I Drew a Tag, Now What!?

Foreign. To the Hunt west podcast, here's your host, Jaden Bales. What's up everybody? Today's episode is going to be all about what to do when you draw a tag. Because I wanted to cover some meat and potato stuff and like a strict step by step program, I wanted to just do a solo round for everybody. And it might not be a super long podcast, but I think it's well worth diving into a few key concepts of some steps you can take when you draw a tag. And then you're like, oh no, now what? Like, now I got to start my e scouting process right? So last week I woke up to the Montana tag draw results just like everybody else. I didn't. I went in with zero points and I didn't apply any new points. I wasn't in the 0% pool, but I was like, let's just see. Let's just see if we can pull a tag. It was probably like a coin flip, but most of the time when it's a coin flip or less, I don't necessarily plan on drawing a tag. Sure enough, I woke up the next morning to see the draw results and saw successful under my name. So I now have a Montana mule deer or whitetail tag in my pocket for 20, 25. I admit, and I do this for everybody else, I tell them, like, make sure you know where you want to hunt before you apply. And I have some ideas of where I want to hunt in Montana, but for the most part, I hadn't really given it like a whole lot of consideration as to what I would do when I do draw. It's not like I had the mountain range in mind or like a specific hunt in mind or. And more importantly, I'm not so sure what kind of season dates I'm gonna have available until I figure out my guide schedule as well as I see what I draw for other tags in Wyoming and in possibly Colorado. So I'm looking at, I looked at Montana as like, hey, there's long season dates. There's a lot of options of things to do. Most of the state is general. Let's just kind of figure it out if I draw and you know, it is a strategy. I'm not going to tell you it's a great one. But it's a unique situation that I'm in where I have to manage other states tag draws as well as my guide schedule and figure out what is going to fit in what times to go to hunt this tag in Montana. There's a world where I end up just only Hunting the muzzleloader season. And I have to teach myself how to run a muzzleloader in order to do that. So this is all to say I am now in the position that many of you and a lot of my clients and friends and family find themselves in where they draw a tag, and you have a whole bunch of the state to choose from, and you have to start narrowing down your search. Now, this is a common thing that happens when someone draws a region tag in Wyoming for either elk or deer or grabs an over the counter tag in Colorado, or maybe they have like a, you know, zone that they have a tag for in Idaho for elk. This is the kind of game plan or this is the kind of process that happens when someone just kind of picks up a tag and is like, okay, well, now I got to. Now I got to hone it in. The other thing that can happen is if you get a cluster of units in Colorado for deer or elk, and all of a sudden you're like, okay, well, now I got to figure out what of the clusters I need to hunt. The important thing is I should go back and make sure I emphasize this enough. It's more important to figure out where you want to be and what you want to do before you put in for tags. But sometimes we just get caught up in the idea that, man, it'd be sweet to grab a tag here. Man, that'd be a fun hunt if I was to draw there. And we don't think about what's going to happen and we don't put a lot of effort and time into drawing a tag or where we're going to hunt the tag before we draw it. Especially when it's not 100 guarantee, you know, you're running like a 50 lesser odds. It basically makes it. So I don't really want to plan it until I see I've got the tag in my pocket. So back to this mule deer example in Montana. I kind of, you know, look at the whole landscape and I say, what are the options? Right? In Montana, you've got the plains country, the kind of rolling hills, and the breakie country, where for mule deer in particular, there are higher densities of deer, there's a little bit easier to access country, and for the most part, people go out there and have pretty good success. For me, I'm at a stage in the game where I'm probably not going to need a whole lot of meat in the freezer, though, obviously, like, one deer isn't a ton of ton of meat to fit in somewhere. But that's not usually a problem for me. I can, you know, shoot some does or maybe a cow elk if that's critical. In, in a need for me at the end of the season. What I am looking for though is a challenge. I'm looking for something that is going to push my hunting skills and make me do some different stuff that I don't normally do. Most of the country that's lower that I've hunted in Wyoming, especially around my hometown, is kind of that breaky, more rolling terrain. Obviously there's some steep stuff, but it's, it's not big mountain stuff that I hunt right by my house. So I'm looking at this Montana opportunity and saying like, okay, how can I maybe learn something new and also like have the chance at a special animal like when I go now granted, you know, Montana hunts their deer really hard through