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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. Now for those that don't know, Mountain Tough is an online based training app that's designed for hunters to train you both mentally and physically for the mountains so you can go on. And there's programs designed with workouts that are specifically made to get you ready for the things you're going to encounter out there in the wild. And while a lot of you probably know that their programs are designed to get you ready, they also have programs designed to keep you ready during the season. It really is a year round process to help you be the best you can be on the hunt. If you're looking for a great gift this holiday season, Yeti has you covered with their Rambler Drinkware. It's a leak fruit, stackable, ton of different colors and everything for drinking water, coffee, wine or beer. They even have shot glasses and flasks. They're great stocking stuffers and an awesome gift to give this holiday season. Welcome back to Live wow. Podcast everyone. Now, a couple of weeks ago we started a series looking at season outlooks and some of the ideas during this application season for really paying attention to those various weather conditions, hunt timing and other data to just help you better plan for your hunt. This week we're going to take it a step further and we're going to look at application strategies based on the type of hunt or the type of hunter. So I'm going to show you how to research areas and find that hunt that's right for you. We're going to focus on securing tags in obtaining a hunt. In part one of this application season breakdown, we're going to look at three types of hunters. Today we're going to separate them out. We're going to go some categories. We're going to call it the Meat Hunter, the Trophy Hunter, and the Adventure Hunt. These three categories have three different application strategies and all three of these, or a combination of the three can be applied even to a single individual in any given season. This is going to help you secure tags and just get out in the field. So we're going to go through each category. I'm going to break down the types of tags to look for and share some great stories along the way. Next week in part two, we're going to actually dive into the hunt research tools and the strategies for planning the hunt. So let's dive in, apply this application, stats and different hunt goals to secure a tag. So before I do anything, I got to kind of first break down what we're going to be looking at. What we're really talking about today is going to be applying data to a specific type of hunt or hunter and then we're going to seek out different hunts that check different types of boxes. So depending on your hunting goals is going to depend on the certain kinds of data that you're going to be looking for. When it comes to applying for a tag. There's a ton of information out there on units, on applications, on all that stuff right now. That's great because when I was starting out, I started applying man, I started applying for out of state tags well before a lot of this data came out. And it was very difficult, I would say, like just to know where and how to apply. But what you didn't get then was you didn't get these big pushes towards certain units or certain places. So what you find is there's, I think there's a lot of different strategies, but however, a lot of people are following some of the same strategies which kind of skews some results and makes it more difficult to get a tag. Now, while I think the landscape of obtaining tags seems a lot more difficult than it was in the past, I also think that there's certain hunts for certain people that are just as easy to obtain as they've ever been, or you can, you can pretty much get them every year. There's different kinds of tags that you can get every couple of years that can be great hunts. There's still a lot of gems out there to be found. And so what I'm going to do is just teach you how to filter through stuff and not necessarily tell you where to go, but tell you how to find the hunt that's right for you. And that might mean a lot of different things to different people, or it might even mean a way of staggering the types of hunts you're doing over the years so you can consistently get out in the field if that's one of your goals, but also have different kinds of hunts along the way. So this is, we're going to break it down into three groups. We're going to call it the Meat Hunter, the Trophy Hunter, and the Adventure Hunter. And within each one of those categories, we're looking for certain statistics that will identify those hunts, and then we can utilize that data to find the hunt that's right for us. So I'm using a lot of the. I've got an Onyx Elite membership and they've got the hunt research tools. I utilize that a lot. And then I use that because kind of you can start to filter. So the thing that we're going to be looking at over the next couple weeks is just filtering through data. Who thought that hunting an application was going to be so much research? I remember this was probably even 10, 15 years ago. I wrote this application season article for Western Hunter magazine and I took this funny picture. It was the COVID shot, not the COVID shot, but the. The headshot for the main part of the article. And I did like this, you know those FBI boards where you've got the string connecting all the things. And I had just as like, kind of a joke of there's so much. There's so much research that goes into it. And I really lend a lot of my success in the season to the research that I do. Finding the hunt that's right for me and sometimes finding a hunt that might be right for me, but might not be right for a lot of other people. And over the course of hunting, doing the solo hunter show, and just all the stuff that I've done kind of professionally, I've gone on a lot of hunts. And the majority of those hunts were not hard to obtain tags. A lot of them, you'd maybe notice that it's like, man, this guy hunts a lot of the same stuff over and over, right? Yeah. Because once I would figure out a certain hunt, I would commit time to it and hunt year after year, and it would just be better and better because the knowledge that I would have from those particular units, and so those were the kind of hunts that I sought out because I could do them year after year. I had some incredible hunts on what I'm going to air quotes, call general units in places with low success rates because I could use my skills and match the kind of hunt that I was looking for, find that hunt that other people maybe weren't interested in at the time, and then find success. And so I building out my own hunt strategy involved a lot of research, a lot of planning, and then it equated to a lot of success when I could have continued a strategy of applying and never getting tags and it just, that kind of strategy wouldn't work out. So I think it's just funny there is this amount of research, but understanding the data that you're looking at and how to kind of cherry pick and maybe find some hunts that work for your particular hunt style, what you're looking for, that, that really helps. And that's helped me tremendously. Not just recently, not just since there's been, you know, hunt research tools