Mastering Elk Hunting: Insights from Dan Adler of Diamond Outfitters

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All right, Dan, I am. I'm stoked to have this conversation. You and I, we. I had to. I had to stop you because it was. You're giving away too much good stuff. And it was. We didn't hit record yet. So we had to, we had to go back. But like, for the audience, let's, let's, let's move back from our, like, last little bit of our conversation. Let's go a little bit farther back. You are the owner of the largest outfitting business in the country and you're like, that doesn't even, that's not what gets me up in the morning. And we're, we're talking a lot about that. But you, I mean, you're a die hard elk hunter. You've outfitted, I don't know, probably thousands at this point of elk hunters. How did you get into this business? So you, you were in the Air Force, like what made you start an outfitting business to begin with?

Yeah, great question and, and thanks for having me on and really excited to be talking to your audience. So when I was in the United States Air Force, I graduated from the University of Arizona in the 90s and thought it was going to be my career. I was always a hunter from about fifth grade on. I'm actually first generation hunter. There's no other hunters in my family at the time. And so I'm in the military. I'm a casual hunter having fun. Thought I'd always be career. And as I kind of started making my way through the ranks, I really started getting into the entrepreneurship side. The first book like a lot of entrepreneurs read is Robert Kiyosaki and Rich Dad, Poor dad and some of other great works. In fact, I think that's only one of his good books. His lesser known ones are better. But I started reading from a lot of different entrepreneurs. I started watching some of the guys in the military I served with getting out and becoming entrepreneur. So I got really interested in entrepreneurship. I also went on my first guided hunt circa 2004. Ish. And dude, it was a miserable experience. And I thought to myself, clients deserve better. This could be done better. The outfitter of guides and outfitters in the industry isn't always great. Like sometimes outfitters can get compared to like used car salesman, which drove me crazy. I was surrounded with hunters in my circle of influence that were dramatically better hunters than me and still are to this day, despite my resume. And I thought, okay, if this is the bar, if the bar is this low, I want to start a guide business only because I want you to hunt with me so you don't have a bad experience with somebody else. That was my initial motivation, was I want you to go with me so you don't have a bad experience someone else. And then we kind of built from there. And the first couple of years, oh my gosh, it was so bad. Like all my deployment money, tax duty free money, hazardous duty pay, flight pay, you name it, I burned it all. We lost tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars our first few years in the business, struggling. And I lived in Tucson, Arizona at the time, so even to go scouting elk was like a six, seven hour drive. We since got a lot smarter and moved to northern Arizona. So scouting didn't take three or five hours to start the job. But anyways, what happened, Cody, was we started killing some really big stuff. And most importantly, we were showing clients a really good time. So they were telling friends, family, anybody that would listen. And initially it was just me. So I was going camp to camp with the Kodiak at a pickup truck and an easy up. Like that's how bad it was in 2004, 2005. I say bad because I'm looking in the rearview mirror. My clients loved it. We had the best time. These clients are still clients to this day, you know, 20, 21 years later. But it was a hot mess at the beginning, looking back. And of course, prices have dramatically changed over that time. But not only did we, to answer your question directly, not only do we kill some giant trophies, whether it's elk, mule deer, coos, deer, antelope, they were telling their friends. And so we started to scale. And obviously I couldn't scale by myself. And that was where I really surround myself with, okay, who am I going to hire? How am I going to hire? And can I be picky? Can I do just military guys and first responders and rodeo cowboys and guys that have only been guides, like, where am I going to find the highest core of integrity in this business? And that's where I started looking to hire so we could scale. And for lack of a better term, you know, that kind of got us off to the races and the rest is somewhat history.

Man, that's. That's pretty epic. I mean, the classic entrepreneur starts with you solving your own problem. Yeah, one of the things I want to dive. Dive into. Well, before I get there, we, you and I could do an entire conversation about entrepreneurship. So maybe we'll save that for the rich outdoors podcast. But I would get.

I.

It's really hard for me to not just like go down that rabbit hole. So I'm going to try to like reel it back into elk hunting content. One of the things you've, you've done a ton of seminars. One of the seminars you've done Was like the top five mistakes you're making. I would love to kind of dive into that. And we' before we started or hit record, you were talking about how the number one thing is over calling. And you know, here at Elk Hunt, I, I've been a student of the game. I grew up hunting Roosevelts. I learned to over call. Right. Like I can call with the best of them. Right. But I also now I hunt a lot of eastern Montana. I hunt open prairie. I've hunted Arizona. I've hunted all over. And that's definitely one thing you learn. And you know, let's say when you started 2004 to even 2010, 12 over calling wasn't really a thing because you could always kind of go on to the next elk. A lot more pressure. The dynamics have changed. All those things have changed. I'm a huge believer in, in that very thing. Like you can definitely over call and learning what to say, how to say it. Those are super important. More so in 2025 than ever before, in my opinion. So let's dive into like your top five mistakes that, that elk hunters make. And I guess, spoiler alert, number one is over calling. But let's, let's dive into it.

