Broken Dreams in Elk Camp with Ben O'Brien & Joe Ferronato

This week on the podcast we have a campfire round-table discussion in Montana about our elk hunt. Clay Newcomb is joined by Ben O'Brien of MeatEater's Hunting Collective Podcast, Joe Ferronato of Petersen's Hunting Magazine, Brice Suhay, Kolby Morehead and Bear Newcomb. The guys discuss the wins and losses from a week of chasing bulls, dissect the strategy, and all the while Clay is still deciding if he likes elk hunting (he does). Dreams were broken, but their spirits were not. You're going to enjoy this fun podcast!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
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(00:43):
arms dot com. My name is Claye Nukeleman. I'm the
host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be
your host into the world of hunting the icon of
the American Wilderness. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We

(01:05):
will also bring you into some of the wildest country
on the planet chasing barn. We're up in northeast Montana
this week and we're at elk camp. We've been chasing
out our legs are tired. But at the end of

(01:26):
the week, we sat down with Ben O'Brien from Meat
Eaters Hunting Collective and Joe Ferronado from Peterson's Hunting and
our new friend Ryce Sue Hey and Bear John Nukam
my son and Kobe the bar Tech Morehead and we
have a really fun conversation about our week of elk

(01:48):
hunting in the Missouri breaks. We talked about some of
the tactics we used and but also just kind of
the general some general commentary on elk hunting and I
am yet to deter rman if I like elk hunting
or not. Um, we'll see you can see. Hey, be
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(03:58):
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(04:21):
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(04:42):
bears the better, and you're gonna get them there from scent.
Check out our buddies at Northwoods Bear Products. I hold
in my right hand, Broken Dreams. I've got a you'd
all this whale tale of an elk corn? Is that right?

(05:03):
YEA well described that, Joe. It is the beautiful top
point of what I would assume is a six point
bull with the six point and then that main beam
just tails out. Now is that the main beam or
is that the main beam? You know, I was holding
it earlier trying to determine which one. I would guess

(05:24):
that this is the main beam just because of the
waving nous of it, and it kind of hooks looks
back in and then this is your point coming off.
So this is the this is the back section of
an elk? Canitler and Bear and uh and I'm gonna
get to the introductions of who is all here, But
I don't want anyone to be confused about what's happened
the last seven days. Broken dreams boys, Now Bear and

(05:49):
I found this. This was where some elk we're presumably fighting,
broke off. This is fresh and Superho brought this home
just the other day. But now we're in Montana. We're
in the Missouri Breaks of Montana, and uh, hey, it
is awesome to have all you guys. I've got Ben O'Brien, um, Ben,

(06:10):
We've we've known each other for a couple of years,
I guess, but this is first time we've really spent
a lot of time together. And uh, it's been we've well,
we've been in camp now for for I guess you've
been here for four or five days. We've we've been
here for seven seven days. Yeah. So Ben O'Brien and
a lot of everybody would know Ben from the Hunting Collective,

(06:31):
Um Colby, the bar Tech more head, he's always back there. Yeah,
I didn't know his name. The nickname was the bear Tech. Yeah,
like the people named him that. I was thinking Bear Greaser,
but bear tech Tech. And then we've got Bryce name

(06:54):
so Bryce. Uh, I should introduce Joe before I interest you,
because I know you because of Joe. But now Bryce Sue, Hey,
we we gotta start off with this joke. So well,
hold on you, we're coming to last. I got Joe
Ferronado here to my right. Joe, this is Joe's camp.
Joe is the one that hooked it, told us all

(07:14):
kind of where to put in the hold us up
in the Missouri breaks. No. Um, So Joe, you worked
for Peterson's Hunting. That's a new job for you. This
is a new job. Used to work with old Ben
on Brian. Yeah, we're now foes. We were friends. That's
why we're sitting across from you. Yeah, so you're the

(07:37):
what do you do for Peterson's from the associate editor
Associe that Peterson's Honey magazine. Awesome, we may come back
to that the it's a good thing to come. So
I we're still an introductions here. So I knew Bryce.
Because of that, these guys couldn't come right away, so
Ben and Joe couldn't come. Joe just said, Hey, my
buddy Bryce is coming. He's gonna be there Tuesday. Here's

(07:58):
the last name, just my buddy Bryce. And then so
he he gives you my phone number. I think I
get a message from just random phone number and it's like, hey,
when you coming into camp. And so we just start
communicating like we're just like like we've known each other forever.
Then we meet up at camp like way out in

(08:18):
the middle of nowhere, and for like two full days
we're just buddying around and uh, and Bryce is a
way more experienced el hunter than me and Colby and Bear,
and he's a good elk hunter and uh, I mean
he's he's got a game plan, he's tell us what
he thinks we should do. All very much appreciated stuff.

(08:40):
And uh, at one point we were moving Camp on
Bryce's suggestion, and Colby said, Clay, we don't even know
Bryce's name. We're doing everything he says, which turned out
to be great. Bryce. So Bryce sue Hey say hey,
say hi Bryce. Now you're a you're a physicians assistant

(09:05):
in Bozeman, Montema. I am working at the Urgent Karen Town. Yeah,
yeah awesome and the houndsman, I am yep, yeah, newer
into that, but it's been a lot of fun, uh,
chasing cats and running down dogs right on, right on? Well,
Ben uh described wait wait, wait, don't forget sorry Buddy

(09:26):
Bear John Newcomb say hello, Hello, Bear is my fourteen
year old son. He uh he got to skip week
and a half of school to uh to come down here.
We Uh. He had to guarantee me that he was
gonna be very diligent in his studies to get caught
up in stuff. So he guaranteed me he could do that,

(09:50):
so we let him come. He's kind of been the
camp assistant. He's a good hand on mules. He's good
at just doing what you tell him. It doesn't cause
much trouble. So, yeah, this is your first time on
the podcast, though, No, we Turkey Camp Turkey camp in
last year. Okay, yeah, you've been on here a bunch. Yeah,

(10:11):
that's true. He made his own knife, he said, with
the grandfather showed it to me. Yeah, he's a handy boy.
I know a lot of thirty year old men that
have made a knife in their lives. Yeah. Yeah, we've
got a cool We've got a cool grandpa too. He's
a knife maker. Very cool. But um, Ben, we mean
you've been hunting together some the last couple of days. Uh.

(10:36):
You did the same thing to me earlier today, described
kind of the Missouri breaks and kind of the hunting
because what I didn't know was like, is this a
good area? Is this an average area? Is this a yeah,
that's terrible, this particular area no one should ever come.
But the breaks, actually that's true. They only seven by

(10:57):
seven s. Yeah, apparently there's only I haven't seen a raghorn. Yeah,
it's only the giant elk. But now it's like like
you set on my podcast a little bit ago that
we recorded, it's broken country. You know, we were used
to big headwalls and canyons and um big timber and
where we're we're at Bozeman there in southeast Montana and
this is this country is broken. It has seems it

(11:18):
has like islands of good elk country. I mean, look
into this landscape and there'll be a sagebrush sea and
then a little creek bottom and then you'll have some
ridges that look that have fingers. You know, we said earlier,
if you hold your hand out, just hold your hand down,
point it south. If you if you spread your fingers out,
you can kind of picture a lot of what you're
doing here. Your if your arm is the ridge, you
walk across the ridge, then each one of your fingers

(11:41):
is a little finger ridge that goes down into a drainage.
And that's a lot of the country that you are
hunting here. And um, while it's a good elk country,
it just seems to have pockets or little areas that
seem to be a good elk country in what can
be huge canyon walls and we've seen some if it's
real open, but then there's a lot of these, uh

