Glass Smarter, Not Harder: How to Hunt with Precision with Cliff Gray

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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. All right, today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by Maven Optics. Maven makes incredible glass and I've been using maven for almost 10 years and.

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All right.

Cliff, welcome, welcome. To the show, buddy. How we doing?

What's up, man? Thanks for having me back.

I always love having you on. We always, we always chat about business for a while. I'm like, oh, we should talk about on the podcast too. But yeah, thanks for coming on. I, I got asked. So we did, we did a podcast last week, I think, and Jaden does a bunch of podcasts with me and he like kicked me these scenario based, I don't know, questions, you know, how, what would I do? And I was like, oh, that's a really good idea. And then as I was thinking as I was driving to come here to do this podcast, I was like, oh, I should, I should start the podcast off with some scenario based. Put. Put Cliff in the hot seat. What would Cliff do? So it was fun. And I'm going to give you. We'll do like three scenarios.

Yeah, I already know the answer. It's. It depends.

It's so hard because like Jaden kicked me these questions. Like, dude, there's so many variables you're not answering. So I, I'll, I'll. I'll give you the layup and say I'm gonna give you like two, two variable ask questions. And then, then you kind of just have to assume because like, I think the best answer is like, it always depends. All right, scenario one. Hypothetically, you're working down a ridge. It's September 8th, it's 8:32 in the morning. And you hear a bugle just down the ridge, 2 to 300 yards a little bit below you. Winds moving left or right. What do you do?

Okay, so here, bugle. When you say winds moving left to right, like is. Is. Is the elk. Is. The elk is downwind from me.

So let's. Assuming you're walking down the ridge, wind is moving left to right. So we don't have to get into.

Direction over the ridge. Okay.

Okay.

All right. Okay. Yep. And the elk is down. Down the ridge. How far?

Let's say 2 to 300. You don't really know.

Yeah, well, what I'm going to do is I'm probably going to. I'll keep this one simple, man. I'm going to shut up, not make any calls and get as. And I'm just going to keep the wind right, keep. Probably stay off the ridge a little bit. Just so I'm not like skyline. Get as close as I can to. To where I think at least. Like, I know I have a little buffer. I have a little buffer of like, hey, he may be. He. You know, I'm not. I. He may be a little bit further than I think, but, you know, there's a buffer here where I'm not going to try to try to bump into him as I move. I'm just going to, like, watch as much as I can. To see any legs of any elk moving down below depend. I mean, if it's like high ponderosa, where you've got a bunch of high branches, all you can do is look for legs. It's kind of hard to get super close in that. If it's really thick and I've got a lot of COVID I'll just move in there, you know, as quick as possible. And really, I, I may not be all that crazy concerned about being noisy. You know, if I crack something crazy loud, that would be like the one exception. I might give off like a little cow call or something like that, just so they think I'm an elk. And then if I did that, you know, a lot of times you'll make noise and then they'll bugle back or whatever because they think you're an elk. So I'll just kind of factor that in as I go. If I don't hear the ball, just get as close as reasonable. Let's say I'm shooting for sub 100 yards, 80, 90 yards, and then I just wait, hopefully hear them call. That's like my, you know, my, my best bet. Listen for anything. He's got cows with him that are moving around. What do I hear any cow sounds? Do I hear any, you know, raking, any of that stuff? Get really close and probably the first sound I'll make is probably raking. Once I'm like, I think I'm within 100 yards, rake, see if I can get him to bugle. If he's not, you know, wait some, I don't know, three, four minutes, just kind of observing what goes on. And then if not, I, I, to me, it doesn't matter. I might, I might bugle to him. I might cow call to him. It's. I get, you know, people have this giant debate about it. To me, it doesn't matter. If I'm close enough, I'm going to get a response. And then at that point, hopefully I get a response. And then I will, I guess, backing up. However, I. Whenever I stop for that kind of final setup, I'll be very cognizant of like, hey, you know, how would this bull swing into that crossing wind, all those little, all those little setup things. But that would be my play in like 10 seconds. Get as close as possible before. Before he knows where I'm at. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's pretty much it.

And then try to, like, just try to figure out exactly. Try to pinpoint where he is exactly before you, you know, make your final.

Yeah, yeah. Try to, like. I mean, it. It's. To me, it's weird, Cody, because it's like you want to pinpoint exactly where they're at and get as close as possible with them not knowing the same about you. But a lot of times that's not possible because you're. They can hear you. If they've got her, Their elk with you, those elk might hear you. You might bump into those elk, all that stuff.

Stuff.

So if that's the case, you just got to deal with what you got. Like, I mean, there's an intuition about it, right? Like, if you start getting into certain types of vegetation or there's a swirl of elk around, you're not going to get. You're not going to stock up to them 30 yards and just shoot him. You know what I mean? So you gotta. You gotta kind of like, play. You gotta play, like all those factors in general, my advice to most elk hunters would be like, push it. Push it a little bit. Yeah. You know, half of those situations where. Where. Where bull's not like, very, like, very clearly telling me where he is without me giving him a bunch of information. Maybe not half, but I bet 30% of them I screw up. Meaning that. Meaning that I hit it, like, run into a cow, run into something, misgauge it or whatever. But I've learned over the years that if I'm not. If I'm not screwing them up at that level, I end up setting up too far away. And I think that's fundamentally. Like, a lot of guys, that scenario, they would just sit down and start calling.

Totally.

It's like, well, good luck.

Yeah.