online, but even well before that when I was just going through state information and trying to gather whatever information I could from wherever. But I like to start with something that just quickly filters through some data. And then I combine that information with state fishing game websites, because there's, there's always more information out there to be had. And then I also cross reference those findings with other things out there. Magazines, application service magazines, stuff like that. So, so I'm, I'm trying to get as much information as I can. And then there's this big, there's also this big, I would say, like area of expertise from people, right. Talking to friends that have been on a hunt. That information is, is huge. A ton of my hunts are like someone saying, hey, this was a good area. You should think about this area. Oh, okay, let me, let me look into that. Or I've said this before, but I found a lot of areas. Just like kind of road tripping through an area, you pull into a gas station, you look on the wall and you go, man, there's a lot of good deer in these photos. Hmm. I bet a lot of them are from around this mountain range, around this rural town. Maybe I should look and see. Is this a limited jar area? Is this a over the counter area? What kind of hunts are here? Like just randomly kind of stumbling upon things that maybe other people are overlooking and something that might not be getting talked about. So having that kind of compiling all this information is, is key. But first we have to set out with a goal. What are the kind of hunts that we're looking for? And so breaking it into three categories of different types of hunts and, or hunter can really help narrow it down because you're looking for different sets of data. And when you identify those different sets of data with the potential hunt that you're looking for, things start to pop up and start to pop out. And it really helps you narrow down a lot of information into something that's digestible, where you can start looking at specific places that maybe you could get a tag sooner or maybe it's somewhere that you need to start building Points for to get a tag later. So that's all part of this application season game. You know, as I would call myself a veteran of the application season. I've been playing it for a long time and now I've got a lot of points in I a lot of places which I'm going to start cashing in on some of those. We're going to give it air quotes here dream hunts. Now the hard part with some of those is, and we'll talk about it a little later, is I think a lot of units are not worth the amount of years and points that it takes to get them. If I could say I've got one state I've got, I guess it'd be like, I think it's 26 points, 24, 26 points in Utah. Okay. I think that that's one of the states where yeah, there you can have a really good elk hunt. I absolutely think that there's some great elk hunting in Utah. Right. But I also think that over the that 24 years, if I could hunt elk six times in one place, I would probably over those six times like one unit, six times in the course of that 24 years, I would probably have way more elk hunting experience. Probably the opportunity at some good bulls potentially depending on where I'm hunting. And you know, maybe my time and money would be, you know, I think just getting out, more well spent. I could also go on that hunt that took 26 points and it could be just hot weather, bad rut, not see anything, go home unsuccessful. Happens all the time. Right. So you waited 26 years for a hunt that hey, I could have a bad hunt anywhere. Right. You could also shoot the ball of lifetime and that's kind of, that's kind of like that next level opportunity is there like a 400 inch bull exists in these areas. They don't exist in every unit. Right. So that, that's kind of the point. But I'm saying that I think that there is something to be said for just getting out more if possible. And then also it's great to have those down the road, down the track, potential dream tags and great units. Because I've also had some phenomenal hunts in really limited draw areas and taken some great deer, great elk. You know, it's funny, my biggest bull was not from like I, I shot a, I guess almost a 390 bull. Any unit that was not designed for 390 bulls, right. It's just like you never know. And I've killed mediocre bulls in, in Units that took me 10, 15 plus years to draw. So that's something to consider. Right, let's dive in. We're just going to break down the different goals based on the different hunters. So we, I, I broke it down into three different groups. We got the meat hunter. Now some of these, I mean you're really putting someone in a category here. But we got the meat hunter, we got the trophy hunter and we got the adventure hunter. And so what I mean by trophy hunter is someone looking for that upper age class animal, a bigger animal like the bigger scoring bulls, bucks, pronghorn sheep, whatever. I'm the meat hunter. More just looking for opportunity to get out, not necessarily more, more focused on potential success, I think. And then the adventure hunter looking for that big rugged wilderness type adventure. So we're going to dive in. We're going to start with the meat hunter. And I think that when, once we get through all these strategies, one of the things that you're going to see is this can be, I identify with all three of these categories and that helps me get out in the field, get tags because I can look for certain hunts with different goals and then I can get out in the field, I can have a strategy for later on and I can, I can get into tags sooner by kind of playing all three types of hunters. Now some people just fit in one category and that's okay too because it's really going to hone in your application strategy when you're looking at applying in different states. So we're going to start with the meat hunter here. And I think that the focus here is obtaining a tag. You want to get out in the field. And the result I think for this category is often bringing something home. I, I've been in this category many times. Me and my family, we live off wild meat. We don't buy meat at the store. I, I'll eat it if we go out somewhere like a restaurant or something. I'm not so strict that I can't do that. But within our house we, I guess we do buy bacon because I'll add it to the wild game. We need a little bit of fat in there and I enjoy it as well. Who doesn't love bacon, right? But as far as like steaks, all that kind of stuff, everything that we make for breakfast, sausages, all that stuff, we comes from our wild game, wild fish that we catch or wild birds that we shoot. And so in my opinion, for me, if I had to choose one or the other, I would actually fall into this category first. And foremost. Now, of course, I've eaten plenty of big deer and elk and they're just as delicious in my opinion, maybe even more so. But sometimes getting those tags and finding that success isn't as readily available. So what I'm looking for in this category is focusing on tag numbers often and the propensity to be able to draw a tag. So we're looking at units where there might be high tag numbers. Now, there's a couple of things that you can think about when searching for tags with high tag numbers. The more tag numbers there are, the more people