the rut and they have like, you know, six week archery season, five week rifle season, two week muzzleloader season. So just the numbers of what I would say, like, you know, mature deer per capita is a lot lower. However, the season dates allow you to basically see all those deer, like they're up on their feet, they're out rutting, or they're, you know, just moving around. It's cold, snowy usually, and they're pretty easy to turn up. So there's that catch 22, right? You, you get a hunt in Wyoming or Idaho or any of these states in the middle October or early October, and there could be big bucks there, but they're just not up on their feet during the day. That's just not the case in this Montana situation. Right. The other piece of the Montana equation is the season dates are late enough that it'd be pretty tough to scout out a specific buck in the summer and then come and try to target that buck. Unless you're going for the first handful of the season with a bow in your hand. On top of that, if you're hunting with a bow in your hand in Montana, usually those deer have kind of timbered up, they've shed their velvet and are really tough to find in the open in the mountain country. So for the most part, if you're going to archery hunt for mule deer, a lot of people really like hunting that like rolling and kind of breaky country because you can still find those bucks before or after they've shed their velvet and they're down in the breaks. For me, I'm looking at my schedule and so much of Wyoming's opportunity is during September and October. I'M probably just going to disregard that part of the season unless I, you know, pull a rabbit out of the hat somewhere and just figure out I have some free time to run up to Montana. But I just. I don't really foresee that happening, especially with guide season and everything going on. So this is a long winded way of saying I've come to the conclusion I'm looking for some mountain country that the deer are going to be in in November or even December. Some stuff that has, you know, quite a bit of access, obviously, but rugged enough that I'm going to be able to leave folks behind. I'm looking for, you know, roadless, and I'm looking for some steep stuff where I can glass a lot. And seeing the drainages, maybe they're burnt, maybe they're just kind of open hillsides, but they're really steep and rocky. These are the. These are the equation. These are the things that I'm putting together in my head to start my e scouting process. For the most part, I think a lot of folks just start, you know, with a blank slate when you look at these huge swaths of ground and go, like, I don't even know where to start. Like, there's too many options for me. It's. It's really nice because I'm like, I know I want this type of a hunt. This is gonna be different than what I'm used to in some ways, right? Like, I don't hunt deer in November very often, though, admittedly I didn't know I did in Idaho last year. But for the most part, like I said, this is just going to be challenging. It's gonna be fun. If I don't get a deer, I'm not super worried about it, but there's a chance of running into something special. And I really like that, that process. Just to reemphasize that that process is important for you to go through as you're figuring out what you want out of a hunt as well. The other piece of that equation is, you know, there's some places where you have to deal with private public boundaries, and there's some really quality hunting when you're doing that. However, I'm gonna probably just opt to not do that. I want to go kind of deep backcountry hunt stuff that is physically challenging as well for a lot of people. If you go like, look, I'm not a big, you know, backpacker. I'm not big into physicality, especially when there's a bunch of snow on the ground, you know, that's important to identify. Don't go to the, don't go to the Yellowstone boundaries if you're not interested in a big physical hunt. Right. And vice versa. If you want a big physical hunt, maybe don't go out to the plains. It's the same as. It's the same exact case if you're looking at Wyoming elk or if you're looking at different types of over the counter elk hunts in Colorado or you know, even if you draw a cluster of units in any of these states, like those are important pieces to identify. So for me I've got that dialed in. Right. The next step that I think the average person can do is simply just fly around a Unit on using OnX, using Google Earth, using whatever, you know, tools you have at your disposal. Go fly around an area and just kind of see how it lays out. Right. I like this a lot. When I'm working with clients, I want to oftentimes find units with a diversity of types of terrain, diversity in access types and diversity in, you know, elevations where people can bounce around within one core area to figure out where the animals are at that they want to be hunting. For me, I know that hunting in November, November, December, whenever I get a chance to do this hunt, it's probably going to be on the lower third of all these mountains unless we have like a super dry year. But really, like, I'm going to probably be in foothills and slightly above, maybe a thousand feet above. And so I'm really going to be e scouting a lot