Boot Leather + Glass = Ivory: Rifle Hunting Big Bulls with Josh Cooper

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This is the Elk Hunt podcast, home to everything elk hunting. I'm your host, Cody rich. From fellow DIYers to elk hunting legends, we have elk hunting stories, tips, tactics and more to get you pumped for elk season. Join us every week for great elk hunting content. Today's episode of the podcast brought to you by Onyx Hunt, one of my favorite tools. And today I want to tell you about a cool feature within Onyx that I think is going to help you plan your hunts. So Onyx has the, what they call the hrt, the hunt research tool. It's a great tool for finding draw odds, finding your hunts and all those things. But one of the problems someone came to me with was like, hey, how do I, if I don't know what unit I want to go to, how.

Do I figure that out?

And one of the things that I'm using is just the Hunt and Fool E magazine. It's free to you if you have an Onx Elite membership and you can go check out the magazine. I, I constantly look at basically past episode episodes, past articles and past magazines and all the new ones. So say a new state comes out. Wyoming. I'm looking at Wyoming. I'm going to jump in the Hunt and Fool E magazine and I want to see what, you know, what they're saying about units, what type of hunt each unit is going to be. You know, what the quality to expect is. It's such a great resource and it's a, it's free. If you're not Onyx Elite member, really cool tool. So from there I can basically check out units, decide what I want and make my plans. And then I look at the HRT tool within Onyx and figure out, you know, hey, okay with the points I have, what can I draw? So kind of bouncing back between these resources is a great way to figure out where you want to go and, you know, is a good starting point. From there you can use a lot of other resources, but this is all free within the Onyx Elite membership. So if you're not an Elite member yet again, highly recommend it. Love the tool. Constantly on there trying to plan my fall hunts. I think you guys should check it out. And if you, if you're looking for more features, I'm gonna try to give you more tips on how I use Onx this time of year to have a great fall. Head over to onyx hunt.com upgrade your your subscription to the elite. Use code TRO. You'll save yourself 20%. Such a great resource. Ton of great resources within the elite membership.

All right, Josh, welcome to the podcast. Man. We were. I had to. I had to stop yet because I didn't want all the good stuff to come out. But we were joking about, you know, this year's bowl in the last couple bulls, and you were, well, I guess we'll. We'll start there. You had so told me, like, man, my three biggest bulls all came from, you know, if you looked at onyx, It'd be like 1300 yards apart. And I just got done saying this on a podcast, I don't know, a few weeks ago, where I'm like, man, his. Like, if you look historically, big bowls come out of like, certain drainages, right? Or like, you know, it's like, I don't know if it's genetics or like grandbabies or whatever, but growing up, I always, like, right where I grew up, there's some giants and, you know, every five years or six years or 10 years, like another giant that like, was in such and such canyon. And I mean, that's. I never hear anybody talk about that, but I. That's. That's the stuff I love because I used to just, you know, listen to old timers talk about, you know, big bulls in certain canyons. And when I got, you know, of age where I was hunting by myself, you know, it was the same thing. You just go to the same canyons, you know, the old timers were talking about, and they're right there.

Yeah. And you know, at this day and age, it's a lot harder because there's so many more people back then. I mean, they usually.

If you.

If you hunted a. A drainage, that was it you. That was your drainage, you know, but that it's. I agree with you. A lot of it's genetics.

And that's what I.

We've noticed. Even in. Even in a unit you take like the unit I hunt, it's like from one area to the other. You can see the difference in the genetics. Some areas won't grow quite as big of bulls as other areas. And then just the shape of the rack, you'll see it, you know, oh, you can almost tell like, oh, that bull came from this portion of the unit and that bull came from this portion. You know, it's pretty. It's pretty neat. But I agree with you. If. If a big bull lives in an area, if. If an area has everything a big bull needs and they can. Can get away, can stay away, stay alive for a long, long enough period of time, that means that there's gonna always Gonna be a few bulls that stay alive and get big. And so that area, if it's got all that stuff to let those bulls continue to age, you're gonna have big bulls if you've got the genetics.

Yeah. And I think there's kind of two sides of that coin. Like, you know, I've hunted, you know, we talk about rifle hunting. I've hunted some gnarly canyons where I always used to say it's a correlation like that that bull's not smart. He just has a habit that made him go to a place where he got old. Right. Like, it just because where he hangs out, like, no one else goes there. It's not, I don't, personally, I don't think it's like just that bull's so much smarter than every other bull elk. He just like, that's where he chose. And turns out it's really hard to kill an elk in there and then he gets old.

Right.

But I do do also think there's the genetic piece to it too. Like, I mean, I've seen old bowls that just aren't that big, you know, like, you see. And like, some canyons produce like, really cool genetics. And I think there are those like, you know, special snowflakes, if you will, that like, get to be pretty big. Like, they get the, the, the, the pretty rack, so to speak.

Right. Well, I think, I think some of it has to do with the minerals in the ground. Why you, why you see, bulls get to a certain, get bigger in a certain drainage. For some reason, that drainage or that area has a little bit better minerals to it as you know, which gives them a little bit more versus the elk. That's 15 canyons down, you know. Yeah, but I don't know, it's, it's pretty neat. I, I, I've noticed. What's the out the, the two last bulls I killed, I killed on the bull I killed this year and the bull I killed three years ago. What was neat to me is I started aging all my animals three or four years back. A buddy of mine got me into it. And that to me is I, I will age. If it's a mature animal, I will age it for the rest of my life because it's really neat that the five point I shot three years ago was super massive. We knew he was an old bull, you know, huge bottoms but kind of weak on the top, but a lot of mass. And we all guessed. Me and my buddies, my hunting group, we, we guessed him at probably nine is what we thought he Was eight to nine. And I got the age back on him and he was 11.