(12:03):
there there'll be small pockets of timber. Yeah. Yeah, And
the timber is what the tracks and the cover the
you know, their edge animals like toy or anything else,
that's what attracts them for betting and for just general uh,
living quarters and and and that's what this is. And
you're you're oftentimes up on a high point glass and
and or probably more often just walking these spine of

(12:24):
these ridges, top of these ridges and walking down the
fingers and trying to locate elk, sometimes down in the drainages,
sometimes off across. But today's September twenty, which would Joe,
would that be like classic elk rut bugle time? I mean,
I mean it changes everywhere you go, right, like different

(12:44):
elk and different parts of the world are gonna or
country we'll we'll run at different times. But according to
what I've heard out here, this is super late for
this year, Like for them not to be reading this
would be kind of like the tail end of of
the peak rut right now. Um, you know last week
was supposed to be the time type of thing, but

(13:06):
but it hasn't been, hasn't been, hasn't been at all.
I mean we've definitely heard some bugles, definitely seen some
bulls running around, but it hasn't seemed like there's been
a lot of hot cows and there haven't been you know,
all those bulls running around crazy like there you know,
the other day from our camp. Before we left, we
heard a lot of elk bugles. If you had told

(13:28):
me that, if you had said, Clay, from your camp,
you're gonna be able to hear elk bugle, I would
have just been like, give us a couple of days,
and well, I haven't killed and I've never killed an
elk before, so that's pretty bold of me to think that.
But that's what I would have thought. I just would
have thought, if they're if we're hearing the bugle and
they're that close to us, this is something that we

(13:49):
can attain. But why haven't we been able to kill one?
Because because we don't have any of those dumb rag
corns are only big seven by seven that they're super smart,
and I'm good at missing those big seven, but you
did miss one the second day, second day just under him,
biggest bull I've ever seen. Uh. But it just has

(14:12):
to do with the country we're hunting, the way everything
so broken, and this timber you're never going to see
them bedded in it because they go to these these
timbered up areas that are super dark, have great thermal cover.
It's really comfortable for them, and you know you're never
gonna see them when they're betted, So you have really,
um like a narrow window of opportunity when they're moving

(14:34):
from water to betting areas to feeding areas, things like that.
And since there aren't these bulls just Roman hills going
crazy looking for cows right now, it's a little bit
harder to get on them now. So that's what you
would be taking advantage of, because i mean, where you
are from ben it's like almost timber m a right
or is it pretty there's meadow when you're up on

(14:56):
the when you're up in the high country, it's it's
mostly timber. You know, it's the same game elk moving
from water to feed and you're trying to capitalize on
the elk ra where these elk or yeah, this is
no different. It is very much activity. It's very much
no different than white tails, I mean, and it's in
the description of kind of how it sets up because
they're corepuscular, right, they move at dawn and dusk. With

(15:19):
white tails in the early season, you're you're hunting them
bed to feed, feed to bed, bed defeat, right, you're
cutting them off. You're trying to be in a place
where they want to be, right by the food or
by the bedding, generally by the food. And then when
the rut comes in, you just need to be in
the woods and being a travel corridor generally worked those
are going to hang out or something like that. It's
not so dissimilar here, although elk you know, really treat

(15:40):
these mountain a lot differently than a white tail treat
you know, somebody's farm in the Midwest, but you are
hunting them in the early season. Bed feed, feed to
bed and you're trying to get to a wallow. You're
trying to understand where they're moving. And early you know,
this is what three weeks into the season and the
early season they're not as receptive to calling, but you
still call anyway to locate him to fare Ou where

(16:01):
the r and see if you can get one to play.
And that's where the raghorns come in. You just need
one silly raghorn, just like one fired up Tom if
your turkey hunt. Same same idea. But then when the
ruck comes in, you've got to be out here, and
you gotta be vocal, and you gotta be on the
mountain putting boots is many places you possibly can What
do you what do you think about these guys that
tell us that you can't call elk out here, like

(16:23):
I've heard that, Moll, I've heard that from half of them.
They say that everywhere though, No, no, that's I mean
they say that in Colorado, where there's a hunter on
every ridge. Literally, Joe's first day out, he called in
a six by six to the yards. Just had a
tree in the way, and that bowl was no had
no cows with it by itself. He came in pretty hot.

(16:45):
Yeah the way, how far did he come from? We
just heard crashing from the bottom of I'm guessing he
was bedded in that north face and timber, and he
came in. We were we were going after seven by
seven with six house who had just crossed that ridge.
We didn't know we crossed the ridge yet we still
thought he was in the bottom. And then Joe bugled

(17:07):
and he we heard crashing in the timber. Assuming it
was that that seven with cows, and it was a
loan six who was probably bigger than that seven. He
was really big. But like the whole thought process there
with with calling, I think you'll you'll hear a lot
of people say you can't call elk concertain places I
think it's a lot to do with not knowing proper

(17:28):
calling techniques and stuff, because if you get the right
calls and you talk like you're in Elk, like you're
you're gonna be able to call him pretty much wherever
you are. People say calling is less effective out here,
um because lots of the places you're hunting in the brakes,
I would presume, are more open, and the visual cues
of elk, like you're never gonna call a big bowl
across an open meadow just because he can't see the

(17:51):
cow making the noise of the bull making the noise,
and he's gonna be like, oh that's weird and walk
the other way. Um. But like out here, when we
when we were pursuing seven by seven, like we ran
up the ridge. We went up as fast as we could.
We were trying to bulldog him and get in his
grill with his cows, scream at him like I'm a
big young your bowl. It's gonna steal his cows and
he's gonna come into face off. And what happened there

(18:14):
is like we we already missed him, Like he already
got over the ridge, but I still called, assuming he
was below us. And then that other big six by
six was like, you know, right in there, and we
got pretty lucky in that circumstance. But he came crashing
right into that call, and if the wind had in
the switch, that bowl would have been dead. That's the

(18:34):
other thing out here is, you know, we say there's
just a bunch of finger ridges, but every ridge has
so many different pockets and in different terrain, and so
on the same ridge, you might have wind work in
five different directions and it's not that it's swirling, but
ten yards down the ridge has its own thermal pattern
because the ridge switches directions learning the thermal patterns and

(18:55):
here stuff. I don't as much as you look at
the typographical map and be like it's gonna go there. Yeah,
you just think you could get lucky. As our friend
Chase Dirt and said, you just gotta charge through the
bad wind into the good wind. And that's not a
not a bad strategy here. I mean, it just it is.
It's it's it's got its own idiosyncrasies in the way

(19:16):
that you would haunt a place like this. I think
people are right. It is a visual These elk might
be more visual creatures because they can see more because
they have that ability, and they hang out and it's
more sparse sparsely timbered an open country. But that doesn't
I mean, that doesn't that doesn't eliminate calling. It just
makes it a little bit of a different dynamic. And
at the same time, I don't think, I don't know,

(19:38):
I don't know how many people hunt the breaks. We
haven't seen that many hunters in the last three days.
But elk in accessible places like the one we're in
get hunted a lot anyway. No matter where they are
in the state of Montana or any state Colorado, Wyoming,
they're gonna get hunted in accessible places. So I get
what folks are saying that these elk just are a
little bit different, and they do seem to be different

(19:59):
than other but I've encountering the way that they move
and act. But you know, calling is a that's a
hunter hunter versus elk thing. Always, if the elks receptive,
the hunters good a calling make it work. I think
a lot of people might be saying you can't call
out here too, saying like leave the hootie mom at home,
that you can't come out and blow on on any
sort of calling. They just come running, like in some

(20:21):
places where elk are just conditioned. That's where I want
to go. You know, I haven't found it, but I've
seen it on TV. Joe is, uh, what's your favorite
bow hunt? I mean, are you is elk cutting your
favorite thing? It's definitely one of my favorites. I mean,
I would take all of September off if I could

