell.


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[Assistant] Successful hunts for about 10 or 11 years there that.


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[Assistant] The reality was, was crashing down. It's, it's coming to an end here. You're going home without a filled tag and, uh, you get to call your wife on the way home and tell her, Hey, maybe, uh, your great aunt who runs some cattle might have, uh,


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[Assistant] You know, those hikes out are always very...


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[Assistant] Somber and a lot of self reflection and trying to figure out what we did wrong and beat ourselves up and come to.


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[Assistant] Come to grips with reality that no matter how desperate I was that morning, no matter how much energy and you know.


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[Assistant] Faith I had that it was gonna happen, it just wasn't gonna happen. So I started the hike out, dropped down the canyon, had to climb back out of the canyon in the heat of the day. And then, uh, got up on the other side and hit the main ridge and started working my way out the main ridge and


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[Assistant] I had gone through a bunch of alders and blow downs and decided to strap my bow on my backpack and so I strapped the bow on the back. Which I always do. Yeaah, I mean that's, I didn't even have trekking poles back then so, you know, I'm going through rough country and no way I needed


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[Assistant] Have my bow in my hand and land on it or break it and so I strapped it on the backpack and continue down the ridge and it was probably.


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[Assistant] I was probably four miles from the truck and had probably an hour of daylight left and was bebopping along and all of a sudden there's a cow elk standing in the trail in front of me.


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[Assistant] And so I just froze and I'm like, oh, my bows on my back. I'm not going to shoot a cow, especially this far back in, but you know, I really wasn't even thinking I need to.


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[Assistant] Get my bowl off my backpack. I know it's on my backpack, but I'm not even, you know, there's not a bowl there. Hadn't heard a bowl bugle or anything.


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[Assistant] And I cowcalled, just to kind of settle her down.


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[Assistant] So I grabbed my bow, dropped my backpack, grabbed the bow, knocked an arrow.


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[Assistant] And walked over to the edge probably 10 yards and looked down over the hill.


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[Assistant] And there's a five point bull standing down there looking back at the cow behind him. Doesn't even know, you know, he's not even looking up the hill at me.


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[Assistant] And so I just guessed how far he was. I think I guessed him for 50. I drew back shot and ended up hitting him back a little bit. He was quartering away slightly.


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[Assistant] I hit him back even a little farther than I should have on a quarter in a way shot. And I watched him run.


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[Assistant] Kind of side hill and then he turned down into some alders going down into the main canyon there.


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[Assistant] And so I grabbed my backpack, hiked down the ridge, there's a game trail there, hiked down the ridge so I could overlook the creek down there.


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[Assistant] And it also happened to be right about where the canyon broke out into the main canyon. And so I pulled my radio out of my backpack and I turned it on. I was like, Hey Bradette, you have a coffee?


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[Assistant] And, uh, he answered back, he said, yeah, when it was kind of broken, you know, like, here you go. I'm like, Hey, I can't understand what you're saying, but I just shot an elk. And he replied and said, copy shot an elk and, uh,


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[Assistant] He must've climbed up on a ridge a little bit there and we got a little bit clearer of a shot and I said, I just shot an elk.


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[Assistant] Uh, I hit it back a little bit. I'm going to go down and see if I can find blood on it, but I'm about four miles up the ridge. And he said, what do you want me to do? And I said, bring pack frames and water. So part I forgot was.


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[Assistant] I had a lunch, but it was my leftover lunch from the day before. I'd grabbed the wrong baggie and put it in my backpack. So all I had was just, you know, half a bag of trail mix and a couple pieces of jerky and a


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[Assistant] A granola bar or something. I didn't have my full day's pack of food with me.


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[Assistant] So I had been out of food since I'd sat down at 11 or so that morning and.


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[Assistant] Back in those days, I didn't carry a water bladder. I didn't carry much of anything other than a 16 ounce bottle of water from the gas station. So I was out of food and water by, by noon. And so I said, bring a pack frame and bring some water. And that was the last communication I had with him. I just told him, I told him I'm about four miles up here.


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[Assistant] There's an opening, there's a great big dead snag on the ridge. I'll just meet you by that snag. Well.


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[Assistant] As you can imagine, four miles up into a canyon, there's probably quite a few openings and quite a few snags. So I drop down the hill and I've got maybe 20 minutes of shooting light left. And I go down and I find tracks and there's no blood, which is pretty common with a hit back like that.


