Ep. 73: Idaho's "Good Old Days" of Elk Hunting
01:02:59 Share

Check engine light on? Take the guesswork out of your check engine light with O'Reilly Veriscan. It's free and provides a report with solutions based on over 650 million vehicle scans verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we can recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today. O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts.

There's nothing like snook hook sets at dawn or catching a tarpon in the moonlight. Find your next fishing trip made easy on fishingbooker.com and experience the magic of the Sunshine State or any other destination on your fishing bucket list. Book a blue water adventure in search of sailfish or go snapper fishing with the kids. With over 6,000 captains and trips to choose from, planning your next one just got a whole lot easier. Download the Fishing Booker app

on the Google Play or App Store or visit them online at fishingbooker.com to book your trip today. You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to land.com.

They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins. Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and today my guest is a longtime sportsman and sportsman advocate and outdoor rider.

lifelong hunter and if anyone wants to know anything about elk hunting I feel this is the guy you want to get inside his brain and pick it a little bit. Welcome to the show I have George Betas here today. Welcome George. Thank you Derek it's great to be with you guys. I've been following George for several years on social media and I've seen a lot of stuff he's written over the years and I've always thought he's a pretty neat and fascinating guy and I

I thought, you know, who better to get on the podcast and kind of talk about the good old days of elk hunting in Idaho, and in particular, Idaho's Clearwater region. It's kind of a magical place, and I think it's probably arguably one of the most beautiful places to hunt elk.

there is as far as picturesque quality and at one time it was a really neat place to go elk hunting just because of the whole experience but I thought I'd bring George on and kind of talk about those good old days and what they looked like back then and maybe contrast to what it looks like today hunting there and yeah

If any of our listeners, if you guys don't know, I'm not familiar with George, I'm going to take a minute and let George talk about himself. And it's sometimes hard to brag on himself. But if you were to look at his Facebook profile, it's pretty impressive. He served in a lot of different important roles, advocating for sportsmen, among other things, through his lifetime of being a hunter and a sportsman. So, George, could you give us a little bit of your background?

I'll give you the executive summary if you want to know more. Yeah. Go to Google or Facebook. Well, I grew up on a small farm in central Washington. We never had elk there. I remember seeing the very first elk there.

Way back when I was probably a sophomore in college in about 1950, 1962, there was a big bull lying up in the timber. But we just didn't have elk there. We had a lot of mule deer. And so, you know, elk was a really...

kind of interesting thing to see on the farm. Well, anyway, after high school, I went on to Washington State University, graduated. I was in the last required class of ROTC, the Return Reserve Officer Training Program. And of course, after you finish school, you have to go in the Army. So I served in the Army in the late 60s and

in the Air Defense Artillery Program, or actually branch, and after that, eventually returned to Pullman, Washington, where I started work on my doctorate degree in higher education. And I was there until I retired in 2002.

I served in a whole series of positions, director of housing and dean of students and ultimately the vice president of student affairs. But anyway, my interest in conservation goes clear back to my just growing up on the farm.

I was always interested in birds and, you know, identifying birds and animals. And, you know, we had deer on the farm and we could see elk down in other areas. And so I was always interested in wildlife. And then after I – I used to say I spent my whole life either in school or in the Army. And it was true until after I got back from –

back to WSU to work on my doctorate. I started really thinking about hunting and other things I could do. In 1984, the Elk Foundation had their very first convention in Spokane. And I had an interesting, I was hunting elk in Montana at the time up around Superior, and there was a bugle magazine. And I

I saw it, and the guy says, where'd you get this? He says, that's the last one. I said, well, do you have any more? He said, no. He said, you can have that one for 20 bucks. So I bought it. Anyway, so I got involved with the Elk Foundation just as a member, then as a

a life member and habitat partner and ultimately was on the board, was elected to the board, served as a board chair during some tumultuous times kind of in the, with the Elk Foundation changing CEOs and stuff. Anyway, but parallel to that, I got a call one day from Emmett Burroughs in California and

He asked me, he says, "Hey, I hear you like to hunt mule deer. I'm putting together a new mule deer foundation." I said, "Really?" He says, "Would you help us organize and develop the documents?" He said, "I've got six other guys coming to Redding." So I went down there and I was one of the founders of the Mule Deer Foundation and then ultimately served as president

But at the same time, in '89, I was invited to become a regular member of the Boone and Crockett Club. And I couldn't do both. So I passed the gavel with the Mule Deer Foundation on. And then, of course, at the university, I had a job to do. And I spent time working with Boone and Crockett. I've been a Boone and Crockett member for 34 years, served in

I guess all levels of responsibility except president. And that's been a great ride. And I, that connected to me a lot of different opportunities for, you know, conservation work.

The Elk Foundation, when I was on the board, you know, the lands program, I was really involved with that. I was involved with all aspects of it, and I learned all about, you know, I was involved in a lot of those major, major Elk Foundation land programs as a board member and as an individual. And then...

After I left Boone and Crockett, actually, I left the university. I retired from the university in 2001 and was hired as the executive director of the Boone and Crockett Club and moved to Missoula.

