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[Assistant] I just flicked it off and picked the quarter up and carried it the rest of the way up the hill. And by the time I made it up to the truck and put the quarter in the back of the Suburban, I had forgotten all about the tick.


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[Assistant] We loaded the elk quarters on a tarp that was in the back of Donnie's suburban and then cranked the air conditioner on high.


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[Assistant] And started a two hour drive back into the closest town where we could hang our meat until we got done with our hunt.


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[Assistant] As we started unloading game bags to hang them in the walk-in cooler, though, we noticed the back of Donnie's suburban was literally crawling with ticks. I'd seen ticks before on bear and deer that we'd shot, but never seen them on an elk, especially like this.


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[Assistant] The source of all the ticks was the elk head that we had left on the tarp that we had loaded in the back of the suburban next to the meat, and the ticks were literally


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[Assistant] Crawling out of the hair that was left on the head, out of the ears, they were just coming out of everywhere.


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[Assistant] It was odd for sure, and I think we commented that we'd never seen anything like that before, but we did our best to just sweep them out of the back of the suburban and then just wrap the elk head in a garbage bag and put some duct tape around the top of it to keep any more of those nasty things from


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[Assistant] And then after we got the meat hung in the cooler, we just drove back into the nearest little town there and found a diner and rewarded ourselves with cheeseburgers and fries and mountain berry milkshakes. And then before we headed back to camp, I told Donnie, hey, let's swing by the local


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[Assistant] Sporting Goods store, and I went in and purchased that second leftover Elk Tag.


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[Assistant] Uh, which in Idaho at the time, if there were leftover tags, you could purchase them at the non-resident price.


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[Assistant] It was an optimistic, uh, action for sure, but with so many days still left in our season, I was confident we could get bowls for Donnie and for Dave and hopefully have a few days left where I could try and fill that second tag.


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[Assistant] Just six hours after we had loaded the elk into the back of Donnie's SUV, we were pulling back into our camp, ready for round two. But something was off.


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[Assistant] I was starting to get dizzy and nauseous and my heart rate seemed to be a lot higher than normal.


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[Assistant] I wasn't sure if maybe it was just some lingering heat exhaustion from my work in the sun the week before, or maybe it was the mountain berry milkshake, but something was making me feel quite a bit less than well.


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[Assistant] I decided an afternoon nap there at camp would probably cure whatever it was, but when I woke up an hour and a half later, things were actually worse. My resting heart rate was considerably higher than the 56 beats per minute it had been all summer while I'd been training for triathlons. I was also feeling some kind of weird anxiety and not the kind that I'd been experiencing all week anticipating the upcoming elk hunt.


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[Assistant] Something definitely wasn't right and almost in desperation I just waded out into the middle of the creek next to our camp and started violently just splashing water on my face hoping that would help but it didn't.


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[Assistant] I was trying to stay calm and I told Donnie and Dave that something was wrong and I wasn't sure what, but I thought we might need to head in to the ER. So we jumped in Dave's truck and on the drive back into town, uh, I checked my heart rate and it was over 150 beats per minute and I was just sitting there in the passenger seat. I knew something was going on, but I didn't have any idea what. I didn't know if I was having a heart attack.


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[Assistant] I was only 34 years old and arguably in the best shape of my life. Maybe the dehydration and heat exhaustion had finally caught up to me.


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[Assistant] I can remember as we pulled into the hospital, uh, feeling just a sense of relief, probably from knowing that there was professional medical help just through the doors, but also knowing that I could finally release the white knuckled grip that I had from desperately trying to hold on as Dave squealed the tires around every corner on the way into the hospital.


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[Assistant] At the hospital, they ran multiple tests, but in the end, they just diagnosed me as being severely dehydrated. I mentioned a few times to the ER doc that I'd been bitten by a tick earlier in the day, so


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[Assistant] I think more just to appease my concerns than anything else.


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[Assistant] They gave me some Benadryl to go along with the two bags of IV fluids that they gave me. A few hours later, things seemed to be settling down and they sent me back out on my way.


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[Assistant] For this episode, uh, I'm gonna spare you all the details and the full story of how Lyme disease drastically changed my life over the next several years, but


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[Assistant] For two more days, uh, we tried to hunt and I kept experiencing just crazy unexplainable symptoms and ended up in the ER again and we decided it was probably best to just postpone


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[Assistant] Uh, the second phase of our hunt until I could figure out what was going on with my health.


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[Assistant] I spent the next week visiting all kinds of specialists, cardiologists, and pulmonologists, internal medicine doctors.


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[Assistant] Uh, even an arrogant infectious disease expert who laughed at me when I told him I'd been bitten by a tick, but no one could come up with any explanation for my continuing racing heart rate or any of the other symptoms that I was suddenly experiencing.


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[Assistant] At the end of that week, and with six of our elk hunting days now wasted, I was still feeling horrible, and the list of unexplainable symptoms had only increased. But the thought of waiting another 12 months for the next elk rut, and with three tags still burning holes in our pockets,


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[Assistant] At this point, the likelihood of getting two bulls in the next six or seven days


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[Assistant] Seems like a long shot at best, and the money I had literally just spent to buy that leftover Elk Tag at the non-resident price felt like it was going to be a complete waste. We knew that going deep into the backcountry, like we had originally planned, wasn't going to be an option.


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[Assistant] Heck, I could barely walk up our stairs in our house without blacking out.


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[Assistant] But we knew we could hopefully find an elk or two somewhat close to the roads and with a little good luck, hopefully fill another tag or two.


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[Assistant] The first couple days that we were back up in elk country were really slow. The one bull that we did get to bugle


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[Assistant] Druggist 300 or 400 yards down the hillside below the road and then went completely silent and it took me over an hour.


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[Assistant] My heart was pounding out of my chest like I'd never experienced before, just trying to get back up to the road. But we were elk hunting.


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[Assistant] Since we weren't seeing or finding much action in that area, we decided to drive back over to where our original camp was and spend the last three or four days of our hunt hunting over on that side.


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[Assistant] After getting things set back up at camp, we headed out for a quick evening hunt and we only had maybe 30 minutes or so of daylight left, but we got a response from a bull up on the ridge a few hundred yards above the road. And as we moved in toward the bull, he was bugling on his own and as we got closer, I'd cut him off every time he bugled.


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[Assistant] I stayed back and started raking a tree and as soon as I started raking the tree, the bull bugled.


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[Assistant] Like it seems to happen more times than not, the bull just sensed something wasn't right and as he stepped out, he stopped right behind the one tree.


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[Assistant] That was preventing both of them from getting a clear shot. And just like that, the bull world and ran back up the ridge to his cows.


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[Assistant] Just as the last little bit of daylight was fading into darkness. On our way back to camp we decided to stop.


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[Assistant] And pull over and bugle from a pullout along the road.


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[Assistant] Where we'd stop to bugle quite a few times in the past, both that season as well as previous seasons, and see if we could get anything to bugle.


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[Assistant] So far that season, every time we'd stop there, we hadn't heard anything. But that night, uh, something had changed. There were bugles coming.


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[Assistant] It seemed like from every direction around the meadow that was adjacent to the road there at that pullout and the bulls were bugling completely on their own. So we stood there for just a minute listening.


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[Assistant] And then quietly got back in the truck and headed back to camp.


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[Assistant] With a solid plan and quite a bit of excitement for the next morning.


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[Assistant] 30 minutes or so before daylight the next morning, we parked in the same pullout and quietly made our way out into the middle of the meadow. The bulls were still bugling on their own, so we just checked the wind and then really quietly moved out towards the closest sounding bull.


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[Assistant] That bowl was to our right as we were moving in and was engaged in a preheated debate with another bowl that was probably 400 or 500 yards back behind us, which made it real easy for us to just slip in between the two bowls without ever having to even announce that we were there.


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[Assistant] And Donnie was set up on point as the shooter. The three of us just kinda stood there in the middle of the meadow taking in all the bugles that were coming from literally every direction and waiting for shooting light so that we could chime into the action.


