Ep. 51: Jason and David Frame
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Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today we're recording from the mountains of Oregon. The rut is finally starting to pick up, the bulls are starting to get pretty vocal, and the weather's starting to cool down. I can't wait to hunt these last 10 days of September here. Today's guest is my good buddy and longtime camera guy, David Frame. He grew up in Dayton, Washington, where he became passionate about photography and began shooting, photographing and shooting wildlife at a young age. David,

David has been very fortunate to film hunts and take pictures all across the U.S. He may be behind the camera most of the time, but what he knows about hunting is second to none. He knows what he's doing out there. I love being able to bounce ideas off of him during a hunt, not to mention once something is down, he's pretty handy with a heavy pack. Welcome to the show, Dave. Hey, thanks, Phelps, for having me on today. How's everything going? It's going good. Fall in the mountains, so can't beat it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's awesome. Like I said, most time you're behind the camera, but I really enjoy hunting with you. You're just like a buddy, except for most time you're behind the camera and they got, for some reason, my ugly mugs in front of the camera. So no, we've had a lot of good hunts together. That's what we're going to kind of cover today is what we've, some of the hunts we've been on together and where we found the success. And we're going to go over some of those hunts. I think we've got four or five hunts we've been successful on since we've started working together back in 18 or 19. So-

Like we start all Cutting the Distance episodes, though, we're going to start with some listener questions. These all came in from email. We got three questions today. And if you have questions of your own for us here at Cutting the Distance, feel free to email them to us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or send us a message on social media, and we'll do our best to get those on here for me and my listeners to answer.

The first question today is from Brian Rosen from Butte, Montana. He was out hunting last week in southwest Montana, and he was able to randomly hear two bulls bugling on a neighboring ridge. Everything had been pretty quiet up until that point. He exchanged some calls back and forth for about a half an hour, but they never seemed to actually move towards him.

He eventually attempted a spot in stock since they were still responding but not getting drawn in. Once he was within 88 yards of what he says is a big six point, he continued to grunt and bark. The bull continued to grunt and bark in his direction, but simply would not close the distance with bull or cow calls from him. The bull eventually casually walked off into the timber. Brian did not pursue him as he didn't want to blow him out of the area and it was almost the end of the day anyways.

So his question for us is, how do I get a bull that will respond to bugling only? How do you get that bull within shooting range, given that he will not respond to cow calls, raking, any of that stuff?

Yeah, so, I mean, you're going to have a lot more knowledge on this subject than I do, Phelps, but I would think the first thing I would be trying is maybe even just get the wind right, figure out where the rest of the herd is, figure out where some of the cows might be bedded or hanging out, and try to stalk in on some of those cows and get within bow range or rifle range and just hang out, sit down, and see what happens.

try to be there as long as long as you can and hopefully uh the herd bull will come circling around eventually and might get a shot yeah and and that's right off the bat with that bull bugling and responding but not wanting to come any closer i instantly it's like we've got a herd bull most likely um but i'm also in the back of my head knowing that he had two bulls over there obviously one of them most likely wasn't heard but i guess you could have two herds that have

come together and that other bull left. But depending on what you're after, how picky you're being and what you're looking for, you could have just sat down with heavy cow calls and it may take a while. Like bulls coming into a cow call, a lot of times they're not as vocal. They take their time a little bit more. So it may be a long game. Yeah, you may hear that bigger bull responding and he's not coming in, but you may be able to switch tactics. Now, if you're going after that herd bull, sometimes you have to be very aggressive. You know,

try to find a way to approach pretty quietly. And as Dave said, if you can get to within shooting distance or the edge of his cows, typically he will come between you and them, but he won't leave those cows to come all the way to you. He's not going to leave his for sure thing to come find some cow that's calling him or a bull that's challenging him. But the bull, you know, now if you were able to, if the vegetation and terrain allowed and you kept bugling your way right into him, he's either got two, two responses, right? He can leave or he can stay and fight you. And so you,

It just depends on how that terrain and vegetation laid out on that Ridge. Um, the other thing you can

you know, if it allowed, you know, we don't have enough information here, but with that, you could have used that ridge deer advantage. Like if you knew which side they were on, you could have stayed concealed on the opposite side and then popped up as, you know, as close as you can. Maybe he did. It's hard to speculate exactly what happened here without all the information. But, um, you know, we use that a lot. You know, we kind of call it the shock and awe. You're just the tighter you can get to that bull and leave him, uh, no, no other choice, but to come in. Um, a lot of times you have great success. Like

I wish I could say it's skill all the time, but there are many times we're moving through the woods and we catch a glimpse of a bull. We might be 30, 40, 50 yards away. Like we got way too close. We didn't exactly know he was there and we're able to call those bulls. And like my, that bull that Dirk called in for me in, in New Mexico in 2020, we, we only called that bull in 10 yards before I shot him. He was already at 50 yards. As soon as we sat down, he just didn't pick us out. You know, so you can use that Ridge, get, get real close and, you know, it may have helped. And, and,

I think everybody's, you know, and I'm not saying Brian's searching for like a guaranteed answer because a lot of times we're still out there. You know, how many times do we on any given setup, like should we approach this way? Should we go this way? Should we, you know, we're always questioning what we're doing and you guys,

the plan kind of evolves multiple times. You start out with the plan, you know, the old quote from Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Well, the wind's hitting us, you know, right now the wind's hammering us. And so we go a different direction and we realize we wasted 45 minutes because by the time we get to where we want, the wind was actually right, you know? And so you just, every, all these plans evolve and you're always, you're always changing as you go, but getting close to a herd bull's cows or to him is, is going to be to your, your best.

but yeah and i will say um to that point of being a little bit aggressive and getting close to animals that are maybe even a little bit spooked but don't have your wind um a few years ago i did end up spooking spooking a herd and and and the bull ended up spooking as well but the bull thought that there was another bull coming in and so he just chased after the cows and the whole herd and he was trying to get them rounded up again and i ended up

just following them. They didn't have my wind at all and ended up bugling and that bull just whipped around and came right in. Big herd bull. Yeah, I've bumped cows before. We almost had the opportunity yesterday. I think we bumped some cows and I thought we might have still had a shot with the bull because we were kind of in a little bit of a bugling battle and ultimately I think he ended up going with his cows. But a lot of times you can bump

cows sometimes and that bull thinks that you're another bull that bumped him and he'll still come over. So not all is lost if you're too aggressive. And that's how I grew up hunting Roosevelt's. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was very aggressive and we would bump cows but still be able to call the bull in afterwards. As long as you have the wind and they don't. Yep. Yep. So

All right. Thank you for that question, Brian. Moving on to a question from Levi Malloy out of New Mexico. He said he just got done with an either sex archery hunt. I'm assuming it was the first season in the southern part of the Lincoln National Forest. He said they weren't rutting real hard yet, but they were active. He was primarily using cow calls and throwing beagles out anytime he heard a beagle. He said he was able to call two mature bulls into about 150 yards per

But when they crested the ridge across the canyon or the little ravine from him and his brother, they were interested, but he couldn't pull them any closer to 150 yards. He's asking what should he have done in that situation? He said they hadn't spotted them. They were for sure of that and they had good wind, but they weren't able to close the distance anymore. So what would you have done in that scenario? Yeah. So, I mean, that's happened to me so many times. I mean...