of these mountain ranges in those kinds of areas. Right. I'm looking for big drainages that lead down to aggressive lead down to, you know, flatter sagebrush country. I'm trying to catch deer that maybe are wintering or are rutting just above that. Right, right above the easy to access stuff especially because, you know, for me it's important. I want to find like an older age class animal. Like I would love to find something with a special rack, big, heavy, dark extras like those. Those things really get me excited about this opportunity, more so than just going and finding a deer. However, if someone's like in that stage where you're just looking for a deer or elk, then obviously you, you adjust your flying around on the map accordingly. So once I've flown around, you know, usually some things will jump out at me. You know, I'll, I'll see like a pocket of terrain and I'll drop a pin on there just to like, you know, give me some starting points while I'm looking Around I make note of the big mountains, the big drainages, the big, you know, private landowners or land ownerships that like maybe probably provide zero access and maybe refuges. I also will kind of like make note, like, let's just say there's a national park or there's some wildlife refuge or something you can't access. Like, I make note of where those are at. As I'm flying around the unit, I'm getting a lot of familiarity with where I want to be before I ever even start doing more research, right? This is also how you can start finding out, you know, what questions to ask, right. If you're looking at a unit and you realize like, okay, this area has elevations from 4,000ft to 10,000ft, you can ask some really important or you know, research some really important elevations based on questions. If your unit starts at 4,000ft and goes to 6,000, like you can glass from top to bottom in one spot. So maybe asking unit or elevation specific questions within your unit might not be as helpful then. So let's just say you've taken an hour, hour and a half, two hours, you're watching a show or you've got something on in the background and you're just kind of messing around on Onx or what, Google Earth and flying around. Then I take to the Googleizer, right? And this is like the big next step. Once I hit Google, I already want to have an idea of the types of terrain that I've looked at, the, the landmarks I've seen, etc. Etc. If I go on to Google and I go, you know, unit XYZ in Montana, mule deer, well, then I'm going to expect to kind of see some results of people suggesting what they may or may not have experienced or seen or areas from the past. And you can actually use this Google filter. I like using some of the older data, like the older information that people have because that'll really give you a little better grasp. Before people were really, I don't know, it just seems like there was an era here in the last five, 10 years where people have gotten really negative and, and like aren't willing. If someone has a good hunt, they're just not putting it up there, not really talking about it. The other thing is like that older data, I just really like it because there's going to be a sense of, you know, willingness to share information from those folks. Compared to today, it just is a much different environment, I think, than, you know, what we're looking at today. There's even some stuff like if you can find some really old forums like Monster Muleys or ifish, something that's been around a long time, you'll, you'll find stuff from like 20 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, there was some really great information that was shared on the Internet that is not out there anymore. I like those things not because it tells me where to go. Like I don't, I don't want to know the honey hole because the way that that person hunted it probably wasn't very effective or it wasn't matching my style. Like if someone told me Rock Creek, you know, used to have good ones back in the day and they drew a late season November tag, I want to work that drainage backwards and try to figure out how in the heck did did Rock Creek and the habitat that was there play into the whole herd makeup. So those are the things that I like to look for. The other thing is the vast majority of like the most recent posts or even back in the day is gonna be negative, right? So you're not going to really get a clue of the most positive information every single time that you're hitting the Google eyes. But you will figure out maybe where some things were not great. If someone tells you like we. I read this when I was looking at a client's example in Colorado. They said we counted 127 vehicles drive past our camp on this one road where we were camped out on in Colorado. And I was like, oh buddy, I would avoid that road system like the plague right now. That road system in particular was kind of tricky because it's one of the only access points. But for me I would just say like okay, that access point I want to try to exit out and like look at the unit and say how, how would I hunt this if I couldn't access it from this road? Now in particular, like these folks also have to deal with some mobility issues. They got an older gentleman that's hunting with them and it's going to be a bit