Ep. 100: Is Your Bow Ready for Elk Season?

As we embark on our elk hunting trips to the backcountry mountains and lonesome plains, the thought of having an equiptment failure is at top of mind. From loose bolts to stretched strings, "Murphys Law" can sideline an elk hunt at any time. Today, Dirk talks about bullet proofing your bow with Cory Miller from Darton Archery and Blackagle arrows before you take to the field, so you can hunt with piece of mind. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham and today I am in Beautiful Florence, Montana. Florence, Montana,
my good buddy, Corey Miller. Welcome to the show. Corey.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thanks good to have you come by the house and
see beautiful Montana.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, it's always always fun. It's always a nice drive
over here and beautiful. And some of the parts of
Idaho I have to drive through from from the Boise
area to get here, it's not real beautiful. But the
moon it looks like the face of the moon. Yeah,
but once you hit that pass, I.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Think that's where they filmed it actually, yeah, the moonlight landing.
Because you know, it's funny that I can't make a
phone call, but yet we were able to call the moon.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
In sixty nine, I want to go back to the landlines.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah. Yeah, well yeah, I don't know theories. I mean,
it's out there. So what do they call that pass
that I come over between sam And, Idaho and Darby, Montana.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I think that I don't know if that's well, it's
Chief Chief Joseph is up there on the top and
that's the ski resort. Okay, so I think it's Chief
Joseph Pass.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Okay, yeah, it could be anyway. It's beautiful, yeah, right
at the right at the base when you start climbing
up that hill the pass, and then once you get
into Montana, it's just beautiful. Even go by the Yellowstone Random.
I had to giggle a little bit to myself because
they've got these orange well I think they're lime green cones. Yeah,

(01:57):
Jason Phelps would love those. He loves lime green. One
up on and went home and get a couple of those,
will make bugles out of them.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You get to watch that guy.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
But anyhow, they have these cones set up and the
sign that says no parking, no stopping, and there's like
a little pop up tent and a car sitting there
with it like a security person. Yeah, it's a big deal.
And I've driven by there several times since Yellowstone the
TV series, in case you didn't know what I was referencing,
And they film it right there, you know, John Dutton's house,

(02:29):
and there's always some LOOKI lose, you know, stop it
and looking at it. But this is the first time
I've seen the barriers of it.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, No, they've had them up for quite a long time.
But people don't care. They still just stop anyways. And
actually the neighbor's property they have a beautiful gate now
also because Yellowstone had to actually pay for that, apparently
because people were driving down their driveway to then get
pictures of the ranch. Yellowstone people are crazy. Yeah, it's

(03:00):
a TV show for credit aloud. Yeah, but it's interesting
and it brings uh, it depends if you're from Montana.
It brings a lot of people to Montana that didn't
they didn't want here. I don't know that. The people
have always been pretty polite. I've liked it, and brings
a lot of money into the into the valley, which

(03:21):
has been good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, Well what I'm doing here in Florence, Montana. You
may not know this, but Corey has like a basic
full fledged archery pro shop and range in his basement's
house and he was setting up my new dart dartin
sequel thirty three. You might remember Corey from an earlier

(03:44):
podcast we did this summer when we talked about elk
hanting tactics and arrows and good good elk killing arrows
and such and anyway, I'm over here, I'm getting my
my dartin sequel thirty three, all set up ready to
go for in the season, and I'm like, you know,
let's record a podcast while I'm here. And I feel like,

(04:06):
if you don't know Corey, he used to have Triple
X Archery, the former archery shop owner. And what part
of Oregon that or excuse me.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Washington, Oregon. Yeah, so I lived in Washington, but we
put the shop in Oregon, right on the Columbia River
there and Rainier, Oregon, and we did that one for
sales purposes, sales tax. Oregon didn't have sales tax, so yeah,
so we I did that for gosh, it's been I
think it was sixteen seventeen years somewhere in there. I

(04:36):
used to do all Jason's work when I lived there,
and Jason and I haunted a lot of the same
territories and got to know each other real well and
became good friends and did a lot of bow work
for him. And Ryan Lamperts was from that area. A
lot of the guys have all escaped and moved to
Montana so or Idaho. Uh. I don't know when Jason's

(05:01):
gonna move, but.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't know. I hope he's listening to this podcast
because I harassed him about it a lot, a lot,
because he's you'll start complaining about you know, Washington and
this and that, and I'm like, you know, you can
fix that. Yeah, you could move to like some other
states that are much much better for a hunter or sportsman.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Just in life in general. I mean, my my Mie
Tress level I think is so much better. And you know,
the people are friendly, the weather, I'm so I don't
miss the rain from the Northwest. I don't miss the traffic,
I don't miss the politics of of of it. Everything

(05:42):
just seems easier, nicer, you know, as far as mentally
being happy, and and there's there's just a ton of
stuff to do outside. Definitely don't watch near there's much
TV and and the hunting is definitely about us. Yeah,
because we we have everything. You know, you got big

(06:02):
horned buffalo moves, mountain goat, elk deer, purcey chickens, yeah
we can see. Yeah, we got turkeys. I didn't have
really a lot of that or any of that, you
know where I lived in Oregon and Washington. So yeah,
there's there's all kinds of you know, you can get

(06:22):
bear tags antelope and matter of fact, antelopes just starting
to open up, and I'm gonna probably head over tomorrow
and see if I can't get an antelope. Yeah, it's
it's just a game rich environment. And the one thing
that for Montana that I love and I don't know
how long we'll be able to keep it, is we

(06:45):
don't choose a weapon, and and coming from Oregon and
Washington and watching hunters fight against hunters, that's one thing
that we don't really see here. I mean, we're all hunters.
And if you want to bow hunt, your bow hunt.
If you want a rifle, your rifle, and if you
want to hunt that season, you just hunt that season.

(07:05):
And so it's been really really nice for that. I
haven't still haven't rifle on. It's just for me. That's
a busy time of year and it's still just just
not my passion, like like the bow hunting side.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Sure sure, Well, as a former shop owner, you probably
saw some funny, funny things come through the door, you know,
bo mishaps, people going going a field, elk hunting and
then you know first two or three days afield or
maybe you know, hunting for a week or so and
having a malfunction or something go wrong. You know, whatever

(07:40):
can go wrong, it seems like will go wrong. And
so I kind of want to talk about some of
the things that you know before we head outlets. This
podcast is going to air August twenty ninth, so it's
almost almost time, almost too late, But man, if you
could give some of our listeners some good feedback on

(08:00):
some things to know before you go check this stuff
on your bow, because.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, you know, the big thing is is as you
get closer to season, the time frames to get things
fixed gets so much longer. Everybody's backed up, you know,
from getting bow strings, just getting bows tuned. A lot
of times the shelves might be empty, you might not
get the choice of a broadhead or an arrow that

(08:29):
you want. So try and get everything done earlier as
far as getting stuff prepared, and then as far as
like a checklist of things to do as we get
into that final stages. Hopefully, the strings and cables are
probably the most important thing, and that's the one thing
that you want to get done early as possible because

(08:51):
you want those to be set in. You want your
peep to be done. You want any kind of rotation,
any kind of settling of a string. You want that
all take care of months before season. Once you do
that and you've got your bow in time, you've got
your sights all set, you know, marking, marking stuff like
marketing your limb bolts to make sure that the limb

(09:12):
bolts aren't backing out, marketing anything that can move market
with a paint pen. So if something starts acting up,
you can start making some visual checks real quick and easy.
Double check in your you know, I really like to
kind of just hang on to the bow and hit

(09:33):
the side of the riser a little bit and just
listen for some vibration, listen for anything rattling, and then
double check all your your Allen's and all your bolts
and stuff like on your site and stuff. But you
need to have that stuff done ahead of time and

(09:56):
to avoid, like you said, some mishaps, and some of
the ones Dosey drove me up the wall was you know,
guys would come in and they'd try fire to bow
and I'm like, well, how'd that's happen. I'm like, well,
I got up in the morning and I wanted to
see if my peep was going to turn, and I'm like, well,

(10:17):
has it not been turning. And if it hadn't been turning,
then why didn't we address this weeks ago?

