Elk Prep for Deer Hunters

This podcast Dave and Rick discuss all things prepping for another DIY elk trip.  Dave has been on a few trips and killed a rag horn bull last season.  Rick has never been west and has a ton of questions.

Preparation is important in these trips.  Gear becomes important and buying good gear at a good price is key.  Foot care can't be overlooked and this goes beyond the boot purchase.  Backpack hunting brings its challenges and Dave discusses why this might not be the best tactic right off the start.
 

Topics Discussed:

- Ohio deer and turkey expo

- gear talk

- training for hills

- expectations

- packs and camping 

- Diy whitetail hunters doing better at going west.

[00:00:00] All right, this is the Whitetail Experience Podcast. This is your host, Byron Horton, and today's episode is going to be focused around elk Prep. Dave has done a couple DIY elk hunting trips, and as a whitetail guy going west, he's got some good perspective on it. I myself have been on two elk trips, although I was not a part of this talk, but it should be a good one.

Wanted to catch you guys up on a few things. I went to the Deer and Turkey Expo here in Ohio was solid. I went out on a Friday and I do, the only negative to that is there's not as many sheds or deer on the wall to just look out, check out, see some things, but it's less crowded. So that's a win.

Caught up with working class bow hunter. My buddy Larry over at Native Landscapes. I picked up some Alara Alpaca wool socks, so that's always a win. Whitetail Adrenaline. D V D. Got some goodies, if you will from the show. Tried to pick up some seed, but I now I gotta pay shipping on [00:01:00] that, so that's a loss there.

Something else I wanted to mention that we got going on is our Patreon. There is a self filming, self production web class on there that I have at a higher tier. But like any guy who's dabbling in self filming maybe wants to really accelerate his learning curve, that series of podcasts and videos is pretty good.

I feel. I think I've done a decent job explaining how you can go from being a filmer or maybe you're just gonna step into it for the first time and if you really want to just jump the ball and understand how, a lot of things that I've put together, having done this for several years and now doing stuff at a little bit higher level for some companies I can bounce between the mix of production and hunting.

Anything from editing to camera gear to how to get shots, how to take in a edit and add something to a title to make it just so much better. Those are some of those things discussed and some of my recent Instagram reels I've broke down the [00:02:00] edit of how I was able to do it and put it on there.

So I would, I did wanna mention that scouting wise, I just wrapped up my scouting, I feel confident and I would say I probably did 80% scouting to 20% shed hunting, and it was just a little bit more of a focus. I had a, I had one area of mine that the bucks kicked my butt, and so really wanted to put some effort in there.

Saw some deer crossing the road in another section and wanted to put some effort in there and some new developments in an area and just really trying to understand some of the landscapes a little better and really trying to hone in maybe my mid-October game. So yeah that should be good. As for Turkey hunting, I'm not sure how much I think this is going to be a year.

I do not Turkey hunt much. Got a lot of things going on here on the home front. Kids are not sleeping. We just got a flock of chickens. They are six feet behind me and they're little mini container guy for the first six [00:03:00] weeks. But enjoy the episode. I think now we're recording for the second time.

Yeah, I think all the settings are good here as long as this doesn't turn off. , I think we're good. Oh, lemme get the beers off of the table. Get those readily accessible. If it doesn't shut off right here after this, these eight bars, we're good. If your continues going. There we go. We're still going.

We're recording. Live from the shed. We're here. We got the beautiful elk on the table. Yep. Got the elk skull last from last year. We got the professional setup here with the iPad and the microphone just sitting on the table, just laying on the ground. And the guy, one heater. We did have two heaters out here in the shed, but one broke the other day, so it's a little chillier than usual.

I think Dustin probably Sab sabotaged it because he was so hot last time. , he wants to charge me for some H V A C out here is what it is. No now Dustin's doing the H V C stuff. He's oh, I'm gonna go knock down [00:04:00] his heaters. That way he can pay me to run a real furnace out here.

Hell, I'd be down for that realistically if I had just insulated it a little bit. It would be warm enough with these little heaters I have. Plus it'll probably help with the sound for these shed casts as well too. Absolutely. . But I got a lot of shit in here, so it's gotta not be too echoy, I wouldn't think.

Got the little piece of carpet down here that helps with a little bit of floor noise. It does. But I got Rick here today and me and Rick have an elk trip planned for this fall and basically we're gonna go over some of that, a little bit of the little bit of the whatnot cuz we, he came over today actually to just talk about what we're doing for prep wise, gear wise, making sure he's got everything Cuz this will be your first time elk hunting.

Yep. Very first. Yep. And I've went two years now, so I have a lot of the gear and a little bit of like the necessities of knowing how to go do it and to backpack hunt whatnot. And we kinda decided to know what, rather than just talk about it willy-nilly. Let's go ahead and just press record while we do [00:05:00] that and , but first I had to go run to the gas station to make a beer run.

So I got my Nats, I'm bringing Nats back, dude. It is definitely an old fashioned looking can there, , , Butch light's getting too I'm getting too mainstream. Is it ? I'm gonna go back to the Nats. I'm I'm just sticking to ice water out of my marvelous mom cup. . We had to get a picture of that. Yeah. Rick came over and was like, Hey, I got, I'll take a little coffee.

And I was like I got the perfect mug for you, . Yeah. Dave wants to embarrass you when he is giving you coffee . Exactly. So ba basically we'll get into this elk stuff. What do you I mean you have obviously some questions right? Gear wise related, yeah. Yep. So I need to know what are your base essentials like that, that you necessarily need on this trip?

It depends. So some of that depends on if we're backpacking or not, which I know we've I've backpack hunted the last two years, , but you do [00:06:00] end up sleeping at the truck at times. Me and Andy actually slept in my, in the bed of my truck, I think twice. Do you feel like that worked out better for you?

Yeah, cuz when you're out, if you're making these loops and whatnot and then you just, you find what you either see stuff that you like or see stuff you don't like and and then, so you either stay or you circle back to the truck. And we we did, we had to do some moving around.

We had to do some drive into new areas and whatnot. And even though it's oh we just wanna want to go over on this side of the mountain range or whatever. It's like a three hour drive. There's no, like quick, let's just drive over there cuz you gotta go around the mountains, yeah. Now, I don't know how it's gonna be where we go or where we end up going. We do need to probably start doing some mapping and stuff and trying to find out like areas and then we can start getting real heavy into the mapping. Maybe try to find some people, talk to some, make some phone calls, see if people know help.

Me and Andy we're like going into like just some small towns at just like gas stations and like grocery stores and stuff. And just like asking people like, [00:07:00] have you ever seen any elka for here? ? Like, how's it, because all we needed was like a bead. Hey, if you've seen, if there's elk in this area, Got it.

We'll go try to find them. Yeah. But we were do, we were going like one day we did 13 miles and didn't see like any elk sign at all. Okay. And we did it with our camp on our. . So then we set up camp and then we hunted. We then we scouted, we walked around more, hunted, I guess whatever you wanna call it, that next morning, and did like another, seven miles in this same kind of area and didn't see shit. And then we bailed back to the truck around afternoon time and then, made new game plans. But it's if that's where I think having the camp on your back is not, that made me think Hey, maybe it's better to just come back out to the truck every day until you find sign, until you find elk.

But thing is, you'd hate to find, sign eight miles deep and then have to go back to the truck. Yeah. And then, and then, [00:08:00] but. , you also hate to go, be committed to camping in the woods, since you got your camp on your back, plus you're walking around with 40 pounds maybe, or was that the wind?

I don't know what that is. plus you're walking around with, 45 pounds on your back. Yeah. Rather than if you just were day hunting, you'd have 20 pounds. Yeah. So you're doing that. So you're committed to staying in the woods. If you're planning to backpack. Now, don't get me wrong, if you go in like me and Byron, we went in, we found Elk sign pretty quickly.