of a trick. But for the most part I'm really interested to see how these negative comments can help inform a better game plan for when you actually show up and get after it on, on the mountain. Then once you kind of have like either looked at areas that people have spoken positively about or negatively about, I want to start getting on the phone with people or DMing people, emailing people. Try to get some first hand information. If you don't have first hand information from there already, like this is the place where you might see someone's post on one of these websites and, like, send them a private message or. And this is, like, really critical. You can just reach out to the game and fish officials that, you know, manage the wildlife in that area. It's kind of their responsibility to help inform hunters about, you know, effective tactics and general trends and provide information about where other hunters are at. And they will always, as long as you get a hold of the right number or the right email, they. They will always get back to you, especially if you bug them once or twice. It is much more important to do that information now, do that research now than it is right before the hunt. Right. If you just think about human nature, most people are going to wait until right before the hunt to actually get a hold of these guys. And that's not a great time for them to be really thinking critically about what might be helpful information and providing you with good overarching info to help you develop a plan. Now, let's talk about specifically the things I like to ask wildlife managers. I say wildlife managers because wardens and biologists oftentimes are the two people that you're going to be talking to. Wardens obviously are the ones managing the people. Biologists are the ones managing the animals. And usually their jobs overlap quite a bit. So I particularly like talking to biologists about where animals like to be and the types of habitat that they like to be in during a hunting season. They'll usually tell you things like, yeah, a lot of elk hold up on the two dot ranch, for instance. A lot of the deer, you know, tend to be on the private land that's below the national forest boundary or whatever the case is. They'll give you some rough areas of which to, like, start thinking this is good habitat. Also, just like, flat out ask them the question, like, what's the better habitat this time of year? Now, if you're talking to someone in Wyoming, they're gonna be like, look, the mule deer bucks are up at the top. They're in the really lush green stuff. If it's still there or if it's not burnt off, they're real close to it, maybe a little closer to water sources. Or, you know, you're talking to somebody in Colorado and you're like, hey, what should I be looking for for elk in a second rifle season? They're going to be like, well, for the most part, the bulls are going to be hanging up high and some nasty stuff, and then the cows are going to all be down by the sagebrush and the private land where they're getting ping Ponged around by hunting pressure. Right? Those are the kinds of generalities that you're going to be picking up from talking to a wildlife biologist. The other thing I really like to ask them is, say, like, where does the majority of hunter congestion take place? You know, where people really gripen the most about too many hunters. And importantly, they're usually going to talk about a road system, they're going to be talking about a drainage, and they're going to be talking about some general, like, areas on the map that you could have found or should know based on your flying around that you've done previously that flying around. See how, like, all these things are bouncing or, like, compiling on top of each other. You know, flying around the unit, getting a general familiarity with it makes it so whatever you find on Google can give you some context. And then whatever you find out from talking to people after that can also give you context. Like you. You know, roughly what they're talking about. For instance, let's go back to that Colorado example with the fellas I was helping out just a couple weeks ago. They said, you know, we're gonna draw this unit, and can you help us figure out a plan? You know, especially with this older gentleman on the trip. And knowing that there is, you know, knowing that there is all this hunter congestion on one roadway, but that there's also quite a few deer along that roadway, doesn't mean that they are necessarily not going to hunt along that roadway. But it does mean that you have to set your expectations. If you're on that part of the unit, just expect there to be people buzzing around, and you have to craft a game plan that's going to be different. For me, I think about, like, if someone tells me there's a busy roadway, I would find out where on that busy roadway they cannot look down into good habitat. Like, where are they just driving past good habitat because they can't see deer out the window? I would honestly get across the hillside and be looking underneath that road. And that goes for elk. It goes for deer in any of these western states. There's a. There's a Internet friend of mine that had a Montana tag last year, or it might have been two years ago