Get Close, Stay Close: Jerrod Lile's Simple Elk Hunting Philosophy

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. This episode of the Elk Hunt Podcast is brought to you by Stone Glacier. And if you're in the market for a new pack this year, last year, whatever you want to call it, I ran the SkyArcher 6400 and I packed out a lot of animals with it, including a couple elk.

And you know what the thing I love about Stone Glacier's packs is?

They work great whether you're on a 10-day backpacking trip or you're just day hunting from the side-by-side or the truck. They are a minimalist pack that has everything you need, and they work great. So go It collapses down. I can use it on a day pack. I don't have to switch my pack out. I don't have to own multiple packs. They are built to be minimalist but tough, and they work. I've packed out a lot of things, like I said. So if you're in the market and you're kind of the more of the minimalist, which I— to me, in my mind, I'm like, I want the least weight I can starting out before I put things in it. That's, to me, a great pack is like, hey, minimalist. I don't need 1,000 pockets. I need lightweight because I'm going to wear this thing for an entire season. Check out the SkyArcher 6400. It's a great pack and it does everything I needed to do, which works for me. Check it out, stoneglacier.com. All right, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the good folks over at Tricer. And I always want to say Tricer tripods, but they make even more than just tripods. In fact, one of their really cool products that I love is the bipod. The RP bipod is just such a great hunting bipod, all-around bipod, and It has all the features you would expect from a very high-dollar bipod. It's lightweight, so you can take it on almost any hunt. At 10.5 ounces, it's hard to say no to. And one of the cool things is like it comes with everything, so you can use it with the long legs, you can use it with the short legs, you can use it on Picatinny or Arca. So they give you a ton of features, and for $350, that's an insane purchase. So it's to me a no-brainer. I've shot a lot of critters off of it, love the bipod, it's a great product. Go check it out, tricer.com. Use the code TRO and you can save yourself 10% off.

All right, Jared, welcome to the podcast. Uh, stoked to have you on. We've been— you've been— you were on years ago. I forget how many years ago. Many years ago we did a podcast together and, uh, I had a mutual friend of ours on, Jeff Helm, and Helm was talking you up. He's like, he's the— Jared's the best elk hunter I know. And I was like, man, that's good. That's a lot coming from Jeff. So Jeff's the best elk hunter I know. And so if he says you're the best elk hunter he knows, I was like, I gotta get Jared back on. So we've been, uh, trying to make it work. We had trade show season, but we're kind of through that. So pretty stoked to have you on. Uh, how you been?

Great, thanks for having me on. That high praise is not deserved, especially the last couple of years. I feel like the elk have been teaching me lessons, uh, like they have my entire, uh, every year I've ever chased them. But no, for a while I thought maybe the podcast performed terribly or you just didn't like me anymore, Cody. It's been so long.

No, you just never returned my text messages.

So shots fired and probably accurate.

So, uh, no, it's all good.

Well, I—

yeah, I'm stoked to get in. And, uh, you know, Jeff, Jeff was speaking highly of you, and he's like, you know, just from, you know, like one—

I, I do—

I find it interesting when there's guys like yourself who— I mean, you've been in the industry a very long time, but I don't think you're super well known, uh, outside of like You know, you sometimes have some things in Huntin' Fool, you know, where you're the boss man over there. So you don't end the magazine very often, but every once in a while you'll pop a little soapbox in there or something. But we don't hear a lot from guys like you. And I love hearing elk hunting stories, elk hunting wisdom from, from guys who maybe we don't hear from often.

Yeah, I'm not— I would call myself a good consumer of social media, but I'm definitely not a content creator. I don't think about it that way. And so, you know, those who tend to lean into that harder tend to show up. Those who don't, don't. I love, I love watching it. I learn a lot from business to, quite frankly, elk hunting and beyond from very talented elk hunters out there and very talented business operators. But yeah, I, I hunt a fair amount every year, less and less. It's ironic, you know, people always assume that since I'm the CEO at Huntin' Fool that I must be hunting 24/7, you know, and I'm like, man, nothing could be further from the truth. And all biz dev, my whole team hunts more than I do, to be honest.

Uh, is that— I mean, from business owner to business owner, is that tough to like, you know, you feel like you can't really go hunting, you also feel like you want all your guys to go hunting, so someone should be in charge. Like, is there like an obligation there to just sit back at the nest and make sure everything's— the fort's held down?

It's self-imposed. I mean, the answer is yes, but it's not coming from anybody but myself at the end of the day, where you're like You know, I love what I do at Huntin' Fool. It combines my two biggest passions in life. You know, my wife and I actually worked at a youth ranch for troubled teens the first 7 years of our marriage. 501(c)(3), flat broke. I mean, couldn't afford to put gas in the Tempo, if you know what I mean. And so, you know, it kind of a reflection of the passion that my wife and I have always had to, like, help other people out. And so when the opportunity— we were winding down Trophy Taker and looking at a sale.. And I made one call and one call only because I'd been a Huntin' Fool member for like 20 years. And because I thought that it did exactly that, it combines my passion for helping other people and, you know, love of the outdoors. So yeah, it's all self-imposed. I could certainly hunt more if I wanted to. We get a lot of opportunities. I feel very blessed and privileged to have the quantity of opportunities that show up in your lap. But yeah, actually, speaking of which, I turned down a a comped Stone Sheep hunt last year.

What is wrong with you?

Well, between you and I, Isaiah Jonah has worked for and around me since he was probably 17, off and on. There was a little period after I left Trophy Taker and got down here that he didn't. But, you know, he's always been a super hard worker, very dedicated person. He's managed our outfitter business for— since we hired him, I don't know, 8, 9 years ago. And honestly, he's— he worked for less than he was— less than he deserved in the marketplace, which is true for most hunting companies, by the way. I mean, that's just— you know that. You've been in this industry a long, long time too. And, uh, he came into my office and he said, hey, we just got an offer. A client canceled. They really want somebody from Huntin' Fool to come up and take on a stone sheep hunt. And I've been fantasizing about sheep since I was 20 years old, you know. And I just looked at my calendar that I already had lined out and everything else, and I was like, it's just not— it's not reasonable for me to actually go that long. And I looked at him and we gave each other a big bro hug, and I said, congratulations, man, you're going stone sheep hunting.

So, oh, that's cool. Yeah, man.

So it is truly self-imposed.

Yeah. So you mentioned Trophy Taker a couple times. You have worked alongside Dan and you were at Trophy Taker, and I know you kind of I don't know, I want to say cut your teeth around Dan, but you were around Dan. I mean, Dan's still one of the greatest elk hunters, but I would love to hear, like, I guess I don't know the full story of like, did you— what was the— did you hunt with Dan? Did you learn from Dan? I want to say there was some time, there was some overlap there, and I'd be curious, like, you know, what you picked up, like, hunting around that guy.