. So for us, backpacking in the woods was the best option. Yeah. But me and Andy went days without finding any sign. Now what do you think is like your average depth into the wilderness that you're gonna go from the truck of like your average elk hunter? Is it? Yeah, it depends. 10 miles. No, that's pretty far.

That's really far. Especially, it really depends too, just like the whitetails too but expanded. It depends if you have if the [00:09:00] trails, okay, so if people are, if there is like an accessible two track people will go far, if there's cuz because there's depending on where you go, there's like free range of cattle and stuff.

Yeah. So they got these like old, like these rancher trails and roads and stuff. They're not really accessible. Or they'll have signs that say no vehicles, but but there is clearly a road for probably the ranchers and stuff that are, when they're getting the cattle or sheep or wherever you're hunting at.

So I think somebody will walk a road three, four miles, and then branch off from there. No problem. Okay. But if there's no roads, if there's no, if it's straight mountains right off where you park at, I don't, I think. like 2, 3, 4 miles is pretty far in those mountains. Yeah. Like it's a lot like you're going far now, like I said, if you get on and maybe get on, if you hike up and get on a ridgetop, you can walk that ridgetop away, and what you're technically walking versus what you actually have moved from where to cro what the crow flies says is different too.

, I don't think very many people are [00:10:00] going more than a couple miles. Gotcha. Especially if there's no, if there's no roads. Yeah. If if you, and you gotta treat that road like a, if there is an access trail or road that people are walking, you gotta you gotta think about that too.

And just like in whitetail, any up and over, you're gonna get away from people. , and it's just, everything out there is so much bigger. It's hard to even explain. Yeah. It's really hard to explain until you, till you see it. And up and over is no like easy feat. It's like you're talking a thousand foot up, bottom, top to bottom.

Yeah. The biggest top to bottom we have in Ohio is like 600. Yeah. Like it's probably one of the biggest maybe they might be a little bit, that's more than that. But most of, most, if you go to some of the hills here in southern Ohio and you go top to bottom, you're going like, 200 feet.

Yeah, I think it's 300 is really a, is a pretty good one. It's a good climb top to bottom. Yeah. Yeah. And everything out west is it starts at a thousand. Yeah. Wow. [00:11:00] Yeah. It's take, it is this time consuming, is what it is. You can make it up, and you can go up if you go, if you decide to go up a ridge that's got a bunch of blowdowns and shit, you're, where you're, going through shit, it could take you a couple hours.

Yeah. It depends on, there was a one hill that me and Byron Klein, we found Elkins area and we were going up this, we basically found this one ridge finger that was a little less steep. And we went up it a few times and we were able to get up there pretty quickly. But it was a thousand foot.

But it was like a nice little it was really steep and rocky. for the first like hundred feet. , but then it was like a nice little kind of gradual finger. But it was, but it was 45 minutes each time. Okay. Every bit of it. And it's just another yeah. So you answer your question, I guess in a roundabout way, I don't think people are going crazy far.

Okay. Is a, some people probably do, I'm even, we'll probably get a hundred comments like, you can't go up unless you're 12 miles deep and stuff. I'm like that'd take you some time to get that far . [00:12:00] Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be, this is gonna take you a day to get 12 miles deep.

I see. If you're going through the hills, if you're not just on a road, if you're on a trail, yeah. You can go that's not that big a deal. But even on a trail, what you're talking on a. , and you're talking 30 minute miles. Yeah. So you're talking six hours to get 12, 12 miles deep, just at a good walking pace.

Yeah. Yeah. People, I think a lot of my elk hunting that I'm comparing to is his YouTube videos, and these guys are packing in with mules and alpacas and they're, yeah. They're going 28, 30 miles in, yeah. And they're taking a day. It's a day just to get in there. It's a day trip in there.

Just to get in there. Yeah. So another thing that I was curious about was besides the tag in Bo being of most importance, to me, what matters most is my foot care. I do not have good mountain boots. You had mentioned to me, I was talking about going the crispy route because that's like the big name.

And I'm not really shied away by a price. Yeah. If it matters to my feet, because [00:13:00] you can't put a price on footwear. But you've mentioned another brand of boot that you wear and you found, and it was you found some better points. Yeah. And what were those? The Solomons. Solomons. Okay.

They're like the GTXs or something they request. And can you get those at Quest GT four or something? Where can you buy them at? You can get 'em at re ei, r e i. Okay. And you can try 'em on. And r e I does insane like returns and stuff too. Okay. Like you could try 'em out for months and take 'em back.

See, that's what I was worried about with Crispy was the fact that you can't try these boots on. Yeah. I don't know what their rules are. They might have a return policy if you just buy 'em online, but you can't even try you don't even, like you, you don't even know exactly what size to get.

Yeah. So it's and that's what I was doing was I was looking at their charts online and it's oh, do I have a wide foot? Do I have a narrow foot? Is do I have a high arch? I have no clue. . Yeah. So it's it's really intimidating me because we're not talking about walking. A quarter mile to your tree standing and you're sitting for the rest of the day.

Yeah. We're you're on your feet all day. [00:14:00] So you need something more rug, more rigid for sure. Yeah. Because on our first venture from the road, Byron wore his Keens. They're more flexible, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. And he really liked those boots, so he, and we did a lot of whitetail hunt with them, and and they were really comfortable.

So he wore those and he regretted it so quickly. Yeah. Just because his, I think his his feet and ankles were just so sore. From that flexibleness, yeah. And so you want something a lot more rigid. Okay. Because you just, like I said, the side hill on the rocks, the uneven ground is constantly.

And don't they have different reg rigidity rankings? If you get on two or three or something like that? I don't know if they do like at the store. I know if you get on , is it? I think Go Hunt. Okay. You can like browse boots on their website. Yeah. And they have it like rated that way.

Yeah. Gotcha. I think that's it. That might just be their rankings though. Whoever runs Go Hunt, maybe they got like actual testers or field testers. I don't know where the hell they get their shit from. But , I know if you get on there, they do have a, like [00:15:00] rankings and I think the Solomons that we have, cuz Byron has the same boots.

Andy's got the same ones too. Okay. They're like a, I think they're like medium as far as like rigidity is concerned. The biggest thing is they're one of the better boots you can get. They have really good reviews and stuff and they're, you can go try 'em onto the store and they're they're not crazy expensive.

Okay. They're like in that two 50 range. Oh. Versus a lot of the. , like you, you can get into the $400 range pretty quickly with a lot of those boots. Okay. And did you find it because you have a lot of foot problems like I do. I consider myself a person with a lot of foot problems. My, my feet don't hurt.

It's, they get very tired very quickly. So I need to find a boot that's going to alleviate that. Yeah. All together. Did you feel like that they took care of your feet? Because we're blue collar guys. We're on our feet all day. We're in steel toes. So they're like, if you were to just go camping or go hang out somewhere, or be in the yard doing some yard work and you wore those boots, your feet would start hurting.

Gotcha. You gotta be like, you gotta be [00:16:00] walking. Okay. So they're meant for that steep Yeah, because they're so like inter rigid and stuff, if you just wear 'em around Yeah. The house you're going, your feet aren't going to like it as, as much. Okay. And I don't necessarily have crazy foot problems as much as I have Achilles issues.

And I'll get like some, like I get a lot, like heel rub is probably my worst. Like tons of boots. I have, I get heel rub and I'll get blisters on your heels. Do you think your sizing is wrong? Do you think you need to switch up on your sizing? Yeah, I don't know. I've tried to change it up. I'll sometimes I have to like retie it to where I have the proper like sometimes almost if I tie it too tight Yeah. My heel won't be able to slide and it'll grab and it'll start to blister up. I gotcha. And so I if I loosen up my laces a little bit actually and let that heel slide a little bit.