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[Assistant] I did see that the arrow was still in him when he ran off. It was sticking out about eight inches or so. And, uh, so I followed the tracks down the hill and I got right down to the creek and, you know, the creeks


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a couple little trickles of water dropping down. So it wasn't making a lot of noise, but there was some, some creek noise down there. And as I'm walking along, I glanced down and the bull is standing in the creek up to his belly in water, just standing there in that cool water in a, in a deep hole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he doesn't see me and doesn't know I'm there and I'm probably only 20, 25 yards away from him. So I grabbed another arrow, put the arrow on and shoot and hit him pretty good. He's quartering away again. I got a lot better shot that second time and he jumped out of the creek and ran up the other side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, started up the hill on the other side. So at that point, I just backed out and thought, well, Brudette will be here in two hours and we can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I don't want to bump him again. Just let him go up there and die and we'll go. So I climbed back up the hill to where we're going to meet and I sat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm thinking, he hasn't been answering this whole time. He's finally answering. That means he's still not close.


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[Assistant] And he's like, I swear I've got to be four miles up here. And so I said, we'll put the radio down and hoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he hollered and I didn't hear it, and I'm like, I don't hear ya, so you aren't, you aren't even close.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's got a pack frame, an extra pack frame, a brand new pack frame I might add. I just bought a brand new, you know, one of the old, all it is is just a frame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, just a frame pack and I bought it because they'd come out with new ones that had these


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great big padded shoulder straps and great big padded waist straps instead of the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little chintzy ones that my old ones had had, and man it was comfortable when I put it on, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had grabbed that out of my truck. He had brought me a peanut butter and jam sandwich, thankfully, that had been smashed in the bottom of his backpack for most of the season, I'm guessing. And, uh, a single bottle of 16 ounce bottle of water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I was just, I was fortunate that we had radios and that he heard me and I didn't have to hike out and then hike back in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although in the amount of time it took him to get up into there, I was thinking I probably could have hiked out and restocked and then hiked back up the next morning, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, uh, oh, I forgot to mention there's a fire man going on because of how hot and dry it is out. So our plan was to just stay on the mountain for the night because it's, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plenty of warm out, it's September, there's a fire ban, it's hot and dry.