Well, first of all, saying that Jared Lyle is one of the best elk hunters that Jeff Helm knows is a complete— excuse me— complete exaggeration. When I hang out around Dan Evans and I work worked with him for 14 years there at Trophy Taker as the general manager. The guy's forgotten more about elk hunting than I'll ever learn. Um, to be honest, he hasn't killed many elk in recent years, but it's not because he can't. It's just because his standards have gotten so ridiculously high. I even asked him, I don't know, maybe a year ago or so, a couple years ago, I was like, Dan, do you even enjoy hunting elk anymore? I'm like, you might as well just grab a camera, dude. You're like, You're passing up bulls that every other human on planet Earth would, you know, fall on their own arrow to kill. And, you know, he just laughed. And he's a big old dude and he just laughed. And he's a, he's a gentle giant is how I describe Dan. And he just laughed. He's like, yeah, no, I still enjoy it. I love the chase and I love looking for what I want to find. And if I don't find it, I'm comfortable eating a tag. And I'm like, well, I'm still a little more bloodthirsty than that, Dan. I like, I like to see a set of fletchings disappear through some tan hide once in a while. Uh, but yeah, to answer your question, Dan and I go way back. We actually went to first and second grade together. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we've known each other most of our entire lives. And I was working at that youth ranch that I mentioned earlier. And I actually couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in undergraduate school right out of high school. Took a couple of years at Montana State University and realized that I was still spinning my wheels. I just didn't know what I wanted to be when I grow up. Still don't, by the way. Fair. And, uh, so I went to work at that youth ranch for 7 years. I'd logged and commercial fished and in Alaska and things like that. So I had kind of a blue collar background and I finally realized I just fell in love with business. So I went back at 30 years old with a wife and 2 kids and a full-time job and finished my bachelor's degree in business administration. And as I was wrapping that up, Trophy Taker was just ramping up. He had, you know, his was the first commercially viable follow away arrow rest on the market. And kind of pioneered that market. There were other people that were building prototypes and things like that. He'd be the first one to tell you that, but he's the first one that commercialized it. And, you know, he kept sending me messages, calling me like, hey dude, I know you're finishing a business degree. I know that you're, you know, your runway down there at that youth ranch, I know you're kind of getting towards the end of that. Because we had two little kids by that time. My kids were 2 and 4 when we left. And anyway, long story short, you know, I was worried about the friendship being the number one priority. And so his wife and him and my wife and I I drove out to Plains, Montana. We sat down together and had a half, kind of a half-day planning session of like, how are we going to treat each other in the business in order to make sure that we're still friends on the backside, you know? Yeah. And I'm proud to say that, you know, I was there 14 years and we're still very good friends. Um, Dan's a lot like me. We're not over-communicators. We don't, you know, so I'll get a text from Dan once in a while and he's working on a new design or checking on elk season or whatever else. We don't— it's not like we communicate 6 times a week, but when we do, we pick up right where we left off. So, yeah, the first couple of years there, I had the privilege of hunting alongside Dan, either, you know, kind of running into the mountains with him on tags and just, you know, running a spotter. And of course, back then there was no digiscoping solution that was worth a darn. So some wobbly cell phone footage, handheld, trying to focus it through the, through the spotting scope. And we did that a lot together. And then I filmed filmed a couple hunts for him, and I use the term filmed very loosely. I'm the furthest thing from a cameraman. Um, but yeah, I think probably the biggest lesson I learned from Dan was in '02, maybe '03, somewhere in there. He had a New Mexico tag down in the Gila, and he had called. Dan's a really good caller. He never calls, but he is a phenomenal caller. And, uh, one night it was getting late and there was a bull across the canyon, real steep canyon, and he's like, let's see if we can call that thing in. And he calls this bull in, and it's like a 7 on one side and a weird club on the other, and calls them into like 9 yards and passes them up. And then we were bivvied in, we were sleeping just in, uh, I don't even think we had sleeping bags. I'm pretty sure we didn't. I think we just had a couple wool blankets or something and just sleeping in the bottom of a wash a few miles back in, in New Mexico. Hang on one second. Sorry again, I'm fighting that cold. Um, anyway, we're sleeping in a wash and we're sitting there kind of BSing a little bit together, and Dan's like, you know what, I've never killed a really weird bull before. He's like, it's not the size I was looking for, but he's like, I'm gonna see if we can go get that bull in the morning. I was like, all right, cool. And so we headed out, we got on the bull, and, uh, we're kind of bumping along behind him and his cows, and all of a sudden he just kind of— everything kind of peeled off around a knob way off to our right, and Dan just kept moving left. And at first I was like, he's deaf, he can't— he doesn't know where this bull's going. And, uh, but you know, I'm a cameraman, so I'm just stumbling along behind him. And we ended up going up through this little saddle, and he popped over the top. And pretty soon, from the backside of the knob, I could hear a bull bugling as it was coming around toward us. I'm like— and he had a very distinctive bugle. I'm like, dude, that's the same bull.

Like, what the heck?

That bull walked by at 35 yards, and I, I filmed him. You know, he thumped him good. And I, I remember as Dan and I were taking pictures and stuff, I looked at Dan, I was What in the heck made you make this decision? He's like, I don't know, it's just a gut feel. He goes, I felt like that bull was going to come around on the backside of that knob and I felt like I could get ahead of him for the first time. And even though I had to go completely 180 the opposite direction and old Jared would have stammered around behind the bull still trying to get on him and probably chased him into the brush and lost him. And so I remember taking serious note of that moment and saying, The way that I've been hunting elk, pretty much every tactic that I've ever had kind of needs to be reexamined because there's different ways to look at this than just kind of like the trial and error that both Dan and I had. To be honest, Dan did not have an archery elk mentor at all. His, uh, his dad was a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and, uh, a lot of Seventh-day Adventists don't eat meat. It's not required not to, but it's kind of a health message. So he was raised a vegetarian and definitely a non-hunter. But my dad was the original redneck, trapping, hunting, all of that kind of stuff. So Dan would come over to our house when we were kids and he was just fascinated. You know, my dad would be like, hey, I got two coyotes out there, I need you to go skin. And I'm like, oh, Dad. And Dan's like, let's go, you know?

Yeah.

And so Dan was 100% a self-taught elk hunter, which in some ways may have helped him because he didn't pick up any habits from others. You know, sometimes when you pick a mentor, or when a mentor chooses you, you tend to emulate kind of exactly what they do. Right. And I think Dan has always thought out of the box when it comes to elk hunting. He's, he's killed them from tree stands. He's killed them on waterholes. He's called them in. He's spot and stalked. He shot them in beds. Like, I think Dan just felt like, well, all I got to do is get close and I got a shot.