No way.

And the bull I shot this year, we figured he was probably 7 to 8 and we were right there. He was 7 years old.

And the, for the 11 year old, was that that big five point you killed?

Yeah.

That's crazy. Do you think he regressed?

Oh, absolutely. I guarantee you he was much bigger a few years prior. I mean his teeth were worn down. You can't even, you couldn't hardly even find his ivories. They were smooth with the gums. So I, I bet that bull probably in our, in our area here, we've, we've got some pretty bad winners and actually that a year or two before that we had some really, some pretty bad die offs on the bulls in that general area and he was one of them that made it. But I don't think he would have made up too many more years.

Yeah.

At 11. So what's a bull like that do differently? Like I'd be curious like from just from like when you're hunting, did he act different? Did he, you know, do something different? Like.

No, I think a lot of it. I mean some of them I think are smart. I think some of them have, like what you said earlier, they have a hole. You know, they found that this, this is where they live, this is their pattern. And for whatever reason it's, it's worked for them. But there was nothing different. That five point, he was actually with three other good bulls, younger bulls, but mature bulls, and they were just doing their thing across that hillside. And I just, I think that area, the way they, where they live and the way a lot of hunters come in at it, they just have been able to have good escape routes and they've been able to escape and stay alive for a long time.

And then, yeah, just that day, you know, just happened to work out that the day you were there, right place, right time.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean I spotted him across the canyon and was able to get on him and, and, and get a shot at him. But like the one this year, same exact canyon, I walked the same exact route. I mean to a tee, I walked up, I walk up this ridge, up a drainage and then up a ridge and it's in green timber, but everything else around it off this ridge is pretty much burned. And there's a opening in the green timber about halfway up the ridge that I can glass, I can glass this basin. And so I always like to try to be there, you know, 15, 20 minutes after daylight. And so that's where I spotted the five point from three years ago was from that opening and shot him across the canyon. As I was this year, as I was working up that ridge. I was just about to the clearing and on my ridge in front of me, there was a cow standing there in the green trees, feeding. And it was it, you're October 27th. So. And it was. She was all by herself. And I. Yeah, that's not right. Something's not right here. And so I, I backed off and skirted around her in the hillside to where I could get to the open and glass the basin where I shot the 5 point. I glassed it for probably 10 minutes. Didn't see anything. Walked back over the ridge and she was still there within, I think she was 90 yard from me. And so I just, I thought I had, I had seen her look over the draw off to the other side of the ridge a couple times. So I, I just started walking at her and she seen me and then blew over the hill. And I just kind of run over. It's a tight ridge. I just kind of run over the ridge just a little bit so I could see the next draw. And she was standing again about 98, 90 to 100 yards from me in the brush with that. This bull standing there. I mean, I just, I seen him through the trees. I thought it was a rag horn, to tell you the truth. I just caught a glimpse of the horns and thought, oh, it's a smaller bull. So I pulled up my binoculars and he turned his head sideways and I seen the tops. And I was like, oh, that's not a rag horn. And I dropped my binoculars just in one motion, dropped him, slung my gun off my shoulder and put it up, put it on him, and torched one off. And from the excitement offhand, I mean, I clipped him. But they run across the draw, which. Then they're in a burn. And I literally just sat down then. And when he came out the other side, I pounded him a couple times and dropped him.

Yeah, he's a giant. Hey, what. When you, when you got a good look at him, you're just like, oh, boy, that's. Don't let this one get away.

You know, I. I don't know what it was about him. I actually, when I shot, when I shot him and got up to him, even looking at him, and even when I walked up on him, I still, I actually, I guessed him. I guessed him at like maybe a 330 bull. He just didn't. I mean, I knew he was a good bull, and I knew it'd be close to the biggest bull I've killed, but I. I just didn't see it in him. But then when I got him back to camp the next day, I quartered them all up that day, Packed out all the scrap meat and a front shoulder. And then the next day I came in, I packed out the head and the other front shoulder. And the third day, I went in and I just double tripped and packed out both hindquarters. But when I got him back to camp and we all started looking at him and everybody was like, yeah. Even all my friends are like, I don't think he's 330. Oh, I think he's 338. And, well, let's score him. So we two of us scored him and had one guy running the numbers on his phone. And when we got done with all the numbers, we said, what is it? And he just stood there staring at all of us like, well. And he goes, 358 and a half. And they're like, everybody was like, no, no way.

He screwed that up.

Yeah, that's what they said. You had to screw that up. And I was one of my. So one of my buddies, like, I'll help you pull the tape and pull measurements. And another guy, another friend was like, all run numbers, too. So we had two guys running tape, two guys, two guys running numbers, and we did it again. And at the end, we looked at him and said, what do you got? And they looked at each other and went, 358 and a half. And they're like, yep.

Oh, man, that's cool. What do you think? Like, you're pretty consistent. And, you know, you hunt Idaho. Pretty tough to be consistent, especially as a rifle hunter in that state. What does it take to be a consistent rifle hunter? And we always talk about, like, you know, you know, 201 is being able to consistently kill elk every single year. You know, what does that take, in your opinion? And how is that, you know, now versus, say, 10 years ago?