It's gonna be like, you got a 1 in 30, 30 chance that that bull is just gonna mosey over to you.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think that's the thing I was gonna say is like, I think most people are like, well, I heard a bugle. I'm gonna call back to them and.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

If you want to hear him bugle, that's great. But, like, you didn't set yourself. And then what's going to happen is that bull's just going to sit there and then. And then you're going to, like, wait, nothing's going to happen. And he's just going to. He's going to wait it out. But now you're trying to approach him and he's on high alert, so he's just like watching, you know.

Oh yeah.

You know, so like it rarely works out, dude.

I've seen guy, I've seen guys so many times, Cody, like you know, just sitting there, observe. You know, luckily I got to hunt like a lot of areas that were really wide open. And also I was like observing a lot of other hunters because just areas that get tons of hunting pressure, dude. And I, I like dozens of times I've seen guys locate elk from like 5, 600 yards and then you know, they'll be, you know, they're not total nimrods. Like as they get closer, they got the wind right and everything. But every 100 yards they'll bugle as they move, as they move closer to those elk and then the elk, they'll pack their up and leave. And then, you know, and then always the story is like, oh yeah, just I think I was too aggressive or the bull want to leave. And it's like, dude, every elk, every elk in that group was staring over there. Like every time you called, they stare over there and then you're moving through the wood. Like they're not, you know, they look.

You know, my bugle is too big, man. He ran, he took his cows and ran. It's like, yeah, yeah.

I know why guys do it because there's that urge, dude. It's like, oh, I want to hear big. I want to hear it again. And plus it's you, you know where they're at and you're always worried they're going to move or whatever. So I get why people do it, dude.

I have a saying that's like curiosity killed the cat, but that's a two way street. And, and people like, it's so hard. I've been there where you're like, God, I really want to be because I want to know where he is. But like you're giving up, right? You're like, you're, you're making it a little bit harder. And so the longer you can go and just like really hope he bugles like, yeah, so many times.

Oh yeah, dude. I've been guiding guys and you know, sometimes the dynamic, particularly if it's a guy that like you've only guided once. A lot of, a lot of hunters, they don't want to like, they don't want to like question their guide. You know, there's like this old kind of odd social dynamic, but I've had It where, you know, I've been, you know, guys, like, curious how we're, you know, we're going through. We're calling an elk. We're doing these setups, and you're. They're asking me questions. I kind of give them my theory. And of course, this topic always comes up, right? And then inevitably, we'll be in a situation and I'll lift up my tube to bugle, and the hunter will be like, oh, you think we should bugle right now? And I'm like, ah, you're right, dude, we shouldn't. Because I. So I'm just saying, like, I get the urge too, man. Oh, totally.

Totally. Yeah. Curiosity kills me just as much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, scenario two. Actually, I'm going to use a scenario that I had a couple years ago. Uh, and it's just like, I feel like this is a pretty common one in open country. So I was kind of knew where these elk were the night before. Get up on a glassy knob well before daylight. Elk or bugling coming kind of towards me, which I had planned, right? Like, hey, they're coming this way. I go to cut them off right after daylight. I, you know, I'm almost to the bull. I calcul a few times. He actually came to probably 70, 80. Just wasn't quite there. And I had a decoy up, right? So now I default to, like, the we're dog in the herd, right? I'm just trying to get close, which is never great, but it tends to happen a lot. So, yeah, it's stuck in, like, they're headed to bed. It's very talkative. But your dog in the herd, and you're always kind of behind them, you know, what is your play? Is it back out, wait till they bed, or is it like, I'm going to try to dog the herd and get a shot on this bull in the chaos. What's your. What's your play, dude?

So this one, for sure, I mean, I have to say, depends to some extent, Cody, because. Because, like, I. I mean, I got two different spectrums of places I hunt, right? Like, if there's a wilderness area in these elk that I'm falling or covered up in, dudes, like, you know, maybe three, four, five different groups of guys know where they're at. I. I'm just gonna. I basically will. You kind of got an intuition of where they're going, right? If. If you don't know the area all that well, you can pull up your onx, like, look at probably the thickest Shit, they're probably going there, you know, or like some, you know, some timbered bench or something like that. And then just realize that even in that situation, if they get in the vicinity of that, like, they're going there probably because the winds to their advantage, big swirling winds where these elk bed in those sort of areas. So if they get into proximity to that, you got to wait regardless. Right? Like, but if they're going there and you got a while, I mean, basically, it's just like a cutoff game, right? Right. In the same deal each time you get closer. I mean, it depends on how big the group are. I. I mean, there's. There's situations where I've been in that. In that. In that setup. And. And like you say it happens all the time. Like, you get into moving elk, and generally, if they're rallied up, you can kind of. You can even bump. You can bump like a cow or a bull that's lagging. And the group. The group will still be very vocal. And it's like every. Every time you. You get back in there, they're like, a little more wary. I don't know if you've know, like, they're just like, a little more weary, and it gets harder and harder, but sometimes you will kill them. You know what I mean? And I find that if you can kind of, you know, if you can get around them, you know, with the. The thing is, it's like, it's all. It's all hard because trying to get around them, typically the wind's going to be shitty. Like, you. You can. You can. You can look at the map and you can, like, all right, these elk are going to. They're going up this draw into this bedding area. I'm going to jump on the ridgeline, haul ass, and then get right between them. If you do that, your wind's gonna. You're gonna be like, pushing your win straight to them, right? So what you end up doing is just kind of like. You're kind of like side. Side hilling with them or paralleling them, however, you know, however the topography is. And then you just keep trying, like, try to insert yourself in there and hope that it works out. And it's just like an aggressive. An aggressive game. And then once you get into where they're where you have no chance like that where basically like their little betting radius, then regardless. Regardless of the pressure, you're better off just leaving them alone, because you're not going to kill one if you go in there. But there's always A chance. And if, if there's a lot of guys around, you have to figure they're going to do it any. They're going to do it anyways, right? And then if I, if I'm guiding on, you know, private ranch or something, I. I just, I just. If that. If I start to get where, like I've bumped up elk once because they're, because I've. They're moving ahead of me. I just quit on them. I just, I just waited out and, and you know, it's kind of. To me, that kind of group of elk is. They get. It's weird. They get. When you do that, they get booger. They get boogered. And it's almost like it just kind of starts to like it just kind of slowly, slowly, all the elk in the group get the memo. Like, hey, something is. Something's in here screwing with us. And so if, if it's elk that you're gonna for sure get a chance to hunt again, like, to me, you're better off just like laying back, right? If it's public land deal and you may never see the elk again, and the reason you may never see the other elk again, if there's other groups of guys and you quit hunting them when they go in the dark timber, a lot of times those guys won't. You know what I mean? So they'll go in there and they, they get them up when they're, when they're like trying to settle down and they'll just roll over to the next basin or whatever, you know, I mean, so you're never going to see them again. So it, it. It's weird to me because it's almost like a psychological thing. Cody, you have, when you're doing it, you feel like an idiot because each time you're chasing these elk, you're bumping them and you know, you're hearing, you're hearing. You know, every time you get close, cows blow up and you're like, oh, I'm like that guy that's like chasing these elk. But the pro. The thing is, is that like, if they're really pressured, you will kill some sometimes that way, you know, I mean, like, you happen to insert yourself there and you happen to, you know, okay, this is like my setup. You start calling it like, boom, boom. Bull bugles from 55 yards away and walks right to you and you kill them. You know what I mean? So you have to bet on that chance in those scenarios because most likely those elk are going to get.