Yeah. Which is— I mean, I do feel like there's a lot of people who Calling is a great example because like once you learn to call, you feel like, you know, I always use the term when all you have is a hammer, all you see is nails. And so a lot of people walk around with a bugle tube and try to call every single elk in. And it's sometimes hard to be like, I should not use this tool in this moment. And so when you're always, you know, I've tried to be a student of the game in that like, okay, I want to try new things, try to learn new ways, all of those things. I do think you can have too many options. So It's a double-edged sword, of course. But I think if you can have a few tactics and then say, okay, what's the best one for this situation? But being able to think outside of the box and simplifying it down to I just got to get close and poke it with a sharp stick is sometimes the best answer. Like, you know, and I think that's something you learn over the years is like you can put these things on a pedestal. You can, you can overthink it a lot of the times. And so much of it boils down to like really good woodsmanship and just how do I get close.

Yep. Dan called that iron elk syndrome because the first few years he hunted elk, he didn't kill one with a bow, you know, like pretty much all of us. Some people get lucky right out of the gate, but I wasn't one of those and Dan wasn't. And I remember him, something that stuck out too, he was like, you know, for the longest time I got to the point where I was like, you know, thinking that they were so smart and crafty and so far behind me that I got what I call iron elk syndrome. Like, you just can't kill these things with a bow, you know. And, uh, they're pretty basic, they're pretty simple. Um, you know, I've had elk within inches of me that didn't find me because the wind was right, you know, and I didn't move at the wrong time or whatever else. I've also scared elk from hundreds of yards away, uh, when the wind is wrong and, you know, and you think, oh, I think the wind's safe enough, and then all of a sudden it's all, you know, buttholes and elbows as, uh, elk are headed into the next drainage. So no, I think you're right. I think that the problem is— and, and dude, I am guilty of it, everybody is, um— the call is the number one default, you know. And, and honestly, it is a huge adrenaline rush when it works, like when that bull's coming in and screaming his guts out and branches are breaking and you see patches of tan coming through the timber, you're just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And so you want to hit repeat on that. We're all adrenaline junkies, you know, otherwise we wouldn't be archery elk hunters. And, uh, you want to hit repeat on that. And to your point, you've got this arsenal of tools at your disposal, and, uh, that tends to be the number one default for far too many elk hunters, in my opinion, including me at times. Totally, 100%.

And I'm guilty of it, as guilty of it as anyone. So yeah, I agree. I would say, you know, the next question I would love to hear is like, how did hunting with Dan— I mean, you kind of touched on a few things, and maybe we— it's not how Dan shaped your hunting style, but how has your hunting style evolved over the years? And, you know, what is it today? Like, what's your, you know, what's your go-to, I don't know, system, tactics? Like, what's an average day look like for these You touched on it perfectly.

You know, actually, the stat I'm most proud of in my elk hunting heritage, I think I've helped 15 first-time archery elk hunters kill their first elk with a bow. And that is— that has brought me more joy in recent years than hunting for myself. And so what I tell all of them when we start an adventure together and go try to kill an elk is you got to really simplify it in your mind. And you already touched on it. You basically said exactly what I'm going to say. But I have a little mantra that I repeat in my head when I'm starting to get stressed. I'm like, ah, you know, should I move? Should I not move? Should I loop around the backside of that hill or whatever? It's like, dude, you got one job out here. Get as close as you can for as long as you can, and good stuff will happen. And, uh, I tell myself that the entire time that I'm in the midst of a stalk, or even if it just— you feel kind of like down because it's like, well, I haven't heard an elk bugle in 2 hours and it's, you know, 11 o'clock in the morning. It's like, no, it's not about I'm gonna tear up camp and relocate across the unit.

I'm gonna—

it's like, no, elk are here. My only job is to get as close as I can for as long as I can, and some good stuff will happen.

How do you, uh, because if you've taken 15 new people. This has surely happened where you have the emotional roller coaster. And I think, you know, great elk hunters can weather the storm a little bit. Like, if you're Dan Evans, you kind of just know exactly what's going to happen and how it's going to go. Uh, if you're not Dan Evans and you're, um, Joe Newbie, Joe Newbie is going to be on an emotional roller coaster. What advice when you're on those hunts with those guys? Are you like, hey, it'll happen, it'll happen, or stay positive? Like, it's It's all cliché, but like, what's, what's the, the talk to— I wouldn't say, you know, the, the other person.

Well, you know, those personalities and those 15 different people that I've helped kill their first elk have varied from I'm super vulnerable, I know nothing, I will listen to everything you say, to I've been on 5 elk hunts, haven't killed one, by the way, yet, but been on 5 elk hunts, I've listened to every podcast, I've gone to elk-shaped camps. I've, you know, and I typically tell those people, you kind of have to forget everything you think you've learned. Like, start over. And again, just keep it simple. We got to get close to these things. We're going to hang out with them. We're going to be elbow to elbow with them as much as possible, depending on the COVID and the wind, of course. And, uh, and, and it'll happen. And of course, the other piece of it is, and Dan's really good about this, Dan completely broke my entire Shooting. I was a good shot with a bow, but I was not a great shot with a bow. And Dan told me that kind of hurt my feelings a little bit, if I'm honest. We were shooting together and I was a trigger puncher. And, you know, all the bad habits that I learned from just picking up a bow and going for it and not really getting— becoming a student of archery. And Dan's like, he literally looked at me, he's like, man, you're a good shot, but you're never going to be a great shot with the habits you have right now, you know? Do you want to learn? And so I humbly said, absolutely. At that time, he was competing in like the semi-pro division in, uh, IBO shoots and things like that. Dan is an incredible archer. And, you know, not only did he say that to me, he said, in archery elk hunting, you have to control every variable that you can because there's tons that you can't. And he's like, the number one variable is, do you poop your pants when that elk walks out broadside? And I can tell you this, the first elk I ever killed with a bow we called him in, came up broadside, probably 18 yards, shooting fingers, old school crosshair pins, you know, all that kind of stuff. And my 20-yard pin didn't even get to the bottom of that elk's chest before I shot and probably shot a foot under him at 18 yards, you know. And then he whirled and ran out and stopped at like 35. And I shot again. And this is on camera, embarrassingly enough. It's in my private vault. Nobody ever gets to see this because I turn around and I look at my buddy Luke. Luke Cranston. Danny, man, he's, he's the salt of the earth. I've known him my entire life too. I turn around, I give him the thumbs up. I'm like, yeah. And I'm pointing like right behind the shoulder, you know, we start blood trailing this bull right at dark. So it turned dark on us by the time we picked up the trail and there's like a swath of blood. I'm just like, yeah, dude, we got him. And we walk, we walk up to this elk and the first words out of my mouth, cuz the camera pans over, there was a light on the camera. Uh, my arrow's hanging out right behind his jaw. Like, oh no, literally right where the juggler hits the jawline. And the first words out of my mouth were, did I hit that sucker in the neck? So, you know, I struggled. I missed a lot and whatnot. And like I said, it wasn't until Dan said that to me that I said, okay, I'm going to commit. And so I went into a long, long— it was months, almost an entire year of blind bailing for probably the first 2 months, getting my form dialed. And then I shot 5 spots in Vegas Faces. You know, nothing makes you if you, if you aim small, you miss small, right? And nothing helps like that does. And I did that. I'd shoot 6— 30 to 60 arrows a day just trying to refine that craft. And I became an above-average shot. I'm still not a great shot in my opinion. But more importantly, you know, I read books like Lanny Basham. He writes a book called With Winning in Mind, and he was an Olympic— I want to say he was a biathlete. It was a shooting sport, but it wasn't archery, by the way. But the, the fundamentals are the same. Yeah. That's one other phrase I repeat. Like, I'll repeat the phrase to myself, just be as close as you can for as long as you can. Dude, you're good. Don't, don't sweat it. Just, just relax. Ease in. Stay close. And then when the, when the moment is coming and those nerves start to stack up and you feel the adrenaline, you know, tingling on your scalp, I repeat, it's like me to make a good shot. It's like you put yourself in the third person kind of. It's like a weird third person stance. And I read that in that book and I have used that consistently, not just on elk, but anytime I'm in an archery, like the moment is coming together, instead of the letting all these kind of competing emotions go on in your head, I just say, it's like me to make a good shot. And I say it again and again and again and again. And the moment that those nerves are breaking again, it's like, it's like me to make a good shot. You know, you've worked hard at this. You've, you know, you've, you're controlling the variable that you can. Don't let the moment get bigger than you.

