Elk Trip Recap & Some Whitetail Stuff

This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast the guys finally get to sit down and talk about their elk trips to Colorado and Wyoming.  Lots of stuff happened to both groups so we get into all of the good and bad about them.  We also talk about some whitetail stuff that's been going on as well.  Thanks for listening!

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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Missouri woods and water podcast with Nate, Micah and Andy back together. It's been like four months. It feels like the first time we've the first time we've recorded a show and probably. Before I went to Wyoming. I say you racked up a bunch of before we went out west. Yup. It was like it had to been the beginning of August.

The last one I recorded was Tori Cook. Whatever. That's the last one I've been on. Before you guys went to Colorado. Yeah. We went to Colorado first September. Yeah. Yeah. And it's October 8th. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah, been a little bit. Since any of us have done a show, [00:01:00] let alone together, And it's gonna be a depressing show.

Everybody looks forward to our... Manage your expectations. Yeah. Calibrate, folks. Calibrate. Everybody looks forward to our... elk trip recap, and this year it's a little different because we went different places. But, it ain't gonna be great. This show could take a long time or it could take about five seconds.

Depends on how you want to spin it. Ain't gonna be great. You guys wanna do sponsors real quick? Yeah, we'll do sponsors. Speaking of which we'll talk about that after, but who do you want to start with? Rivers Edge tree stands since they just sent us some tree stands for our the annual youth deer hunt that we help Sponsor.

Yeah, they are very generous in that. They sent us some tree stands and some hats and stuff for the kids So check them out rivers edge tree stands comm use the code Missouri 10 for 10 percent off plus free shipping which is a huge saving on any hang on or ladder That's always nice save you a little bit of coin [00:02:00] lucky buck mineral It's the slow period on the mineral.

They still hit it every once in a while. They're still meandering around it. Every once in a while. They obviously are, you don't need to do your... I need to do a little half bucket or something. Yeah, I think about a third of a bucket would probably work right now. I think I dumped somewhere around there a couple days ago on one of my farms.

The farm at your place, Andy, I haven't done that one in two months and that camera's been dead for... Probably just as long. You don't even know. You could have a stud. There's a, I have a camera running still there. Oh, do you? On an entry point. They could be skirting that camera then. Every deer I've ever seen throughout the summer is also on that camera.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Speaking of cameras, reveal cameras. Yeah, perfect. Tacticam.

They're awesome, man. I've been using the hell out of them. I sat in front of one the other night. I noticed that because we, I share, we share that camera or whatever. And yeah, so I'm like, oh, he's hunting. I'm like, oh, he's done hunting now. [00:03:00] So that was interesting. And actually I found that a successful hunt.

We guess we can talk about it in the show. But I found that, even though I didn't see a deer, successful from one standpoint at least. But that camera kept picking me up and Mike kept getting pictures of me, at one point I was like, so you're leaving a little early, huh? I thought it was a little early, but I guess if you're in the timber, it was maybe a touch early, but there was a reason I did that.

We'll talk about it later. Black Ovis use code MWW 10 for 10 percent off and camo fire hop on that app, which I haven't done in a few days. I got on that app every single day out in Wyoming. Oh really? Just checking everything out. So here's the weirdest thing about Wyoming. I had full LTE service almost everywhere.

I know that's crazy. So I Should have checked to see if we could have got Wi Fi. I got a camouflage that Starlink going

Aliens but yeah, check them out both those guys on X use the code MWW 20 for 20 percent off. It was invaluable for me Yeah, it always is in [00:04:00] Wyoming Yeah, just, and we'll get into it in the show or whatever. And especially the burn maps. We're dropping pins, me and Andy were dropping pins at each other last night.

Yeah. The burn maps that they have. Yeah. Almost perfect. Really? When we talk about that when we... See, I've never had to use that one because I've never been in a burn area. We were. And part of the mountain we were on was burned and part wasn't. And we made a plan and it was like almost perfect.

So we can talk about that later. Onyx was instrumental in doing that. Midwest Gunworks, use our code WOODSWATER for 5 percent off. I just bought actually my ARCA mounts for my new 6th Creed. And got those mounted up. I know duck season is getting close. Everybody is getting all that stuff. So all of your shotgun stuff.

You name it, they have it at Shotgun Parts, man. They're Benelli Service Center. Yeah, they are huge on shotgun stuff. Yep, and they got like a new freaking... Their building basically doubled in size. Which we have not seen yet. It was just getting ready to start when we were there. Yep, they told us what they were doing, but they haven't started yet.[00:05:00]

Athlon Optics, I've got a Midas Tac sitting on that Six Creed. Nice. I have not shot it yet still, but... I was using my Athlon... Binoculars and rangefinder today. Everything worked great. They're sending some stuff for the kids too. Oh, I love my Athlon rangefinder. That's probably one of my favorite things.

Dude, it's sweet. It's sweet. I don't know. It's like a 200 price range item. And it weighs nothing. It's phenomenal. Super light. Yeah, it weighs nothing. Weber Outfitters. WebberOutfitters. com They've been doing a lot of stuff over there. I can't even keep up honestly Adam and Josh both killed slick kids.

Yeah this last weekend. Yeah, they said they both got does so congrats to them So good for you guys I think that's it. Proud of you Morel targets. Morel targets. Yeah. I finally, I shot some more yesterday. I was like, man, it's been a little bit, I need to get out there, I need to shoot some more. Those high roller targets are nice.

Dude, my big Those are my favorite. I like the high rollers. Yeah, by far. So my big high roller went out to Wyoming with me, right? Yeah. [00:06:00] And it also served as a chair. Yeah, it's good. It's soft. Like it's nice and soft and it was a nice little chair for Russell because I had a chair, but Russell didn't.

He didn't bring one. Nah, he's I don't want to take up the room. I'm like, you say that now, but you're going to want to sit down. Yeah. Like you're going to want to sit in something comfortable. I'm sick. And then he did. He sat on the high roller and it was nice and soft. Yeah. And I think that is the, I think that's it.

Everybody for today. Appreciate them all. Absolutely. Let's get into this freaking riveting Actually, a lot of shit did happen to you guys. There's a lot of stuff And me. A lot of good And me. A lot of a lot of stuff happened, but, Not necessarily good. It was a lot different than what we've ever done before.

Since you guys went first, we'll start with either. No, I thought it was great, honestly. Oh, before we I'm sorry, before we get into this. We were talking before we hit record. How in the F do you not know what a pumpkin bar is? I've never heard of a pumpkin bar. In your life? Never. If I have, I've forgotten about it.[00:07:00]

It's this like amazing cake type thing that has this icing on it that my wife makes. A pumpkin roll? Bar. No. It's not a bar. Not a roll. You know what a pumpkin roll is though, right? Like with the cream cheese in the middle? Oh, this is basically the same thing. They're probably similar, different form.

Because it's cream cheese on top. Okay. I assume with cream cheese icing. So it's a lazy pumpkin roll. Just don't roll it. You just don't roll it. You make it in a cake pan. It's a little thicker. Yeah, it's like this big. It's like this thick. It's all started because I was a little pissed off. It's freaking amazing.

Walked into Casey's to get my monster tea and lemonade and a Butterfinger. That's all you wanted. Went to the back cooler, got it, walked past Butterfinger, got it, picked it up, walked to the counter. Sorry, I can't check you out. There's a guy in front of me, he's Okay, he's my computer went down, I was like, how about cash, I can always pay you cash.

Nope, can't check you out at all. The whole computer system's down. I can't even ring it up. That'll walk right out. Just like everybody else does in this country. [00:08:00] Freaking monster and a butterfinger. My truck's filling up with gas right now. I'd have dropped six bucks on the whatever it would have cost you, dropped five dollars down and said, figure it out when I'm gone.

Cut out the UPC labels for us. Yeah. So mad. Yeah, that would be pretty entertaining. That's all I wanted. So now he's in a little bitchy mood. I am. Which is great. I'm a monster. Doesn't that I do have a Dr. Pepper upstairs if you'd like it. I might have to. If you'd like it. Dude, I can't do caffeine this late.

I'll stay up all night. I haven't drank caffeine in six weeks. Eh, good for you. You do look skinnier. You look like a that is something, It's in the face. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like a child. Funny enough, you should say that. The, what was it? Today's Sunday. Thursday, I think it was, Thursday morning, I weigh myself every morning just out of habit before I get in the shower and I weighed a weight that I haven't weighed in 20 years.

All I did was stop drinking pop. Yeah, that's what it does. Basically, I've had a Sprite here and there because they're caffeine free. Carbonation. Just some carbonation. I started drinking this carbonated flavored water. Yeah, I've heard about [00:09:00] that. They're gross. Which one? So the cherry limeade one's not bad, but the pineapple one's disgusting.

It depends on, there was, Walmart had a brand I think it was. That's, yes, that's the one she's drinking. And those ones aren't bad, but those Boublés or whatever. No. Those are disgusting. Yep. And there's another brand that I'm like, this is just gross. Terrible. Not a fan of them. Sounds horrible.