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Number one?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
And why all of a sudden do you think it
wouldn't And why didn't you put an arrow in it
when you drew it back? It just baffled me. So,
you know, they drive fire a bow, and at that
time of the year, I mean you could it could
be whether or not you get a hunt or you
have to buy a new bow because you know, trying
to get cams or limbs or strings in a timely

(10:48):
fashion at that time of years pretty unheard of.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, it's pretty tough. I've even you know, I gave
one of my old bows that I had to my
son law and it had the kind of cams that
they weren't adjustable for drawing, so we hadn't wear new cams.
And shoot, man, we've waited a month and a half,
two months, and he did this in the springtime, you know,
so we had plenty of time to get get it
set up. But still, I mean, the lead times can

(11:16):
be long, yeah, just just the way it is. And
then shop times, you know, that's a busy time of
year for the shop. That seems like the procrastinators all
crowd in and it's you're gonna have to wait until
your bows and line and gets is able to get work.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, so you know, just just kind of you know,
listening for anything that moves. And I one of my
big things that I do, like I get everything done
like early. So everything's done now and now that I'm
going to go handle the punting. But it's not going
to change. Nothing's going to change from my antelope set

(11:51):
up to my elk set up. But I'm I'm dialed
and I'm done. And when I say I'm done means
like I'll very rarely from now till September shoot my bow,
in which it isn't that time a long time. I
mean we're realistically a couple of weeks before opener here.

(12:15):
And I say that because every time we shoot a bow,
we're taking the chance of something coming loose, something moving,
something going wrong. And the thought process of me having
to practice should have been done months ago. Like I
didn't forget how to shoot a bow. I don't need
to be reminded every day on how to shoot a bow.

(12:36):
If I'm worried about stamina. I mean, let's be real,
how many times you're gonna shoot during the season, if
they're seating enough to get tired, let me know where
you're at. Typically you're only going to shoot that bow
a couple of times during the season. So that part

(12:57):
of it, like I just get my bow set on
and I'm done shooting it because I don't want to
take the chance of something moving. And then the other
big advice is don't you leave your car and your
your bow in the car this time of.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Year, oh yeah, because that'll make your strings stretch.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Well a lot of times it destroys the limb.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Limb failures. A lot of limb failures are all due
to excessive heat to a car. So the strings, you know,
it's not a big deal. They could stretch. You can
usually kind of twist that back up, but it just
melts the laments and the glues and the resins in
a limb, and in a way they go, yeah, that's.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
A pretty and opportunity. Time to have a limb failure
is right when you're trying to go hunt.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
And that's the always the challenge. You know, when I
lived in Oregon and I would go out to Idaho
or Montana, you know, travel for for haunts, you know,
like how do I bring a backup bow? And for
me it was like what do I do with my
backup bow?

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Right?

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah? I can't? Yeah, and then then what it's not
really going to be a backup bow if I needed
it so anymore, I you know, I never did, but
I hunted with a hunt partner that we were pretty
much identical in what little bit we would change. You know,
it was, hey, if it was my bow that broke

(14:22):
or something happened, you know, he would be number one
shooter all the way up until he was successful, and
then we would make any kind of adjustments that we needed,
and then I would hunt with that bow. Right. But
now everybody gets out That's why I don't hunt with
Jason Phelps because trawling's a little too long.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, it's it's even too long for me. He's he's
he's a long draw guy. He's got these big monkey
monkey like arms. Yeah, spider monkey if you will.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And he walks too fast.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah that too, that too, and he and you would
think he like, when you go hunt with him, this
is kind of a tangent. But he think he'd like,
oh yeah, Rabbi steaks and if we're gonna eat good
when we go hunting. Now he's like he gets baloney,
and like spam makes blooney sandwiches. And last, last, last,

(15:14):
last fall, we were in Kansas and he's like, I'm
gonna go pick up some stuff at the store for breakfast.
I'm like, oh, great, I can't wait. He'll be great.
And I get home and he's and he beat us
to the beat us uh beat us in and and
he had breakfast coach and I'm like, what's what's that?
And he's like, oh, that's fried spam. I'm like, well,

(15:35):
they didn't have any bacon or sausage. He's like, well, no,
they didn't. Like okay, so we ate that. We were
ate that bright fried spam and we were glad to
get it.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
We were hungry.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
But but you know, you always think it's going to
be some kind of gourmet meal with that guy, and
it's it's not always you know, always that way.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, what do you think causes that?

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Well? I do what causes the blooney sandwich? He bought
a packet of Righty pack, one of those great big
ones that are about sixteen inches long, with all these
different cold cuts sliced up and you have your ham,
and you got your turkey, and you got your your
this and that salamie. You know, all turkey, turkey, turkey, salami, turkey, this,
turkey that, and then what was left was the turkey boloney.

(16:18):
Well he already him and everybody else already got their sandwich,
and they left the turkey blooney. To me, that was
real nice of him. You know, a real true leader
would probably you know, means that he's the leader in all.
A true leader would eat last, or say hey, you're
a guest, really, yeah, right exactly, and be like, hey, guys,

(16:40):
I don't know if anybody is got their eye on
that balooney, and if not, I'm gonna go ahead and
eat that. That way, you guys get the good stuff.
That's what I would do if I were in a
leadership leadership position.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
But I do like bolooney as far as hunting, because
like it's simple, Like I'll just literally put baloney in
a piece of cheese on a piece of bread and
that that's like no mayo, no mustard, no nothing.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Just are you a mayo guy? Or are you a
miracle whip guy?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Neither, But if you at all neither. You like your
sandwich dry dry? That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
No ketchup?

Speaker 1 (17:21):
How do you choke it down?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Do you like, like, can't ketchup on your hamburger?

Speaker 2 (17:27):
No?

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Okay, meat cheese, but bam, Yeah I knew it. I
used to work with a guy like that, neat cheese
bum bum on his burgers. He liked hamburger cheese. You
like cheeseburgers. He liked chicken nuggets, and he liked pepperoni pizza.
And that was that's it.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
That's me. You get you pepperoni, black olliars, m boneless
chicken wings or chicken strips.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
That's a that's basically a chicken nugget.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, that is they're good. And yeah, you eat like
the well done cheeseburger plane.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, that's that's awesome. So yeah, I agree. Like banging,
like striking your bow on the side of the limb
or something in your hand and trying to get it
to vibrate and make.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Like something loose.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
You'll hear you'll hear it, you'll feel it, or even
if you shoot it a little bit, you're like, something
ain't right.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
And then and then the trick on that is if
you hear it and you're now you're going to look
at where's it coming from? So now how you grab
the bow before beating or pounding on the side of it.
So grab grab the sight and hit the hit the riser.
Does it still do it? Okay, Well that's not it
coming from the site? Grab the limb pocket area. Does
it go there? Grab grab a hold of the cam