Oh man, that's really good advice. And like, you just have to— the— it's the, it's the sports psychology side of shooting, which I think is pretty underrated. And I do think to be a great elk hunter is to be a great archer. Like, you— those things go hand in hand. Like, you take some of the best elk hunters in the world, they're all truly great archers. I don't think that's a coincidence.

So yeah, no, like Randy Omer, right? Competitive shooter. Darren Collins. Like, I can go through a whole list of people that are really, really lethal in the woods that I would not want them hunting me if they had a tag for me. I might as well just give up. I'll just walk out and throw my hands in the air and say, please don't hurt me. All of them are phenomenal shots. And to get to that, they have to manage their mental game 100%. But I learned a lot from Dan in those two regards. Then as far as elk hunting in general, like I said, I'll admit Dan probably taught me more than, you know, my dad introduced me to archery elk hunting. I remember hearing my first elk bugle. I was probably like, 8, 9 years old, kind of hanging on to Dad's leg. And I remember hearing that bugle ring through the lodgepole and I was hooked for life, like, done.

Ski.

But, you know, my dad hadn't had the benefit of all of this mental management, whatever else. So we just kind of shot together and hunted a little bit. And then my dad got hurt in a logging accident the year I first was legally able to hunt, crushed his heel off and ultimately lost his leg. Due to a timber falling accident. And so then I kind of threw myself into self-taught mode too. But I think in some ways that probably helped. Like I said, I think I've seen some bad habits develop from people who have just decided that whatever the mentor is that they kind of grew up with, that's just how you hunt elk. And there is no right recipe. I just— I mean, other than having the wind right and being, like you said, a good woodsman, or a.k.a. sneaky, stealthy. Outside of that, there's— man, you hunt so much different habitat. I've been very blessed. I've hunted elk in some of the thickest, nastiest stuff in northwest Montana, north Idaho, and I've hunted them out in the desert in Arizona and New Mexico. And even the habitat just kind of changes how you have to hunt them. The Missouri Breaks, I killed a lot of bulls out in the Missouri Breaks in Montana. That's kind of arid desert habitat for the most part, kind of high desert.. And getting stuck in a rut, pun intended, um, does not help. Yeah, finding—

you have to adapt to where you go, and you have to adapt to the, you know, the elk you're hunting. And like, the— I think though, you know, the— I think the takeaway is always, as soon as you say, here's how you kill elk, you— you're, you're, you're, you're not getting farther. Like, that's it. Uh, you know, like, anyone who's like, oh, here's how you kill elk, It's like, well, maybe.

Um, yeah, I remember— I'll tell one quick story. I remember I got really cocky about 2007. Um, I'd killed quite a few elk in a row, including a couple different years where I killed a couple really nice bulls on public land and, you know, basically over-the-counter or easy-to-draw units. And so I was kind of feeling on cloud nine, and I spotted what would have been the biggest bull I've ever killed. And, uh, he had like 9 cows. He was right on the edge of private in Wyoming, but he was on public on BLM. And I sat there watching him and I did what I default to. What I was mentioning earlier, I started a big old calling sequence up there. I was like, because it was, it was wide open to get to him, all sagebrush, BLM. And I'm like, dude, there's no way I'm going to get over to this little timber pocket that he was in. And so I called my guts out and his cows got up and walked into private and he stayed by himself. And I'm like, and then he laid down with his head facing away and I was like, dude, I'm on it. So I'm hurtling down through the sagebrush, running off this face, trying to cover as much ground as possible. To get out of sight, get out of sight, start working my way up. You know, of course, heart's pounding a little bit. You're pretty excited. And I got to maybe 70 yards of this bull and he's still laying on the ground. He's like rubbing his neck around on the, on the dirt and everything. Just all pre-rut stuff. It was really early in September and all of a sudden he just jumps up. And I think the calling sequence that I had put together up on the hill finally worked and he starts charging right at me. And I'm in the middle of a crouch under like a leaning lodgepole. And I'm like, oh, I won't use the words, but you know what, you can fill in the dots. And I'm like, oh crap, what do I do? What do I do? You know? And so I hit a knee and I'm trying to range stuff and I, and I drew my bow and he went through my first shooting lane so fast because he was headed up to that knob where I just left. And I let back down, ranged another gap and squeaked out the nastiest sound of cow call you can possibly grunt out. And he slammed on the brakes and I shot right up over him. And it was a total mental midget moment. It was like a 35-yard shot. It was very makeable. And like I said, at this time I'm like king of the world in my mind, right? And I remember sitting there with my bow on my lap just going, you don't know anything, you suck. And, uh, you know, I've had just like you said, the minute that you think you have it all figured out, you get moments that humble you in the elk woods that are just kind of inexplicable. And no matter how many elk you've killed with a bow, no matter how many knives you had in elk flesh. Just when you think you have it all figured out, they pitch you a curveball.

Well, you were talking about that from last year. You're like, man, last year the elk taught me lots of lessons. So here's a guy who's killed more elk than I'll probably ever run into, and you're still learning lessons. Like, what was, what was this season?