Terrible. Sounds horrible. Yeah. But yeah. I weigh I've never, I haven't weighed that in 20 years and all it was I stopped drinking caffeine, which means I stopped drinking pop basically. Dude I got very few vices, but caffeine is one of them. I got a lot of vices. I'll say this, so I haven't drank caffeine in six weeks, but in the middle of my Wyoming trip, I had one effing can of Dr.

Pepper that was Russell's. And we got back to the truck. We had some lasagna left over from my wife in the cooler. And we were like, hey, let's eat, let's finish this. And then I'm like, oh man, it sounds so good. Dude, I was fucked up for the next. Eight hours because I had caffeine . It was, and it wasn't a [00:10:00] good I wasn't feeling good.

It was just didn't sit right. Yeah. Didn't do well. And I'm like, okay. That was the sign that I need to keep, dude, I'll drink three cups of coffee in the morning and I'll have a monster in the afternoon. , I got, you sound like my father-in-law. See, I drink, it's probably equivalent to two cups of coffee and then I get to work and I always have a Celsius.

Yeah. Or whatever. So yeah, I'm definitely caffeinated by the time I get in the , in my bobtail. Yeah. And then of course you, I went and shaved my beard, so I look like a 12 year old . Does skinny, skinny, 12 year old. Did you hear this? He does, did you hear this story? So to, just to let the listeners know, Nathan fucked up, trimming his beard and he had to shave it.

Okay. , he hasn't shaved, unfortunately. Hasn't shaved in how long? 10 years. I haven't shirt. I've had a beard for 10. Almost 15 years. And I'm seeing, I'm talking razor. Like you had to take a razor. I took a razor. I finished it off with a razor. Yeah, so He picks up my daughter and Amy picks up his son.

So that way they don't have to wait through two lines. Two different schools. Yeah, two different schools. Brindley wouldn't get in the car with him because she didn't think it was him. That's awesome. [00:11:00] I'm not shitting you. I'm in my car. She knows my car. I wave her over. She looks, I have to roll the window down.

I'm like Brindley, it's me. Oh, Uncle Nene! I swear to God, I thought the teacher was gonna be like sir, sir. That's awesome. It was hilarious. Can you imagine him getting yanked out of a car and arrested? All I did was shave my beard! Dude, I'm not kidding you. I'm not a pervert, I promise. I am not kidding you.

This last week of my life has sucked so bad. I did not first off. I didn't realize so many people knew I had a like would actually notice me without a beard like i'm not shitting you My daughter's softball team stopped warming up and one of the coaches is like Bennett, is that your dad with you in front of everybody?

I'm not, every parent has asked me like, what happened? Where's your beard ? I walked by one of the coaches on my son's football team. I walked by his wife in Walmart and said hello to her and she was just like, hi. Didn't know who [00:12:00] you were the next day. She's I'm so sorry. I did not realize that was you.

It's just are they're just like a bunch of five foot two guys like running around . I'm like, is do I look people that freaking different without a beard that. You did it. It was pretty drastic, man. It was pretty drastic. And I look like a 12 year old prepubescent boy. It's starting to come back.

Yeah. Yeah. This is six days. So this time next week I'll be back, baby. But it's been a rough week. My daughter's I don't even want you to come to my games right now. You. Look horrible. She looks hideous. It's a dude. Can we say you got COVID so you have to wear a mask or something?

Oh But anyway, we want to get into it. Yeah. It's a trip to Colorado. You guys scurried off to Colorado. Our trip. Normally, it's eight of us. This year five, we were down Albert, who is our I don't know how you want to call it. He's the camp cook. Camp chef. Camp [00:13:00] cook, camp chef. Camp, he holds down the fort while we hunt.

Yep. So that's a luxury we did not have this year, which was strange for me, because I've never been out there without him. So we missed him. And then we did not have Nate or Russell with us. So that was odd. Russell's went different places before. Yeah, two or three years ago him and Brandon went to New Mexico.

So we changed up everything. We didn't take our normal camper out that we always use as our kitchen and everything. We took one trailer. We were able, we only took three side by sides. Nathan was gracious enough to let me borrow his, so me and Brandon wrote it. I think everybody wrote it. At one point, Tom.

Yeah. That's what she said. When is the last time you've opened up that trailer, by the way? Opened up? The camper? The one that didn't go, yeah. I got in it before we went and got I had to get stuff out of it, so before we went. Okay. So that's good. I'm like, if we take that next year, he's gonna open that up.

It's gonna be like, I don't know if it's roadworthy, a family of rats. It, I said we gotta do some [00:14:00] repairs to that bad boy. I don't think it's roadworthy. Oh it's in, it's stored in a heating Cool shed. Oh no shit. Yeah. Okay. I thought it was at your house. No, but getting out there didn't have any drama.

Roger had a brand new truck, so didn't have any problems there except for I wish. Brand new truck that thing got some of the worst gas fuel mileage. I have ever seen I think it did have to do with how we had loaded the trailer change. It was a little better I think by half a mile really that's all it changed and that trailer is I think what mileage How what kind of mileage did it get?

Eight it was no. and nine Duramax

Like I said, three side by sides, it was in the trailer and the trailer bumper pull trailer. And it was, it's a big trailer. It's a, it was 14. Yeah, it's made for hauling like a skid steer sort of thing and we had a lot of tongue weight on it. We had two side by sides up front, literally side by side, and then yours right between the axles.

We switched it up on the way back, [00:15:00] but anyways, we didn't have as far as truck troubles. Which is a win because we've, Oh no, we did. We did. What? My truck. The old coyote caddy went. That was on the way back. That was on it did on the way there. But it only did a minute. We didn't lose power. Yeah, I dropped a, I ended up, long story short, I ended up dropping a cylinder, I have a coil pack or a spark plug, one of the two going bad, and I if I got above 2, 500 RPMs it would drop the number three cylinder I think it ended up being, and so it still made it, but I was running on five.

That didn't happen until we were through the pass and like We were almost to our like final town whenever it happened, but it was like a blip on the way out there, like it happened and it went away. So on the way back, it became a bigger issue, but. Yeah. But it was good, it was nice because you weren't really hauling a trip to Colorado unless the truck has a problem.

Yeah, think of that. Period. You're hauling a lot of stuff and you're going on some crazy altitude changes. I'm telling you this right now, that was the best part [00:16:00] about my Wyoming trip. Yeah. No freaking trailer on that truck. Just drive. And the pass you go through, the quote unquote pass we went through.

was like driving down one of our gravel roads compared to freaking what we, you go through in Colorado. It was just like, oh, this is it. This is what we had to do. Okay. That was nice. I can see that but this year, we usually have a base camp down at the bottom of the mountain at the trailhead.

You could say off the road essentially. This year, we decided, since, Albert wasn't going to be there, you guys weren't going to be there, we're like, let's go stay up on the mountain. And we had a particular spot in mind, like we, Andy picked out a few that we wanted to get to, but we Which I'm glad we didn't go to some of the farther ones.

But we get there and keep in mind, our unit went to a draw unit this year, which there was a ton of ticket tags left over. So it didn't really matter, but we got there and trailhead was pretty much empty. What was [00:17:00] there two trucks there? So it was confusing because we didn't know what was happening yet, but there was like a camper there.

Then two trucks, and like a trailer was dollied down. So we're like, alright, there's some people up here. But, nowhere near what there usually is. And there were some camping spots along the way that were full. Your normal, major camping spots were full. But, we've been out there in years and it's every nook and cranny is somebody.

It wasn't that bad. Not near the amount of people that we've seen in the past. So that was nice. We got the camp, the number one camping spot we wanted. I stepped in cow shit as soon as we got there and got out of the truck and I was in my Crocs and it got like in between the fucking holes and stuff.

It was immediate, like he got out of the truck and stepped in it and it was like, aw. I was like, that fucked up. Had to put on my boots super fast. That wasn't great, but whatever. Oh, and so everybody knows, so it was you two. Pat, Brandon, and Roger. My dad. And then me and Russell went to Wyoming.

Obviously, Brandon, Pat, Russell, and Roger aren't with [00:18:00] us tonight. Yeah. Cause all of us are busy as shit, nobody can get together. And we just figured we'd do it ourselves. Yeah, we're gonna do it. Me and Andy can cover Colorado. Give a summery. Circumvent the guys having to deal with us for the night.

That's right. But yeah, get our camping spot that we wanted. Which. My dad doubted that we could do it the way I had decided like we should. We bought a trailer for the That trailer looked like it wouldn't make it up my driveway. Hey, don't be doubting. Don't be doubting. How far did it make it? A Rubbermaid trailer.

Hang on. Three side by sides, we hauled up a 12x20 lac nac tent, a blackstone grill, several coolers, five bows, five bows, in bow cases, six totes, six or eight totes, six totes, cots, we took all of it up camp up there. Not a small camp. We weren't roughing it. We took this little 50 inch wide trailer and It honestly worked out alright.

