← Live Wild with Remi Warren
Live Wild with Remi Warren
Ep. 155 | Rifle Season Elk Tactics
00:38:44
Remi gives his best tips and tactics to make rifle season a success.
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Remy Warren
Foreign I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape, so I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful. As a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild hey livewild listeners. I just wanted to let you know that I've got some awesome new designs on my Livewild apparel, including a really cool elk graphic that's on some yeti yonder bottles, hats and T shirts. We've also got some other new stuff dropping as well, so if you're interested, go check it out my website Remy warren.com and just thank you guys so much for all the support. Well everyone, it's the middle of November. We've had a lot of great hunting behind us and there's still a lot of awesome hunting seasons out there available ahead of us. Many of you might even be going out right now listening to this podcast on your way out hunting. A lot of great deer seasons across the country still open elk seasons, a lot of rifle elk seasons, some limited entry draws, some general seasons. There's a lot of hunting to still be had. One of the things I want to talk about this week is rifle elk season hunting tactics and I want to dive into one of my favorite tactics, which is a strategy of spotting them in the morning and then a way that we move in and anticipate what those elk are going to do for the evening and vice versa. Spotting them in the evening and then planning out that morning. It's an extremely effective tactic that I've honed over the years and found a lot of success doing it now. Before we get into that though, I want to share the story of my dad's recent elk hunt, El and one of his best general area bulls. I really enjoy being able to get out with my family and especially elk hunting and do some elk hunting. You know, I grew up elk hunting with my dad, and it's one of those funny things as you grow up. You know, my dad used to take me elk hunting or hunting, and now the roles, I guess, have reversed where I take my dad out hunting. I've just learned so much being out there over the years that, you know, it's like I get. It's. It's almost like I was talking to a buddy of mine, Dylan, and he's like, I got the same experience where, you know, we started out hunting with our dads and like, they were teaching us everything. And then we started hunting more and more and more. And for guys that, you know, really get into it, it's like the roles get reversed where then you're taking your dad out and teaching him some stuff for hunting. And so when it comes to elk hunting, you know, my dad's had a lot of different tags. He's had some draw tags in Nevada and some general area tags across the country, you know, Montana, Idaho, whatever. Some over the counter tags and other things. And. But I would say probably, you know, his elk hunting success has been moderate to fair. He tries to pick up a cow tag every now and then and get out, but it's always best, you know. Yeah, he tends to have the best success when I get to go out with him. And unfortunately, you know, schedules and the way things are, like, sometimes we get busy and it's just hard to get out and go on certain hunts together. And so this year, my dad picked up like a. Just a general area tag and was planning on hunting and he'd been hunting a little bit on his own. And then I kind of had a little gap in my schedule where it worked out that I got to go out and I was gonna take him out for a day or two. And so he'd been out, I guess, some previous days and not really. I think he got on some elk but just didn't work out. So I was like, all right, we're gonna go. So the night before we went out, I didn't have a lot of time, but I just wanted to go glass and look for bulls. And the weather had kind of changed. It was pretty warm, but then shifted into some. It was. It was cold. Like, I was a little under prepared for the glassing, I guess that night, because I just, I went out pretty quick, just, you know, met up with him. I was like, all right, I'm going to go out. You go to one spot. I'll Go to another. We'll glass and we don't have really time to hunt tonight, but we can just get into some good glass advantages and look around. So did that and spotted quite a few different groups of elk. There was a group elk that saw that. I wasn't sure. It was just too far away. It's pretty windy. I wasn't really sure what was in it, but I just, I kind of assumed that there was a bull in there. It looked just based off of a lot of the times I know it was a bull, I figured it was a bull like based off of the colors. So when I'm glassing a distance, just the body shape of an elk, like a more squarish I guess is the best way to describe it. Like