(18:47):
and hit it. So you can you can start finding
where that vibrations coming from from elimination. But a lot
of times, a lot of times it's coming out of
the Usually the most common is going to be the
site and the cam mods will come loose.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
One time, opening morning Archery Elkin, Oregon. I lived in
Orgon at the time and drove, like, I don't know,
two hours from my house up in the mountains. I
got up there, stayed the night, got up the next morning,
and I thought, it's pretty bumpy road going up there.
I was like, yeah, I don't know, I better shoot

(19:24):
my bow before I leave camp here. I'm gonna shoot
at one time and just verify and pull my bow
back and I shoot and I barely hit the target. Well,
I don't know when this happened because I'd been shooting
it quite a bit all summer.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
But.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
I'm like, what the heck, I barely hit the target.
So I start looking, you know, I'm like looking at
my string and my rest and my side pins. That's
an obvious place to kind of look and see if
there's something off. Everything looked kind of right there, and
so I'm looking at limbs, I'm looking at cams, and
then finally in my top cam. This was a single
cambo and the top the top wheel was cocked over

(20:05):
like the bearings had gone out in that wheel at
some point when I hadn't noticed between the last time
I shot a week or two ago and then to
where I got out there. So at that point I
was dead in the water. And this was like Labor
Day weekend, and now I'm trying to scramble. And I
lived in a pearl, pretty rural town, you know, so Enterprise, Oregon.

(20:28):
That's the middle of nowhere, and there's no archery pro
shops there. The closest ones were in La Grand, Oregon.
They were all closed for the big weekend. So I'm
just like I got this other big elkhunt out of state.
Elk hunt back in Idaho in like eight days and
I need to get a bow and get it set
up and dialed. So I ended up having to order

(20:50):
one online because nobody'd pick up a phone and I'm
just like, I got.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
To do something.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
So I ordered something online and put my rest on
it and got it all set up myself. But but yeah,
it's like those fluke things you can be, really can
can be, can really come out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
At Yeah, as far as like one thing, like on
your accessories and a lot of the I think the
accessories nowadays there it's a lot more common. But but
having micro adjusting arrow rest and micro adjusting sites on
your what we call gain adjustments to remember like the

(21:34):
like a site like a black Gold you had a
dovetail mount that you would loosen and you would slide
your whole site housing up and down in that. And
then they started coming out with a micro adjustment. So
now I can loosen the nut and then I can
dial that housing up and down.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Click click click.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
And the biggest wasn't so much the fine tuning of
that that I liked is that if that comes loose,
it vibrates noise, It doesn't slide down, It can't move
until that dial keeps gear driving that so if it

(22:12):
comes loose, it's a quick easy, Oh that's loose. I
can hear it vibrate and I can tighten it and
nothing's moved. It's the same thing with your arrest if
that comes loose, instead of it vibrating and starting to
slowly drop down lower and lower. Next thing, you know,
you're missing the target because you're shooting them in the dirt.
If that comes loose, it may sag down a little bit,

(22:33):
but it's not moving from its original spot. So then
when you go to tighten it, everything should be back
to where it was. So maybe something to kind of
think about when you are picking out some of your
accessories to see whether or not it has a microadjusting
gain adjustments on those to help if those were to
come loose, that they're not going to move off of

(22:53):
those spots.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now, shooting your bow from time to time or regular
regular regularly, yeah, that's often often. Often you may like
there may be some subtle changes that happen in your
bow's performance. You may not pick up until maybe you

(23:25):
shoot a different bow of the same kind and you're like,
oh wow, man, like for the timing your cams for instance,
it's like, you know, you kind of get in your
rhythm of shooting that thing and that that will kind
of creep up on you. So checking the timing on
your cams, you know, especially with broadheads going to field,
that that's probably gonna make your your broadheads fly weird.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, you know, and that's where, uh, you can take
a paint pan again and mark your cams or they
line up like across the limb, so you've got a
good reference mark. But that is, like you say, the timing,
and even most cams have those marks and those are

(24:12):
sink marks, they're not timing marks. And so a lot
of people are like, oh, it's it's out of time
because these aren't perfect, and it's like, that's not that's
just the orientation of where that cam needs to start,
and that will dictate your poundage of your limb and
your drawlings. So if your cables stretched, then your poundage

(24:40):
is going to go down. If your bow string stretches,
your poundage is going to go up. So a lot
of times guys are like, oh man, my string stretch,
I lost some poundage. It's hitting sixty eight pounds. Well,
it's your cables. That's stretch, not your bow string. So
if and that's where that that kind of comes in.

(25:01):
You can sometimes see that, but it's very subtle. I mean,
you on those sync marks. All your timing is always
need to be done in a drawboard at full draw
on getting your posts to hit the cable or the limb,
depending on what cam you have at the same time.
At full draw. Everything else is just a starting point

(25:22):
of the cam. But it's a good reference for you know,
by doing the paint pins or anything like that. If
things things are starting to go, it gives you, like
I say, it's just a quick visual of, you know,
something to look at. Now if you notice that, man,
there's a holy crowd. You know, this thing's not even
remotely close. Nine times out of ten that string is breaking.

(25:47):
If it's moved enough to where you're like really noticing it,
there's probably strands broken underneath your serving and and it's
a good telltale sign that you better not shoot that again. Uh,
take it to a shop. Have somebody really look at
those strings cables. But a lot of times things can
break underneath servings and we just don't know it until
it's too late. But it will kind of get stretched

(26:09):
out a little bit and start moving the orientation of
a cam tiny and if it's if it's you know,
a typical bow, you you'll start to feel. If it's
just one cable, you'll definitely start to feel it kind
of get a bumpity bump on the back end when
it hits the stops.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, that's that's really good. I ever even thought of that.
I don't know if I don't know if the mice
can pick this up. But but your dog is that
an English English bulldog?

Speaker 2 (26:40):
We've got an English and a French now and I
don't know which one. I don't know which one's the
snort today, they're both. They were playing all all morning,
so they're they're tuckered out.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
So another thing that some people may or may not
even be aware of is like their third axes on
their boat. So if you're shooting it on a flat,
flat backyard or flat range, you don't really notice that
kind of a third access too much. But when you
start shooting steep uphill, steep downhill, that's going to make

(27:17):
your hero drift left or right. So what can people
do to kind of kind of do a quick check
at home to see if their third access is out
because some of us just don't live where it's easy
to make a steep shot, or yeah, we don't want
to climb up on the roof.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, I was going to say that the part, Yeah
you can get up on the roof, but I'm not
going to tell you to do that. That's true.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
I've done it, trying to trying to like.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Because then in all it's like while you're up there,
clean the gutters. So yeah, you know, trying to get
out to a range or or yeah, it's kind of
difficult if you if you're from flat, flat ground where
you don't have any hills, But yeah, the best way
is to always if you can get out and shoot

(28:05):
it in, you know, and it will it will be
you know, it's either going to shoot to the left
on downhill and to the right uphill. It's if it's
shooting both, then it's probably not a third axis deal.
So they will run opposite when that third axis is
is off. But the other the one thing with third

(28:28):
axis that I feel like people think that just because
they supposedly got their third access set that they won't
miss things left and right on uphill and downhill and

(28:49):
the The key to that is is that level is
a is a is it's a reference mark or it's
a guide for you. And the good archers will read
the terrain. Target archers will read terrain like a golfer
will read a green on the lay of the land,

(29:10):
the grass, the slope, the moisture in the grass, all
these different things of what it's going to cause that
ball to do. And so a really good target archer
will also read the terrain. The lighting. Lighting coming into
your people will make you shoot left and right. And
then just because it's downhill and on the side hill
doesn't mean that you can still just shoot that straight