How did it go? Yeah. So I had the privilege of hunting the same unit back to back years. My youngest son drew pretty easy to draw. He was an Arizona resident. It was an Arizona unit and he drew a pretty easy, easy to draw for him as a resident. And we went down there and we had the most amazing time ever. Like you couldn't swing a dead cat and not have an elk in bow range. And so then we're all geeked on it and I put both my boys in the next year. In fact, I even put that as my second choice because Arizona looks at your first two choices before they move on. I was like, dude, that was a fun enough hunt. I'd go do that myself. And my oldest son drew it in the random draw, super low draw. It's like 2% or something. And so he drew it and we're all geeked out of our minds and, you know, we're hyping this hunt up, me and my youngest son, like, dude, you have no idea how good it is. Yeah. And we rolled down there and of course I have what I call Lyle luck. I think I had two flat tires and a dead battery before we even got into the unit on my side-by-side, the dead battery. And so we lost a day, almost a day and a half screwing around with mechanics and tire shops and everything else. And finally get in there and we packed a pile of stuff in, wall tent and everything. It's really rotted. That's one of the downsides to that unit is you get a mile and a half from one road and you're about a mile and a half from the next one. And yeah, I think there's 700 tags in there, so it's pretty popular unit. But anyway, we get in there and that first night bulls are bugling all around the wall tent. Like, we're just like, oh, it's money, you know? And we're up in the morning, they're like, well, which way do we go? There's bulls everywhere. And, uh, we ran into a guy that morning that got between us and the elk that we'd finally settled on, and he— his guy, he was actually helping another guy and he bumped him. And, and so the morning hunt's over. And then that just kept repeating every time we turned around, you know, we're a mile and a half down a big old ridge and all of a sudden you look over and there's 3 guys walking parallel to you 300 yards away and you're like, oh my gosh. And so every time we turn— in fact, one bull in particular, probably our best opportunity. I love hunting bulls in the afternoon or like midday. If they're talkative, right? I'm not the guy that's going to creep into the bedding area and blow them all out. But if he's chirpy about things and I can keep audio signals on him, I'll, you know, I'll get as close as you can for as long as you can. And a lot of times those afternoon winds are pretty honest, especially in flatter terrain that, you know, and it is out there, it's pretty— it's like plateaus and stuff. So we get on this bull and they all got on their feet as they sometimes do, and they're kind of moving around this knob and like we're right on him. I'm like, dude, this is the scenario. I yearn for. And all of a sudden we come around this little ridge and there's a pickup truck parked 2.5 miles from the nearest road. In— he'd driven off-road 2.5 miles. And all of a sudden I hear a Primos Terminator. I can always hear that. I always— I know exactly what the bugle is. I hear the Terminator tooting, uh, right in the middle of our elk. But anyway, long story short, I ended up running into those guys. They blew them out and, um, ruined a really good opportunity for us. And when I got back, I ended up hiking back to the side-by-side by myself and ran around to pick the rest of the gang up because I told them, I said, just post up here and listen, see if that bull starts bugling again. Because we chased him for like 2.5 miles just listening to him. I'm like, just sit put. He starts talking again, go hunt. So I ran into the guys and it turns out that they had killed an elk. And in Arizona, it is legal to go off-road to go recover an elk. I didn't know that. But it's not legal to go off-road to recover your elk and then have an elk going right through your pickup truck and jump out with your Terminator and your bow for the other guy and go hunt them. So it was just a series of calamitous events that you just, you can't game plan for, etc. My son stocked a bull with a batch of cows and he got inside of— he was inside of 60. They were, they were bedded down and he was running a pair of Sig binos and we run those on our bino harness without a strap. Because it's just quieter and easier and they're smaller, so they fit in and they're nice for the image stabilizing. And he had just glassed the bull at like, I don't know, maybe 55 yards and they had to get around one more tree. Everything was good. And as he was putting them back in his harness, he fumbled them into the rocks and scared all the elk off. So, you know, we kind of did everything wrong. Granted, the last morning we had a phenomenal hunt and had a really big bull. 25 yards, but on the wrong side of the trees. And then his cows decided to take a detour from the line that everybody else was on and they stepped on us, you know, and pretty soon they're looking at those 3 blobs on the ground at 5 yards and going, I don't think that looks right. Yeah. So yeah, and like I said, about halfway through the hunt I was like, I don't think I know a thing about elk hunting anymore.

Yeah, but is that, is that like just because I mean hard to hunt units and I, I hate to say it like that's a lot of units these days, a lot of elk hunts that guys are going on are like, sometimes it's not about knowing elk and what to do, it's, it's knowing people. And so much of like being a, a good— I call it a good OTC elk hunter. I don't— doesn't have to be OTC, but like, gosh, learning how to get away from people. And I'd be curious what your thought is on that. Like, would you do it differently? Because that, I mean, that's the real skill set right here in, in those units. And we've all hunted them where it's like It doesn't matter what you know about elk because someone else is going to screw it up.

No, I took two really important lessons out of that hunt. The first one is we basically did the same meal plan we'd done the year before because there weren't that many people. It's, it's way back down in and it's kind of out in the more deserty part of the unit. There's beautiful parakeet, ponderosa pines, like the kind of elk hunting habitat that dreams are made of. And that's where most of the people tend to focus. And so we deliberately went down into the desert the year prior. And had an amazing hunt. And I got hung up on that, just like the same lecture that I'm giving. I have to lecture myself because it's like, well, dude, it was amazing last year, so it's going to be the same this year. It rarely is on high concentration hunts of people on when there's a high level of public land or high percentage of public land. And so yeah, I did. I repeated a mistake I've made over the years unknowingly. Like, it wasn't even like it really dawned on me until like literally the last couple of days where I'm like, Dude, we're— there's tons of elk habitat and we're just so focused. And apparently this year a bunch of people drew the tag that also like to hunt that habitat. And so we repeated the same meal plan and didn't pivot soon enough. And that's what I preach all the time. I'm like, yeah, it's not working out. Relocate.

Elk are nomads. Well, and you have to have multiple plans.

This is—

I think this is a mistake that you hunt long enough. You don't have to hunt very long either to learn this lesson of like, just because that's what happened last year doesn't mean what's going to happen this year. I don't care if it happened the last 3 years. I don't care if it happened the last 20 years. Like, the statistical odds— you know, I grew up, you know, my dad was the, you know, oh, here's how, how it's done. You know, you set your wall tent here and you go out here. And man, I've just been kicked in the nuts so many times on that game plan of like, well, here's how Idaho was last year. We go there, completely different, right? Different elk habit or different elk different places, different people in different places. Like, you know, all of a sudden it's like, man, there's never been a camp here and there's 6 camps here now. Yeah, that's elk hunting. That's elk hunting.