I've been here the last 20 years, and that gave me other opportunities to reach out and work with conservation organizations. Elk Foundation on their land projects was one of them. After I retired from Poon and Crockett, I was hired by the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Foundation, and was their executive director and manager of a trust they manage, and

that, in that role, we were able to fund millions of dollars of different public access and future program. So anyway, I flunked retirement four times. And so that pretty much got a hand all along. When I was at the university, I basically had time to go hunting deer for like a week and elk for a week. And so that's when I discovered the Clearwater. And that's

I can tell that story. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's quite a, quite an impressive list of, of roles of, of, uh, that, that would consume a lot of time and, um, um, responsibility, definitely, especially working full-time when you're at WSU and you were serving those other roles. Um, that's, that's an incredible, that's an incredible achievement, really. Um, that, that's,

I don't think a lot of, a lot of people can, can do that. I know, I don't think I would be able to be capable of having that much heaped on my plate on a, on a daily basis. So that's, that's cool. A lot of the roles I had at WSU were, you know, involve students and student behavior in the residence halls and fraternities and sororities. And, you know, I was on call 24 seven. And so I could, you know, typically an elk hunt in Idaho after I figured out, you know, where to go in the Clearwater, we'd,

I'd have a staff meeting Monday morning and meet my buddy in Lewiston with the horses. And away we'd go, and I'd come back Sunday and be right back at it. Two weeks later, the deer season opened, and I'd be a week for deer. That was it until maybe Thanksgiving. But, yeah, but, you know, I always tell young people to just follow their passion. You know, I don't fish, but I hunt.

And I figured, if you're going to do something well, you've got to keep your eye on the football. And for me, it was hunting. It was deer hunting and elk hunting, of course, and brown bears in Alaska, yada, yada, and all those other things I've done. But it was all about hunting, learning your rifles and studying the ballistics and learning to reload, you know, all of that. And so, anyway, that's kind of an executive summary. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

So when did you get first get into hunting with horses in the back country? Well, uh, it had the Clearwater's what got me into the horses. Okay. I, uh, what year was that? I went in there in the first backpacked in for elk in 1976, but I started going up into the cellway bear hunting in the spring. And, uh, you know, uh,

The guys up in those days, they drove up the highway and so, you know, up to towards the Montana line. And you could see bears any morning, any time, right from the road and

There are a lot of adventures. I didn't like the river. I didn't want to have to go across the river to get a bear. So I heard about the Clearwater. I went up to Clearwater and up to Kelly Creek and killed a giant bear the first year. And that was in about 73, 74 maybe. But when I was up there in the spring, we'd see, and we'd backpack in there, bear hunting, we'd see all these elk. I mean, hundreds of elk. Everywhere we went, just big. Yeah, I mean...

Elk were everywhere. I mean, I can tell you every place I went, there were just elk everywhere. And so I started looking at that and I, there was a guy by the name of Del Roby. He used to do outdoor films. Yeah, I've seen those. Yeah. And I remember going to one down in Lewiston at the Lewis Clark Sports Club and I,

They had one of these PVC bugles, and they called in a big six-point, and it was up in Max Walker's guide area in Kelley Creek. And they all come walking in, and a guy shot it. And I said, whoa, that's interesting. I've never seen that before. Well, anyway, so I started focusing on the Clearwater. And so my buddy and I, we backpacked way back into the middle of Paradise Meadows and, you know, bear hunting.

We had to hike over the snow and all that to get in there. But, Dirk, it was one of the most memorable experiences I've ever, ever had because we bushwhacked because of the snow and we popped into this big basin, you know, three miles by two miles. Yeah. It was lush. It was green. And there must have been 300 at least cow elk in the meadows with their calves calling back and forth.

Wow. And we didn't know it at the time, but these, but these big bears were coming in to prey on the elk calves. So we both shot two big bears and skinned them out and then had to use our map and compass to get back to the highway. But when I saw those elk, I said, whoa, I've got to get in here. It's like nine, 10 miles in there. Yeah. And so, uh,

I had to put together a group of guys, and guys I knew, and guys that were good elk hunters, and guys that I trusted. There was an orthopedic surgeon from up in Bellingham, Washington, and a friend of mine from Seattle that hunted elk together in Oregon. And they'd camp on the Washington-Oregon line. Oregon would open, they'd shoot a spike there, and then they'd come back on the Washington side in the Blue Mountains and shoot a spike.

So I called Andy and Bob. I said, hey, guys, I said, do you want to come to Idaho? We need some horses to get where I want to go. And they said, sure. And so and then one of my former, well, my secretary's husband was a vet student and ended up ultimately in Pomeroy, Washington. And so he had a horse. And so I bought an old Appaloosa, rat tail Appaloosa from one of the athletes.

And so anyway, you know, actually the fall of 77, we went in with horses. And Tip, you know, I didn't know anything about, much about it. You know, now I say we used to pack like sheep herders because we had deckers and stuff and we'd tie stuff on and it'd fall off and then knots would come. Anyway, it was, you know, those four guys, we hunted that for 12 years. Wow. And during that time,

We never hunted more than three days. It was rifle. We'd pack in on Monday. Well, we'd drive up the trailhead on Monday, pack in Tuesday, set up camp. And the season opened on Wednesday in those days, like the last week of September. And the bulls were just really vocal. I mean, at night you could just hear bulls bugling all around you everywhere. And, you know, the first...