It happens all the time. But I think just looking back, hindsight's 20-20, I would have tried to use that terrain, use that ridge, and maybe park myself maybe just on the other side of that ridge in the direction the bulls were coming so that they had to, as soon as they had to look over that ridge, you're sitting there at 20 yards or whatever, just a little bit of cover using that ridge. Yeah, we talk about that all the time is you don't,

don't try to set up or don't try to call that bull until you're within shooting range of where they're going to show up. And if you knew ahead of time where you were standing, you wouldn't be able to approach where you thought they would, then you might as well not call again until you can get your setup a little bit better. You don't get that vegetation, get that terrain, whatever you're using to your advantage there. You need to be within bow range when you start calling. Um,

And one thing, we're speculating on this question, was there a way you could have backed out and made a big circle? As much as I always wanted it to be point A to point B to get to these elk, is there an alternate route that involves a big circle or a big loop that keeps your wind right? And maybe that was your chance to move in closer. It depends on how...

how aggressive you want to be or how much you know work you want to put in but there are some times where it's like oh shoot we gave up some ground we can't move anymore but we can back up and it might be a mile or a mile and a half loop you know to get back to where we need to be but hey we can get behind this ridge we can get over there and hopefully they're still willing to play at that time exactly um yeah and that's just one of those things when a when a

bull gets to a spot where it expects to see the cow or the bull bugling at them, whether it's a challenge where they're coming to find a cow, um,

they're kind of done closing distance at that point. Like they expect to see the bull, they expect to see the cow. And if it's not there, they're like, well, I've came as far as I'm going to come. If you're really here, like they've announced their position, they're up on the ridge, like you come the rest of the way. And that just seems to be, you know, it's how nature works anyways. And we're trying to, to interact with it. But, um, when we set up things, you know, maybe I would say wrong, but if we set things up a little bit different than the nature's intended to work, um, we'll get those hangups quite a bit. Yep. Yep.

So our last question comes from Michael Blanchard. I believe I didn't write down where he's from. I thought he said he was from Arkansas, but he's going on his first elk hunt in Colorado this year. It's a first rifle season, which I did a little bit of research. Looks like it opens on October 14th this year. He asks, what tips do you have for a first-time elk hunter? Yeah, I'd probably...

I'd probably be, uh, looking at finding a high point in the area and pulling the spot and scope out and just glassing the hillsides as much as I can daylight to dark. Um,

I mean, sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll still be bugling that late in the year. But I mean, honestly, yeah, mid-October, I'd be looking at I'm sitting on a high point and trying to glass up bulls. Yep. Yeah. Get high, cover a lot of ground. And I think you're still going to until the gunshots start going off in the mountains, you're going to still have those elk rutting a little bit, you know, in Colorado.

But what I would be looking for is where can I find that bull with his cows as they go from the rut? But then what I'm really wanting to know, if you're not lucky enough to get it done, where are these hard to reach places? Where are these brush holes? Where's their food? You know, these bulls come off of the rut. They're going back to replenish. They're going to eat a lot.

Um, are they going to be in secluded timber pockets? Are they going to be in these, you know, hidden meadows? Are they going to be in rough, nasty country? I'm looking around where I may find them, you know, leading up to the opener or, you know, day one or two, but where are they going to go right after that? Um, so not only am I, like you said, I'm going to get up high in glass and just try to figure out the country, figure out where I could maybe shoot from or where, you know, those stocks are all going to work, but then where am I going to go once, once those bowls start to break off? Um,

I'm paying a lot of attention to that on onyx as well as when I'm on the ground. Like, where am I going to find those elk? So, you know, his second question kind of rolls into this. Do we recommend just pounding the dirt and covering a lot of ground? Yeah, I think...

I mean, I've never hunted Colorado first rifle, but, um, I think, I think initially I'd be trying to set up in one area, at least me personally, and, and really, really get to learn it and, um, see, try to figure out the habits of the critters that are, that are in there. Um, try looking for burned areas, edges of those burns, um,

Yeah, and just really anchor myself down in one spot, I think, and just see what I can turn up. But then after, but be willing to change after a couple of days. If you're not seeing any animals or anything, be willing to start covering country. But I like to initially try to

try to anchor myself to one spot and learn it a little bit and then go out from there. Yeah, I think going into a hunt, if you're new to this area, if you don't have any tips on where to go, you do a lot of e-scouting, right? You go in with a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 list where you think looks good. You go there first. You scout it. You give it an evening and then maybe even a morning. Make sure you've given it a good time. Now, I'm assuming you can go scout. Now, if this is hunting, you're doing the same thing. You go to that spot first.

If your spot A just isn't going to pan out, you need to move very quickly to spot B and go see if it pans out. And what I like to do is my spot A may be a little bit easier to get to, but I think it's got the right things for elk. I think it's in the right spot. B, C, because as season goes on, I'm starting to get maybe a little deeper, a little bit harder hike in, you know, and I'm trying because these other easy spots are going to be hit.

So I'm progressively going to harder to reach spots and checking those out. And you just keep going down the line until you figure out where the dang elk are at and, and, you know, be able to hunt them. Will elk be bugling around the first rifle in Colorado? We touched on that a little bit. It's really hit or miss from year to year. You know, you had mentioned you to, you haven't hunted for a season, Colorado. I've been around and,

in that time and they could be bugling, they may not be bugling. It's just really hit or miss. But I would say for the most part, you're going to hear bugles that time of year. So it's always a good idea to carry a bugle, at least for the first part. Now, if the elk aren't hammering, but you see them, like if you know for sure the rut's not going, I wouldn't be the odd bull out there just cranking bugles off everywhere. I'd kind of try to fit in with what nature's doing for sure.

And we touched on this a little bit, but his last question of his four, how long should he glass in one area before he moves on? Man, yeah, that depends on a lot of factors, I think. Weather and temperatures and just what you're seeing. But...

I'd definitely like to at least give a spot a morning and evening is where I would start and then just see, see how you're feeling about it. If, if, if you're seeing critters, then you might want to stay, stay there longer. Um, if you're not, then, then start thinking about those B and C options. Yep.