We've got a couple totes on it. It's like an extra bed, [00:19:00] of a side by side. We made it lit. It's literally the halfway point, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And there's a creek crossing. I know that one. Going up there, we didn't know, but there was a 15 inch wide bulldozer, which is badass, by the way.

Yeah. That had been reworked. They've been maintaining it. They were at that crossing, but they hadn't redone that crossing yet. And so as soon as you go through the crossing, there was a little bit of a rock step, almost. You had to get up. Of course, my side by side climbed right up it, and I eased into it, went to pull up, all I heard was, POW!

Shit. I can't see the trailer. It's small enough, I can't see it behind me. I lean out, and I can just see it just dumped over. And it, the trailer was a dump trailer. But it was a Rubbermaid trailer. , but literally its Made by Rubbermaid. It's plastic made. Yeah, shit was plastic. There's this little rod that broke, that held the trailer down.

This the width, like the thickness of a pencil. Probably a pin. Yeah, an knee pin. Yeah. Pretty much. It snapped and the trailer's just sitting there. Luckily I was just like past the [00:20:00] creek, so it wasn't in the water. Yeah. We literally, I'm surprised it made it that far. Oh, it made it the rest of the way because we rigged that thing up.

We took a bungee strap and as tight as you can wrap a bungee strap around the tongue of that trailer. Did it and it made it a few more trips. Up there, down there. Yeah, it made it, so it went up, we made two trips up back and then, or two trips up. Yeah, it made everything up. Both trips up and then one trip down.

I think we used it one trip down. One trip down because we went the night before. Yep. How much did that trailer cost? A hundred bucks. A hundred bucks. Worth it. My daughter has a new trailer to pull behind her. Just saying, worth it. Yeah. It was funny, like the second trip. So Andy's by himself, he's in front, he takes off.

Which, again, I cannot see the trip. He can't see nothing. Me, Brandon, and then Pat, we're on the other one, we got our own loads, we're loading stuff up and Andy's already left, so we take off, and we get past the halfway point, and then all of a sudden we see Pat's [00:21:00] in front of me, he gets, he stops, he gets out, and he picks up a water bottle.

I go, okay. Goes a little bit further, stops, gets up, picks up a waterfall. This goes on for the next mile. I don't know, what was that, 36 pack of water? It was a 40 pack of water. A 40 pack of water. That I had strapped to the I put a cooler in the bottom of the wagon, and then, there's no room in the cooler, so I put the case of water up on top, and I threw a bunch, er, a ratchet strap over top of it.

When I left, it was completely solid, encased in plastic. It made it a long ways, but it didn't make it the last half a mile. Dude, I pulled in to the camp and I got out and I looked around and I was like, man, where are they at? I got out and I turned around and looked at all my stuff and I went, Oh, shit.

There's like maybe 12 out of 40 bottles of water left. So we had to stop. At one point I think either Brandon or Pat got in the other side by side and they just, I just drove beside him while he walked and we just threw waters. [00:22:00] The floorboard of Nate's side by side was level full of water.

Dusty, nasty bottles. Yeah, that was my bad. Yeah, this is some of the this is the first time I'm hearing a lot of this stuff So this is hilarious to me. So obviously we set up camp That went great. Oh, I love that spot. The spot was perfect. I think I know where you guys are talking about you definitely know you definitely have seen it before but It was out of the sun, like you didn't get any sunlight.

But if you wanted to, you could walk 10 yards and be in it. Everything, the tent, all of our food, everything was out of the sun. We hung a tarp, kept everything. It was, yeah, it was great camping spot. And so that was Friday, opening day started Saturday. We decided. We were gonna hunt, we pretty much hunted as a group the entire time, which we'll get into that, but opening day, we get up and looking back, I feel kinda bad, but we decided to hit the gnarliest hill that we know of.

I don't feel bad. That was my, that was honestly my [00:23:00] plan for him. So my dad's 65 had a little bit of knee trouble going before he went. So he also knew that his time hunting was going to be limited because more physical activity he does the harder it is on his, he has a, I can't remember what it's called like anymore.

It's it's a cyst behind his knee and it swells. And then that cuts off circulation to his lower leg, causing it to swell, and it also messes with a nerve that runs up to his hip. He was fine for a while, he knew everything, but he knew that as soon as he started, it was going to be tough. Yeah.

You did start him off. We went up on that. We, me and him, me and dad had talked about we were going to put all of our eggs in a basket and roll the dice. Because usually, we know the first couple days are your best. But your damn near worked. Yeah, wasn't that day one? Yeah, that was day one. Did it work?

It worked. No, it definitely worked. We made it up the hill. It killed him. You could tell it hurt him. But, he tough. It was a solid hour. It's a solid hour climb. And I say climb. It's a climb. It was with him. It [00:24:00] was, we did it a few days later, 35 minutes, 35 later, but I will never do it in 35 minutes ever again.

He's a fucking retarded. Jesus passed out. I got to talk. Yeah. You were like trying to prove something. I was like, I'm not trying to die up here, but yeah. So we get up there and we do what we've done in the past. We all spread out and, do a little bit of cow calling. Andy's gotten really good at that.

We're doing the bugles, do some bugles, and sure enough, we hear a bugle a few hundred yards away. So we and Andy plays to him. First thought is that a hunter? Yeah, no, sure. Yeah, you listen to it, but that one was right off the bat fairly legit. And, we're not in open, like it's not like drainage to drainage.

Like we're on a timber, we're on a mountain top timber. And so if you could hear an elk bugle, in my mind, in my opinion, I'm 500 yards away. That's in my mind. How if I can hear him, I'm 500 yards. I'm not, this [00:25:00] open area, it's pretty dense. And so that's what we did. We heard him and we, he responded a few times.

So we decided, okay, let's cut the distance. It's early opening day. We got one bugling, right? He's not real fired up. So we cut the distance to probably 300 yards. And he's still working. Okay, let's keep going. Push again. And it felt like he was trying to scoot away a little bit. But, and then we hit that wall.

Like we got, you hear him talk, you get into their window or whatever, into their circle, and that pisses them off. So there for a minute There's five of us, right? So the, those four I was bugling. So I tried to drop back to where I wanted him to come and let play the wind and let him swing it down into them.

I almost think, and we've talked about this with like with my dad and Brandon, there's two and I really think there was, there's one lower and one higher. The higher one actually came down for a minute and then [00:26:00] started to go back up. So we, we kept pushing again. We closed it within a hundred yards.

You could tell, okay, it was like, shit, we better stop that's, this is far enough. Because it was starting, you could start feeling it in your chest a little bit when he bugled and you felt it. He was right there, he was probably, he was within a hundred yards probably, you just couldn't see him.

Yep. And I had hung back there for a while and it was, working. I felt and you can't talk you're far enough away you can't talk or whatever, I can see everybody. But. Everybody's watching, making sure this bull doesn't come running in so we're not looking at each other.

I felt like he was going up. I did not want him to be able to get above us and look down into us. So I moved up with him. Instead of being behind them, I became, I was right next to everybody. We were almost in like a line. Yeah. Like up the mountain now. You were above them. He's up top and we were, we're.

Probably 50 yards in between all of us, maybe something like that. And then just the way it worked out, like me, then it was me, Pat, [00:27:00] Roger, Brandon was at the end, just without the terrain laid, I had to get me and Brandon or me and Pat and brain or me, Pat and Roger were within 30 yards of each other. Pat was pretty much right behind my shoulder just because trees were down, had to work away around.

Take over. No, I, yeah. So we got, we pushed in close enough and it was like, okay, we all knew we had to stop like we're, yeah, this is it. Two years ago in the same spot, I got into an elk and that interaction, I completely botched and messed up, but it taught me, I felt like it taught me a lot.

One was whenever an elk can't see you and thinks it should be able to, I got barked at. They bark, so I was like, shit, if that works that way, why wouldn't it work the other way? Why couldn't I want to see him? Now the turntables have turned. The turntables turned in a table ish way, so I barked at him and then chuckled.

And then he let off this [00:28:00] growl, bugle, and at the end of the bugle, instead of going into a chuckle, he went into a growl. Like he was pissed. And then chuckled. Pissed. And as soon as that got done, all of a sudden I just see legs like stomping. And he is at a run through the timber looking for me. And he runs in, I'm gonna say to 25 ish yards and stops.

And I can see his eyelashes blinking. And he's behind enough little stuff that I was like, okay, one, I'm pinned. He's staring at through me. I can't move. I'm down on a knee. Cause I go shit. Okay. He doesn't have my wind. He doesn't know where I'm at. I started getting nervous. Like I'm busted. I'm screwed. But then all of a sudden he turns and just screams one more time and just bugles right and all he's All of us can see him except for brandon pretty much.

Yeah Brandon was screwed the whole trip I think well brandon also I think he was pretty close to that one that we thought were lower He kept saying he thought something's gonna come up from below. Yeah. Yeah, so There's that but anyway [00:29:00] So he just screams I'm like, okay, so he's not spooked if he's bugling still he's not spooked So I just freeze and don't move.