(20:43):
every year. Um, what's your favorite? Huh? My favorite favorite hunt?
It's so hard. My favorite species, if I've already specs
for the rest of my life, would be big more cheap.
Have you ever had a big horn cheap? I haven't,
but I want to. Okay, but that is definitely not
a favorite. I'm just kidding. I don't. I don't know

(21:05):
if I would like it. The allure of hunting big
horn sheep just is Yeah, we saw two gry bighorn rams.
This is worth everything just to seem like I would
down here a thousand times. Yeah, I said, Man, I've
been in camp where sheep hunting occurred, and I've been
around when other people are sheep hunting, and it just
seemed it doesn't get me that way. It seems boring

(21:27):
to me. Sheep seemed compared to a giant forest horse
that's run around bugle and trying to knock stuff over.
Sheep seemed like a docile, bedded creature that are stuck
up high in the mountains. It can't get down here.
You're you're leaning into what I'm trying to get to,
which is I haven't decided if I like elk cutting
or not. I'm it's frustrated. It's it's you know, there's

(21:50):
some hunts that if you if you play your game right,
which is a whole lot of work you you have.
It's like, if you do these things, you will be successful.
And now those things might be really really hard. Elk
cutting has that same thing. If you do these things,
you'll be successful. But those things are are so variable

(22:11):
and are so difficult if you don't live in elk country.
And Ben and I've been talking about kind of the
transient hunter, like it's really hard to go somewhere for
seven days and killing elk or really to kill anything.
I mean, you gotta do a whole lot of things right,
and and that's the fun part of it, that's the
challenging part of it, but it's also the hard part

(22:32):
of it. And you know, like back in Arkansas, anything
that I hunt locally, you know, I've kind of got
it dialed in and I can go certain days and
not go another day, or take off three days here
and go. And that's such an advantage to doing what
we did, well, what all of us did on this hunt,
which is just bomb out somewhere for seven days and

(22:53):
uh and then you know, if they aren't, if the
elk aren't bugling, or if these certain factors aren't there,
then it's just it's I'm I'm being sarcastic, and are
are hyperbolic, I'm exaggerated, and to make a point that
is just tough. What's your favorite thing to hunt? Ben?

(23:15):
And and I'm gonna end up with you all trying
to convince me to be an alk hunter because I've
haunted two years and it's done this to me. I'm
holding up the broken the broken point, broken dreams, broken spirit.
This this antler is basically Clay Nukem's spirit. It looks
like a middle it looks like a middle finger. H

(23:37):
you know, I I'm I'm Turkey's is the answer. And
that's not close. But Elk are like moving towards the top,
you know, are definitely number two, but they've got some similarities. Yeah,
there really other than bigger game turkey hunting. What's that now,
you're like you said, you're like sheep more than elk.

(23:58):
They don't even do anything. Have you ever been in
the mountains and heard rams butt heads? Yeah, I've seen
is amazing. They do that once every they're they're just
stuck up there and they can really Yeah, that's the
people because they live in cool country, but they can't
get down. They're stuck up there. They're lazy. They barely
even move, like most of them blind in one eye,

(24:22):
like they can't. Hey, I like where you're A sheep
hunt would be a slower paced hunt. It would be
more like strategy and trying to find as opposed to
just like run and gun. If you could distill it
down to that something that's simple and honestly, that's what
I like about spring bear hunting is it's like you

(24:44):
may only see one bear the whole week, but and
you're not gonna be chasing bear every day. But actually
that's what I enjoy about it. So like, yeah, I
would describe sheephunny. I thought, I'm not that I wouldn't
go if you guys offered me a trip. I would
definitely go, but I just think he's like, here's she hunting.

(25:06):
In my experience with other folks doing it, climb, climb, climb,
this is it's amazing country. It's hard to get there.
We finally crashed the summit. We look around, we find
a sheep we can actually kill, and then we walk
over there and shoot it while it's munching some grass.
Like the actual hunting of the animal is only difficult
because of the country that lives in, and of course

(25:27):
they have great vision since it's selling all that. Like
everything else, it is kind of a do or die
um hunt. And I'm talking about hunt I've never done.
So you take that for both of you guys who
are talking about hunts you've never done. Yeah, we but
it's like hunts we've dreamed of, and there's there's a
lot of there's a lot of Like an elk hunt
is kind of like pizza m okay, Like, think about

(25:50):
the attitude you'd be in if you were, like, you
know what, tonight, we're getting pizza. You would kind of
be like kind of like exciting um variety in like
a big horn sheep hunt would be like, you know what,
we're going out to help me, Chris, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(26:13):
we're both of them are great, all dressed up for
a lesser experience. Rice, what's your favorite thing hunt? Oh man,
I think if you were to tell me right now
there's a hug and bull over the ridge or a
fresh cat track, I think i'd be uh dumping dogs
on that cat track? Yeah good? Yeah, but um outside
that mule deer. I love watching mule here in the

(26:35):
rut um. To me, that's one of the one of
my favorite things too, to get after and watch. I
think it's more a little bit more of an exciting
um hunter outher than just you know, your first light
and last light, umka, because you're the animals during the
day when they're bedded, because you can see them and
find them. Yeah, just a little bit more patternable and uh,

(26:56):
I think you'd see a lot more animals. But yeah,
probably probably meal deer or chasing cats. Nice nice fair
favorite species? Um I would say turkeys if we had
more of them, but I've only been on like one
turkey for real, But I think probably squirrel hunting right here, buddy, Ye,

(27:20):
you've raised this trial correctly. I'm kind of teeing you
up for this with dogs or without dogs? With dogs? Question?
See that see that full elkhorn. We also have a
full set of sheds. That elkhorn represents your spirit right now,
while you're talking about squirrel hunting full this is broken
because of elkinna favorite species. I don't know, I mean

(27:47):
for me, it's all like it changes with seasons. I know,
growing up it was like hog hunting or duck hunting. Uh,
coble came from East Texas, so they were white tail
and stuff. Yeah, I'm really enjoying bear hunting, especially like
the stuff with mules in Montana like that was that
was a really fun hunt a spring bear, not like

(28:08):
hasn't been as happy with fall bear. Yeah. You know,
when we go back to Arkansas, we're coming up on
like the pinnacle of our year, which is the opening
of the Arkansas bear season. Um. And I'll tell you
guys a little story or a little scenario that's been
happening while we're here. So my buddy James Lawrence, he's

(28:30):
seventy two. James is seventy two, and me and him
are like we're like best buddies bear hunting buddies. He
lives in some really good country and um he uh,
he lives in good bear country. He knew that I
was gonna be on this hunt, so he's been baiting
bears for me, and he actually rented a cabin down

(28:53):
where we hunt for my whole family to come stay
this upcoming weekend to bear hunt. And while we were gone,
my daughter drove my daughter and other son on their
own accord drove two hours down to where we hunt
to go bait bears with James. So I thought that
was pretty cool that my seventeen year old daughter. She

(29:15):
worked hard for it too. She her mom. There was
some child logistical challenges and so but she ended up
driving all the way down there and spent the whole
day with James baton bears along with my younger son.
So we're getting pumped for this weekend for bear Camp
fall bear Camp, and it's it's fun man. We uh,
we have some we have some good bears too. But

(29:37):
if I were to pick my favorite species, um, you know,
bear would have to be up there at the top.
But white tail, I mean I grew up whitetail hunting
and um that was I mean, that was all we did.
White tails and you know small game and stuff. Um,
and uh yeah, you know lk cutting is so it's

(29:59):
so um. It's such a glamorous animal. I mean, there's
no denying, like and that's why I'm here. It's a
spectacular beast, man. I mean this, you know, like Ben's
called the forest horse, you know. But they the vocalizations,
they make, the places they live, the antler structure, I mean,