Yeah. It's really hit or miss. It's how much time, you know, if you've got the scout, you may want to hit a whole bunch of spots and only give it a morning or an evening, you know, hunting. Um, and it really depends on the sign. Like we all want to be active hunter, active participants in the game, right? Like we're, you know, we're, we're walking on Oregon right now. We haven't had a chance to scout a whole lot and things have moved since we've got good information. But we, as we hike, we're like, Oh, there's fresh elk tracks here. There's fresh rubs. Um, the

the same thing happens in rifle season like where the rubs at where where the tracks at scat and then you eventually just put it all together and and it's one of those games you know we all played it when we were younger with our parents or friends it's like warmer colder game like our

All right. You eventually keep following fresh tracks until it gets better and better. Or as it starts to get worse, you're like, all right, I'm going to back up into that zone. I'm going to try to figure out where the heck those things went. Cause it's obvious they were here, you know, within the last 24 hours, 48 hours. Um, it's the best information we've gotten. So, um, use that to, to add into some of these things, what you're seeing, like, Hey, there's a lot of elk sign around here. Maybe I'm just not picking them up. Um, whatever it may be, but be, be an active participant on the landscape and use any information you've got. Um,

you know, some people may frown at this, but it's just, it's adding information to your, your tools, your toolbox is you're going through a hunt is another thing that you look at is where are other hunters like, or,

I mean, even if you're just using it for like elevations type of areas, pockets, basins, like if there's 20 hunters stacked at a trailhead, I'm, I'm probably not going to go in there, but it lets me think like, what does that look like? What other spots in the unit are kind of like that? What elevations do I get to use that sort of stuff? Um, you know, to your advantage as well. Yeah. And like on this hunt, even, um,

We're kind of checking spots off, but I never like to completely erase them off the whiteboard. I like to keep them in the back pocket still. And okay, two days later, we might come through here and see what there is. Yep. Yeah. Elk move in and out of spots. They're not necessarily just going to stay there. As they get pressure, they may move in. Or you might go in there the day after somebody else was in there. They got pressured, so they're not talking or they're not there. But that may be where they want to be, and they're going to be back in another day. So it's...

it's, it's a weird balance. It's a, I'd say weird. It's a delicate balance of burning up time, chasing ghosts versus is it a good area that should hold elk because they're print, you know, they're, they're annually there during the rut. Um, you know, and there's evidence of that versus they're just gone. Um, so you're, you're trying to always balance, um,

you know, that, that equation on using up precious time that we have out here versus trying to find elk that may or may not be in an area at all that year. So, um, well, thank you all for the questions. Once again, if you have questions for me or my listeners, um, feel free to email them to us at CTD at Phelps game calls.com or send us a social media message. Uh, we'll do our best to get those questions on here for, for me and my guests to answer. So we really appreciate those.

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Now we're going to dive into some of our past hunts, Dave, and go over a few things that have worked in those situations as well as what didn't work.

um so we went i think our very first hunt we it was kind of our trial run you're like i think you're like i'll do it because you were what 15 minutes from yeah it was 15 minutes up the road yeah so dave i think he was he's like if this doesn't pan out i can just leave these jokers yeah up on the mountain and not have to ever talk to him again um so we were in his backyard on a spring bear hunt with my good buddy charlie smith um

And it worked out good. I think, you know, you joked right with the crew. It didn't take long to integrate in. You know, Charlie ended up being able to kill a pretty little cinnamon blonde on that hunt. And from then on, that was kind of our – was that our only hunt we had you on that year? It was kind of just a trial run. We weren't filming a whole lot then. I think so, yeah. I think so. It's hard to –

all the, all the hunts blend together, but I think so. Yep. And then 18, we had kind of a busy schedule with multiple guys on multiple state trips and we started to utilize you a lot more on our hunts. You know, everything you did was, was great and turned out for us. I think that year you filmed John and Charlie on an Idaho elk hunt. Yep. And, um,

John was able to kill, I think Charlie called in a pretty big five point for John pretty early in the hunt. And there were some other bulls around. Um, so you hunted with those guys. And then later that year, you ended up going to Nevada with us on my dad's mule deer hunt, where he killed a pretty good buck on, on the second day of that hunt. Um, and then we, then we kind of started elk hunting together. We had kind of just, you know,

had hunted together when it fit. And, and, um, then in 2019, we had a pretty big plan together. I think you stayed with me for almost all of September. I think we started, um, here in Oregon at the end of August. I think you, you had some stuff going on or maybe you were doing your own hunt then. Uh, I can't remember, but we went to Wyoming shortly thereafter, um, beginning of September to the Bighorns. And then we came back to Oregon. So let's kind of, let's relive that, um, 2019 Wyoming hunt.

We were in the bighorns and leading into that hunt, we had got a bunch of information that, and I don't ever trust this information, but everybody's like, you don't have to scout a lot. There are elk literally everywhere.

And I remember we got there, we got camp unloaded, got everything set, and I think we were there... Were we only there the night before, or did we show up a day and a half before? I think it was a day and a half. Yeah, I think it was a day and a half, because we did quite a bit of scouting. Yeah, because we went in and we scouted and found some elk the first night, and then the next night we found like a... If you haven't been to the Bighorns, there are these crazy cliffs that separate the tops and then like the mid-slopes. And so...

We were able to find a way through that to get a lot closer to where we had spotted those elk. And it was unbelievable the night before season. Like I could not move my spotter to a meadow or an area that didn't seem to have elk in it. So that's, it sounds super cliche and, and it's,

extremely obvious, but you can't kill an elk without having elk there. But this place seemed to be unreal. You couldn't move without being an elk, which was every elk hunter's dream, right? Yeah, that's the most elk I've ever seen still to date in one spot. The night before, I think if anybody goes back and watches the video, I'm all grins because I'm just like, you get

I can't screw this up. You know, um, we were going to have elk no matter which basin, which ridge. And then you actually have a little bit of a problem because you're like, well, I don't know where to go. This ridge had elk on it. This ridge, you know that I really liked that bowl. And you're kind of looking through bowls and you really kind of pick, you know, that way. Um, we ultimately found a ridge that we thought would be a little bit harder for people to get to. Um, and,

And so we elected to go down in their opening day. That was, I don't know if everybody remembers, I had lost a bet with my buddy Dirk Durham that year, who would sell more diaphragms, my personal signature diaphragm or his. And I think he ended up beating me by a couple thousand diaphragms. And for me to pay up on that bet, Dirk got to pick out a Hulk Hogan outfit that I got to hunt in, which was...