a more blocky body is often a bull that real black dark front and then blonde body. So first thing I look for is the color of the blonde body. Then I look for the size and that blocky shape. And then obviously like the dark around the edges. If you could see that like the dark front or the dark underside toward the back of the legs really identifies it as a bull. But sometimes it's so like low light you can't really tell and you go, okay, it's a bull. Well, a branch antlered bull. Is it a spike? Is it a whatever? Sometimes like it distance? Like the other thing that could be kind of blonde is calves are often blonde. So if you saw one just by itself, maybe, maybe get a little think, oh, there's a bull in there. But for the most part, color is how we identify the bulls. And then shape, body shape and size as well. And sometimes you can go like, okay, that's a better bodied bull, a better body bowl the triple B, I guess. And so I saw, you know, I was thinking there's a bull in here. And so the strategy was for the morning to go and get into that particular spot. So, so we go and get into there. I felt like it was in a kind of a spot that other hunters this is. There's a lot of hunters around. Like I felt like it was a spot where other hunters were going to be. So we got like, I don't even know, way before sunup, way earlier than we needed to be. I just didn't want to get, I didn't want to get beat to the, to the elk. I just was like, let's get out there. We'll go kind of claim our territory in a way and just make sure we're just the first ones in there because it's probably going to be like a first light. Like, my, my thought was they were feeding, they'd be feeding out, and then they'd just be moving back right at sun up or whatever, back into bedd. So we got in. I don't know. We had a lot of time to burn, probably two hours before, like, legal shooting time, I would guess. Which, you know, you just sit there in the dark if you're going to be. It's either like, be at camp or be up there. It's like, might as well be up there. So we got into position. Some guys actually came in after us and kind of like, hey, we're going to go hunt this way. They're like, okay, we'll go this other way. They'd seen the same elk. I mean, we're pretty upfront about it. Like, we're going after these elk that we saw. They're like, dang it, we saw those two, but go for it. We. We'll spread out. And honestly, those elk could have been gone anywhere. There's. There's a lot of night time. So we got into position, waited for it to get light. And I didn't want to get right into where those elk were because I was just afraid of bumping them, bad wind. So I just wanted it to get light. So we, we hiked in through a bunch of deadfall. Of course, the way that most hikes go in the dark. Stayed about, I don't know, half a mile above, maybe a little further, where I was kind of thinking the elk would be, and then waited. And so we're sitting there waiting and started to get light. There's some deer around and didn't really see, you know, any elk where I thought they'd be. And I was glassing across and there was a giant group of elk across the way. But where it'd be, it would take too long. And I already actually, I actually glassed up some other hunters moving in on them. I was like, well, there's. That might be our elk. Those might have been the elk that we saw. They just crossed over into that next drainage. And then we actually watched one of the bulls get shot. Joys of general area pumpkin patch hunting, right? You just see, like, elk get shot in front of you quite often. Those elk were ways away, but decided, all right, well, I don't know. I'm just gonna drop down this draw. Let's just drop down and just make sure there's nothing in here. Because those elk could have moved off anyway and there could be different elk in Here as well. There's like a little bit of an opening. It's kind of sparse timber and then more of like a. I guess it'd be like, yeah, even like big ponderosa, patchier hillside with some like, other brush in there. Kind of a little bit thicker canyon with a few openings. So we're. It's like maybe close to sun up at this point, like legal shooting time, but maybe not quite. The sun hasn't, like, come up yet. And we're going down this draw and I'm looking over and I'm just glassing, glassing, glassing. And I don't know what it is, but I'm like, this spot. It just looks like a really good spot for a bull. And I turned to my dad and I'm man, we just. All we need is an elk on this hill across from us. Like, it's. With its perfect shooting range. I was like, man, I could just see a bull stepping out. And as I'm saying that, I go, bull, bull, bull. I'm like, get down, get down. And I didn't even. I didn't even have my binos on it, but I just ranged the hill like, not long before that. And out of this cluster of, like, trees, it