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[Assistant] And then I just kept waiting thinking he'll be here any minute and now here we are. And I said, I think it's probably best at this point to, to just wait till morning. He's like, no, we got to find it tonight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we went down and you could see where it came out of the creek. You know, there were some wet marks there in the dirt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, still no blood though. And we've, we tried for about a half an hour and of course we were both exhausted. And finally I said, we gotta just, we just need to sleep and get up in the daylight. We can't see anything here and our flashlights are going to run out of battery if we try this all night. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he decided to lay down. Well, Berdette had brought a space blanket. I don't know if you've ever used a space blanket before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's a, you know, a little, they're in the very cheap section of camping gear at Walmart, little green packaging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think back then they were 99 cents, and uh, he had one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have no idea why he had one. He had no idea why he had one, but it had been in his pack for several years and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We decided we're going to violate the fire ban and build us just a little fire just for some warmth because it was pretty chilly out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All I had was a long sleeve shirt and a vest. I didn't have a jacket of any kind. And, uh, so we built just this tiny little fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm huddled around it literally like curled in the fetal position around this fire trying to stay warm. I look over at Burdette.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And within about two minutes, he's on his back snoring, sleeping comfortably and this space blanket is draped over him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the little bit of heat coming off of the fire is enough to put some heat waves or heat air underneath that thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's hovering right above him. Like it's literally hovering off of him and this heat is staying trapped underneath it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he snored and he snored all night long laying on the cold hard ground. I laid shivering all night long and didn't sleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I couldn't wait for daylight the next morning. As soon as it started getting daylight, I woke him up. I'm like, come on, let's go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we got up and we tracked the one. It only went another hundred yards from where we slept there. Tried climbing up the hill and didn't have the energy and strength to do it and toppled over right there and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, uh, we got it cut up and, uh, you know, within an hour or so after daylight, hour and a half after daylight, we had the pack frames loaded and ready to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had my bow, what little gear I had with me in my backpack, uh, from the day before, my bugle tube, some stuff like that. And then, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I found a rock and I'm trying to, you know, smash what I could of the skull off of it. So I didn't have to pack as much weight and I got it whittled down to the antlers and a little bit of skull plate there. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Burdette put, so we had, I had a hind and a front, a quarter, and then a backstrap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we didn't take the tenderloins on that one. It had a backstrap and then half the neck meat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then Burdette had the same and then I had the antlers and my bow and my backpack from the day before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Brudette, you know, he had a heavy load too and so he put on his pack frame and was sitting there and I went over and helped him stand up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he said, how are you going to get up when you get under yours? Like I, I'm not going to be much help to you. I said, well, just help me lift the pack frame up onto this rock here and then steady it there and I'll slide into it, you know, already standing. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It worked. I got into it and my nice cushy external pack frame with these great big hip belts and shoulder straps and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tightened them all down and man, it felt comfortable sitting there on that rock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a little swallow of water left in the bottle of water and, uh, I said, you go ahead and head down the trail and I'll be right behind ya.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, I don't know if we want to go down in the creek bottom. It was a mess of tangles. And I'm like, well, we can climb up the hill out of here onto the main ridge, but climbing up this hill is not going to be any fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, well, I'll try, I'll try going down here, but if I can't make it, I'm going to climb up. And I said, I'll probably end up doing the same. So he took off down the trail and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I swallowed the last swig of water and sat there and getting my mind made up that alright it's gonna be a long pack out of here but here we go and I stood up and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've got the heaviest load I've probably ever packed on my back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The nylon straps that come off of the padded shoulder straps, tying them directly to the frame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have no, I have no adjustment at this point. They're tied, they're hard tied there. So I can't loosen the shoulder straps and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had no way of relieving this, the weight, the burden on my shoulders as I went down to the creek bottom realized it's full of alders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 8 that morning, so 8 and a half hours with half an elk with no adjustment on my shoulders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lesson learned was, you know, there's definitely a lesson on testing gear before you, before you learn it. But the real lesson that I learned, uh, came the night before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes to elk hunting success, confidence is critical. And confidence in my gear and my equipment is something I'm just not willing to compromise. And that's why I shoot a prime bow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a mechanical engineer, when I first saw the technology Prime was designing into their bows, I was intrigued.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cam lean had always been an issue on other bows I'd shot, which made tuning the bows and ultimately getting consistent arrow flight nearly impossible. But four shots into my first prime bow, it was tuned and my arrows were flying perfectly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The draw cycle was smooth and the back wall was solid and they didn't stop there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the years since I've started shooting a prime bow, they've added center shot technology, which allows the bow to lock on the target and keeps my pins from wandering around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've also recently designed a new cam that completely eliminates cam lean that was previously caused by the offset cable design.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prime Bows are continually leading the way when it comes to new technology and technology that makes a difference, not just some marketing gimmick that a marketing department can use to advertise a new model. There's no doubt that the stability of my Prime Bow


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This improved my accuracy, extended my range, and increased my confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To learn more about Prime Stability or to shoot one for yourself, visit your local bow shop or go to g5prime.com. And now, back to reaching your peak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lesson that I learned the night before as I was hiking down that trail was you can't quit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a hunt, you can't quit even an hour early. I'd made up my mind that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was, I was defeated. This was a failure of a hunt, an unsuccessful season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My bow was on my pack. I had already in my mind convinced myself that it was okay. That it's okay not to fill a tag. It's okay not to shoot an elk. That, you know, I justified all these things. We'd hunted hard, but I was done hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, mentally I was done, physically I was done. I was pointing back to the truck and going back and I still had an hour of daylight and I wasn't doing anything to take advantage of it. But all it takes is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is one, all it takes is one elk in the right place at the right time. And that might come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the last hour of the last day of the hunt. So I learned a really valuable lesson then that you don't quit early. You don't stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, had that been a bull in the trail? I never got a shot at him. You know, I just happened to cow call. I think the bull thought that I was the cow that he was with that cow called.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just bugled to say I'm over here and then the cow goes running down there and he looks at the cow and doesn't even think there's any, anything going on there. And you know, you talk about how many times have we, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and said let's just take down camp tonight instead of hunting tonight. Let's take it down tonight and hit the road.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What did we miss out on that we don't even know about that night? You know, what, that might've been our opportunity and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just chisels away your resolve that much more. And by day six or seven, it's really easy to say, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing's happened. I haven't had encounters. I haven't seen an elk. I haven't heard a bugle. I'm just going to call it quit and go, you know, I'm done hunting. And I think instead of that, it's important to say I haven't heard a bugle. I haven't seen an elk. I've got to really put my