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[Assistant] And then as soon as it got light enough to be able to see and light enough to shoot, I started to bugle. And we're probably 150 or 200 yards away from that closest bull. But in the darkness, we hadn't noticed that there were cows just 80 or 100 yards off to our left.


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[Assistant] And what could have turned into a real disaster actually turned out to be a good thing.


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[Assistant] When I bugled, the cows immediately busted for the timber on their side of the meadow, but the bull that was on the other side of the opening


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[Assistant] Wasn't at all happy that another bull had gotten so close to his cows and he immediately came running straight to us. He wasn't running to follow his cows as they busted into the timber. He was coming straight into the bugle.


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[Assistant] The bull came out and stopped probably 80 yards or so away from Donnie and kinda locked in.


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[Assistant] Stood there looking in our direction for what seemed like forever. I slowly turned my head to the right and covering my mouth with my hand just gave a soft cow call. And that was all that bull needed to hear. He turned to his left and started walking straight to me.


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[Assistant] And at about 30 yards he stopped broadside to Donnie, who was already at full draw. And his shot made a solid thump and the bull crashed off into the timber where the cows had ran off to our left.


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[Assistant] Instinctively, I just let out a bugle to calm the bull as he was running off like we always do. And that bugle was immediately answered by the bull that had been bugling from back behind us.


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[Assistant] Not one to ever let an opportunity pass. I whispered to Dave, grab your bow.


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[Assistant] And as Donnie came up, we gave him a quick high five and then Dave handed the camera to Donnie and picked up his bow and we started running across the open meadow towards a little small patch of timber that was between us and where that bull was bugling.


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[Assistant] As we got to the edge of the timber, I stayed back on the bottom edge of a small rise where the timber started and then Dave and Donnie slipped up onto the rise and got set up on the far edge of the timber patch where they were overlooking another small section of the meadow that we were in.


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[Assistant] The bull that was bugling and his cows were incredibly vocal and a challenge from this new intruder


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[Assistant] was more than he was willing to tolerate. Every time he bugled and he was bugling a lot on his own, I would cut him off. And by the time he came into view 200 yards from Donnie and Dave, he was running at us at a steady trot.


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[Assistant] The bull ended up running right past a little sapling that Dave had already ranged at about 40 yards. And when he came to a stop, he stopped right behind a small patch of brush out in the meadow that prevented any chance for Dave to get a shot. And when the bull couldn't see the other bull that had been challenging him, he turned and started heading back to his cows. And as he turned to leave, Dave stopped him with a cow call. And for the second time in less than 20 minutes,


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[Assistant] Dave initially thought that he had missed the shot, but I assured him I had heard an impact and Donnie quickly rewound the footage and confirmed that it was a hit. The hit was a little bit back.


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[Assistant] Actually, it was quite a bit back, but it was a solid body hit for sure. We knew we had our work cut out for us both in terms of packing and likely in tracking on Dave's bowl.


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[Assistant] Due to the shot being so far back, we decided to give Dave's bowl some extra time, and we went back and started tracking Donnie's bowl. And we ended up finding his bowl, a really nice 6x6 bowl, just 200 yards or so into the timber where it had ran after the shot.


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[Assistant] And we got a few pictures and then got the bowl cut up and we hung it there in the shade next to a cool little creek that was running through the meadow.


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[Assistant] Since it was just a few hundred yards away from where David shot his bowl, we decided to head back over.


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[Assistant] And see if we can find blood from Dave's shop before we started packing Donnie's bowl out.


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[Assistant] And we ended up finding a few drops of blood, probably 80 yards or so, from where David shot his bull. And we were able to follow the bull to where he had got to the edge of the meadow and then entered into the timber. But once he went in the timber,


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[Assistant] We really struggled to find more than just a drop or two of blood at a time and we ended up tracking the bull for probably an hour or so before


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[Assistant] It led us to a shady little bench, uh, up on the side of the mountain.


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[Assistant] And I really should have known that this was a likely place for a wounded boulder bed down. It was a thick bench covered in alders.


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[Assistant] But as we followed that sparse blood and the tracks onto the bench, we ended up bumping the bull.


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[Assistant] The tracking on Dave's bowl again. It probably took us two hours or so to get Donnie's bowl back to the truck and he decided once we got back that he was gonna take his meat straight into town and get it in a cooler since it was still fairly warm out.


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[Assistant] And Dave and I just went back to start tracking his bull.


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[Assistant] It wasn't an easy tracking job at all and the bull ended up going almost another two miles from where we bumped it with no blood. Uh, fortunately it had a really big foot and were able to just stay on the tracks.


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[Assistant] And eventually followed the tracks right up to where the bull was laying dead. It was, uh, got up to a timbered ridge where it could overlook.


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[Assistant] Uh, the drainage on the other side as well and died right there. And fortunately where it died, there was a logging road that came up underneath the ridge, uh, in that drainage below us.


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[Assistant] It was a huge bodied bull, one of the bigger bodied bulls that I can remember seeing and had really goofy antlers. It was a six point on one side and a, I think a three point on the other with a great big long spike, but


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[Assistant] Dave and I got the bowl cut up and got it all ready to pack down the ridge right as Donnie pulled up and drove around on that logging road below us.


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[Assistant] The three of us got the bowl packed back down to the truck and made it back down there. It was probably 10pm by the time we got it all down there. And we got back to camp probably between 10.30 and 11. By the way, this was Dave's first elk ever.


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[Assistant] It was a little after midnight, I think, when we finally crawled in our sleeping bags and we were physically and mentally exhausted from the long day.


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[Assistant] It definitely been a day that was going to be hard to beat. Two mature bulls, 20 minutes apart, shot less than 200 yards apart. And those were the last thoughts that went through my mind that night as the ibuprofen kicked in and overcame the sore muscles and any lingering adrenaline.


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[Assistant] Six hours later, the alarm clock started going off and I guarantee you the snooze button got a good workout for the better part of 20 or 30 minutes that morning.


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[Assistant] The sun was already coming up over the mountains as we started the drive back to that same pullout next to the same meadow and hoped that there was still some


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[Assistant] Uh, good bugling going on nearby. It was well after daylight when we left the truck and for some reason, probably the fact that we had, uh, walked all through the meadow and killed two elk there.


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[Assistant] We convinced our stiff legs and our sore backs to take us back along the trail across the meadow.


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[Assistant] Right back literally to the exact location where we'd been standing when Donnie shot his bowl the morning before.


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[Assistant] Just before we made it back to that spot though, a bull bugled off to our right.


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[Assistant] So we scrambled up the trail 50 yards or so and stopped to bugle and the bull screamed back less than 200 yards away. And as he bugled his cows were going crazy and we could hear elk running out in the meadow.


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[Assistant] And I bugled again and immediately saw some movement coming in from our right and the bull.


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[Assistant] Stepped out of some trees and go a little opening coming straight towards us. So I just dropped my bugle tube to the ground and ranged a tree there in the meadow between me and the bull. And then I just turned my head, gave a soft cow call and


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[Assistant] I found the string with my release and was at full draw just as the bull cleared that tree 40 yards in front of us. He stopped and I shot.


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[Assistant] And we watched him pile up right there less than 40 yards away.


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[Assistant] We stood there in complete disbelief and as we kind of just looked at each other like what just happened, you know, we can't believe that all three of us started just saying


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[Assistant] Unbelievable. That was incredibly unbelievable. We were standing less than a hundred yards from where Donnie had shot his bowl just 24 hours earlier.


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[Assistant] Three really mature herd bulls, all within 250 yards of each other, all shot in a matter of 24 hours. Keep in mind, this is 100% public land with over the counter tags.


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[Assistant] It seems like every two or three years we have an elk hunting experience that leaves us saying we'll never be able to top this season. And while we've had a lot of incredible elk hunting experiences over the 15 or so seasons since that experience, I'm not sure that we've had one that beats it.


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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.