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Stubbornness. To be consistent, you just gotta keep pushing. Like, I mean, it helps to know the area that's like if you or I. If you draw a tag in Colorado, you've never hunted it. You escout it and you go over there. You might be looking in a canyon that just doesn't have good elk. It looks good, right? But it just doesn't have. The elk don't seem to live there. They might be a couple canyons away or something like that. You know, in country that you think doesn't look as good where here, where. I've hunted this country my entire life, I pretty much have. And from shed hunting it all the, you know, my whole life, I pretty much have a good idea of the drainages and the areas that you're going to get into elk. And the way me and my, My kind of, my whole group. I've got a really good group of buddies that we. Everybody's in the same boat. I mean, we. We set up a big camp and everybody likes to go hard. I mean, we. We have fun at camp. But when it comes to hunting, it doesn't matter if we gotta hike in three miles. The next morning, somebody, we're ready for it, everybody's up for it. And that's. I think the biggest thing is knowing your area, knowing what areas the elk like to be, and then two, just having that drive to do it. Sitting in camp, is it. You're not going to kill anything set in a camper. Well, let's just go drive the roads today. Or drive. I mean, maybe once out of every 10 years. You might kill a bull that way. Sure. But if you want to be consistent, you got to get into where the bulls are. Be out there at daylight glass and. And it doesn't really matter. I mean, we, we've. We kind of all agree if it's a good bull, we don't care where it's at. Like shoot it. We'll come help you pack it out, you know, one of our buddies. So.

Right. And you gotta be that way. I mean, a. You gotta like to be a good rifle hunter. You gotta hunt some gnarly country and you kind of just have to have the fork and knife mentality like my dad always said. Like Even if we gotta, you know, pack it out with a fork and knife and just eat the whole thing, like that's what we're gonna do. And like, you kind of have to have that mentality because I do think that, like, there's so many people in the woods, but I, man, I honestly think that 90 of them don't know what they're doing. And you can't let them dictate your hunt. I'd be curious, you know, like, what you've experienced. But, like, everywhere I've rifle hunted, it's like I run into so many people and instantly I'm like, oh, I gotta change plans. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. But it's like you really start hunting around people and it's like they're not really. Maybe they just see other people and they don't hunt very hard. But it's like, doesn't seem like anyone's hunting very hard. You know, they're driving the roads, you know, doing lazy stuff. Yeah. And it's like, if you get after it and, and focus in on your areas, you're still going to be successful. That's it.

And. And just learning your area constantly. Like, if you. Especially hunting an area over and over, if you can go. If you go into one spot opening morning and there's no elk there, well, then, okay, tomorrow or this evening, I'm going to go try this drainage where I know they like to be. You know, you. You can, you can pick it apart. If they're not in this spot, they might be in this spot. If they're not in this spot, well, tomorrow I'll go check out that spot over there.

Yeah. You know, you know, the, the real trick to rifle hunting and like, when you know an area, you'll sit on that sucker for days. And you're like, I know they're here. And you're just gonna pick it apart and pick it apart. Keep hitting it, keep hitting it. And it could be, you know, say you and I went to a spot we know super well. Man, it might be day three before we see an elk, and we're just like, I know they're in here.

Yeah.

And whereas, you know, Joe Blow, who goes to a spot and he's like, oh, didn't see anything. Off to the next thing. How do you, you know, I mean, you got a lot of history with your spots, but how do you, like, what's your thought on that? Or like, how do you try to manage that? Like, you know, bouncing to the next spot versus, like, really Just picking one apart, picking a canyon apart until you know there's nothing there.

I, I agree with that. I mean we'll, we'll continue to hit a spot over and over. If we, especially if we know, I mean like you said, if we know it's a good spot, we, we might, you might go in there one day and there's nothing there. Well, that's today with hunting pressure. That's with hunting pressure going on, especially in a general unit. You know, there's a lot of hunting pressure. I mean you, you, you know, if you know your area, you know there's Joe Blow and Johnny are over in this drainage and you know there's dudes over in that drainage. And if you're hearing gunshots to the day and what either if you're not, you know, those are getting pushed around. So if you know an area that they like to go to you, like I said, you might not see one today, but give it a day or two after opener and they're gonna be in there.

Right.

You know, they just consistency going back, knowing your area and going back and con staying with your gut. Especially if you know the area. I mean, I, I understand hunting new area. It's kind of hard when you don't know the area. You can get in there, you can see the sign. Well, it looks good. Are they here? Where do I look? Where do they elk like to, I mean I know they should like to hang out here, but do they. Where. When you've hunted an area over and over and over, you don't have to, you know how many times you've seen them there, you know where they go when you can't find them anywhere else. So it, it makes it easy like being able to be consistent when you stick to hunting the same area year after year after year.

Yeah. What's your thought on other, other hunters? Like if you see a bunch of trucks in area, are you, are you out of there or is it kind of like. Well, I guess there must be elk here.

That's.

I, I kind of have a, a hard time with that. So if it's, if it's country that I've never hunted before and I'm kind of the newbie, I, I don't really like to push into there too much. I don't like to blow out other guys, you know, pushing on other guys and stuff. But if it's an area, I mean, but I know it's, it's public ground. I mean the area we hunt, we've hunted for 10 plus years. And every year, there's always new guys that come in, you know, and they'll be. We camp down by the road and we'll go in every morning and come back out, whether it be on foot or on dirt bike. Here in Idaho, we got trails and stuff. We'll ride in on dirt bike, but we come back and forth every day. And then you'll have a handful of guys, a new guys, new young kid or something who's gung ho. He'll show up day before season. And you go up there to go scout the night before season. And the kids set up. It's got a TP tent set up right in the saddle where they elk always like to be opening morning. Right. It's like, man, come on, you know, And I. I think that's where a lot of new hunters do screw up a lot is this new era of you got to get back in and you gotta, you know, you gotta camp back there with the animals. That's fine and dandy, but a lot of times if you don't know the area, if you get too far back in and set up where the animals live, you're just hurting yourself. You're going to push those animals out to the next basin away from you.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, what's the. I. I totally agree. It's always comical. I laugh. But, like, we. Maybe I was that. That kid one time too, but, you.

Know, I'm sure I was, too. But once you, you know, age. Age helps you. We all learn as you.

Yeah.

Hopefully you grow and learn.