Yeah, I actually joke that number one through five is over calling in one of my seminars and I go into stuff that is like second, third, fourth and fifth. But it is so far removed from this concept of over calling. And so I'll take you back in history. One of the greatest elk hunters that most people have never heard of is a San Carlos Apache nation warrior brother friend of mine named Bob Stevens, and in my book, suck less at hunting. He's the opener because he's so influential to me. I was active duty Air Force as an officer, thought I'd go all the way to the top, make colonel or general and retire after 20 or 30 years and be off to the races. But as I decided to become an elk guide as a living, when I realized, like, okay, I'm taking the leap, I'm a risk taker, we're going for it. He was the first one I had to talk to. I said, how do I not screw this up? How do I do it right? Because I always try to hunt like you. I've always had this personal feeling that Native Americans are so much more spiritually connected to nature that I'm almost born in the wrong body. And that's how much love and respect I have for Bob and his family. And so, and to this day we're. He's still one of my mentors and friends and a very accomplished hunter. So I told him that. He smiled. He was proud of me. This is what was I mid-20s at this point in my life. And he said, dan, if you're really going to do this, you know, we're have to have some really heart, heart to heart, candid conversations. And so I just got really excited. My eyes and ears got real big and I'm like, pour it on me. Like, tell me anything. You're not going to hurt my feelings. And so my book opens with this. He says, dan, the problem with the white man elk hunter is you're always trying to tell the forest what to do instead of listening to what the forest is telling you. And to this day, that concept still gives me goosebumps. And it makes sense, especially under his training and tutelage. So I said, you know, go on. And he says, well, you have to understand, much like humans, we have different voices. And an elk will tell you when he's in love. An elk will tell you when he's looking for love. An elk will tell you when it wants to be left alone. An elk will tell you when it wants to fight for no reason other. When it wants to fight. There's a bugle and a sound for everything. And this is when he first started telling me, which I kind of rolled my eyes at at the time. And maybe your audience is going to roll their eyes listening to this now. But he would, he would tell me, he said, not only do elk make different sounds, but each sound is unique to each bull. So you can actually hear a bull make a bugle, make a sound, and know if that's one of your target bulls, because you've scouted enough to know. Oh, that's fat back. Oh, that's tall boy. Oh, that's scratcher. Oh, that's skyscraper. Whatever the case may be, right? So at the time I was like, come on, man, a bugle is a bugle, right? But I'm whatever, 23, 24, and I think I'm smarter than everybody else. I actually was, I think pretty humble. But I was like, come on, you're kidding me. Well, then I wouldn't leave aside, right? So every opportunity to study from him, go out in the woods with him, listen with him, and of course, living in Arizona, I mean Arizona amongst all the states, this is not debatable. If it was another state replaced Arizona for the bell sale country, I'd literally move there. I would move there today. Arizona is still Jurassic park when it comes to elkheading. But you want to exponentially increase that by now hunting or spending time on the reservation, especially San Carlos, into north, the White river patch reservations, these are even more meccas of giant Bullock, especially late 90s, early 2000s and still today. So we go listen and we'd study and we'd add all these elk and then I'd kind of, okay, figure out, well, if he says this, then I'm saying this, or if he's saying this, then I want to say this. But here's the biggest thing, okay? This goes back to my military days. And I'm just gonna. I'm an air force guy, but I'm gonna play an army guy for a minute here. So if I'm. If I'm in the army and I'm in close quarters combat, right, And I'm trying to be stealthy, and I go up on a ridge and I've got this nice little sniper crow's nest dug out. And I start picking up my enemy because let's say he's made a sound or he's done something to screw up and he's made a mistake. And, you know, I don't know what it is, he loaded his gun too loud or whatever. So now he's telling me, I'm over here, right? So my enemy is telling me, hey, I'm over here. Well, that's the bull elk. So if a bull elk lets out a bugle, right, that's a bull out way of saying, I'm here. Now throw everything about what type of bugle it is to the wind for a second. He's given up his position. I see immediately. And I'm not picking on you or anybody else that does this, but more often than not, I see immediately somebody want to go grab one of their calls. Well, if I go back to that military technician out on a hill in a. In a crow's nest, and if my enemy's going, hey, I'm over here, the last thing I want to do necessarily is go, hey, I'm over here. Now you know where I'm at.

Yeah.

So that's where I. One of the first things I come at is over calling. If he's given up his tactical position, especially early in the morning or in the dark, the last thing I want to do is draw attention to where I am. The last thing I want to do is attention to where I am. But I do want to know what he said. That he say, I'm looking for love. I'm in love. I'm looking for a fight. I Don't even know why I'm looking for a fight. Is it just a location bugle? Hey, I'm over here. Is it, hey, I'm traveling? Is it, hey, I'm bedded down? What sounds, what vocalizations are we hearing? What textual clues to make to make the next move? And your audience already knows this, but I'm going to say it because it's number two or number three or number four on my list anyways. I don't care how good your equipment is. I don't care how good your camo is. I don't care how technologically savvy or how good in shape you are at this moment when you get your first bugle, if you know that's one of the bulls on your hit list, you have to get the wind, period, dot, end of story. I don't care how good your scent lock is. There are a lot of things you can fool on a bull elk and make mistakes with. We'll talk about them. Since not one of them ever. I'll talk. We can even talk about what I do with my clothes in between hunts and why I don't put it on. So I'm out of the truck. And I know I'm more hardcore than most of your listeners, and that doesn't make me right or wrong. I actually wrote the book Suck less at Hunting as the satire because the only reason I've been successful on over 700 outcomes is pros that probably screwed up on 5,000 elk hunts, right? That's been the secret to my success is failure. Over and over, repetitive failures. My secret to success, honest to God. So knowing what to call, if I should call, when to call, and what it means is different. And then bugling is not always the answer. I have a lot of clients. All of our hunters get the opportunity to do a review after their hunt with us. They get an email from Diamond Outfitters. Review the outfitter, review the guide, review the cook, review the hunt, review the camp review. And I've got this two or three times in 20 years. I kind of thought it was fun and cool was they said, you know, and at one time I carried all my little diaphragm calls, all my little different calls on, like that necklace. But I had two or three clients over the years say, you know, Dan for. I hunted with Dan for 10 days. We killed a giant bull, blah, blah, blah. He had this cool necklace of like 15 different calls. And in 10 days he never used one of them. And so I always thought about that. And I'm like, yeah, because there wasn't a place for that call at that time. Or Dan had a bugle in his right hand and only used it to scratch a tree one time and he had this goofy 2 liter bottle half cut up in the middle of it to make it sound like he was raking a pine chair, whatever the case may be. So I'd get these fun little hip reviews that were somewhat satirical, somewhat funny, but also somewhat serious. Like, you had all these calls, but you never used them. Well, I had them, right? It's better to have it not need it than need it not have it. And that bull just never gave me a cue that that's what it wanted to hear. And again, if that bull's super active in talking, I'm just going to get the win and try to make my stock. Now, if it needs a little coaxing, if it's by itself, it's a different coaxing than if he's got cows. We all know that's the hardest time to bring in a bull is when he's already got his harem, which is spoiler alert if we talk about it later. Why some of the earlier hunts when they're not quite yet with cows is why you see, especially for the unguided hunter, a little bit higher success than the later season, which everybody considers the better season, or the bugle season, which there's more Jurassic park activity, but there's also a lot less opportunity to pull away from Cal. So anyways, that's the over calling piece. Knowing what to say, knowing when to just shut up. And that's really hard. And again, I will go ahead.

I was gonna say there's a couple things there I want to touch on, and I do want to touch on, so don't let me forget. But I want to circle into, you know, what makes that decision for you. How do you know when to call, when to not call. But before we get there, what do you. What do you tell a client or how do you approach it when you have a client who says, man, I only for that experience, that calling experience, I hear that a lot. And I'm like, that's great. I understand it. And I've been down that road of like.

And the only reason I'll come is.

To call them in. And so they want to. You know, the classic saying is, when all you have is a hammer, all you see is nails. And if you, if you approach, you know, calling as a tool, I think you can have those experiences as well. But, like, I would be really interested in what, you know, what's your approach to, like, talking a client off, off the ledge of, like, man, I want to call in elk. I want that bugle, like, coming in and all that, all that experience. Sure.