They're.

Get. They're they're almost like moving constantly in some of these areas, you know, depending.

On how far they're going. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you know, the interesting thing there is like I think it's very tough to kill the herd bull in that scenario. But I, man I've, I don't trying to think if I've ever done it successfully killed a herd bull, dog and a herd. I've been very, very close and I've got, I've gotten to them as they bedded down and had opportunities at big herd bulls that way. But the reality is like if you're just after a six point bull and say you got a herd and there's some good six point satellites, there's no more vulnerable time for a like 300 inch satellite bull than in that chaos of moving. Like they're on the French. Usually they're on the back. They're very distracted with like either you know, trying to get this cow because like they see, they see the same opportunity. The herd is fragmented, they're kind of spread out and so they're like, you know, they're always testing that bull and that bull is kind of doing that thing. And so I, I like to dog herds. A, it's fun. B, it's like if you cannot get caught, right. You just kind of stay safe, right? Stay, don't push it. Don't get super aggressive. Which is probably one of the few scenarios I would not be aggressive but I, I get so many opportunities that just you know, rag sixes or six point bowls just like happenstance just being in the area because it just seems like there's a lot of chaos going on. To your point. Totally agree. Like if I can hunt these bulls and I know where they're going or where they're going to come from, it's probably better just to try to get in front of them at night. I've, man, I've been burned so many times on public ground though of like oh, they're better here and then some, some D wagon just goes in there and messes it up midday. So like it's tough. Like I. Is there a right answer? It depends. Like you said, it depends.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

What's your gut say? Yeah, I generally think like yeah, in that particular scenario, interestingly enough had a really good shot at that full. Probably two or three times was in range. I was in range two or three times. It just didn't happen. But he never really spooked. But they did kind of shut up and kind of dropped Drift off. I still don't know where they went. And then as I was, as I had kind of lost him, I heard another bull bugle, ended up going. I thinking it was him and ended up it was not him. But I ended up going and killing that bull, you know, in the evening. Right. And so like, yeah, I do think you learn a lot. I do think like a great skill to have. I'd be curious your thought on this. I think a great skill is to be able to move with elk, to be able to dog those herds, to like figure out where they go undetected. I don't like, I do feel like a lot of great big bull hunters, like have a really good skill of being able to keep up with the herd, move through a herd, those type of things. Do you think that's true or is it just like get in front of them?

Yeah, well, no, I mean, to me, most time you can't get in front of them, right. Because they got their wind. You know, one, they move way. I mean, even when they're walking, like you'll be huffing and puffing and then you finally see the elk and you're like these things are walking. You know what I mean? And so there's like just the physical component of it. But the other component is a lot of times if you just like do the intuitive, like look at the map, like go big half, half circle around them and drop in front of them. They're turning around. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they're, they're leaving. So yeah, you got to get, you got to get the feel of just like, like kind of maneuvering through them. And it's like I said, like, it's just, you're just like, you're basically just figuring out, you know, the risk of screwing it up versus not. And that's always tilted one way on public land. I will say, like, it's funny like you say, oh well, if you just want to kill a six by six or whatever. Yeah. Totally agree with you. But man, if you're in one of these areas in Colorado or something, San Juans, Flat Top, something like that, where you're just trying to kill a legal bull. If you get into those situations, like literally stay with them until they're gone. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they go, they go bad or whatever. Like, yeah, of course, don't go in there and like run them out of some thick spruce crap that's got a bunch of downfall in or whatever. But just like get some distance and post up and keep hunting them that afternoon or whatever. Because, Because I don't think guys realize that you'll have spurts of like, you're chasing these elk for a day and a half and then they're gone. Like, you may not see them for seven days and nobody's going to, like, they, they literally just leave. And so I think that a lot of people don't realize that, like, they get interactions and then they're like, okay, this is what elk hunting is about. Like, this is all good. And then, and then they're a little conservative about it. It's like, dude, in those scenarios, like, once you got them, it's. It's probably not the ideal perfect. I mean, probably doesn't make a lot of, like, logical sense in terms of, you know, all the nuances of elk hunting. But from a practical sense, because those elk move around so, so much and they're so sensitive to pressure. Like, once you find some, like, you just gotta, you gotta burn the wick out, man.