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


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[Assistant] Kamling had always been an issue on other bows I'd shot, which made tuning the bows and ultimately getting consistent aero flight


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[Assistant] 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.


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[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. They've also recently designed a new cam.


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[Assistant] That completely eliminates cam lean that was previously caused by the offset cable design.


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[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


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[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. Speaking of Prime Archery, we have a Prime Revix bow to give away.


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[Assistant] And then went to the Elk Talk Podcast website to sign up to win.


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[Assistant] Congrats, Charles. We'll get in touch with you and get your specs and get you all set up with your new Prime bow. And thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway.


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[Assistant] And stay tuned because we've got more bow giveaways from Prime right here in the reaching your peak podcast mini series. And now back to the hunt.


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[Assistant] What was it about this hunt that made it so incredible? Was it?


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[Assistant] Just being in the right place at the right time. Was it blind luck?


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[Assistant] But that experience helped me learn quite a bit more about the elk rut, especially as it relates to the effectiveness of calling.


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[Assistant] In a nutshell, here's what elk are doing leading up to the peak of the rut.


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[Assistant] The calf elk are born during the end of May and into the first week or so of June and the cows spend their summer months herded up with other cows and calves finding the best feed that they can find.


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[Assistant] During this time, most of the bulls, especially the more mature bulls, are gonna be hanging out at higher elevations, away from the cows and the calves. You'll usually find the bulls


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[Assistant] The days start getting shorter and so does the tolerance for those other bulls.


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[Assistant] During that time frame, uh, early to mid August, the bulls start to split up from their bachelor herds and they move off to be by themselves in areas that I call staging areas.


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[Assistant] And these staging areas are sanctuaries that put the bulls closer to the rutting grounds where the cows and calves are and give them an opportunity to be alone.


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[Assistant] As they rub the velvet off their antlers and rake their antlers to strengthen their neck muscles for upcoming battles.


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[Assistant] From late August into the first part of September, you'll start to see some smaller bulls showing up and hanging out with the cows.


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[Assistant] There are times when you'll find some pretty incredible rutting activity in the herds as well.


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[Assistant] The mature bulls are still keeping to themselves for the most part and usually not going to waste energy rounding up cows and protecting a harem knowing that the cows aren't even ready to be bred.


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[Assistant] The estrous period for the cows, that short window of time when they're actually ready to be bred, usually hits really close to the fall equinox, which is the day when the daylight and nighttime hours are equal in length. And that's usually around the 21st or 22nd of September.


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[Assistant] And that's what actually triggers the cow's readiness to be bred or the actual peak of the rut.


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[Assistant] Once this happens, the mature bulls had better be with the cows, and they'd better already have solved the question of who the dominant herd bull is. Because once the cows are ready to be bred,


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[Assistant] Bulls aren't going to have time to be distracted. And because they're so focused on breeding, it can be really hard to get their attention with calls once that peak rut kicks in. But that period of time leading up to the peak rut is a magical time for an elk collar.


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[Assistant] The big bowls all seem to come out of the woodwork at the same time.


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[Assistant] And they have a very short window of time to run the smaller bulls away from the herd


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[Assistant] to establish their dominance with the other mature bulls that show up and then carve out their harem and move them to a more secluded area where they'll have less competition during breeding.


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[Assistant] This all happens in a two or a three day period of time.


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[Assistant] And if I'm looking for the most intense time to be calling elk with efficiency, this is it.


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[Assistant] And that's exactly where we found ourselves during that 24 hour period on this hunt.


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[Assistant] A few days before and there were no bugles in that meadow. The cows were all there, but the action was pretty much non-existent. Then it just seemed like someone flipped a switch and things went from zero to 60 literally overnight.


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[Assistant] Mature bulls descended on the meadow from multiple different directions and began posturing and fighting.


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[Assistant] All the while being incredibly aggressive and vocal.


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[Assistant] As they work to quickly establish dominance and take control of the most cows as possible. That herd of 40 or 50 cows and calves


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[Assistant] was quickly split into those three or four smaller harems. And while they all stayed in the same general area around the meadows for a couple days, bulls had the herd split up.


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[Assistant] And they were working like crazy to keep them in their separate corners, as well as keep the other bowls from getting too close.


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[Assistant] An aggressive challenger showing up right in the middle of all this chaos was not a welcome visitor.


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[Assistant] And the reaction we saw from all three of those mature herd bulls proved that point.


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[Assistant] Left their cows and came straight into our bugles.


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[Assistant] Convinced that they were the dominant bull and intent on making that known to us. A week earlier and the action was dead. A week later and the action was probably insane.


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[Assistant] But the likelihood of calling those bulls away from their cows as they were ready to be bred was likely pretty low. But on those two days,


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[Assistant] The action and the effectiveness of calling was off the charts. And those two days, they were the 15th and 16th of September.


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[Assistant] Exactly one week before the fall equinox and those bulls weren't messing around.


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[Assistant] They're definitely calling tactics and strategies that can be effective during all the different phases of the rep.


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[Assistant] But if you want the best chance for a once in a lifetime elkra experience like we had, that week leading up to the fall equinox has proven time and time again to be hard to beat. So was this my best day of elk hunting?


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[Assistant] Well, it definitely ranks right up there with the best of them for sure. But was this the best day for Elkenning?


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[Assistant] Those bulls are showing up to really take charge of the herds right before the peak of the rut.


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[Assistant] It would be really hard to convince me that those few days in September,


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[Assistant] Aren't the best time to be there with a call in your hands. And until next time.


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[Assistant] I'll see you guys on the next ridge or mountaintop, or wherever the elk are bugling.


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


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Holy smokes. You are good here. You're like way out in front. You're, you're one of those guys that's so far out in front that I think I'm actually ahead of you. You're just getting ready to lap me for the second or third time. That's, that's how far out in front you are.


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[Assistant] Oh, it's, it's going to be a great day. First day I woke up in about six months that it wasn't snowing. So. I know. Isn't that the truth? Yeah.


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[Assistant] So everything else is going really good. I went through a bunch of emails that we got and, uh, well first of all an apology is in order because


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[Assistant] Either, well, sometimes I'm traveling, sometimes Cory's traveling or sometimes some emergency popped up where when we're scheduled to do it, it doesn't work out. So.


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[Assistant] Sorry about that folks. We, uh, we had a gap.


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[Assistant] You're going to do it through September 30th or up until September 1st?


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[Assistant] I knew, you know what they say, Corey, if you want to get something done, call the busiest person in town.


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[Assistant] And the crew is probably saying, well, what's Randy gonna do? Just sit there with his thumb in his ear for those spare weeks? Yup. That's the answer.


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[Assistant] Well, now that I'm back in town this week, I've this, you and I right now are podcast number three this week. I got another one right after this and I have one tomorrow morning.


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[Assistant] Like, boy, I am a bag of hot air. Good thing I can just make it up and fake it.


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[Assistant] You never say the same thing twice either, so. Really? My wife says I repeat myself all the time.


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[Assistant] You know, you gotta make a lot of mistakes to get it right. So I show all the mistakes before I finally get it right.


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[Assistant] A lot of really good, uh, emails, uh, the email inbox was stuffed.


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[Assistant] Uh, one of them I'm going to have to address here because on our last podcast, I talked about how Colorado folks should work to increase their state, their access to their straight estate trust lens and man.


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[Assistant] Between the Outtalk podcast inbox and the number of, what do they call them? DMs on Instagram or whatever.


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[Assistant] Uh, I got people who, I don't know how to do that. So they're like, what did you say that all these people are asking for the roadmap of how to increase access in Colorado? I don't know.


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[Assistant] Just tell them I'm going to do it on another podcast. I'll lay out the roadmap. So I think we'll cover that today.


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[Assistant] So while we still have everybody listening, Corey, can I tell you what I'd like the least about April and early May? I love this time of year, but.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, right. How many times have you heard that? Right? Turkey, turkey hunting and howling are just, they're the same thing.