now, and he did a whole story about they were sitting up on this hide knob in their freaking 4x4s, glassing with a spotting scope on a window mount, and people. And they were looking at a herd of elk from their trucks, and people would be driving by and say, I haven't seen an elk in weeks. You know, like. And they just haven't stopped and looked in glass. So it's not necessarily that all pressure is going to make it so you can't find animals. But what I do think is the pressure is going to create a different experience than most people want to have when they're out in the mountains chasing critters. And if you can find out that information from a biologist or a warden to figure out where the pressure is, you can also just set your mindset into a work smarter, not harder method. When you're around those groups of people in particular, I think about Colorado and I say, okay, if someone tells me that Rock Creek in Colorado has a high congestion of people, but Rock Creek is just one creek drainage with a road in the bottom, you know, I would expect to say, okay, either side of that drainage, there's probably going to be people, you know, hiking around and like getting up to the tops and be bopping around. But I bet you two drainage is over. Let's say you start at the bottom, you hike up, and then you go down the back side of the next one, you hike up the next side and you're probably done a thousand foot gain, thousand foot loss and th gain up the other side. Then you're going to start even, even losing the people that are in the most congested areas and you're going to be in similar habitat. That's the kind of stuff that I'm really looking forward to finding when I'm in these e scouting modes. We're really just like nailing it down. One thing that's really hard to reconcile and is oftentimes just a fact of hunting out west is where there's a lot of people, there's usually a lot more animals. And for someone who's just like trying to get one, just an animal like their first elk, your first mule deer, you know, whatever the case is, sometimes it is worthwhile to go to those areas that have a ton of people. If you've never tried that before, that might increase your opportunity for success. But obviously the experience going to lack a little bit, right? But if you say I want my first animal, but I would like it with the opportunity to like kind of be alone or be by myself, then you need to put some more weight on getting away from folks or go into areas with maybe some lower densities and knowing that it's going to take a little while to find an animal, but when you do, you've got it to yourself to hunt without the fear of someone just walking in and blowing it out the next day or that night. And you can actually just have a chess match between you and the critter you're chasing. I think that's a lot of really important information that you can gain quickly from a biologist or a warden. The other thing that you should also just consider is asking them, hey, where are their outfitters? Where are their big private land areas that don't allow hunting? Those are the local intel that it'd be kind of tough to tell from just the Google Earth. Obviously you can see an outfitter camp deep in the back country if you're kind of zooming in. But unless you just land right on it while you're, you know, sky sky surfing, I guess you're just cruising around on the, on the maps, it might be hard to pinpoint those and they'll help identify those for you secondarily. Or I guess maybe that's the third thing to think about when you're looking at contacting these wildlife officials is simply what are the roads like? This might be one of the biggest challenges for people who are coming out west who've never been to the unit before. Figuring out the road systems in these western units is a challenge, and it's a challenge. Doesn't matter if you're a old hat at E Scouting and you know what to be looking for or if you're someone who's new. The road systems can always screw a guy when they're trying to figure out how to get around and get to the places that they found to be good areas on the map. Now one of the things you will have to do especially, and this is if you're in the prairie country, either eastern Montana, you know, eastern Wyoming, Colorado, or even just in some of the lower sagebrush stuff in other parts of the West. It's really critical to know which roads are county roads, county accessible, which ones are BLM roads that are open for vehicle use, which ones are also just like, you know, blips on the map that don't exist anymore. So an additional step in all of this game planning is to go to the different actual not just Onyx, not just Google Earth, not just Spartan Forge or whatever the case is that you're using. But go to the direct source and try to figure out which roads are on the map as open. This is particularly important when it comes to figuring out county roads that go through private land that can allow you to spit out onto public. Unfortunately, I have a friend of mine who just last year, while shed hunting, drove through some private land to get to the public Land where it was touching this pretty nice gravel road and they drove through this private and that road was no longer county road when it went to the private