was almost. I guess it was almost a. I don't know if it's like alder or aspen, something like that little patch. And then came out into the, like, little opening. And so I'm like, get down. I said, bull. I didn't throw my binos up to see what kind of. I just knew, like, colored body by himself. Probably a nice bull for the area. So we. We get down and I'm getting him set up. And it. They'd gone behind a tree, so get him set up. I'm like, all right, you know, get. I throw. We throw the packs down and. And I'm. I'm going, okay, dad, here's where he was. And I think he was just misunderstood. Like, he thought that the bull was out. He's like, I don't see him. I don't see him. I'm like, I know, I know. Slow down. I'm gonna. I'm gonna tell you where he is going. We're gonna try to find that spot. So when he steps out, because it's like little gaps in the timber, there's more trees than open. And so there's a high likelihood that you could miss him, miss the opportunity. So when he steps out, I'm going to call. So he set up, and the bull's not out. I'm like, hold on, let me get my. Let me get my spotting scope out so I can. So I can. I put my phone with the mag view to film through the spotter, which I really like to do. Which is awesome, because sometimes when you're watching, you don't know exactly where that hit goes. It helps you just be able to replay something. So I always suggest, like, if you have the time to film the shot through the spotting scope or whatever with its camera, what. It makes it so much better to be able to, after the shot, go, okay, where did. Sometimes with ya. You go. You shot high, and it ended up being low or whatever. So if you have a little bit of time, set up with that. And we had time, it felt like. But also it felt like this bull might get out of here. Like, all he needs to do is step behind a few trees or walk a certain way, and you'll never see him again. So you get him lined up and like, all right, there's these two Ponderosas, this yellow bush, and he. He. He figures out where I'm looking, and I'm, like, helping him dial this scope, like, the magnification up and setting his turret. So I'm ranging him, like, you just stay in the gun, and I'll get everything going. So I do all that, and the bull steps. I was like, I see him. So I zoom the scope up, and it was like. I can't remember how far it was. Probably like 340 yards, something like that. I mean, he is laying down on a pack. Everything seemed like it'd be perfect. He shoots, and it's just like a miss. Heartbreaking. And the bull just stands there, and he, like, it missed in a way where it hit the hill behind him, and he's, like, looking the other direction. And instead of, like, he starts to run, and I hit the cow call, and he just kind of starts walking. And so I'm using the cow called to slow him down, and he's walking. And it's just one of those clusters where I see him. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stop him. And my dad's not on him, and I'm, like, going back, zooming the scope out. Okay, move it. He's in this next, like, kept calling him, like, little ski runs. Oh. To be fair, when he shot the first time, I was like, you're way. I actually got my lefts and rights. I meant to say, like, hold more right, but it. It doesn't really matter. He actually hit to the left. But I. I said, like, Right. So I think he was thinking that. And he had another shot and. And missed. And maybe that was just my bad call of, like, telling him where to hold. Like, he should. I think he just maybe pulled the first shot, and so he has another shot, and that shot's a miss as well. So the bull, like, keeps moving, and I'm like, man, it's like, make or break time. Like, I think we're gonna. This isn't gonna work out. Like. And so the bull's moving to this last. I would say it's like, the last opening. Yeah, it was the last opening. Like, there's one little gap, and so he's on him. The bull goes behind a tree. I'm like, okay. As soon as he steps out, I'm gonna. I gotta call. Like, I can see his legs behind the tree, and I'm gonna call. So he stops in this opening. So I see him walking. I'm like, okay. The time that it takes for the call to get there and that bull to react. So I hit the call at the right time, and the bull stops, turns, looks our way. I might even give him, like, a little bugle. I can't remember. Just. Sometimes I just make a loud call on the. On the call just to get him, like, snap him out of whatever they're doing. And so I make that call, the bull stops, my dad shoots, and the bull runs into the trees. And I'm like, man, I don't know. It looked like a miss. I was like, I think. I don't know. It sounded like you hit him, But I was. I wasn't. I didn't want to take the time to, like, review the video, but I could see the impact above it, like, in the background. But it just sounded like a