He's 60 yards from us 20 30 20 for me Yeah, and so I'm sitting here. I'm I look over at my shoulder. I'm like He's right there, yeah, I see it. I'm like, okay, I just wanna make sure I'm not you know, I'm not in here right now This is a crazy. I want to draw so bad at this point time and I'm just staring at me But it's staring right at me He turns his head and just starts walking downhill, which I'm like, Shit, he's going to walk right into all four of them.

Shit. There was like two small gaps I would have had to stop him and draw all at the same time. And I just kept telling myself, he's walking right to him, just let him be. So I, oh you fucked that up. He, so he starts walking. Talk about your all time backfires. And I guess what to share this part because you have a perspective of this next part and I have a perspective like of what happens and when.

So he starts walking right to [00:30:00] them. And like he says, walking, so he's, I'm in line, Pat's behind my right shoulder by five yards, Roger's behind that, so he's walking right towards me. I'm the one that's going to have the shot more than likely. He gets, I don't know, he's probably around 50. Nah, yeah around 50 and he's walking right towards me, but he's got some there's some brush in the way I had to move to my left just a hair to get to where I thought I could get a shot So I literally take half a step and he looks right up But as soon as he looks right up and he lets off what you do right there I just so that's I mean I'm watching him walk away from me and walk straight into his lap and as soon like I knew I was guessing Michael is Drawing like I can't see Micah.

He's behind honestly a deadfall stump Like the whole, when the stump fell and I'm guessing got caught drawing. I just see the elk pick his front leg up and pick his head up real high, go oh shit. I just happened to have my bugle tube still in my hand. I was, it's luck, really. [00:31:00] I immediately just turned and put it in the ground and I chuckled again.

And after that, I was facing that way, so he, so as soon, like I said, as soon as he, he had me, I'm froze. Andy does that, and he immediately turns his head, and he goes, and I'm like, Okay, I draw, as soon as I draw, he's open, taking, he's doing a hard right, gonna work his way back up towards Andy, or at least look towards Andy.

And when he does that, he goes in front of this big ass tree. My fault, I thought he was about 40 yards. He ended up being about 30. But anyway, so I draw, and as soon as I draw, set, I wasn't going to let happen what happened to me and you a few years ago. I was like, Smack! I was like, draw, set, pin, bam. Yep. I hit high.

I hit him, I saw the arrow go, and my left to right was great, but it was high, but I'm like okay, might have top lung. So at this point in time, [00:32:00] the elk takes off running back where it came from, right in front of me. I can see the arrow in it. And so I just start bugling again as hard as I can. It actually stopped again.

They, I don't think you guys could ever see it when it stopped. It stopped probably 60 to 70 yards from me, but I could not, I would have had to take three big steps to get a shot. And it was looking back. I was like, he hit him. I'm just gonna look, stand there and bleed. Stand there, hindsight, I probably should have took another step and tried to send one, but it stood there and blood for awhile.

We even found the blood and stuff, but But yeah So we do that. We get together. We're stoked. We think we're going to find a dead elk. Pumped high five. We find blood and we're like, okay, let's just stop. Let's, as soon as we, as soon as we find blood, let's stop. Let's take a break.

Eat some sandwiches. Yeah, eat some breakfast, whatever. And so we gave it, I think, an hour and a half. But this is nine o'clock on the dot. Yeah, it is. Yeah, early morning, god, thank you guys. Plenty of time. Just started. And then we get up and we start to track and there is what, 70 yards of blood maybe.

And it's [00:33:00] where he stopped was the biggest blood and it was, I took a picture of it. It's about the size of a softball, maybe a football. And it's bright red, like meat blood. But we tracked, we did our due diligence and after recapping everything. We just think I, I hit too high. I hit too high.

I just got into the meat. Not even after blood stop. Like we, we spread out, we grid and we spent several hours looking. There was just nothing to go off of once the blood dried up. We kept on looking. We, like you said, we spread out, went the direction that he was, we think he was going and me, Pat, even on later on that afternoon, we split up and we split up and tried to cover more ground.

We stopped a second time before we split up and we're all sitting there. This was about lunchtime. We were sitting there about lunchtime and we've been sitting there for a while. We all took our naps. We had adrenaline dumps. Everybody passed out, took a little nap. Yeah. So [00:34:00] I was sitting there, I was sitting there with my dad, teaching him how to use Onyx.

And all of a sudden, all of a sudden we're all in Andy's elk, elk. A cow came in 30, 40 yards, 30 yards broadside. She was right broadside for me. If I would have had my bow in my hand and obviously, if things would have worked out, I could have shot her. Easy peasy. All of us. All of us.

I left my bow 10 yards away from me. Dad's is on the backside of a log. You can't reach back and get it. Yeah. We've been talking at one point, Brandon stood up and grabbed his bow. He just never had a great shot. He was about to send one 70 yards to the timber and we're like, don't do it. I wasn't going to shoot anyways, because I didn't know for sure.

There was still a chance that we might find mine. Then we split up. Me, Brandon, and Pat, we kick up a bedded bull. How good of a bull was it? He was a solid, he was a 5x5. Solid mass. Every elk I've seen up there has [00:35:00] been like real spindly. A raghorn. A raghorn, yeah.

This one, mass. He had a lot of good mass to him. Real dark. Thicker like a milk chocolate. Yeah, real dark horn, ivory tips sort of thing. He was a gorgeous bull. Biggest one I've seen personally. His body just wasn't super massive, but he had a good rag on him. Good rack. So that was pretty much opening day.

Yeah, I think Dad and I got it. There was another bowl we had bugling. Oh the same day. But yeah, that was late afternoon and there was With his knee and everything. There was no way we were going after it. Where it was bugling from Wasn't having it. Lost cause. After opening day, then Roger was pretty much shot.

He, his knee was hurting pretty good. He took the next day off. Yeah. Is that the day we went up top? Yup. We went up top. We called up top. It's kinda like the middle of the where two trailheads meet. It's takes a while to get there even from where we were at. Found some campers right there where we wanted to go.

We have, yeah, we have our like religious spots. We park our side by side and [00:36:00] start our hikes. But there was someone camped literally in that's like where we normally park. So we're like, what do we do with our hands? Yeah. So we were like crap. But in years past me and Andy and Pat, we found some different spots to go into.

So we went in there, I think we saw. I think you saw five elk total. I saw three. All together, yeah. Yeah, I saw three. One was a bull. We were just walking. They ended up walking paralleling us and we just had to shut up. I had the cow. I had her. She walked through a perfect shooting lane in front of me, had her, but as soon as she was about to walk in the shooting lane, I think it was Pat said, there's a bull, there's a bull.

Yeah. And literally 20 30 yards behind the cow coming up the hill was a bull just trailing her. It's a raghorn. He was smaller, definitely, but legal. Oh, yeah. Would have died. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh, would have put an arrow. Why I did this, I don't know. But I got I put my, I was drawn. I let down, got my rangefinder out, and started ranging where that cow was walking.

When I [00:37:00] pick my up for my range finder, she's staring at me like shit. There's also three other guys right behind. Everybody was drawing. So there's a lot of, I didn't draw. I was like, I'm in the middle. I'm like, I'm going to let somebody else play this one out. The bull stopped right before we got into the shooting lane and the cow had already walked through the shooting lane.

So we're like shit. So we're all standing there and the cow, she knew something was up, but didn't know what we were. And so she just turned and walked straight away from us. Then instead of the bull following her up and then turning, he did the same. He just 45 and trotted away and never presented a shot for anybody.

Yeah. That day. I can't remember third day. Third day, we took a break. And that was when there was like 40, 50 mile an hour winds. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there. Yeah, I think it was one of those third or fourth. Cause like we woke up and. It was bad. It was scary being in the woods.

Yeah. Just because, so we stayed at camp for a [00:38:00] while. And then we split off. That afternoon we went. We did. We, er, we went for a little bit. And me and Brandon went out and we never saw anything. That's when I was jacking around bugling from camp, wasn't it? I think so. Maybe. We were probably jacking around.

That was the same day. Anyways. That's the day you called. Yeah. When it was windy. Yeah, probably. So yeah no, probably that's what it was. And then we got back and we were all, and we were cooking dinner. Was that the same day? So I think that was the day that we slept in. And it was about a little after seven and I went to the bathroom, went to the shitter.

That morning. I think that happened the same day. I think it was that same day, yeah. And on the way back I look up and my eyes are still sleepy, a little tired. And I look and the, what is that? Is there a horse out here? And I started oh shit, that's an elk. There's an elk, literally. It's 80 yards and closing just head down grazing right behind our camp.

So I take off running. [00:39:00] We're all still in bed. Everybody's in bed. All of a sudden, Andy's on his knees sticking his head through the window. Shut the fuck up, Pat. Shut the fuck up. Pat, shut the fuck up. Dude, he is stalling the log so hard. He is snoring so loud. So I sit up and I'm like, what the hell is going on?