line. So they all four of them got trespassing tickets for going on to private because on Onx it looked clear, the road looked good to go, but they hadn't double checked it with the county clerk's maps to see whether or not it was open to the public or not. That is a critical piece and it's really hard. Like this is where some of the finesse of E Scouting and digging into these different agencies websites comes in because they're not very user friendly. They're usually a PDF and you have to kind of triangulate where the PDF sits on your without any topo lines and no satellite imagery. But overlay that in your mind on top of whatever service you're using on X preferably. And then you have to figure out, okay, where does that road stop? And try to make a determination of, of where you can go as you're doing all this. Like, like we haven't even gotten into the part where you're creating the individual day's plans, but you're basically just figuring out what does this unit hold for opportunity to get around. How do I get into some of the better habitat? You know, what's the hunter pressure going to be? Like those kinds of things. These are like all kind of heads in the clouds type thinking, thinking in order to get ready to plan your hunt. The most important piece of all of this that is really hard to understate but it is also hard to do is getting out on the ground and ground truthing your road systems, the quality of the road systems, where there's access points, where there aren't access points. These are all key things that are going to make your hunt better and more effective if you can know them. But really are only able to be truth by getting out there on the ground. For me, no, I'm in a unique scenario where I have a couple units, I've got some stuff, I'm visiting Montana a lot, my girlfriend lives up there and I'm spending a lot of time in the country. And so the week after I drew this tag I went out on three different drives to different mountain ranges and different areas that weren't too awful far that I wanted to like just kind of get an idea of what the terrain layout was like what, what kind of, you know, public land accessibility versus private land was there, where that main access points were and how were people using them importantly for me, like, I think about if someone's using some ground a lot right now in the spring, then they're probably definitely using it during hunting season. So I drove out to this one state chunk, for example. It was like an hour, hour and a half drive from the house, and there was dude shooting. There was somebody else parked, I think shed hunting. And I was realizing, like, oh, this might not be great. So we drove down the road a little ways and I pulled off and we went up on this other hike. And along that hike, I found a set of hearing protection from, like, hunting season. I'm like, okay, well, this obviously has some hunter pressure. We're gonna keep looking. Those types of things are impossible to know until you get out there on the ground. Unless you're out there, you know, really trying to get back into the backcountry. And even then, even when you're horse packing in or you're backpacking in or whatever, into some deep backcountry, you might just be realized, like, stumble into some place that a family has camped and hunted for the last 20 years, and you're right on top of them. Same thing, like, you might just stumble right into an outfitter camp that you didn't realize was there. So the moral of the story is getting a scouting trip on the books after you've done all this initial e scouting work is really, really critical. I know for people who, like, are traveling a long ways, who don't have very much vacation time to burn, don't have very much, you know, family time that they want to be burning on these hunting trips, it's gonna. It can be tough. I would love it, though, if, like, someone could, let's say they draw a hunt and it's taking. Taking a lot of points. It's gonna be hard to, like, get back out there pretty regularly. I would love it if you just even said to, you know, the other family members that are important to you and a part of your life, like, hey, can we take a trip out there? We're gonna fly in on a Friday night. We're gonna camp, you know, Saturday, Friday night and Saturday, and then come home on Sunday. And it's going to be a quick trip, but we're gonna get to go check out a new, new cool place, and we're gonna get to go see some different things. We're gonna stop at an antique store in this town that you might be really interested in or whatever, right? And when I say that, I'm like, talking from the perspective of the possible person that you're trying to bring on this little adventure that to go scouting with you. And the most important thing is like on these short trips, these short quick rips that I would love it if everyone was able to take and they had the ability to. The short quick rips, man. I am looking for road systems and access and if you run into somebody and you can get some local intel, that's all the better. But I'm not necessarily looking for the biggest animal to be out there on the, on the landscape. I mean, heck, I, I was out there in April, right? Like none of the animals even have antlers really. I did see a buck