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[Assistant] Okay, here, people are going to say, well, Newberg, you're a terrible turkey hunter. That's why you don't like it. You're right. Uh, raising my hand here, admitting I am a terrible turkey hunter. I've shot two of them in my life, which is...


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[Assistant] In a court case would be provided as evidence that there are at least two individuals of every species that somehow are way, way below average. And I happen to bump into both of them.


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[Assistant] I'm thinking of all the things going on right now that if I didn't have a bum arm, I would be doing.


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[Assistant] I would be walleye fishing. I would be spring bear hunting.


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[Assistant] I mean, the list goes on and on. You'd be collecting shed antlers. Shed hunting, yup.


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[Assistant] That's the insult. So, my crew, they know how little interest I have in elk hunting, or uh, uh, turkey hunting. So what did they schedule for next week?


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[Assistant] The entire office is going out on a five day turkey hunt and they informed me that I'm going also. I'm like, guys, uh, you might want to run that by me.


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[Assistant] Oh no, we already got it planned. We got the film permit. We got, we got the storyline we got.


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[Assistant] The other day I'm like, Hey, can I shoot a shotgun yet? They're like, no, you're not shooting a shotgun.


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[Assistant] If you do that and you mess it up, your bear hunt in late May might be out the window.


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[Assistant] So what am I going to do while I'm there? I don't even, I didn't even buy a turkey tag now that they told me I can't shoot a shotgun.


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[Assistant] Anyhow, they, I think it's a ploy on their part to try to convince me how exciting turkey hunting can be. And maybe it can be, but.


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[Assistant] And now we've upset about half of the audience that thinks turkey hunting is just right up there without cunning. So we're going to have to.


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[Assistant] No, I get why people want to be out in the woods and that's great. But for me, a couple things have, in my adult life for 35 years, I worked a hundred hours a week up until April 15th. And the last thing I was going to do is drive eight hours, sleep in a tent.


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[Assistant] And get up at four in the morning to hear a bird.


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[Assistant] Chuckle or gobble or whatever the heck they do when they're on their route honk or quack.


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[Assistant] I was just always so tired that you couldn't have got me out of bed at that time. So the evolution of my adult life was such that I never really got into turkey hunting. And spring bear hunting is a great warm afternoon activity. So I gravitated more towards spring bear hunting than I ever did turkey hunting. And then I have, I have this wife where


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[Assistant] You know, 40 to 60 days a summer are mandatory fishing days in order to maintain marital harmony.


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[Assistant] So if I came home and said, you know, honey, after all this tax season, I think I'm going turkey hunting for a week.


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[Assistant] And I know everybody else has a different, you know, series of life circumstances and events that maybe that's why they got into turkey hunting, but I just.


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[Assistant] And I'm sure a lot of people are wondering how did this end up on the Elk Talk Podcast?


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[Assistant] When we start getting emails over the course of years that say, you guys never talk about the parallels between turkey hunting and elk hunting. When are you guys going to talk about how turkey hunting is such great practice for elk hunting?


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[Assistant] And so it's like, all right, turkey season's coming up. What do you say Cory? We finally address this turkey hunting versus elk hunting thing and take the risk that half of our audience is mad at us now.


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[Assistant] That's, that's why we've never addressed it folks is, one, neither of us are big turkey hunters, uh, and two, uh,


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[Assistant] There's just other things we think are more pertinent to that endeavor of no cunning.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I, uh, our buddy, Beau Brooks.


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[Assistant] I was in town here about three weeks ago doing a turkey calling seminar and.


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[Assistant] I thought, well, I'll just go there to say hello to Bo.


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[Assistant] And he is one of those guys you talk about. He's the Charlie Daniels of both worlds.


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[Assistant] Well, now that we've kind of cleared the deck of all the things that have no relevance to elk hunting, but must've had some relevance to the audience to email us enough times to say that.


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[Assistant] What's your uh, what's your shed hunting update these days?


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[Assistant] Oh man, I was hoping you wouldn't ask. Because that's it. For me, shed hunting, I think I'd go turkey hunting before I'd go hunting for shed antlers.


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[Assistant] I know that that's going to put you into orbit, but.


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[Assistant] Oh gosh. I, now, well, the, uh, the remaining half of the audience that we didn't get mad at us because of the turkey hunt and now I've got them mad at us or mad at me because I have no use for picking antlers.


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[Assistant] They go all over the place looking for shed antlers. I'm like, you guys are crazy.


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[Assistant] No, it's good exercise. It gets me out in the hills.


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[Assistant] Huh, well good thing the walleyes are biting that time of year, I don't need to worry about it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well, I've, I've never been bit by a tick sitting in my walleye boat, so. Really? No. You know, I gotta work into this summer.


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[Assistant] Routine, you know, I get out of taxis and even though I don't do that much anymore, I kind of get my exercise walking around my boat.


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[Assistant] You know, doing stuff like that, standing up, reeling in a fish or something, and then I'll hug the spring bear and, you know, go.


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[Assistant] When, when you drive a desk for a living, you gotta break into it easy, you know.


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[Assistant] That's true, that's true. Wait, we don't have much left in the way.


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[Assistant] I can't remember. I, I think we, we were gonna do that podcast that day and then the schedules got blinked out because it was.


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[Assistant] I can quit, quit workin'. I'm just gonna hunt wolves.


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[Assistant] I'm so fed up with being laid up with his bomb arm.


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[Assistant] I hate it because it becomes a reason for why you get sedentary.


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[Assistant] Even though I'm, people are like, well, what, what's left for you, Randy? You don't turkey hunt, you don't shed to hunt, wildlife fishing, you sit in a boat chair. How more sedentary could you be? Uh, that's probably a good question. I don't want to answer it, but, uh, so I, I've.


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[Assistant] I don't have any cool stories like that, Cory. I was supposed to go beaver trapping. Uh.


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[Assistant] Outdoor life, uh, was sending a guy out to go beaver trapping with me, but, uh, not allowed to do that now, so.


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[Assistant] All I've been doing now, just doing a lot of e-scouting, trying to figure out how I might kill an elk this fall.


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[Assistant] But I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pull that off either. I'll try.


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[Assistant] If you hear a little hiccup in the audio folks, Cory decided that he thought he heard a wolf howl, so he had to drop what he was doing and run out the back door and make sure.


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[Assistant] You somehow, you, you blew the fuse over there or something.


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[Assistant] Oh wow, folks, see that's the beauty of a good editor. People don't even know that we had a technical difficulty there, so.


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[Assistant] I drew a late rifle tag in Arizona with my son and I'm looking at my e-scouting.


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[Assistant] And this is, uh, I'm sure most people, if they look over my shoulder, they would say something to the effect of Randy. Why don't you just mark the places where you aren't going to glass from?


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[Assistant] Because right now, my glassing icon is always a little yellow, uh, icon. And there's always a note, you know, oh wow, this is going to be a good morning glassing spot. You know, you will have this whole field to the northwest.


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[Assistant] Based on all the places I have marked on my map, if I only did, if I did three spots a day, it'd take me about two months to cover them all.


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[Assistant] And that's, you know, with the late season, that's first week of December.


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[Assistant] You know, it is a glassing game. That's all I do is glass and a lot of people will comment or email and say, don't you get tired of glassing? No, not, not really.


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[Assistant] Because every so often, you see an elk, or you see a deer, or you see, you know, something. And, uh, ah.


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[Assistant] To walk and hike as many miles as I can glass with my eyes would be impractical.


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[Assistant] And most of the time when I'm walking and my mind starts drifting and I bump them and they run off and then I bump them again and they run off and I cuss a little bit and throw some dirt and you know, kick the dirt or whatever.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm always in, if you saw kind of the ribbons or the, I guess you'd call them rows, if you looked at it like a spreadsheet.


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[Assistant] I almost attack it from the south to the north all the time because we're in the northern hemisphere.


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[Assistant] The most effective glassing places will be when I can have the sun somewhere to my back or slightly to my back or to my, you know, right shoulder or left shoulder because you're, you're just going to be way more effective glassing that way. Uh, you know, there's a reason that


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[Assistant] You don't look into the sun if you want to have good vision, right?