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My best effort into this last day, into this last evening hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And get out of the rut, you know, don't hunt the same area that you've been going to and haven't seen tracks, go to somewhere new, go to some place. You know, I, we'd had very few encounters and on this day I had two bulls, I had two encounters that, you know, one of them I should have killed and didn't, the other one I did kill and it, I filled the tag and filled the freezer literally on the last hour of, of the last day I had to hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love the, uh, the quote from Babe Ruth, you know, I go back to that a lot when we're talking about the last day hunting and, uh, he was faced with, you know, I think it was a, a full count, two outs, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had to be really, uh, feeling the heat there. You know, you got two strikes against you, two outs, uh, you know, things weren't looking good for you. Like, are you kidding? He's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just, I think, you know, about that, that, you know, every day that passes that I don't kill an elk, the odds go up in my favor. Like the odds of me killing an elk continue to go up the longer I hunt. And if I throw in the towel and go home, the odds are, are zero. And like you said though, it's a, it's a mental thing because you're sitting there thinking about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the negative things that have happened, you know, you're tired mentally, physically you're beat up. It's really easy to go that direction and think about, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have we quit early and went home, got a good night's sleep, and the next day woke up and thought,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish I was up on the mountain hunting. Even if I didn't get anything, I just, I wish I was up there, you know, doing something. And, and you said one more thing. I've got to bring up that point. You said you've spent a week eating terrible meals and sleeping in uncomfortable circumstances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have a promo code for Peak Refuel and there's no reason for you to be eating terrible meals on the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I used to carry a can of pork and beans for dinner and you know, get back to camp and warm it up on the fire and have a pop tart in the morning for breakfast and carry a Snickers bar and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who knows what, a Twinkie or something for lunch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've improved a lot of situations since then. I uh, you know, people will say, well, I watched your Alaska hunt and you're in Alaska and spent the night out there without good clothing, you know, very similar clothing to what I had there in Idaho.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, uh, I'm much better prepared, uh, for those chance encounters where I have to stay out overnight. I wouldn't say that I, uh, you know, I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, survival mode every time I go out, but, uh, I still don't have a space blanket. Uh, I still don't know how those things work, but I know it worked that night for Berdette, but I carry enough other things that I don't have to rely on a cheap piece of tin foil to keep me warm at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but my hydration system, I do, I, uh, I went to carrying a lot more water for a while, and then I went to an actual bladder, uh, hydration system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then just, uh, last year I tried a new hydration system, uh, from hard side hydration. You can use an algin bottle or any kind of a hard sided bottle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then a lid attaches to it with a straw in that, and then it's got a hose that comes up and so it's just like a bladder, only you don't have to worry about puncturing the bladder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a lot more versatile. It's easier to fill with a water filter. And so I carry, uh, a lot of water now, probably three liters or two and a half to three liters of water a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a filter that I can filter more water if I need it because that was, yeah, that, that was probably the turning point for me in going from being a minimalist water drinker to I've got to be prepared with water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely. Yeah, and you just like think back, you know, I think about my grandpa and he did, he hunted in jeans and a wool flannel and you know, old