So I will say that my experience has been, for the most part, that my clients will go with the flow. Part of this in the booking process. When I started the business 20 some years ago, yeah, if you could fog a mirror, I'd probably guide you. But now it's a little bit more. More complex. Like, I want to make sure you and I are fit personality wise. But I also feel like, you know, we live in the greatest, freest country in the world. Right. Like, there's no debate about that. There's very few countries in the world where you can even hunt unless you're royalty. And then in some places, you still can't hunt no matter what. So this is such a privilege to be able to do this that I've kind of gotten to the point you can call me a snob, although I don't really think it's that. It's, you know, if I'm going to dedicate seven days of my life with you, like I go back to my military days, number one, are you going to enjoy this process of being with me for a week?

Right.

Number two, am I going to enjoy being with you for a week? Because we're going to be battle buddies. And for most clients, like, when they think of western big game elk hunting, especially if they're like, east of the Mississippi, a lot of clients will only choose to do one elk hunt in their life. And then there's the crazies like you or me that try to do it multiple times in a year. So there's everything along that spectrum. Right. But to answer your question more directly, when we're kind of building that relationship because we get our draw results, or you can book your landowner hunts with us so many months in advance that we have time to really build a relationship. And if I'm not the right guide for you, you know, there's 61 guys in the team. I'll match you up with the right guide. Maybe you're too physically fit for me and you're going to crush me going up a mountain. I'm going to set you up with one of my CrossFit guys or whatever the case may be. But I think this is such a privilege to be able to do this, because what other sports in the world or what other activities in the world, Think about it, can you spend seven days out of your whole life with somebody and know that that client is going to leave a huge impression on your life as a guide. But now flip that if they really are going to only do this once in their life and they've dreamed about it for 20, 30, 40 years, think of the impression and the humility and the honor that comes that's bestowed upon me to know that that individual has chosen me or us to do that with. So what I'm saying is, if I'm going to be your battle buddy, I'm going to live in a foxhole with you, so to speak, for 7, 10, 14 days. And the culmination of this is going to be you killing the bull of your life. Because that's my expectation with every client I take out in the woods. This is going to be the bull elk hunt of your life. Jurassic Park. That's how it's going to be. You know, I say guides, part time guides, hope they're successful, Full time guides and outfitters like us expect to be successful. There's no hope, right? Hope is not a strategy. So it's building that relationship with you before we go in the woods. Like, are we going to be a good fit? And then when it comes to calling, are you going to guide the guide? Like you're a really good accomplished elk hunter, but you may not know anything about Arizona or New Mexico or Nevada, wherever we might be hunting. So you being a good guide or a good hunter already, you've hired me because maybe you don't know the area even though you're an accomplished elk hunt yourself. And that's why we get hired by a lot of our clients already accomplished elk hunters. But we've been in the unit for 35 or 40 years. So are you going to guide the guide? Because if you're so inclined to guide the guide, we might not be a good fit. But do I want your feedback on? Do you like to run and gun? Do you like to sit water holes or the guys that really want to call? I would say this. I'm going to call as often as necessary to get the desired outcome. If you just want to book outside of the hunting season, a calling adventure where we just go out there and experiment, we will do that. And I do. That's one of the ways I study. But I just make sure it's not going to screw up anybody's hunts, right? So I'll go out. There's a real thing you can just call.

You could go on a calling adventure.

Oh yeah, absolutely. That's interesting. It's it's how much is that? Everything. But it's an actual hunting trip where we do everything but kill an elk. So, you know, you can video the elk coming in, which is what a lot of people do. But it's just a lot of fun to go out there, have some fun with the elk. And we do it at a time of year right after the rifle hunts closed down, where they're at the peak of the rut still, but nobody's out there, so that. So we can do everything but shoot one. So interesting. That's kind of how I break it up. So, so the expectation is, hey, are you going to trust me to know when to call? Like, I'll teach you the when and why. Now, in that moment, I may not tell you why I'm switching because we're on an active stock, but when that stock is concluded, because we've either harvested our animal or bedded that animal or otherwise booger that animal, you know, I'm not going to have that conversation with you till later. But I might say, hey, that first thing I did was a location bugle. 45 minutes later I did an estrus cow try and pull them away. A little bit later I did a lost calf. Whatever the case may be, like, I will definitely have those conversations. I mentioned taking experienced elk hunters. We take us some percentage, 20 to 35%, maybe our first time elk hunters. And I love all of them. Like, they're also interesting to me. All elk hunters are super interesting to me. But I do love the teaching part. Like you, I kind of geek out on that. And again, I'm a product of mistakes. So I'm not telling you all my calls are going to be perfect. That's why I never book a one day elk hunt. If you're all cutting with me, it's going to be 7 days, 10 days, 14 days, where it's allowed by law now, like you're in New Mexico. Rifle hunts, for example, are only five days. So we got to get it done. Five days. So I got to screw up a lot less. I got to suck less at hunting. Right. Title of the book. So anyways, that's kind of how we set it up. But there's no such thing as a one day. I'll count. I mean, I'd love to tag you out first day and we often do, but we need mistakes. We need to factor in things that we can't control, whether it's weather, lack of rut, moon phase, hunting pressure, predation. A truck drove by a mile away. And pushed a. I heard of elk and the bull we were stalking, like, you know, the millions of things that can go wrong. Whether you're on public or private land, a million things can go wrong. One of the things I love to talk about, and you'll appreciate this, every elk hunt we go on, even if it's in our home state, is a road game. So if you think about football, basketball, baseball, you have home games and you have away games. And we always talk about home field advantage. Well, in hunting we have no home field advantage. Even if you're hunting in the Midwest on your back 40 acres out of a tree stand for the same whitetail your Granddad's hunted for 100 years, it's still a road game. As soon as you go into the elk or the deer's element. Right. So we're always at a disadvantage. Always at a disadvantage. So what are the variables we can control? How do we let go of the variables we can't control, which is hard to do. And how do we live with those results every day? It's also why in my camp every morning the guys make fun of me when I walk into the tent to grab my morning cup of coffee at 3:30 in the morning. The first thing I say out of my mouth, today's the day. And they'll say, well, you said that yesterday and the day before and for the last 15 years. But my expectation is to be successful. I'm not hoping to be successful. So if I wasn't successful the previous day, then today's the day. And that's my mindset going into every hunt.

Love that I'm a huge believer and confidence breeds success. And so yeah, it can happen any moment I want to, I want to touch on this, this concept of you, you know, you talked about most of the time you don't call, you have all these clients that. And we'll say, oh, he has all these calls. He didn't use them. For the DIY hunter, I want you to walk through like, what is the decision making processy for that? Like, how do you know when to call and when not to call? What is. And I get there's a million variables there. So like, maybe we can distill it down into like a broad, you know, first principles. Look at like, okay, here's, here's why I don't call. Or my default is to not call. Here's why I would call. I'd just be curious for like the average DIY hunter.