Yeah, it's terrible. This is the problem is that everyone does it, you know, like.

Yeah, but if you want to kill him, like. No, I, I agree, Cody, but like. And that's why the elk get like that. But this is, is what it is. Yeah, you know, like that. Yeah, the guys that hunt public land real hard, like, they, they all, I mean, they do that, you know what I mean? Like, they, they, they're just, you know, they get on.

You have to, you have to. You want to kill another. Like, that's just. This is what it is. Well, this brings up like another kind of like part B of that same scenario or like a scenario, you know, I feel like a very standard, you know, thing that happens, right? Like, ooh, found elk. They were bugling in the morning, they were moving. I was trying to keep up and then they just shut up. I don't know where they went. How do you, like, what do you. Do you lose the elk? I mean, I'm sure this has happened to you.

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Yeah, I mean, yeah, the thing is, it's like, it kind of plays in on, like, if you know the. If you know the country, you know what I mean? Because you can kind of. You can kind of tell. Like, a lot of times I can tell. I kind of know, like, where they've gone to bed. You know what I mean? Or, you know, or sometimes, you know, sometimes you can just sit down. Like, usually what I'll do if that happens, I'll sit down. I assume that, hey, they went into this big timber swath or whatever, and I can kind of give you my thoughts on strategy there. But the other thing is, is, like, if you sit down and watch, you can see if the elk just. They're leaving. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes elk will just line out and, you know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes after you heard them, they're just stringing out of a basin, which is super valuable information to have, you know, particularly if you're backpack hunting. And, like, you know, you don't, because the guys will do that. Like, I didn't hear him. We don't know what happened to him. And they just go back to camp, assuming that they stayed there. Well, if they would have just sat and observed. I mean, if, you know, a group of 20 elk in, you know, the kind of that open stuff, like, you're going to see them, they're going to. If they. If they leave, you're going to see them, because it's like, very Clear. You know, I tell guys like. And again, like, this is going to be depend what topography you're. You're working in or whatever. But all that stuff that's like, if you're hunting that stuff that, you know, it could be a plateau, like the flat tops or like, that type of topography has it, but so does like, stuff that's like big alpine basins. If you're right at timberline and you're hunting elk, like just as the timberline flows, if you sit and you watch the rim, I mean, if you glass the rim not for elk, but you glass the rim for game trails, you. You'll know exactly how those elk come out of that country, you know, I mean, they'll be. There'll be a faint trail coming out of a saddle or whatever. It's not hard to figure that out real quickly. Just sit there and watch. And a lot of times, oh, here they go, thousand yards from you. They're trickling out of there because they had enough, you know. And then, you know, and then, you know, okay, hey, like the third. You know, a lot of these basins will have 35 elk in them one week, and then for two weeks, they'll have zero elk in them. Y. You know what I mean? And so if you watch them go out, it's all good. You just pack your backpacking camp up and move, you know. But if you don't observe that, then you can waste two days thinking that you're going to get. You're going to get what you had that morning back, you know. But if I know that they've gone in, they've bedded, and they're not leaving, a lot of times what I'll do is I'll. You know, I could get 800 yards across from timber. And if I really feel like I want to make sure they're there, I'll sit there midday and just glass at Cody. And all I do like in that. That thick.

Like, we have a. We.

A lot of what I hunt is like really thick spruce. That's like. And it's got a bunch of dead fall and crap in it. But if you just glass it and all you do is look for a horizontal line, like, that's all I do in my mind. I just. I just glad I'll glass it for an hour, just keep going over the same chunk, and eventually a cow will stand up, bull will stand up, and you'll catch the horizontal line. You'd be like, all right, they're here. At least, you know they're there, you know, for archery, I don't think it really. It doesn't matter as much. But I do the same thing with rifle, too, because I like to know, like, if I'm looking at a huge face of timber, I like to know where they bedded because it kind of gives me an indicator that afternoon where they're going to trickle out and we can shoot them. You know what I mean? So I do like to. Even if I know the elk have gone into a patch of timber, I do like to know, like, where they're at in it, you know, if I. If I can. But it's brutal. It's brutal from, like a boredom standpoint. But you'll find. I mean, I would say that, like, you'll find. I mean, if you're diligent about it 95% of the time, you'll find them, you know?

Yeah. And that's the thing is, like, I think when you have this mindset, I think a lot of people have this mindset when they blow elk that it's over, it's gone. And it's like, I think when you have the mindset of, like, okay, now we have to find them. And two, you learn real quick that, like, generally speaking, even at 8, 9 o', clock, you'll see them up, right? Like, either lined out, milling around, like, you'll find them, you know, Even if they're not going to talk a lot. I think too many people rely. It's like, oh, he didn't bugle. It's like, it's over or whatever. And it's like, they. He's not going to say anything, maybe, but, like, I wouldn't rely on it. And so to your point, like, man, I got a really good vantage. Let's sit here and see if they leave this basin or stay in this basin. Like, just that knowledge alone is huge. Because now it's like, okay, now we know they're in this basin. How do we pick it apart until we find it? Because if. If we have to spend the next six hours picking it apart and we're like, we don't really know if they left the basin or not, then it's. That's even more brutal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, and it's all, you know, it can become. It depends on, like, your logistics and everything else. But a lot of these guys are hunting areas where, like, the decision to stay or go is, like, the biggest decision they'll make. You know, I mean, like, you stuck in a basin with no elk for four days. Well, I mean, if you're on a seven day hunt, like to kind of smoke the whole thing, you know what I mean? So that one decision that's really, that's really not related to like all the stuff we talk about, calling and wind and all that stuff, that decision of just trying to get enough evidence of like, man, are they still here or they leave? That's probably the most important decision you're gonna make the whole trip. You know, it's hard.