No, for sure. Like, what's your. What's your guys's thought on. On going in and out every day? I mean, is it like. Well, I'd rather just, you know, have a comfortable camp. And, you know, for me, like, I think the. The real kicker for, you know, the. The TP camper. Right. The problem with the TP campers, you know, it's so much effort to get your whole camp back there that you tend to, like, be stuck in that one drainage. And like every great elk hunter I know is covering shitloads of ground and. And. Yeah, and that's what it just what it takes. Like, there's just not that many elk mile. And so to think that you just, like, are going to throw a dart at a board and there's going to be two herds of elk even near your camp or like within walking distance of your camp is kind of silly. And so, you know, that's kind of like. I've always been a bigger fan of mobile over like remote. But like there's times for both. Like I've done plenty of horseback and we, we rode in and man, we set up camp and like within two miles of camp, we killed three or four bulls. Like, that's right. It happens. There's trade offs, right?

There's, it's that it just depends on the area, the country. You, you got to do what you want it, what you, you feel that adventure is drawing you. If you want to pack back in five miles and, and on, you know, and set up your TP tent and hunt there, that's fine. And you might get lucky in, in killing an animal. I mean especially you have other hunters pushing stuff around. I truly prefer, we prefer camping by the road, camping by the truck. We set up a great huge camp. You know, you have all the awesomeness, great food every night, beer every night, stuff you can't, you can't pack in there. And, and that's what I mean, there's times where the next one morning my, a couple of my buddies aren't going to hunt right here around camp or right in on bikes from camp. They jump in the truck and they drawn down the, down the road 15, 20 miles and go hunt another mountain range because we know it's good and it's got elk on it, you know, and that's what, that's really helped us out a lot over the years. One of our one hole that we've killed, I think we've killed four bulls out of there now in just the last three years, we've killed four bulls out of this one hole. And the way we found it was one of my buddies was 20 some miles down the road and they were up on another mountain range looking for elk, scouting around. And we, it was pretty snowy up high. They, they were in a foot of snow or snow and they, there was nothing where they were at. They were glassing around, they wasn't seeing much. And he was set. He just sat down and was glassing as far as he could see with his spot and scope, I mean to the next two mountain ranges over. And he ended up spotting a group of bulls. He's like, dude, I got bulls over here. And they're like where? And he told my buddy and he's like, you realize that's like six miles away. And he's like, yeah, but there's like four, five bulls over there. And they could tell that a couple of them were decent. So that year, I mean the next day they went in there and they ended up killing two bulls. Out of that spot. And then so now every year, that's one of the spots that we check. I mean, we'll go, we'll get up on a high vantage. We found some of the vantage points. We'll get up on a high vantage and we'll glass that area from two or three miles away and just watch it all evening. One evening. And if you. And then if you see elk, sweet. The next morning, we'll make a plan. We'll go back to camp. We'll make a plan with a couple dudes like, all right, the elk are here and they'll leave at 3 o', clock, 4 o' clock in the morning. They'll go in, they'll hike in, they'll be there at daylight. Bang, bang, they'll, you can dump an elk or two, they'll hit us, hit us up on the in reaches and we'll, a couple of us will head up in there, pack them all out in one trip, Bam, done.

That's awesome. How do you guys think about the uis always split up or do you try to hunt, you know, as a group? Or is it kind of like just a little bit of everything?

We split up, but we like to stay in pairs of two. So usually, I mean, everyone swap. One guy will go off on his own. I'm usually that guy. I usually opening day or usually opening day. I'm oh, sorry. It goes by myself. But for the most part, we go in pairs of two everywhere.

Interesting. And like, what's, you know, when it comes to like finding out what is it? Just cover, ground cover, grabber, ground, like. Or do you have like, you know, the old term bucky, Like a real bucky area, Bully area, like real elky. We'll say elky area.

Like, oh, yeah.

What's elky to you?

You know, just what we've learned over the years. But, but for us, you know, if you hunt early in September, October, it's totally different than if you hurt hunt in November, which that's what this season a lot is. It's a later season and they're usually done with the rut. And so for me, you got to hunt per season. If it's the rut, I start looking for timber and benches, you know, good timbery. But bench, benchy areas that is going to be able to hold a lot of elk or they're going to be able to move around quickly and whatnot. Because I mean, if they're rut and they got herd, you need an area that's going to be able to hold that many oak versus when it's late season and those bulls have completely left the cows especially, you know, all your mature bulls, start looking at the. Pretty much what you'd look for, look at for mule deer in early season, start looking at the steep, the nastiest, rockiest, steepest stuff you can find. I, I don't, I don't know why, but them bulls will, they will. Once they leave the cows, they like to go somewhere that's got cover, it's got timber, some good thick timber pockets. But it's super steep and super nasty. And I've literally, in one of the areas, I've seen bulls in a, in this avalanche shoot before lake in this like late, late in the year and in the same avalanche shoot in between all these granite, big rocky outcroppings, I've seen mountain goats. Oh yeah, you know, so the later it gets, the steeper, the nastier the country. You're going to have to hunt if you want to kill a big bull. Now, if you just want to kill a bull, start going down to the lower extent, the lower country where the cows and stuff are, Start finding the herds of cows and you kill spikes and raghorns and stuff like that. But if you want to kill a mature bull, you've got to go into that country that's big, timbery, got good, good timber pockets. Even if it's burnt, usually a burnt area. I mean, they'll, they'll hang out in a thick, burnt, timbered hillside that's covered to them.

I always love the Idaho, Oregon spots where it's like that. It's timbery, but it's open enough that they can be feeding in there. And it's always got that underbrush. They love chewing that underbrush in the middle of the day. And like I've just found like, man, if I get in the perfect scenario, it's like I can get 6, 700 yards across from that. So then I. Shooting distance. It's not like I got to work in there, but anytime I could just look at those faces, it's like, man, I, I love those, those like just kind of thin timber. But there's enough underbrush to get up in the middle of day to feed throughout the day.