with nubbins yesterday, but that's, that's not the point. The most important thing is, is like I'm looking for where's there some sign, right? Where are there signs of people being there? A bunch where there's signs that there's not a ton. You know, I come out of the state land and I realize there's people shooting guns, there's other people shed hunting and there's other people mobbing by all day. Like, yeah, that's probably going to make an X on the mark on the map for me. Another state land section I drove by was like close to recreational shooting from this day to this day. And I was like, oh, this is like a place people shoot guns. I was like, okay, probably not going to want to be out here in rifle season. So those are the things I think that unfortunately are really hard to tell when you're just looking at the map and you're zooming around from your couch. But they are critical pieces to this equation and the best ways to get around them are a scout trip or come out to that place to hunt year after year. Or let's just say you're, you're building up a bunch of points and you're getting ready to hunt a bull elk in an area, go grab a cow tag the year before. You get out there and try to learn it so that you can get some of these things figured out long before you actually show up on your hunt. And you're getting ready to burn your 10 days or five days of vacation and nine day hunting trip. Like when it, when it comes to the hunting trip itself, the preparation that you do in beforehand is going to set you up for having not only a successful trip and like whatever that means for your trip, right? Like maybe you're just, I want to fill the freezer. Maybe you're just, I'm looking for a big one. Like whatever the success Is that part will come from having a better plan, planned trip, of course, but having way less stress from running into other hunters when you didn't expect to. Or having way less stress because you know that this road is actually accessible for your F150 and you don't need to bring a dirt bike along. Like, those are the types of things that really add to the mental game of hunting that I don't think a lot of people are talking about. I, I cannot count how many times I've been wanting to go up a two track and I get up there and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is way too rough. Like, we cannot, this is not going to get me to where I needed to go. Unfortunately, we got to turn around and then you got to go to plan C, D, E, F, way before you even trying to get to those plans. But that's where, again, like, that's where this, this, you know, handful of steps of really good planning and preparation can really come in handy. So just to recap, the first thing I think anyone should do after they, after they get a tag, especially if they haven't done this research before, is one say, like, okay, what do I want out of this hunt? What kind of terrain? What kind of experience? How many, you know, how many animals do I expect to see or would I like to see versus how big of a critter am I looking for? Like, those are important questions to actually ask yourself because inevitably you're going to have to make some sacrifices along the way, depending on the type of place you've drawn. So ask yourself, what do you want out of this hunt? Then start flying the units, start flying mountain ranges and looking around on them on ONX or Google Earth, and try to get a feel for what's out there. And once you've gotten a feel for kind of what's out there, that's when I hit Google and I'm trying to find some additional information, little bits of tips about where people are, where there's some good habitat. And like, you're just kind of trying to pick up little bits of information from the grapevine. And then I get on the phone and I start talking to people. Or you can just, you know, DM or email them too, right? Get into, get into the directories for the game and fish agencies, talk to warden, talk to a biologist. Or, you know, if you see a really good thread and someone's actually helpful and not just negative Nancy, send them a private message. Say, hey, I'm looking at this type of country, you know, what was the experience like for you there? Would you be interested in sharing some generalized information? Importantly, as you kind of like go through that process, Remember, like, whatever information you're finding is not necessarily going to be pertinent to how you like to hunt or like what you're looking for out of a hunt. You know, if you've drawn a good Colorado mule deer tag this year, but you just want a nice four point, there's going to be a lot of people who are probably on the forum saying, nah, there's no big ones anymore. But to them a big one is something monstrous. And really you're like interested in just like a mature buck and you're probably going to be really happy with what kind of experience this other person had. Same thing when it comes to like running into people, right? Someone who has only lived out west their entire life sees three people in a day and says, oh my gosh, it's blown out. Whereas someone who's used to hunting public land in Pennsylvania sees three trucks at the trailhead and is like, gosh, this is a pretty lightly used trailhead, like, let's get after it. Those