The first two days, we got four nice bulls, and we had too much gear. We ended up boning them out because we didn't have enough horses to do everything, and we backpacked what we could, and we went out that way. Then we added some horses and added some horses. I got a couple of horses and ended up that we had like 12 horses to go in there. Holy cow. Four out to pack out and four guys in your gear.

And that was before lightweight gear. Sure. I've got pictures of me in my blue jeans and my yellow plastic raincoat soaking wet. But, Dirk, you were in that country. You hunted that country. Yeah. And, of course, I went back, and I want to know the history. So I went back. I read everything I could find about the wildfires.

And how the red stem ceanothus was a really important winter food. I mean, there were so many elk in there in those days that, and if you've been in there, hiked up Overcook Mountain back in that country, the elk trails were two feet wide and a foot deep. Wow. Those trails are still there. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been in there a couple of years ago and then a couple of years before that. The brush is 10, 12 feet tall. And I knew where the trails were. And I'd be going in there with my horse and pretty soon he'd stumble and he'd fall down in the elk trail. But, I mean, it was unreal. We hunted it for 12 years. And, you know, we hunted hard. I'd go in there in the summer. It's funny because my hunting partner from Pomeroy,

He was in the Nazarene church and he'd, he could always find a couple of young boys, maybe boys with just, you know, a single parent that would want to go with us. And so we'd take them in there and, you know, there were no, there's no timber in there. And we, we followed elk trails and we took out some, you know, we dug out some downfall and maybe cut a limb or two off of the brush so we could navigate in the morning.

Okay. Before day and get out away from camp because every year the circle got wider. And finally we were killing elk clear over on Cook Mountain and coming back at two in the morning. But anyway, like I say, we all hunted hard. It was like a military camp. The night before we get all the topo maps and we talk about this and we talk about where one guy was going and where everybody went.

And then as soon as one guy got his elk, he'd come back. He'd get his elk out or one of us would go with him and get it out. And then he'd take care of the horses and cook. Okay. Yeah, that was kind of the drill. But the habitat was lush. As you said, it's probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Yeah. And now, you know, later on we can talk about what's changed.

You guys were in there in September and that was rifle hunting back then? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

They did not have it, and the dude told me specifically where I would go down the road to find it is how nice they are. They offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. Thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in-store, or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

They'll test your battery for free. If you need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or quick service, they'll help you find the right part or point you to a local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, best of all, friendly. These guys are your one-stop shop for all things auto, do-it-yourself,

You can find what you need in-store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit them at OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. That's OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam Motor Treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

It's really simple. When you pour it in your gas tank, sea foam cleans harmful fuel deposits that cause engine problems. I'm talking common stuff like hard starts, rough engine performance, or lost fuel economy. Sea foam is an easy way to prevent or overcome these problems. Just pour a can in your gas tank and let it clean your fuel system. You probably know someone who has used a can of sea foam to get their truck or boat going again. People everywhere rely on sea foam to keep their trucks, boats, and small engines running the way that they should the entire season.

Help your engine run better and last longer. Pick up a can of Seafoam today at your local auto parts store or visit seafoamworks.com to learn more.

This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at HuntTheGreatest.com. Did they even have archery seasons during that time? They did. And we seldom ever saw a bowhunter.

And what happened was, after about eight years, Max Walker was an old-time outfitter. He was a great guy. And then Gordon Stimwell was back in there. And I knew both. I knew Gordon, never knew Max. They were gentlemen, and there weren't many people that ever go in there. There were a few people going in with horses, but not many. And the outfitter camp in there in Paradise Meadow was just all tromped down, and it was really...

It wasn't really very active, and we never saw an outfitter. But then a new guy came in and bought the outfit, and he didn't like the fact that we were going in there and packing out elk. So anyway, we ended up moving over on the other side, on Cook Mountain, and, you know, we still hunted in the same areas. And then I always remember we have to ride out through the lodge bulls

and in the dark, and it was real flat up there. Yeah. If you didn't know your way, you'd get lost. And my horse knew his way to where we'd ride out and tie off. Sure. And then one day, we were riding out there, and I shined my flashlight on the tree, and there's something shining. It's like a thumbtack with fluorescent paint on it. I'm like, what's that? And then pretty soon, I could see another one. Well...

bow hunters had showed up and they were putting in those thumbtacks. Oh, yeah. To get on the ridge. And then it was, we killed an elk almost every year after that with a broadhead in the shoulder. Almost every year. Wow. That's when they showed up. It was probably, you know, 82, 83. But we never saw them. They would come in off the top onto the south of where we were.

Over towards out of the Wheatus there, across the Wheatus there and come up that side of Cook Mountain? The Wheatus Bridge. And then the outfitter, he really loaded up. He had 72 hunters in there one year. And he had probably 20, 25 bow hunters. I looked up his information on the Forest Service records. Yeah, he had like 20 or more bow hunters. In those days, those elk were a lot of elk and

They didn't know much about bugles. But anyway, yeah. That's a great way to kind of frame up what kind of country that was and how many elk were living there. My dad, when he got out of the Marines in World War II, then he moved to Weeip and...