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Old rifle with a, I dunno, four power fixed scope on it and you know, no calls, no GPS, no anything. And you know, he came back to a camper every night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he had, you know, some, he had a bed and a place to dry out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, he had the means to, to have good food there. You know, at least stuff a sandwich in his pocket, you know, and make a sandwich at night, stuff in his pocket and cook a dinner when he got back with some, you know, fried potatoes and elk steak. And so, I mean, they ate better. He had that luxury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With us hunting the way we do a lot now, you know, we're carrying camp on our back. That adds to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The necessity of having better gear to be able to stay out there longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like you said, there's no substitute for knowledge and experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our abilities to utilize our knowledge and experience and, and get more out of it. And I, it's funny, I'm, uh, I'm in the middle of a study right now that I'm doing on Idaho success rates. Cause I just want to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's been a change in success rates. So I'm looking at every single hunt, every weapon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, to see if there's been any kind of a change in success rates because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think there has. I don't think success rates have changed. I mean, yeah, maybe one or 2%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They might go up 5% this year because it's a really good year for hunting, you know, whatever it is, but I don't think overall that we've changed the trajectory of success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the trajectory of technology in here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hypothesis out there without backing it up with any proof yet, but hopefully by the next episode, we can talk about some of that and maybe talk about gear, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, that pack frame, I hadn't tested it. And so that's that experience. You know, I always say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make sure you've tested your gear. Don't go out with a brand new sleeping bag and climate bag. It's a zero degree bag and it only weighs a pound and a half and it's gonna, it's gonna be light and it's gonna keep me warm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, you know, things like that, that'll ruin a hunt really quickly if you can't sleep at night cause you're cold. And so test your gear before you use it. Um, and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that, that sums up elk hunting perfectly because every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every hour of every day you're going to fail. You're going to fail to find tracks. You're going to fail to hear bugles. You're going to fail to set up in the right place. You're going to fail to make the shot. You're going to do all these things hoping for one success. You know, hundreds of failures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are outweighed by one success, but when that success seems like it's out of reach,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really easy to let those failures win, and it's important to remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That it just takes one and that one opportunity, that one chance, that one shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Might be completely unexpected. It might be a gift that's left for you there on a ridge trail as your head's hung low, hiking back on the last day of the season. It might be, exactly. It might be a, you know, a hard work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, encounter with this elk where you set up and had to work him right down to the last minute of the last night of the hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you don't know when it's going to come and it's, it comes in different ways at different times and different places. But the one thing that's certain if you're not out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not going to be successful. So stay out there, use every minute of, of every day, including the last minute of the last day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just happened to be staying at my uncle's ranch in Montana and I looked out at halftime and there was a bull elk out there in the corner of the field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't think for a minute that we don't experience the exact same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, desires to go home and sleep in a bed and to, to give in. I think, you know, the difference is maybe we've experienced some of these things that happen and we're willing to stick it out and stay till the end. And the other thing is if you need a reset on day four or day five.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take it, go into town and get a burger and a milkshake and take a nap at camp, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't just grind and grind and grind and wear yourself into the ground for the full seven or eight days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, take a break in the middle, take a, take an afternoon off in the middle or, you know, middle of the day, be like, Hey, we're just going to go for a morning hunt and then we're going to drive into town and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And get a burger and we're gonna, you know, go splash our faces in the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With some fresh water at a shower, at a KOA or you know, whatever it is. Don't think that you have to just suffer the whole time, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If, uh, if it's a struggle, find a way to break it up in the middle rather than giving up on the end. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try it. You know what you're gonna do already. Make up your mind right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well folks, thanks for joining us and until next time, we'll see you guys on the next ridge or mountaintop or wherever the elk are bugling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Welcome to Reaching Your Peak, an educational storytelling miniseries of the Elk Talk Podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reaching your peak is brought to you by Peak Refuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're looking for delicious, freeze-dried meals that are made with 100% real ingredients, including premium USDA meats, you've probably already heard of Peacree Fuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to taste the difference, visit peakrefuel.com and use the promo code ELKTALK to save 15% and get free shipping on your next order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Reaching Your Peak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can just go to elktalkpodcast.com and click on the contact tab at the top of the page and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't believe elk season is almost here. It's either open or it's opening in most of the western states in the next week or so. So good luck to everybody that's heading out to chase elk. And in this episode I wanted to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have a little bit of a less scripted storytelling episode and have Randy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dig a little bit more and pry a little more into some of the tactics that we talk about as well as add some entertainment to the story. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let us know if you prefer the more scripted versions that I've been doing in the past or if you find more, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With that, let's jump into another elk hunting story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's uh, it's going to be a good one, but I appreciate you being willing to, uh, do double time here and, and join me in, in these episodes and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, absolutely interrupt at any time. And if I see that's a problem, if I don't write out a story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, drinking a bottle of Mountain Ops to, uh, being on top of the mountain with a bull at 20 yards. We need to hear some more story there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Goes out the window. Yup. Ah, yeaah. I have to, any time I do public speaking or anything, I have to have a pretty solid script, and I don't always necessarily read it, but it's there to get me back on track when I lose my train of thought, which...