It doesn't, it won't blister cuz it's sliding. . But I just basically put, I just, I leuko tape is like a . It's like a really good version of like athletic tape. Yeah. That doesn't come off. Gotcha. And I just, I luco tap [00:17:00] my heels like at the truck before you start.

Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I would think to be preventative like that would be necessary. I luco tape my heels and my, my big toe actually. Yeah, my big toe will start to get a little rough too, cuz just like when you're walking, you're you're trying to like grip the ground with your feet as you're walking.

And so like my big toe will get a little bit hot as well and if you get a hotspot, if you immediately, if you feel it, even start to emerge, stop and fix it, I learned that the hard way with chaffing too. And the. Two years ago when me and Byron were out there, did the ching about took me out the fucking chub rub dude did.

It wasn't, it was like my like ass cheek chafing. Oh shit. . It wasn't even yeah, it wasn't even like my, groin area. It was like, yeah, it was weird. It was weird. So what day were for that? What'd you use for that? Ah, dude, I had some I don't think you're gonna take baby powder out there.

I do now. Yeah. Okay. . So I had some cream stuff, but the thing is I didn't [00:18:00] address it fast enough. I gotcha. Because what it was, it rained the night before. Then the next morning we went out and we were chasing the bugo actually. Gotcha. And we had to go through some pretty thick shit to get up this hill and we just got soaking wet.

Some my whole cuz it's going through the brush. Some of my pants stuff were wet and so just, everything just started to grab it a little bit. We'd get a little bit of moisture and but we were chasing elk, . I just didn't, I just neglected it. Yeah. And I should have addressed it as soon as I started to feel it come on.

And I didn't. And it and dude, and we had to hike out to the truck that day and it was like five miles back to the truck. And dude, I was, it was painful. Like I was hurting . Yeah. It about it as it is, like it pissed me off so much. Cause I was like, look, like I'm in, like I'm in good enough shape.

Like it ain't that I'm tired. It ain't that my blistering, it's it's just like some damn ass cheeks are going to knock me outta this one. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, this is ridiculous. Yeah. I was getting upset, I was like, I was probably getting pissy with Byron and I'm sure, and it is just I [00:19:00] was just just upset about it, the whole situation.

And but all in then to make matters worse, like when we got out, like it had rained, so the roads that we drove in on were. were not as not good to get out on wet. Because like I was there was like heavy. There was big ruts. And so going back in there, I was able to straddle 'em, no big deal until now it's wet.

You can't straddle those ruts cuz you're sliding back into 'em. You slip into 'em. Yeah. And so that just made everything worse. Then we're having to like basically build up these ruts with some sticks and rocks and stuff so I could get through it. Without bottoming out my truck.

And it was like, it didn't, I'm doing all that, but when my ash cheeks chafing and I was pissed, , but we into town, I think it was like a Dollar General or something. Cause then motherfuckers were everywhere and Yeah. And I got some baby powder. Yeah. Okay. So actually I I picked it up actually. I got it in my, I got a little basically this dude wipes makes like a baby powder.

Okay. And it comes like a little small like tube about, I don't know, six, seven [00:20:00] inches, like a little tube. And I took one of those with me. And some wipes too. Okay. Yeah. I thought I seen it like marathon runners or they have a cha stick, it almost looked like a stick of deodorant that they probably rub on their kns

They rub on their nips and it's almost like what, like a, like you would grease a surfboard or something before you went surfing, but that was interesting. So I guess we'll have to talk to Byron about that. He knows about all the runner stuff, I think. Yeah. I tried to cream, the cream did not work to me.

It's all about keeping keeping your groin and stuff just like clean and dry. Okay. So like those wipes, really come into play. Even just like you said, the more of a preventative thing. Yeah. Just wiping everything. Clean little baby powder and then just doing that kind of every morning or even twice a day if you're putting a lot of miles.

Me and Andy kind of both were starting to do that. Just like preventative maintenance. I don't I think that comes down to our next topic as well is just actual before you go elk hunting, take six months to find your weaknesses through training and exercise and yeah.

Wear your boots. Break 'em in, find the hotspots. No. Yeah. You need [00:21:00] boots. Know how your body's gonna react before you take these long trips and you're stuck out there with no help. Yeah. You need to look into getting boots probably soon. Yeah. Yep. That way you can start doing that. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

And then, so I told you about how I tap my heels Yep. When I'm training and stuff. When I'm doing like if I'm going to the sledding hill and, or if I'm scouting or something here in Ohio, I don't I don't tape my heels. Okay. So I let it rub on purpose to try to like callous it up a little bit.

Gotcha. Actually I think it was like Remy Warren I heard. Say to do that, build up those callouses on purpose. Yeah. And you almost try to build up your calluses to train in, in training and then, but I don't know. I just, I'm going to, I'm gonna tape my shit up

Regardless. Regardless. Yeah. It's like I've heard, one little irritation can turn into a nightmare out there quickly. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And feet are definitely the one. All right. Take a little note there, but we had a little bit of interruption, but so we were talking about training then [00:22:00] building up the sis on purpose.

Yep. Just, I mean it is and then we can just get into training too, cause we kind of wanna talk about that. I know you've been doing a lot of you, you've been working out a lot. Yeah. I'm into probably my third month now of , I'm doing heavy weight training. , I'm really trying to push, build strong muscle.

I'm trying to build that strong foundation. And then I'm gonna transition into more of lighter weight, higher reps, and adding a little bit of cardio. And then in those two final months, I'm gonna tighten up the diet and start working on more of my uphill Rs. Yeah, I'm gonna do a lot more hiking, a lot more cardio, more CrossFit workouts.

Yeah. So you, you, so you've, you have a background in fitness, you did body building and stuff Yeah. Back in when you, in, when your younger days, so you know, you know what you need to do. Yeah. I'm very familiar with how my body responds to calories and Yeah.

Yeah. And all that. I don't like, honestly so two years ago I trained[00:23:00] A, a decent amount didn't go too crazy. And then last year I didn't train a ton. I didn't train nearly as much as I wanted to both years. Really? And last year was a lot less. But I still I still, I can still do fine.

You've seen me walk the hills in Ohio, like I I'm leggy, yep. And I'm not, I'm six foot, I'm not like crazy tall, but I'm not short. And I'm, and then I'm six foot and I'm leggy, so I'm taking kind of long strides and stuff, and I can just, , I can move through, I can move through the hills pretty effortlessly.

If there's any suspicion of a Sasquatch in Ohio, they've just seen you and they didn't realize it. . Exactly. . Exactly. Da Dave almost looks like that old footage of a Sasquatch that they got where it it has the long arms and it looks back at the camera crossing the creek that's Dave guys that walking through the woods.

Yeah. Yeah. I do got, yeah, kinda get long arms, long legs. I'm I'm limy, I guess you could say . But but I'm heavy, I'd like to get cut some weight and cuz you know, everybody talks about cutting their pack weights and stuff. Yeah, you say it all the time in the white Tahoe woods, all these get the lightest sticks in the world, 21 [00:24:00] ounces.

Yeah. I'm I'm gonna, I can get 20 feet in a tree and then my son's only 11 pounds. I'm like, dude, just carry the extra fucking two sticks. Work your shoulders out, . Yeah. Just carry the extra two sticks. Maybe drop 20 pounds off your gut, yeah. That's what I'm the type person, dude.

Like I, I've talked about this on podcasts in the past. Just carry that extra fucking stick man. . Yeah. And it's what it really comes down to is I think Doug, our trainer at Briggs Oh yeah. Told me that for every pound of weight that you lose off your body is like three pounds to your knees.