Made friends with some of the locals and they started to go up and going up into Kelly Creek there in the late forties. And they would take, go in there with horses and the, what he described to like the elk trails were just as you described, you know, two feet wide, a foot deep and there were elk everywhere. And yeah,

They never shot bulls for the most part. It was, they were, they were there for the cows. They would shoot, you know, just the meat. They were just, they worried about meat and they're like, Oh, I don't shoot one of those old stinky bulls. We want to, we want a cow. You know, if somebody shot a bull, then they had to, they'd give them a raft of crap about it. But at one, there was kind of a turning point. An outfitter started guiding up Kelly Creek there and they,

And it sounds like a similar operation, like tons and tons of people in camps and all over the hillsides. And he said it got to be kind of a rat race. And he was there for the quiet and the getting away and not seeing a bunch of people and then good hunting. And it just got to the point. He just gave it up. He's like, well, I'm not going to go back up there anymore. But it's interesting. Interesting. We did everything we could to...

to prevent any interference with the outfitter. And we camped at the far end of one outfitter's area, and we basically hunted on the edge of the other outfitter. And frankly, we never saw the outfitters up there except when we were packing meat out. And it was a really – we stayed out of their way. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, to this day, if you get on Google Earth and you go to that place that you mentioned, there's a salt lick there that's about the size of my house that's still there. And I don't know that there's very many elk hitting that salt lick anymore, but they beat it down so bad back in the 70s and 80s that nothing will grow in that spot. Well, the outfitter used to... I'd never seen big...

one foot diameter or two foot chunks of rock salt. And one day he was coming in with his mules and they're all loaded with rock salt. And there are big licks in there. But now one of the, one of the, well, two of the biggest licks are so overgrown they're hardly there. And we put some up two years ago and left them there from the middle of August till bow season and

on one camera we had a rag horn bull a cow a cow and a yearling and they were in those you know the licks are still there there's some deer come in but you know you know you've seen those licks they dig it right down in the ground and oh yeah they can't they can't salt anymore but yeah but there were you know there were a lot of other uh met some good friends uh my friend would uh

The guy I hunted with, you asked about hunting partners, but the guy I hunted with, he'd always run into these guys in Tillamook, Oregon, way back up in, you know, in the head of Cook Creek. Yeah, I'd never seen him. So it was the first elk foundation meeting in Spokane. I had a banquet and I sat down at this table and there was four guys sitting there and I introduced myself and

I couldn't believe it. They were from Tillamook, Oregon. They were the guys that were coming in from the Locksaw. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Anyway, you talk about how many of us were hunting. You know, one is great. Two is enough. Three will work. And if you know each other and you care about each other and they're not jealous of each other, four is a good team.

but never more than four. And one of the things we, people always want to know where we're hunting. Well, you know, and then some people get angry if you don't tell them where you're hunting. People followed my, you know, they're looking at my vehicles and my horse truck and this and that. But we never took new people into the area just because, you know, there's an outfitter in there. We didn't want to bring other people and

If somebody showed up, they showed up. But that was a golden rule for us. We never took anybody outside to our camp. And so, you know, we hunted with four guys. And after I quit hunting the Clearwater and moved over into salmon, I hunted with two other guys. But you can get too many people in camp. Right, right. And the other little thing that comes into a hunting camp

is jealousy. - Yep. - If you're good and you're in good shape and you hunt really hard and you're successful, you'll have somebody that doesn't take care of themselves and they don't take care of their body and they're not in good shape and they won't push it the extra mile. And pretty soon that person gets jealous. So that's my old man's wisdom on hunting partner. - Yeah. - It's like that, you gotta have a good one. - Absolutely.

It's almost like when you're looking for a mate, you know, you're looking for a wife. You have to vet that hunting partner so good and make sure that you guys can get along because I've seen it, you know, the backcountry can bring out the best in people or it can bring out the worst in people.

You know, you can because, you know, it's not all every day is not just easy laying around and enjoying delicious food and sitting around camp. I mean, there's hardships. There's inclement weather. There's.

finding game, whatever the difficulty is, those partners have to kind of weather the storm with you. And the ones that are really great, they're like worth their weight in gold. And the ones that cause problems, those ones don't get to come back next time. Well, I talk about the three-day rule.

A lot of people are ready to go home after three days. Oh, yeah. And dealing with adversity, if you want to be an elk hunter and be successful, you have to be able to deal with adversity. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a horse that's injured or whether you get snow, you get snowed in, you know, it's really cold, the elk move, whatever. And you've got to go the extra mile and push.

And when you find guys in your party that will do that, you've got a perfect team and it's a team effort. And the other thing that I've always said is if I can't be just as pleased with the success of my hunting partner as I would be for myself, I'm not a very good hunting partner because, you know, you share the experience and you share the camp. And I've always I've almost always had 90 percent of the time.

hunting partners that were that way. And it's a key to a really enjoyable hunt. You know, one of the questions you had was about mature bulls. You know, when I first started hunting in there, there were the, it was a September opener on a Wednesday and there were bulls screaming everywhere, everywhere. I mean, and I had the first year we went in, I had a guy that worked at WSU that had some horses. He was a guy from, um,

North Dakota. He packed me in and dropped me off. He had four horses. He dropped me off with my gear. And he left me. I put up my tent, and then he left that same day. That night's a night I'll never forget in all my life because we had inadvertently set our camp right at the crossroads of about three major elk trails. Oh, no. I didn't know elk bugle this night. Yeah. I am a rookie. Yeah.