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[Assistant] So yeaah, that's why you'll see when a lot of my, and I cover this in outdoor class, uh, in my rifle outgunning glassing techniques, is in the morning, if at all possible.


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[Assistant] I like to have a place where I'm kind of looking Northwest generally because then I can look straight North. I can even look Northeast and I still don't have the sun in my eye.


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[Assistant] And I can look from that northwest quadrant, okay, then I can go over to the west and it can almost go southwest. So I got about 180 degrees out in front of me that I can glass.


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[Assistant] Before I started having, uh, penetration, you know, ambient light coming in from the side.


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[Assistant] And uh, then there's also a method to the madness of, okay, I know the slopes that face east are the ones that are going to get sunlight first in the morning.


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[Assistant] So those are the ones I'm really picking apart right away because the elk there are going to leave there quicker.


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[Assistant] But slopes that face west when the sun's coming out of the east.


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[Assistant] Those elk are going to stay out there longer. So I can get to those. I'll eventually get to those. But the first ones I want to glass.


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[Assistant] If I am in a really good spot where I can't glass everything quickly.


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[Assistant] Alright, what are the ones I want to pick apart first before knowing that the sun is going to expose those first because that's where the elk are, they're going to leave that earlier than they are a shaded west facing slope. So there's, there is a method to


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[Assistant] To the madness of it. And I'm sure people think, oh, he just plops down and you know, throws his binos up and starts looking around. No. And then in the afternoon I kind of reverse it. I try to have a place where the sun is to the Southeast. So how can I be looking kind of Northeast?


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[Assistant] In the same rule applies, but a bit in reverse. Now the slopes that face east are going to get shaded first. So that's where the elk are going to come out first. So I'm looking at those ones until.


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[Assistant] Yeah, uh, every, every little icon is color coded for morning glassing. There's colors for the afternoon glassing and they've got, you know, A, B, C, D. So when I say I'm on plan K.


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[Assistant] That means I'm walking into waypoint K. All the other ones were duds. Uh, so.


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[Assistant] Too much nerding out, but if anyone wants to check it out.


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[Assistant] Outdoorclass.com, promo code ALKTOCK saves you 20%, I think. Something like that.


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[Assistant] And you and I are, people don't know this, well, they'll know it later on when it gets published later this summer, but you have sent the outline of the scripts for Cowout Cunning.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you should, you should see. I, I need, are you good at graphs, Corey?


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[Assistant] Could you create some really good graphs for me with multiple data sets? Okay.


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[Assistant] I have all this data now in an Excel file and our audience has been saying, when's nobody going to release all this data?


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[Assistant] What the caloric demands are in a normal year on a cow elk.


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[Assistant] What the landscape provides that elk and what the deficit or excess is. And then it also tracks.


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[Assistant] If they were able to consume this many calories, kilocalories each day, here's how much weight they would gain that week. And we start with a 450 pound cow elk, you know, a four year old cow elk.


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[Assistant] And i'm trying to show when she bottoms out another she gets to zero body fat.


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[Assistant] I've got it all charted in numbers, you know, the, the matrix X and Y axis.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and, uh, if I put these variables in there, uhm,


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[Assistant] And then another graph I've got charted is kind of the inverse of how elk and arid climates like.


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[Assistant] Oh, let's say Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Utah, Southern Nevada.


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[Assistant] How they have an inverse of what their thermal regulation demands are.


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[Assistant] Where they're burning a ton of energy, trying to stay cool in the summer while the elk up in the Northern latitudes, that's a huge weight gain period for them. And then as we get into winter.


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[Assistant] The temperatures moderate in those southwestern states and so less energy is expended in thermoregulation for them and they start getting fat.


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[Assistant] Words the northern elk are like, oh man, I hope I can get through the winter. I don't, you know, I got three feet of snow. I got to dig through it's 10 below zero today. So there's almost an inverse of how elk have to thermoregulate and what a huge, uh, energy drain thermoregulation is.


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[Assistant] This is why it's so hard to find out.


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[Assistant] In September when it's 85 degrees or 90 degrees.


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[Assistant] This thermal regulation effort that they have to undertake says,


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[Assistant] If they get up and start moving around and running hard when it's 90 degrees, we may not.


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[Assistant] That the stores, the reserves they need to get through the winter are going to be gone.


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[Assistant] And they know that. Are they instinctively or intuitively they understand that?


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[Assistant] So they wait until the sun goes down when it's September and it's 88 degrees because they know.


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[Assistant] The thermal regulation energy demands at that time are way, way less.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and there are parts of our landscapes that are considered diurnal climates, in other words.


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[Assistant] Really warm days and afternoons and quite chilly evenings and mornings. And when you're talking about the, you know.


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[Assistant] Coconino, Kaibab and, uh, Mogollon Rim country of Arizona or the Great Basin states you have.


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[Assistant] You hear a lot of people who come out to those places. They're like, I can't believe how cold it got at night. It was 94 degrees and then it got down to 42 that night. Yep. That's a diurnal climate. So that diurnal effect lasts longer into the morning. So you're going to have these elk.


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[Assistant] Be able to be more active and not hit that trigger point of thermoregulation in the morning, more so than in the early, you know, they come out four in the afternoon. No, it's still in these diurnal climates, the afternoon and evening periods stay warmer.


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[Assistant] And that probably explains some of the, the reasons why if you're in one of those states with a diurnal climate, you're going to want to hunt more in the morning because it takes a while for it to warm up. But once it warms up, it gets really warm.


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[Assistant] And that's for me as someone who nerds out on this stuff, the hard part is making it, uh,


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[Assistant] Relatable or giving the, here's the cause effect, here's the action reaction that we can use for our hunting success.


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[Assistant] With cow elk being so forage intense.


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[Assistant] Especially when people see the graph that you're going to help me somehow extract.


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[Assistant] They're going to realize why cow elk have the feed bag on so hard.


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[Assistant] Starting September 1st, when lactation generally stops and they've got about six weeks.


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[Assistant] Before they're pregnant, four to six weeks they'll be pregnant and then once that, uh, calf starts needing nutrition.


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[Assistant] You know, they got about another two to four weeks to, to put the weight on and, uh,


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[Assistant] That's why in our hunting seasons, it is all about food and food and food and food because the rest of the year, they're either spending a lot of money, i.e. fat to invest in this calf they're carrying. And then once that calf is born, you would think, oh man, they got it made. No, the demands of lactation.


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[Assistant] Are two and a half times what the demands are for gestation. So for that 100 to 105 days of lactation from, you know, late May to late August.


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[Assistant] Yeah, because they got to do two things at this time of year in June, July, and August. They have to fulfill the needs of lactation.


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[Assistant] Which bumped them from sick from 4,000 kilocalories a day to 6,000. So that's a 50% increase in demand over just their basic, you know, maintenance plane of 4,000 kilocalories.


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[Assistant] So, they gotta satisfy that need. Plus, they have to put fat on.


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[Assistant] So the amount of kilocalories I have to take in in a day and in a week is ridiculous.


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[Assistant] To where you're going to find cow elk or why you're going to find, find cow elk doing what they're doing during the seasons we hunt them, September, October, November, mostly. So.


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[Assistant] Hopefully I'm successful in that, but it's one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write.


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[Assistant] I've got all kinds of text and stuff, but we're supposed to do this in six or eight minutes per chapter.


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[Assistant] Doing an ad in a chapter that said, if you just want to nerd out, watch this. It's a long chapter. It may not flow very well, but this is.


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[Assistant] This is the index or the, you know, the whatever. But, uh, as I always say, if you want to understand a subject really well, try to teach it. Uh, and, uh, so we'll, we'll see how that goes.


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[Assistant] We've got so many demands for cow-elk information that it's like, well.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so hopefully people will get value out of that. I'm looking at how much that library is growing on outdoor class. It's getting to be a lot.


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[Assistant] I am responsible for a whole volley.