I could see that. If you lose 10 pounds, that's 30 pounds off your knees. Okay. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. And you do have a little bit of knee concerned knee issues. Yeah, I do. I've been good in that boat. Like really real realistically, the only the issue I have is my Achilles. Okay. Both my Achilles is actually will I get like some tendonitis issue type of stuff.

, I'm not sure exactly what it is. Maybe little like plantar fasciitis type of stuff. Yeah. And I just just deal with it realistically, I. . There [00:25:00] there's not much I've stretched it. You stretch ice, try to strengthen. Yeah. I do all that stuff.

And when I'm in the, when I do go to the gym to work out, I always do controlled cav raises and stuff. Yeah. To try to help those and like weighted like des Decellularization or whatever they, I don't know what the words are, where you go down slow, I try to strengthen it, cuz you've been doing the knees over toes guy stuff.

Yeah. I feel like that's the way to go about it. Yeah. My Jim, if you guys follow my Instagram I've been doing this thing, we got this thing called the tank at my gym now, and it's a, like an all, it looks like an all train vehicle, has rubber tires and a it has magnetic resistance on the wheels.

So the faster you push it, the more resistance you get. And you can have different settings as well, but it's really helping me with the driving Ford. And then I'm also using like a band to walk backwards with you. Yeah. And then the whole concept of knee over toes guys to strengthen the knees and the muscles around it rather than to just what they what's the old saying?

The old rice thing? Rest, rest, ice. Compression maybe. Elevate [00:26:00] Compression. Elevate. Yeah, I think that's it. I think they, I think that's been debunked. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think it's, and these are toast guys like real big about building the strengthening that shit back up.

Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's the way to go about a lot of injuries and so I've been trying to do that with my Achilles when I can, but, . They're feeling good right now. I don't have any issues. They start to flare up back. I used, I was running a lot before and it was making 'em flare up, but and they'll hurt.

They'll hurt on the mountains. I'll just, when I wake up, I look like an old man. I can't move cuz they're all tightened up. But yeah, I just let, just loosen 'em up and I just let 'em work out and they just, I just keep going, yeah. I think the best recovery for me was just try to keep.

your flexibility in like my knees. For example, like when I work 'em out and do the knees over toes exercises, they get really warm and they, he says that like blood flow and flexibility is what heals it and makes 'em stronger. Yeah. So that's what I'm trying to, if I get 'em nice and warm and hot and they feel like there's a lot of blood in that [00:27:00] area, then that's good for me.

And then I, yeah. I think that mobility, I know it's working, that mobility is key, especially for us getting older, yeah. Yeah. That's what, but back when I was doing CrossFit, what was really nice about CrossFit is that the fact that you you really stretch and work on mobility for like half of the class. It's all about so that aspect of it, I, I really enjoyed, I, I can't do it right now cuz this is what my schedule is. I wouldn't be able to go consistently enough to like pay for it, so I'm not doing that right now, but I've just been, I've just been doing some running and doing some lifting , I'll crank up, like you said here soon.

I'll, once the weather breaks , I'll crank up a lot more of those pack hikes and go into the sledding hill and just doing the up and down sledding hill type stuff. And, I'll probably start, whenever I go to the gym, I'll probably end my workout on the StairMaster just doing like an arbitrary number of floors or whatever it may be.

Gotcha. Time. Dude, that the StairMaster will fire your fucking quads up so fast. . Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah. It's dude, like immediately . Yeah. Now I know you mentioned the rain rain got [00:28:00] you guys several times. What's so rain in the mountains now. What are my, what is my rain gear gonna look like?

Are you concerned about rain gear or No? I, we, I haven't taken rain gear for both years. I haven't taken rain gear but see, you also packed your tent with you. Exactly. And you was able to pop your tent up if a storm came, but if me and you were just doing, that's what we did the day, huh. and it starts pouring.

We're not gonna have a tent to get into. No, we'll just have to hide underneath the bush . So what do you think like taking like a small tarp or something that we can Yeah. Triangulate through some trees maybe and get, just get a little shelter. That's not a terrible idea. We're just taking the rain fly from Okay.

From my tent, . And do you think like spraying our pants with some rain repellent to help with the dew on the grass in the mornings would be beneficial? Because I was thinking about getting some rain gear, water repellent to help and just start soaking it.

That might work. I've never used that stuff. That's what I was gonna use. They say you can spray like your bags and your tint. I was gonna spray my boots. I was gonna spray my pants. I'm also getting those gators as well, just for the Yeah, they think the [00:29:00] Gators. I haven't got the Gators yet.

I, I bought some on Amazon. I didn't like 'em, so I returned them. But I might buy some of those. , what's the good brand that has 'em on there? First light. I think first Light has some good ones. KX is the other ones. Yep. I seen there's the other ones that are pretty popular. Yep. And the thought process on those is if your pants get wet, it'll like leech down into your socks and then leach down into your, your, into your boot.

Yeah. Like your boots might be waterproof, but you're it's leaching in from your pants. Yeah. Yep. And so it would stop that. Now, I don't like the idea of 'em, I don't like, I just, I don't like more bulk, I like that kind of B streamlined, but , maybe there are like, so yeah.

First light ones look slim. They have a couple options. Yeah. They got the thicker bulkier ones and they got that streamlined one. I don't know. I think it would definitely be something that you wear probably first thing in the morning if the grass is wet. Yeah. You're walking through some brush.

As soon as the midday comes, it's 80 degrees, take 'em off. Yeah. Yeah. I think some of that stuff is, yeah. A any little piece of gear and stuff like that is probably [00:30:00] beneficial. But at the same time you know how I am, I'm I'm minimalist when it comes to that shit.

It's just yeah just get out there . Yeah. Figure it out. Figure it out to fly. Like it is what it is. . So I don't know if it's a huge concern to get Gators or not. What other gear do you, you were talking about getting tracking poles. Yeah I would like to get tracking poles.

Again. I have the knee concerns, so I want to take as much weight off of my knees as possible. And I notice it really bothers me when I side heel. So I think if I have that pole to allow me to lean to the re left or right, as I'm going up the side of the hill. I think it would help because I could use my, more of like my arms and my tricep muscle to help push myself up too.

Just think about, if you lean, if you say you put 10 pounds of pressure on that checking pole. Yep. You did that every step. You're taking 10 pounds off of your knees, off your hips. Yep. I bought checking poles the first year I went. , I didn't use 'em once.

Last year I had 'em with us. . So when I killed we took out the first load of [00:31:00] meat right after the kill. . And then we had to go, me and Annie packed that elk out in two trips. We took some heavy ass packs to get, because I'm that way. I don't know how you are. I'm like a, I'm the guy that carries all the grocery bags in at once and my wrist hurt.

So I'd rather just go through it one time and be done with it. Exactly. So we did it two trips. We carried some heavy ass packs. So the first trip we didn't have, but then we went back in. Yep. We took my checker bowls and we just both carried one. It. I don't, I think Byron uses 'em just even just for scouting.

Yeah. I recently just used my dad has like an old wooden walking stick and I used that these past couple weekends shed hunting. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. I really do like it. And I'm thinking if I had two of these that were super lightweight. Yeah. Money, you can bust the cobwebs out your face. You can defend it against fucking snakes.

And I think really helps stabilize you crossing over dead falls. Yeah. My elk here, my oak shit tape is right here. Okay. It literally is labeled elk shit. elk shit. Dave is not lying. [00:32:00] Folks with with tape on it. Let's pop through this and see what I got in here and then we can talk about gear like that.

Here's my checker pole right here. I think I got these bad boys on Amazon. It is, oh, they fold up really nice too. Yeah, Checkology. Okay. . Yeah. They fold up. And then you just they have a little cable in here and they just they're in three pieces. Sweet. How much do you think goes away for those ounce guys that count?