I'm lying there in the tent, and it just gets dark, and I hear this water splash, and I hear this bull just scream. He's like 10 feet from my tent. Oh, man. And all night long. And the elk would come down. They'd be splashed in the creek. They'd smell me. They'd be bugling. I mean, all night long. They'd sleep all night. But most all the bulls we shot, 90% were mature bulls, mostly all sixes.

And, you know, we didn't, we shot the first really legal bull we could get. We didn't turn down, we didn't turn down a five point because, but there weren't very many five points. I mean, you know, there were so many mature bulls in there in those days. I've never seen anything like it since. Wow. Did you ever see any that were just remarkably large, like giant, like, wow, that is.

Today, you know, people's always looking, you know, they always throw around big numbers, you know, 400 inches or 350 inches. Would you ever say you saw anything of that kind of caliber back in those days? There was one in there that would have probably gone 360 or more that some guys from Oregon killed. The biggest bull I killed in there was just short of 340, my buddy, uh,

Jerry, he killed one the same night, just short of 340. But those are the biggest bulls we saw. Most of them were 300 class six points. Okay. But, you know, I'm in a Bunukrakis score, so when I look at a bull and I say he's a 300, he probably is. But I'm amused at how Bunukrakis scores are thrown around.

Oh, it's funny. Depending on who you talk to, it's like if I'm talking to one person, they said, yeah, I saw a 300-inch bull. I usually, sometimes I'll subtract about 20 or 30 inches. I'm like, okay. So, you know, because a lot of people, as soon as they see a nice six point, they're like, oh, there's a 300 bull.

Well, a 300 bull is a really nice bull. That's a big, heavy horn bull, good beams, good points. That's a pretty nice bull. They don't grow on every tree, that's for sure. No, but back in the days we were hunting in there, you can almost always find a nice six-point the first or second day.

Wow. Never hunted in three days, and we packed meat the fourth day, and when the pack went home the next day because I had to be at work on Monday. Yeah. You know, you ask about the condition of the forage and the habitat. Yeah. It was perfect. It was ideal. You know, if you go back and read about, you know, the fires that burned in there and two successive different big fires,

The conifers were really burned, and there were brush fields, but the brush fields were immature. You know, if you could find a 10-foot in this one great big open area where all these cows were, there were huge meadows and a lot of ferns would grow in those meadows and stuff. And there was a lot of water, but no conifers at all. And then as you got to the conifers, there were a lot of immature conifers.

You know, fur, mostly fur, some hemlock in there. And I remember there was one really steep ridge we had to pack meat on, and it was hard to figure out where you were. And so every once in a while we'd nip the top of a little, like a three-, four-foot Christmas tree.

just cut the top off. Yeah. About that. And is it, cause you know, you could see that and you'd look for that. Now those trees are, are, uh, 50, 20 feet tall and, uh, you could see, you know, they've got triple tops or something, but yeah. And there are hillsides. We, I mean, we could shoot across. I always hunted with a three 40 weather being, I knew the ballistics and,

And, uh, we could shoot across from one side to the other. Now you, you couldn't see an elk on that hillside across there. And then, uh, well, uh, what's, what's happened? Well, I've, I've gone in there fairly religiously, uh, just to go in there. Sure. And, uh, and, and look and see, it's such a neat place. I took my kids in there, my daughters, and we'd go in and camp and, and, uh,

I was in there three years ago, and we probably rode, I don't know, 70 miles through there with the horses. Found one elk track. Wow. And you used to be able to ride an ATV from Cayuse Creek, you know, clear across to the Locksaw. Yep. And the roads were just, there were elk trails coming down the cut bank, and they're just trails everywhere.

Foot deep where elk are coming down the cut bank, crossing the road and going across. Yeah. About seven years ago, I never saw an elk track on that road all the way to Cayuse Meadows from the locksaw. It's just aren't there. So what's the, you know, what's the deal? What's the, you know, what's the deal with the wolves and what's the remedy about the time I quit hunting there, the elk numbers were down, but there weren't any wolves there yet. And, uh,

The black bears, I shot a lot of black bears in the Clearwater. A boatload, because you could shoot two. We'd go in early, and if I got a brown one, then I'd hunt for a black one. We shot black bears with, you know, just minutes after they'd killed an elk calf. But then Mike Schlegel did the study on the elk, you know, the depredation by bears, and

And I'd see Mike up there in the cell way and stop and look at his data. And, you know, they had mortality signals on their calves. But at one time, the elk mortality in there was like 70, 80% on calves. And the black bears kill a lot of calves.

Right. And of course, then you've got lions. Well, it's a habitat issue as well. I mean, people want to blame the wolves. Yeah. The wolves are in there, but you can't just blame the wolf because it's a combination. Jim Peek is a wildlife biologist that I have always respected. And he'll talk to you about the batholithic soils and how the burn just really burned the soil. And, uh,

The conifers and the brush is coming back, and that's not good elk habitat. So anyway, and then, you know, we know about the wolves. I mean, when they were in there, there were a lot of photos on Facebook and stuff of the wolves killing, slaughtering elk down right on the river. But the combination is the sticker. But now, you know, Mike Schlegel is a really good friend of mine. He's a wildlife biologist that really is studying that.