I look over at Pat and Pat's what? Because about the fourth time I said, Pat, shut the fuck up. He doesn't wake up. And my dad looks at me like, what? I was like, there's an elk right here. My dad straight sits up and just. Smacks the shit out of Pat. Shut up! Shut up! Doesn't help! Pat's what? Before he hit him in the legs, but That's all he could reach, but When I say he smacked him, he swung hard.

Shut up! My bow happened to be right outside the tent. I got it open, got it out, Micah walks out and he's looking, I start walking down the side of the tent, and about that time, I start to get close enough to actually see and do something, it picks its head up and it's a freaking [00:40:00] spike. Of course.

Which is the only thing in Colorado you can't shoot. Can't shoot. It went on and... That was the excitement that morning. I don't remember what day it was. Shut the fuck up. There was nothing too crazy happen until the second to last day. But at one point we were cooking dinner. I remember this.

We were cooking dinner. We were all in our sweats. I was cooking burgers. And also I decided we needed a big fire. Yeah, you decided you needed a big fire. So he loads the fire up And that was just popping like crazy just green just popping Got burgers sizzling all of a sudden you hear a bugle. I don't know 200 yards away They did something like that like we're like, oh my god There's no we all just look at each other.

Was that real about that time? It let off another one Yeah, and like it was legit. It was a legit bugle. There's no way it was a hunter And I turn the grill off real quick, I grab my bow, everybody gets their stuff ready. Roger stays back and takes all the firewood off of the fire. He's trying to pick firewood off of it.

Because [00:41:00] it's just popping like crazy. And we go after this thing, we're all in our Crocs, our sweatpants, and sweatshirts. It was pretty funny, but we never end up getting on him. That thing was moving because as close so I would let one rip, it would let one rip. It was answering me. But it was moving away.

We get closer, it got farther away. It was moving away. I don't know what the fuck you guys are doing. Yeah. So you had a big ol fire you were going to build, to recreate the enjoyment from the year before? Yeah, absolutely. Micah. I'm trying to think nothing really happened too crazy. We saw elk every day except for one.

I think the very last day we didn't see elk. But. See a dead elk. We did see a dead elk. We were walking up. We decided to go up the same Willow Ridge at one point and we as we're walking up, we look ahead and there's two hunters on their way up and we're like, ah, crap. But we get up there and he actually killed one the night before he killed a cow.

Him and his and [00:42:00] him and his wife were up there quartering it out and taking it off the mountain. But the day bef that was on the last day, didn't see any elk that day, but the day before that we go up there. And we play the same scenario that we did on opening day. We all split up, do a little bit of calling.

I think it was our second set, right? Second or third is about nine, nine 30. Yeah. Nine, nine 30 and he's doing his thing. I'm the only one that seems to calc Pad does it every once in a while. I beat the shit out of a tree. Yeah. I would rake this tree. I was, I tore that tree up. I was chuckling and just being a, act like I was, I tried to act like a small bull, but like I was just being an asshole.

And I could see it. I don't think Andy ever saw it come in, but I could hear something. Pat's to my left. Andy's like to my left I guess you'd call it. He's like in front of me. Pat's kind of behind me to my left. And I look up the mountain a little bit and I could see [00:43:00] antlers coming through.

Never heard anything, but I could see antlers. And see, I could hear, and that's when I looked over to Mike, and then I once I saw him, I could hear him but I just saw a quick glimpse, and he was coming right towards Pat. Pat's not here to tell the story, but he's down on his knees, I believe, and he works around, I think he said it was what, 32 yards?

27. 27 yards. The bull comes around in between a gap, two trees facing him. He sets his pin, buries, loses his arrow in a frontal shot. So he shoots him frontal, arrow disappears. We're like knocking off. God just gone. So we're like dead elk. That's a dead elk. So we find the first blood and we track for a while track for a while.

We're like, okay We got really good blood now. Let's stop do the same thing We stopped and then we started looking more and I think we tracked 400 [00:44:00] yards or so and it He's in the deadfall area and it's sprayed in like a circle like he got in there and freaked out It was so weird, right?

It was just the way like it didn't make any sense It was like he was looking for a place to lay down because he ran he walked over here you could tell and then he walked over here and then he walked over here and then it like he was getting wobbly and Going back and forth and I don't know but the blood started getting a lot darker like he got like thicker darker Yeah, and we're, something had to have plugged the hole because we couldn't find blood anywhere.

And that, that, we know for a fact that elk is dead somewhere. Oh, there ain't no doubt about it. And we tracked that thing the rest of the day. We grid searched up and down. Seven hours we tracked that thing. And we never found it. Like me, Andy, and Pat I'll never do that again. We scaled this.

They call it a, it's a ridge. We scaled this ridge and [00:45:00] it's, I don't know what type of angle that was, but it's something that you probably should have had climbing gear to do. Just how steep it was. Luckily, we all had sticks. If we wouldn't have had sticks and I threw my, everybody threw their bow like on their pack.

And if we wouldn't have had sticks, we wouldn't have been able to do it. Like it was just so steep because we were thinking the direction More than likely, he dove, because they always bed on those sides anyway. So we're like, he dove off there. He's somewhere dead on that side. We scaled the entire thing from that point to where we come in out.

And it was, it was terrible. That at one point in time I slipped and when I landed, I was probably slid 15 feet before I stopped. Yeah, it's bad. I couldn't stop. There was, there's one or two times where I'm like, if my feet give out, I'm dead. It was just bad. But yeah, we never found him.

Sucks, man. We know that one's dead. The one you shot, I don't think died. No, I think he probably made it. The one Pat shot, [00:46:00] that elk died. And that's just, the bad part for Pat With Micah, he knows what he did. Micah knows what happened. It was a screw up. That is what it is. With Pat, I can't go back and tell him, man, I would have done this different, I would have done exactly what he did.

And we still didn't get a dead elk. We still didn't recover the elk. That's the unfortunate truth about hunting sometimes, and we could be like, some of these hunting shows out there that only talk about, the ones they kill and how awesome they are. But they don't talk about the ones that they injure or whatever happens.

And, unfortunately. That's what happened and he executed it perfectly and obviously we didn't see the shot But I believe Pat I would like to know where it died Oh, I would love because like you'll never know it unless you guys somehow find the deadhead next year or some shit But what's crazy we're talking to the guy that had that shot that dead cow the last day we went up there We that's why up there second day and looked again.

That's why we went up there the last day We're like, maybe we'll happen. We're gonna hunt what if we walked right by him? [00:47:00] Yeah. We went through, we went through the same area we tracked. Cause we even, we hung ribbons just to track where, follow the path. We'll get a, an idea.

We went back to that same area and spread out again and just make sure we didn't leave any stone unturned type deal. Didn't find it. But we talked to that guy that killed that cow. Two days before he had found a bull and him and his wife quartered it out. And carried it down the mountain, packed it up called Game Warden, and I guess they told the camp, that, Hey, we found this bull up here.

You guys know of anybody. It had been a couple days since they, did it got a phone call. Where was it? California. They were from a kid from California. Shot it the day before. It was like five miles away. I think it was a gut shot, if I remember right. I thought he had a single lung. I thought it was gut.

I could be wrong. Could have been both. Yeah. Regardless. How tough they are. It's five bull made it five miles away. I think he said seven miles from where he, [00:48:00] they he the guy showed him and it was around like seven miles. In a straight line. In a straight line. Yeah. And that's not how they go up a mountain, down a mountain, up in mountain, down mountain sort of thing.

So they can cover some ground if they need to. So that pretty much sums up our trip. Yeah, on the way back, my truck had some more trouble, but Yeah, it made it home. It made it. Everything, yeah. Yeah, it's, it was one of the best worst trips ever. Yeah, I was gonna say. As far as hunting, as far as hunting pressure goes, those were the only hunters I saw.

Like legit hunters like saw them on the mountain. There was a few around. I bugled in a guy that, that one day we took off. I feel bad. He came a long way. Were you Tom Brady the shit out of that guy? Yeah. Except Doug Flugey is Tom Brady in our group. But I got to the point to where I, if I was an actual elk, I would not come down from where I was.

And so I was like, [00:49:00] okay, why should I now? If, so I stayed there. And I had the bench, I had the upper elevation. If this was going to be an elk, it was going to come to me. It came, but it was not an elk. It was a dude? Yeah. You talked to him? No. We tried to, and he wouldn't come up there. He's if you guys don't know, we were still a good ways up above him.

Like he came from hundreds of yards away. What is your name? Ezekiel, the crazy thing is literally I think I feel like everybody, like universal, like three cow calls, like real fast, you know it. Okay. Okay. I did that and he bugles at me and I'm like, no dude. So I did it again. I'm like waving my arms.

And he's like bugles again. And I'm like. I did everything but finally yell I'm a dude. Hey, you guys. We did have the mountain that we, you know, we. Always go to. We never even stepped foot on it. I guess you guys did. That throws me off. They did. Yeah, they did.