Yeah. So for the average diy, the biggest thing you've got to find a way to do is scout as much as possible. And I know that's hard when. When it's a hunt away from home. But I really would want every hunter to understand that the more you can learn about what you're. Whatever you consider a shooter bowl, whether it's spike or raghorn, fully mature elk, you really want to get out there as much as possible, especially in that late August, early September time frame before your hunt. I guess I'm talking a little bit more to archers there, so I'll bump that back even more to, like, September, October, guys as well. But listen, the big thing that a lot of people make mistakes before the calling even starts is they go out scouting for elk in June and July because that's kids are out of school, whatever the case may be. They didn't know they had a tag till late spring. This is their first chance to go scouting. What I tell everybody is if you're out there in June or July, you are not scouting the elk you're going to be hunting. You are an advanced version of camping. And that's not bad. It's not wrong. It's not a criticism. But these elk, when they're growing their velvet, when they're still building their antler structure for that year, where they tend to do that year after year after year, is not where they're going to be. So for for us, my magic date I talk about is somewhere between about August 10 and August 18 is when most mature bull elk in the west will shed their velvet. Not all, but most. And so by about August 20th, those bull elk are making significant moves to their riding grounds. So any elk you're scouting that time of year, there's exceptions, but for the most part, any elk you're scouting in June or July, just know what you're really trying to study at that point is habitat. Where's the water? How's the feed? Where's the cow elk? Because they're not necessarily inclined to leave. How can I find a bunch of cow elk in June and July? Just know that those aren't the bulls you're going to be hunting. But as we get into later August, early September, those are the bulls you're going to be hunting. So can you get to know those elk a little bit? What are their behavior patterns? You can observe them from a distance as long as you always have the wind without spooking elk. Keep in mind, this is the time of year where they've been with other bulls for months now. They're just Starting to think, yeah, probably not going to hang out with my friends anymore. They're about to be competition for the next 60, 90 days. And so they kind of change their behaviors a little bit. They'll. And as you guys know, elk can make noise, they can vocalize, they can bugle year round. But really end of August is when they start, their bodies start changing. Photosynthesis periods start changing, the weather starts cooling down. They know they're getting ready to go into battle. That's why God gave them these antlers to begin with. So now their vocalization is going to start up and you can start to listen and learn from each bull a little about what their voice is, can learn a little bit about their attitude and their behavior. You can have a 400 inch bull be super science shy and secretive. Even during the peak of the rut, elk are completely personality driven. A world record bull can be the shyest bull and you can have a spike go out there and sound like King Kong. In fact, I've been proven wrong on bulls where I didn't stalk them because I thought they were young only for having them walk around the corner. They were shooters. And I've also had spike bulls make me think, well, not spike so much, but some rag horns that had that deep throaty growl that made me think they were more mature than they were. Even times when I've had a super old bull call me in, that was actually like a 270, 280 bull that probably was in multiple years of regression. But by listening to these bulls in their summer pattern, August, early September, and as a courtesy, I would say before you go do that, make sure there's not an open hunt. The last thing you want to do is go out there when people are acting actively hunting. You certainly wouldn't want them doing their elk training on your hunt. So be cognizant of that. Check the regs, please. I do the same before I go out and just kind of learn, okay, who's, who's angry, who's happy, who's a dork, that's just here for the party and then start noticing when are they picking up cows? Some of those younger bulls, they're going to sew their oats, they're going to start getting with cows earlier in the rut, they're going to think this is their moment. Even though the cows really aren't in estrus yet. I refers those bulls a lot as like a first year six by six. This is the first year they have a six by six rack. They kind of think it's kind of like us when we're like 17, 18, 19. Like we would go into a place kind of with their chest puffed out a little bit, you know, a little bit extra ego. They kind of go in and they think, okay, this is, this is good. I've got, geez, 10, 15, 20, 30 cows. I'm the boss. And they go to check them three or four times a day. And none of them are. Could be the least bit interested. Right? Also like me when I was 17, 18, 19. Right. So then you kind of go around and you're like, well, what's going on? Well, then they start vocalizing more. Some of these cows start coming closer to estrus and more of the mature bull show up. And at that point, they either run off the younger bull or they fight. And the bull, younger bull gets shattered and, and moves off. So as you're watching these patterns, listening to what these elk are doing, listen to how they like to be communicated with. When. When they do a location bugle and another bull does a location bugle that you can't see, does that bull immediately bugle back? Does he look towards them or look away from them? You can learn about their personality by, oh, a bull bugle over there. If they look over here, they're already showing that that's a superior bull, even if they don't know what bull it is there. You know that that's going to be a shyer bull. He's not going to be super responsive to calling. Why could that be really important? Because what if he is a shooter bull? So what if you're watching this bull in August or September and he makes a sound and you watch his behavior from a distance with the wind, with the wind, with the wind, and you can see, okay, this is going to be a shyer bull. So he's going to react differently to calling. When you see these bulls super hyperactively with cows, and even in August before the rut, they're like running behind them and licking their lips a lot and urinating all over themselves. Okay, you know that that bull is going. As soon as he gets kicked out of the herd, that bull is going to be super responsive to a cow call or calf call or an estrous call early in the hunt. Now, if he's not a shooter bull, you don't want to train him. So don't go try to call him in just to train, you know, train him against, you know, hunting calls. But get that idea of, okay, what's he gonna do if you've got a super aggressive bull, then you know, even if he has cows, he might come charging. But your techniques are going to change. So I'll just give you one story to kind of wrap up that question that point. Then we can go from there. We had a bull that we ended up killing. I'm trying to remember. We called him now Mark Site was his name, the client. Awesome guy. We were hunting one of the premium Arizona archery elk hunts and we had found this bull. I think we just called him the kudu bull. And he was a 380 frame on his left and just a true kudu on his right. So that's a kudu there. But for those that aren't familiar or not watching live here, the curl, curl of a spiral horn kudu. That's what he had on his other side. No, he's like a 375 frame bull. That was, that was the Monster 7 by a kudu spike on their side. Well, I had no interest in killing that bull. But the client, once he saw him for the first time, only wanted to hunt that bull. And so he was a unique bull for sure. In fact he made a couple magazines that year, now that I think about it. Well, we hunted that bull for 10 days. And the point I want to make with it is this bull. Like I, I threw everything at him from a PhD of Bob Stevens out calling and we couldn't do anything. Oh, kind of important point to note. You had asked about clients that were super interested in calling or not calling. This guy was the opposite. So it's kind of important part of the story. So he had told me, I don't know what video he had watched. Of course back then it would have been a DVD or a VHS tape, right? Maybe it was my buddies at the Primos. But he'd gotten to this idea that despite paying me all this money, this is long before zero offer fees. This is a full price client. He got this idea that you only cow call big bulls. You don't bugle ever at a big bowl, especially a bowl of this size. This, this thing ended up being a 12, 13 year old bull. And he said, Dan, call anything you want to call from a cow calf, whatever you want to do, but please don't bugle. Please don't feel of course my ego, but also like I'm like, dude, you paid me a lot of money, now you're going to tell me how to do my job. So there was a little bit of that dynamic playing on. We're friends now, so I can Say anything I want. And he killed the bull. So anyways, we're at now day nine or 10 and it's only a 14 day season and we're getting