(29:32):
up level. So you can still have a downhill, a
slight side hill downhill. And then also introduce some wind
drift into that too. So there's two things you can do.
You can start aiming off or you can take your
top cam push it into the into the wind, or
push it into the hill. And this is one thing

(29:55):
that I do recommend people to practice and understand how
much does that move my arrow at distances say forty
or fifty yards and take your bow, shoot it straight
up level boom, I'm shoot in the middle of the
of the dot. Now I'm going to go a whole
half a bubble over so you'll can't the bull can't
the bow and see where it impacts. How much is

(30:19):
it two inches? Is it three inches? And that way
a good like I say, a good archer can can
look at the terrain and say, man, this arrow is
going to naturally want to go even further downhill, and
so I'm going to give it some bubble. I'm going
to not just shoot it straight up because it's still
going to go down there. So just because your third

(30:42):
ACXISS is set, doesn't mean you shoot every shot with
a level.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Man, I'm really sad you told me all this because
now I'm gonna have to rethink everything. So I guess
some work to do well.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
And the thing typically, if you had a hill coming
from your your right to to your left, you know,
say a downhill and it's a side hill, if you
push that camp into the top of that into the
into the top hill, even if you didn't need to,

(31:18):
it's probably not going to go uphill much, maybe a
half an inch or something. But now if you let
that bow sag a little bit to the downhill side,
that air is probably gonna miss by two or three
inches now, because it's naturally wanting to go that direction.
So once that bow fire is is going to go.
So if you're in doubt, just give it a little

(31:41):
bit to that that hill. And that's the beautiful thing
with target archery as far as versus three D is
that you can really learn a lot more because you
have to shoot multiple shots. And so when you come
up to a target and you can glass and look
at majority of arrow holes and say, well, this target,

(32:03):
a lot of arrow holes are on the left edge
of the dot and there's a reason. And now you're
going to figure out what that reason is. Is it
the lighting or is it the terrain the side hill?
And so when you shoot that first one straight up
and it goes out to the left with everybody else's
arrow holes, you go, I got to I'm give this
thing a little bubble and push into it and see

(32:23):
where that arrow goes. So you can start really learning.
So when it doesn't you don't have to overthink. Those
shots will be just you'll just when you do it enough,
you just see the terrain and say, yeah, this is
this is my shot set up on this I'm going
to push into this hill or push into the wind. Yeah,
you'll get that good instinct because if you've got a

(32:45):
left right wind too, you know, so I can, like
I say, I can either aim off or I can bubble.
I don't like aiming off.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
I aim for a reason. I like looking at what
I'm trying to hit, and so I'd rather give my
my bow a little bit of bubble.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
So can't your top wheel into.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
The wind, into the wind, into the hill?

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, I've never heard that before. That's great. And see
I'm learning all sorts of stuff here.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
This is this is great and like I say, these
are things that you want to go home and play,
play with and practice so you can and not blame,
you know. And there's just going to be some targets.
So that's right. Like guys will go, oh man, yeah,
I was missing some stuff left and right and my
third access is off. Maybe it could be a combination

(33:32):
of both that you just need to give it more,
even though you know there's some wind and it's going
to push the arrow and there's a lot more sight
hill than you thought, or the lighting coming in from
left to right and change the image of a bit
on the peep That's why the lot of the peach
are getting in a lot better too, with the baffles
in them. Like the Hamski pet that you've got that

(33:53):
really helps with some of that that lighting issues that
cause some left and right issues.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Kind of like a sunshade rifle scope. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
this information would have been valuable the other days at
the range and the wind was blowing hardness and I
was shooting uphill and whatever else and and and some
steep angles, and I was like, man, I don't know
if this this uh this third axis is right or

(34:20):
if it's the wind or it could have been the lighting.
I mean, there's a lot to it. You know. Let's
say you cited Okay, I have a question. So if
you sit in your bow at an indoor range and
then you go out on the field in the field
wherever and lighting is obviously different, are you gonna see
any different arrow un pacts there is this?

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, you can definitely, it's the same thing. Like you
know where I shoot here, mine's front to back my son,
so I don't really see a lot of that. I'll
get wind drift, you know, A certain times I got
more wind than others. So for me getting my my
windy set sometimes is a chore because I'm like, am

(35:02):
I really tightening in for the wind or is it
really calm enough that I'm not getting any wind drift?
But so if you you could have a range that
your sun sets and rises are on your left and right,
and say you you've always shot your bow first thing
in the morning, and you've got your windage set, and

(35:25):
then you go out and I'm like, ah, davenan, I'm
gonna go ahead and shoot samarrows tonight, and all of
a sudden you're shooting off the other side. And that
can just definitely be from the now the sun's coming
through your peep on a different angle than it was
in the mornings that you've always sighted in.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
That makes a lot of sense because I've seen little
weird things like that, and then shoot it the next
day at a different time and say, I'm glad I
didn't move my sight because now I'm back on So yeah, man,
you're really messing with my head. More rabbit holes to
go down right well, And I think it just kind

(36:04):
of goes to show too.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Is like.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Practicing in weird places compared to your backyard is so
important for hunting. Situations because people, you know, I could
shoot eighty yards or one hundred yards is like a champ.
But you get into a different lighting scenario, you get
into a different hillside, All these different things come to
a different play and if you're shooting longer, longer range,
all that stuff amplifies, Right. So, man, just knowing those

(36:32):
things and knowing how close to keep your shots is
probably going to be different in the field versus in
your backyard or your local range.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, I'm nervous, but yet still excited. I guess for
my tag for Montana Elk because I haven't shot an
elk over forty yards in years. Yeah, and I have
no desire to. But yet I'm not sure what the
terrain is going to be in store for me over there.

(37:04):
And I really just hope I don't have to have
to make a decision on any of that, because I
just there's just so much stuff to go wrong, and
and I feel like I'm a good archer, but there's
just still so many variables that come into play, and
it doesn't everything gets magnified with the broad head, right.

(37:26):
So the slightest mistake in my form, the slightest mistake
in my anything of that shot process gets magnified by
that broadhead and then you take the animal movement on
top of it, and yeah, it's just it's a tough situation.
Nobody plans on shooting bad. But you know, I alsually

(37:50):
try to reinforce myself of if the voice inside my
head is in any doubt, I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
So yeah, that's a good that's a good method to do.
I feel like inside your head it's like, oh man,
I hope I don't miss this shot. Or if it's
like you don't even hear that, everything's just good, feels good.
You just have to think about it. You release a
really good arrow, felt good. Those are usually the times

(38:20):
that you know it's it's gonna be a great shot. Yeah,
what about d loops? Learn how to learn how to
tie a D loop? I know earlier when you were
tying in my D loop and you're kind of giving
me some lowdown about these little soft knots or whatever
you call them. I'm not sure you call them, but
they're like once you once you get your your knock

(38:42):
on the string and you're setting everything and and you
put these little placeholder knots before you put on it.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
So there's a lot of shops will always pretty much
always shoot at least a bottom tie in knot, and
if you're gonna do one, at least do that. And
in the video of the setup on yours, probably a
lot going to be a lot easier for the people
to understand what we're talking about here. But it changes

(39:13):
the pressure on the arrow at full draw on when
you put knocks below the knock of the arrow and
spread that gap. But it gives you a reference mark,
especially as a hunter, of knowing like, hey man, my
D loop's bad, I've got material, I know how to

(39:33):
tie a D loop. I'm not worried about replacing this
in the field or even taking it to a shop
and having them do it. Those tied in knots stay there,
so when you cut that D loop off, you're not
redoing the tune of the bow. You're just going to
go ahead and tie on a new D loop and

(39:54):
everything should be good to go there. Sometimes there can
be slight slight slight chain you change one thing, it
seems like it changes everything, but typically on that it's
it's going to be a minute, and usually it's going
to be just a little gain adjustment on the site,
whether not be a left to right or an up
and down, but it would be a minute movement to it.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
So how much frame on a D loop would you
say you should probably change that out?