hit. So I'm like, I don't know what happened. So we run up the mountain to see if we can, like, get around and see where the elk is. And I'm looking, and I'm looking and I'm glassing, and I'm like, man, you know, everything's running through your mind. Like, what happened? Was it a. A good shot, a bad shot? Like, it was. Everything was kind of rushed. A little bit of a cluster, I'm not gonna lie. Like, it. It seemed like it was the perfect setup, but then also, you know, just happened so fast. And then, you know, the bull moving through the trees. It was just kind of hard to. To get, like, the timing of. There he is. Get the scope on him, stop him in the right spot. It was a little bit Of a cluster. But so we. We run up to see if we can catch him, like, going up the other side or anything. And I. I glassed kind of back where I last saw him, and I see a dead elk. I actually watched the back of the video and he made a perfect shot. You know, it was a. It was a great shot. So I don't know, I think those other. The first shot just kind of pulled it a little bit. You know, not a great wrestler, what have you. Like, it was just. Whatever it was, didn't matter, but it happens. And then the fact that he got to redeem himself and shot the bull and. And we walk up to it and it was a. It was a six by six. I think that was his first, like, general area six point. He shot some small five points and whatever, but yeah, that was his best general area bowl. And it was awesome that I got to be there. And man, what a. What a fun day. And we cut the elk up. Actually, a buddy was able to come in and help us pack him out, so that made it nice. Unfortunately, there was a trail in there somewhere that I'd remembered from years ago. It had been a while since I've hunted this spot. The packout could have been a lot easier, I think, had we just gone around. But we started to be like, I knew there was an old trail, and I think there was just so much deadfall in there. We went in, in the deadfall, and I was like, oh, but it's dark. Let's see if we can find where there's like, a little game trail through here. Never found the game trail. Just ended up walking through so much deadfall. It was not fun. I actually got. I'm not even gonna lie. Like, I got pretty. I had. I got pretty tired. That deadfall takes it out of you with a big pack on. That's like the first time in years that I've ever got, like, you know, like, Charlie horses in my legs. I was like, man, we gotta stop. I gotta. Oh, this is the stupid part to you. I. I was like, man, this pack, I would be super easy. And I had a bunch of water, so I just, like, drank a bunch of water and then dumped out the rest. The pack out was not as easy as I was expecting and took a lot longer than I was expecting because of that. That stupid deadfall. We ended up going in it a long ways, struggling forever. And then I'm like, I just gotta get out of this. Like, it was over our heads and we're like, taking these and My. I weighed my pack. It was like 100, 110 pounds, just about. And you know, we're like taking these packs on and off and over and under, and it was like, it was just miserable. And then we got out of that, climbed up an extra, I don't know, 600 vertical feet, and then down and found a good route around. I should have just started that way. After zapping all of our energy rumbling through the deadfall, you know, the mistakes were made on my part. I haven't done something stupid like that in a long time, so best I do it with my dad there. You know, sometimes he's like, man, where. Where are you taking me? I was like, I don't know, this is dumb. I would. I shouldn't have done that, but sorry, let's. Let's get out of here. And we ended up. We ended up packing him out and man, what is just a fun hunt. And it's cool to. Cool to be with him and get that time to be able to go out and make it happen, you know, Last year I got an opportunity to. To go out with him, and we had. We almost got a bull last year, but it's like the kind of same thing. I had a day to hunt with him or whatever, and we actually had a bull screaming during rifle season, like I was bugling bulls, bu. There's no other hunters around, and it was pretty incredible. We never got eyes on the bull, but we knew that we were really close. And so this year it was fun to kind of get a little bit of redemption and be successful with him. And man, just what a fun hunt. So one of the elk hunting tactics that I talk about often on here, but I think it bears repeating, is this strategy or idea where you glass and then you utilize the information that, see while glassing to kind of move in on the bull for a play in the evening and. Or a play in the morning. So what that entails is getting into a location. You know, sometimes for the most part, like late season, we're glassing some kind of clearing of some sort. So it could