can hunt, the more opportunity there is to obtain one of those tags. That makes sense. Now, on the flip side, the more tag numbers there are, the more hunters are in the field, the more competition there is for certain, whatever species. Now it can be a catch 22. But what we're looking at here is going in with that mindset of we're looking for some kind of success. So it could be an area. One of the things that I also look for is within these units a good success rate. So we're looking for an overall rate that's high potentially. Now you can get some units that have really high success rates and really high tag numbers. Often tag numbers correlate with the number of animals. If, if the estate agency is doing the right kind of biology, tags should always indicate the, the health or the herd. And what you can see, see in that within that is what they're doing is they're going to manage it a couple of ways. Some areas might be managed for trophy quality, but the herd numbers are really high. So how do they get herd numbers down? Well, they start to issue tags. Let's say it's an elk unit. They'll issue cow tags or even spike tags or three pointer smaller tags like they can, they can manage it a different way. Or within even like wild sheep populations, there's maybe some units where, hey, the populations are getting too high. I am 100% for capturing and transplanting those animals. But I understand with the potential for MOVI to spread pneumonia that sometimes that's not feasible. So therefore they'll start issuing you tags or one horn ram tags as a management tool of taking an old ram that's passes breeding prime and has sinusitis. Right. There's all these like kind of interesting ways that they can balance the herd and still offer hunter opportunity and the meat hunter, the person that's looking for getting out, hopefully finding success and having a hunt, getting some experience. These are really good tags to capitalize on another thing to look for is within those that success rate, certain units in certain seasons might have a little bit higher success rate. And you go like, okay, why is that, you know, got a high success rate? Well, sometimes they offer either sex tag. So it could be a deer tag that allows you to shoot a buck or a doe, or it could be an elk tag that allows you to shoot a bull or a cow. Or some states, bull tags are like brow tine bulls only. But some units within that state allow you to shoot any elk. Could be a spike, could be a cow, could be a bull. So what you're going to start to see is less restrictive tags in some of those units that have higher success rates. And it allows you to harvest maybe something so you could go out, you could say like, look, I've got this either sex tag. I could shoot a bull or a cow. I would like to come home with some meat and I can go and hunt the first part of the season really focusing on a bull. And if I'm not turning anything up, I can switch over and harvest a cow and come back home with some meat. And so targeting areas that check that box can be more successful often offer quite a few more tags indeed. They're sometimes indicative of higher elk or deer, whatever populations. And those can be really good units to suit those needs. There's a lot of times where I'll go out and I'll look within, maybe you've got a general elk tag and you can pick from a multitude of units. And I go, okay, I can hunt any of these units. But this particular unit allows me more opportunity to be successful. And they often allow those opportunities within units that have higher population. So I'm knowing, going in, I'm going into an area where there's more propensity to run into particular animals. Now other people see that, right? There's a lot of people in this category and they also want to find that success. So you might run into more hunters in the field. That's, that's a consideration within this, but I think that that's something to look at. Now you can also note, you might also notice that certain season types offer different or less restrictive types of harvest. So a rifle tag in a particular unit might be brow tine bull only. But a archery and or muzzleloader season within that same unit might offer you the opportunity for either sex tags. So this is something you can, when you get, when you're thinking about applying in a certain state, what you can do is you can, let's say I could start even with the Onyx hunt research tools. I can start to narrow down units of saying like high pick out high tag numbers, maybe a high success rate. I can just adjust some filters and some things will start to pop up. Then I can go to the state agency, website, whatever, get there. I like, I like having the paper regulations in my hand. I try to order as many as I can from whatever states because I'll use pens and mark them up and I just, it's so much easier for me. I don't know, it's just the way that I. Way that I am way. It's the way that I like to be. I still like magazines, physical magazines and paper, it's just easier to keep track of. And I'll mark them up, fold pages over like whatever, that's just my style. But I'll go in there and I'll start to look at. Okay, I can look at within one unit, how many different seasons are potentially in this unit. What are some opportunities within those seasons? Oh, hey, this particular unit has this sometimes like I found. Hey, oh, I could get a bull tag here and then I could get an over the counter cow elk tag. I could have two tags in my pocket. I could have a second cow elk tag and a bull tag within the same unit in some states and some places. Yeah, that is possible. So just finding those little things can help you go, okay, that'll help me find success and, or maybe a new opportunity to get out in the field. Now another thing that I look for within these units, and this is a big one, is that hunter access. You can, as there's more public land, often those tags can be a little bit harder to get. But if you don't have private land access, you're going to need somewhere to go. So anytime that I'm researching an area, if it checks these boxes, high tag numbers, pretty high success rate, the next thing I'm going to look at is is there somewhere to hunt? You will find in many states the easiest to draw tags are ones with very little access because most people have nowhere to go. Now this can be a strategy that I would apply potentially. I don't know if I would necessarily apply it to this particular type of hunter, but there are people that could seek out those tags. Like, hey, I'd rather have a tag and I'm going to hunt a very small portion of land. But look, there's a couple places that I can get into here and hunt. I've had tags like that in the past. I don't Necessarily like that quality of the hunt. I would rather have a lot of place to roam. Sometimes you can get lucky and catch animals moving between private or off private. And you know, you can find a few parcels here or there. Sometimes you look at the map, you go, oh, there's a big chunk of public and you just can't access it. So understanding whether there's access in the unit is, is really important when we start to break down and look at specific units. So when I find a few areas that pique my interest within these categories, higher tag numbers, decent success rate, maybe that ability to have, you know, less restrictive