Oh, I don't know. But you're carrying it, sometimes it doesn't even matter. I don't know. Yeah, I don't, yeah, it doesn't matter. That's cool. You just got little adjustments and stuff too, yeah. You do a lot more skeleton than I do. You can take these, you can take 'em. Oh, okay. Just give 'em a try.

Yeah. Take two. Take one. Yeah. Heck yeah. I'll try 'em out, man. Good stuff. And yeah, see if you like 'em. Yeah. I'll be making all my big purchases here within the next month or two. I'll, I'm probably gonna buy my boots here in the next three weeks. Start wearing 'em. Stuff like trekking poles any I have my base layers.

I have heavy base layers. I got lightweight base layers. Yeah. Clothing wise. Yeah. [00:33:00] Here's the all of it's Marino wool. Here's the dude powder I got. Okay. This little tub. Menthol chill. Oh, menthol. Chill. Nice. Basically Newport's in the bottle.

That's hilarious. Dave has two cans of a bear spray here. They're, they run about what? 60, I think we bought piece, I think Byron picked these up the first year we went. They do have an expiration date. Okay. It says 1212 2025. I don't think a bear's gonna notice if it's expired or not. Yeah. I wonder if they still work.

I could still feel fluid in there. Yeah. One thing like I said I don't know if I was almost gonna buy an extra one just to practice with. They said you should do that. Just so you know how it, how quick it comes out, how far it goes out. I wouldn't even know how to use this.

You bet. That's why we practice. And we were talking about I don't really care too much to give away our locations. I'm not super secretive, especially for elk hunting, but we'll give you, but we potentially might be into some grizzlies this year. Oh, a [00:34:00] hundred percent.

. Yeah, it's gonna be some big grizzly country. So yeah, it's definitely gonna be on the back of our mind. We're gonna have to consider hanging our food in the tree. Not considered it. We're gonna have to. Yeah. You got a choice. I'm definitely not gonna carry it. There's rules.

It's they gotta, it's gotta be like 12 feet high and 10 feet out from the. Trunk. Yeah. Because they can't say they can't climb and reach. Yep. So you gotta have a good limb. I think that's the rule. Something like that. Yeah. But you gotta get it out and away from the trunk and hang high and you try to have it downwind, but obviously it didn't mean the wind changes.

How you I don't, yeah. How you gonna deal with that? Yeah. That I think you would just, go off of like your standard wind . Yeah. And then oh these bad boys right here. These are must have these little Colgate wisps. Oh yeah. So that little droplet in there is toothpaste.

So that eliminates your toothpaste Carried. Yeah. Y'all, you gotta do is take one. These bad boys, they're disposable. Very cool. And it's just one little one time brush. They weigh nothing. Do you feel like that was enough to get the mouth? . [00:35:00] Yeah. Enough. Yeah. Cool. Just yep. Just on to right there. I do.

What else? I got my elk shit to towed. How about, okay, so here's another thing. This year I've noticed out west has gotten like, record amounts of snowfall. Do you think we're gonna find more water next year than you and Andy did? That was a big thing, was water. Cause I think water is gonna the top ice caps at the tops are gonna probably hold snow a little longer because they're getting a record amount right now.

So I think as long as it don't gets scorching hot in the summer and we don't have a crazy dry summer, we're gonna be money on the water. Yeah. Because me and Andy were running into like the bottoms of drainages that were dry. Yeah. And then we were hiking into areas like expecting there to be water and then there wasn't.

And we were like, what the fuck do we do now? Yeah. Because water will, that's that'll engine. . And then cause you come right there, you can't cook your food well. Yeah. And you gotta and you're, then you're like conserving water as you're hiking, so then you're like killing yourself because you're conserving what you have.

Yeah. And then you don't know just not [00:36:00] knowing if you're going to find water. Plus you don't want to carry in a shit ton of water cuz that's tons of weight. Yeah. So you'd rather just be able to find water out and about. But then you might hose yourself because you can't find water like we did, here's the gel that I had, the chaffing and , I got some of this too, some moat.

Okay. Nice. Pink labels. . That's moat. Nice. But it didn't work. No, that shit didn't work. Did you take, went to powders? Or what? Mial

I went to straight straight powder. How many wind decors you go through? I assume elk hunting. You're checking the wind pretty, right? Yeah. I and yeah. . I do use the so like for white cells, I use the milk weed usually, but like when I was out there, the puff bottles just so convenient, just pop up.

Gotcha. Because you really gotta find when the thermals start to rise, and especially when they start to rise, like consistently , because there'll be a little, there's a period there where it kind of fluctuates. Gotcha. And like when me and Andy killed this bull it was like [00:37:00] we how to explain it.

So basically we found some elk the previous evening, and so we knew they were up and over this hill. Hill or, not a hill, it was a thousand foot climb through rocky sliding down mess. But nonetheless we climbed up there, but we had to wait until the thermal started rising.

But then we could start working this ridge line north and south basically. But there was a period there where we started working it, and then we were like, oh shit, the wind's starting to pull back down. We're like, fuck, , it was, so there's a little window there, but then the thermals out there, dude it's you know how here in Ohio, like we tried to hunt the thermals on our hills, but but they're never consistent. You never get it's never like drawing way up like the hill, the mountain you're on, or hill you're on here in Ohio out there, dude, that thermal them thermals you'll feel a breeze from how hard they're pulling. Yeah. And then they'll drop the same way too.

Just a vacuum almost. It's so much more prevalent. It, yeah. And so you just have to, basically, that's how you have to hunt [00:38:00] 'em. You can let's see how, it's all, you all gotta play by ear, but say you got a bull bugle and first thing in the morning , do you go after it right then and there, but then you gotta, might have to.

Swing down below it and work up or get on the same level. Hopefully your winds just, but then they're gonna try to circle you. And so it's a, it's a whole battle that you gotta to just figure out on the fly on where that bull's located and where it's bugling at, and how you're gonna go get it.

But or do you just wait till thermals start rising? But by the time thermals rising, they're probably batted up. And so then you gotta, then you're pulling 'em off beds you're trying to pull him away if he's with cows. , you're trying to pull . So you're probably gonna pull away like what we did, probably the satellite bull.

Yeah. And I'm sure there was a herd bull with this elk and with this herd that I shot last year. But you're probably gonna pull away a pull, pull a satellite bull off of that herd more than likely once they're batted up, or maybe you might catch a rut fest and know, and they're just fucking going crazy throughout the middle of the day, who knows? Yeah. Yeah. And then, . [00:39:00] It's just, this, you know how to hunt deer, just make sure your wind's good and and you hunt. You're a big Turkey guy, so you know how it works as far as like calling shit in and stuff. For those of you that do not know, Turkey is probably the poor man's elk hunting

Just, it's probably not as exciting as elk hunting, but as far as like your interactions with the animal, calling 'em in the way you move in the terrain is probably very similar to elk Minus the nose. Did. No, that, that's the biggest one though. Yeah. , that's the biggest one. So Yeah. But that's the biggest thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And then minus the mountains too, but yeah. So it's like the terrain and then the, then like you said, the nose. Yep. And so the bull I shot, I was actually calling, I was the caller that day. Andy was the shooter. And so 80 went uphill for me, probably 80 yards. We're figuring, calling into this like little flat bedding area, thick.

It , we were kinda working these benches okay, I'm gonna call into it. If anything get in there, it's gonna try to circle me and go. And then Andy would get a shot. . And it just came right at me. Wow. It was a [00:40:00] young bull, it wasn't like it's some giant Yeah. If the herd bull would've been, right in there at that time and, it probably would've, would have, probably would have went to right.