real humbling. And so my intention going up on the mountain was to not see anybody. And we were just going to get through the first day. We're going to film it. And then I was going to edit this film. So I was going to put very, very little of that in. We had a, we had a pretty good morning. We ended up bumping the herd that we wanted to have about, I think it was still a hundred head plus or minus. We got them into some thick stuff and ended up seeing legs and

Never did see him. We chased another little bugle for a while. And then everything quieted down quite a bit that day. I think we sat for, what, five, six hours that day up on the mountain taking a nap. As we mentioned, there was a lot of elk rich environment. We did not want to keep bumping things until they started bugling again. You wanted those shadows to get long. You wanted them to get up out of their beds at 435, somewhere in there and start bugling. So we hung out there.

and started to work our way down the mountain to where we had saw maybe the the next best bowls um that morning and uh i think we we finally it was pretty close to dark we were able to get a bowl to locate um and he was high he was actually in i don't know what the name is where those cliffs kind of fall out and make a flat bench below him and you know they're kind of scattered with rocks he was in kind of a shelf yeah um below the cliff

But he wasn't covering any distance. I think we had tried to call in a couple different setups. And when we talk about this over and over, if a bull will not move his location or doesn't seem to be moving his location over a set amount of time that seems like he's going to close the distance, you need to move yourself. And we had set up a couple times where

And he was very responsive. He would beagle back, but he would never move locations. And so ultimately we looked at each other and like, we got to go. We were running out of time. Both we were, we had the clock ticking against us. And so we were trying to move fairly quickly. We were very aggressive. We crossed a little rock ravine. He was beagling kind of as we were still running. We were kind of picking up on that, but we had, I had this spruce tree kind of that we needed to get to. That was going to be the one where

I could shoot through the limbs. I could kind of see through them. I can get a better feel for what was going on.

That was one of those times where we were just talking about earlier. I think we showed up about 55 yards away from the bull. Yeah, I think so. We had to call him very little. But this is what happens. I believe this bull heard us coming. He didn't hear us beagling because we stopped beagling. This was one of those times where I knew he was there. We knew we didn't need to beagle because he was beagling on his own. So we went silent. We closed that last 200, 250 yards without making a peep. But elk can...

here very good. We've even seen it on this trip. We've had elk bugle at us just walking down a road or down a trail. They hear us and rip off. So they will bugle just at the sound of your feet. This bull started bugling and bugling more. And I think we did start finally bugling back and forth at him, but he would not budge. I could see bits and pieces of him through the tree, but he would not move. And on this one,

A lot of people talk, you know, we, we talk about all of the different sounds that bull elk make. Um, one of the sounds is an alarm bark or a, a nervous bark. Um, he knew that we were there, but basically when, when a bull barks, he asked you to show yourself, right? Um, I, I,

everybody always asks me how we hold our bugle tubes i typically during a shooting situation keep my bugle tube if i'm on my knees i'll keep it between my legs if i'm standing up i pinch my bugle tube between my legs um that's just how well he barked at me and i was all because he's kind of in view kind of not in view and i can't remember if i picked my two do you remember if i picked my tube up or i just barked with my voice i can't remember just like barked without a tube i was focused on the viewfinder so yeah dave was dave was focused on getting the shot um but but i i

I think I barked with a diaphragm, but I didn't lift my tube up. Um, so basically he said, show yourself. And I said, no, show yourself. And just like clockwork on that colon, that bull, as soon as I barked, we had been in a 10 to 15 minute, um, stalemate standoff, whatever you want to call it. That bull walks 15 yards to the right and, and plain sight, very good bow range. I think it was 30 yards. Um, and made a great shot. And, uh,

This is one of those times where sometimes people can celebrate and maybe get too loud after a shot.

Um, we kind of kept our composure a little bit. Um, I, he, as he was running back behind the spruce tree where I was going to lose sight, I had actually stepped to the right. Um, I didn't spook him. He never saw me, but I was trying to watch and I realized he stops. I think I cow called or we called right after. Yeah. Um, the bull was lethally wounded. He was hit. Perfect. Uh, I was, but I'm, I was taught, I was raised and I will do it probably till the day I die until some, um,

bad experience or some other, uh, some other studies show that you should never shoot him twice. I was able to call that bull back in. He didn't come all the way to the same spot, but he came out in the open a little bit more. And I had a little bit of a, of an, uh, of an

not decent angle. He was a little bit quartered too, but I put it just on the backside of the shoulder and shot him again. Now, some people may say, you know, you don't want to alarm or to spook a bull that's lethally wounded. Um, but I'm of, I'm of the sense, like, even though I know that shot's perfect, I would just assume his lungs have another hole in them. Oh yeah. Um, and that bull was good evidence of it. He tipped over 40 yards down the hill from where I shot the second time or where he got hit the second time.

Um, one of the most, you know, I don't say disgusting, one of the dirtiest breakdowns ever. That bull had found himself a wallow during the 90 degree, you know, early September heat. And, um, he was completely covered head to toe. Yeah. We tried, um, for those of you that, that I haven't talked about, like my, my dad and uncles were all raised in a butcher shop and it's been passed down to us. Like your meats kept,

very clean, no hair, no dirt. And I looked at Dave and I'm like, man, I cannot keep my hands under the hide. It's just going to be a disaster. And we looked at each other and we were both running pretty low on water because it was so hot that day. And we had a river about a mile down below us. We decided that it was worth dropping everything but our water bags or bottles or whatever we had. And we went down there and filled every one of those up

It took us about an hour to drop in, fill them up and come back up. But we had to keep our hands clean, keep the meat clean. Um, and it worked out. It was going to be a disaster without it. So in that time, you know, field care, um, you know, sometimes it's nice to have water hand, you know, back then we didn't pack like the hand wipes, the wet wipes around. Now we would have had those we've could have helped out with. Um, you know, this was an instance where he was so muddy, like rubber gloves, weren't going to help at all. Um,

And everything was slick. I think rubber gloves would actually hurt in that situation. But, you know, we did everything we could, you know, on that one. And on that call-in, I think we were very aggressive. You know, some people would have been like we were too aggressive. Yeah, when I was running after you, chasing you down, I was thinking we were on the edge of too aggressive. But it worked out great. Yeah. So I'm glad you said that. Because if there would have been a spruce tree or a good tree –

The vegetation, we talk about it maybe too much, but this is another idea. I knew that was the tree. I could see it from 100 yards out because everything else was going to put me behind a little teeny green piece of brush out in the wide open. And that was a tree that was going to allow me to be concealed, get my bow drawn.

everything that I was going to need to do. And so we probably were about, you know, if you want to say we were 30 yards too aggressive, but I, I needed to be at that tree. Otherwise it didn't matter how far we stayed back or where we played it cautious. We weren't going to get to, to the right spot. Um, we didn't know if it was a herd bull or a satellite at that point, you know, herd bull, we were going to have to get that close. So,

Yeah, we literally ran the last 300 yards, got very, very tight to this bull, and it was still a pain in the neck to call him out from behind that tree. You know, it took us 20 minutes of back and forth, and finally a bark was what was able to pull him away. Yeah, and that's what's cool about elk hunting. You can chase them around and, yeah. Yep.