I love, and you'd be surprised until you walk over into the, some of that stuff. Like in our country, that's exactly how ours is. We. Most of our country is burnt over the years. You know, there's, there's handful of green patches of timber here and there. One drainage might get missed. It's full of green timber, but then the other four drainages are covered, you know, all burnt. But yeah, that brush, that underbrush, that chaparral and stuff like that, you don't understand how tall and thick that stuff is and how it will hide elk. I mean, you can be. You can be glass. If you do a quick scan across to one of them hillside, you'd be like, oh, there's no elk there. When there could be five freaking bulls just laying there in that stuff and they disappear like that. Yeah, yeah. Even standing up sometimes they disappear. I mean, that bull I shot this year, when I seen him with the cow at 90 yards in front of me, they were standing in that green chaparral and all I could see of him was the top of his back from about a third, the top third of his back and like his head, that's all you could see until he got across to the other side of the draw. And then, you know, he was in the wide open. But when I was on the hillside with him, they almost disappeared. The cow, all you could see of her was her head.

Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy how thick that stuff is. And you, like, you look at it looks like, oh, there's a big open hill. And I think that screws a lot of people on E Scouting because a lot of people look at it and they'll escout it like, oh, this big, wide open hill. You're like, no, that brush you could lose a Volkswagen in like it is.

Yeah. And that's where the deer. I've noticed that with the deer, they. They just disappear in that stuff. Yeah, you can glass that stuff for hours and hours and just be like, there's nothing here. And then all of a sudden, something moves just right. You're like, wait a minute, there is something there, you know, and you barely see it moving around in that stuff, man.

The. The bears are crazy. A lot of places we hunt the bears, it has that stuff. And gosh, it doesn't even look that big. It looks like, you know, it's, you know, shrubs. And then you'll be watching a bear, like, oh, where'd he come from? And then all of a sudden, you watch him just disappear into that brush. You lose him for hours and it's like, oh, man, get over there. And that brush is 8ft to 9ft tall. You're like, no wonder I lost a bear in here.

Most bears you would never even see. I mean, a average sized bear, they just disappeared in that stuff completely.

Yeah, Absolutely.

This year is going to be a little different. We're, we're not doing the rifle hunt this year. We decided we're going to do archery this year. So we're gonna, we're gonna hunt a different unit and we've hunted it before. We've got same thing. We've got holes and areas that we know we're gonna, you know, know to hit. But I don't think you'll be seeing a picture like I had this year or last year. You won't be seeing that this year. Lined up six guys in front of a wall tent with six bulls. That's prob. But that's epic if it does. That would be epic. Six bulls with a boat with bows. Yeah.

So what made you guys change your mind and go switch to archery?

Just something different. I got several buddies that are pretty much archery gurus. I mean, that's what they, all they really want to hunt is with archery. But the way Idaho does the tag system where it's the first come, first serve, you know, December 1st, December 10th. The last three or four years, they haven't been able to get an Archie tag. Right. They're usually, they're usually sold out by the time and they were, they've been able to get this rifle tag. So that's pretty much the deciding factor in why we've hunted it for the last three to four years. But this year, as luck would have it, they were able. A couple of my out of state buddies were able to get archery tags this year. So that's what makes it up.

Do some archery hunting this year. Yeah.

Yeah. I like, I love hunting in the snow, I really do. I love the cold weather. I love being able to kill an elk. Quarter it up. If you're three miles back in, you quarter it up, hang it up and you don't have to worry about it. Like you can go, you can pack it out, you can take two or three days to pack it out, you know, and it's not going to spoil. Versus a September archery hunt. And you kill a bull and you best be working, you're going to be working through the night and you know, you better hope your buddies come help you because you guys need to, you need to get it out and boot camp on ice or something.

Yeah, I mean I'm, I'm not a period. At one time in my life I was kind of an archery purist, but I got into that late season rifle hunting and I absolutely love late season bowls. Like it's a totally different heart. Anyone who says it's, you know, rifle hunting is easy? It's like, man, you must have better tags than I've ever hunted because like every rifle elk hunt I've been on is way harder than the archery.

I. Well, if you think about it, if you look at the way you hunt elk, late rifle, it's the same as you'd hunt mule deer.

Yeah.

It's the same kind of country. It's doing the same exact thing. You're not calling for them. You're not, you're setting up and you're glassing and you're doing a lot of glass and long distance in some nasty, nasty country. And a lot of times in that country, unless your deer migrate like ours do early. But if it, if the deer stayed, I mean you, you could see a 200 inch buck in the same exact, on the same exact hillside as you're looking for, you see a 360 bull.

Yeah.

Because they just. That's the same stuff that they live in.

Yeah.

You know, and that's what I love about it. I think that's why I do, I agree with you. I do like that late rifle because I've always been an, a mule deer nut. I love hunt meal there, but. So that's why I think it appeals to me so well. But recent years I've been getting into that art, into the archery. I, I love hunting archery. I, I'm getting more and more. I think it's just because the challenge and the amount of people, it's actually, it's easier to get tags. There's usually a lot less people and it's a lot less hectic. You know, I mean rifle season you can, yeah. You got guys on this ridge, guys on that ridge, guys banging away at, you know, a thousand yards at elk where with archery you got to get in close, you know, and even if there is a guy on the next canyon, you'll never know it.

Right. It's so funny you say that because I feel like a lot of people feel archery has gotten so packed, so many people. But unless you really rifle hunted some, some high pressure areas, it's totally different. For sure.