tag where you can hunt, you know, bull, cow, whatever, either sex tags, then I can start to look at, well, what kind of access is in here. Now another thing that we're going to talk about within this is this type of hunter. I think that getting out is, is the most important thing. And getting out, of course you can find the buck or bull of your dreams, right? But often there's going to be and we talk about this a lot tags within seasons that aren't ideal. So that season timing is going to be huge in this category because you can. There's going to be more tags easier to get tags in those seasons that or the time of year that isn't as good. Those out of rut hunts. Those hunts when mule deer are hiding more than not, you still have a tag in your pocket what you want to or you know, it's like elk or deer tag in your pocket. What you want to harvest is up to you. But you can't harvest anything without that tag and getting on that hunt. So this kind of hunt gets you in the field more. It gets you kind of building that repetition and skill and, and honestly you can find some really good hunts looking for this kind of particular thing where you're looking for those unideal season timing or the season seasons that might be out of something that is really desirable for when the better animals start to come out or the hunts that become easier. Another thing that we're going to look at in this category is those less desired hunts. So I man two of my favorite hunts seems like every year are like hunting doe whitetails with my bow and a cow elk tag. There's absolutely zero pressure I'm getting out, I'm in the unit and it's a lot of fun. I think that like pronghorn hunting, doe whitetails and cow elk are three of the most fun hunts you can go on. Like we'll bring the kids, we'll Bring the family, whatever. We always come back with some success. I just finished eating the last dough that I got with my bow this last season. It's like the best meat that you can get and it's an enjoyable hunt. You get to, you get to utilize your gear, you get out in the field, the tags are way cheaper and you still have a really good hunting experience. I don't know, I find so much value in those tags. Like when I draw my cow elk tag. I think sometimes I get more excited when I draw my cow elk tag than when I draw certain bull tags because I know that I'm just going to go out, I'm going to have a good time, a fun hunt. There's really no pressure. There's the pressure of like I want to be successful and, and try to, I try to find a trophy cow which is like a, a year, not like I like a one year old elk is like if I can target one that's a good body size, but young, perfect. That's what I'm looking for. So that's, that's always like some of the fun hunts every year is like pretty easy to obtain tags. My brother, his favorite hunt is doe antelope hunting or like antelope hunting where you can shoot pretty much any antelope. He will seek out and apply for those tags because he knows like, hey, some states he can get two or three of those tags. He can go out, he can shoot a few antelope, he has a great time. It's like, take the family out, do whatever. I've been on some hunts with him and he's just like, he's having the time of his life. He's out there, he's doing the hunt, he has a good time, he comes home, he's, he fills his freezer and it's just a, it's a really good hunt. So there are hunts like that around that you can seek out. There's a lot of cow tags that are over the counter. When in places where bull tags might not be. It can also be a really great opportunity to potentially scout an area. So as we start to go down this list, you can see where being multiple types of these hunters can really be beneficial. As the meat hunter, you're actually able to get out more into the field. You, you might be on hunts where the season timing's off or you might have a tag that is for a cow elk, not a bull elk. But you can start to build experience, especially for people that maybe don't have a ton of Experience this is, these are great hunts to just get you out, get your, like dive in, get, get your feet wet to say, build that experience. Now I've also done this where, hey, there's, there's a limited entry unit that's really hard to get. But there might be other tags within that unit that you can start, that you can easily obtain. I've done a lot of pronghorn hunting in units where I'm interested in thinking about mule deer hunting. But it takes five to seven points. Okay. While I'm there, I can be pre scouting for years in the future. Understanding the unit. I've had cow tags in areas where it's nearly like impossible to draw bull tags. My friends and I, we in Nevada, we apply for cow elk tags. I'm. I think I'm the only one that has not drawn a cow elk I've drawn. I'm not going to complain about what I've drawn, but it's like I apply for cow elk tag archery, cow elk tags in units that I want to hunt in bulls. And then you start to, then you can put in time scouting or find water holes where cows might be coming in or areas. But it's also giving you knowledge of the unit for when you do turn up your bull tag. It's. It's awesome to be able to get the unit and it's like, hey, I might only get to hunt realistically. Like I might only be able to hunt this unit one time with my bow, you know, and the next time I get it, I'm going to be ancient and it's not even going to be worth it. But if I can get a cow tag in there once or twice in between that time, know the unit and then even go on some hunts with some friends that draw the tag, by the time I actually have the tag, I'm going to have a bunch more knowledge than I did if I just go in cold turkey. It's going to allow me to feel more settled with that once in a lifetime opportunity. Knowing that I've been in the unit. I, I've seen elk in there. I've seen some bulls, I understand maybe some water holes and some just different nuances of the area and just even how to get around, I'm starting off on a better foot. So building that experience can be awesome. And looking for those ways to get out in the field and looking for that data that, that shows you, hey, here's some places where look at higher draw rates, bigger tag numbers often point to that decent success or those Less desired hunts. Those are hunts that you can start to filter through, find, and get out in the field. Before we dive into our next category, one of the things I wanted to talk about, an incredible supporter of this podcast, Montana Knife Company. They have some incredible knives. And I'm sure, you know, you've seen them used, you've heard about them. I remember the first one that I got to use. A buddy of mine, we were hunting. We were hunting caribou in Greenland. I was a friend of mine, Cole Kramer, was on the trip too, and he had one of their, like, filet type knives. And the amount of, like, flex and strength and that, the edge on that knife, like, I absolutely fell in love with that knife. And. And then he also had like a speedgoat with him, and I was like, man, these, like, the, the lightweight packability of that. I just really enjoy the fact that these knives are designed for hunters by hunters. You know, of course, there's a lot of different, different designs, different types, all the way to like the one that I got to design with them, which was awesome. I, of