That's—

plan on that because that, man, nothing worse than losing a season to that because— and I've been there. I know other people have been there where it's like, you know, this is what we did last 2 years. This is where we get an elk. No one's ever been there. And maybe, you know, 3 years ago we saw one guy. You show up this year and there's 6 camps on that road and you don't have another plan and you're like, wow, we'll just try it out, right? And then all of a sudden it's 4 days in, every elk you go chase gets bumped and you're like, why the hell? Well, now we only have 3 days left. I hate to go to a new place.

Yes, we've all been there. Sports psychology. It's its own version of sports psychology. It is. Sometimes we think the devil we know is better than the devil we don't, but it rarely Again, if you're, if you're consistently running into people or, or just the elk aren't doing what they did the previous years you've hunted that same spot, pivoting and moving, you know, I tend to be that guy. That's the thing that I look back at and I was like, what the heck was wrong with you, man? And part of it too, we got too comfy. We set up a really nice wall tent with a stove and, you know, that old man syndrome. Yeah, the old man syndrome, you know, a bunch of comfy lounge chairs around a fire pit, like, like all the things that, you know, are kind of fun to do if you're camping. Yeah, hunting elk. And we should have been more nomadic and pivoted because again, that the last morning, the best hunt we had, we pulled up camp early and headed out and I was just like, let's just go somewhere else. And we wound up up in the Ponderosas and again, beautiful area to hunt elk, more fun than where we were. Yeah. And elk were everywhere. Like we couldn't even sleep that night and granted there was a lot of people, but we kind of outran the Terminator crowd, as I call them, and eventually had a really phenomenal morning with multiple encounters with good 6-point bulls and just, you know, just inches. It's a game of inches in archery. I—

you had kind of— I don't know if this was on podcast or off podcast, but you had said something about hunting by yourself. And it makes me think of that statement, which is like, the reason I'm good by myself is because if I'm with someone, it's a bigger camp. It's a setup thing versus like for most of my elk hunting career, I slept in the backseat of my mega cab and it was like I was nomadic. Like I almost had— like it didn't matter. Like camp was in my truck and there's a real strategic advantage of that because there's no cost to changing. Like it's almost like you're changing anyway. Like you almost move too much. It's almost too easy. And there is something to be said for that. When you think about elk hunting and you're like, oh, I'm going to take my 3 buddies, I don't care what the camp is. Moving 3 or 4 dudes is harder than moving 1. I don't even care what the camp setup is, but I guarantee that's a factor in your success. Not success is like when you're by yourself and you're like, yeah, screw it, I can just move my own camp. But if you have 1 person, it's like, ah, now you have to make a team decision. And that gets even bigger when it's 3 people and you're like, oh, now we really have to make a team decision to move camp. And it weighs into that. Risk or, I don't know, inconvenience, I guess it's inconvenience charge of having to move your camp.

Well, that's the second major lesson I learned on this hunt. You know, I raised both of my boys. Of course, I was the quote unquote guide, right, by default. And then my son Jake, by that time, you know, he'd already gone to college. He taught high school for a few years in Bozeman. And he was— he's honestly developed into a pretty successful archery elk hunter. But he's been doing it mostly solo and killed a handful of bulls with his bow now.. And to your point about consulting everybody else, like, should we move camp? It gets even worse when you're on the mountain and you're trying to decide, you know, should we go up this ridge? Should we go over here? Turns into this kind of consult, consulting, you know, and it's like you have 15 different consultation meetings a day trying to, you know, this guy wants to go that way, whatever. And so, my advice there, what I learned from that, and my son was really good for me because I think it was very early in the hunt. He, he looked at me and he goes, you know, I, I'm going to paraphrase it poorly, but basically said, hey, I've got a lot of elk hunting experience too. You know, I just kind of grabbed the role. I was like, all right, I'm going to lead. And because he and I hadn't hunted together in years, I was with him when he killed his first archery bull in Montana. But outside of that, it had been 5, 6 years since we had hunted together. And, you know, the light bulb kind of went on with me. And then from that point forward, I was like, we don't need two people making decisions. Like, we can talk about it in camp, like, what do we want to do tomorrow? What's the main meal plan? But once we're on the mountain, you know, we have to have you or me making the decision. But we don't need to be whispering like, oh, what do you think they're doing? You know, like, it's like, you just go, you lead. And our hunt got progressively better, as you know. And of course, it's a little uncomfortable for him with Dad because Dad's had a lot of success. And so I think his confidence grew over the course of that, you know, 10 days that we spent down there. And honestly, he didn't say a word to us that last day that turned into our best hunt. I just tried to sprint to keep up with him. He was a man on a mission and he made really good calls. I don't mean calling to elk. I mean, just good decisions in the mountain and put us in the middle of elk time and time again. And I was like, Dude noted that, you know, when you start getting into that group hunt mentality, you're— you would think you'd have 2 times the thought power. You have 0.5 the thought power because you've got, you know, again, it's a negotiation every time you turn around and it's a waste of time. You really need a point person when it comes time to do that. Like if I hunt with a buddy, we generally, you know, will rotate either half days like, okay, it's your, you know, you get the shot opportunity this morning. If we need calls, I'm back there. Um, and that works really well because then whoever is— whoever's running the bow that day makes all the calls, or during that half day or whatever. It's like, I'm not— don't even ask me. You're a good elk hunter, you know what's going on. I'm probably going to look at it different than you do, so I'm probably going to make you a less lethal elk hunter with my opinions.

Um, and vice versa. And I think the, the real cost there is like let's say you and I go hunting together. We're both good elk hunters. We both can make our own decisions. But if you're leading, I don't know that my decisions would kill it. And you don't know that you're like, it could be 50/50. But I can guarantee what won't work is if we, if we are reserved, if we hesitate, if we don't, or if we do the middle ground, right? So like, if I'm not in charge, that's fine because maybe we're going to do something that just pans out differently. You know, like there's a lot of ways to skin this cat. And I think you have to own that and say, like, okay, like, I'm just going to go my way. But if you had that— where you get in trouble, at least where I get in trouble, is where I— if I hesitate at all or think someone doesn't want to go down a ridge, like, there's no place I won't go. It doesn't even cross my mind, right? So if I'm with someone, this has happened. If they're not in as good a shape or whatever, I'm like, maybe they probably don't want to go down there. It's probably not going to work out anyway. Well, I would, and I would probably stumble into some weird situation where there's a bull I didn't know about because I walked 10 miles that day.

It doesn't mean it's the right answer because like, you know, or the only answer, right?

And maybe there's multiple right answers and multiple wrong answers, but you still have to trust your gut. And I think that's important because I think you can delay, you can like, if you're, if you're second-guessing yourself, you're never going to win.