late in the game and we had started getting a lot of late season monsoons. And I don't mind the late season monsoon. In fact, you know, I would say a mild sprinkle is the best elk hunting weather in the rut you could ever ask for. But this particular bull was very, very, very aggressive, but very protective of his cows. More like, I don't want to fight. If I think there's a dominant bull there, I'll just try to take my cows and sneak away. So we were on this bull and you know, it's like when it got to like day eight, nine, I was like, mark, I know you asked me not to bugle, but I can tell you how we can be successful on this bull or we can continue to try and do it your way. But I really want you to kill this bull if you're that excited about it. You know, if we get into a position, I'm just gonna need you to trust me. And even then he gave me a little bit of resistance. He's like, no, I read such and such or whatever video. Like, you never call a bull this big ever, ever, ever. And I'm like, well, okay, my resume would say we've killed in some pretty big bulls, but whatever, you're the boss. You wrote the check. Anyway, short story long, we pick up this bull again on day 10, and now he's got literally like 40, 45 cows. So we got 90 eyes on us, plus his right. I'm like, and it's, and it's a monsoon. So I'm not talking like light monsoon. I'm talking puddles in the road. Puddles. Like it's hard to be quiet, but we can get the wind. We could, you know, the pine needles are quiet, but we're splashing. And it was a really fun hunt. Well, we finally catch a break. We finally catch some bugling about 7, 7:30 in the morning. And at this point I had kept him about 40 to 60 yards ahead of me. And I would, you know, we had our hand signals figured out. I always wanted to be behind him in case I needed to make a quick call. And my, my thing with clients in that situation is once we separate, okay, your job as the hunter is to stay wherever I leave you. And it's critically important you do because 90% of the time I'm not going to be able to See you. So if I leave you at a pine tree, you have to stay at that pine tree. If I leave you to rock, you have to say at that rock. Because when I go over here and do a cow call, and then I run over here and rake a tree, and then I run over here and do an estrus, and then I go over there and do lost calf, I'm doing it all based on where I think you are and what the wind is doing. So if you even move five yards, you're going to screw this whole thing up. So we had done that. He had been really good about that part. He was just goofy about the calling thing. Well, we finally started picking up some of his cows bedding. I'm like, oh, we're perfect. We got the wind. He's gonna bed. And then, as you know, when they bed, usually one of two things happen. Maybe three. They're gonna stay there all day with the cows. Not ideal. They're gonna bed down for a little bit, and then after a while, they're gonna get up and check the cows. More ideal, because maybe I can pull them in. Or even better, he's gonna leave his cows, go wallow or water and come back. Now he's solo. And if we know what wall or water hole he's going to, he's dead meat, right? So we saw the cows bedding down. So at this point, I come back up to Mark because he had been like 40 to 60 yards away. And I say, hey, these things are going to bed. We're going to stay together. We're going to be very, very careful. But I think we can get maybe another 20, 30 yards from his bugling, from his bed, figure out where he is, and then we're going to change up the strategy. He's like, okay, I didn't tell him what yet. So we go up another 20, 30 yards. It probably takes us a half hour to do it right, because we're like super Ninja. It's day 10. Down to the wire. I'm feeling the pressure. He's feeling the pressure. And this bull is doing exactly what we need him to. Minutes he would just let out that little bugle from his bed. I'm here. I'm the boss. It wasn't a threatening bugle. It was more like a, I'm here, I'm the boss. Stay away. And I don't know if that was, you know, we talk about their personalities, but we know from the game warden that that bull had always been a seven by or had always been a mature by kudu on the other side. So he grew up from a spiked kudu to raghorn kudu. He was always a kudu on that side. He shut it, but it was still a kudu every year. And so we, we thought that bugle was his way of saying, like, I'm kind of the boss because I'll stab you, I'll kill you, whatever the case may be. But he was a very confident older bull. And so I told him, okay, hey, we're caught up now. I said, all right, here's the thing now I'm going to drop back a little bit further. Or like 60 to 80. Then it's 40 to 60. You have to stay right here. I'm gonna do something you're not expecting, but I need you to trust me and stay right here because. And, oh, quick bunny trail, as you can tell, hopefully. And your audience can tell. I'm usually a pretty happy, go lucky, outgoing social guy. Right. I talk about hunters and killers all the time. We can talk about on podcast another time. But when I'm in kill mode, I would argue nobody's better. And you should argue nobody's better and everybody listening should argue. When you're in kill mode, there's nobody better than you, whoever you are. And this comes from my mentors and teachers, whether you want to be Michael Jordan or Robert Kiyosaki or Bob Stevens. When you're in kill mode, same the military. Like, you are going to die. Like, if you want to confront me, you are going to die with that level of certainty. So I told him I was going to do something he wasn't quite expecting, but he just needed to be prepared for it, trust me. So you probably know where I'm going with this. So I dropped back about 60, 80 yards to where I can kind of see the drizzle is still perfect. I got a little bit of fog. It's just perfect archery conditions. And as your audience is probably, like, already knows what's coming. I'm going to shock people the hell out of this bull. Right? Like, so for those of you who haven't heard of a shock bugle before, what I refer to shock bugle is if you wanted to scare the heck out of somebody, you show up in their living room and they don't know you're there. Right. That would scare your friends or your families, your neighbors, pretty good. A shock bugle concept is when a bull starts to bugle, you don't even let him finish his bugle. He gets about 25, 30 for his bugle. And you bugle on top of them like you're a freaking dinosaur. And you're there to take his girls and burn his house down. Like it's a totally. It's your 10 out of 10 aggressive bugle that 99% of the time I would never tell somebody to do so. Not only does Mark been told the whole time, told me all the time not to bugle, but now I'm doing a bugle that could be borderline like Zombieland scary if you didn't know it was coming. So I'm sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting. And as soon as this bull lights off his casual but confident I'm in my bed with my girls bugle, I just hammer him, right? I mean, I hammer him and he just comes blows out of his bed. And Mark's first shot is nine yards. And he makes a great shot at nine yards. And then the bull kind of spins around. I'm only 75% sure he hit him, but it looked good. But he turned around, he spun around. And then when he started to turn a quarter away, I thought, oh, we can get another shot. And I told him, like I tell all my clients, like, I'll tell your audience, if he's still standing, you're still shooting. Like write that down. If he's still standing, you're still shooting. So he knew that. He knew to merely knock another arrow. And as he started kind of come through this lane, I was like, man, if I hit him with the call right now, he's probably going to turn a little bit, maybe even stop, but he's also probably hit. So I don't really know what's going to happen. Well, I let out just a little, very gentle, just standard cow out call. And boom. He just stops broadside and he hammers him again. That one's like 40, 45 yards. Bull goes off and wasn't a lot of blood because the rain, but we found him and so we killed the seven by kudu. But anyways, that's an example of going from one extreme to another, of don't bugle at all to shock people in the living room. And Mark told me, he goes, honestly, I don't know how I shot my bow. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, you scared the hell out of me. Because I, I didn't expect it. He goes, but what was crazier was I turned around to see that it was you and immediately turned back around and that bull was running and you could hear it, you could hear the splashing of the water. You could hear the mud. You could hear the. And Mark's like, that thing was coming to kill me, wasn't he? And I said, well, he's actually coming to kill me. But he had to go through you first. And at nine yards, you hammered him. So you did your part. So I always love sharing that story. So that's an example of, you know, how to decide when to call, when a customer is not really sure what they think of calling or they want to hear you over call all the time. So it really is that delicate balance, right? It's. I refer to it as a ballet. I refer to as a symphony. And I don't always get it right. Like, you're hearing the victory story, but there was nine days of failure prior to that. So amazing hunt, amazing animal. Couldn't have gone down better. Really.