Went to the little honey hole once. Yeah, I didn't. Didn't even go over [00:50:00] there. We did notice two there was two four wheelers. It was being hunted. Yeah, somebody was there. Which it almost always is. But yeah, so that was different. Yeah, the back side of that mountain with that trail going up, it just, that trail needs to not exist.

That'd be a mountain to change. But yeah, so I mean we saw elk every day except for the last day, I think, and we did see a dead one, that guy cornering out, but it was a lot of fun. We probably, looking back, we probably should have split up a little more and covered, probably, yeah. Probably would have covered some more ground, it is what it is.

Sounds like you guys had a great time, outside of the unfortunate turn of events. At one point, we were sitting underneath the camp, or we were at the campfire, and we're looking up, and I don't know who spotted it first, but Brandon, he's What the hell is that in the sky? And so we all look up and all of a sudden this string of lights come flying, coming by and we're like, Oh wow, that's crazy.

And Brandon. He freaked out.[00:51:00] He was legitimately, I'll let you keep going, but I also freaked out on the phone with you, which was fun in Wyoming. But anyway, keep going. So it tries, Andy pulls out his phone, somebody else pulls out his phone and they're recording it. And we're like, what the fuck is that?

And it was like 20 lights. And Brandon, he freaked out the most. And then like after a little bit, I'm like, I don't know. We were like, that's gotta be the star link. Yeah. It's good. I haven't even really heard of. So first, of course, we're like going through and all, being crazy like, Oh, aliens look at those dots, like they're getting farther apart and closer.

And how many are there? I counted 20 something. I counted 18. I counted. So we can't get count on them. We're trying to figure out like they're moving fast. What is it? And then finally we start talking like, okay, what's logical here? Oh, it's a satellite. It's too low to be a satellite.

Like it's so fast. So we ended up thinking, we thought Starlink maybe, but we had no idea what Starlink looked like. And I'd never even heard of it. Yeah. When I was talking to him on the phone, which we'll talk about that in the live trip. You didn't know what Starlink [00:52:00] was? No, I don't. Anyway, yeah, we see that, that was pretty funny, but...

So we noticed what time it was, the recording, and we'd look, and it came two minutes later every night. Every time. And so we could watch, and and it also moved to the south. South, yeah. And so it moved south a little bit, but we'd get up and we'd, hey, there it is. It was it was pretty cool to see.

And obviously once we got back to service, we were like, yeah, that's for sure. A lot of people got YouTubes freaking out. But so it was a lot of fun. It was a good trip. I really enjoyed staying up on the mountain instead of staying down below. But we ate good. We are a little Blackstone.

Yeah. Blackstone is the way to go. Our menu wasn't very diverse compared to what we, I think we had burgers two times, burgers, tacos, burritos. It was good. It was good. It was pretty good compared to what I for three four straight days at one point in time. Yeah. Which was not a single hot meal.

Yeah. You want to cover yours? We thought we were going to have hot dogs. I was in my [00:53:00] freezer. I was pretty pissed about that. Like I was so stoked. I was like, dude, we had pulled pork. We had pulled pork and we had some soup. Yeah. It was really good. Yeah. Wyoming was not as good as Colorado was to you guys, which we were I was shocked.

Yeah. I thought you guys were just going to be ass deep. Yeah. Elk in your face, bugling. You're just going to run into him around every corner. That's what we thought too. That sort of thing. We get there. We actually got there a Sunday night. Sunday night. No, Saturday night. Sunday night.

Sunday afternoon. Excuse me. Like at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We get like to the mountain that we're going to be hunting. And we're like fuck it. Let's just go up tonight. So like we put our camp on our pack or our backs and we start walking. We didn't make it as far as we wanted to. And it started getting dark and we had never [00:54:00] been to this place before.

So we're like, dude, we got to find somewhere. Lesson number one, that place, there ain't no flat spots there. So like we, We are damn near in the dark and we finally find this spot that we're like this is where we're going so we're gonna have to work we get our little camp set up which is basically a one man tent for each of us and we hear a bugle right before dark right at dark to our would have been east i'm like sweet they're here so next morning we get up and we hear a bugle same area so that's the area we were going to go anyway so we start working and this is the first part about why i'm in a sucked ass camp The freaking blowdown there was, it's like all the trees there compared to Colorado are smaller.

They're like younger trees and I don't know if that causes them to blow down easier, but it's just it almost looks like somebody started building a log cabin and then just quit halfway through a wall and spots. So all of a [00:55:00] sudden me and Russell are just in this blowdown hell. And this mountain is so much more different than the mountains like we hunt in Colorado.

The two main ones that we hunt are faces, right? It's a face with benches. No fucking benches there. And nothing but drainages. And the drainages are steep. We're in this downfall. And we're like, I want to get to the, this drainage and we can, sit on the edge of it and see if we can see him working up.

We get to the edge of this drainage and I'm not shitting you. It's like a crater. What is those things called an abyss or whatever? Like looking down that the drainage itself and you're like we're not crossing this. Like how the hell are we going to get over there? So we get dejected for a minute.

And we're like, dude, let's just sit down and take like a. break or a nap because we have to get back out of this and we just Climbed over these freaking log cabins down here So we're sitting down i'm [00:56:00] actually sleeping And I start getting hit in my leg and on the other side of the drainage was a bull 60 yards I didn't see him until he was probably more 80 And he's just working up the drainage on the other side.

So Russell cow calls to him real quick and he stops and looks over at us or our direction. Good bull. Very good bull. Bigger, biggest one you've seen ever. Biggest one I've seen in person. And turns his head, keeps going. Russell cow calls again to him and he doesn't even give it attention. And we're like that's good.

That was our first morning. So we're like, shit, this is going to be great. I'll do some CliffsNotes versions, so the rest of that day we didn't see shit. The next morning we end up having to, we left our tents and our camp, quote unquote, where they were, which was a mistake, because then we had to freaking get back there that night.

And that was hell. [00:57:00] So then the next day, we get out, we take our camp with us, we hunt, and we took We both had three liter water bladders, and then I had a liter, so two more liters of Nalgene's. And Russell had similar to me, so about five liters. Russell ran out of water at the end of day two. We're like, fuck, we gotta...

Gotta go get water. Get back out of here, and we couldn't find water. It was dry there, couldn't find water anywhere. No sign saw him, but no sh I never once found a fresh pile of shit that entire trip. It's crazy. We end up busting out of there that night and getting back to the truck, sleeping in the truck that night, and got up the next morning and I took seven and a half liters of water on me.

Russell took nine. And that's the part that we weren't prepared for is the weight our packs [00:58:00] weighed. When you take all the shit that you have and how much nine liters of water weighs, right? and so that time we Hike all the way in to the backside of the mountain we wanted to face We wanted to circle this whole mountain and we finally find a spot that was flat enough and we park it The next day, the next morning we get going and there's a burn on this mountain.

There's about half the North face ish mountain is burned and half is it. So we wanted to get right on that transition of where the burn and the non burn was, and we do, we get over there. And that's where I found the dead head that I brought home. Right on that, like right before that transition, we find the dead head.

I'm like, sweet. So I make a few phone calls, seeing if I can take this thing. I ended up having to meet with a guy with a Wyoming game of fish and it was an 8 tag and got to bring it home. It was almost a perfect condition. Yeah. Still had Ivories, [00:59:00] all that. So anyway, we get to this burn. And now I've got this elk on my back, this skull and rack on my pack, with all my shit and we find a wallow on the burn right on the very beginning of the burn.

So Russell sits up on that wallow for the night. And we were gonna meet back, we were gonna try to maybe meet up or just meet back at camp if we got separated too far. My, my plan was to get back to where there was a portion of the burn map on Onyx that shows that it's not burned. And I'm like, I'm going to get on that transition, which is the opposite of where Russell is on the West side.

And dude, I'm not kidding you at one point in time. I thought I'm just going to die here. I just, I literally didn't think that, but it was just like, how am I going to get out of this? Cause the burn was nothing but just, it didn't burn perfect. It did burn a wick. All these trees were [01:00:00] down. You got trees that were like a little bit black but then just on the ground and so it was just all over the place and you'd get over a pile of them and you'd be like, I'm good and you just go.

You'd look up and go, crap. So I kept climbing. I wanted to go laterally, but I kept having to climb around these downfalls. I ended up getting just under the peak of the mountain basically. And so I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna go around the face and find a spot. And he says he sees him.

Our buddy sees him every night out in the burn. I finally get around to the other face, and I was gonna tuck up against some aspens, young aspens that may be six foot tall at the most, and a tree that was burned that was still standing, and I could see probably 250, 300 yards all through this burn. I'm like, so if they come out and nist, eat some of this grass, I might not get a [01:01:00] shot, but I'm gonna see them.

And I get, and that's where I dropped a video, if any of our listeners look at our YouTube, our Instagram and I'm like, perfect. And then about that time I hear a rumble of thunder, I'm like, you gotta be shitting me. So I get on my weather app and there's a thunderstorm coming on the radar and I'm like, fuck.