Well, I think one other psychological downside to hunting with either multiple people or even just one other buddy is that even if they do make the call and your gut just 100% is not in line with it, right, it's way easier for you to step on a noisy stick. It's way easier for you, you know what I mean? Like, you have to be so committed to the decisions that you make, and then in parallel, you have to be equally committed to the decisions your buddy makes, even if you're sitting there going, Uh, not just no, hell no, this is a terrible idea. And instead— and so then all of a sudden, like I said, you get a little sloppy, you break a stick at the wrong time or whatever because you're just— your heart's not in it, your head's not in it.

Well, it's that head, head down, headed to the barn, right? You know, how many times you busted an elk because you're head down, headed for the truck, not paying attention?

And you know, when you get in that, you know, you're going to miss things.

You're going to miss the cues that are like, oh, I smelled elk, or I, you know, saw movement or something along those lines. Picked up that elk. Just sometimes there's just a cow staring at you or you see something like that, you know?

Yeah. My favorite way to hunt elk with buddies is to share camp and everybody high-fives and leaves in the morning and everybody high-fives when we get home at night. I do enjoy the camaraderie in camp. I— the older I get, the more I enjoy that camaraderie. You know, I always hunted like a coyote, kind of like you, out of the back of my truck or on a backpack. Hunt or whatever. And I actually really enjoy the camaraderie now, but I do not enjoy hunting with other people unless they are my, my immediate family. Right, right. Even my best hunting buddies, I don't want to hunt with you. Let's just split up and hopefully one of us kills an elk and makes all of us work our butts off. 100%.

I want to, I want to hear the story. We got a little bit of time left. I want to hear the story from Arizona. This is wild. And I mean, a crazy hunting experience. I think probably the opposite of your last year.

But yeah, walk me, walk me through your Arizona hunt from a couple years back. Yeah, it was a couple years ago. Um, my dad's health had started to fail. He, he had been beat up. Like I said, he lost his leg in a logging accident. They tried to save it for 11 years. I think 27 major surgeries, bone disease, all kinds of things. So it really aged my dad prematurely before his time. So he's 73, and my mom called us and said, hey, dad's health's failing. So we all kind of rallied around it. We had kind of a miniature family reunion, and then we went over there a couple, 3 times. They lived in Salmon, Idaho. And, you know, we all loved on each other, hugged on each other. Well, anyway, he ended up having to go on kidney dialysis. So I helped them move their camp trailer over to Missoula, Montana, where he could get better medical support. And I had 23 points in Arizona that I burned on this tag. Well, I bought point guard, which means I could turn it back in. And I was really on the fence on it. You know, I talked to mom and dad about it, and my dad's health was kind of rebounding a little bit. He was even able to, like, skip a dialysis session or two. And so ultimately we decided, yep, I'm gonna go on the hunt. And so I was down there, we put a wall tent camp up on top of a little knob, really neat little spot, and it's loaded with elk, the unit is. And just, you know, again, I waited 20-plus years to draw this tag, so it's like, you know, you've got all these high expectations. And, uh, night 4, I woke up to a— well, I had my phone in airplane mode, but I couldn't sleep, it was dead quiet. So I was going to turn my little fan app on like 2:30 in the morning, and I got a text from my wife. When I went to off airplane mode, she said, you need to call me right now, it's about your dad. And I'm like, uh-oh. And so I called her, and, uh, I'll get a little emotional, bear with me. Um, and she's like, basically I just said, is he gone? And she said, yeah. And, uh, I said, okay. So I called my mom and sister, um, they were already together by that time. And we made a plan to come home and celebrate his life. And I knew my dad's life was complicated with everything that he'd been through. And I was like, I'm not going to make my mom tell the story. I'm not going to make my sister tell the story. And I'm not going to let a pastor tell the story. It needs to come from our family. So, I set out that night, elk were bugling in the dark. It was a really cool night, shooting stars, all that stuff. I basically hammered out out his eulogy there in the darkness. I had a camera person with me. We filmed the hunt. It is on our YouTube channel if you want to go check it out. It's a pretty neat video. I'm thankful that it was captured now. At that time I wasn't. And, uh, anyway, hammered out his eulogy. We, uh, next morning, or that morning, about 4:30, we started ripping camp down. And we left the wall tent, a couple other things, because my mom had already told me at that— when I was talking to her, she's so selfless, she's like, you know you have to go back, right? You know you have to go back and finish this hunt. And I was like, yeah, I do. I know Dad would want me to too. So I was like, so we left summer camp, but we took everything down, power tripped home to Salmon, Idaho, celebrated his life with family and friends for a few days. And then my mom looked at me and she's like, you know you need to go back, right? And my heart wasn't in it, of course. I said, yeah, I need to go. So we headed back down there, and you know how that would feel. It's just so hard to— it's hard enough to hunt elk. I had two cameramen people with me by, by now. And so, you know, A, you just kind of want to like be like a gut-shot coyote and crawl in a hole and not really talk to anyone. And you definitely don't want to look at the camera and smile. Oh my God. And, but, you know, I also knew that I would look back on this with, with gratitude that we captured this entire experience, you know? And so, yeah, we had, I think, 3.5, 4 days left to hunt of the hunt by the time I got back down there. And man, we went hard. I got super sick. I was rolling fevers and chills and um, all kinds of nastiness. And, and it was just one of those where you just get up because you have to, you know. You don't want to, but you're just like, I'm not going to miss a day on this hunt. I'm not going to miss— you know, I'm going to get up earlier than everybody else and go to bed later than everybody else. And finally, the last night, I actually had a good reset. Jed, Jed, uh, from A3 Outfitters volunteered. He'd heard that my dad had passed, and he reached out to me via texting, and it was the last day. That was last night. Before the last day. He shot me a text and he's like, you got a plan for tomorrow? And I said, well, of course I have a plan. I can't not have one. But I said, I don't— I'm not in love with my plan. Why? What do you mean? You know? And he's like, I got a neat little basin I'd like to take into, you know, just free gratis. And, uh, man, that's a long-legged, lanky dude. He can cover the ground. And I was breaking fevers the whole time in. I was— I'm not very often the last guy in line, but I was feeling it that morning. And, uh, I also forgot my bow in camp. He told me to meet him at, I think, 3:30 or 4 in the morning. And we stormed down there and I'd had my bow in my bow case on top of my side-by-side the whole time. We just hunt off the side-by-side. Well, we decided to pile in my truck, get down there, setting up our packs and everything. I got there 10 minutes early, which isn't my style usually, and we're kind of BSing. And all of a sudden I just looked at him and I go, I forgot my bow. And it's a decent drive back to camp round trip. And he just looks at me and he goes, well, hurry. So we jumped in and set a land speed record getting back to camp. So we were already behind schedule, but we got into this basin and there wasn't a single bull to be seen or heard. And Jed's sitting there looking at it like a math problem. I said, hey, this is just Lyle luck, buddy. Don't worry about it. Like, this is just how I roll, you know? And he's like, I don't understand. I've never seen this. I knew we were just going to be eyeball deep in them. So we hiked out of there and he's like, well, there's one spot that we could go check kind of from the road and see if bulls are bugling down in this basin. And I said, yeah, let's do it. And he bull ripping. And, um, he's like, well, do you want to call? And I was like, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to make a decision. I, I just want to just live, you know, and be in elk. And we got in and I, I let a couple of like maybe 320-type bulls walk by. And I told myself that I'd shoot kind of any decent looking bull the last half of the last day. So I wasn't going to break my commitment that morning. So I let a couple of pretty nice bulls go by. Come back in 2 hours. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you dodged a bullet here, or broadhead better. Anyway, so Jed and I shook hands and he said, here's what I'd do tonight. And it was like a 5.5-mile hike in one way, and we'd already done a ton of miles that morning, and we didn't have much daylight left. So we burned in there. It's a good trail, most of it, so it sounds worse than it really was. But get back in there, finally get off the trail, about a mile of just downfall and just nasty thicket, and get in this basin. Nothing's going on yet, and I didn't want to hit any calls. The wind was kind of squirrely and marginal, so we kicked back. We're taking a little bit of a nap. Pretty soon we started hearing bulls pipe off, you know, and I was like, ah, we gotta wait just a little longer until this wind's a little more honest, you know. We were at about 10,000 feet elevation at that point. And, uh, anyway, we slipped in and we got— we finally got a look. Kind of got trapped in a little wedge of a giant, like, 4-foot diameter downfall and a pile of brush. Kind of made all the ground on this bull that we could hear we could, and then all of a sudden I glimpse of him through the, through the trees, through the spruce trees. And I was like, I'll kill that bull if I can. Kind of a cool, really dark-horned, you know, he's like a 315 bull, you know, he's not a giant by any means. But I was like, if I can kill that bull— by now we've got, I don't know, 30 minutes of daylight left, you know. All of a sudden that bull left his cows. It's like God wanted it. And he turned, he just started coming down the hill toward me. And I had one shooting lane I was gonna have. It was right at 50. And I stopped him with a cow call because he's coming through it pretty quick, and he got further through it, which happens a lot with elk. That's another pro tip: cow call about half a second faster than you think you should, uh, because it takes them a minute to stop that momentum. Well, anyway, so I, I needed to lean and to like make sure I could get into the vitals, the back of the vitals, and when I ripped my bow back, I elbowed the camera right in the lens. Boom. And Brady about fell down, and then I tried to take a step to the right to lean against that, that big downfall, and I hooked the side of my boot on a rock and fell sideways onto this downfall with my bow at full draw. Somehow I didn't hit the trigger or anything. And so I'm on my hip on this tree, and, you know, finally find the target and squeeze the trigger, and I cut a little tiny spruce branch about, I don't know, 10 yards in front of him. So my arrow deflected a little bit and kind of hit him right through the middle of the body, and I'm just like, oh no. You know, it's one of those where you don't know if it's liver or if you're too far back. And anyway, uh, so I said, well, we got to give this bull plenty of time. I did get one look at him as he's going through the trees, and I saw quite a bit of blood on his side, so I figured it might be liver. And, uh, so we gave him quite a bit of time. But in Arizona, you have to recover by midnight on the last day. You can't do like a next day recovery, even if— even though we could have timestamp proven that, you know, I shot this bull on the last day. So I was like, well, we can't give him as long as I normally would, but we're gonna get after it. And, uh, we lost blood pretty quick and had to start gritting. And you're just going through all those elk emotions. My dad had just died. You know, you're kind of at the lowest of lows, you know, thinking, hey, gosh dang it, could have made a better shot, could have stopped him sooner. And I made a deal. It was Brady and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Promise. And I said, hey, if you guys find anything, you whistle, but I don't want to hear a whistle just to get my attention. Like, it has to be elk. And all of a sudden I heard a whistle up above me, you know, and Anyway, walked up there, bull had probably been dead for a couple of hours by the time we found him. Like, it, it actually deflected back and lodged inside his femoral on the other back leg. But yeah, it's just one of those moments in life where everything came together. I feel like the angels were smiling on us and I shot that bull with about 15 minutes of legal light left on the last night of the last of the last days. The only bull I have here in the house and in my office. This, um, that one will be the most important elk I've ever killed.