Right now, and I've known the fire manager over on the Clearwater. He laid out a whole series of burns in the places that really needed to be burned. Sure. He laid those out. I saw where he, you know, I saw his maps. Guess what? People don't like smoke. And, you know, now they haven't done any of those burns simply because they

of the image and the social pressure that people put on the Forest Service because of smoke. And he finally left. There are all kinds of burn units laid out all over that Clearwater that haven't been burned and should be burned but probably never would. So, you know, it's a tragic thing. The other issue I've encountered up there is the motorcycle access. Okay.

I'm not an anti-ATV motorcycle person, not at all. I've never had a motorcycle, but the last time I was in there, we camped clear up in the head of Cook Creek and came in from the Locksaw. The next morning, I wanted to go ride clear back across over and drop into Paradise Meadows and go down where our old camp was. We were going across Windy Ridge early in the morning and

My horses are really gentle. They don't, you know, motorcycles and stuff don't bother them. And the one horse I had was trailing. He kept jumping around every once in a while. And all of a sudden I figured out there's a motorcycle right behind me. And the trail had been excavated with those mini excavators. It was two feet wide. The brush was cleared three feet to each side of it. And there must have been a dozen guys from Missoula.

Not that Mizzou was a bad place, but there were a dozen guys. They were wearing all their plastic protection, and they had chainsaws. They were riding from Windy Saddle on the locksaw all the way over into Cook Mountain, down onto the road, all the way down to the Wheatus, and up the Wheatus, and back up through this cabin, and all the way back in one day.

I mean, it was a motocross. It was a great motocross trail. And to the worst part was we left an eight-pack of coal smoke in the creek. Oh. I don't know if you know coal smoke. It's our favorite Montana beer. But anyway, and we walked about 50 yards up the creek from where we camped, and we ditched it down in underneath in the water and go back there bow hunting. And there's a trail crew in there.

They're cutting trail. I mean, they're cutting brush out of the trail, and the dirty buggers drink our cold smoke. Oh, no. There you go. Now, if you've got a bike and you like to ride the backcountry trails, it's the epitome. I mean, it's the best there is. And then the next day, we were out on Cook Mountain, some guys from Pawlatch, Idaho,

I could hear him coming and my horse isn't, you know, he's not spooked, but this guy come ripping around the corner and laid his bike down right in the trail. So he didn't run into me. And the guy said to me, he says, wow. He says, you're the first guys I've ever seen up here on horses since, uh, since, uh, pre-wolf. Anyway, you know, the Clearwater is, uh,

It's an absolutely special place. And, you know, I've got a few friends that are still getting some really nice bulls out of there. You know, I know kind of where they are and, you know, they don't say much. They just go in there and hunt.

O'Reilly auto parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day I went into an O'Reilly auto parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there. You know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

They did not have it, and the dude told me specifically where I would go down the road to find it is how nice they are. They offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. Thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in-store, or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

They'll test your battery for free. If you need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or quick service, they'll help you find the right part or point you to a local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, best of all, friendly. These guys are your one-stop shop for all things auto, do-it-yourself,

You can find what you need in-store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit them at OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. That's OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam Motor Treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

It's really simple. When you pour it in your gas tank, sea foam cleans harmful fuel deposits that cause engine problems. I'm talking common stuff like hard starts, rough engine performance, or lost fuel economy. Sea foam is an easy way to prevent or overcome these problems. Just pour a can in your gas tank and let it clean your fuel system. You probably know someone who has used a can of sea foam to get their truck or boat going again. People everywhere rely on sea foam to keep their trucks, boats, and small engines running the way that they should the entire season.

Help your engine run better and last longer. Pick up a can of Seafoam today at your local auto parts store or visit seafoamworks.com to learn more.

This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at HuntTheGreatest.com.

It's a daunting place if you've never been there or never hunted country like that. I know, yeah, there's some people who live there close by or have spent a lot of years up in that country hunting that they'll find success. A lot of folks who hunt from out of state will come up and never been there. And they might spend 10 days without even seeing an elk.

Just because it seems like it's kind of the population elk is a little bit pockety. Like you may go miles and miles without seeing anything. And then one little pocket, either the elk feel really safe or maybe the wolves don't bother them there or people don't bother them there. Whatever reason, they'll have a little spot they like to be. And you'll find some elk. Yeah.

It's like winning the lottery, finding one of those spots. Yeah. And as far as wolves, there used to be a lot of wolves in there. You could hear wolves howling every day, bow hunting. And now you don't hear them very often or seldom. I think back in where we're at right now. Yeah, I think they follow the food, you know. And as the elk numbers decline and they keep moving to try to find food, they probably move closer to town for sure. I'll chase one cow.

I'll chase one side rabbit and then we'll talk about my book if you'd like. But I used to run into some guys from Pennsylvania clear out on the backside over there. And they had a gun that looked like it was, it was a 6.5 weather or yeah, 6.5 weather be WWH. Now it's a,

you know in the old days it was a weatherby wright hoyer long range rifle and it was and they had a bench rest set up in front of their tent and uh they had a basically wall tent and a bench rest spotting soap and they were shooting elk you know eight or nine hundred yards across the canyon yeah and i asked him how many they'd lost and he said the problem is we get over there and the brush is thick we can't find some of them anyway

I mentioned it, and I was talking to Mike Schlegel about it. Now there's a limit on the weight of the gun you can use, or the rifle you can use. So with my book, I'll just be fairly short. It's called The Hunting Horseman. It's available at Western Hunter on the Western Hunter website. You can just Google it and find it. What's the title of your book? It's called The Hunting Horseman. Okay. And so after I...