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had an area where for the past two years, I'd been able to stop on a pullout and get a boulder bugle way up on top of the mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the thermals were always horrible. He lived in a Aspen or an Alder patch right up almost top of the mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it prevented me from getting up to where he was. I tried it a couple times and the thermals were always inconsistent. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Real and, uh, mature sounding bugle. So we, uh, we put all our eggs in that basket that it wasn't the hunter. And besides the hunter would have been crazy to be up there, especially at daylight. Cause, uh, it was, it was quite a hike, but the only way we could get up to him was leave the trail head and bushwhack clear around the mountain into another drainage, come up to the backside of the mountain and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We knew he would stay there. He wasn't going anywhere. That's where he lived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we popped over the ridge at probably one o'clock, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. Thermals had really settled down and were coming up the hill really constant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the above. So it was, uh, I don't, I don't remember how many miles, but I know it was over 3000 feet in elevation gain. So yeah, it was a, it was a brutal one and going up the backside, uh, you know, we, we, we were continuing with some brush.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thinking he's bedded. So I was pretty certain he was bedded down in the middle of that Alder patch. So, you know, they bed there. It's cool in there. Uh, it's noisy. If you try to move in on him, he's going to hear you come in and have escape routes in, in every direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we assumed that he's a herd bull and that he has cows and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how, that's how we approached it, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He bugles and, uh, we, we test the wind. He's 300, 350 yards below us. We can see the fingerage that drops down that he's bedded on the backside of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we have a little bit of real estate there to move in and get a good set up before we.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try to call him in and be in 350 yards away from him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I figured we'd probably have to at least cut the distance in half to get him interested enough to get out of his bed, leave the safety of the, the patch that he was bedded in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And come up the hill or at least come across to us, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was our plan. We, uh, we dropped down. We dropped straight down. We didn't get over on the ridge he was on. We stayed over off to the side like we were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dropped straight down the hillside and got probably...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 150 yards from the ridge, he was bedded on the backside of, so we're probably 200 yards from him, we figured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then there was a fingerage that dropped back off into the opposite drainage, the opposite side where we got him bugling from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as we're dropping down, he's on the backside of this finger ridge. It doesn't really make a draw. And then another ridge is just more of a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, obstacles there. So we drop down and get pretty much to his level. We're still probably 50 yards up the hill from, from his level, but there's a really good game trail 50 yards below us that goes right over to the ridge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he comes out of there, it's going to be a perfect place for him to walk. He'll end up right underneath us. So Donnie dropped down the hill to his level and moved probably 50 yards off to my left, which would put him behind me and put me between Donnie and the bull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I stayed up 50 yards above the level that the bowl was on. Donnie dropped down to the bowl's level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. So any, any, if he's going to deviate from that main trail that goes right to Donnie, it's going to be uphill. So we set up a pill of that. I'm still within shooting distance if he comes in on the trail. And the nice thing was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a huge patch of, of really thick timber.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that, hey, he's going to come out and when he comes out, he's going to be in the open right in a lane there. So it's, it's a perfect setup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can't, we can't see each other. Nope. And that's the, you know, it's, it's tough because if we can see each other, then the bull's probably going to be able to see Donnie and won't come into my shooting lane. So Donnie has dropped down the hill and just over a little.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just a little rise there with some timber and is out of sight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we get set up and everything's perfect. You know, the bull doesn't know we've dropped down the hill. He's still in his bedding area. We bugled once with him and, uh, Donnie pipes off on the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bugles and the cow calls and sure enough, the bull fires up. And I would say in a matter of minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bulls come out on the main ridge and then he drops off the main ridge towards us and starts coming across that first open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he's pretty aggressive. He, I think he started with cow calls like we typically do. The bull answers the cow calls and then he challenges him. And every time the bull bugles, Donnie is really good at getting right back in his face and cutting him off. So we're aggressive. We're in his domain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it's middle of the day, he's not gonna be chasing cows up or down the mountain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We figure he's going to come in and protect his area and his cows, which is exactly what he does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as he's coming across that open, I'm able to watch everything, you know, his reactions, his demeanor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he doesn't know we're up the hill there. He's focused on Donnie and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe 100 yards left to go to, to get underneath me there for a shot. And at this point he's probably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only 100 yards, 120 yards from me, uh, just straight across the hill. And,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can see he's, he's looking, he wants to go into that timber, but he keeps looking back behind him. And so I know he doesn't want to get too far away from his cows and that's, that's kind of his hang up. So he turns, goes back towards his cows a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Donnie challenges him again and he turns and this time he goes all the way into the timber. And so I'm thinking he's coming out. So we get an arrow on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm ready. I'm locked in on the opening down below us and for probably a good 10 minutes it's quiet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Donnie's cow calling, bugling a little bit, but the bull isn't saying anything.