be a clear cut from logging, which we glass a lot. Could be like more sparse timbered areas. So what areas you'll go into. It's like the south faces might have more sparse timber. The north faces might be more fully timbered, maybe even as much as like a clearing of some kind or a burn of some kind somewhere that elk are probably have a propensity to feed in areas that's more like deserty or I guess high Desert, you know, some of those like big sage pockets or chainings. The strategy I kind of, I guess developed from hunting elk in eastern Nevada. And it's like you just sit back, glass those essentially glass as much as you can get the best vantage, you know, whether it's a new, like areas in the rocky mountain west, like Idaho or Wyoming or something like that. Do a similar tactic, you know, where it's, it's maybe fewer openings and just find those good glass advantages. Cover as much country with the glass as possible. And I'll sit down, I'll have like my big binos on the tripod. My 18s, I got those razor 18x56s, I think they are, and I use those a lot. And then I'll have a spotting scope there for verification. And sometimes I'll be glassing so far away it's just straight spotting scope looking. And then, you know, when it comes to like late season elk, often the bulls have moved away from the cows. But sometimes, you know, it depends on what you're looking for. Like on that particular hunt, Spotted a little group of elk and there'll be younger bulls with them. Sometimes bull will just meet up with them later season. But if I'm like looking for a real good bull, I'm probably just looking in areas for, for singles. So I'm really paying a little more attention in areas where maybe I'm just looking for any elk, looking for those pockets of cows as well. Sometimes there's bulls with them, but it doesn't really matter. What we're doing is we're kind of figuring out, okay, where are the elk at? So if it's a morning, so I'll be on my glass advantage. Okay. I see elk and I'm gl away. Like oftentimes it's six miles or more from where the elk are at. Sometimes way more, like up to 10 or 11 miles away. Like, how can you see them? I'm looking for little ant shaped specks in these areas and just covering a lot of country with the glass. And you know, you're like, well, sometimes you need open country for this and not necessarily. You just need good advantage where you can see open pockets. So I know, like, I'm not wasting my time with the places that I can't see into. I'm only looking at areas that are open enough to see elk. And that's often, like even in the places that we do this in eastern Nevada, you just like look in the little pockets where they could be. You know, I'm not really Focused on in the morning, spending my time picking apart real thick country, just places where I could reasonably turn up an elk and see it fairly quickly, I guess just by at glance, you know. So I'll set the zoom level of the scope for that appropriate distance and then look into it. And let's say we spotted an elk, right? You go, well, it's eight miles away. I mean, those elk are not going to be there when I get there. Generally, especially if you're in like a general area, those elk are, those elk are in and out. They're going to bedding and they're going to go find a safe spot. But what we are doing is we're planning out, okay, well if those elk are left unpressured, which doesn't always happen, that's the gamble, right? In general areas, in areas where there's a lot less pressure, maybe you're in like, you're in a deep pocket, you're glass and even like, say you're doing a backcountry hunt. You get up this big canyon, you're glassing from one side, you're looking across the canyon. Well, where you're probably going to see the elk is going to be a 3,000 foot vertical climb. You got a lot of terrain and things to navigate. And so getting over there in a reasonable amount of time to shoot them while they're there generally isn't going to happen. Sometimes it does, but for the most part it's like, well, by the time I get over there, where are they going be? So often I will sit and watch and see where they're going and then I make my play of the strategy is spend the rest of the day to get up to where they're at, sit and wait for them to come out. So there is a little bit of a patience game, a little bit of a strategy game to it. You go, okay, here's where they were they were at in the morning. Why were they there? Were they feeding? You know, if you're just seeing them moving, might not have the same type of success. But if you see like, okay, here's a bull, he's out feeding, he's munching, okay, I watched him go into a thick place where he could potentially bed. Now if you could get in there and often I'll get in there early, as early as possible. And sometimes it works out where you can glass into that bedding and I'll