Like, what makes you go through like the hold em, fold them conversation? I mean, is it pretty black and white? It's like if they're here, they're not. Or here or they're not.

Yeah, yeah. So for me, yes. But again, it depends if I'm hunting like the Colorado stuff. Yeah. There's not like I'm not. What I learned over the years is like hoping that, you know, watching a herd elk go out and being like, oh, I think, you know, we heard, we heard three bulls in here this morning. I think that, like, I think 10 of them are still here. 90% of the time, that bites you in the ass. Yeah, you better. Like, if you saw the elk roll, they probably all roll.

If the cows left, all the satellites left. Yeah, they know what's going on.

Yeah. Or at least they're like they're going to wake up the next, you know, the elk are going to wake up the next morning, be like, hey, dude, like, everybody left, you know, and they, you know, so I. And that took me a long time to figure out or a long time to get to Cody because, you know, it's like everybody goes through the same. It sucks to move, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, or, or like if you're guiding out of a wall t camp or whatever, it sucks to, to mentally bite the bullet that, hey, we were riding 20 minutes from camp or we were just hiking out of camp. Now we got to get on the horses and ride for two and a half hours in the dark. So you, so you have this bias to want to think they're still there.

Well, dude, that's an interesting conversation because to me, this is a big reason I don't commit very heavily is because I know that it creates the same bias of not inaction. Right. So if I have this big camp that I rode horses in and put, I'm way less likely to want to move. Whereas if I am sleeping in a sleeping bag in a deer bed, moving is, you know, like, that's just normal, I guess. I, I can move beds all I want, you know, it's way less work. How do you think about like Colorado? Because I do, man, you can get deep in Colorado, but there's a lot of horse guys, there's like, you know, all those things. So like generally speaking, my style and like, for whatever it's worth, like a lot of people agree, but it's like have a truck base camp and be very mobile. Like what's your opinion on Colorado? Because a dude, you have to get away from people, but you also don't want to over commit. So like where. What's your.

Yeah.

What's your thoughts on mobility?

Yeah. So as like as just as a.

DIY hunter, not a guy.

Yeah. So my thought on it is I would be very wary, like when I was looking at Onx or whatever, if I was a, if I was a DIY guy and I was, you know, in decent shape and I was gonna, you know, willing to kind of spike out, do the backpacking thing, I would be very wary of doing what a lot of people do and that's. They look at onyx and then they, they look at the trail heads, they look at all the access points and then they kind of put like a buffer on them, right? They put a buffer on them and they say I'm going to go like this far, seven, eight miles or whatever. And then, you know, where can I get away from that pressure? And the problem is you can do that and there's spots that, that it'll work in, but one, there's like a little luck involved. But if you get a lot of times in Colorado, because of the topography, when you do that, you're putting yourself into basins that you can't get out of. You know what I mean? So like if like in certain mountain ranges are different, right. Like take the Collegiates, right? So you've got all these 14ers. If you go into the back of a basin that's six and a half miles from a trailhead and there's no elk in there, you got to come all the way out, you know, I mean like there's no, you're not going to jump the ridge. And just so people know who are like looking at it, sometimes there'll be trails, but just realize that like not all the. Some of them are, you know, well used trails that like people are going over the passes. But realize like when you see a pass trail, if you've never been there, it may be like hardcore shit, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not just. It doesn't mean there's like a trail to get out of that basin into the next one. You know what I mean? It could be. It could be like you, you know, you have. You have no idea. It could just be like sliding along scree for an hour and a half while you try to get out of a basin. So. So you have to factor that in. I think a lot of guys get stuck back in these areas, and if, if you do that, you have one or two outcomes. You. You have the outcome that you've dreamed about. You get back in there and you're the only guy, and there's elk in there, right? And Maybe that happens 15% of the time or 20% of the time.

And.

And then, and then the rest of the time it's a strikeout, and then you're. And then you've burned up four or five days a year trip by the time, really. You know, because the logistics are always the same, right? Like you pack in there and it takes you a whole day. You're worn out, you camp or whatever, then you hunt for two or three days, and then you pack out. Because now you want to go to a different basin. But when you pack out, you come out at an odd time in the dark, and then you're like, oh, let's go get a shower and a hamburger. And then. And then. So now that afternoon's gone, next morning's gone, then the next night typically is gone too, because now you've packed into a new area and you're exhausted. So now you're glass. And just from camp, you know, this all like it bleed. Yeah. So. So to get back to what you said, I think that. I think that probably from what I've seen, like, doing some sort of hybrid of, like, being capable of going out and back, you know, going out and camping for two or three days is a good. Is a good idea, but make sure you're going into areas where you can jump into other basins. And some topographies allow that pretty readily or hunt basically closer and vehicle hunt. But be willing to, you know, be willing to. You know, there's a lot of areas in Colorado, Cody, that from a paved road in the middle of archery season, if you can glass two miles or further, you know, you can see elk. You can see elk with chest binoculars from two miles away. You know, at timberline, as they move around, you find elk and then be like, oh, like it's going to be a day hike in there, but at least you know where the elk are.

Yeah.

You know, yeah, go in there that's, that's way the hell better than magically finding some spot on onyx that you think is special and then going in there and it's your only option because I don't know if you've noticed this, but I mean I love Onx as a tool, but it, it's changed things in the sense that there's like I call them Onx vortexes because every like everybody thinks they're smart.

Yeah.