To Andy. Yeah. So basically the young bull has to take advantage of a situation before he gets ran off by the old bull. So that's probably why he came running in. Yeah. I did cow calls too. Yeah. I didn't, I wasn't bugling. Okay. Cow calls brought him in. Okay. Just, just young and dumb thinking there was some pussy around the corner oh shit, look at that.

They got a cow over here. When we go, I noticed I think you and Byron went the first week of September. You and Andy went the second week of September. Me and Andy might have went kind. Yeah. We we did You think we should go the second, first or third? I don't know. Something we need to think about.

I gotta put my vacation time in. So I guess we need to, we got some things to talk about guys. Yeah. We'll have to pick out some dates. So let's have a look at the calendar. Figure out how we can, cause we're traveling to, we want to maximize our weekends, yeah. We can't just go on a whim.

We gotta maximize, hopefully take advantage of two weekends. I'd like to get [00:41:00] seven days hunting. Yep. And then you got, me and Andy drove straight through and then drove straight through back. Yeah. Me and Byron stopped on our way back. . I think me and you were just, we're gonna pack a cooler up and we're going to eat stop for gas.

Yeah. Gas and you gotta get some Casey's pizza. Yeah. , if you're driving now West, you gotta stop in the Casey's. Yeah I've heard about this. Casey's pizza. I'm interested I definitely want to try it out, but we're, we can even wear diapers so we don't have to stop the feet. . Yeah. Hard hardcore man.

Probably what over 30 hours we're gonna be driving. That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And then we were doing a lot to talk about a lot of once it gets dark, even during the daytime we did a lot of like just pull off and take a piss on the side of the road type of stuff. Yep. Cuz because that's thing could, cuz you're like, you're trying to over hydrate, , you're popping some liquid IVs, maybe a couple liquid IVs a day prior to getting there, cuz you didn't want to be hydrated. So then you're over hydrating then you're pissing every hour on your drive and it was, yeah. And I like to, I'm more of the, I drove most of [00:42:00] both trips.

So I don't know how you feel being the passenger. I'm more of a driver. I'll talk ear off. I won't fall asleep on you. There's nothing worse than a passenger that snoring. You gotta take fall asleep. Take, yeah. You gotta you have to sleep. We're, it's, but that's what's crazy about, it's okay like it might be like, eight o'clock that night or whatever, and we're driving and I'm like, all right you need to sleep.

Yeah. You have to sleep for the next like few hours. Yeah. Because hearing about two in the morning, we gotta switch . So you better sleep now. Yeah. So you guys are gonna get some interesting Instagram stories of me snoring like a boss, , because I definitely have nasal problems.

So yeah. I snor, I snore when I'm, if I pass out like drunk, I'm, I snore. Crazy. , but yeah. Hopefully. I can't sleep in the car, dude. I just don't sleep. Ah, it's horrible for me. And dude, me and Andy got there. We drove straight through. Yep. Showed up about, we, we got there like 6:00 AM literally grabbed our packs and walked up the mountain.

Wow. Yeah. And it killed him. . But that's what I expect to do. [00:43:00] I'm not one to sit in the truck and wait, and I don't wanna sit at camp and wait. I'm just, let's go in and get it done, dude. Yeah. Even if it's pouring rain, I will now I always hear these guys lightning ran us off the mountain.

Is lightning more dangerous at altitude? . I don't know. Me and I don't run from lightning here in Ohio. I stand outside and look up at it. Dude it's me. And I can't, I don't know if me and Andy, me and Byron definitely got into a lightning storm, dude. And that shit is just, was just cracking.

Just what if it's more, is it more conducive up a pie? I don't know. You feel that shit though. Really? Ba it just, it snaps so hard. Really? It's hard to explain. Really? Didn't like, yeah. It's like we were in it all night. You can see it in some of our, in some of the footage from me and Byron's hunt.

Like we were up on high on this mountain. You could see this. Coming, like you see it in a distance. Yeah. Yeah. And you're up on top of this mountain, sees this picture ass view, everything's, and you can just see so far and you're like way off in distance. You just see [00:44:00] this dark darkness coming your way.

Yeah. You're just like, fuck, look, we gotta go man. We had our, that day we left our tents set up cuz we were hunting. We left our camp set up. We didn't pack it. So we're like, we gotta get back to camp. Yeah. Cause we might, so we're like running down the mountain and shit. Literally running to get back to our 10.

We got there back just in time, dude. Knit, fucking poured. I would think the most the dangerous part of the lightning storm might be if it hit trees. Cuz I would assume that's all it's hitting out there is hitting trees. Tree falls on you, baby. I'm big deal. Hell, me and Andy found a at the top of this one mountain, we found like a big, like metal rod that was like, drove into the ground.

I was like, is this like a, I wonder if it's a marking stick or something. I don't know what it was. I was like, is this like a grounding rod? Like a lightning rod or something? I don't know. I don't know. I might just be making up words right now, , but I was like, maybe this is because it's like we're up on the top here and there's like a metal thing driven to the ground.

Like we're not near any trails or nothing. Like maybe it's like trying to get if they do have crazy lightning storms, [00:45:00] they like, they're making a spot for it to strike. I don't know. Yeah. I have no idea. Or maybe it was I'm talking out my, yeah, I don't know shit about it either, but maybe a seismograph thing, testing for, seismographic activity.

Maybe , I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's a toss up. Let's, guys, let's keep going through my, but other than this, I think Byron is gonna possibly let me borrow his tent. You have the Pener pack for me. Yeah. And then possibly Andy's bigger pack that I might be able to use as well if my nephew Austin doesn't use it.

Yeah. Andy's got the Alps. Yeah. I got a Metcalf and I have a Pener. Okay, so three dirty bags. Yeah. These are these platypus two liter bags. I think they're two liter. Okay. Yeah. These platypus, two liter bags. Basically you just fill these up a water wherever you find it, and then you can filter it.

Andy had the solar squeeze from you can get this Yeah. Like Walmart. . And basically you screw it like onto, I think it fits these threads and it [00:46:00] fits the Sawyer. It comes with some bags too, that you can fill those bags. You screw this little filter thing onto the bag and then you like squeeze it through the filter.

And into like your. Water bottle that you just drink from like algae or whatever. Okay. And then I have the grail, which Byron had it too. It's like a filtering bottle itself. So like you, you press it, right? Yeah. You like push it through. Okay. Here's one of the filters actually. Okay. That you screw into the bottom of it.

I got the bottle itself in my my scouting bag. But yeah you basically push it through, like you fill up an outside shell and there's like an inner shell that like pushes through the water. And then you drink what comes into the inner shell. Okay. That's been filtered. Which, I don't mean honestly we, me and Andy used a little bit of both, like there was times where I was drink, he was filtering water for me to drink, and I was filtering water for him to drink. I don't. , that's what we're squeezed. It's 30 bucks. Like the grill is like a hundred. Yeah. That's what we're squeezed like 30 bucks at Walmart. Like it's probably the [00:47:00] cheapest go-to route.

Yeah. They even have a mini, I think I saw the mini, I think I saw people saying not to get the mini . So you still need that too though, right? You still need some kind of water filtration? Yeah, I have no no game bags, no water filtration. I have I, I really don't have much of anything. I guess I was waiting to see if we were gonna get tags before I started buying a lot of stuff that, like the high dollar stuff.

Cuz it's not a problem to me. I don't think there's like a waiting on shipping or anything. It's stuff like a tent sleeping bag I can buy last minute for the most part. Yeah. So it's not like I, the boots right now are probably my main concern. Just getting 'em broken, getting 'em fit right. Yeah. Like I said though, it would it probably would be best to make sure we get our tags first. Yeah. That's definitely. Before he starts spending something, number one, . Yeah. And then that's, there's my tent right there. And Byron's got the same one and I'm sure we'll probably bring his Okay.