That is super cool. Yeah, what a great and horrible memory all in the same one. Like, man, just an emotional roller coaster to say the least.

Gosh, crazy. Also crazy, I grabbed a little— I grabbed a little vial of Dad's ashes and I carry it in my bino harness on every hunt.

Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, my dad was a a big elk hunter. And so to me, you know, my dad passed away when I was pretty young, um, and so like to me it's like always getting to hunt with Dad.

So, uh, that one hits home for me because yeah, yeah, what I always think after his amputation and all those surgeries, he couldn't get around very good. That was always— he's like, man, I wish I could go with you, man, I wish I could go with you. And like, well, it's not the same, it's symbolic, but he goes on every hunt I go on right now.

He rides in my bino harness. That's super cool. Ah, good for you, man. Jared, thank you so much. I guess, I don't know, any ask of the audience, go check out Huntin' Fool. He's not going to ask you to do it, so I will go, go check out Huntin' Fool. If you're not a Huntin' Fool member yet, you're crazy. Sign up, get the magazine. If you're an Onyx Elite member, you get it for free. So do that. I don't know.

What am I missing? No, that's a good mention. We're actually doing a giveaway with Onyx right now. It's a really good hunt for two. It's open through April 15th. It's no charge to enter. All you got to do is visit, uh, the Onyx website, click that— it's a single sign-on button. They transfer username and password our direction. We don't get any credit card data, none of that kind of stuff. You just join the ecosystem and you're automatically entered to win that, that hunt, uh, for two. It's a really good hunt. So no, we're— we live to help other people have success. And I can honestly say, you know, we've got a really big team now. We've grown a lot in the last few years, and there's not a person on my team that doesn't live for other people's success. And I think that's one thing that helps us stand out in a service industry that's all about helping people go on more hunts with better information.

Yeah, I think you said it better than I did, so I'll let you, let you preach it from now on. Uh, yeah, Jared, thank you so much for, for coming on, for, for, you know, everything you do.

So hey, thank you. Thanks, Cody.

I appreciate you, buddy. All right, have a good one, man.

All right, bye. Alrighty, guys, thanks for tuning in to the show. If you like this episode, episode, do us a huge favor and share it with one of your hunting buddies. Also, if you want a free hunt planner, be sure to go check the link in the show notes. It's 100% free. You can download our hunt planning tool, which is a great resource for kind of keeping track of all of your hunts, your hunt plans, your points, all those things. Pretty great resource. Go check it out. Link's in the show notes, or you can check our website, www.elkhunt201.com.