course, I'm a little partial to that knife, but you got to catch that one on a drop. They just have a lot of different knives right now in stock, so you could go on their website if you aren't in the market for a knife. They also have some incredible. Just like their logo wear and some of their gear. They have some great gear I really like. I got one of their orange vests, like blaze orange vests last season. It's awesome. Fit and feel like they put a lot. It might surprise you, but they put a lot into their apparel line. Like, there's some really good stuff in there that I know that they've got a team of people that's been just building really good stuff, whether it's knives, whether it's apparel, whatever. So I'm excited for what they've been doing. And some of the knives that are going to be coming out in some of the drops this year. So if you aren't on their email list, get on their email list so you can catch the drops. I know that it's a, It's a big thing. They're going to be moving, fully moved into their new building. If you follow them on social or whatever, you can see some of the stuff that they're doing with that new building. And, and they have a black rifle coffee shop in the new building. So that's really exciting for me because next time I go through Missoula quite a bit. If you're ever in Missoula, swing by, hit up that black rifle coffee shop inside of the Montana Knife Company new headquarters. I'm excited. The next time I go through Missoula, that's going to be my coffee shop. Every time we have to go to town, my wife always wants to get coffee and I always. The places that are there I'm not necessarily a big fan of. So if now knowing that there's a black rifle coffee in Missoula, I will be, that'll be my first stop. Every time it'd be like black rifle coffee, head to Costco, get some stuff and then gear up and drive somewhere to go hunt. So I'm excited. I'll actually be up in Missoula this summer for Rocky Mountain elk foundations doing like hunt days during the summer. There's going to be kind of like attack event and stuff like that up on the mountain. So I'll be there for that. I'll definitely be pretty much morning routine, driving over, grabbing some black rifle coffee at the Montana Knife Company facility. Looking forward to that. So for more information and just to see everything Montana Knife Company has to offer, you can always check them out@montanaknifecompany.com. So the next type of hunter that we're going to look at, we're going to call them the trophy hunter. I don't know, it's like people take that term and try to use it against hunters, but it means something different to us. I don't, I don't know what to tell you guys. Sorry, it's like, but what we're talking about here isn't shooting an animal, leaving it on the mountain like all the in PETA people would like to suggest. We're talking about looking for those better age class, bigger elk and deer. And so what, what you get is in order to have that kind of experience, you need a few things going for you. You need age class of the animal. It needs to be of a mature level to get those better antlers. Or if it's a sheep or goat, you know, it needs time to grow, grow those horns. You need good genetics. So an area that traditionally has good genetic. You can have areas. There's plenty of areas out there that have, you can get the age class, but no matter what, you just aren't going to crack a certain kind of bucker bull. It's just not really in the cards for certain areas because they don't have that potential genetic and then whatever, in any given year you need that good feed water habitat. So to get those, you know, you're going to need three important things. Oftentimes it helps out. Within those areas you're going to have limited tags. Because the limited tags allow for animals to get those age classes. It allows for often, you know, more strict management within the harvest. So most of those harvests are of a certain age class or not. Or it's allowing more animals of a higher age class because they aren't getting harvested earlier. Often places that they instill limited tags can be for one of two reasons. The populations aren't doing as good or they're trying to build a unit that has really good animals like a trophy area. And so when that happens, when you're just looking at data, sometimes the numbers don't always tell the right story. Not all areas that have really good trophy potential are extremely hard to draw, but many of them are. So sometimes you can find. And what I like to look for is those areas in between the near impossible to draw and I guess and anybody can hunt it somewhere in between can often be great hunts too. And there are, there are units that, check this box that are general areas as well. And maybe they have the off season timing or you know, just more hunters and maybe it's just more difficult to find that age class. But once you hit that age class, then you've got some good trophy potential. So one of the numbers that I look for is often in states where there is harvest data, looking at that age class data, some states say like that require mandatory harvest reporting. You can go, okay, here's the success rate of that success rate. How many were four by fours, like on meal deer? How many were six by sixes within sheep and stuff like that? They're all checked in and scored. You can go through and look at the age of each animal and the score of each animal. So looking at that harvest data is important in this category. Another thing is traditional harvest data through record keeping. Things like Pope and Young Club and Boone and Crockett Club. Just knowing that this particular county has a lot of Boone and Crockett potential animals really gives you an idea of the genetics in a certain area. So you go, okay, this area has pulled out some big deer, big elk. In order to find that big deer, big elk, it probably needs some age. Not all of those areas are within limited entry units. Some of those areas are in areas where, hey, they could be a general area, but you just gotta find that, that one that other people didn't find, the one that slipped past hunters for six to seven years and hit that Maturity. Plus you combine that with a good, a mild winter and a good wet spring, man, you've probably got something on your hands. So the. Some of the data that we're looking for here, just to narrow it down, of course you can narrow it down as areas that are hard to draw can be one way to find these places often, but not always anytime. We can look at age class data and statistical record keeping within certain units. Some states have like state record books where you could go through and you can look through each county. I know that that can be good because sometimes those minimums within the state record keeping are lower than Boone and Crockett Club minimums or maybe, you know, maybe a little higher than Pope and Young. But it might give you an idea of, okay, these are people that live in the state often that have taken animals within a certain class that have entered them into this book. And it shows you counties where you might be able to decipher. Oh, look, look at the potential of this. So you can cross reference that with particular tags and then start researching those. What you might find is you might find some of those areas you can draw. So on