So then I look and the mountain that is to my south. Is getting it already and it's heading my direction And i'm like and i'm out in the wide open maybe 70 yards But below the peak of this mountain. Oh, man So I call russell Which was interesting because I could call right? Yeah. Yeah, and i'm like dude, I think I gotta leave he's like why i'm like i'm all the way over here, which for you guys like It's hard to explain to people I probably [01:02:00] was A thousand yards away from us at this point, like I was, we were no longer together.

And I'm like, dude, I got to get down. Like I'm out in the open and this thunderstorm is coming. He's yep, I'd get off. So I said I'm going to go around the other face of this mountain. I will just see you back at camp. So I am like scaling this mountain, just trying to get off of it. And I'm walking towards the thunderstorm the whole time.

So I finally get down to where I can into some timber and then the thunderstorm hits. So then I just walk back to camp and find a spot to camp or to hunt the rest of the night. And no, we don't see anything. Then the next day we go out again and this time we wanted to drop. So we do start dropping and we start getting rained on.

So we just tuck up under a tree, for a few minutes. And it was more like an hour and we put our rain jackets on and just See how long hunker down for a minute that cell goes through and we're like we're good and we look out across the [01:03:00] canyon And it looks like like children of the fog or whatever.

That is that Like the haunted houses. Yeah that mountains is like disappearing and Then the cloud comes over to us coming in. Yeah, and then it just pisses on us Him and I are not prepared to be wet we both get pissed on for the next hour and a half, two hours, we're trying to get back to our camp and we're just soaked.

Everything, the only thing that didn't get wet was my feet, which I was proud of my boots for. Yeah. And we get back and so we both get basically naked and get into our tents and just sit there for the next five hours as it just pisses rain. Probably should have collected some of that rain water now that we think of it.

And that's when I think I texted you guys and was like, start a fire. I'm like, what? What are we gonna start a fire with? And because you were worried you were cold. I'm so cold. Yeah. I was fucking start a fire. I was cold. But as soon as I got into my bag, dude those sleeping [01:04:00] bags, dude, that zero degree bag was the best thing I ever did.

What sleep bag? Is it owls? I think it's the, it's an owls mountaineering. I think it's the zenith. Could be wrong on that. I need to look it up. I don't know. Zero to go. I have the same bag and that thing is legit. Dude, I got in there in just my underwear. And was shivering cold. And within thirty minutes I was like Toast, yeah.

Yeah. No they're It's a down. Yeah. A down bag. That happens. And, so we finally get up. And out. And I'm like, what do you want to do man? We're not seeing any sign. We haven't heard a freaking bugle. Do we want to try something different? So our dumbasses think, Let's go and attack this thing from the bottom.

Because we're attacking it from the top right now. We're coming down. What if we attack it like we do in Colorado where we come from the bottom up? And we'll just do that in the morning. And we're like, yeah, let's do that. So we decided to pop out of there. We found out why nobody goes from the bottom. Our buddy, [01:05:00] Who had been helping us get ready for this, meets us, we get down that night to the truck, we drive the truck around the other face of the mountain, and then we find a spot to park, he finds us.

He's what are you guys thinking about doing? And we're like, we're thinking about dropping down this, which is like straight down, like down this, and then back up tomorrow. He's you guys do you, but... You're dumb if you do it. Working too hard. Yeah. And we're like we don't have another option.

We got a four wheeler with us. We gotta get to him somehow. He's okay. Hindsight should listen to. Oh my god. It's the worst thing we ever did. I will say, the night before that night, we did go, we separated. I went and glassed that hillside and Russell went up and over. just maybe 200 yards.

It was just straight up and straight back down. He should have killed a cow that night. He had a cow at 50 and closing and two other hunters left an hour before [01:06:00] dark for some reason and when they started their razor with their raven crossbows Nobody laughed. It spooked that cow and she just as soon as she heard that she just ducked into the timber and walked a different direction.

And Russell's like she would have come right to him by that time. There was nothing we weren't shooting, right? It was anything legal is dying. Can you shoot spikes up there? I Think actually we did check it and I think you could right but at one point in time We weren't going to because we weren't positive right, but I'm pretty sure spikes were but anyway That was the only thing I might have had to thought of thought about Anyway that next morning we do that Dude, It took us five hours to make it one mile, like we went straight down first into this drainage, which, and when straight down, I'm talking like what you guys are just, just straight down.

And then there's a river, a creek running through it, [01:07:00] and then you're just straight back up and then straight down and straight back up and straight down. And then you don't think of all the freaking. Downfall in Some of these drainages, so the elk could be in any one of those little pockets.

Oh, yeah any of them so anyway We finally make it to where this old two track Comes to the this point of this knob Which is where they drive their four wheelers to five hours Takes them five minutes to drive, right? So anyway, we get to the bottom of the mountain and We start working up and now we know why nobody hunts it from the bottom up because it's just it's Straight up and down your my face is in front of ground And then it's downfall all over the place too.

So like you're trying to get over it's like a ladder. It sucks well During this I step over a piece of dead timber and [01:08:00] my foot lands on a piece of quartz covered by moss so I thought it was just dirt and as soon as I hit it boom my ankle just snapped straight to the ground and I tumble like a bag of potatoes and so I tighten my boot up real quick and we're like what are we gonna do and we so we keep trying a little bit and then finally Russell's like dude We're not going to get out of here in the daylight with the way you're walking and we are at least four hours from like back to where we are.

So we decided to go back out a different way and get to that trail, the old two track and walk it two or three miles down to the old, the road, which is where our buddy was camped. And then he would take us back. Yeah. So we get down off the mountain to the bottom and then you have to go back up what we thought was no big deal to the two [01:09:00] track so we get down out of the drainage and we're like now all we got to do is get to the two track and we get out of the timber and we're like oh god it's just it's like wide open field too which is nice hot as shit but it's like this And we thought we were done, and we're like, Fuck.

Long story short, we make it, but I had to hike probably four miles on a bum leg. And I think, it was also my bad leg, so it was my knee that had five, has had five surgeries, it was that leg. My knee started hurting too. Yeah, it probably irritated everything. So we, finally, long story short, we get back to his camp, and I call you while we're waiting for him to get back.

Yeah. And he's gonna drive us back up to our truck. And I'm sitting there talking to Micah, it's about 8, whatever. Yeah, it was dark. And I look up in the sky, I'm like, what in the hell is that? You're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, it's a bunch of green lights, just like moving [01:10:00] through the sky in a row.

You're like, that's Starlink. I'm like, what the hell is Starlink? So he's oh, it's the internet. It's the Russians. It's the, what are you, Elon Musk or whatever. Yeah, Elon. You should have told us to rush in. He scared the shit out of me. Oh, you didn't hear? So we had dinner with our buddy that night, and then he took us back to our truck.

Thank God, because that would have sucked. But yeah, other than that, my truck got attacked by a bear. That's like the best story of the whole trip. The best part. We came down off the mountain the day we got wet and cold. When we got back to my truck, my side view mirror was knocked. And I'm like, what the hell is that?

And, Whatever, I just put it back in and I notice a bunch of like smears down the side of my truck and I'm like, alright. And we actually get in the truck and drive away. And then we stop like a quarter mile up the thing just to get our shit out and have a little more room to do stuff. And I'm like, that is weird.

Why do I have all these scratches on my truck? And then about that time I look at my [01:11:00] fender flare, I'm like, dude, Russell. And he had taken his claws and just went right through the plastic. Then about that time, Russell sees two snout marks on my camper shell where he had his snout just up against it looking in.

And then we also found broken glass on my running boards. Like shattered glass from, like if you took and shattered your window on your truck. I'm like, what the hell? But no, my glass is broken. So I'm like, I wonder what happened. Come to find out, there was another truck at that trailhead, and he busted out that guy's window.

Oh, shit. And he had it on his paw, and when he was up on my truck, it just was on my truck. So I got away really lucky. Yeah, you did. That he didn't do more damage. Cause I know that bear, I saw a picture of him or a video of him. My buddy Chad was after that bear. That bear 450 pound beast like you could tell from the snout, that's not a little bear, like [01:12:00] huge.

And so he could have fucked my truck up because good thing he was full, yeah, and then, like I said, so in a nutshell, I saw one elk on the first morning, my truck got damaged and I fucked my leg up. There's Wyoming. My truck did good though. That was the only silver lining like I didn't have any vehicle troubles.

That's nice. That was nice But that was the elk trip for Missouri woods and water Oh for three You were hoping to go back because yeah tag you could go back for rifle, but it just it's not gonna happen we got some shit going on with our family in December and I'm worried about time off. And so just not gonna work out I I don't think it's going to happen.

Yeah, I'd have to take off like a minimum of two days, probably more like three. And I don't even have a rifle for an elk and I'm sure I could get that done, but I just don't see it happening. My daughter's softball playoffs [01:13:00] start this next week. So even I won't even know if I could go until if they win or lose, it'd be like a last second thing.