Yep. Um, and then we finished up on that hunt. We hunted. So that was day one. I was fortunate enough to kill. We hunted with our buddy, uh, Corey for another eight days. And, um, we called in a few bulls, uh, one lesson and I'm not picking on my buddy Corey at all. Um, and when we talked to a guy on this hunt, what was his, what was his line about drawing his bow? Um,

I don't remember. He was, the guy's like, I can't, he's like, these bulls won't let you draw your bow. I'm going to have to draw before he ever sees me. Oh yeah. And I'm not talking anything bad about, like, is it this guy? Not Corey didn't say this, but the other guy. And we're like, yeah, drawing your bow is, and when to draw your bow is maybe the most important decision you're going to make on a call-in. Yeah. You need to, you need to be very in tune with the bulls movement. How much has he stopped on the way in?

how quick is he moving? How aggressive is he band? If he's coming in tiptoeing really quiet, like,

man, you, depending on if you, how long you can hold your bow, but you might want to draw at the very last second, like find a tree that you can draw on. Have a tree picked out beforehand. I'm going to draw there. Yeah. If a bull's like just hammering through brush and like storming in, you, you get a little more lead way. You can draw a little bit earlier because you're not going to probably get stuck holding as long. Um, it's a fine art, but you know, back to the big horns hunt in Wyoming, we had a pretty good six with a real good front end, maybe not super strong up top.

But this bull got out into a meadow and he actually did what we say doesn't work very often. We didn't have a whole lot of vegetation in front of us, but we kind of got pinned down because we were calling and I think we all kind of looked up and we're like, oh, he's on the edge of the meadow.

We called a little bit more in this bull sprints across the meadow. And that was one of those times where if I, and I think Corey was a little bit on the edge, whether he wanted that bull or not. So he, maybe he wasn't super interested in, in drawing at that time, but within about 20 seconds, that bull covered 200 yards. Oh yeah. And he was right on top of us at 20 yards broadside, but,

you know once again corey wasn't able to draw his bow because now the bull was locked on you know me and him the caller and the shooter and we were kind of just pinned down so um we chased a lot of bulls it was a lot of fun just um you know a little bit later in the hunt we had a bigger five point that you know came in in kind of a weird direction and then he started his frontal walk at about 70 yards coming up an old cat trail and heintzai is always 20 20. if you know we talk about this when you set up you

should be able to guess where a bull is going to want to come up. And if he's going to come up like an old grade or an old, like a very clear path, you should maybe set yourself 15 to 20 yards up on it and not be in a straight line with that path. You know, cause I think if we were just 10 to 15 yards off, number one, that bull wouldn't have finally seen us in the road being set up or Corey in the road set up, but he would have walked past us or at least up that road enough to get a shot. And so we would have avoided the eye to eye contact and, uh, been able to get a closer broadside shot. Um, you know,

So, yeah, think about all that stuff when you set up. We finished that hunt up. We came back to Oregon. I think we were September 11th or 12th we showed up here. Yeah, that sounds right. And that year, this unit just

seemed to be somewhat dead. I mean, we were getting on bulls every day, but it just wasn't going. Um, they weren't interested in being called in real reluctant to be, you know, even cow called to be a gold, just, we would see bulls. They weren't bugling a whole lot. And so we were still kind of early in the rut. Um,

We chased some smaller bulls, seemed to be rutting a little bit more. We chased some bulls pretty deep on a few days. It was very weird to me for the unit we were hunting that year that we ran into a herd with a bigger five-point and a very small six-point as the herd bulls in a deep spot that should have had something special in it.

Um, so on, on hunts like those, I think you need to, you just need to wait your time. But that year, that season, I believe closed off on September 19th. Yeah. And so you're, you're balancing, um,

being patient and letting the rut kick in versus you need to get it done now kind of in that pre-rut. So with that said, we were still pounding a lot of ground. We were just trying to find a bull that was either with a herd, you know, that had a cow that was in and they were excited. And the other thing that was real weird about this unit is all the big bulls like to hang out together. So we had found a couple herds. We spent a lot of days chasing bulls that just

They were outsmarting us, outrunning us, and we invested a lot of time on some very, very good bowls. And then finally, we had to make the decision, all of us, after being beat, what, four days in a row, three days in a row? I think it was four, yeah. And similar routines, different routines. He could do whatever he wanted and beat us, it seemed like. We just were at a disadvantage.

um we just had to pull the plug on them like yeah it was a great bull it was one that we wanted to go after but we had to change plans and so you know fast forward you're like september 15th or 16th you don't only have four or five days left so um that's where you have to make that decision on do you stay with them potentially burn up all your season getting beat or do you need to go find one that's more callable or in a more callable area yeah um that hunt um

We had got soaking wet the one day we chased the five and the six point out, and I think you had worn your socks two or three days in a row. Yeah, one too many days in a row. So Dave had hoof rot or foot disease. I was on the bench for 24 hours. Yeah, Dave sat September 16th out, 17th, 16th.

And I went out with my other buddies and that was the day. It was literally like somebody had hit the light switch and told those elk that day that you need to start beagling. We had called in

three different bulls to under 60 yards, just didn't have any shots. We were watching a 320 bull that day. And one of Brian's, one of his, I think it was his brother, one of his buddies came up and found us on the mountain and said, Hey, you guys got there. The big bulls are down low. And so we adjusted our hunt. We came down out of the mountains. We got, we had some permission on some private there and we chased, uh,

I love hunting the mountains more than anybody. It's where I'd rather be. These bulls down low are uncallable when they're out in the fields like that because you can't hide. You're basically trying to ambush them, get in front of them, and wait. But it's hard not to go hunt a group of elk with three or four bulls that are all big, mature bulls. So we made the decision to do that, and then we got to hunt elk. I don't like to hunt elk for three days, just trying to get in front of them all the time.

um, you know, ducking down drainage ditches, you know, running around, but ultimately was able to kill a really good bull down there. Um, and, and the low stuff, but you know, all of those bulls had dropped out of the mountains, you know, and went down there. And then, um, you had, you have to hunt them where they're at, right? We, we just mentioned the whole, the whole, it's, it's very obvious, but you have to kill bulls, big bulls where they're at. And that's where they all were at that time. So we made the decision to drop down. Um,