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, first off, if you're getting fraying on a D
loop in less than a year, honestly, you've probably got
a burr or a pinch point in your release. There's
guys that are like, man, I just put this on
two weeks ago, there's definitely something wrong with your release.

(40:48):
You know, if you're seeing fuzzing where there's something going
on and it may not just it may not be
anything you can fix. It can just be honestly a
bad design in a release. We see a little bit
more of it with Caliber releases because you do have
a pinch point with a style that has a hook.

(41:10):
It's a lot easier on D loops. But if you
ever see white cord stop stop like twenty shots ago. Yeah,
so yeah that so the lining of the Yeah that
that so when you when you cut D loop material
and you fuzz it out, you'll see that white cord

(41:32):
in there.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
It's like the core.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Basically, if you see that stop, immediately replace it. Yes,
don't try to show like, well I got one more,
I got one more.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
I can kill an elk with this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
No, Now, now if it was if I didn't have
any material and I wasn't you know, and there again,
this is like I said, going back to like I
don't shoot my bow because more and more things can
go wrong. But if I was out in the wilderness
and I the bow shop was five hours away and
I didn't have delap material, you're you're at the mercy.

(42:09):
You're you're going to have to trust it. But it's
usually a no go. You're probably gonna punch yourself in
the face. So yeah, so yeah, you shouldn't see. I mean,
a d loop should last as long as the stream
will last, and it can last for years. Yeah, if

(42:32):
you've got a good release on there, so yeah, and
it's it's it's cheap, it's easy. So if you are
getting some stuff and replace it, don't take the chance.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
So yeah, that's good. Good. And so do you have
two releases when you go hunting? You have?

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Usually I do one in your pack and one Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
I usually will have. And that's one thing too, is
you know, in less you're shooting in the exact same release.
Double check those releases. If you have a caliber release
and a handheld release, your anchor points and your stuff
will slightly be off. But as long as you center
your peep in your housing, you're you're going to be

(43:16):
fine as far as a lot of your elevation stuff.
But if you have a caliber that swings from left
to right, the other one swings right to left, your
impact left and rights will be different. So you want
to double check if you're shooting a different style or
a different release. So there's a lot of guys that
buy a like a cheaper handheld or buy a handheld

(43:38):
release and then say, man, I really this new one
came out and they go buy a new one and
they have that one as a backup. Make sure you
shoot both of those because they can shoot differently on impact.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
I notice I have the same release, I use a
wrist trap release or whatever. But then they're the same kind,
but one has a different wrist trap than the other one,
and one doesn't have quite the same amount of adjustment
front of you know, to lengthen it or shorten it,

(44:10):
So definitely it's a different feel. So you're going from
one to the other. So that's something to be cognizant
of too. It's just like, man, this is.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
But having something slightly off is better than not having
anything right. So, you know, and I shoot typically, I
shoot a handheld. I mean a lot of people are
going this direction, and I don't tether it because I
definitely don't want that thing stuck to my hand. So
the chances of me losing that release is high, I

(44:45):
guess significant. So you know, the one thing that I
would recommend people do not clip your handheld release on
your string and walk around with it.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Look,
I've seen people do that somebody we know, and I'm thinking,
I don't know if that's probably the best thing to do.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
But yeah, whatever, I mean, if you're moving like oh,
I'm going to move from this tree to that tree
type of saying, yeah, it's not a big deal. But
I literally watched people walking around yards, you know, with
that thing on there, and yeah, don't just don't get
into that habit. Yeah, you're really asking to lose a release.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Well, in nineteen ninety four, I made this epic hunt
where it was a boat hunt. So I had a
boat and We took the boat forty seven miles up
this reservoir to where it turned from reservoir lake you know,
slack water into a river, and we got all the
way up there and it's like, oh, cool, I don't

(45:51):
have my release. Of course, my hunting partner has his,
So guess who the first shooter is going to be,
and maybe the until he maybe he screw up or
kills an out, then I'm kind of at the mercy
of not having a release, you know, until then. So
uh yeah, that's a pretty pretty good time to have
that extra release.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, And the thing that is is that's when you
would want to shoot your bow. If say, say you
lost your handheld in you did have a wrist rocket
in the back or at the truck, then definitely you
know it's going to be typically a windage adjustment, So
shoot it. Yeah, we're two inches to the right, make

(46:31):
that adjustment, get it dialed back in, and you're you're
gonna be good to go. But at least you're you're
back up and hunting. And so that's about the only
time on a big failure would I be out really
shooting my bowt checking anything.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, Now I've talked about this before on I don't
know if it's this podcast or another, but I had
this guy I got to know a few years ago
and he drew a moose tag in here in Idaho
and he he's like, I'm gonna shoot it with a bow.
I'm like, oh, cool, Yeah, have you killed anything with

(47:07):
your boat? I've never killed anything with my boat, but
I think it'd be like the ultimate to shoot this
moose with a bow. And so once in a lifetime
tag if you harvest. If you don't harvest, then you
can go back into the drawing. But I've been applying
for moose for decades and not drawing one. So you know,
luck smiles on some people, not so not so much

(47:29):
for me. But anyway, I'm like, you really want to,
Like you're gonna have your rifle for a backup. Oh no, no,
I'm gonna shoot this with my bow. I'm like, okay,
right on, cool man. Well, I didn't see him until
after season was over and I said, hey, did you
get that moose? And he's like, oh, you'll never believe it.
I've been watching this big moose, this big giant bull
moose leading up to opening day, and Opening Day comes

(47:53):
and there he is. I go out throw with my
bow and I get I get close and I get
stuff to shoot, and I shoot and I miss and
I should again I miss. And He's like, I shot
every arrow in my quiver at this moose and didn't
hit it. And he just stood there and finally it
just kind of walked off, because most they're not real
scared a lot of times. And I'm like, what the heck?

(48:17):
He's like, yeah, what what do you think could have happened?
I'm like, well, like, had you sided your bowing with
broadheads obviously before season?

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Well?

Speaker 1 (48:28):
No, I mean they they should. They should hit right
where they they're both point field points hit. I'm like, well,
that's not always the case. You know. Did you have
your bow tuned before you went?

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Well?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Tone, No, I just you know, I've had this bow forever.
I just know it shoots. And so I'm like, what
what kind of arrows were you shooting? He's like, well,
I had like three or four different kinds. I had
some that I'd bought, and then my uncle he gave
me some and and so he had like these mixed
quiver full of arrows. Probably none of them were the
same way or broadhead style or weight or nothing was

(49:04):
right about this setup. And I'm like, so are you
gonna be able to go out again and try to
like is your season gonna be any longer than it was?
Or are you done? He's like, I'm done, Like, Wow,
you just left all that happenstance toll like a once
in a lifetime type of opportunity. I mean, he could
probably draw a tag again someday, maybe if he's lucky,

(49:27):
But people like.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
That usually get luck.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
They'll probably do the same thing, right. But I feel
like it's super important to make sure all your arrows
are the same by him out of the same batch,
set them up for your for your hunt. All the
same inserts, all the same knocks, all the same fletchings,
all the same.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, And that's I think that's one thing too that
I think most of us are guilty of just because
of the way the broadheads are. You know, we we
take for granted that we shot one or two broad
heads out of six broad heads and expect every one
of those to be the same, And uh, it's not.