this side, I'm actually looking for a couple of different factors and some of those are outside of the real, I guess, like some, like outside of some of that, like just a little bit more deeper research, I guess is the way to say it. So one of the other things that we're going to look at here is like historical harvest trends. Now in a lot of these, like where you start looking at that harvest data, you can start to say, like, okay, this particular area had, I don't know, 20% success rate. But you look at the harvest data and you go, okay, well every buck was a four by four, or maybe some of them might have ages on them or every bull was a six by six. Like high success rates on. And, oh, and 1% or 10% of those were above that. Okay, well that's starting to indicate that there might be a certain potential there for this type of hunter. There really are two different categories of hunts. One's the extremely limited entry units. Those you can har. You can kind of cycle through by finding. You could just set your filter on really low draw rates. Right? I mean, some of the best areas are often known and it's directly representative of how hard it is to draw sometimes those. I apply for a lot of those hunts that are nearly statistically improbable that I'm going to draw. But within my application strategy, if I put in for a Few of those, maybe one point, maybe it's one in a hundred years. Maybe one in a hundred I might hit. Right? That's all I need. I'm going to have that once in a lifetime type hunt. I just need to hit it once. And yeah sure it's a real gambling addict mentality, but if I put in enough places for enough of those hunts, sooner or later I'm going to hit one of those and I'm going to be building points within those states to potentially draw later on. So some of these units are places that I'm looking at into the future. But we can also find some places that, check this box, have that potential. But you just have to where you can get into a tag sooner. You just have to find those what I'm going to call sleeper hunts. And so age class is king in places with historically good genetics. So you just need to be able to find those older age class animals. Sometimes those hunts are places that are really thick and really difficult to hunt. I've taken some incredible animals in places that I would consider this very easy to get tags for the most part. Low harvest rate, low success rate, low density of animal, but historically good genetics. Some of one of these places I found was kind of like how I said I was just driving through a small town, getting gas, going to the gas station, I'm like geez, there's some hammers shot around here. I'm going to start looking into this. And it was what I kind of expected in kind of the hunt that I like is really hard to find deer. Really low density, hard hunt. Probably like some years you won't find any deer but then when you do the odds are the one you find might be that older age class. And if you just get a little age on something, it's going to be big. I used to hunt or well I still do, but I like I would target units that were these units that I would say you probably aren't going to find anything but if you do it's going to be a giant. Right because the, the densities are low, the ability to get age class is high and it's an area that has just historically good genetics. So not very many animals taken. Probably going to have a tough rough hunt, but the potential for a really good animal is there. And just going out knowing there's a lot of places that I've hunted where you go, let's say it's a deer and you're like you could have a fully mature six year old deer and it's not going to break 155. Like that's just, you're like 130 to 150 top end. People like, oh, you shot up whatever. And you're like, this is an old mature deer. This is as good as that area will ever have. There's a lot of places like that and those can be really fun hunts and sometimes like a lot of animals and easier to get tags. They just genetics not there. Now there's other places that you can go and you go the top and sky's the limit. But just finding an animal is going to be really tough. But those areas have that trophy potential. It's there and that kind of keeps me going. I know that I can sit here and there is that potential to turn up a 200 inch buck. I, I've hunted a certain area, I've shot one, I'd say I probably hunted it five, six times. I've killed one really good deer, like one great buck and gone like probably three years without seeing deer. And then had a few encounters with deer that I just wasn't looking for. Okay. But within that I harvested one really good buck and knew that, you know, I did a lot of summer scouting. I found some deer in the summer range just after they shed that velvet when the season was around. Near impossible to find them. Real thick country. But hey, the potential is there. I knew the potential was there and therefore I'm focused and I'm hunting in an area that has that trophy potential and that was the kind of tag that I was looking for. So combining that with those other tags that are really hard to draw, I can continually get on hunts within this category and sometimes I have to ping pong and mix in a little bit of that. The category above the meat hunter category, I've also found in some of these areas where, hey, I could actually pick up like a cow elk tag. And I don't necessarily like to do that on some of these hunts where I'm just trying to focus on one thing because you hunt the two different species, different. But like I said, you know, my biggest bull and not my biggest buck, but one of my bigger bucks have been in these units that just, you know, you, it's not an area that people go for trophy. Big elk, big deer, they're just areas that happen to have the potential for it and either got lucky or put in the time and, and it worked out, made it happen. So that's within this, this trophy hunter category. And so some of the things that we can look for if we're just going to narrow down like hunt research, we can look for the, the statistics of harvest rates. Oftentimes these areas do have high harvest rates in areas that are hard to draw. So if you find an area that's difficult to draw, you're like, oh, this, this place has a high demand. Why is there a high demand? Often high success rates go for a high demand. But often as well, high success rates with those upper end animals. There's a lot of the, the areas that are 1% draw odds, I mean is near impossible. They often have really good animals and everybody fills a tag because they're managed for numbers of that type of animal that you're looking for. And some, and within some of those units there are other management hunts, but there are also trophy areas that have those other factors. They can just be more difficult hunts. So that kind of stuff we find not necessarily in the state stuff, but through record keeping things. Pope and Young Club, Boone and Crockett Club, state record books, historical data, even just, you know, word of mouth or hearing from other people like, oh yeah, this area has X, y, whatever, like those, those, this particular kind of animal. And you go ew. Okay, I can, I can get in on a hunt for that and find those hunts. There's definitely potential. Every year, guys kill some of the, I think every year some of the