(30:20):
how good the meat is. I mean, it's an incredible beast,
no doubt. And the media has glamorized elk hunting so
much that US poor Southern boys come up here and
try to kill elk and it's tough. They didn't tell me, Joe.
When it all comes together, it's it's pretty special. Well listen,

(30:42):
you just said, I'm I'm monologue in here. But that's
what's messed up about this whole deal. Elk hunting stinks
for such a long period of time that when you
kill one, it's really great. I I can foresee that,
Like if I killed that would be like I love
elkhonney more than anything, but it's only great because of

(31:05):
how bad it was. Tell me how that works, Joe,
I mean, for real, I think it was if it
was easy then, so, but so something is great because
of how Yeah, because it's the it's the suffering. Like
it's just like going on a a nasty trip saying
like like climbing Mount Everest. You know, it's not fun

(31:26):
while you're doing it, but you look back and you're like,
oh man, that was amazing. And I always kind of
model my life when I'm doing stuff like that. It's like,
I'm gonna go climbing out, might as well go climb Everest.
So I come and do something easy, Go give yourself
that challenge. It will be a more memorable experience. How
much respect would you have for Elk if you drove
all the way out here from Arkansas, get to camp,

(31:49):
get out of your pickup, grab your bow and shooting out,
then you'd be like, man, these animals are the are
the easiest things ever to speak? Gross shot? Yeah, yeah, no,
I know. It's it's that way with every hunt. You know,
the amount of work you put into it, it's what
gives it value. And I understand that. I mean, like,
even though we haven't you know, I mean, I think

(32:12):
this has been a great hunt. We've had bowls every day. Okay,
y'all tell me why it's been a great hunt man.
Me and Joe were on bulls and bowls, buglin. Every
day big bulls run around. I've never been to a
place where I've seen so many big bulls, Like I've
seen a lot of big bulls in my past few
ELK seasons, but never all at the same time in

(32:33):
the same place. Like I might see one, you know,
really big three fifty bowl once a season, You're like, wow,
that was a big bowl. But I mean every bowl
we've seen out here, besides one that I can think of,
win over three fifty. Like, there's no doubt in my
mind that every single bowl that I have laid eyes on,
besides the one that we jumped at five yards that

(32:55):
you should have shot the head through my head. I
should have shot through it. We're gonna have to get
to our Bryce is ums later. He should never should
never take my health and safety before. But I mean, like,
every bowl besides that one have just been absolutely huge.
I mean the first morning I got here, we run out,

(33:17):
send you guys after a bugle. Bryce and I take
off chasing another bugle, which is already like that's a
great day right there. You know you got two different
bulls bugle and you're choosing what bugles you're gonna run after?
What it's not even when it's not even shooting ight yet.
Right out of camp, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.
So that was great, And I mean we take off,
we run over ridges, literally run over ridges, and all

(33:40):
of a sudden, like we jumped two spikes in the bottom,
so we slowed down for a minute and we're like, man,
it wasn't those spikes beugly? There's no way, And we
see one of the spikes let out a bugle, like
just as the whimpy little bugle, and it was like, yeah,
it definitely wasn't them trying to And all of a sudden,
we hear this big bugle and Brice and I both
look at each other like it wasn't spike. And coming

(34:02):
over the ridge, it's just there's this little funnel of
five cows and this screaming behind him, just just letting
it all out, and I just see antlers coming over Raginal.
I'm like, well, it's a big bull. It's a really
big bull. And then the whole hunt just like was
modeled after that. Every time I laid eyes on bulls

(34:24):
like they were just huge. Well that was a joke
before you guys got here that, you know. The first
day we were in a different area, I moved spots
to see if we couldn't get on more elk, and man,
right away, I'm on one of the biggest bulls I've
ever seen. Miss him. But the next morning, get up,
um bulls bugling everywhere, Get on. It was a little

(34:48):
bit behind another seven by seven and his cows, and
kind of just crept and followed them all the way
up the mountain. Next thing you know, I'm you know,
eighty yards from them, and my wind had been good
the whole time, and snuck in to make my kind
of my final approach, and they blew out pretty hard
because when switched in their little thermal pattern. But then
the next bull after that I saw, I was another
seven by seven, And the first four bowls I've I've

(35:11):
seen were all seven's. And that was kind of the joke,
was that seven by seven? Yeah? Yeah, that's that's one
thing we were saying, Look, what kind of elk hunting
is this? I said, it's hard. It's it's you know,
harder maybe than others, easier than some you know, However,
I haven't put in all the elk in all of places,
but this definitely the reward would be bigger here than

(35:36):
most places, Like you have the opportunity to kill a
giant elk here where we are sitting right now, which
no one will ever know about. But um, it's it's
tough hunting, but you know, if you can figure them
out and get lucky, we'll see here. And you guys
say this is it's calibrating me because you know this
is my second, my second hunt. Baron. I went to

(35:58):
Colorado last year, just three weeks before season, decided we
were gonna be elk hunters. Never blown an out call,
picked up a bugle call from a bugle tube from Phelps,
and some diaphragm calls. And I was a pretty good
turkey collar, so the diaphragm worked pretty good for me.
We bombed out to a guy just said go here,

(36:18):
a pretty good elk hunter just said general area. He
just said go to this spot and you ought to
find out. Said okay. We went out there, Oh kind of.
We were only there four and a half days, but
we we ended up finding some elk. Had one encounter
with with with two Raghorn Bulls called them in ended
up passing them. Everybody's heard this story. We ended up

(36:40):
passing them because we thought they weren't legal. Turns out
they were legal. So I had the and I missed opportunity.
But other than that, I've had very This is only
my second time Elk County, so it helps me to
hear you guys talk about really how great this is.
And obviously I'm I'm joking about, you know, not liking

(37:01):
elk hunting. But the one thing that is, and this
is probably something that like new hunters would experience and
I would be new into this world, is after you've
done something and been successful multiple times in multiple places
over multiple years, you begin to have this like equation
inside of you that this much work will usually equate

(37:25):
to success and you can bank on that. So in
all that work, I mean, that's the way it is
with my white tail honey, with my bear hunting, with
my squirrel hunting, with my training coon dogs, It's like,
if I just put this time in, it's gonna end
up fruitful. I don't know that equation yet with Elk.
I've got one piece from last year when Baron I

(37:45):
hunted I've got a new piece that I hoped would
be the piece that would put some elk in my freezer.
And we've still got a day left, so it may
yet um. But it turns out this puzzle might be
bigger than I thought, voice might made more pieces. What
do you think it might be a thousand piece puzzle, man,
I don't know. I don't I don't have a thousand

(38:09):
elk hunts man. Well, here's what happens is sometimes you
you're looking at trying to put this puzzle together, and
you walk out in the woods, you make a sound,
elk comes running and you shoot it, and it seems
like the easiest thing in the world. Now, everybody who's
listening to this, who's ever turkey hunt it will understand
what I'm talking about. Because if you get some swamp god,
whether it's stuck back in some swamp in Louisiana or

(38:29):
you know, probably in Arkansas or in a place where
he just doesn't he is not going to do what
you wanted to do. You have to have the next
level of you know, experience to know what to do
when you're presented with, you know, an animal that's wary
of your stuff, that's gonna help me with the next
puzzle piece. Absolutely, And like I said, I've had I

(38:52):
had a friend, you know, co worker this year who
just walked out on the ridge and went and elk
granted and it shot it and then it was over.
I had just been that rich three hours prior, doing
the same noise and the same exact way he was.
And so the fact that he killed that he should
split that up. Yeah, because he I pretty much called
it half of the way in and then he brought
it the rest of the way, you know. So I