(50:08):
I've seen some companies that, Yeah, there's just inconsistencies in
the ferals enough to man you got to shoot every
one of them. It's one thing I like about either
a research sharpable you know, cut on contact type of
head that you can re sharpen. You can definitely shoot
that head, touch it up and you're good, or something
with replacement bleedes. Yeah, and you know, even some of

(50:32):
the mechanicals that come with practice. I mean, we're still
just rolling dice in my opinion of hopefully these do
fly exactly like that.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah. Yeah, you're taking a lot of putting a lot
of faith in their published information.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, I know. The I think that's the biggest, probably
one of the biggest things that we do. And it's
and I don't blame people because you kind of just
assume some of this stuff should be the same and
it's expensive to go through. But shoot every broadhead and
eliminate some of those flyers. But you know, we do

(51:11):
it mainly with arrows. But like I say, everything gets
magnified by a broadhead.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Right, I know in the past, shooting this one particular
brand of broadhead, I would.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
You can say it Alan brought it Alan.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Oh, they were slightly better, but they were sharp as
I'll get out. But I would have to index and
spin test every single one, but I would have to
mix and match. I would take a dozen arrows, and
I'd take nine broad heads, and I would mix and
match heads two half out or insert basically, and then

(51:55):
put it in the arrow. Spin test it. And I
always like to line my my blades up with my fletchings.
Whether that's hocus pocus or not, in my mind it
is for me, it is. Everybody else may say no,
but anyhow, spin test it and watch and see if
if the if it spins right, if it's like perfectly smooth,

(52:15):
the tip is not going up and down wobbly or whatever.
But I would have to go through I don't know
how many different combinations, like, no, it didn't like that
insert outs ort, whatever you want to call it, didn't
like that one, but paired with this one it worked,
Or that combination didn't work with that arrow, but it

(52:37):
did with this one. Yeah. And then some of the
blades would be rattily inside the farrel and some would
be tighter than I'll get out. So then I would
try to like, okay, I try to mix and match
until I got all tight, you know, And so I
might have one oddball that was a little bit loosey goosey,
that would be like a practice one. But but by

(52:59):
doing that, like making sure all those fun perfectly, I
found that, man, they all shot way better than if
I just screwed them things on and this would take
like three hours. I would spend like three hours doing
this and it's such a pain in the butt. But
those I had better consistent groups where you know, they
would shoot consistently better by taking the time and.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Doing that, I think if you're old enough, we all
remember that the first arrow in the quiver was always
the best one, and then the next one was really
pretty good too, and then the next one was it

(53:41):
was okay, And by the time you got to that
sixth arrow, we're back then when we used to carry
eight arrows and the quipper. You know, those other ones
were just a hope and a prayer, yeah, and be
a grouse arrow. So now you know, broad heads have
gotten more consistent, arrows have gotten more consistent, spine consistency
across the board of arrows have gotten more consistent. The

(54:05):
weight consistency, and I don't think weight's a huge factor,
especially in an ar row itself. You know, when you
when you measure carbon, because you're realistically measuring dust across
twenty eight or twenty nine inches. You know, one or
two grains is not a factor of why you're missing things.

(54:27):
But it's a feel good thing, and it's nice to
know that things are as precise as we can get them.
But it's not the end all, and you're definitely gonna
probably find you're gonna find a lot more inconsistencies in
veins and field points in broadheads weights across them than
you probably are in arrows anymore. How much glue did

(54:51):
you put on, especially even on an insert. Did you
get a little bit on that one and a lot
on that one?

Speaker 1 (54:58):
And so?

Speaker 2 (55:00):
But spine consistency, I think is the most the most
important part on an arrow. Yeah, and that's not like
spine alignment as much as spine consistency being across the
board of your dozen arrows? Are they because there's always
there's always going to be variances in spine. Say a

(55:22):
three fifty could be a three forty or it could
be a three sixty, and they get labeled as a
three fifty. So if you have a consistency in a
batch of arrows, that all those arrows are say three
forty five to three fifty. That type of tolerance is
between companies, and a lot of guys don't talk about
that as much as spine alignment, right, and then just

(55:47):
having a good arrow that when you do, if you
if you have access to it like a ram spine
tester where you can put put it on there and
watch the needle and slowly rotate a narrow and watch
where the highs and the lows are very minimal. And
there's some companies that definitely when you rotate it, there
is definitely a seam and it's in a tight a

(56:09):
tight spot like whoa man, she's really the spine is
really super stiff right here, weak down here. But then
you throw in the other part of it, like you say, so, now,
if you if you were to put a three forty
in a three sixty and you fletched them on the
stiff side, those two arrows still might not shoot together

(56:29):
because of the three forty to three sixty of that
spine of a three fifty earrow can be that far
spread that they're still going to react differently to each other. Right, So,
even though you did spine a line it onto the
stiff side.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah, So don't mix and match your arrows from two
from last year, you know, years ago.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
And a lot of arrows you know, are in batches,
you know, consistent off of stuff like that. But to me,
it's you know, it depends on everybody's finances too, you know,
and it's always good to you know, if you're going to,
you know, year to year shoot the same arrow you know,
get some new fresh arrows and and make those your

(57:13):
your important ones and beat up all your old ones,
and practice and get site marks and stuff like that.
As far as your elevation and stuff, usually not going
to be a big deal. But the group tightening, you know,
shooting arrow after ara after row in the same spots.
I'm going to show on some of that, but a

(57:35):
lot probably a little bit too much more to think about.
I guess you can really go down some rabbit holes
on this stuff. But bottom line is practice, shoot, be
you be consistent, because you know you're you're changing more
than any of the other stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Is Yeah, that's true, That's very true. Now, you and
I both watch a lot of YouTube videos hunting videos,
and I don't know how many I watch, where when
the archer draws back on the elk and you hear
a noise from the arrow sliding on the rest, like

(58:16):
maybe this little squeak or just a slide like it's
a loud slide or whatever, and bam, the bull perks
up and stops it picks that up. Man, that's something
you got to figure out before hunting season gets here.
So depending on your rest and how it works, like
some some of the old rest I used to have

(58:37):
back in the old day had maybe they were covered
with like a rubber.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Dip or like a shoulder wrap or hunters. Yeah, and
then you'd shoot, and you shoot so much then it
would wear a hole in it and then you'd start
hearing the I got mine. Mine this year is probably
super quiet on the rest. I was definitely getting a

(59:02):
lot up and I was able to find some really
thin felt and just put a very little bit on
there and that the only thing you hear is the
is the stops hitting the cable. Yeah, And at that
time I'm loaded and it's it's it's good time. Yeah.
So yeah, it's not getting there right, So it's super

(59:26):
I'm really happy with my setup on on how how
everything's working together on that bow.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to definitely take a look at
mine to make sure it's good to go, because before
I go afield, because yeah, that's something you don't want
to find out that you kind of overlooked, you know,
in your groove of practice in all summer and you
kind of forget about that stuff until you're out in
the woods it's opening day and or whatever, maybe it's
the last day of it.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
The definitely the one thing with elk hunting, there's definitely
times where you know, some of that stuff just doesn't
even matter because it's chaotic. You know, the winds are blowing,
the leaves are rustling.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
The bolts are making noise.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, there's limbs popping elk or screaming, cows are chirping,
you know. So, but you get up in a tree
for white tail.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Or a water hole for anaaloge, you got snow on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
The ground, everything's just superie.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yeah, Yeah, there's not a not a noise.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
At all, just you moving your arm to hook onto
the release, you know, onto the strings. What was that?
But sometimes we can get by with a little bit
more on elk honting something crazy like white tail hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
You brought up then how they were reacted to different sounds.
So in Kansas last fall, sitting in a blind, I
moved inside the mind there's a there's a deer in
front of us, and I moved and I hit the
side of the blind that there's a metal blind, and
it made a clank noise. The deer name looked their way,

(01:00:59):
but I moved my arms, you know, fabric on fabric moving,
and that deer just stops and just looks into that blind,
like what is that? So it was weird that clink
did not get a reaction at all, but the sound
of clothing revenut clothing, and I thought that was odd.
So then it went back to being not being paying attention.