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[Assistant] If I lived in Colorado, I would be changing the rules about how we can access our state trust lines.


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[Assistant] I'm sure when you're getting those emails, because Cory forwards all the emails to me, Cory was probably thinking, Newberg, you and your big mouth, look at all this stuff here.


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[Assistant] Since I brought up Colorado, I'm gonna walk through the-


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[Assistant] How it happened in montana and how montana and colorado were identical until the law got changed in montana. I might use colorado as the example but people need to know.


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[Assistant] There's not guaranteed access to your state trust land. So some people will say, what are state trust land? So the.


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[Assistant] The simple way is to say they're the little powder blue sections when you look at a surface map. Well, how did they come to be? Well,


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[Assistant] Every state since Ohio, and I believe.


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[Assistant] I can't remember when Ohio was, early 1800s. It was an act in Congress called the Northwest Ordinance where states were given certain sections. So a township is


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[Assistant] Six miles by six miles. So it's 36 square miles and within a township.


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[Assistant] They number the sections 1 through 36 for each square mile.


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[Assistant] So it started out with the really productive lands in the East and the Midwest that the states were given a smaller percentage of each township.


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[Assistant] And when you became a state, the federal government said we're going to give you these lands.


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[Assistant] And your trustees have to manage these lands, the proceeds which go to your school system. That was the deal with Fed.


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[Assistant] Right, because these people who shit on this, I'll call it a land board.


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[Assistant] They are trustees. They have a trustee duty to the schools.


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[Assistant] To get the greatest amount of profit possible from those lands.


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[Assistant] So the United States gets developed and as you start getting out West.


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[Assistant] It's really arid. It's the productivity of the land aren't as much. So when Montana became a state in the late 1800s, the state of Montana received two out of every 36 sections.


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[Assistant] Yeah, 36 sections, so in a township of 36 square miles.


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[Assistant] The state of Montana got section 16 and section 36.


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[Assistant] So, people will be looking at a map and say, why the randomness of this, right? That was how it came to be.


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[Assistant] That was the case. And then you got to Arizona and New Mexico, which are really dry States, Nevada.


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[Assistant] And they got even more than two out of every 36 sections. So that's the history of how all these states ended up with state.


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[Assistant] Trust lens, the powder blue stuff you see on your surface ramp.


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[Assistant] Well, a lot of the Eastern and Midwestern states, they actually sold those lands and they took the proceeds and put it in state accounts to invest in other things. So a lot of states have very little state trust land left because they said, well, we'd rather


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sell these lands, take the proceeds and put it in a trust account and manage it for, you know.


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[Assistant] In today's world, we'd call it a stock portfolio. What they called it when they sold a lot of these lands in the 1800s and early 1900s, I don't know.


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[Assistant] That's why every state has a varying amount of state land.


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[Assistant] So, but when they sold it, they couldn't just put that money in the general fund.


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[Assistant] They had to put it in an earmarked account specifically for the schools. So.


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[Assistant] Now, most of the western states kept their state lands with the exception of Nevada, which


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a crooked story all in of itself, uh, the Nevada legislature, uh, told the feds we want.


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[Assistant] We, we will give you back these 3 million if you'll let us handpick 2 million of really good ground, because you know, in Nevada, it's the most arid state in the country.


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[Assistant] The politicians in Nevada state in its early days known for, uh, a little bit of corruption. They sold 90 some percent of their state lands.


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[Assistant] Uh, and so, with the exception of Nevada, okay, most of the western states still have a large portion of these state trust lines.


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[Assistant] Now, the fact that only 13 states allow


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Access to state trust lens is why I've said


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[Assistant] I don't Corey, I should probably look that up, but I don't.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, so I did research it for Colorado. And Colorado has 2.85 million acres of state trust land. Wow.


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[Assistant] For the longest time, Parks and Wildlife paid a lease fee


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[Assistant] For about 500,000 of those acres.


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[Assistant] And then the state land boards started getting enough heat that they said, okay, okay, we'll, we'll lease that the access portion to the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another 450,000 acres. So right now in Colorado.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, your parks and wildlife pays money to lease about 950,000 acres.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that leaves about another 1.8, 1.9 million acres that you don't have access to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so that money goes from one state agency to another.


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[Assistant] Not that I know of, but I, you know, someone from Colorado will call in and say, Oh, wait a second. There's a few details you're missing here. So I'm, I'm going to give general concepts to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The majority of it, if not all of it, is coming from license fees and in the associated matching to those license fees that comes from Pittman Robertson excise taxes. So.


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[Assistant] Montana was the same exact way until 1994 and we couldn't access our state trust funds.


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[Assistant] They said, we gotta solve this, we gotta figure this out. Cause Montana, we were talking over 5 million acres of state trust line.


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[Assistant] Hunters would be like, how in the heck do we solve this? How do we?


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[Assistant] How do we convince this land board that, how do we give them the offer they can't refuse?


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[Assistant] So they tried the legislative route and they had some progress, but like most legislative efforts, you get somebody who gums up the works. And even though you get a bill passed,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They use kind of funky language or whatever that excluded hunting from this opportunity.


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[Assistant] So at the time we had a governor, Mark Roscoe, uh, who said, you know what, this, this hocus pocus, this kind of splitting of hairs here.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna form this citizens committee. You guys are gonna work with the state land board and you are gonna make sure the administrative rules of Montana that govern the state land board include hunting in this. So in effect,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is the approach you'd take in Colorado or Nebraska next door, which has over a million acres of inaccessible state lands.


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[Assistant] You would go to your state land board and you would make them the deal they can't refuse. As a trustee, if you offer me a mechanism,


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[Assistant] In Montana, what they came up with was a state recreation pass or a state lands recreation pass that is included in your hunting license now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you don't buy a hunting license, you can go buy the permit and other stuff. Uh, so if I'm a trustee and I'm sitting here and say,


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[Assistant] Well, you guys are offering me five million dollars of extra money for the school systems. Uh, how can I say no to that? The answer is you can't. Because if you say no, you're gonna get sued.


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[Assistant] Because you as a trustee are not fulfilling your fiduciary duty.


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[Assistant] You've just said, nah, I like how it is. My, our schools are so overfunded. We don't need this $5 million or whatever the number would be.


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[Assistant] Do you know of any school systems that are so overfunded that millions of dollars wouldn't mean something to them?


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[Assistant] So if I lived in Colorado, I would figure out where are the administrative rules within the state of Colorado that I could propose to them.


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[Assistant] But anyone who wants to go hiking, bird watching, whatever.


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[Assistant] Could pay $30 for an annual permit that would grant them access, non-motorized access to these state lands.


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[Assistant] Cause in Montana that's what it is, non-motorized unless there's a road through there.


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[Assistant] And if you couldn't get it done at the administrative rule level, like we were able to get it done in Montana, you go to your legislature and you get that done.


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[Assistant] Yep. Funds. Interesting. So if, if you were a hunter,


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[Assistant] Because in Montana, there's one fee for residents and there's a, as always, you know, we wrote the book on how to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bury the needle in tapping out the non-resident. So a non-resident pays an even higher fee, but.


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[Assistant] As a non resident, if I had an elk tiger, a deer tiger, and you told me it was 50 bucks to buy a stamp.


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[Assistant] Or a permit that gave me access to 2.8 million acres. 2.9 million, whatever the number ends up being.


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[Assistant] $50 on top. I look at all the other costs I've gotten. This is like a, yeah, a no brainer. Or if you're a resident, I don't know what the number would end up being because Colorado has a much higher population than Montana.


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[Assistant] But I'm saying this is the road map. This is the model.


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[Assistant] It has worked in Montana. You in Idaho, you never adopted these crazy rules. So you guys are the gold standard of how estate land access should be.


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[Assistant] That's a whole nother issue of...


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[Assistant] The highest and best use is what these trustees have to look at.


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[Assistant] So your trustees in Idaho are saying, you know, if we can relieve ourselves of this fire liability and we can sell it to a developer and throw some money in the account.