Everybody's doing the same. They do the same mental screening. And then there's like five guys in the same spot that thought like, oh, it was the furthest from this trail head and this trailhead. And then we ended up like X marks the spot.

You know, we all see the same thing. So you like try to change that. I. Dude, I'm super curious. What is like let's talk OTs. I guess not OTC anymore. I can't even say general. Whatever it is, you know, you know what it is. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

Like your, your average Colorado elk archery, elk hunt. Like you're. You and. You and me are going like what. What does an average day look like? How many miles are we going to cover? How much of it's glass and from the road, how much of it's like hiking. Like what's it. What's an average day look like?

Yes, it depends on where. Whereas where I was hunting but if I was in country where I could. So like if you take plateau stuff that's like really good. It's act so it's really good horse country and it's really good backpacking actually because you get. Once you get at elevation you can really cover a ton of ground. So if I'm hunting that kind of stuff and really doesn't matter if it's horse or backpack, whatever you're in that stuff to, to me it's just all about like I, I tend to glass up more elk than I do than I do locate then locate via vocalizations. And so that, I mean in I would say like it's 90 plus for my style of hunting. And then same with, same with the guys that guided for me is we do a lot of like you have to take it. Yeah. I mean you have to take it with a grain of salt Cody's because we're talking about areas where you get up on a point and you can glass two and a half miles.

Yeah.

It's just like you see so much. So I think it's not that I think, I think, I think People construe that. That I. That I view, like, locate bugling. Locate calling is like a inferior method. It's not an inferior method, but in that country, for me, it is because I can only. I can only go bugle into, like, you know, each corner of each little basin, you know, but I can get up and I can watch, you know, giant amount of terrain. So it's just an effectiveness thing, you know what I mean? And then so to answer your question, like, I always do that first. Like, it's always a game of finding out where the elk are. And then, of course, like, if you've been hunting the same area, you kind of know, you know what I mean? You kind of know, like, where the spots are. So you're going up, getting in those, you know, prime time. You're glass and okay, there's elk in this area where we typically see them, and then go over there and start hunting them more like in a more kind of traditional way. You can locate. You can. You can again get up in the morning and glass them, or you can rely more on locate vocalizations just because you're like, you know, you're in. In on the elk. The biggest mistake in this stuff you're talking about, like the OTC that's now draw, but still lots of tag availability is people hunting where there's no elk.

Right.

You know what I mean? That's. This sounds stupid, but that's like the main. That's the biggest thing. Yeah. And so in that kind of country, that's what I'm doing. But if I. If I'm in some of that other stuff, that's like big, you know, big gnarly peaks. Most areas I know I'm doing the same thing, but I'm doing it from the road. Like, I could literally be like. I mean, people have to get innovative about it, you know, Cody, like, there's areas on, like, the Highway 70 corridor. If I was hunting one of those units, I would literally be like, in the Chick fil a parking lot with my spotter, you know what I mean? And glassing like, way back in the. Because some of those valleys are real wide, and the only way to look back in them is literally get like, in the valley bottom on. On asphalt and be looking up in there, you know what I mean? And then you find elk and then. Then you switch over to actually going to hunt them. So to me, that's like the. I mean, man, it sounds dumb when I say it, but 90% of the guys out there are hunting, are hunting Area like hunting spots with no elk.

Yeah, I, you know, I 100 agree. I think a lot of when I, you know, when I say a 101 versus a 201 hunter, a one on one guys, like, kind, I think they assume there's an elk behind every tree. And like, they just spend too much, they waste too much time. Like park the truck, hike in, call, hike, hike, call. And it's like, dude, if you're, you have to understand that like vast portions of land, there is no elk. Like you could hunt for days that style and never see an elk, never hear an elk. And people do that, you know, and.

So it's like, yeah, and you, and you feel bad for the poor bastard that gets lucky and kills them that way because then he spends the next decade, the next decade just repeating it wondering what the hell is going on. Yeah, you know, totally. I didn't mean to cut you off, but.

No, no, no. 100%. And I think it's like, hey, how do you find out? We have to find elk quickly and okay, let's just take whatever unit you have. Like, what's the most most effective? If it's glassing from the 10 miles away. That's what it is, right? Like if you can see if I can go check multiple basins in one day, man, I just covered the equivalent of 30 miles of, you know, feet, traffic. And so yeah, that's, that's kind of like what's your secret to finding glassing spots? Because that's the real, that's the real sauce right there. It's like, you know. Yeah, that takes years of knowledge of like, you know, I think of, you know, Arizona, maybe even Colorado, finding the right glassing spots. Sometimes that's a boots on the ground thing. I don't know. Do you think it's like something you can do?

Yeah, I mean, it's way easier now because of Onyx. You know what I mean? Like, I guess from like a practical standpoint, you know, I use all the tools on Onyx and I mean really the main one I do is I just use the 3D exaggeration. I don't know if you use it or whatever. So I'll use that to give me a gut feel and then I'll mark spots, you know, and then you gotta go check them because they might look great, but then you might be looking into a wall of timber when you're sitting there and you can't see. So there's like, there's things that you just got to be in there to, to See, and then the, the. I guess the part of it that you just got to work at is once you have good spot, I mean, you just have a catalog of good spots. You know what I mean? Like, there's certain units where there's 15 spots where I would. That I would, you know, I would go to. And I think that, like, even as you do it and you get. And you go out there and you're spending time in the unit and you're glassing a spot and you, you get to a spot in the dark and you glass from it and then, and then you wake up or then, excuse me, the. You know, the sun rises and you look up and you're like, oh, man, I should have gone. I should have got 30ft higher, 100ft higher, or whatever. Just do the effort. Hike up there 100ft and make sure it is what it is. And then you're like, oh, this is where I should have been. Mark that puppy. And then it's in your couch catalog. Like, that's, that's. I mean, it does help. I mean, the onyx thing for sure helps, but you got to go to the spots because there's always like, little nuances of if they're actually good or.