I'm not ashamed. Like it was pretty nice to be able to get a tractor to the first bull in my life and not have to quarter it up and pack it out on my back. Um, but it's one of those things I'd like to reserve or save for my wife and kids. And I just assumed, put that thing on my pack and get it out. But it was pretty nice. Um, one time I had a blast down there in the fields. Cause I mean, you're, you're getting to see them out in the open and get it and getting close to them and seeing how bulls herd cows around. And it was, it was still a fun hunt. Yeah, it was, it was,

I think it makes you a more rounded elk hunter. Trying to figure out what you can get away with being seen, multiple eyes. We took a few risks at some points getting into these different tree rows, into these Christmas tree type patches. It's like, what can we get away with? How close can we get? It was a fun hunt. It was great for viewing elk and like you said, just being a student of the game, we're always trying to learn, but just getting to watch them and how

you know, when these three or four bulls all come together in what would be like a rut fest, quote, mega herd kind of a situation, like how the pecking order was established and why they maybe let each other get away with a little bit. Yeah. When you think like normally a big herd bull would run them all out. Yeah. It was just, it was interesting to watch. Yeah. Fun as a cameraman getting to film that stuff too. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a lot of fun.

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You came with us and filmed our Wyoming elk hunt. Tyson Drevnok, Daniel Duncan, myself, all drew Wyoming tags. And we showed up there. Those guys, I was on a different hunt that year. Oh, I was in New Mexico with Dirk. And I finished up a little bit late. You guys were there early archery hunting. Yeah.

And I showed up late, and then we had found some bulls two days of archery season left. And this was one of the tags that turns into a rifle shortly thereafter, after archery. And we decided not to necessarily, as much as I love archery elk hunting, there was too many elk, too many eyes, and too much open ground for us to get in without risking busting them. So we had made the decision, let's leave them here. Let's just keep tabs on them until the rifle opens up.

Um, went back in there and, uh, everything you could have set your watch to these elk, right? When they were fighting, when they were coming out to the meadows, where the big bull was going to go, where the, you know, the, they were also very big satellites where they were going to go.

Well, guess what also correlates with the opening day of... There was a deer season that started in there on the same day. And so hunters showed up. We've seen hunters that we hadn't seen the whole time and other people coming in different trails. Well, long... And I'll blame myself. I use my range finder a lot to figure out like, all right, these elk are at...

1,800 yards away from me. That little knoll is at 1,400 yards away from me. If we're comfortable with a 400-yard shot, we can get there. Well, somewhere in opening day calculations, we were way too far, and we couldn't make a shot. The bull was there early, and so we ended up playing a cat-and-mouse game. We pushed him way high into a basin, way high in the mountain, and...

ended up having to kind of sit there. We watched the bulls walk in. We were able to, we knew where they were at. We knew what patch of timber they went in because they couldn't have got out. It was an isolated pocket. And we did a little bit of a, you know, a Western, a Western move where we, me and Tyson decided we would just still hunt through the patch of timber. And then Daniel was going to be where we thought they may kind of release out of there. Um,

um and so we we did a little bit of a a dry you know i went it wasn't a drive we were hunting but we we came down through that piece um and i remember early we were about halfway through the patch of timber when i had a one of the the medium sixes run through me like a 320 inch six and i couldn't get a shot like it flashed in front of me

but it let me know which direction they were coming from. I wasn't on the right Ridge. The elk were on Tyson's Ridge. Um, Tyson had either bumped him or was pushing them. Um, so I ran down and all of a sudden I heard a gunshot, which I couldn't tell if it was Tyson or Daniel. And then it was, it was almost self-defense cause the entire herd like came running by where I was at. And I was trying to, you know, find horns and, um, trying to just trying to figure out what was going on in the, in the, you know, it was just chaos. Um,

and I figured you, you can hear when a rifle hits a cavity, right? It's, you get the big thump at the end. So I knew we already had to pack one bull out of way. Well, I had a little five point stop by it, like seven yards. He didn't know I was there and like, well, that's close enough. And we already got to pack one out of here. We're going to bring horses and mules in. So, um, I was able to get a shot on that bull. And then, uh,

It was the longest, I think, most miles, most elevation I've put on in a single day. I think we ended up doing 22 miles and 340 feet elevation. Yeah. 340 feet.

Yeah. Yeah, so 3,500 feet somewhere in there. Yeah, that sounds right. It was a long day, and we kept getting turned around on the way back. Remember those rocks that were just not fun to walk on? Yeah, it was a disaster. And then we were all pretty beat, but we had one day left before we had to go home, and Tyson still had his tag. He was unable to get a shot that night. The next day, locate elk right off the bat. We're here in Beaglin, not very far out of camp. We'd climbed up.

And this is one of those times where we almost called the bull in too fast. We located the bull. He was on an adjacent ridge, but on our slope that we were on, we had some of that dead timber. It wasn't burnt, but just dead beetle killed timber below us. And we thought we needed to get that bull's attention and keep it. But just like the bull with Corey, that bull decided he was going to sprint to us.

Well, Tyson and Daniel, and I believe you already had walked, were walking down there, but you guys weren't going to walk as fast as that bull was going to get there.

And Cody couldn't see, but Cody Wilson was in a spot where he could not see how fast. So he was still calling and I'm over there giving him like all the, you know, throat symbol, like stop, cut it off, knock it off. You know, he finally stops. But I think when you guys popped out of the timber, Tyson said he looked up and the bulls like at 40 or 50 yards away. Yeah. Like we had called too fast. So in that scenario, we,

Until you know exactly how that bull is going to react, I guess what we did, though, if you guys would have waited with us, you guys would have been even further behind. So it was one of those things where it was fortunate that you guys were able to get there just in time and Tyson was able to make a good shot on that bull. But that was one of those things you got to think about, that if you've got to get to a spot and you've got a secondary caller, use call signals. A lot of times if a guy's ahead, when he's ready to set up, he'll give like,

three quick cow calls or one or he'll say, I'm just going to cow call when I'm ready. And then I'm going to be quiet, right? Give yourself some signals so that the guy that's maybe calling, or if you're not, ideally you're always within, you know, seeing distance of each other. So you can give each other signals like what's going on, beagle, cow call, whatever. But if you can't, you got to have some sort of idea what's going on. So make sure you can communicate without communicating. Um, we almost called that bull in a little too fast. Yeah. Um,

What other hunts? I think 21 rifle. Yeah. You were with us on that one. Yep. That bull, the whole story is,

If you know he's around, he's around, right? We had some guys. My good buddy Brian was watching him for a couple of days. Knew he was in the area. But the night before season, he had dropped over from a south-facing slope to a north-facing slope. So it went from where he could see really good to where he couldn't hardly see anything. We knew he was there. Opening morning, we found all of the satellite bulls that was with him, but him, all of his cows.