do it from a closer distance. But where I have no, like, I'm not going to spook them. I don't I don't want to. I don't want to mix them up in their bed. I'm just, like, looking and seeing if I can find them in their bed. I have. I don't know the percentage of times where I actually spot them in their bed, but it's fairly high. Like, probably 25, 30% of the time that I'm like, okay, they actually just went not too far away. I see where they kind of stopped. I can get in there in the middle of the day and then pick them out in their bed or just watch that bedding area. And sometimes, you know, as those shadows shift or whatever, they'll get up and move around, or if there's a lot of elk, you'll. You'll see them. If it's just one bull, it's a lot more difficult sometimes, but it happens. We do spot a lot of elk in their bed and then shoot them in their bed or close to it if we can get a good, like, shot across the canyon. Now, if not, let's say we don't see him or whatever, then I go and I set up for that evening play where I'm planning on this elk moving out. Now, the best way to do that would be across from where they're potentially going to be because you have more opportunity to see more area and still have a good shot. So if there's a hill across the way, I try to get set up and. And do like a cross canyon shot and cover that. But the anticipation is I'm going to where they were. I'm setting up where I'm expecting them to come out, and then I'm getting set up for the evening. And sometimes, you know, it might be an area where you get there and there's no way to look across the canyon. So you just have to pick a spot. And that's where the kind of gamble comes in is like, okay, well, where do they go? I try to find that logical point of travel where it's like the narrowest point of travel, like the first place that they're going to enter, wherever that particular area is. So, like, if they're feeding in an area that had sparse timber, it's like they could come in from the top or the bottom. They can kind of go anywhere. But I try to base it off of the best data that I have. So whatever I knew happened last is kind of the way that I gauge where I'm going to go for the evening. And then I'll sit there and wait, and I won't say that it happens every time. But it is a highly effective strategy because elk can be pretty patternable. They go to that, like they get in that later season cycle of food and bedding, food and bedding. And as long as they aren't disturbed in that, they often kind of keep that pattern. Now, if there's a lot of different options around, sometimes they just do something completely different. So it's best to kind of gauge whether it's going to work based off of the wind direction as well. So they're going to want that safety. They're probably going to want to travel into the wind if possible, or kind of pick a spot where that thermal will shift and give them good wind and safety when they go out. But for the most part, I'm utilizing the data that I have on the wind where they last were and then go and set up. And if I think that there's maybe a better place that they would come out or I, I've been watching other areas in the evening. It's like, man, in the evenings, they seem to be hitting, like moving into this particular area, then I'll go and get into that type of position. Now the kind of, the same thing happens when I'm glassing in the evening where I go, okay, these elk are, are moving to feed for the most part. I find that, like, elk move down in the evenings and up in the mornings, they kind of follow that thermal line. So it seems to be like elk go to a lower place to feed in the evenings and then they start moving back up in the mornings. It's just kind of like a, it's not a hard and fast rule, but it is like a pretty general rule of like the way the elk like to move. So they often go like higher in the, like, bed up higher than where they were feeding for, I guess, a lot of, a lot of the time. So it can be more difficult to anticipate a evening to morning where the elk are than a morning to evening, if that makes sense, because you have this large gap of night and there's a lot of things that elk can do. So they could feed out in the evening and then they can just bed wherever they're feeding, and then they'll be right there in the morning. But they can also continue feeding through the night and move around. A lot of things can happen. Predators can move in and bump them. They can feed and go one or two ridges over into a completely different area and then be feeding somewhere else in the morning. So you kind of have to gauge that part of the cycle that's like the little bit of a chess game of knowing the area a little bit and then just kind of anticipating what those elk next move is. But oftentimes, if I've seen elk, let's say in the evening, I know that like there's