(39:13):
told him, I said, that is just you being there
and that elk being there and at the right time.
And you know, I had hunted that spot for five
days and he came in for one day. That's what
I felt like. I mean, I know I'm not a
good elk hunter. Um, I'm proficient at getting around the
back country and understanding stuff people tell me and trying

(39:34):
to execute it in the field. But I was still
banking on that if I just worked really hard for
seven days, I'd get lucky if nothing else, you know
what I mean. I mean, because every time you pop
over one of these little ridges, you know, at about
thirty minutes before dark, You're like, this is the time
we're about to get lucky. Slap Bear on the shoulder

(39:56):
and say get be ready, buddy, and you pop over
the ridge and like, why isn't there you know, a
raghorn bull feeding down there with a cow ats, you know,
fifty yards It just didn't happen. Well, the frustrating part is,
you know, some somebody else might come up here tomorrow
while you're here, or the next day, or Thursday or
Friday or Saturday, and to to walk on the exact

(40:18):
same riginal where you were today, do the exact same
thing that you did in exact same proficiency and kill
an elk. And that's where the randomness and the luck
and all those other factors come into play. And that's
where just endurance and persistence ultimately end up winning. Yeah.
I mean, I think I told you earlier today. In
all my hunting where I have been successful, it's not
necessarily that I was good. It's just that I lasted

(40:40):
longer then. Yeah, some of my some of other people
and they might say, man Clay was a good hunter,
and I'd be like, well, I just lasted a little
bit longer. What do you guys think you're the editor
Peterson's hunting, you need to have the answers. What what
do you think? I totally agree is it's time. It's
time in the field if you are able, like I

(41:00):
would love to stay here for five more days in
granting this out until there's a bowl on the ground,
you know, And do do I know that there'd be
a bowl on the ground in five days? No? But
do I know that I would walk twenty miles every
day and work really hard at it. Yeah. And as
long as you're in the field, you're learning these animals,

(41:21):
you're understanding their behaviors and like the terrain that you're
working with and the funky win that we keep getting.
When you're in the field and you're working with it
and you're learning it and you spend the time necessary,
that's when you find that success because it's all about
spending the time that you need to be out there.

(41:42):
And I mean, for us, we're lucky because we can
go back to Bosman and come back out here next
weekend if we wanted to, which gives us the opportunity
to learn it instants throughout the throughout the season instead
of we have to come here and sit here for
fifteen days and learn it all at once. Just imagine
if you came out here every year and you knew
by the elk core and you walked over there and

(42:03):
killed one every time. That would be a completely different experience.
You wouldn't It wouldn't need near as enjoyable as it
is having to grind it out. I just wouldn't be.
I'd say it's also pretty tough if you're saying I mean,
if you say, hey, you only have seven days to
hunt elk, and that is how your season is going
to go. I've killed elk, but I've also spent a

(42:24):
heck of a lot more than I hunted. I only
usually only work like three days a week, and I
probably hunted almost every day off from September to November
and ended up killing a big bowl last week a
season with my rifle. Didn't you say it was like
fifty something days. I don't know about fifty, but it

(42:44):
was a lot of days I put in. I put
in a lot of work for that for that bowl,
and I had a lot of opportunities, messed up on
a lot of opportunities, but I put in a lot
more than seven days been the season to get that
bowl on the ground. Yeah, so I think they only
have seven days. It doesn't make it any easier only
and doesn't make it any less frustrating. Yeah, you know,

(43:08):
I want to tell you something that I observed about
all of you guys that it did not surprise me,
but um kind of learning, Um, how generous all you
guys were, all of you with uh you know, kind
of this elk camp philosophy. Like Bryce came in and
he didn't know us either, and I mean he was

(43:29):
sharing his spots, and you did a great job of articulating, um,
you know, just what you thought the elk we're doing
and you just kinda I appreciated that and just sharing
spots and not that I've I mean, when i'm hunting somebody,
I'm I'm not withholding information from I'm not saying that,
But when you're elk hunting, I don't know, it's different
than whitetail. Honey. If this was a white tail camp

(43:51):
back you know, and wherever in the Midwest, Um, you know,
you almost have to do it solo, like if your
tree stand in and it's like this guy's going here,
this guy's going here. But with Al County a lot
of times, it's better to be in teams, uh, for
calling purposes. For honestly, I think a lot of it
is for mental purposes. I think having a buddy there

(44:15):
that you can enjoy the experience with helps you grind
a little bit harder. I mean, I've been analyzing this.
It's like, why do they why are they going together?
Why don't they split up? I think you go together
because you like it, because you enjoy being together, you
enjoy hunting together, and uh and and probably you can
do better as a team. And I realized the calling

(44:36):
aspects of a team. You know, you can put somebody
up front and somebody further back. But uh, but now,
just like with I mean all you guys, like y'all
were putting me out front a lot of times. Um,
you drove a lot further than we didn't. Well, and
that's I appreciate that, I truly do. But I like

(44:57):
that aspect of it. So much of the hunting that
I do, it's kind of solo, you know. Um, and
even like bear hunting, like on a spring bear hunt,
Like if we this were a spring bear camp, we
wouldn't be hunting together. I mean it'd be like you
go to that drainage. You go to that drainage, and
but l hunting kind of has a neat thing about it,
which maybe is so normal to you guys. But and

(45:20):
Ben is just you know, the last couple of days,
he's just been like, Clay, you to come with me,
and so I'll go and and it's been good. I've
been learning a ton from Ben. So I like hunting
with Pete. I'm not a solo hunter. There's a lot
of people that are that like to be by themselves.
I'd like to go out. Um, I'm just not. And

(45:41):
I can explain it in a lot of ways, but
I just like, you know, I like being with other
people and sharing that knowledge. And I just that's that
gets me out of bed more than going up by
myself and being alone and catching the solitude. I just
that's not something I need. For something that is I
would And I was trying to describe this or earlier.
I love people. I love being around people. I enjoy

(46:03):
people's other people's success, Like I think that's a big
part of being a good human is doing that. But
when it comes to hunting, I usually I am find
myself like gravitating towards isolation and actual hunting. Like, and
that doesn't mean I'm not sharing spots. It doesn't mean

(46:25):
I don't think it translates necessarily to being stingy or something,
but like it's like, you go that way, I'll go
this way. I appreciated I could tell that Ben that,
like you didn't want me to go with you to
help you because I didn't have anything to offer, and
I knew you wanted to kill an elk, and I
knew that if I went with you, there was probably
a fair chance that I'd be the one shooting. So

(46:46):
I didn't want to push that on you. But our
time together was valuable. I learned a ton from you.
I wish I could have hunted with you guys a
little bit more or or at all. I mean I
heard your stories and heard your commentary on your hunts,
which is really valuable to me. But uh, anyway, yeah,
I mean, I think for sure, when you think about

(47:07):
elk hunting tactically, it's better to be have someone else
there so you can have a call, or you have
somebody to be stopping around the background where you can
trees doing anything it takes to get that elk all
the way in there. I mean that is absolutely tactically
uh an advantage that you would want. And so you know,
those two things combined, you like, you might as well
just do it um and and certainly being able to

(47:29):
if you want to get to know somebody and you
value them, go in the woods with them. And if
you start arguing over stuff and you start not one
person wants to drive the conversation. The other person doesn't
want to listen or vice a versus somebody who's just
gonna find somebody's a follower, somebody's a leader. If you
really want to get to know somebody and whether you
could be friends with them or you want to spend
time around them, take them out in the woods, take
them out elk Hunton. Because one person is going to