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[Assistant] Why wouldn't we do that? You know, almost by, by mandate, by fiduciary responsibility, that's what we have to do. Well, the reason that.


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[Assistant] They arrive at that conclusion is there's not other sources coming from those lands.


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[Assistant] And I know some of you right at home at residence might say, why would we pay 30 bucks a year when we got it so good right now?


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[Assistant] We got it for free because you're going to lose it. Yeah, exactly. If, if you don't start paying something, you're going to lose it to developers or whatever.


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[Assistant] Enterprise can come and use these fiduciary responsibilities under these state land board arrangements to convince them to sell it to them. So.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's, so that is the roadmap that I think every state could follow. Go to your trustees, go to your state land board and say,


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[Assistant] What are you doing to maximize the recreation and access component of these lands? Okay, we get it. You're selling some timber. You're getting royalties from oil and gas. You're selling some grazing rights. What about the access side of it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That could be worth millions and millions of dollars to our schools.


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[Assistant] You, you end up putting these trustees in a position where they have to make


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[Assistant] A rational, the standard placed on a trustee is reasonable and prudent. What would a reasonable and prudent person do if


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Someone showed up and said, Hey, I'll give you a $5 million check for the Colorado school systems or 10 million or whatever the number it ended up being.


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[Assistant] Would a reasonable and prudent person say, ah, no thanks, we're busy today.


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[Assistant] And I know when I've raised this before on my hunt talk forum.


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[Assistant] Either stated or implied threats in them that Newberg.


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[Assistant] I get it, but my platforms and everything I do every day is about how do we increase public access. So if you live in Colorado, I'm going to tell you.


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[Assistant] A big part of how you got from the 500,000 to the 900,000 was there, there is a guy Tim brass.


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[Assistant] Uh, Tim has been pushing this pretty hard and he works for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.


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[Assistant] And that relieved a bit of this pressure, right?


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[Assistant] Yeah, hunters were saying we want more access, we want more access. So the state land board's like, okay, we'll, we'll do this. Kind of, no, no, don't bother us. And I'm sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The people who struck that deal are going to be like, great, now all we need is a bunch of.


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[Assistant] You know, fired up hunters, anglers, recreation and showing up and wanting more. We gave you 450,000 extra. What more do you need? Well, how about all 2.8 million?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm benefiting it in some way. So I don't know of any way that.


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[Assistant] I think about how much money we would have to raise to actually go and buy these lands. Or equivalent lands. You know what it would cost to buy?


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[Assistant] So if it was $10,000 an acre, what's that? $28 billion it would cost.


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[Assistant] How are we going to raise $28 billion? We're not. So in this world of access,


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[Assistant] That is getting harder and harder and we're losing private land access.


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[Assistant] For me, it's a matter of where, every time we pick some of the fruit, it's not quite as low hanging as it was before.


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[Assistant] But across the 37 states that do not allow public access to their state lands, I struggle to find a place where we could do more for access.


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[Assistant] In the process, help fund more money for our schools.


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[Assistant] And solve some of these checkerboard issues because a lot of these state lands, it's the reason they're being leased in some of these states isn't the 640 acres. It is a section.


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[Assistant] It's the 10,000 acres that that has locked up.


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[Assistant] Right, and, and the way we ended up with the checkerboard of the BLM is in the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s.


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[Assistant] Congress granted the railroads every other section.


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[Assistant] So 18 out of the 36 sections in a township.


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[Assistant] If we're talking about ways we're going to solve some of this landlocked parcel, some of this checkerboard parcels, this isn't going to solve all of it. But if you go look at your map,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you found these places where these powder blue sections.


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[Assistant] Touch a road, but then also touch a huge block of landlocked BLM or landlocked forest service?


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[Assistant] That's part of the reason why there's so much resistance to allowing.


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[Assistant] The citizens of a state to access their state plans.


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[Assistant] I would, I just, we got so many emails on it when I threw it out there. I'm like, all right, we got to carve out 15 or 20 minutes and give the Cliff's Notes version of what the roadmap would look like. And I can tell you that in Colorado,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tim Brass is still working on this issue. So, uh, I don't want to inundate Tim's emails, uh, but for those of you who have.


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[Assistant] Uh, he's easy to find if you go to their website. Uh, you'll see Tim Brass is uh,


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[Assistant] You know, one of the coordinators, whatever. And I, uh, I bet you have, after this podcast wraps, I'm going to get a call from Tim like, Hey, can you give me a heads up next time you're going to do that?


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[Assistant] But whatever state agent or state organization or group you have that you can work with,


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[Assistant] Think about if you could perfect a system.


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[Assistant] No doubts about it, no tricky stuff, no funky stuff, no good old boy who knows this person or who knows that person. This is a mechanism that you put the pressure on your state land board where they have no choice.


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[Assistant] And if they say, well, 20 bucks per resident isn't enough. Okay. We'll do 30. All right. Non-residents guess what? You're going to do 50 or 60.


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[Assistant] Pretty soon you will get to a number where they have no choice. And if they decline that.


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[Assistant] You have a legislature where you should go and say these people are not following their trustee duties.


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[Assistant] They are ignoring it to the detriment of our schools.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so in your state Cory, which lands do you think are the ones that people are going to want to?


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[Assistant] Get their hands on as deeded private land.


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[Assistant] The sage brush ground out there and you know south of twin falls or.


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[Assistant] The section that ties up access to


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[Assistant] Because if they buy 640 acres that controls access to 8,000 acres, that's a pretty darn good deal. Yep. So.


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[Assistant] The people might say, Oh, that's not happening. That is happening folks.


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[Assistant] If, you know, when I say that's the roadmap, what I'm talking about is forcing the hand of your state land board to give them the deal they can't refuse.


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[Assistant] And not be, and it's not, well they can't refuse it cause they're nice folks.


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[Assistant] It's, they can't refuse it because they have a fiduciary obligation to


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[Assistant] Raise as much money from these lands as they possibly can for these schools.


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[Assistant] Folks in their state get wound up about this and make an effort and they accomplish.


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[Assistant] It in five states of the 37 that currently don't allow state, you know, recreation access to state trust land. Well, that's still five states. And if that is cumulates to 5 million acres, well, that's 5 million acres that we now have access to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On those grounds that are owned by the state plus whatever access it, it grants to landlocked parcels. So I don't know what that number would be, but where else are we going to open up 5 million acres?


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[Assistant] With, with the effort of some people just working at it, working at it, working at it in Montana, it took about.


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[Assistant] Six years to get it done. It shouldn't have taken that long.


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[Assistant] Yeah. So I'm sure any state land board trustees, whether elected or appointed.


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[Assistant] Well, based on the number of emails we got from folks, especially in Colorado, uh, or even in other states, you said, uh, how do I figure out what's going on in my state? Well, go to your state line board and find out. Uh, you know, if, if we


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could see that get accomplished in the next few years. That's, that's a huge win for access when we're losing access in so many places. So that's, uh.


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[Assistant] That's a big push on my platforms this year. Marcus and I have.


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[Assistant] And some of our, well, in this podcast and my other podcasts and because that's.


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[Assistant] In New Mexico, every few years, I can't remember if they're on a two or five year lease between the state land board and their game and fish department.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but you can't camp on state lands in New Mexico. You can only access them and the reason you can is because your state wildlife agency is writing a big check and that check just, I think it doubled a few years ago when the new lease came into effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I was in New Mexico, I would be working on a way to perfect.


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[Assistant] In other words, forcing the hand of the land board that you, you have to continue to allow access because we're paying this amount into the state school system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, even though like, like your state of Idaho, some of them, some residents might say, well, why would we pay for it? We get it for free. You don't get it for free right now. Your state agency, your state wildlife agency is paying a ton of money. So if you spread that out over all citizens of your state and even non-residents who wanted to come there and recreate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you institutionalize this mechanism of paying a fee.