not a lot of moon. There's probably a higher chance that they might stay where they're at. Then I'll go into that same general vicinity in the morning and try to catch them moving back out. Like when my dad and I went in, we were actually set back a little bit further than where they were, hoping that we were catching them in some part of their cycle, maybe moving in that pre dawn light. And then we catch them by the time it's light going toward this particular bedding area, which the bull went sort of did. He just. The wind was actually coming from a direction that I wasn't expecting it and the bull was walking into the wind, which made sense because when we got down there, it's like the wind's in our face and like this is where they were last night. This is a logical place for him to go. Like, there's so much bedding over here. And that's exactly what that lone bull did. So it worked out like we were in that area. I don't think that that bull, which is funny, you know, it just happened to be a different elk, a different bull. He was probably in there by himself. I think that herd that we saw across the way like a few miles away was actually the group that I had seen. And so that's one of those things. Like those elk kept continuing to feed, but this other elk was kind of in that same vicinity doing what those other elk would have done had they still been there. So maybe he did the same thing, moved and fed in the night, and then was going back to bedding the other way. Either way, it worked out right. It was a little bit of a crapshoot and a lot of. But you know, like, it is part of that game of like anticipation. Where do I think the elk are going to go? What do I know about the wind and the direction of travel? Where's that good betting at? And where were they last? And then I, I utilize that to be like, now, here's my next move. But when you do that, like, let's say I'm glassing in the evening, making a play for the morning, I kind of limit my ability to be glassing in the morning. So sometimes I almost opt to just say, okay, I glassed in the evening. I'm going to re glass in the morning and then make a play for the evening based off of those two sets of information, those two data points. Because the more information you have, the more likely you're going to be able to predict where the elk are going and then set up that ambush for success. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. You know, there's a lot of awesome hunts still out there and if you guys have some success, feel free to share that with me. I've been getting a lot of great stories, some awesome animals this year, some great mule deer bucks. Unfortunately, my mule deer hunting late season didn't go as well as planned. I'll share that with you guys, but had a great hunt, but just man, sometimes you run into some tough conditions, some tough seasons, but also sometimes you just have a hunt of a lifetime. And I've seen a lot of stories of both this year. So thank you guys for sharing those. You can always reach out. I'm gonna, I'm gonna read through a bunch of these and start posting them after the season of. You can email me myhunteremmywarren.com and I'd to share some of those stories with people on our blog if you guys are cool with it. And then as always, you can reach out social media. Remy Warren on pretty much everything, Instagram, YouTube. Oh, speaking of YouTube, last week we did a hunt called Overtime Late Season Muzzleloader Hunt. And then this coming week we've got a awesome, awesome film, the Tule Elk Hunt that I did. It's a Matthews Proving Grounds film, so that'll be coming out. Make sure you're subscribed to my channel so you get all that stuff. And then if you see our videos or whatever, feel free, share and like them. Subscribe to the channel. A lot of people like watch a lot of the videos but don't subscribe. It always helps us out if you guys subscribe so you don't miss a lot of the great stuff that we got coming out. I think everybody's been appreciating and I've gotten a lot of great messages about. I'm enjoying some of the stuff that we've been doing on the YouTube channel. So thank you guys so much for all that feedback and the feedback here on the podcast as well. I always appreciate it. You know, I always say I try to make this, this podcast as user friendly as possible. It's, it's for the information you guys want to hear. So if there's things that you guys want to hear about in the future, whatever. Feel free to always message me that stuff as well. You know, one of the things I kind of think about on that, my dad's and I'm almost, I'm ashamed to admit it. It's like, man, I, I, it's been a long time. You know, I've, I've like guided people or what have you and they've been like cramped up and they're like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I could take another step. And I