So I just don't think it's happening, which sucks. That's what it is. So that's the elk stuff. White tail wise, it is October 8th. Andy, I don't think you've been hunting yet. Nope. I went one time the other night. Mike has been a few times. Been twice. I went to our new place that me and you have. Yeah. The reason I said, I was excited when I left a little bit early that night was I didn't spook anything coming in.

I didn't spook anything leaving That's why I left just a touch early because we were concerned about that because it doesn't have it's not a great access place I was super stoked about hunting. We had that cold front move in, you're gonna hear this on what the 12th or something No, the 9th, 10th, 11th, you're going to hear this on the 11th and we have that cold front move in this last weekend, Friday night.

[01:14:00] I should have hunted Friday night cause that's when two, two of my shooters, I got two shooters over there that I want to take care of that I would like to get an opportunity at. Both of them came underneath stands, they were right there at the fringe as far as shooting light goes. I opted out to not go in the morning cause he was there at four o'clock in the morning too.

So I was like, I don't want to go in there and spook him out. If he's bedded somewhere, I'm like, I'm just gonna wait till the evening. Went that, went Saturday evening, didn't see kicked up a few doe going in and I saw an ass of something at one point walking through, pretty sure it was just a doe. So it was pretty uneventful, honestly.

I should have went Saturday. Yes, you should have went Saturday. You should have went. Sure. This morning, all week, weekend should have went this morning. Cause my, my brother and my nephew, my brother's been taking my nephew hunting. I think this is his second year going and they just haven't had any luck.

My brother, he's only got 13 acres to hunt and it just [01:15:00] doesn't get a bunch of traffic. So I call Andy up Andy's one and it's doe season. Andy's wanting some doughs taken care of on his spot because he is overrun with him. And so I called Andy and he's yeah, go ahead. I was like, yeah, I'd like to take my nephew out there.

So me and my brother, we went out to Andy's this morning. And as soon as we pull into where you park, there's a doe standing right there. So automatically my nephew's heck yeah, that's awesome. So we sit, we got there super early. So we sat in the truck for a little bit, get out, we go set up and we're just, we're doing like you would a coyote hunt or sitting on the edge of a field looking over this, it goes down into the timber.

So we really don't have a good setup over there yet. Cause I just got done shelling the corn out of that field a couple days ago. Yeah, over there. It worked. It obviously it worked, but yeah, if you wanted, it'd be nice to have a blind or something for that sort of thing, but no, it worked fine.

So we get out there and I think it was like five minutes before legal shooting, like we had a [01:16:00] doe run 20 yards right beside us. And so he was stoked about that. And it. breaks daylight and we start hearing something like about 200 yards away and we're like, dude that's bucks fighting. So I get my binoculars out and I'm watching these bucks and they are going at it like hardcore fighting, like bam.

And they look big. I'm looking at them through binoculars, 200 yards away. So I couldn't tell how big and they were locked up most of the time. Like they weren't separated at all that I could see. And I'm like, dude, those are some So I text Andy, I'm like, dude, I'm watching two bucks fight in your field right now.

And he's holy crap. I got them on camera. Yeah, they're right in front of the camera doing it. So they were fighting right in front of the camera. Got to see that. My nephew saw that. That was awesome. We did have some does come out at one, 130 yards, but they were onto us and there was a terrace.

So it wasn't the best shoot [01:17:00] shooting area. Couldn't really get on them. Anytime they get on them, they'd move around. So we're like. Okay. They ended up leaving and we're like, all right let's move down closer to where if something does come out, we'll have a little bit closer, we'll get over this terrace.

So we don't have to worry about that just in case we couldn't see something. So we get down there and we didn't see anything for a while. That was, we probably, so we were, we thought it was done. Like me and my brother were just sitting there talking. It's around nine something and. Sitting there bull crapping and all of a sudden I see a head in this waterway and it's walking right towards us and I'm like, oh crap, this is going to happen.

So she comes out and she had another doe with her. It could have been this year's doe, but I feel like it was last year's. It was a good size one, decent size, but there was a big mama doe for sure. And it worked out perfect. She came, if I had to guess, probably around 75 yards, chip shot. Nephew did awesome.

He kept his cool. He put it right on her hit her right in the [01:18:00] shoulder. She drops and she scoots off she ended up crossing the little ditch there ended up on the other side probably ran it So she probably from where he shot she probably ran about 70 yards or so. So that was awesome. That was his first deer that's awesome.

Yeah, that's exciting really appreciate you. Let me take them out there They had absolutely one of the best Hunts I've been on and I'm getting a kid outside like that and outdoors like that. So yeah, it's just special to be able to do that Absolutely. We really appreciate that and it was just awesome.

It was a big old dough we filled dresser and then my brother had a scale. She weighed 125 gutted. It was a good sized doe. Yeah. That's huge, bitch! Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was a good time. Good. Now I'm just waiting on the next cold front, and I'll get it back out in the woods.

Yeah. I don't know, my I'm not being negative, but it's just, I think you and I were texting the other day, and I told the story to Andy just before we started. You were like, Oh man, I should have been out there. Here. He's a picture of them. And I'm like, I'm happy for you. And [01:19:00] I sent you a picture of a spike, like walking in front of my care, because that's about what we got going on right now, that the larger deer that you and I are hoping.

To get after comes back, man. He was like there every day in the summertime and it's been, what, two and a half weeks since the last picture, which was then something, two weeks before that. And yeah he disappeared on us. Hopefully he comes back, but yeah, I don't know. I got some other ones I'm chasing.

I got two that are, They're actually getting more consistent. Oh, and this is just, so I, before season started, I wasn't getting crap. Like I was just getting a handful of does here and there. I'd get does every day, but sure enough, opening morning, I get one of my target bucks underneath my stand at 7 30 in the morning.

Just sitting there. Randomly. Yeah, just randomly. I haven't seen it. It's God's way of telling you, you gotta go open it today. I didn't have a picture of him for, I want to say it was like [01:20:00] five weeks. And then he shows up on opening day. So it's just man, you're a dick. That's God's, that's God's way of saying why aren't you out here, sir?

It's opening day. It was, opening day was on a Friday, I think it was. Thursday or Friday. I'm sitting there taking the kids to school and I'm like, are you kidding me? But, freaking kids. Yeah, they'll do that to you. But, yeah, that's it so far. I don't know. We suck. We suck. It's early.

Yeah, it's early. It's got a long way to go. White tail wise, whatever, but I don't know. The elk thing, man, it was just so close for you guys and then just giant let down from our perspective. We we were excited about Wyoming. It's just, it's a bad spot, they weren't rutting yet.

That's what pisses me off more than anything is, We specifically waited until mid September. To go out there. And then the freaking things weren't even running. Yeah, you were, I was thinking, I was like, dude, man, they're gonna be talking. They gotta be talking. It's, that time of year or whatever, but I guess not.

[01:21:00] I don't know. No, it was rough, but that's hunting. That is hunting. That, that, them's the rules. Yep. Thanks for listening to our elk trickery, elk trip recap and some whitetail stuff there. Yep. You guys be safe out there. Wear your harnesses. Yeah, wear your harnesses, shoot straight, tag us in your big buck pictures, or your toes, whatever.

Except on Facebook. Should we, should I, should we say something about that? Yeah, we don't have a Facebook anymore. Someone took it. Currently, I'm trying to get it back. I'm not trying super hard, because I don't really know how to try. So if any of our listeners know how to get a freaking Facebook page back for a business, let us know.

Yeah, it's still there, but we can't log in. No longer an admin for it, because my, all my shit got hacked. And so we didn't lose our Instagram. Thank God. They haven't done anything with it still right still just sitting there, but We went viral on Instagram. So that was cool. Yeah Cool. Yeah, two million views man.

I'm pretty proud of that. We're famous [01:22:00] We made it So some of the weirdest that's the weird thing about social media I don't quite understand is like some of the weirdest shit not that yours was weird, but What goes viral, you know what I'm saying, and what doesn't is hilarious to me. Cause we'll We don't try real hard, but we've tried before we'll do a cool reel or whatever.

And we're like, I'm super proud of it. And it has 3000 views total in 12 months. And then you'll do a dumb ass, like the one about my coat one year, it had 60, 000 views. It's stupid. Yeah. It's weird. But then I did one, it had 2 million. So it was just crazy. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, that's a good look to everybody.

Hopefully if anybody's out there, Elk hunting. I've seen some pictures of some guys out there getting some elk down. Yeah, so screw you. Oh, yeah Eric over there working class bowhunter. He got his first. Oh, that's all. Yeah. Yeah, that was nice. He had a hell of a bull So yeah, so screw you Eric. Congratulations, Eric.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm happy for you guys that kill elk [01:23:00] Yeah, wish we could do it's very nice All right. We're gonna go home. We're gonna stop Yep. You guys are gonna go. I'm going home. Yeah. Later. See ya.

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