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[Assistant] And eventually we see him and he's walking back out the site he'd come in on and didn't come out into our shooting lane.


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[Assistant] You know, he's not fired up ripping trees out of the ground, but he's aggressive. He's definitely in defense mode that he wants to make sure that nobody gets in with his cows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I start getting an idea then, you know, and we've done it several times as far as just let him go back to where he came from and settle in and then we'll, then we'll recruit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can realize we aren't going to move in on that open where we're at. He can see us, you know, if we make a move at all now, he can see John and I at 120 yards away on the open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And drop down and try to pick which side he's going to come out and ambush him or let him get back over the ridge and then, then make another move. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, we decided to make another move and you'd ask if Donnie could see us, he couldn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we weren't able to communicate to him, hey, we're moving in on the bowl. So Donnie is still back in his normal original setup.


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[Assistant] John and I start moving towards that ridge after the bull makes his way to the ridge. And when he did get to the ridge initially.


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[Assistant] You know, kind of stood his ground right there and I thought, I bet he's bedded just right on the backside.


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[Assistant] We get up there on that ridge and we're going to be in his bedroom and also going to take his one bugle there and he'll be in our labs.


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[Assistant] So we slipped in, got up to the ridge, no problem. You know, we didn't have to worry about being quiet or being seen or smelled or anything. So we just literally were able to walk at a normal pace over to the ridge. We climb up on this ridge and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've got him, you know, he's, he's gonna be right down here below us. And as I'm turning to my right to look back at John,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think about how many times we've got in close and so focused on a bowl.


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[Assistant] That we walk right by a cow or we walk right into a cow because we just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a glimpse of us behind a tree, we're on the open ridge and she's in the open looking at us. So I reverted back to something I had learned probably 20 years before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And had tried, you know, had stumbled into this tactic completely by accident, but.


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[Assistant] What I did was I realized the bull is he's gone straight away from us and down the hill to where he beds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this cow is up to the right of us up the ridge. So I am essentially between the bull and the cow.


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[Assistant] I bumped the cow. I purposely made a lunge at her and bugled at her to scare her.


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[Assistant] I'm not gonna go and follow my cow, I've gotta go and run this bowl off.


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[Assistant] Ideally, yea, if we can split that cow away and get between the bull and the cow and she runs away from us, that's, that's ideal.


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[Assistant] What happened though is as I ran, you know, as I bugled and kind of, and it was, I screamed a big, just, it wasn't even a good sounding bugle. It was a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, as soon as I bugled, he bugled right back. You know, we're 60 yards from each other at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And on the ridge that I'm on, it's straight off down to him. So I can't see more than 20 yards, maybe 25 yards in front of me before it drops off abruptly down to where the bull is.


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[Assistant] Right, yeaah, and it's, it's not a steep, you know, a razorback ridge, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're able to move just four or five yards off the ridge and not be skylined, uh, not, not have to worry about that.


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[Assistant] So as I, as I bugle and scare the cow, she turns and runs down towards the bull. The bull screams a bugle. And I thought.


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[Assistant] Once the bull gets to the edge of this sharp drop off, he's not going to come walking all the way up to the ridge. You know, there's a bull up here that's trying to steal one of his cows.


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[Assistant] He's not going to come up there and go face to face. He's going to want to see that bowl.


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[Assistant] So I moved ahead probably eight or 10 yards, arrow knocked and expecting at any time I'm going to see this bowl right in front of us and.


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[Assistant] Sure enough, as I'm moving, I look up and I can see antler tips just coming up right now, you know, where it breaks over onto that steep part where I can't see anything below it, but I can see antler tips. So I've dropped to a knee.


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[Assistant] I hunker down as low as I can come to full draw. And by the time I come up to, to a kneeling position at full draw.


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[Assistant] The bull is standing quartering to us at about 18 yards.


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[Assistant] And you know, it's quartering too sharp enough that I can't shoot, but he can't come straight at us. There's a log there in front of us and he turns perfectly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost quartering away and starts angling up towards where the cow had run to.


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[Assistant] And it just, you know, autopilot kind of takes over from there. I've got a bull elk, 18 yards broadside. He's walking from left to right and quartering slightly away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just put my pin on his side and I'm following him as he's walking there and