After I left Moon and Crock and stuff, Ryan Hatfield is a guy I'd hired from Council Idaho as assistant director of Big Game. And he left and he went to work for Eastman's and such. And he ended up with Western Hunter. And they wanted to start a new elk hunter magazine. So he called me and asked me if I would be willing to write an article every month or whatever. I said, well, yeah. But he said, I want you to write about horses. I said, well...

Ryan, I said, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there about saddles and how to pack horses and Smoke Elser's got books out and, you know, Joe Back wrote the original one and all that stuff. So really about horse packing, the techniques, that's pretty well covered. But so I said, you know, if you want me to write something, I'll write about using stock in the backcountry for hunting, period.

And so I started writing some articles 12 years or 11 years ago. And so I wrote all – I was writing these articles and they were published. And kind of in the middle of that, I wrote an article that was entitled Packed Like a Hunter. Okay. Okay. Well –

If you're going to go into your hunting camp every year, there are certain things you take every year. There are certain things you can weigh up ahead of time. You don't need to be manning everything up and having all these fancy knots, and there's a lot of ways to do it. Anyway, that was a really interesting article. But anyway, so my health changed dramatically one year ago, February, Valentine's Day, and we didn't know how much time I had. And so Chris Denning, the

publisher of western hunter called me said george he says what do you think about putting all your articles in a book i said yeah that'd be kind of cool and uh so we spent some time uh last you know february and march and they compiled all of the articles i'd written for the western actually started out elk hunter then it it uh went to western hunter uh yeah and uh

So they put it all together, and it turned out really well. It's got – it's full color, the whole thing. It has some tributes friends have written that hunted with me. But you won't find another book like it. It's got stuff in there, things in there about access and –

It's got things in there about conservation issues and stuff. But most of it's about hunting and everything from how you put up a wall tent with poles to where you site your camp. But it's 300 pages. It's good reading. Anyway, it turned out really good. I'm wondering, are those guys going to have –

Those available at the Western Hunting Expo in Salt Lake City next week? Well, Chris just got back from SCI, and I'll signal.

I'll suggest that he have, he have some available. Yeah. It was limited production of like a thousand, but, uh, I'm going to talk with him about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to go by their booth. And, uh, I always like to try to track those guys, Chris and Nate and those guys from Western Hunter down anyway, and we'll give them a razz them a little bit. And, and I hope they got the book. I've been wanting to pick it up. So maybe I'll be able to pick one up there. If not, I'll just order on the website. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a book you'll keep or you'll pass on to your relatives or children that like to hunt because it's a basic Boy Scout manual, but not really. Yeah. That's awesome.

Well, so any last comments on the Clearwater country? And, you know, you know, there's been some wildfires in the last decade there, but maybe they're not, they're not, haven't been strategic to where it would, would still help the elk population rebound. What, what needs to happen to get that elk population rebound in the Clearwater, the Clearwater region? What do you think it's going to look like in, in,

five, ten years from now? Because I know there's a lot of that timber that's maturing and if you spend any time up there, you'll see a lot of deadfall from beetle kill and then there's some of the wildfire as well. But what do you think the future holds for the Clearwater? It really depends on the Forest Service. It really depends on the Forest Service because there are a lot of things they could do up there that are good forest practices.

But in order to create elk habitat, you have to have open areas. You have to have feeding areas and bedding areas and tree canopies. But there has to be grass that they eat. And when it is all brush, and so you've got to burn that brush. The brush has to be burned. And they know how to do it, but the social pressure is

And the current leadership in the Forest Service has not seen, they have not seen fit to do it. But they have a plan and it's all been mapped out. And it's a habitat issue, number one. Fish and games, dealing with the wolves. You know, they've gone in there with a trapper and taken some out with, you know, the helicopter outfit. But it's a big time thing is the habitat. And somehow we've got to figure that out.

But we know what to do. You know, the sad thing is we know what to do. Mike Schlegel and I have talked about this forever. And he's made charts about how important that elk resource was to the economy of Idaho and all that. He's charted the decline in the herds. But any biologist that knows that country will just tell you it's a habitat issue and we've got to burn some of that stuff. You know, it's...

You can't just fix one thing and expect everything to be, be to work. You got to, there's multiple things you got to fix, whether predation, habitat, access, all of it, fix everything. And then, you know, those animals are going to flourish again. Yeah. You know, the two bear limit or, you know, the opportunity for hunters to play two bears and a reduced tag, that's really important for fishing game.

It's very important because there are a lot of bears in the Clearwater. And, you know, in the old days, this guy Ralph Flowers, he used to be a bear hunter for Weyerhaeuser on the west coast of Washington. And, you know, bears will strip bark off of a young, you know, two-foot diameter tree, and they strip the bark off to get to the cambium.

And that's why, you know, Flowers was hired to kill bears in the Weyerhaeuser Forest because they're stripping cambium or stripping the bark. You can go up there, you've never even been talking about, and the trees are all stripped. I mean, they're stripped everywhere. Yeah. You know, you can tell it. You can see it. And if you want to go running, it's a good spot. Yeah. Yeah.