best animals are taken on, we'll call it nearly general tags or easy to get tags in units that have this potential. Over the counter archery tags in Arizona, some of the pestier, I mean outside of the Arizona strip, some giant deer get taken on those over the counter tags. There's you know, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. Wyoming if you're a resident. Good for you. You've got some phenomenal deer hunting in general units. Right? Like some of the best deer in the country come out of general units. Colorado has some early archery deer. Like there's just, there's opportunity for those kind of hunts but, but sometimes those hunts are difficult hunts. They just have that potential and that's something to look for. So the third category here is the adventure hunter. These are the guys. This is the type of hunt where you're like, I'm in it for the experience of the particular type of hunt and I'm looking for a certain kind of experience. I'm looking for that big wild wilderness experience. And so when we're filtering through for this particular type of hunt, we're going to look at percentage of public lands and wilderness areas. This is more map based than anything. Another option for this is just looking for that rugged terrain. Honestly, these kind of units weed out a lot of people. I've hunted a particular place multiple times, could pretty much pick up the tag. I know of multiple states where you can kind of go pick up leftover tags in big wilderness areas that are phenomenal hunts. And if you stay away from the trails for the most part, you might not ever see another hunter. Now, some areas you might find camps and whatever, but there's potential there and there can be some real. You can have some really good hunts in those areas. A lot of those hunts that I would do for that, those are just my kind of personal hunts every year, because I wouldn't film in those areas. But I have over the years had some phenomenal great hunts in some places that it's actually kind of easy to get tags because it's a difficult hunt and it calls to a certain type of person. If you're the type of person that can do that kind of hunt or is looking for that kind of experience, you open up a lot of potential opportunity to get out, get experience and get a tag. So what we're going to focus on for this is often that percentage of public land mostly, you know, like if you're just using a filtering system, you can filter through high public land, large wilderness areas, or often when there's a lot of public land, there's, you know, maybe potentially some wilderness in that areas. With larger wilderness areas or more rugged terrain, you could even just like click on a unit and look at the type of terrain. Oh, this is a real big mountainous unit, public land, flat, easy areas. Oftentimes tags get gobbled up quick because it's just easier, more people can do it. If you're the type of person seeking this kind of wilderness adventure, backcountry style hunt, you can get on a lot of hunts sooner. And now I will say that I've found a lot of great hunts that aren't designated wilderness areas, but do have that rugged mountain terrain and really roadless. So one of the things that we can look at too, is I'll throw on my onyx maps and look at that road density. Man, there's. I would say the majority of my really good backcountry hunts are in areas that are not wilderness, but very low road. Road density in rugged terrain. Those are. That's kind of like the places that I seek out. I really like those kind of places. You know, I think the wilderness designation makes a difference in some things only just because it's obviously no motorized and whatever, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't places that are just like that non roadless areas that are maybe just as good or just as easy to get tags in. Sometimes I find that those non wilderness areas don't have trails. And therefore I kind of like that aspect because I'm not walking in. In hunting around areas with a lot of trails, I'm hunting in areas where there are. I mean, there's a lot of places in the wilderness with no trails, don't get me wrong. But you might be able to kind of even get away from people a little bit more in areas that might be overlooked for that. So just really rugged terrain and no roads that leads to that adventure style backpack hunt places where you can get away from, hopefully get away from crowds, get away from roads, get away from people, and get into tags sooner. When you look at some of these really rugged, I'll call them hard, physically demanding areas. Those are places that often have leftover tags. Those are places that are pretty easy to draw, that you can draw every year, every third year in some, in some places, depending on the unit. So you could even like filter through that way of places that might be potentially easier to draw and then go to the map, look at it. Why? What's the story here? You know, there's areas too where it's well known, like, hey, this is a rugged wilderness adventures type place. This is a hard place to hunt. Therefore you can, you can find those tags, potentially get into those tags and find that kind of hunt. So if you're that type of hunter looking for that kind of hunt, there's a lot of opportunity for that. Now, within these three categories that we talked about, meat hunter, trophy hunter, adventure hunter, there's also a really good combination that you can play as you go through each year. You can, you can simultaneously be all three of these. That's what I, I kind of would play all three of these categories because it helps. It offers me three different types of research to do and maybe gives me more options of things to think about when I'm doing an application. There's like, I was just looking on Onx yesterday and I was looking, I was like, I've got a lot of mountain goat points in some places, so I'm looking at my unit odds. And I, I was just playing with that a little bit and looking and my unit odds dramatically increased, increased on those super tough to access areas. Even within mountain goods. You know, it's a hard hunt, but the area that's all wilderness or really like it went from less than 1% to 10%. You know, okay, that, that's significant when you're talking about, like, less than 1% to maybe over 10% potential for the same. Within the same state. Different, like, same species. Just a more rugged hunt. So playing with those things of going like, okay, let, let's do this is like a. Where's a hard place to hunt? Someplace really tough to access because it weeds out a lot of people. Now, in the same category, I might go, or the same thing, I might say, hey, I really want to get out this year. Like, I. I want to find a tag. I want to. I just want to get out. I want to an elk hunt where I'm not really concerned about the type of bull. I just like to bring home a bull and whatever. Okay, here's some general units. Oh, this area's got pretty high success rates. And I could, I could harvest any kind of bull I want or any elk. If so, if it comes down to it, I can shoot a cow if I'd like. Oh, that's cool. Or oh, wait, here's some cow tags in a certain place. Oh, and maybe I can also have a bull tag there as well. So within that. That meat hunter category, or just saying, like, hey, I just want to get out, like, here's. Here's