haven't experienced that and I don't even know if I've really experienced it. It, it's just been a long time. And that day I, I forgot I always have some hydrate, recover energy and focus. I felt like I was just dragging. Crawling over that deadfall just takes it out of you, like every bit of balance and everything that you have. And then being a little underwatered and probably under fueled like I, that was stupid. Like I wasn't super far pack out. And by all intents and purposes it was an easy pack out. It's just a stupid route. Like I expended a lot of energy that I didn't have or need. Like going through this stupid jungle gym of deadfall. It was miserable. It was very tall deadfall. Like it was, it was a lot. Like even just going, I was like, oh, it's only, I don't know how far I wanted to get through it. Maybe 800 yards, like but a half a mile through this. Like we were just going so slow and it was just so much thrusting, lifting knee up to your chest, standing up, balancing like, like sketchy. And probably a really good way to get super injured. Could have just gone around it. It was dumb. And then I'm like, man, I normally would have had like my hydrate and recover, which I, man I, I realized how much it works and how much I rely on it. When I got back, it was like the first thing I did and I immediately felt like way better. I actually had it in the truck. So I'm like, let's mix them up, let's go. My dad was the same way. He's like, man, I am dragging today. I'm like, yeah, well it's because we just did the dumbest route I've ever probably taken in a long time. I just figured, oh, we'll just blaze through here, it'll be fine. And it wasn't. So that's just a good reminder that, man, that stuff, it was a good reminder to me how, how much I rely on it. But Also, how well it works, especially when you're just really taxed and for the pack out. So wilderness athlete, awesome supporter of this podcast. You guys can get a discount on the stuff. Just use code livewild. You can use that on whatever you want. Pack out bars, energy and focus, hydrate, recover. Those are all some of my favorites. And then, you know, I don't want to talk about an elk hunting episode without mentioning Rocky Mountain EL Foundation. It's just an awesome organization for conservation when it comes to hunting and combining Hunting, conservation. A thing that they do a lot of is public access for hunters. They'll even, they'll go as far as like partnering or purchasing land to provide access. Like if there's a bunch of landlocked stuff though, and their piece comes for sale, like, they'll either find partners to help with that and just create access for hunting and elk hunting especially, which is incredible. So if you guys aren't members of the Rocky Mountain Oak foundation, sign up. And if you sign up, you'll get Bugle magazine. And I am going to be a contributor. Well, I am a contributor. I've been writing articles for them. So every issue of Bugle, you should see an article from me. One of the things that I want to start doing is like a little bit of a Q and A. I thought it'd be kind of fun, like a, I don't know, ask the expert. We do our call in episodes here, but doing something specific to elk hunting. So if you guys have questions that you want answered in Bugle magazine, shoot me a direct message and I'll even do maybe a post on it and you can do some posts. I'll pull some from direct messages, go on Instagram. That's easy. I'll pull some of those questions, put your name or like, I guess I could find. If I can find your name, or I might message you your name back or ask for your name so I can put your name in there and then the question and then I'll answer and I'll do like 10 questions or whatever in those articles. I thought that might be kind of a fun way to do it because we get a lot of questions on elk hunting. It's one of those things, like if you have a specific question or a general question or kind of a question on anything, I think it'd be kind of fun. So shoot me a message if you want. That you could just put like Bugle and put your question, whatever. That'll be a lot of fun. And you can flip through the magazine and hopefully see your question and your answer there. I thought might just be a fun way to do it because I've written a lot of articles over the years, but I think sometimes it's just fun to have other people kind of, you know. What do you guys want to know? What would you like to know about elk and elk hunting or I guess any kind of hunting. So that'll be something to look forward to. And like I said, if you aren't a member yet, join. It's a great organization. You can get the Bugle magazine, you can read some Q&As, some how to's. They got all kinds of different articles in there, so it'll be fun to check out. I'm gonna say, until next week, let's just go hunt some elk. Catch you guys later.