And then you start to wonder how far has he went? Did he cross the entire canyon? Did he, you know, go up the ridge? Did he go down the ridge? You're, you're really starting to question. We get all the way through that day, nothing. We go look at a different bowl that just wasn't quite what we were after. Um, and then the next day, uh, we spot a big heavy seven that we didn't think was quite what we wanted, but we, it deserved a closer look.

So me, you, Dirk, and Brian, I believe, walked way down this finger ridge, way down in there. The biggest rookie mistake of ever. Brian blames me. I blame him, but I know who was on the spotter at that time, and it wasn't me. But no, Brian's an awesome hunter. I'm just giving him a hard time. But I still give him crap about this one because when you're looking through a spotter and we could –

see just like a piece of the elk and a little bit of horn. Like he was tucked away in some brush and I was getting kind of tired and Brian was looking well about, I don't know, a minute or two went by and I think he puts his eye back in her. I actually finally ducked down into my spotter and we're both like, he's gone. Never seen him move. Never seen him come out of where he was. No sight of this thing at all. Um,

And we're kind of like, oh, that was as bad as it gets. Like, we screwed up big time. You know, we shouldn't have let that happen. We're fairly experienced. We're pretty good at this thing, but completely botched it. And we decided, all right, it's the walk of shame. We're just going to walk out this. We were probably 1,500 feet down in there, maybe a little more. Yeah, at least. We're like, oh, boy, the walk of shame back up. And about halfway, and I'd been hunting a lot already. We're in the end of October, maybe early November. I don't remember. I had already had a lot of hunts that year.

And I got this, I don't know if it was a migraine or what the heck was going on, but I got a crazy headache that I didn't, I hadn't had to deal with too much. And we had took my pack off and I think I'd had some Tylenol in there and some Ibuprofen or something.

um, took it. And about the time I had dropped one of those like gel caps, I think Advil gel caps. And when they get wet or any moisture, they puff up and they're no good. So I had just picked it up and threw it off the ridge. And I think Brian or Dirk or somebody, I think Brian yelled, that's the bull get ready to shoot. Well,

I love my gun, but it's a big, single-fed .338 Edge. It doesn't have bullets in it. The bullets were all in my pocket. I had my scope cover on. I think I had about five seconds to figure out where my bullet was, where to get it in the gun, and then that bull came through the opening, but he came through it too fast, and...

We all gave our war cries just to stop him. Like that's one thing that will sometimes work. It's not a hunting sound. It's nothing, but you yell at a bull when, you know, right prior to where you need him to, because it's going to take a while for the sound to get there. We've stopped animals a lot, right? Just by, you know, a big yelp across the, across the Canyon. And that bull did not stop. And it was just like, oh, that was him, right? He had been there the whole time. We just never laid eyes on him in the Canyon. We were in a pretty tight,

you know, side canyon. Yep.

never seen him, and we're like, oh, shoot. And I think Dirk, somebody said he's coming back. Yep. For some crazy reason, this bull decides he didn't want to go up that ridge and come, I don't know if he caught our wind off of that, but he comes back down. Or just switchbacking maybe. He comes back down the trail he went up and stops at that gap at 400 yards. I was able to make a shot, and the rest was a long night with a migraine or whatever the heck I had going on. But that was one of those times, you know, that trust...

trust the latest knowledge you've got until you've seen that bull somewhere else or know he's out of there. You have to assume he's in that country. You know, the same with the archery seasons like we're in right now. You know, if a bull was seen there somewhere during the rut with cows, you have to assume unless he just gets completely bumped out of the country or moved off somewhere, he's probably still there. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that stands out to me is I remember literally like

30, 45 seconds before that, Brian was like, that bull that we're looking for is going to be in a patch just like that. And that's where he was, ended up being. Yeah, he's just, he's holed up there, right? He's super thick. Yeah, recouped from the rut. He's trying to feed without anything seeing him or laying eyes on him. He wants that security. So yeah, that's a great point is that, you know, look for those garbage holes. You know, just what we talked about the guy on the Colorado hunt,

These bulls don't want to be in the wide open anymore once they're done rutting. Once they've kind of given up, the pressure's too much, they're going to drop those cows. And they may still check on them at night, but they're going to hide the rest of the day. They're not going to hang out with that herd 24 hours a day.

Um, you got to hunt with Dirk a little bit last year on his Utah hunt was a pretty special place. Yeah. Um, tell us a little bit about like the bull to cow ratios there and just how you guys, maybe, maybe how he hunted it a little bit different than you would a spot where you're dealing with cows and whatnot. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that was a special place. I think the bull-to-cow ratios are like 80 bulls to one cow or something, something crazy in there. I think for the first three days, all we saw were bulls in there. Yeah, I think Dirk stuck to his guns pretty much of just bugling a lot still, even though, I mean, yeah, we hardly had to get him bugling, though. I mean, you would...

They were bugling everywhere we went. So just a lot easier on us, not a lot of bugling to do. But yeah, so then I think once we were dropping down into those holes and knowing where the bulls were, it was just a few cow calls and those bulls were headed our way. Again, just super special place. So it's not your typical public land hunt. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think – I don't want to make a correction if you were right, but I believe the whole unit is, what, 80 to 100. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the area that you guys were in didn't seem to have a lot of cows in it at all, so it might have been 80 to 1. No, yeah, yeah. It seemed like 80 to 1, but, yeah, you're right, 80 to 100. 100 for the whole area, which is off the charts. You want to be in units with 30 to 100, and that's pretty dang good hunting. Yeah.

What it really comes down to is, like, herd dynamics. And the reason those bulls were so callable is none of them had opportunities at cows. And some of them were really good bulls, but they just don't have any cows around at that time or the bigger bulls in there have all the cows. This unit was pretty special, too, because a lot of the cows went to a certain part to rut. And so if you were in the higher mountains before those bulls decided they needed to drop down, you were hunting pretty much bulls still at that point. Yeah, I think it was just...

a special part of that unit where, where the bulls are all, uh, bachelored up and just figuring out, you know, figuring out who's the boss. And we were there early too. Um,

So that made a difference as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wasn't on that hunt, but I wanted to touch on it a little bit with some different bull to cow dynamics and how a unit can change and where, you know, we preach a lot, you know, bugle for aggressive, you know, aggressive bugling for herd bulls. I think in certain units in certain areas, you know, cow calling is all that's needed. Or if you find the right bull, cow calling is all that's needed. So,

Yeah, no, it was pretty easy just to let out a cow call and locate him and get in close to him. Yeah. Yeah. And then aside from...