(47:51):
going to go up the ridge, one person is want
to go down. One person might want to be cautious,
one person might want to run in. That's it's a
good way to to really, you know said how much
you can stand each other for sure, that's the capacities
of your relationship. Really it is, yeah, man, And that's
not the reason you do it, but that's something you
find out about yourself. You know, how can you communicate

(48:12):
with another person in these oft intense situations. And also,
I don't feel like I'm being giving by bringing someone
along that's probably gonna shoot the elk and I'm probably not.
I want to see an elk die. I've never called
in an elk for another person. I've called an elk
and never gotten shot, but I've never called in an elk.
That's someone that has running and been shot by someone else.
I would value that as much as I would have

(48:32):
dead bull by my arrow. It's the same as if
if Joe would have shot shot a bull next to me,
I would have been just as excited for him, and
I would be a filer shot it. And I know
that Joe woul feel the same way. And that's why
it's fun to hunt. Man that that right there is
the is the qualifying factor for people that you want

(48:53):
to hunt with. I don't want to hunt with someone
that if I shoot something, they're piste off and run
the other direction and say that should have been mine. Yeah,
you know you always find that with duck hunting. When
you're in a there's four people in a blind and
the bunch of ducks come in and you shoot two
and then it's always like I got that, when I
got that, and I'm like, we got up some ducks. Yeah, man,
it doesn't matter who got the ducks. It matters that

(49:14):
the ducks are on the ground. Let's shoot. Our alignment
will divide them up. Um. That's how it often happens
in that situation. There's no way to know who shot
what in some of those volleys. But it's same here.
You there's a you know, five of us or four
of us with tags here in this tent. One of
us shooting a bull. To me would have been I
would have probably told the story like it was me

(49:35):
clip there was Clay and he was I would have
told it like it was me and been. I wouldn't
have been like, oh yeah, buddy, and camp got one.
I would have told the story as if our camp
got our camp got our team got one, our camp
got one, because that's what matters. Broken. I'm gonna say
our team got a broken had our spirits broken it.

(49:57):
This whole experience has been super valuable. Whe there any
of us killed, elk or not. I think we all
came in here with expectations that we would do better
than we did. Probably you think you always do right.
You got to Hey, you have to come in thinking
that you're gonna find the successor what's the point in
going if you know you're not going to kill something.
We had our I mean, I couldn't ask for anymore.

(50:20):
I had a shot. I was the only one that
that had that. But I had a shot, and it
was this could have killed a cow. Yeah, could have
killed like ten cows and a couple of elve spikes. Okay,
we'll see now. I had probably the best shot of
the trip, Like I could have killed that three twenty bowl.
You know, I had him dead to right, except Bryce's

(50:41):
head was in the way. Okay, yeah, that's right. He
was wondering why I wasn't shooting, and I had a
narrow knocked but wasn't it full draw? Because he was
just blow this little bluff. And I knew he was
somewhere around there, but I couldn't see him. And Joe
was about ten yards behind me higher up. So from
his perspective, if I have this six by six bull

(51:02):
probably about three um at fifteen yards, standing perfectly broadside
and I'm not drawing my bow, I mean, he stood
there for it seemed like forever. It was probably forty
five seconds, but it was long enough. So like when
we first when he first got bumped, like I saw
the antlers, Cow called to him, he stopped perfectly and

(51:26):
like he didn't get our wind or anything like, he
just stopped, looked back and like he he stopped in
the perfect spot where his view was kind of hidden
by a tree. So he stayed longer. And Uh, I
had time enough to pull my range finder out of
its pouch, range him twenty five, put it back in,
knock an arrow for myself and look back at Bryce

(51:46):
and go, why isn't he shooting? And the whole time
I'm wondering why he Joe wasn't shooting because I know
I can't see him, and I don't want to move
out and bump him because I figured Joe as a shot,
but Joe was being he was taking safety. Yeah, I
would have my pin like head maybe like a couple
of inches off to the left, So I figured that wasn't,

(52:08):
you know, a good shot to take. But when you
start talking about all the chances that we had, you know,
and and I had one fair opportunity at at Cow's
and some spikes, uh, and I didn't push it I
felt like I could have got within bow range of them,
you know, is that more? And I stalked down and

(52:30):
I think the closest I got was a hundred and
twenty eight yards, but we were intentionally standing back because
we felt like there was a bull gonna be coming
any second if had I targeted that elk, which I
would today like today, if I see a cow elk,
I mean, I'm like going after it like it's a
boot and carget bowl. Um. You know, I feel like
I could have got within bow range of those elks.

(52:51):
So boy, it's not been for for lack of seeing animals. Um,
lots of opportunity and lots of effort. So I mean,
what more can you ask of a hunting camp than that?
Lots of opportunity and lots of effort. Yeah, the opportunity
thing is important because I've been in places where, you know,
even traveling talk about like transient hunting, like going to

(53:11):
an outfitter or I went one time, went to Newfoundland
and the outfiter said, he said, what do you want
to do after you kill your moose? Said, well, don't
talk to me like that. How dare you because are
you guaranteeing me, I kill a moose. He's like, well,
would we normally get a good bull in the first
two or three days? And you're gonna want to do
you want a canoe in the lake or fish? Just
try and thinking about kind of the things you want

(53:32):
to do with your free time. On't you kill your moose?
I thought, Wow, this is the worst thing in outfitters
ever said to me ever, because he said that actualation.
It's foolish, you know, it's just foolish. You want to say,
we're gonna hunt really hard. There's a lot of moose around,
we know where they are. We'll do our best. The
rest are up to you and the moose. He didn't
say that, And I went. I hunted for seven or
I think eight days, totally hunted and didn't see a moose,

(53:55):
lock eyes on, any single hair on a moose. And
you know, you realize at that moment like those were
false expectations. The expectations should be get out there, hunt hard,
have a good opportunity. We had opportunities that we could
figure these elk out, and you had time and you
got or or luck on your side, you could you
could kill a giant elk here and not one that

(54:18):
you probably wouldn't see in many other places in the
state of Montana that you can draw fairly frequently, you know,
So it's I mean that alone is enough to draw
you here and keep you here for a while. Yeah,
I mean, you're definitely not going to kill a small
one because they're just not here there. I haven't seen
a small velvet spikes to like three, there's a velvet spike.
And when when when Bryson Joe didn't get that one,

(54:40):
didn't Bryce say well, that's the smallest one. Honestly, I
thought he didn't want to shoot it when he was
just standing there. I was kind of like that that
there's no way he's passing on this bowl price. That's
what I did, guys. I just you know, I had
it there and it I only wanted to shoot a

(55:01):
seven bus. He's like, I already missed the seven by seven.
There we've been so we can't we can't talk about
we can't have Bryce on here without I've been giving
Bryce a hard time this whole week. Well, first of all,
because I didn't know your name until your your last
name until yesterday. So we went six days and I
didn't know your last name purpose. We just I liked

(55:23):
that we were friends and we were joining together in
this pursuit of big game solely because we just were
Elk cunters. We're elk cutters. I don't need to know
your last name. Um. Bryce was such a good dude though,
that anytime anything bad would happen, we would blame it
on him because clearly it wasn't his fault. And so

(55:46):
every time when we when he sent me and one day,
well Joe did too, but being jod isn't is didn't
roll off the tongue as good as being Bryce. Ye
were one. They had spot this big bull and seen
where he betted, and they were like, hey, why don't Ben,

(56:07):
why don't you and Clay going there this afternoon? And
we were like, really, you're gonna send us in on
that bull and they were like, yeah, we just want
to go somewhere else. So we went in there. We
never saw the bull, we never saw an elk And
on the way out, I was like, we've been briced.
We've been actually on the next bridge over, we just

(56:27):
snuck around that. I was like, they spooked on the
gut here. They're like you should go over there because
we were a little bit surprised that they would send
us into the spot where they had just been on
these big bulls. Well, so every every time this week
anything hasn't gone right, We've been like, we've been briced,
We've been Brice, I'll be the scapegoat. Uh that's funny,

(56:48):
somebody else and uh we uh we were bug going
over here. The people wouldn't be able to wouldn't be
able to see Bryce is pretty pretty fit elk hunter.
So it's Joe, Um, Bryce, you got a reputation of
this camp. But being able to you know, charge, charge
the bugle, get after him, pound the dirt. We were

(57:09):
bugling a few days ago, just kind of practicing. Ben
and I just mid day and we were like, what
if Bryce just came running across I said he might.
He would probably jump across the drainage. We envisioned Rice
like running and jumping across the whole drainage and then
realizing realizing that that bugle was us. He's gonna be

(57:33):
mad at us. Yeah, Barrett, what do you think you
think we should come back here or should we go
back to Colorado? We should definitely come back here because
we only saw two elk in Colorado to Okay, we're
you know, filming some of this hunt and stuff and
I had to bring to cameraman. So they've been alternating.