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[Assistant] Now you put that money back into the coffers of your state wildlife agency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now you have a formal process by which the future of accessing in New Mexico is pretty much guaranteed on these state lands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, starts with your state land board, starts with those trustees. And if they won't do what you need them to do, well, you go tell on them.


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[Assistant] You tell them, you know, we have this legislative body that is probably going to spank you if you don't do this. Or me as a state citizen, I could sue you. Or my school districts could sue you.


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[Assistant] Because you, you are in effect telling all of our school districts that we don't need that money. You know, special ed, you know, better books, better technology for our school systems. I guess we're still going to be on rotary phones and you know, the old Commodore 64 computers or something.


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[Assistant] Not to mention our underpaid instructors and teachers.


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[Assistant] Go get them, and if I can be a resource, I'm happy to do that. You know, I, I got the benefit of watching some true giants of conservation in Montana pull this off. They didn't give up.


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[Assistant] They started in 1988, they were told no, 89 legislative session they were told no, 91 legislative session they were told no, 93.


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[Assistant] We kind of get a little bit of a fix, but through the funkiness of how they did things.


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[Assistant] It annoyed our governor at the time, governor Roscoe, where he said, you know what, this kinda...


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[Assistant] Hocus pocus whack-a-mole stuff. No, we're gonna short this out.


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[Assistant] And to his credit he put together a really good


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[Assistant] Next group of people who work with the land board to get it straightened out.


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[Assistant] And since then we've been paying millions of dollars into our school system.


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[Assistant] And you spread that out over, you know, hundreds of thousands of Montanans who want to recreate or non-residents who want to recreate. And it's been a huge plus for our school system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we know if that is state trust land, that little part of powder blue section.


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[Assistant] We have access to it and access to any BLM or Forest Service LAN connected to it. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's part of your license fee if you are a hunter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In van, there's another portion called the recreational access permit.


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[Assistant] That you can pay the same amount that's added to our hunting licenses.


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[Assistant] If you, if you don't hunt, but you just want to go on hike, you know, be a photographer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. They get a little permit that you print out and you keep on you. So if someone says, Hey, what are you doing out there? Well, I'm recreating. I paid my 20 bucks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the can of worms that we're going to work on this, this, uh, this year and next year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the next can of worms we're going to open up is in a farm bill that's coming up, uh, in Congress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There has been this thing called VPA, Voluntary Public Access, in a HIP, HIP Habitat Improvement Program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where if landowners should enroll in CRP and other federal programs, they can get paid some extra by allowing public access.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And some states have really caught onto this and they're opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of private land access through the VPA program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, one of these podcasts, we're going to have to talk about that and how you need to be weighing in on your representative and your Senator to say, keep the funding for VPA and HIP in the farm bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, probably over a million acres of public access that we have right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If anyone, what's the email address for the Oak Talk podcast?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we'll, uh, we'll continue to try it, you know, to whatever level we can. We want to be a resource. Uh, you and I live in two states where.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have great access to our state trust lines, but that's not the case everywhere. And, uh, we know there's solutions to be had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, however we can help in getting that word out or being a resource of, of ways to do it. If I don't know it, I've worked with enough, enough people, uh, that I probably know someone in, in that state that would be a better resource than I could be. And I'm happy to, to connect folks to do that. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would hope so, but I'm here to tell you. I know.


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[Assistant] There are folks who are like, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, I, I, right now, I, this is my little corner of paradise. I don't want to see this change and they know a legislator or they know the governor then, you know, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The last thing I want to see is my name on the letterhead of a lawsuit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I said our schools were so overfunded, I'm not willing to listen. Yeah. Really? You want to be that person?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, if you want to be that person, well, just come on down. Just come on down. Just how big a boy are you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the lowest hanging fruit in terms of amount of acreage it would open up and perfect access for however long into the future. But, uh, still a lot of work, but the least amount of work. So, yeah. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And the reason I use Colorado is Colorado hosts more non-resident elk hunters than all the other states combined. And I don't know any non-resident elk hunter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure there's some who would say, ah, just another fee, blah, blah, blah. I'm not paying 50 bucks. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, if you can't afford 50 bucks to improve access to 2.8 million acres, then you probably can't afford to come to Colorado as a non-resident elk hunter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm going to find, wait just a minute, here's something, I'm going to be mad about this today. Yep. You know, the saying that I have is, do we want to fight or do we want to win?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, some people just want to fight. They don't care if they win. They're just like, I want to fight. Boy, that's a lot of fun. I like fighting. I want to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Every time. And sometimes you gotta fight in order to win, but I'm here to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if we can over, let's say that over the next five years, we were able to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Roll five more states into allowing access to their state trust lines. That would be a win in my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. Because like I said, not just a little powder blue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, if some of the people in Colorado who have lit me up before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't, you know, yeah, that falls under my grandma's old saying is you've mistaken me for someone who cares about your hurt feelings.


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[Assistant] Don't waste the bits and bytes of email code. Just send me an email, lighten me up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really, you have. You've mistaken me for someone who cares about hurt feelings when it comes to access.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, that's what I get up to do every day. And this has been one we've been working on for a couple of years to try to figure it out. Uh, we, I do have some numbers on some of the states and that's why I throw Nebraska out there. Uh, Nebraska has a ton of state trust line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now all the Nebraska farmers and people who have exclusive pheasant access or deer hunting access are going to be like, who is this guy? I'm driving to Bozeman, I'm going to put a knot on his head. Stand in line. I think you'd be number 54 right now. The line's long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man. Well, that's when I kept counting, quit counting. Oh, gotcha. People probably don't realize how many threats you get when you are out there in the public eye. I'm coming along and I'm going to whoop your ass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just say, here's my address, here's my phone number, call me so I can make sure I'm there. I'd hate for you to just show up when my wife is home, you know, then you'd try to kick our dog or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what to tell people, you know? If people think that that's somehow going to change my way, I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeah, we might have to get in some spats and some struggles and some battles along the way, but let's make sure we're winning. That's not just fight to fight. So anyhow, we better let them go Cory. We kept them almost two hours today. I got two for the price of one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what a sleeve of cigarettes costs or 12 pack of beer. I don't imbibe in any of that or a roll of snooze or something, but I know what it costs to fill up my truck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll, uh, we'll look forward to some of these, what are you calling them? Mini podcast, mini series?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right. Well, you have a great day, Corey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll catch you next time. Thanks for being here folks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what the right title should be, but you can call me whatever you want, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh man, well I don't want to spoil anything, but man, I think you were experiencing it the same way we were, but it was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We finally just got to the point where it was like we looked at each other and like, uh, I don't know if this is safe or not, but, uh, we persevered and did our best to deal with what Mother Nature threw at us, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we pulled the curtain back a little bit in the previous podcast that Cory and I had done about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the new teepee tent that we've designed that we were, uhm, testing while we were on, on the Destination Elks hunt. And, uh, Corey got the opportunity to test it in Alaska and Brandon and I here in Montana.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a great opportunity to just put it to the test.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, normally you can throw wood in the tent and it'll dry itself out, but not in that climate. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, we can pull the curtain back a little bit and expose kind of the path forward for all the listeners out there. It's uhm, you know, from the beginning we really


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanted to kinda head in the direction of helping people elevate their backcountry experience and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in order to be able to do that, we just felt like we have to make the backcountry campsite


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[Assistant] The best place for somebody to be, right? The biggest reason people leave and fail is because they give up and they quit and they go home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the more we can do to, to improve the backcountry campsite and make it their backcountry home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tell me more. It's, it's all coming. We've got, uh, we were launching a headlamp that is going to come out here in just a couple of weeks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we've really built that headlamp to be durable, dependable, to have breakthrough lumen output that you can't get anywhere else and, and just really long battery life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's coming out here in the next couple of weeks. Uh, the TP tent that we've been talking about should launch this summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the stove that goes with that we hope to launch at the same time this summer. It might be a little bit later in the fall when the stove comes out. And then if you just think about the backcountry campsite and everything that you take with you to establish your camp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can kind of get an idea of where we're heading and...