Well, you know, the funny part about that is you're not convincing anyone that they shouldn't call with that story because you're like, that's exactly what everyone wants. Is that like chaos? But I will say, like, the timing of that is. Is everything. Right? Like, and, and for the most part, you had mentioned, this is the type of bull, he's not very confrontational. He, he may, he may make a lot of noise, but he, at the end of the day, if a bigger bull is going to come, he's going to take his cows and leave, right? Which was just like a sidebar to where that actually makes the, the shock Bugle more effective because, you know, you were right there and you, you teed it up really, really well. Whereas most people, like, you know, let's go in and challenge Bugle. And it's like, he's, he's not going to do anything. Like, you didn't lay that foundational story of like, there's a bunch of cows here, right? And that's completely different. Again, you also didn't bugle your way into him and give him that warning. So, I mean, there's a whole bunch to dissect there. Awesome story, awesome bull. I want to see the picture of this bull, by the way. Okay, so as we transition, I want to talk about. We said we're going to get to the five things. I don't know if we're going to get to all of them, but we'll try to get to a few epic. What is your two, three, four. I know, I know we joked that calling was one through five, but on the, on the five things that you're out.

So number two is mindset, and this is a huge One for me, when I talk about I don't hope, I kill, I don't hope I'm successful. Hope is not a strategy. That is because my mindset is I will be successful, I intend to be successful. I choose to be successful. I geek out it a little bit in my book and I talk about the neuropaths that your brain actually carves electrically into your system. From your first early childhood traumas to your first crush, to your first butt whipping by bully Billy on the school bus or whatever. Like your brain literally carves these paths that brings you back to a place, right? And I talk about it with athletics. My son's a freshman baseball pitcher in college and they do practice six days a week for three to five hours a day. And they're pumping iron in the gym and they're throwing, he's throwing fastballs and change up and he's always working on his body. And professional teams are always working on their bodies and their trade. The championship teams, the Michael Jordans, the Tom Brady's, the Robert Kiyosakis, the most, the top of any sport, including hunting in the world. The top leaders of men and women. Like, if you go study, I don't know, picture the top five greatest men of all time, maybe somebody like Abraham Lincoln comes up. I don't know if you really study their mindset. If you go back and look at their teachings, their literature, their writings, you'll find that they have a truly championship mindset. And the reason I make the sports analogy is if you're training your body 90% of the time and 10% is mindset, it's going to let you down. Because hunting is 90% mindset and 10% physical. So it's critically important you practice with your equipment, which by the way, is number three. It's critically important that you're in good physical shape. It's critically important you practice with your bow, your rifle, your muzzleloader. But if you're hoping or thinking or wanting to kill a bull, you're already a step behind. You have to be so mentally sharp. And this, this comes from, you can't just turn the switch on overnight. This is years of programming your brain to how I choose to be successful in all of life. Hunting is one of those categories and it's building those neural paths in your brain of being successful in everything I do. And hunting's just a byproduct of what I do being successful. So it really is mindset. And that may not be the super sexy answer that all your listeners are looking For. But I will tell you, I can look a client in the eyes every morning and every evening and see if they're mentally prepared to do what happens. I've had clients that couldn't draw their bow in the moment, but when we got back to camp, they could easily draw their bow. In fact, I had a Navy SEAL once tell me he cheese melted. Because I thought I called this bull in perfectly for him. And every time I went to see him draw his bow, he stopped. I was like, dang. And you know how it is. If you're like 40 to 60 yards behind somebody, they've got a better view than you. So I was like, all right, it's not as good as I think. So I would do another call or put out decoy or whatever I did, and that bull would make another little move. I'm like, now he's going to kill him. And I'd see him go to draw, and he stopped. And I kept thinking, what am I doing wrong? What am I not seeing? Because it looks like a broadside or slightly quartering shot. Looks like everything's perfect. And then that bull slowly moved away. Well, I didn't want to pick on the client or beat him up too bad. But about half hour after realizing that bull wasn't come back, I walked up to him and he's just like, I cheese melted. This is a U.S. navy SEAL. And I said, what does cheese melt mean? He's like, I couldn't physically draw my bow. Like, what do you mean? He's like, dude, that bull was killable. So many times, every time I draw tried to draw my bow, I couldn't. I physically couldn't. My knees were knocking. I couldn't do it. And I said, no. From other guys, I would believe that from you, there is definitely a problem with your bow. I'm like, we're going back to camp right now, and we're gonna go check your bow. He's like, we don't need to. And I'm like, yeah, we do. And he's like, we don't need to. And I'm like, yeah, we do. Like, I'm insisting. He goes, let me show you that we don't need to. So he takes his little necklace and looks around and he finds an actual mushroom on the ground, and he ranges it at 65 yards and shoots the cap off the mushroom. He's like, see, I cheese melted on that bull. I can draw my bow. There's nothing wrong with my bow. It was me in that moment. And he literally shot the Cap off of a mushroom. So it's this concept of mindset. I want clients from today forward. I want hunters from today forward. DIY or clients, whatever. Long before you get the tag. Starting today is building your mindset to be successful at elk hunting, which is really a bigger genre on being successful in life as a family man or a believer or whatever the case may be. It's important in your life. You've got to have your mind right. Can you get lucky? Sure. Can you go out there opening day, stumble across the bowl and whack it? Yes. And get lucky. I'll always, in hunting, take that 10 to 15, 20, 25% of luck any day of the week that you'll give to me. But for me, mindset is huge. And it's definitely number two. You've got to go in expecting to be successful. You've got to have high expectations of yourself. Whether it's the. The mindset training, but also the physical. What's your commitment to shooting your bow? What's your commitment to practicing with your rifle, your muzzleloader? That is number three. So I can just kind of touch on a couple of those things because I'll have clients telling me the excuses.