(57:54):
Colby and Barra been alternating and uh so I'll wear
one out in the morning and then wear one out
and even then we've been flipping back and forth. Do
you all think we need to bring three people next year?
We're all good, We're good. I'm gonna I'm gonna get
a tag next year. Yeah, okay, yeah for real? Yeah, Beart,

(58:15):
what I'm gonna ask Bear and then Kolbe what just
your full commentary on this hunt? Like Beart, you've kind
of been like camp sidekick. Uh was it worth it?
You're ready to go home? Oh? I think that we
got to kill an elk before we go home, because
I mean, we drove twenty one hours up here, and
it's a lot better elk hunting than what we did

(58:36):
in Colorado, because in Colorado we went we rode forty
miles in a week and didn't hear single bugle and
saw two elk and we didn't even have a dream horn. Again,
this is our Montana broken dream, which we actually have
something in hand every September. You guys hold that together here.

(58:56):
It's a wishbone if you ever break it. But that's
that's the best attitude of an elk hunter right there.
We're staying here untill we can say just now, you
got everybody's leaving except for us. And I told I
told bar, I said, hey, how about we just leave
this afternoon with these guys. And he looked at me
and he said, I thought we were gonna kill an elk,

(59:18):
he said, he said, we need to we need to
keep hunting. So he's he meant that. He was like,
we need to stay. And I said, so you're not
ready to go home and he's like, no, So we're
gonna stay. We're gonna tonight tomorrow morning. Yeah. You guys
got more water, more food. Yeah, y'all. Y'all charged us up.
We took water, we took Ben's bread, we took your
keen wah whatever, breed Man, those were good burritos. Bro,

(59:41):
I'm gonna cook some of that. Joe. I'm sure you
gave us something that we don't know about. He gave
me some ground meat, okay, you did I know you did?
You gave us some buffalo archery killed Buffalo, it's valuable
to us. Yeah, Colby thoughts, Yeah, no, this has been great.
What do you think about these guys? Uh, it's been great.

(01:00:02):
I mean just at camp and you know when you
can just come in and give each other a hard
time and instantly it's like it's up, bro, you know,
like it's just there's a camaraderie that just comes with
with being in the outdoors and knowing that everybody's willing
to grind and do whatever, and whether you have a
tag or not. And uh, I mean I know for
me embarrass like whoever goes or whoever stays is you know,
we'll have a good time. It'll be good. And then

(01:00:24):
you're looking forward to people coming in and like even
just being willing to contribute, like Bear cooked one night,
I cooked one night. You know, just filling in whatever
needs to be whatever needs to be done, you know,
and it's not just something everybody's done some sort of
support thing for everyone else at one time or another.
And so I think that's really like the valuable experiences,

(01:00:44):
the relationships you get inside of inside of these these places.
It's where you start to see people's true character. And
I mean ultimate defeat and still like ready to go.
I mean Bryce called me whenever he missed his bull,
and he was like real frustrated, but it was like
he was ready a charge forward to the next one,
you know. And so I was telling you guys, you
need to move Camfee over here. He's like, I just

(01:01:07):
got defeated, but you guys should totally come here. Yeah,
And I was like, get over here, man. Yeah, you
know what I said when Kobe said that, I didn't
realize how many elk were were over here, but I
was like, man, we're not going to go over there
and hunt Bryce's elk. I mean, I got figured there
was like one drainage with ELK, but I just it
was generous of you, and I mean we would have

(01:01:27):
done the same thing for you, but it was it
was it was generous. And that's when Colby said, we
don't even know this guy's last we're going We're going
where he says, yeah, like two days in. I was like,
I don't even know his last name. And if he
told me Claike clean up camp and then go up
and water the horses, you didn't even I just would
have done it. You didn't even know if it was
the right price. That was the time when we thought

(01:01:50):
Bryce was at the wrong camp. Bryce actually didn't even
know Joe here. What do they call it, the guys
that went crasher? You're an elk camp crasher. You just
gotta go down the road to some other guys and
just pull up and just be like, oh, you guys,
what's for good? Should you giving you guys more bad advice?
You're like, hey, I know you, Like he knows Joe. Yeah, like, yeah, Joe, sure,

(01:02:13):
I know Joe. Yeah, yeah, he usually go with Joe
or Tommy. Yeah, Joe was doing that with the locals
the other day, you know, the Bell family. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that was kind of weird that many people in Montana
town Montana still exists world. Well, um no, it's been

(01:02:37):
a pleasure to hunt with you guys. Thank you Joe
for hooking man. Joe, of all people, has been super jitten.
When I met Joe a year ago, he was like, come,
elk hunting man, I'll take yell hunting and I can
tell him minute. A lot of people say that, but
I can tell him minute. And so I did what
he said. He said, put in for this tag. I said, okay,

(01:02:57):
and uh, here we are so really, Joe appreciate it, man,
of course, Sorry, I have to take off today. I
should have driven myself. Ah Um, I'm glad you made
it up. Go back to Arkansas with him? I should
I shouldn't. I've always wanted to go to Arkansas. Come
on down, you got opener season exactly, get down the
camp with me and James Lawrence. But no, I'm really

(01:03:20):
glad you guys made it up. I'm glad we got
into Elk and have that experience because I mean, it's
never guaranteed that you're gonna take one home, but being
able to be in them and have an experience where
you're running around with these amazing creatures, it's always worth it. Yeah,
in my book. Yeah, I'm anxious to get back to
Uh see, really how strong my legs got this last week.

(01:03:46):
I've been I've been running. I've been you know, I
have to work pretty hard to stay fit at my
old age, and uh so I kind of knew my
fitness level and uh, I'm we hadn't probably walked as
much as you guys, but we walked a lot. I
mean I've been every day, I've been walking to the
bottom and back up and about three of these bumps over. Yeah,

(01:04:11):
so it grinds on you. We did a little good Yeah,
we did a little hustling today after that bowl. Yeah.
So I mean, you know, it's it's yeah, grinds on it.
And getting up in the morning. Yeah, I'm sure other
folks have gotten up in the morning and you just
kind of opened your I was like, nah, come on,
this ain't gonna work. Just go right to se just
a couple of hours. It's a it's easy. The first
like two days, yeah, six that that first coal, that

(01:04:34):
that bugldmen Bryson, I left you that first morning and
we take off after it. I got to the top
of the ridge and looked depressing. I was like breathing,
kind of heavy. I was like, man, I forgot to
I forgot what it was like to hunt with somebody
who who runs up the mountain. Yeah. It was like
huffing and puffing. But sure it's fun. Yeah. I don't
really want to go back to civilization, do either. You know,

(01:04:57):
we were talking today, Ben brought up kind of the
sea quints of how this feels to be in a camp.
You know, he said it takes about two days to
kind of settle in and kind of let the civilized
world kind of drift from your consciousness. Not that you're
not conscious of family at all times and communicating with

(01:05:18):
family when you can and stuff. But but that seems
to be a pretty good assessment. Ben. Yeah. Now, i
I've always I thought that since I've done some like
real back country huns where you're out of service for
ten days and you get dropped off by a floatplane
or something. This case, I was watching football in my
truck taking a nap yesterday. So civilization being what it is,
but it's still the same thing in terms of the mentality.