(01:01:22):
I might I'm gonna test this out and see if
I just got lucky. And I think what i'd set
I'd set my grunt call in the side of the
blind or something and made a noise earlier. So I
tinked it again and no reaction. So now I'm not
saying that's the case every time with white tails, because
everybody knows sometimes anything will make them turn inside out.
But I thought that was odd, But it is.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Because I mean, you know, you hear you know, egg
corns or whatever hitting the leaves like you know, they
and they don't, but all of a sudden, there's just
something you look, what what was that? And so they do.
I think they definitely have anunderstanding of what should be

(01:02:01):
naturally sounds and unnatural sounds.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
They say, if you have to walk through hardwood forests
and you're like trying to sneak, you know, for deer,
then you should not like walk at a normal human
cadence pace of step footsteps. Yeah, that you should like
take a step, maybe shuffle your feet and then stop
and then maybe move along again.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And I do that when I'm elk hunting, you know,
And I think a lot of people are like, oh man,
I just suck them. I'm just I'm not very quiet,
and I'm like I'm never quiet, Yeah, because I think
they sense the predator, the sneakiness, like you know, versus
I mean, how many times have you been walking back
to camp and just just beating it all said, Oh

(01:02:45):
you look up and there's elk twenty yards in front. Yeah,
they hate they urge you count and they're like, oh,
here comes some milk us who is it? Oh that's
not jimmy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Yeah, especially when there's a couple of people because you
have that different like footstep sound and sound like yeah,
because they're not quiet, No, they're not quiet.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
What is quiet? Predators?

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
So it sounds like you're going antaloe punting leaving here
in an hour? Yeah? Probably less.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, hopefully ten fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
We wrap this thing up, you can go an aloe
punting where you ground blinded? Are you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Yeah? Got some some blinds out on some water, which
we got some thunderstorms and water coming already from the sky,
so I don't know how good that's going to be.
H If that's a bust, then we'll go out to
the spot in stalk. But I've got some blinds on
some area that really the only way to haunt it.
There's just no cover. So there's a lot of goats

(01:03:44):
out there, so hopefully we'll get them to come into
some water. If not, then we'll drive around and try
to find some some land that gives us some opportunities
or some taller sagebrush to crawl around in.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Therettle snakes there, I don't think. So what about where
you're elk hunting this fall?

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Are you a snake guy? Are you scared of snakes,
but I don't see a whole lot of them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah. So Kevin, he lives in Dylan and h he's
got a lot of rattlers.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Yeah, so you know, we we both run, and a
lot of his runs. He can't do all the trail
runs that he likes to do during the summer because wow,
the snake's wrote. He doesn't like them. And I'm telling him,
I said, you know, you should get like some big
old you know, boots and chaps on and see what

(01:04:43):
you can get away with. Yeah, because I hear it's
only like one percent that willever strike and then it's
another like one percent or three percent that would actually
get in and get venom in you like, It's like
it's pretty rare, supposedly, huh. But I'd like him to
try it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
Yeah, it'd be a good test. I'd like to seize results.
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
So and I I I probably could care less about snakes.
And I would rather have snakes than say like scorpions
or spiders. Oh really, yeah, because I know they'll crawl
on me at night. Oh yeah, I can get it
in my ears or something. I don't really mind any
of those snakes or scorpions or spiders. But what I

(01:05:26):
really don't like are beetles really.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Yeah, or centipedes. Beetles and centipedes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Yeah, like centipedes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
I don't want a beetle on mean or near me,
but they give me the will.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
When you like when you watch Survivor and they eat
the bugs. Does that buggery?

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Yeah, it doesn't make me like get breathe heavyer my
heart bound, but it makes me kind of like gross,
But yeah, anybody does, yeh. Plsu're from one of those
countries where beat ale eating or buggety.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Yeah, it's the squirting, you know, the crunch sound then
the squirting of stuff coming out doesn't do it for me,
but extra but yeah, but yeah, so I'm not sure
on the snake thing. But yeah, I would choose not
to see him if I didn't have to. But it's
not not gonna be terrible, I guess, at least I

(01:06:17):
say that now. Kevin sent me some pretty big pictures
of our good pictures of some big snakes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
He was just out shooting his bow the other day
and he went for a run and he comes back
and you could see where a snake went across the
road and He's like, oh, sneaking snake just crossed the
road and he started shooting his bow and stuff, and
then come to realize that snake has been sitting there
coiled up right behind his shooting steak the whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Holy cow.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
He's like, yeah, okay, I'm done.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
And I hadn't rattled. Really, that's a scary part, the
ones that don't rattle. We were out at the archery range,
my son Austin and I and he's like, oh, look
there's a snake. I'm like where I'm looking around, I'm like,
wo you know, right right over there. I'm like, well,
I better be a little more careful. But it was
a big old bull snake. I think it was probably

(01:07:05):
about three feet long, but it wasn't big around it was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
So we have like gopher snakes here and I've only
seen two. But they they kind of have the markings
of a rattler. They just don't have the head or
the rattles. They're kind of cool looking. Accidentally hit one
with a lawnmar But yeah, I like them because they
eat a lot of the mice and stuff out here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Yeah, they're good to have around. My wife hates snakes,
but I don't. I don't mind them, but she don't
like mice, and she don't like snakes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Well you got a big one, like yeah, No, I
just I don't like the creepy curlies at night, and
I don't feel like the snakes would be I don't know,
they might crawling your sleeping bag with you. Yeah, I
had a skunk. Have you ever had a skunk? Has
a skunk in my tent? No?

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
I've had them around outside before.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
But not Yeah, we had a skunk. We're using a
kafaro saw tooth and uh. I remember I woke up.
I could hear some rattling, you know, rustling. I'm thinking, oh,
stupid mice, you know, into the wrappers. And I get
up and I take out out on the flashlight, and
I look around and see the skunk and scurrying off,

(01:08:22):
and there's a wrapper off of one of my meat sticks.
And I'm like, oh, this son a gun was in
our tent. He was in here with us while we
were sleeping. And so I go back into bed and
I don't know this. A little bit later and all
of a sudden, I hear this rustling around again, and

(01:08:44):
I grabbed my head lamp and I turned my headlamp
on and he's inside. Oh no, and it's sort of course.
I startled him at that point, and he starts running
back and forth and I'm just thinking, no, no. I
finally he zips up and gets underneath the sawdus and
takes off, and I'm like, we're gonna have to kill

(01:09:06):
that guy because he keeps coming in from my food.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
He found the food.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Yeah, but yeah, that was pretty scary.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Well, I killed this elk and I was breaking it down.
I killed it, you know, forty minutes before dark or whatever,
and I was breaking it down, of course in the dark,
got my headlamp on, and I'm working away, you know,
breaking this thing down, cutting quarters off, and I hear
there's something behind me. I hear something in the brush

(01:09:33):
behind me, and I'm like, well, this is great because
my pistol is about twenty yards up the hill with
my pack and here this is it. I'm gonna have
a showdown with a bear or a wolf or a
mountain lion or something. And I turned around and it
was the worst thing that I don't know if it
might be worse than any of those. It was a skunk.