Just like a, it's a mountain hardware. Nimbus. Okay. Nimbus two. Cuz it's a two person tent technically. [00:48:00] And you said it will not fit two people, correct? Oh no, not even close. Okay. Barely fits me. . I always wonder why they do, they have a picture of six people on the packaging and then literally you can roll over once Yeah.

And you the wall. Yeah. It's it makes no sense why they false advertise that they must be going off like the old standards of how big people used to be in West Virginia in the fifties. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. Six midgets might be able to fit in here. Maybe, good luck. But Yeah.

It's a two person 10 in. There's no way. There's no way. Yeah. I couldn't have a, I couldn't. Take Peyton. I couldn't have a child with me. Yeah. In that thing. Wow. Yeah they're tight, and then but it's kinda like a little on the front. , so you can put some shit outside.

Dude the whole bear thing though is definitely gonna be like a kick in a nuts a little bit cuz just the hassle of dealing with your food and stuff. , cuz hell, we were eating in our tents and all kinds of shit, not even thinking [00:49:00] like, wasn't even a concern.

Yeah. Now, yeah. If we've got a grizzly country, that's gonna be a whole nother beast. Yeah, you're going to eat Yeah. Somewhere else then hike, eat somewhere, hike somewhere, and then, then set up tent, and then, but your food fucking far away and yeah, it's gonna be a whole thing.

And then if it's raining, you're adding another. , yeah. Thing to the equation. Yeah. Now you're eating in the rain . Yeah. Because you're gonna have to like Yeah. Scare up like methodically eat, , because you're like, okay, we gotta eat because then we gotta go camping here.

You want eat your breakfast at your glassing location, yeah. That would be like what I would want to do because I, I'm not a big eater first thing in the morning. I like going just off of water and some coffee. Yeah. And then I, have that first bathroom break and now I'm ready to pound some food.

We did what I did pretty much every morning when I, so I'd wake up, tear down as I'm like tearing down camp and stuff. Those little cliff gels , they had some of 'em that are like like mocha or espresso and stuff. Yep. And they had a little bit of caffeine in them. So I would do like one of [00:50:00] those.

And then like once. We would start, like our initial hike of that day, I'd probably do like a bar. Okay. Cliff bar, protein bar, whatever the hell it was. Just as you're walking, eating a bar. And then so you got like maybe 300 calories in ya cuz of bars are about 200. And then the little energy things are like a hundred.

So you got 300 calories. So in ya, you got a little bit of caffeine in ya. . And then you do that first little spat of glassing or blind calling, trying to get some bugle responses, et cetera, right there in the morning. And then you go from eventually, like if you don't hear shit and stuff you have a downtime later in the morning, then you do like your mountain house like biscuits and gravy, and then throughout the day,

I always had like a little mini pouch on the side of my hip belt. Yeah. That had like my daily like snacks. Gotcha. That had like beef sticks yeah, there's those those fatty beef sticks that I like from I get 'em from sheets. They're like they're little more fatter than like a slim gym.

Okay. But they're, it says fatty on the side of 'em [00:51:00] and they are delicious and I'm probably gonna be packing a shit ton of those cuz I'm a beef stick guy and they just, they're hardy. I bought like a balk pack on like Amazon. It was like, I don't even know what the brand it is. They're all different flavors.

They got like bacon and like jalapeno . Yeah. I just I just got, so I just, yeah. But yeah I'm same way. when it came to food. Like food's a whole nother, we could have, we could talk for an hour on food. Oh, yeah. Out there, . Yeah. Because I'm, I'm, I eat and I'm, I cook, I like, I don't like to I'm not, you're like Byron, how you can, you guys can just eat to survive.

I can eat the same exact shit every day. . As long as it's like the correct key for my body, I don't care if it tastes like cardboard. Yeah. See, I'm not that way. Fuck. You're definitely a flavor guy. Yeah. . I'm, I like definitely like your seasonings. Yeah. I like my shit. I like, I eat good food.

So listen, so when it comes to like there were certain things like. . Like I tell you what, like after three cliff bars, like I'm not eating another one . [00:52:00] Like it's just No, I'm just not gonna eat that. Yeah. I'm good. I get, I'm not that hungry. Yeah. Some of the freeze dried meals, sometimes you eat some of it and you're like, this fucking blows.

Yeah. I'm like, I'm good. And then, but like the meat sticks and I'm like like candy wise, like gummies and stuff. Yeah, I'm, that's all. I'm all for that shit. That's probably what I'll do too. I'm not a big candy eater either, out there I think having a sweet treat. Oh, I am a big candy eat eater.

It huge for your mental Yeah. I know I'm not a big chocolate candy but the, I like the gummies like, like the sour gummy worms and I've heard chocolate. You're gonna worry about it melting as well. If it gets hot, you're might, you got melted chocolate in your pack and that's never. No.

Especially if we're going to gr country. . Definitely. Yeah. have melted chocolate on your pack. Now you gotta hang your pack up a tar tree every night. You smell like a reesey cup walking through the woods. Yeah. Oh, but these yeah, these, so these dry bags. Okay. These I got these I got these from like Walmart.

There's a three pack, there's like a yellow or red and a blue. Yeah. You can get them [00:53:00] for like kayaking and stuff. Yeah. So this bad boy this yellow one. It's the big, it's like a long tube. Yeah. It's, the brand is outdoor products, . I don't know. They were like $3. Nice. But basically, so every day with the food you met you, I would pack a day's worth of food in a gallon bag.

, a gallon freezer bag had one day's worth of food in it. Yeah. And so I did it for every day. So I had basically seven of those prepped. And this thing will fit three of those. Gotcha. But we might need to look into something like this and maybe we'll just use this cuz you roll it and then you clip it.

Yep. So it's got like a little basically it makes a little loop. Yeah. So you can this might, maybe we'll just do this with our food, hang it and then hang this. Yeah. These type of things. Okay. And plus they're bright yellow. We'd be able to find it in the morning. . Dude, I'll tell you what though.

I'll tell you if we back, if we camp in Grizzley country, going to get our food that morning in the dark is gonna be fucking terrifying. And then, but I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be gunned out. I'm ready. I'm tactical SWAT team. I [00:54:00] think so. Kicking in a drug house, I, we gotta also remember we're gonna have Austin with the gauge if he, so yeah.

So everybody knows Rick's nephew is going to come with us too. No tag. Just basically to come enjoy the trip and be just another body to Yeah. He wants to experie and he's one to maybe carry, he's gonna maybe carry a shotgun. Yeah. Just for protection. Shotgun. And he'll be he'll be old enough to carry a handgun if he needs to.

As well. We'll look into. , I guess I'd look into the legality of just carrying a gauge with you. Yeah, I don't know anything like that be probably, I would assume if you can carry a fucking handgun, you can carry a 12 gauge. Yeah. He might be able to get a I don't want him just blasting a gauge everywhere.

I would say he could get a small game tag, but Yeah. But that ain't worth him shooting. Yeah. But I don't, I agree. . But so yeah, so we'll have a third person potentially with us and then I'll have to settle out the details still with Logan. Some people, the listeners might know him, Logan Sandburn, he was potentially going to go with us as well.

He's as, as far as I know, these still are, I haven't spoke with him recently. Yeah. You said he might [00:55:00] have a friend that wants to go with him and then we're, we might potentially camp together and then split up and go our own ways. Yeah, we yeah. And then, but then you got, but then you got two groups of people out scouting stuff because all you gotta do is find, all you gotta do is find elk.

Yeah. And then there's. , there'll be enough help to go around if you find where they're at. Yeah. Like you're like they're their core. Yeah. They're, oh they're in that area. , then you can just go and find 'em. Yeah. And then, you got two other people that's gonna pack it out for you too.