Yeah. Yeah. There's an Idaho. Idaho is probably one of the. I would say it's pretty. I know a lot of states are, but Idaho right now still probably one of the cheaper states to hunt for out of state.

Yeah.

So I mean all they sell out there, all their non resident tags every year. So I mean we, we have the same amount of hunters every year. It's just depending on where those hunters are at, Are they spread out or. You know, we see it from year to year. You'll, you'll. One year you'll have 10 new people in the same hunt in your same area, and they don't kill anything or it's a, or it's a tough, slow year. And then the next year, you. There's only a guy or two in that area versus, you know, you're the normal guys that are always going to hunt it because they just, they know it's a good area. And some years, some years are tough. I mean, this year we killed six bulls out of seven guys. We killed six bulls, and we don't count one of the one guy because he really didn't care. But last year, same camp, same pretty much amount of guys. We killed one bull in that rifle hunt. Yeah, the elk were they, they were not there. We struggled. And the year before that, we had a couple less hunters. There was five hunters three years ago, and we killed four bulls.

So what do you think the difference is? Do you think it's migration? Do you think, like, it's snowpack? It's like, is it just, you know, happenstance?

I think so. This year, one thing we kind of threw around that could be, possibly be why our area was so full of elk this year was. Didn't burn, but around it. And I'm talking 20 miles, 50 miles away. But there was a lot of forest fires this year.

Right.

And I think that, I think that really just made the milk move around and distributed them differently. And that's one of the reasons it was so good this year. And when you talk about migrations, though, this is, this is pretty neat. In this exact area we hunt. I've got a couple trail cameras I put out. I never, I never take them down. They've literally lived there for like the last five years. And I've purposely put them on travel corridors, major travel corridors. And I check them once a year. I go up in June or July and I pull the card, replace new card, new batteries. And so you get to see an entire year timeline. And it's really interesting to me because some of those, some of the spots I've had bulls that you see them constantly on the camera, like come in, let's say, May, June, time frame, they'll show up and you'll catch a few pictures of them moving back and forth all summer long, and you'll catch them going into hardhorn and stuff like that. And so, you know, those bulls, some of those bulls are like, well, we're hunting them and I've seen, we've killed. Well, we know some of the bulls that have been killed that I've had on camera in that area. But at the same time I've had pictures of bulls coming through that I got a couple, you know, a three shot snap picture or pictures of a bull coming through and never seen him again ever. Interesting. Don't know where he went. Don't know. I mean and same with when they migrate back it what I've learned about elk and this. So elk, most people think and certain areas they do. But if you have a bull that sheds in an area, you, you know, you find a shed, you think, okay, that bull lives in this area, he's on this mountain range. I'm going to go up there and scout for him this summer and I'm going to try to kill this bull in our area. I've done that and I found sheds off 380 bulls and looked all summer long, in all September and never found them. And then it ends up getting killed. You know, I see pictures of it or something or know somebody that killed the bull and it was killed 60 to 80 miles away. And yet these bulls. And what we've learned too from picking up sheds and now with trail cameras is some bulls will, it's so weird. They'll summer in a spot like you'll see them, they'll summer in an area but as soon as they strip velvet and they're ready to rut the leaf and they'll go to a tirely who knows where. I don't know how far like that they might go 60, 80 miles. And then another bull that summered in a totally different area will show up in this area where that bull summered. He'll show up and he'll rut there and vice versa. When they, when they, when they, the ruts over and they're going to go, they're going to winter. Some bulls will pass five or six drainages canyons that other bulls winter in to get to where he winners.

Yep.

You know, I think a lot of it, what we've, I've determined is they winter where mom showed up. That's what I think. I think where mom showed them to winter when they start out as a young bull calf and a young bull, that's where they always go back to winter. But as they became a young bull, a raghorn and they started trying to find cows and they were getting their butt kicked in that area and they were getting their butt kicked here and they just Kept traveling and the traveling until they finally was able to get a few cows of their own in an area. And that's where they decide that's where they're gonna run. And so they'll. It doesn't matter how far a distance, whether it's 20 miles or a hundred miles, they will go back to that spot to rut every year because. And the. And every year they get bigger. They become more of a mature bull, and they'll rut there, but they'll always come back to that wintering ground.

Yeah, I. I think there's a lot of truth to that. You know, kind of be in the same area. I. I do, and I think I've heard that, too, is where, like, wherever mom showed him. I do think that, like, you think about it from a horse's perspective, and just like, man, if. You know horses, like, they all have different personalities, that some of them are goofy, some of them are there, some of that. Some are homebodies, and some of them, like, you can't keep in, right? And I. I tend to think that, like, elk are probably the same, whereas, like, you probably have some elk that, like, man, the rut turns on, and that bull goes 100 miles in any direction, and he just cruises, you know, like, he's a cruiser. And then you have some that are like, oh, man, this is where mom showed me. And, like, I'll. I'll die here. Like, they just stay in, like, the same pocket. Yeah, it's. My theory on. Is basically, it's super random, but I. I believe everything you said. I just, like, also, I think it's super random. It's hard. And I think, man, I spent so many years trying to, like, I'd find a shed and think I was gonna turn that bull up, right? Find a bull on camera in August and thought I was gonna kill him in September. And, like, I put so much weight in those damn cameras, and, like, I actually went away from them for a long time, and I, you know, I've kind of gotten back, and it's fun to get pictures, but even that, I just don't put much weight in it anymore because, no, there are so many years where I spent all summer looking, and it was like I was. I might as well be on a different spot because, like, every care. Every bull that was on camera, I never saw again. And I saw all different bulls. I was like, what the hell is.