(01:05:39):
You gotta you gotta like slough off society. You gotta
you know, there's no couch to sit on, there's no
TV to watch, there's your responsibilities are different, and you
have to kind of find the rhythm of the elk
and the mountain and the place you're in, and you
have to follow that rhythm. You sleep when nicely, you know,
you sleep when they sleep, your bed down the afternoon
when they do, and you're up and moving when they are. Um,

(01:06:00):
and that's a rhythm you have to find. And the
first mountain you climb seems like, wow, this is a
little harder than I thought the fifth or six. When
you climb, your mentality is like you now know kind
of what the rhythm needs to be and how quickly
you need to move and where you need to end up,
and and so for me it's always been it takes
a couple of the first couple of days. You feel
like you're just kind of working it out, kind of

(01:06:21):
physically and mentally, getting yourself to a place where you
no longer worry about anything other than the elk and
finding that rhythm. That's a pretty unique experience to hunters
that other I mean even people that there would be
some extreme backpackers and hikers and mountaineers and stuff that
would experience long stints in the wilderness where you really

(01:06:44):
truly have time to get disconnected. But for the most part,
it's it's hunters that are doing that. You know. For
I'm saying for seven to ten days be out in
a way, and uh, I mean nobody's taken their tent
and going out with their family of five and camping
for ten days on the mountain over there just to

(01:07:05):
have fun and waking up an hour before sun, hiking
four miles and running down mounds. Yeah, I mean my wife.
The moment I always know that I've done it right
was when I go home on my wife smells me
when I walk in the door from like across the
room in the kitchen. She just go take a shower,
don't touch me, take a shot of her. She seems
to be able to smell me well before I even

(01:07:26):
maybe walk in the house. I think there's got to
be something healthy about like not bathing for a week.
I think I like it. I mean, I I was
telling you other day, I feel like this is. I
feel better and more comfortable and more in my element here,
whether it is do you hear a bugle? There? Joe?
A mule? Every time I hear the mule, I feel

(01:07:47):
like it's a bugle something. So many digressions we've decided
that mules got they did. They got the short end
of the stick from a horse whinny. They also got
the short end of the stick from the donkey bray.
But they actually sound more like an elk because they
kind of combined the two. I there are things I

(01:08:08):
worry about it in my day to day life when
I'm at work or at home with the kids or
um with my family that I just forget about here,
you know, cleanliness being I just like brush my hair
aside and go on, and man, I wouldn't got to
say anything, but you look bad. Oh, thank you, thank you.
That's what I was hoping to look. Gnarly Bear always
smells though he's fourteen year old kid like, that's that's

(01:08:31):
the smelliest time of a young man's life. I said.
But yeah, I mean that's that's something I've always thought
and it always reaffirms. And there's been times this won't
be one of them where I've been out for seven
to ten days and i haven't had service at all.
You know, you have your in reach and you texted
people just let them know what's up and give them
um and give them those updates. And then you did

(01:08:52):
the anxiety and the nerves when you know that phone
is about to come on. When you're you know, like
the moment of service and you get that fee link
of the the wave of connectivity and all the things
that come with it. That's a difficult thing for me
personally to do a lot of times. And um, even
here what we have some connectivity and camp, it's more
just going back to that rhythm and missing this one

(01:09:16):
because this one is much more natural to me. Yep. Well, hey,
thanks ton, guys, really every one of you, thank you
for your your helping us have a successful hunt. Really
was a successful hunt. And thank you for your generosity.
Thank you for your encouragement, wisdom. Really appreciate it. And man,

(01:09:39):
I want to do it again. One other thing with you.
This is started off this podcast again, We're done. What
would say, I'm frustrated. I don't know how to like
I'm frustrated and I'm mad about this and I've failed,
But please come next time. You know, I'm always amazed

(01:10:00):
at the resiliency of the human spirit when I there's
a place I hunt in Arkansas that's pretty tough for
our world, and it is miserable hunting there, and I
will be coming down that mountain in the dark after
not seeing a game animal in three days and being like,
why don't I drive three hours north into Kansas into

(01:10:24):
the best white tail hunting in the world. Why do
I drive the other way into the worst white tail
hunting probably in the country. And as soon as I
get in the truck and the mules and the trailer
and the heaters on, if it's if it's cold or
the a CS on if it's hot and I start driving,
it takes about a mile on pavement for me to

(01:10:47):
be planning my trip back up the mountain. Really like,
at times I have been just shocked by that, and
it's not me, it's all of us. Go to the
grind and then you're just like, Kylie, this is the
stupidest thing I've ever done. I had my favorite analogy
for this. Joe might have heard it possibly before, but
I call that sharpened in the life knife, because like,

(01:11:08):
you come up here, man, and you like you're solving
problems every second. The l cutting is one big problem
solving thing, and it's it's incredibly difficult to do. And
there's all these elements that you have to have studied
and practiced and crafted and be good at not only
you know, shooting a bow, but but butchering an animal

(01:11:29):
and and all the things that go with it. And um,
when you leave here, sitting in traffic seems like a
smooth and no problem, no problem experience. And that's because
this place make you know. These places make you sharper,
make you tougher, they make you make it easier to
take on the other things in life. That's now seems
so much more trivial than actually finding a giant buol,

(01:11:52):
getting close to it, convincing it to come close to you,
and then finding a lane to put an arrow through,
and getting the arrow through the right spot, and then
finding it when it runs down the mountain, and then
picking up his giant hunks of meat and carrying it
back to wherever you came from. Like that, The difficulty
of that makes too many emails seem like, well, that's

(01:12:14):
that's nothing. He's sharpen that old life knife. You feel
much more dull when you haven't done something like this
for a long time. That's a good analogy, life knife, bear,
What are you holding there? Who gave that to you?
Gave that to me? I told him not to cut
himself with it. I didn't. That is a sweet knife.

(01:12:36):
I didn't want to brand new. Never never sliced the thing.
I know you said thank you to him? Yeah, beautiful knife.
Cool alright, guys, closing closing thoughts. I'm just happy we
were here. I'm already planning my trip back. I was
just texting somebody like, hey, man, next week. Yeah, I'm thirsty.

(01:12:59):
I want to kill an elk. I want to come back.
I want to do this and keep doing it, and
whoever wants to come is always welcome. But I'm I'm
raven Us right now for all the experiences and the
end result. Right on, I'm planning my workouts. Guys, Colby
worked hard for this. He has for the last year. Um,

(01:13:22):
he really has. He's he's worked hard and uh he's
been following us around. Damn man. I told Colby when
we're out there, I said, this is hard. I mean,
I don't know what percentage of people that could actually
do this and keep up with you know, us running around.
But it ain't. It is not an expansive percentage. Is
a low percentage of people that would come out here
and immediately be able to get up and down this place.

(01:13:43):
I mean it is. It is incredibly difficult, and almost
every way so, especially being not having a tag. You know,
having a tag, you're moving a little quicker after that
bowl up that mountain. Yeah, but it's true, very true,
and have a little more motivation to keep keep putting
a foot in front of the other one, keep grinding. Yeah,
thanks for cold. So alright, guys, well keep the wild

(01:14:05):
place as well, because that's where they help live h