(01:09:56):
He was about ten yards away, maybe closer, and he's
kind of facing me, and he's kind of going from
one front foot to the kind of bouncing back and
forth on his front feet, looking at me, trying to
figure out what I am. But I think he smelled
that elk me. I thought, oh man, it's good. I'm like,
oh no, hey, little guy. I start talking to him.
Oh hey, little guy, what you just go, you know,

(01:10:17):
scurry off? And I kind of backed up real slow,
and I walked, got up, got over to my pack
and grabbed my pistol and I was like, well, I
can't shoot him because he'll spray all over my elk.
I got this single skinned out, you know, and I
got the meat exposed. If I shoot him and he's
gonna spray all over the elk, I was like, oh man,
I just what am I going to do? So I
just kind of made some noises and cleared my throat

(01:10:38):
and talked to him a little bit with a louder voice,
and he kind of finally scurried off. But man, that
was that was a scary moment in time. And let's
go do the wolves and the cats bother you? No,
the bears, no, the bears don't bother you. No grizzly bears.
I'm I'm a little concerned about them, but I don't

(01:11:01):
hunt grizzly country. But when I have hunted it, yeah,
I've Yeah, you know, your head's on a swell. It
seems like you're you're you're paying way more attention, like
you're not just kind of do to do, like you're
you're on it the whole time. But which at the
end of the day, I feel is more exhausting. At
the end of the day, you're just like wiped out
as you've just been on high alert.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
Like I've never ran into a wolf the first opening
day in Montana this year or last year, and you know,
and I was never like, oh man, that was close.
I almost scot you know, it's like it's a wolf.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
It's a dog.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Yeah, I just don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
But they are known to attack people from time to time.
But usually i'm hunting or I have If I didn't
have a weapon, I would definitely be concerned. But you know,
if I got my bow or my I usually if
I'm by myself, a lot of times I'll pack a
pistol just because if I get hurt or something I

(01:12:01):
have to lay there and then things think I'm ready
to ye things, things ready to eat over there. That
I want to have a pistol to be able to
kind of defend myself if i'm if I'm injured. But yeah, yeah, cougars,
wolves and bears that I don't really worry about those
too much, and I probably should. I'm gonna have a

(01:12:22):
run in one of these. Yeah, the bear.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
The bear is the only one that really makes me nervous.
But there, you know, I haven't not come across the
cat coming stalking in on me calling. I probably would
feel a little bit different seeing a cat crouched up
and ready. I know it's not usually it's not like
high on my concern like like bears are.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
I know a couple I know. I have know a
handful of people that have been stalked by cougars before.
When Mike, my wife's cousin's son, high school boy, he
was out rattling for white tails and he heard something
behind him and there's a cougar like ten feet He
turns around, blast it kills it dead right there. But

(01:13:14):
you know, I don't know if they're going to pounce.
Cats are curious, They like to observe a buddy of mine.
He he used to be a forester as for a trade.
You know, he'd go through timber stands and mark timber
for timber sales and all this and that. And he's like,
I never carried a gun. He's liked him and another
guy working on this survey. One day and he was

(01:13:37):
kind of heading back to the pickup and he he's,
I kind of I felt had a funny feeling. I
turned around and there's a mountain lion following me, like
fifteen yards back. Whenever i'd move, it move, So he's like,
I just kept eye contact with it and moved my
way real slow, and I kind of talked to it,
you know, in a low voice, and got back to
pick up. He followed me all the way out till

(01:13:58):
I got to the pickup and opened the door. It
was up on the cup bank and then it turned
around the left.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
That's the best time to shoot it, right by the car, right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
He had to pack it. And then about ten minutes later,
his partner he was waiting for started hollering. He's like, Mark, Mark,
you got a gun. There's a cat up. Harry's following me.
He's like, that's okay, just come on back, keep eye contact,
don't turn your back to him. He'll be fine. And
that thing followed him all the way out, but they didn't.
It didn't, it didn't pounce. But another guy knew of

(01:14:31):
he was calling elk and he had a mountain lion
come into his calling and he shot it with his bow,
but it ran off. A couple of years later, a
houndsman treed and killed it a mountain lion in that
same area, and that thing had a broadhead lodged in
its eye socket and it was the same broad It

(01:14:51):
was the same cat that that guy had shot in
the face a a couple of years earlier. It is
in the newspaper there in orth Idahoa. So that was
pretty cool to see that. And then I'd talked to
the guy a couple of times too.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
When we were at Ryan Lampert's summit this year, Joel
Turner came out and we did a thing on bear
attacks or you know, shooting charging bear And yeah, it's
not real good odds. No, I think maybe out of

(01:15:28):
all the people that shot, everybody's probably three or four hits.
I mean they were missing every time. Oh yeah, and
it was just a milk jug being drug at them.
You know, it wasn't even a charging grizzly bear. And
the nerves of like, oh everybody's gonna watch me was

(01:15:48):
just enough. And you know, I think that he realized, like,
I don't know, that's a situation I really don't want
to get in.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
I don't want to be in it either. Well, I mean, you, flud,
you've been walking along nice and quiet and a grouse
flushes up you about piss your pants right there? Like
think about a grizzly Yeah, surprising you like that. I mean,
it's gonna be pretty hard to keep up. I went
chat together. I went and checked the cameras.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
And I'm walking into the meadow that I've got this
camera on a wallow and I'm like so focused on
looking for the tree to see if my camera's still there.
Nobody stole that type of thing. And all of a sudden,
I stop and I look and there's a moose fifteen

(01:16:41):
yards in front of me with a calf and she's
kind of for she's looking at me, and I looked
at her and like my heart just jumped and luckily
she ran the other way. I was like, huh, it's
fucking you know, and I had bear spray and I'm
thinking it wasn't even remotely a thought process to grab
do you think anything? I was just like, so the thought, yeah,

(01:17:03):
the thought of an actual bear on am I ready?

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Yeah, I don't think anybody's ever ready. I just feel like, Okay,
hopefully I'll have to be able to get my gun out,
and I'm probably not going to try to shoot at
it when it's running until it's like on me, like
like point blank, because i feel like I'm I'm probably
not going to hit it, right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
The chances of me that's you know, And that's what
really that Joel was talking about is like you're really one.
The odds of killing the bear is extremely low with
a handgun, and then really all you're trying to do
is deter it, make it change its mind on what
it's doing. Yeah, but yeah, that I mean that moose

(01:17:49):
was like probably more people are killed by moose and bears, Oh, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
Yeah, they're they're pretty pretty pretty wild. Yeah, well man,
thanks for coming on podcast today. I'm gonna let you
get headed to antelope hunting and I'm gonna go do
a little bit of scouting for Elk at Night. I
wish you luck this fall. I can't wait to see
how you're following Folds.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
And yeah you too, Yeah you're you're going to be
in some familiar stomping grounds.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Yeah, hopefully I can send you a picture.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
At least ten. Oh I know that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Yeah so good. Yeah, well it was a pleasure and
I'm glad you came out and and uh yeah, look
forward to seeing all the success this year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
Yeah. Thanks m