The point of this? And, like, I just. I just do it because I find it. I find it interesting to watch them and. And See what's in the area. I mean every once in a while you get a, a picture of something that you're like. I got one of the bulls that came through that. I got a couple pictures of that. Never seen again. He was a huge six point on one side, like probably I'd say like a 330 type bull, but heavy on the other side. Had a giant club. He had like a four foot I guard spike and a giant club that come down by his shoulder. And I mean, I bet you it was the size of a, a volleyball almost.

Yeah.

You know, and that bull, never seen him again. Not a clue where he went.

Right.

But, but one of the bulls I had on one of my other cameras, he stayed in this area all summer. I mean I had, I don't even know. I had 50 pictures of him just coming and going. I mean, very unique bully had two drop times on him and we hunted that actually early. I had a friend that had a early tag, draw, tag and we hunted it and we looked for that bull. I mean I went and pulled the camera, the card and seen that bowl and was like, holy smokes, this thing's got to be in here. And we hunted it, hunted it and we never did find that bolt. But we ended up killing a nice, a big 336 point. And then the general hunt started. And a guy I happen to know, you know, from hunting up there, we'd run into each other a few times. He actually killed that bull within.

50.

Yards of where my camera was.

Oh no.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

So I mean that definitely happens. It's always fun to keep track of them too.

I think you might be right on that. I mean like that bull, he stayed right there all summer and rutted in there. And I mean, I'm sure come winter time it's not really an area they, they, they winter in and shed in that. Most of the elk leave that. But I mean that bull stayed there the whole time. And then like you said you had other bulls that you get a few pictures of and then never seen again. So he might have been that wanderer that's just like, nope, going over here. Nope, going over there. This, that bowl was just like, no, I'm gonna stay right here in my happy place, you know?

Yeah. You know, it's funny the, you look at enough color data and I used to like, I used to think like, oh, they're going to bed, they're going to go right here. And this is definitely eastern Montana style where man, those elk like, it's nothing. Like, the average is probably 10 miles from feed to bed. And it's just like, it's mind blowing when, like, you, like, really realize, like, oh, they're not just going over there to bed. Like, they're. They're going 5, 10 miles, maybe 12 miles. Like, it's crazy and just makes it like a whole. It opened up the landscape when I realized that, like, open up the hunting area to be like, oh, and especially for me, because I grew up hunting Roosevelts. Like, Roosevelts go 32ft in a, you know, a season. Like, they don't. They don't go anywhere.

Yeah.

And so, like, when you start hunting these elk that move that way. And I always think about that too, you know, as we hunt, we hunt a lot of that, you know, say, Oregon, Idaho area. And those elk, man, it's like, some years they're there, some years they're not. And it's like, you know, what. What moved them, what didn't. And, you know, a lot of it is snow, Right. But this year, I had that same conversation with a real close buddy because they had pretty tough year, you know, as far as turning up elk. I mean, it still turned up elk, still did well, but just wasn't like the usual. And we were talking about that because, man, there's so many fires that it's like, even if the area you were hunting didn't burn, like, there had to have been a lot of displacement. And it's like, how do you guys think about that? Do you think, like, oh, that burned last year. We're going to hunt it because it's going to be good? Which is kind of. It's a slippery slope because, you know, some of these fires, they won't get green up for three, four or five years, maybe 10. And then other areas will be green the next year. So they really got to watch it. But I do think these elk kind of go from burn to burn, just trying to find, you know, whatever.

Yeah, obviously. I mean, a burn is always a good spot. The. The animals love a burn. But you're right, some areas nuke way too hot toward nothing for a few years will grow, and it will take a few years for them to come back in other areas, the next year, they. They'll be in there. But I. And I have noticed, I have tried this where. Where after an area burnt, you think, oh, man, there's going to be game right outside that burn. I mean, they're just going to be stacked in there, right? And I've went in There and hunted and never found hardly a critter. And I think a lot of times with the tech, with firefighting nowadays, you got guys on foot, you got so much air support. There's so much going on there, especially with elk.

The.

Like the. Our area last year, there wasn't a fire within probably 20 miles of the area we hunt, but there were some pretty big fires 20 to 30 miles around us. And I think a lot of those elk came into that area because of that. They just. I mean, it pushed. It pushed them into there. And the guys that hunted over closer to the fire lines, we talked to a few of them, and they didn't. People didn't kill hardly anything.

Right.

So I think they push. I think they push a lot further after a fire than most people realize. And it all. I think it also so depends on how much activity that fire got as far as firefighting goes, how much air support and stuff. But when it comes down to it, I mean, you can guess at all of this all day long, why this? But really, what is gonna put meat in your freezer and a rack on your wall every year is just boots on the ground. Yep. Get out there, do. If you can scout, cool. If you can't, just be mobile. And I mean, hunt as hard as you can. Go into an area, hunt it for a day or two. If there's nothing there, get out. Go to another completely different drainage. Go five, six miles away on the other side of the drain, you know, the main drainage or something, and go hunt another area and just stay mobile and stay aggressive. If you just sit around hoping one's going to come by or. Well, those elk were here. They're usually elk here. Well, they were, but.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you're not seeing the sign.

Yeah.

Then be active, be proactive, and go hit another spot that, you know, there's elker. Another spot you think there might be elk, you know, and I would say.

You know, like, I'm. I'm a big proponent of, like, cover ground like your hair's on fire. And I think this is applicable for rifle, too. Like, you should be covered in ground like your hair's on fire until you start seeing elk. And then it's like, start picking apart. Start picking stuff apart. You know, it's like, you know, you go, go, go. And like, I don't even care if you bump elk, but, like, at least you found them. Because I. I think too many people, like, tiptoe around, like, they're gonna see. I know, because, like, when you're in an when you're in a canyon, that's holding the elk. Like when you get into. This is applicable for rifle or archery, you get into them. I'm air quotes here. Like, you get in like, oh, this is. This is where they are at. Like, there's a lot more. There's plenty. You know, like, you should. You should be seeing them. And, you know, maybe it's one hurt man. More than likely. Like every time I've gotten into elk, it's like there should be a couple hundred around. You know, like, there's. They're over here. They're up on that. You know, it's like this whole canyon is packed full elk. That's what we're looking for.