Like, before we get there, like, so hypothetically, I book a hunt with you. I'm like, hey, Dan, I'm coming hunt with you this September. I've been on two or three elk hunts. I have not had any luck. I just want to go with an outfitter and learn how to do it. You know, what is. What is your coaching process for telling how to. How do you. How do you get me to the mindset to get into kill mode? Like, we talk about this all the time. Killers kill. If you don't have that. And I think even worse, if you have had enough experiences that are in a negative impact.

Your confidence.

Right. That's almost worse than. No, like, give me a brand new hunter. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. But if I. You have me a hundred. It's like, man, I've screwed this up two or three times. I've actually shot and wounded two bulls. Like, how do you fix their mindset?

So that's a great question. Because those neuropaths are negative neuropaths. And they're very deeply ingrained. And quite frankly, if you elk hunt long enough, you're gonna do it. Or watch somebody wound an elk. Cause they're just so tough. I always say, if somebody tells me they've never wounded a bull and they've been hunting elk 20 years. They're either liars or they're not very good elk hunters because almost invariably that's gonna happen, unfortunately. So if they have those neuropaths, like you said, it's almost better to have a new hunter that has no bad habits. But to answer your question more directly, I want to know about those three hunts that they've done in the past that were unsuccessful. They wounded. I want to know what their preparation was. And this is just part of building the relationship and building the friendship, because in these conversations, I can actually determine, oh, gosh, this guy's toxic. We don't want to hunt with him because he's already looking for an excuse to fail.

He's damaged goods.

Yeah. I've on occasion very nicely helped clients self discover their way to another outfitter because I thought these guys were either so negative or so down that they're going to either bring a camp down or they weren't going to be willing to do the work. And on the hard days, they weren't want to want to do it, even though those can be some of the most rewarding days. So if they have those negative neural paths in their brain, it's even that much more difficult. So I want to have conversations. You tell me about your last hunt. Tell me about your first alcohol. And I don't mean like hours and hours and hours. We don't need to do that. But then I might ask you, what was your biggest still like. You tell me about your first l count. What was your biggest three takeaways from that experience? What was the most positive takeaway from that? What was the. What was the biggest negative like? And if you went with a guide, what did your guide do in that moment that you loved? What did your guy do in that moment that you hated? If you were diy, what did you do in that moment you would never do again? What did you do in that moment that you're like, that was a huge win. I really learned something, you know, wind or how to prepare my clothes properly, or how I circle back around and. And waited for him to get away from his cows. And I didn't just panic shoot, because you'll see a lot of people do that. They finally get an elk in range, doesn't matter if it's rifle or bow, and they panic shoot. Well, most of the time, if you're doing it right, that elk doesn't know you're there. You have so much more time than you think. But hunters have put so much psychological pressure on themselves, and this this does go a little bit back to mindset, but one of the things I've noticed in the past seven to 10 years, and I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's a little bit of a social media thing, is the amount of pressure people put on themselves when they go on these elk hunts. DIY or guided. I'll talk about the guided for a minute. So let's say you're coming to do an elk hunt with me, and you're from Chicago, and you've never elk hunted before, and you're dropping anywhere from 7 to 12 to $15,000 on this hunt. You've got to get a kitchen pass from your spouse, most likely to spend that kind of money. You've got to get a kitchen pass from your job, most likely. And then you got to go back to the kitchen pass. Because now those days off you're getting, that means the family might not be going to Disneyland that year. That might mean the family's not going on that trip for spring break anymore, because you spent those resources on that and that money away from the family, doing your own thing. So now there's pressure that comes from that. Then there's pressure from your boss wanting to know when you're coming back to work. And then this is the big kicker, especially if you're a social media guy, not saying that's good or bad, but your buddies at work, your buddies from high school, your buddies at the archery shop, the laundry list of people in your life are like, oh, you're going to Arizona or Utah or whatever. You're going to kill like a 360 dude. Like, you're the man. Like, this is going to be the greatest hunt ever. And now you've built all this pressure. So I watch a lot of guys come into camp and you can see that pressure already on their shoulders. Just this total mindset of all these people are either counting on me to be successful, and so they just put all that pressure on themselves that in that moment, like when it's time to go into kill mode, instead of just focusing, what I do is range, range, aim, point, range, release. Range, aim, point, release, follow through. Range, aim, point, release, follow through, rate. That's my muscle memory. Range, aim, point, release, follow through. That's where you have to default to not, oh, my God, there's an elk. I've waited all this moment for this, and now they rush the shot or now they wound an animal, or it's like all hunters, I wish you could know this, especially rifle hunters, because My years with Best of the west is like, dude, we're 600 yards. We don't need to rush the shot. They have no idea we're here. We got the wind. So, man, just give yourself permission to go and have a good time. Don't put so much pressure. The guys that put the most pressure on themselves to kill, I think, are a lot less successful overall than the guys that are just there to have a good time and let the chips fall where they may. I always like to say, whether you kill your elk or not is between you and God. My job is to arrange the meeting. Let me do my job. You do your part and make a good shot. But I think that's a big thing, is they put all the societal pressure on them that they forget just to show up and have a good time.

Yeah. We just did a podcast, Good Buddy mine, Travis and I were talking about Care Less, right? Like, it's. It's Cared more and Care Less. It's this balance, which is really hard to explain to someone who doesn't understand it. But to your point is like, you know, you. You can easily work yourself into a. A hole of just, like, this pressure, outside pressure for you to kill an elk. And it's like you're going to screw things up. And I think that's the thing is when you're new or you haven't had a lot of success, you're defaulting back to those mistakes you've already made. And then all the mistakes in a hunt, you're going to screw up 10 times before you kill an elk, unless it's just shithouse luck. But you know you're going to have these mistakes. Don't let them eat you. Eat it up, you know, eat you up and. And just make you in a worse mental spot. You know, this. That mental toughness. But at the same time, you have to be in kill mode. You have to get it done right. It's not, like, careless. It's like sometimes you got to be in kill mode and force the shot, right? And that is kind of at odds with, like, this patience. And, like, that's like. It's such an art, you know, the art of elk hunting is this balance of aggression and patience and, like, letting it, you know, blow off your back when you screw things up. But at the same time, like, just be absolutely relentless. And so, like, that's that. That blend. It's really hard to define. It's really hard.