Not, you know, and sometimes this is like one rock. You know, you'll find a rock that's like, you know, pokes out of a. Top of a plateau and it's like, oh, man, this is the spot. Like, I can see so much better. How many, like, are you one glassing? This may seem like a dumb question, but I. I'm assuming someone out there has it. Are you glassing one spot in the morning, one spot in the evening? Are you trying to bounce to multiple spots? Like, how many spot. How many glassing locations are you pulling a day?

Yeah, I mean, it just, it just depends. Honestly, Cody, like, it depends on. It depends on how far it is. Like, if I'm doing the road based thing, like, I'll all for sure glass different spots. You know what I mean? And then it might even come back to another. Like, I might, in my mind, I might be like, man, dude, like that spot, you know, from that. Because, you know, you. It sounds so, like, I guess, like, fluffy. But the thing is, it's like you kind of know, like you'll be looking at a basin and you'll know, like, okay, I can see everything in here. I only need to look at it one. I only, only. I only need to be there one prime time, and I'm gonna know if it's there and then, because you just get a feel for like what you can see. You can see every little nook and cranny. And then there's other glassing spots where you find elk historically. But you know, because, yeah, I'm looking at it from two miles away, but I've been in there and a bunch of that crap I can't see from here. So. So but if I check it a couple times, you know, I'll catch an elk, I'll catch some milk that trickle out in the open or something. So then I might, I might check it a couple times, you know, I mean, and the other thing I'll do is, you know, if I'm, if I'm foot bound and I'm in an area, the other thing I do is I will rely on sign. Like if I know where wallows are at, I know where, you know, crossings on creeks where it's very easy for me to see sign. I'll, you know, as I, as I'll, I'll gear my logistics where I can like check those out. Like if I walk into wallow and it's like dirty water and stinks to, you know, to like elk piss and, and elk, you know, then I'm like, all right, well maybe we should zilker around here somewhere. Like, let's glass this more, you know, so I'll kind of, kind of combine.

The two and a lot of times it's like, oh, I'm gonna hit that. I'm gonna hit this glassing knob. You know, I'll be there for sunup. You know, I glass it up. And maybe as I go out I'm like, hey, I'm gonna drop this bottom. I know there's a wallow down there. Or like, you know, just check inside on the way out. So many times that like you said, if you've, do you know there's elk. That's all, that's all you need to know. Like, is there elk around here? Like, because a lot of times you can glass it and not see anything. Doesn't mean they're not there.

Yeah, just didn't get lucky. They did something a little bit different or, or whatever. So you got to kind of factor all those things in. Dude. I'll tell you what, the biggest mistake people make though is they do this mental thing, man. Like guys will go start to glass at 3 o' clock or whatever, 3:30 in the afternoon and then they'll glass. They'll glass until a half hour before dark and then they'll leave and let's say they glass for four hours and they'll be like, well, I glass for four hours. Like, check that spot off, dude. Your four hours were not worth two minutes of that last 30 minutes. So you gotta, you gotta play this weird mathematical game. Like, I'm not saying. Because people always like, bust my balls on this. They're like, well, I found elk, you know, I found some elk going to water at 10 o' clock and I killed one. It's like, like, yeah, dude, I, I get it. Like, I'm not saying that's impossible. What I'm saying is you gotta understand the math. Like four hours, eight hours during the sub. The sub prime. Like the sub time. That's not that great. It literally could be worth like a minute of glassing in the last 10 minutes of dark. Oh yeah, and that's a hard mental thing for guys to get over, you know, and so you gotta kind of.

What time do you like to get to the glassy knob? Let's just assume it's, you know, mid September, you know, whatever. Archery, hunting. Are you up there? You're waiting till last night, are you? Like, man, I'm just going to hunt around and then I want to get to this point by a certain time. Like, what's your thought?

You mean getting, like getting to a.

Glassing knob for an evening?

Yeah. So in the evening, like, it just, it just kind of depends on, you know, it depends. Like, can I, you know, can we.

Title this podcast Clue? Great. It depends.

That's the problem, dude, is it does depend. And the reason I, I think that like everybody gets to that, that point, Cody, is because if you don't say it depends. Guys, guys think this is a mathematical equation.

It's not.

You know what I mean? Like the best guides in the world, you know, the elk calling thing cracks me up. The best guys in the world, half their setups more don't work, you know what I mean? They'll comes in and blood, you know, everything's chaos and oh, that didn't work. You go to the next one, you know what I mean? So. And people lose that in these conversations, I think. But anyways, you gotta ask the question again, dude.

Oh, you. What time you got headed to glass now?

Because you're like, oh yeah, yeah, these.

Idiots heading up there at 3pm so.

Like, what is it? No, no, I'll do that. Like, I'll, I'll go. Like, I'll, I'll for sure go sit. I mean, I'll. If, if we're there and it's the spot we're gonna hunt and. And we're happen to be there at noon. Like I'll sit there at noon until it's dark. It's not like I getting to a glassy spot early is like all good. It's not that. And I would say that, I mean to answer your question more directly is most times in September, like I make sure I'm to a glassy knob like three hours before dark. You know what I mean? Like if I'm figuring out logistics and sometimes I end up there six hours before dark. But that's not the problem to me the problem is, is that. Well, it's kind of related if you keep getting the places really early. You know, you get there early all the time. You. It's just what I have seen from guys. You tend to fatigue and you're way more likely leave early. Yeah, this is what it is, you know, I mean, and that's what you have to realize is that you're better if you show up at a glassing spot at one o'.