If you're seeing the sign, I mean, if you're seeing a track fresh sign, you know, a track here or there. Right. Probably not a whole lot of elk in there. But if you're hitting spots that you're like, good God, you know, it looks like I heard a cattle came through here. Well, there's a lot of elk in that area. If it looks like that, you know, and you go across the drainage and it looks like that again over there. There's a lot of elk in that area. And you just need to just continue to pick it apart. Try to. I try not to push them as much as possible. I mean, I. I like. I'm from. Coming from a mule deer hunter. I really like to set back if I can. I like to get to vantage points and set there in glass. Go to another vantage point set in glass. You know, like you're saying, get on one side of the canyon, the ridge looking across the canyon on the other hillside so you can glass that whole hillside without disturbing them. You know, I. I prefer the glassing method and we'll do that a lot. Even opening day, you know, you go into a spot that you're hoping there's going to be elk in there. But after the first hour of daylight, if you, you know, for the elkhorn in that drainage that day, you know, like, it's not looking good here. I mean, I'll turn the spot and scope around and just start scanning three miles away. I'm looking in that ridge over there and that drainage over there in that good morning light still, when they're, you know, they're still moving that way I can maybe catch a bull out in the open three miles away. And I have a better idea where maybe to go to that evening or the next morning or something like that.

Oh, 100%. And like, how Many times have you caught bulls at like 8:30 or 9 in the morning? And you know, most guys are like hiking head down, hiking back, and it's like, oh, just pop it out. Yeah, definitely happens a lot.

No, stay out there. I mean, I, I like to push through. I like to try to stay up there most of the day. Depends on the area. But if I'm doing a hike, I mean, I like to stay out there at least till 11 o' clock noon. And then if I feel I've covered the area good enough and I don't think there's at least much elk in there, not enough to yield staying longer, then, yeah, I'll get out, I'll bomb out of there and try to make a plan for the evening to go somewhere else. But if there is elk in there, I know they're in there. I, maybe I caught a glimpse of them or something. Well, then, yeah, I'm staying there all day. I'm gonna be there. Whether it's. Whether it's sitting in one spot and watching the hillsides, waiting for them to make the move and come out, or slowly moving around from point to point trying to glass, you know, different angles. Just depends on how I feel that day.

Yeah, totally. Sometimes it's a build a fire day.

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes when it's too hot out, it's take a nap day. Yeah. Oh, dude.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, man, and congrats. You guys had an epic year. You'll have to send me that photo. I'll have to use that one with the wall tent. I mean, there's nothing, nothing better than like wall tent and a bunch of bowls like that, dude.

Yeah, that's elk hunting. I, I love a good tent. I don't care if it's bulls, bucks, whatever. But with this, with this era, this, the new era of wave and everything, everybody's got a camp trailer, everybody's got side by side and stuff. But the, the wall tent thing has really kind of gone away. And I, me and my friends are. We're in agreements. We set up. We had three wall tents set up last year. I mean, and we're gonna buy another one this year. My buddy's got like a 20 by 30. What the heck is it? 20 by 30? It's a huge. Or. Or 20 by 15. It's a huge wall tent. We're gonna buy another one. We're gonna set them up. Yeah, absolutely, dude. So you got your sleeping quarters and you got your play and, and drinking and partying and hanging out and then we put a. I built a pvc awning that's 10 foot long out the front. That's where we do all our cooking and everything. It's like, I love having a good camp, man. That's. That's. That's the part that's more than. To me, that's more than half of hunting is just having a good time, hanging out with your buddies, being comfortable, you know, And I like doing that. And I will admit. I mean, I will say I. I do sometimes like that pack back in TP10 it for a few days. You know, that that's got its awesomeness, too. But there's nothing like a wall tent, man. Nothing like that. No. Can't beat it. Make sure you got.

Yeah, two, three tens chained together. I went to this. We were at bear. This bear camp one time. We went up there, and these guys had, Gosh, it was three or four giant wall tents in a row. I was like, I. I was impressed you guys found a spot to put all these. It just kept going. It was a Taj Mahal, man.

Yes, sir. And you know what I've noticed, especially when you're camped by the road, there's another camp that camps pretty close to us, and they've got three or four wall tents set up and stuff.

It.

It really deters a lot of people. You. You got. People come. Come driving by and they see freaking two or three giant camps set up. They're just like, no, I think we should go somewhere else. It's like, perfect. That's what we want. Head on out. Yeah, that's. That's the.

That's the only reason you're rowdy. Like, that's just, you know, like, you got to keep everyone away. Like, yeah, scare them off.

I won't. I won't run nobody off. But if I can make it look like it's. It's overrun already in that area, then absolutely.

Yeah. Well, don't. Don't let that 358 bowl sit out front too long. You have everyone in their dog hunting there.

Oh, no, all of our horns. That's why we have three tents set up. One of them is just a extra gear and horn tent. All of them, as soon as you get to camp, they go in the tent. They don't come out until we're ready to leave because you don't want people driving by going, holy smokes, look at that.

Yeah. Well, Josh, thanks so much for jumping on, man. Yeah, thanks again and best of luck this year. Archery hunting. Hopefully you can have a 6.6bull banger again this year.

If you, if I, if we do, it'll be even more epic than the rifle hunt. Six bulls with archery is pretty be pretty in a general unit. Be pretty crazy.

Yeah. All right, man.

Cool, man. Thanks a lot. Yep, thanks.

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