So that's the biggest thing too. You get out on unload one, so you can have faster packouts, which means now we can get back to the field faster for the next hunt. That leads us to the third note that I had on Mar on this podcast notes is expectations. , what's your expectations going into your first elk hunt Expectations?

I don't want to kill a cow. I know you're down for it. . I would like to have a spike. I'll shoot a calf. . Easier pack out, right? I, 100%. I know that you'll kill a cow if there's a cow coming in. [00:56:00] And I got no problem with it. I'd like to get some bone. I'm not searching for a big 340 inch bull.

I don't care for that, but I would like to get a spike at least. Yeah. Or is a racked bull like this, a rack bull? Yeah. That's probably my expectations, but honestly experience, I don't even think I have killing on my plate right now. I, of course, I want to think good thoughts and be like, yeah, I'm gonna get one.

Be positive. I'm going for the views, man. I want to experience it. I wanna try and push myself. I wanna see what I'm capable of. I hear stories about these 60 year old men doing it, and I, it's like, can I hang with those guys? I don't know. Yeah. I, I don't know. Will I be even be good at it?

I have no idea. Because you were mentioning that Andy kind of gased out pretty quickly, I don't think I will gas out as fast, but I'm curious of what I'm, being an athlete my whole life, I always liked pushing myself and seeing how far I could go. And this is a way I can do it.

Yeah. That's, yeah. Andy did gas out [00:57:00] really quick in the very beginning, like first day. Yeah. Now, but Andy's you're short like Andy too though. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's going to, I think that's going to, I don't know if that's a factor or not, and they clearly, they're short people who get out there and hit the mountains hard all the time.

I'm five eight. Joe Rogan's. Five eight campaigns is five eight. Chad Mendez is five seven . They all hunt elk. Yeah, that's true. I don't think I'm gonna have a problem. I think it's mental fortitude. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of just conditioning here end too. , clearly the guys you just named are all pretty heavy workout freaks, yep, yep. I think just naturally being a little taller and I work on my feet all day long too. I'm, I, I get 10 to 15,000 steps every day. , so I just naturally, I think I'm young enough still where I can just do all right out there in the mountains with, even if I just went out there blind.

But I will work out, and when I do work out, but I will work out more and I'll do more elk related working out to get prepared for it, but let me ask you a question. Will you do any training at, to a point where you cut off all [00:58:00] drinking of beer? Probably not. No? Okay. Maybe.

I'm might because I've cut out I, I will I'm not gonna say I'm a drinker, but I'll have one or two on the weekends with the guys, but now to the point where I don't want any alcohol in my system because I'm trying to get the most out of myself. You trying to cut weight? Yeah.

Or are you trying to I'm, I just wanna look lean and I know that it's easy for me to gain weight and it's, I hold weight and if I'm gonna be on this road to getting the way I want to look, I have a picture in my head of what I wanna look like and how much I wanna weigh. And yeah, the only way to get there is just to just cut cold Turkey on everything.

Yeah. I don't know. I might, yeah, if I want to try to cut more, I'll start doing some of these heavier pack hikes and rocks and stuff and see how I feel. Awesome. But Cool deal. Like I said, I don't I just, I think . I think that's like a little bit overstated of a thing though.

Yeah. Like people are fearful to go elk hunting because they like, I don't know if I'm in shape. I gotta I can't even do that until I get in shape. I'm like, go fucking go. Yeah. And just deal with it. [00:59:00] That's nothing too sometimes like you just gotta deal with it. Yeah. You're going to be tired.

You're going to have be tired. You're gonna have to just get up. Yep. And go the next day you're gonna be tired and then you're gonna start, have to go up the next fucking hill. My, my tired just had to keep doing it. My number one fear is not grizzly bears. It's not weather. It's not my feet. It's altitude.

Am I the guy that gets altitude sickness? How do we deal with it when it happens? I can't train with altitude cuz we're at in Ohio. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think we're going anywhere. Like I don't think we're going to be above 10,000. Yeah. Is that buff timber line? Is that what they call, talk about timber line or, oh, I have no idea.

Yeah. I don't even know what that is either. That wind is really doing something funky to the door. It's blowing on this fucking key that I got in the door here and just making it knock. So yeah, I think that's pretty much everything, man. That we wanted to talk about today. Yeah. Pretty much. Oh, of course.

Now what really comes down to it is we need to get these tags solidified. And we need to [01:00:00] start planning our trip wherever we're looking at camping, where we want to hunt, the areas we want to go into, and Try to plan some loops that we can walk. As Dave mentioned, we were doing like, some day packs and and not really camping in one spot too soon until we find the elk.

I don't know if that's the best. I don't know. I don't know if that's the best route to do or not, but in, in reality, like we're really just, we're being mobile elk owners is how I'm looking at it. Yeah. I know Last year, like I said, last year for me and Andy camping like, like full backpack camp on her back type of thing probably hurt us.

, we probably could have scouted more found ar looked at in more areas, not killed ourselves as quickly and found elk faster if we had just been doing like day trips. Yeah. Like parking somewhere, going in, seeing you find elk, if not bail. Good next spot. And we probably would've done better with 15, 20 pounds in our back doing that shit than we would have.

the way we did it. , which were, we were committing to [01:01:00] areas. Yeah. Full camp on back, committing, going in six miles. Committing to an area before we knew they were elk there. Yeah. And then, like you said, you set up camp and you're mentally saying, now we have to stay here for a couple days because we have camp set here.

Yeah. And then you said, and he is like, you need to keep, like the sun. You say you're six miles in. Yeah. You haven't seen any Elks on yet, do you? Do you think it's going to be here somewhere. Yeah. Lemme just keep going. , do I just keep going further or do I say, maybe they're just not on this mountain range and do I bail back and go to another area?

You're constant. questioning every fucking decision you make. Yeah. And there'll be times where you, we'll just me and Andy sat there at times for two hours just sitting somewhere, pu pulled out some lunch just thinking like, what should we do? Yeah. Do we stay here? Do we bail? Do we keep going deeper?

, like we're not seeing shit. Yeah. One good thing about me is I'm not a real indecisive guy. Usually I'm pretty good about making up my mind and sticking to it. Eventually you just gotta just choose. [01:02:00] Yeah. You just gotta go, and I think that's gonna be the fun of this, and that's why I really enjoy Turkey hon, is because you really can't be wrong.

You can sit there and wait and maybe a silent turkey's gonna come walking up on you, or you can get on your feet and move around. And that's not a wrong way to hunt either, yeah. But once you make up your mind, you have to stick to it and believe in it. And that's what I'm really looking forward to, is just doing that.

So maybe in the morning we bounce a couple ideas off each other. We flip a coin, we figure out what's gonna happen. We do it. The way that me and Byron made some of the decisions was whoever was, so we a alternated who was shooter each day. And whoever was the shooter for that day made those like endgame decisions.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's your day. Yeah. But obviously that's not like black and white because, if you choose to just leave the whole area Yeah. You're fucking me for tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like that's, it's not that black and white. We never really had any issues.

Me and Annie didn't have any issues either. Yeah. It's just kinda you just sit there and think and you're just like, you [01:03:00] just don't know what to do. , because we're not in our element, really either. It's I mean we like, we might have saw some elk shit, a little bit of elk shit.

It's but Elk are huge animals like , like you, if you're in 'em, you're gonna see the fucking sign. Like they're, it is not like they're elusive. They're huge, yep. All right. All right, that'll wrap this up just a little quick bullshit. Elk prep, elk talk session.

Rick had getting planned getting things planned and getting shit figured out for this September. Should be fun. All right. White talk springs. We're out.

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