Clock.

You're better if you're better off sleeping for four hours then glassing from one till 10 minutes before dark or 20 minutes before dark and leaving. You know what I mean? Like.

Well, the problem is usually that you get bored and then you convince yourself that it's a good idea to hunt over your way back or hunt. They'll check over here.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah, everybody does that. Like it's easy to convince yourself, like, oh, well, you know, I haven't seen any in five hours. Like, well, let's just like hunt over to here. Maybe we'll see something.

Yeah, everybody does that.

Right, right. Like it's, you know, just to. To be clear, not everyone is like, oh, I should stop hunting early and hike to the truck. But we convince ourselves that like I haven't seen anything here. So like maybe I'll like take this route and like go check over here, you know, and like I'm as guilty as that as anyone, so.

Oh yeah, yeah, totally. Like it's always like a rational. There's always a. And the thing is, is there might be, there might be like to complicate this more. There might be a reason to do what you're talking about.

But.

But you have to. You can't, you can't construe the information you got at the original spot is all that is very valuable. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's the biggest issue Cody is like people tend to take like information they Got based on a certain time of day. And they. They extrapolate that to being as useful as the prime times. Because. Because they were there for so long, they didn't see anything. So their brain's telling them, like, that's a shitty spot, dude. It's like, well, not. Maybe not, you know, And I like.

I think to complicate it even further, like, in my. If I was looking at something, I tend to want to be somewhere, you know, I like what you said, like, three hours before because I have time to react and do something like, hypothetically, and this has happened. Sure. Elk pop out, you know, at two hours before dark. And it's like, I can make a move. I can make something happen.

And.

And that's a good, like, ideal situation if I'm going to a glassing knob in which I probably don't have a move that night. So hypothetically, it's a glassy knob. I'm looking two miles away. I probably wouldn't have time to, like, deal with anything at night. I may work my way into that area and try to locate something in the, you know, in the foothills or. Or a place where it's like, oh, man, there. There could be something up moving. Can I. Can I check this area out on my way and, like, get to the far off glassing point? So just like to add factors to it, it's like, oh, well, is this. Is this the type of glassing album where I may actually be in striking distance, or is it just like an observation deck? If it is an observation deck, then, yeah, I need to be there prime time. But, like, is there stuff I could go check out along the way? Because, like, that three hours leading up to. Is when bulls will start getting up, satellites will start talking. You know, know, things are up even if you can't see them. You know, they could be in the timber or whatever. And so can I get more intel on my way to that location? But generally speaking, I think to your point, most people just leave early thinking, like, I'm gonna hunt my way back. And that never works out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, if you're gonna do that. And yeah, like, it's weird because it's not a hard and fast rule. Because, I mean, I for sure have killed elk and I've killed, like, other species too, bears and stuff. Whereas, like, hey, like on. Let's. Let's hit this. Let's hit this spot at last light. And I think it's the dynamic you're talking about, and I don't think. I think you have to be careful of rationalizing bad decisions with this logic. But you know, if you're in a spot where, you know, you're. Let's say you're in a drainage and you know there's elk in that drainage and you're up in the head of the basin where you can see a lot of. Right. And you've been glassing it for three or four hours. But you know, if elk pop out where you're glassing, you can't kill them that night. But you know that, hey, if they come out in the Stringer Timmer, down the canyon, you know, a quarter mile, we can shoot across the canyon and kill one. It might make sense to do that. Like, I'm not saying it might make sense to do that, but just realize that one only do like don't do it in the search phase of trying to find elk. That's dumb. Like, you got to have a reason. You got to have a reason to assume that there's at least a chance. Or you're just, you're just rationalizing getting home before dark. But if there's a reason to do it, do it. But just always remember that, hey, there might be elk in the back of the basin. They may have came out. They may have come out, you know, totally. That happens. I run into a lot, run into that a lot when I'm spring bear hunting. Because, you know, the Idaho stuff, it's all crap. It's all cross canyon stuff. And a lot of these places, if you can't, if you're not willing to shoot 6, 700 yards, it's always like the next day thing.

Yeah.

And so there. It's a lot of times it's like, that's like, well, you know, you only got a few more. We only got a few more hunts. And if we sit here till dark, be great if we find a bear. But if we know there's a bear somewhere in here and we walk down the canyon where we could actually shoot one, might be a better. Even though it's limited what we can see actually killing when it might be more viable. And I. We kill lots of bears that way, you know, 100%.

100%.

So there's a little trade off.

Yeah. Good stuff, dude. Yeah. I think we kind of didn't even get. I guess we just stretched scenarios into case studies and like, it was actually pretty good. I think it was useful. Any, any last words of wisdom?

No, man, I, I don't after it, you know. Yeah, yeah, go, go elk hunting. Yeah.

Well, cool. If if anybody doesn't know who this guy is, go check out his YouTube channel. He does a ton of great elk hunting or a ton of great content. Altogether some great elkunny content. Are you still doing the. The membership stuff?

Yeah, still have. All the stuff's on my website, man. Pursuit with cliff.com I do have a giveaway that I'm doing that I'll mention. It's in. All the details are pursuit with cliff.com backslash Kafaru giving away a bunch of kafar faro gear. Doing like a live stream so people can check that out. But all my info, man, my YouTube channel is easy. Just look it up. Cliff Gray on YouTube. But all the other stuff it seems like I'm doing more and more every day, that's just at pursuit with cliff.com awesome.

Well, thanks, buddy. Appreciate it and best luck this season.

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me, dude.

Alrighty, guys. Thanks for tuning into the show. If you like this 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 links in the show notes. Or you can check our website www.elkhunt201.com.