are just pieces of the perspective that you really have to think about as you're going through this, you know, step by step process. Someone on that same point, someone asked me the other day, like, hey, should I, you know, look for private land access to hunt turkeys in Wyoming in this area? You know, he's like, I've heard it's really busy. And I was like, well, you must be talking to some Wyoming residents because that area is not that busy as far as an eastern turkey hunter's like, concerned. So it's just important to think about those things as you're asking questions and you're talking to people and trying to filter through crappy information versus good information. Lastly, if you've, you know, done those escouting tips and before you've like even created a game plan, if you can figure out a good scout trip to go learn roads to go get eyes on the type of country you're going to be hunting in, and you know, even if it's a short, quick rip and you're just going to take a tour truck around the circumference of the mountain range that you want to be hunting, that's going to make all the difference when you're actually getting out there and planning the day to day pieces of your hunt. Day to day pieces of your hunt. Obviously that should be coming, you know, between now and your hunt. But really, the more information that you gather, the more detailed and the more surgical you can be with your hunt plans. I was messaging an unlimited client the other day, and, for instance, you know, I was talking to him about making surgical strikes at the edge of the backcountry. And honestly, I think if you can, you know, do enough preparation, do enough research and figure out plans A through Z in advance, you should be making surgical strikes into whatever country that you're looking at. It should be very well planned out, and you're not spending a bunch of time being stressed about this hunt that you're on, being stressed about what other people are doing. You just know, like, all right, there's people here. We're going here. That's no problem. We have this thing planned. You know, prioritize and execute, I think is Jocko says is like, prioritize where you want to be first, execute the plan. If that doesn't work out, execute the next plan. And it makes every hunting trip that I've ever been on a lot more enjoyable because that way, whenever life throws you a wrench, you could really dodge it and be on to the next thing. Okay, I'm going to stop jabbering your ear off today. I hope that you've gathered a little bit of something from this podcast. You know, you've got those steps to take to really dive into your next tag that you draw, and dive into it with a little bit of a game plan. You notice I haven't even talked about the hunt high hunt low hunt safety kind of game plan formula that I have implemented for the last five years. It's because that comes after you get a lot of research done, and that comes, like, after you have an idea of where you can be in the unit and how to get around. So be sure to do this first core few steps before you just, like, start dropping pins on the map and realize that you're going to need to be a marathon athlete or have a team of horses to get into these places, or that you're going to be joined with 152 of your closest friends on side by Sides on opening day. I hope this has been really helpful for you. And as everyone already knows, if you'd like help looking at a specific unit, looking at a specific hunt, looking at a entire, you know, cluster of units, whether you're a general's tag in Montana or Wyoming or Colorado, hit me up. Let's get it figured out and, like, help. I can help plan out these exact things that we just spent time talking about today. I think one of the beauties of doing this over and over again is you see some patterns, not only in the states that you're looking at, but also just in the terrain types. And, you know, I will admit I'm pretty fortunate. I can spend a lot of time looking at all these different places. Looked at four different mountain ranges in Montana this last week, and while I've, you know, kind of just dabbled at the edges of them, at least I. I can translate what that looks like on the actual map for people. So if anyone is interested in that kind of help, feel free to get ahold of me. It's jadenuntwest.net at the end of the day, though, I just do these podcasts because I think it's really helpful to have someone kind of work through some game plans and some different formulas for people to make their hunt a little better. More than that, I think it's just really encouraging when you can, you know, look at a hunt and realize how you can kind of eat the elephant. Right? As the saying goes, it's just one bite at a time. And if you break things up into one bite at a time, any of these hunts that you draw are going to be a lot more attainable. They're going to be a lot less stressful, and. And they're going to be a lot more fun, if you ask me. All right, folks, that's the podcast for today. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to the Hunt west podcast. If you like what you heard today, the best compliment you can give is to share the show with a friend. We will see you on the next episode, and we hope one day to see you Hunt West. Sam.