some easy to draw tags. Pretty high success rates. Probably a lot of animals. That's going to be a lot of fun. I'll target those hunts. And then also, I'm always looking for that really good trophy hunt. So I've got building points in places and go, like, historically, this is a good area. I don't necessarily know if it's when I end up drawing the tag, if it's going to be worth the amount of points, but it is, because I'm going to be out there, I'm going to have the hunt. And what are some areas maybe I can get into sooner that have that trophy potential? So sometimes a combination of these things can be really beneficial to being able to find a hunt every year and then planning some things out for the future. But by looking at it based on these categories, I can start to narrow down through the data. And there's so much data, right. So it's like, well, what do we look at? Well, this roadmap allows you to say, okay, I can identify these certain things within these parameters. I'm really looking at, you know, I'd like to get on a couple really good mule deer hunts this year. What are some statistics? Like, some areas that have had some, you know, great animals in the past, maybe do a little research on some of the recent harvests in there. What are they doing? What's this spring and winter looking like? Maybe it's time to cash in on a couple of these particular places. So this is a really good way to build out your hunt strategy and your application strategy based on the potential kind of hunt that you're looking for. And I think that there's, you know, within that first category, the meat hunter category, you can also, like I said, those hunts also often give you the opportunity to harvest anything you can. I've had those potential, those type of tags and taken some really great animals. So that is still a potential. It just might get you in the into hunt sooner. The trophy hunter. It's going to take you a little bit more research and maybe a little bit more time. So that's something to think about. And then for that adventure hunt, that's something you can get on, but you have to get yourself physically and mentally ready for that kind of hunt. Get the gear, get the backcountry gear, get, you know, train in the off season and just get your mind of going like, we're going, we're going hard, we're going into this tough area. We're going to hunt off our backs and, and, but hey, we're going to have a tag and we're going to find that kind of hunt. And it's easy to filter through that kind of stuff with just a few key pieces of information. So when we go on something like a hunt research tool, we can filter through and we could even select multiple states. This is one thing is like, hey, I don't know which state. Where, where should I go? So you could like, you can find this category, right? And you don't necessarily have to look for one in each state. You can now go, let's say go on Onx, get that hunt filter tool and you can select multiple states and then change a few of those things for wilderness, public land, that kind of stuff. Draw odds, all those things, number of tags, you can adjust that and then it'll give you. Or even like bull, cow, bucktail, whatever, right? You can, you can choose those different filters and you can filter through and get a list of places to start looking at. Then what I would do is I would highlight a few of those places and dive a little bit deeper, look at the maps, look at the access, kind of go in, like, look at, maybe try to find more information about those units and go, okay, this is how I find my hunts and and, you know, I. I rarely had any hunts that are just an absolute bust. I mean, like, I, I've been, I've. I've had hunts. I. Okay, I take that back. I've had ons that were like, I didn't really see anything that I was looking for, but I still got out and I learned something. And some of those places I've hunted multiple times and kind of like with that crazy brain mentality of knowing that what I'm looking for is here, I just have to find the spot where it might be and I can get this tag. So there's a lot of options out there, a lot of opportunity. And I think by doing some of this research and really understanding how to filter and having this goal and this focus of the kind of hunt that you're looking for, you're going to be able to get into hunts pretty regularly and you're going to, you're going to turn up some hunts and experiences that are. Are pretty incredible. So I think that it just boils down to understanding what you're looking for and then filtering for that, and you're going to find those hunts that you can get in sooner and. Or those hunts that you can plan for and wait for. I hope you guys enjoyed this week's podcast. This time of year, there's a lot of applications that are coming due in the next month or two, a lot of different states. So this is going to be something that you're going to want to start diving into. Also, this is something that you can revisit if you draw blank on certain particular draws. There's some draws that, you know, I used to get tags in certain states pretty regularly and hey, came up empty this year. Or, oh, man, I missed. If you go like, oh, shoot, I forgot to apply for this state, or maybe you're just getting started. You're like, I didn't know. Well, Wyoming was already due. Okay, well, what do I do? Well, there's a lot of other states and a lot of different tags that you can start to look at. And then as this thing kind of starts to shuffle, we're also going to see later on some second draws, some return tags, all that good stuff. So next week we're gonna dive in a little bit deeper to this and look at it through the lens of just like, filtering and research, but also some of the strategy involved and some of the ways that you can maybe find those gaps and cracks in the application. We go, oh, this is great. It's happened. You know, I found a few sleeper Sleeper units. Where you go, man, this is awesome. I'm surprised nobody knows about this. And then a couple years later, booms. So I'm always the type that's not trying to chase a trend. I'm trying to discover a trend before it's a trend. And. And that can be something that you can do. So I'm gonna. We're gonna dive in quite a bit deeper to the actual in the Weeds of it in Part two next week. First, I just want to thank you guys so much for the support of this podcast for, you know, those that subscribe and leave comments and ratings. I really appreciate that. I'm going to be having some more videos come out on our YouTube channel. If you don't subscribe, head over to Remy Warren. Just search Remy Warren on YouTube. Find my channel. Got a bunch of awesome hunt I've been kind of going through right now and going through some of the edits. I'm not sure which ones we're going to release first or whatever, but got some really cool stuff coming out. Caribou and Wolf Hunt with a Bow. Got that Coos Deer Hunt, which you heard the story a couple weeks ago, but the film turned out pretty good. I think there's some. There's some cool moments in there and then just some other great stuff throughout this last season. So we're gonna start releasing a lot of those as well. So make sure if you aren't subscribed to the YouTube channel, check that out. Until next week, I'm gonna say keep on researching. I'll catch you guys later. Sam.