The hunt that we're on right now, the last time I got to hunt with you was on my Washington .22 bull, which here's a shameless plug. It will be on Leupold Optics' YouTube channel. It's actually airing today, which is September 19th. But by the time this episode drops, you can go check that out. And it was a fun hunt. But I would say the lesson that we pulled away from that is

is the unit we were in was extremely rugged. Some guys may be able to hunt that day in and day out and do it right, but a lot of guys aren't going to be able to go top to bottom, top to bottom multiple times in this unit without burning themselves out. So the game plan, which may seem like some is a lazy plan or a boring way to hunt, but we've been there before. We've hunted it before. We did not...

put a bunch of effort in aside from glassing. We, we, we did make a, you know, we had a good idea on, on one decent bowl. We made a little hike in there so we could see down in, but it wasn't a ton of work. We were trying to stay high and look, um, we spent a lot of time behind the glass trying to just find the bowl that you wanted to go after. You didn't want to waste energy on, you know,

Just getting into areas, if you could hike to certain points in the unit so you could glass a lot of it, there were one to two mile hikes where you could get into and glass a lot of it without having to drop into it. You can see a lot of these faces. You may just have to change positions over time. And one thing about that unit is those bowls are, for the most part, there were a few...

mature bulls with cows still, but the bigger bulls had moved off. And then up in that steep stuff, a lot of it, there was one herd of cows, but the majority are just bulls up there, right? So most of the elk you see are bulls up high. The cows are going to stay down low. They're going to get out of the nasty stuff. We were just picking through bulls. The day before, it was pretty wet and

and snowy up there when we couldn't see great. But when we could, we were spotting lots of elk, you know, 10 to 12 elk, all bulls, you know, 14 bulls, whatever it may be. But you're really just picking through the bull that you wanted to go after. And so I think what we got through all the wet, the

opening day was beautiful we spotted it was a little windy but we spotted the bull we wanted and basically halfway through opening morning the snow and the rain and everything came back in we spent two and a half days like barely getting looks in the little slivers of country you know the wind would blow it out maybe at midday and then it would fog back in and you wouldn't see the rest of the day so we kind of spent our time we had we found a couple bowls we kept checking on like we couldn't tell how good they were and then

Um, finally we're able to find my bull, um, the third or fourth night. And, uh, we were looking at through the spotter, a couple other guys had showed up just to kind of like him and haul around. And, um, this is one of those, you know, a successful hunt is made up by a whole bunch of decisions that you make along the way. And we were sitting there contemplating whether that bull would be in that spot in the morning or we had two hours of daylight. Yeah.

Yeah. Left. I think so. And we were sitting there, him and Han. Maybe not even two hours. Yeah. It wasn't a whole lot of time. And we were sitting there just trying to figure it out. And I heard, I don't even remember which one of the guys said it, but somebody said, I know what I would be doing if I had to tag. And that was enough. Like, I've got a very competitive spirit. And it's like, well, this guy thinks he could have got down there and shot it. Like, let's go. So we ran back. We all geared up. Our good buddies, uh,

Chris Cook and Hunter Cloak were with us. And it was just me and you, right? Us four? And Pete.

oh yeah with loophole yep um we we took off and it was as fast as i've ever dropped 2500 feet yeah um as fast and then we the other thing we had to do was keep track of the bowl for ourselves as we're going down right because we need to get ourselves to a spot where we can shoot where the face is going to be open and we get we probably dropped 1500 feet and you had your spotters we're going down we were able to relocate them

all right, we're good here. Like get down another five, 600 feet. Let's relocate and make sure we're still on the right path. And then we're also doing our thing. Like if we get to this point, we should have a shot, but when you're not in a perfect line, there's a lot of guessing that goes on. Like, I think it'll be this far of a shot. And then we were even pulling out on X, right? If we get on this Ridge where we think he is at on his face should be about this far of a shot. And,

um i said i think we made it down there in just a hair over an hour yeah probably um it was it was a fast fast hike yeah i i'm i like to sweat a lot as i hunt anyways but um this was the most i've ever sweated on a down downhill exactly yeah and uh i think that's the fastest i've ever lost elevation yeah yeah we we boogied on down um ultimately that bull got a little bit

tied up behind what I was calling the jack for I remember when we in the spotter like he's behind the two jackfers um because I just wanted to make sure everybody was on him whether I could shoot or not like once you're all on him it just eases the situation you know because nobody's waiting and we got we all got on him and finally he took a step out to the right um I shot high and and this is crazy steep country and uh

I had shot a whole bunch at home leading up to it. Very, very comfortable at the range. Not a lot of work for my gun, but it was such a boxy, straight up and down canyon that I don't know what the wind was doing. And I took another shot and hit him, and he dropped. And at that point, now you're committed, right? Shot again, or two more times, and was able to finally...

um, you know, hit him and kill him. But, uh, man, it was one of those times where it was a little bit humbling, like no matter how good of a shot I think I am. And I thought the wind was right in our face. There was something crazy going on across the Canyon. Um, and it was one of those times where I'm glad it worked out as quickly and as ethically as it is, but it really questions like, you know, what, you know, what sort of conditions we should be, you know, shooting in, but, um, no, the, everything worked out great. Um,

it was in a spot where the pack out was a real, real bad. Um, we did Hunter who, you know, Hunter and Chris who grew up there, hunt it every year. They were a little unsure how we were going to get to them and finding like a trail across. So we decided to, it was real, real cool outside. So we decided to wait and, uh, you know, attack it in the morning. We're able to find, uh, you know, some horses to bring it out, which was awesome. You know, just some of the greatest guys in the, in the world, just, you know, drop what they're doing. Um, you know,

You know, just as good guys. Like, we just want to be involved. And I think...

and this is this sounds super pretentious and it's not meant to be but they say guys that were willing to do what you guys just did deserve to have a bowl packed out you know and so I think they're like we want in oh yeah I was I was nervous because they were all heading to a Cody Johnson concert I think that next day they were they knew that their wives had one extra day they could they could haul haul an elk out but they needed to be on the road first thing that next morning but super awesome guys really appreciate all their help and no we've had some great elk hunts together um

we're, we're all, you know, I love you're willing to go anywhere. Um, how can people find out a little bit about your photography? Look at your prints, um, you know, your website, your Instagram, all that stuff. Yeah. My website's just David frame photography and all my info's there. Gotcha. Instagram. Uh,

uh yeah david frame photo perfect on there as well yeah well um we're here elk camp we're recording midday uh we're gonna get this uh wrapped up and then go out and start chasing bugles again perfect all right thanks for thanks for uh filming follow me around and uh hopefully uh in the future we can talk about this episode or this hunt as being another successful one we've got to share yeah thanks felps thanks for having me on take care

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