No, and then, I don't know, conservation organizations, you know, I don't know what the Elk Foundation could do to fund some stuff in there, but they've got to work hand-in-hand with the Forest Service. If the Forest Service doesn't give them the go-ahead, you know, it won't happen. Do you think we could get enough, rally enough sportsmen to...

put pressure on the fish or not the fishing game, but the, uh, the forest service to maybe take a look at some of those kinds of things. You know, I feel like it seems like the people that don't want you to burn, they have a, they have a bigger voice than the people, the other side, you know, um, I feel like just getting organized and getting enough people involved would, would maybe help turn the tide a little bit. What do you think? Well, hunters just don't speak up.

Right. I mean, we just don't speak up. We don't write letters. We just don't speak up. And you can look at any of these issues, like with the wolves right now in Montana, you've got thousands of letters being sent to Fish and Game to reduce the wolf hunters. Well, hunters will go to public meetings. We complain, but we're not very aggressive.

And I guess, you know, the young hunters that are coming on, if there's anything that they can take away from this podcast is get involved. Get involved with your local sports organization and get involved.

And, you know, the Oak Foundation is a great organization. Get involved with that. But don't just go to a banquet. You know, talk to these people and you get a hold of their lands people. And like in the Clearwater, you know,

I was one of the guys that put together the Lewiston Banquet years ago. It was the fifth banquet they ever had, or fifth place. And we have 1,000 people in Lewiston. But you get those people rallied up about the Clearwater, and you've got to – it's about numbers. And you don't go there and holler at a public meeting. You go to the people that can make it happen. But this whole future of that –

you know, is in the hands of our young people, especially our young hunter-conservations. You know, it's one thing to go hunting all the time, but it's another thing to spend some time helping raise money for, you know, wildlife and conservation issues too. You can do both. I did. Yeah. You got to have a side hustle for your conservation along with your job. There you go. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. And, you know, people, they think, oh, I don't have time to, you know, write letters or reach out or call your representatives or your legislators in your state or whatever. But it doesn't take any time. I mean, you can pick up the phone and start calling and spend 30 minutes.

on one particular day or you could take, you know, you could type out a professional sounding email within, within an hour or maybe two. And, and there's so much, you know, if maybe you don't feel like you're, you're not a great listener,

um, letter writer. Um, today there's, there's all this AI, you know, for all of us young people, um, there's all this AI technology that will, you know, that will like chat GPT that will help you write the best sounded letter. Um, anyone could write, um, and then, you know, send those letters to these organizations and let them know what you're thinking. Because if the opposition is just crushing us with their letters, um,

Man, the folks on our side of the table have got to stand up and do some stuff too. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Well, that's the future. It really is. Our young hunters are very enthusiastic about going farther into the backcountry and hunting out way back off the grid. They've got the latest lightweight gear and camo and sleeping in hammocks and sleeping in hot tents and all that.

The thing that makes me smile is I see them. They're clear back 10 miles off the grid over an 8,000-foot summit, and they don't have a clue how they're going to get their elk out of there. That's a whole other story. That's a huge undertaking. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, uh, Dirk, this has been, been really a nice visit with you and call me back. And if you want to share my, you know, my Facebook stuff, maybe people can get ahold of me. I have people call me all the time about, you know, hunting and different things and, and, you know, rifles or whatever. And I always help. I'm always willing to help. Uh, so people can look you up on Facebook and it's George Badass. How do you say your last name?

Betas. Okay. Okay. And do you have Instagram? I do. Yeah. I think it's just G Betas on Instagram. Okay. Right.

Well, that's great, man. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And as you described that country back in the old days, man, my head was just spinning thinking about those bulls bugling all night long and the meadows full of elk. And if you've seen that country, it makes your head spin. And to see what it is today, it's a very stark

contrast. Like you could probably give people a map and say, Oh yeah, go out and milk up there. Cause you're not really giving anything away at this point. There's just not, not much for elk up there. But, uh, it's, I still like to go back and visit those old spots and go over to where old Gordon Stimwell used to camp in different places. And, you know, uh, where I used to camp and then go ride a loop down, go down towards the weeders and that, uh, it's just, uh,

There's special places on this earth where you've been, me, usually hunting. And there's a special feeling you get there. There's the smell. You know, we used to have grass two feet tall at our camp. Right. And after, you know, you just turn the horses out with the hobbles, there's needy grass. They hardly walk 100 yards from the tent. Now? No.

Most of the place you go is so dry on these ridge tops and the cows have eaten out the riparian areas. You got to pack your own feed. And that was so neat about that camp. It was, and pressure, hunting pressure. You know, there were a few guys that would hike in. Most guys would use the road system. I mean, I never saw anybody else other than a few guys I knew that had horses in all those years, 12 years. Wow. Well, it's an amazing place for sure.

Well, I really appreciate you involving me and I can do anything else for you or any of your listeners. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on here. It's been a pleasure for sure. Thank you much. Thank you.

Hey, we're going to take a little break here and talk about interstate batteries. Now, if you're like me, enjoying the great outdoors, you need gear that is as reliable as it gets. That's why I power my adventures with interstate batteries. I use interstate batteries in my boats. I use interstate batteries in my camper. Great for your truck, too. From Alaska to Montana, they're outrageously dependable.

Battery is essential. With over 150,000 dealer locations, finding one is easy. For all your vehicles, land or sea, choose Interstate. Head to interstatebatteries.com and find your power today. You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to land.com.

They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.