Relentless is a good word for it. And it's also one of my favorite books. By Tim Grover, Michael Jordan's old physical trainer. Great mindset book. One of my favorites. I'll share with you, too. A very short story. When I talk about how do I know if there's a guy in camp that I want to hunt again or. Or in some small cases where I might not want to hunt again. And every now and then, not. Not as often as you might think, we'll get a client who's like, hey, just so you know, I'm 350, 360 or bust. And it's almost like they're warning me. Like, I should be warned about that. When in reality I'm like, dude, I love having a client that's going to pass on a 340 bull. You killing a 360, 380, 400, 420 bull, that helps both of us. Like, I love having clients that are willing to pass on giants. Now, of course, as you can appreciate most of these guys, when they see the first 300 in bow range or in gun range, they think it's a 400 anyways. And so all that stuff goes out the window. But my point is, is number one, I'm happy to have those clients that say they're passing. But here's where I know if somebody's going to be the right fit for me for the future or not. So if I take you out, you and I go hunting, and you've told me, 350 or bust, and I'm like, cool, here's the deal. It's very simple. I'm going to be 40 to 60 yards behind you. We're going to be together the whole time we're hunting until it's kill time, and then most likely I'm going to drop. Now, if I need to be with you for a tricky shot and give you the range, I will. But if we've got the luxury of me backing up and doing whatever, calling techniques, that's what we're going to do. And when that bull comes in, if you're not experienced enough to know if he meets your 350 plus or not, all you got to do is look back at me one time. Because as long as it takes me, I'm going to leave this symbol up. It's real simple. You see, where's the camera? You see thumbs up, you know, he meets your idea of that 350 or above, thumbs down means he's 350 or below. Every blue moon, you're going to get a sideways. Sideways means he's like 345 to 355. You make the call because you're closer than me. But if I have to leave this symbol up for 15 minutes because you haven't turned around yet, I will. Like, that's our agreement. That's kill mode. So if we have a day like that where we're just calling in bull after bull after bull, or if we're not calling, we're just looking at a bunch of different bulls, and they're all three 20s, three 30s, three 40s bulls that, by the way, most hunters in their life will never kill with a rifle or. Or. Or a bow. We just happen to live in the best elk hunting states in the west, where that's more routine than other places. So we're spoiled, admittedly. But here's the thing. If we then go back to camp, let's say you and I passed on eight bulls, okay? In that 320, 340 range. Because you told me 350 or bus, which I'm good with. And you're good with. If you go back to camp that morning and you're like, dude, that was the coolest thing I've ever done. Like, I just passed on bull after bull after bull. Nothing that Dan or I wanted to kill that day, but it was so freaking cool. You're my dude. But every blue moon and I still don't get it. It's a mindset thing. We'll go back and that guy will just be Eeyore, if you remember Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Be like that donkey drooping around. Like, yeah, freaking sucked, man. Freaking sucks. Like, elk after elk, and they're like 320s, three 30s. This. You know, this is.

Dude, yeah.

Like, oh, dude, you're gone. Like. Like, I'm just so grateful to be in the presence of God's. One of God's most beautiful creatures. Like, I don't care that you didn't shoot. That's why I elk hunt right there was to be amongst the giants. The whether you shoot or not. Like, the win for me is we were in bow range. We did it right. You could have shot and you passed. Like, if all those things happened, we had an amazing day. So awesome. We didn't blow them out of there. They're still there. Still bed down. We need to go shoot that bull later. We know exactly where he is. Like, all those variables. But that's another way. Like, I know if you're a fit for me and Diamond Outfitters, because if that was the greatest day of your hunting life, we're going to be friends. If you're like, oh, just this, you know, this just sucked. They were all just small bulls. Like, how many elk hunters in the world, millions of elk hunters, would gradually switch places with you this morning at their jobs that they hate. You had you passed on eight bulls from 40 to 5 yards, 45 to 40 yards, and you thought that sucked. Like, pack up your, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I want to, I want to talk about. Is it, was it zero outfitter fees? Is that the name of your.

Yes, sir, zero outfitter fees.

I want to talk about that, but first I want to ask you a question. I think a lot of our audience is like me, it. This is, you know, a student of the game. You're always going to be a student of the game. We want to improve. And I've had this question come up of, like, you know, should I hire an outfitter? You know, just to get experience. I, I've talked to. So I grew up racing and, you know, I talk a little bit about race pace. Like, once you understand what race pace looks like, you can't unsee it and you'll, you'll act accordingly, you know, on all your DIY hunts. I honestly don't know a ton of outfitters and like, I, I, I'm pretty reserved on, on recommending any because, you know, that that's a varied experience to say, like, hey, go with an outfitter and you'll learn race pace. Some of them you will. Some of them you will not, you know, in your experience. And I mean, you've been around a lot of this. What's your recommendation to DIY guys getting into elk hunting? You know, I talk a lot about, hey, the focus isn't to kill. The focus to get at bats. You need at bats to learn to, to just get that growth, to understand what it's like in the red zone, you know, just, you know, the more if you can go on one of these great hunts, it's almost better to not have attack. Go on a great hunt with a buddy, get in the red zone a dozen times, and you'll learn more in that year than you will in the next 10 years of hunting DIY Colorado, trust me. But I think the next level to that is, like, if you can afford it or you have the opportunity to go with a guy like yourself and actually learn some of these things. Man, that's a huge, like, the problem with DIY hunters is it takes them 15 years of hunting, OTC Colorado hunts to get one year of experience that you would on some of these other hunts. Now, there's some variations there. What's, what's your advice as an outfitter, as someone who's like, man, you've taken a lot of people like, do you think that's a worthy way to accelerate your learning curve?

Well, it's a great question and you're right, reps are critically important. But you also said something that is been amazing thing for me to learn in the past 20 years on the professional side of this and in 40 years of Elk hunting, there is a huge number, literally what you just said out of your lips, of clients that come to us because they've done. Now, obviously in the last year or so, Colorado did away with a lot of their OTCL C, especially for archers. But for a million years, like, we would get this stream of clients. In fact, I think I even did a couple zoom town halls about this where I diagrammed it up on the board, on a grease board for our, for, for our audience. And it was okay, if you're going to go DIY to Colorado and you live in Madison, Wisconsin, you're going to go out every year in September. This is, you know, what Colorado publishes as the DIY success rate, whatever percent that was. And so you're going to go this many years and you're gonna spend this much on gas or hotels or camping gear, hunting gear, da da da da da before you kill your first elk. And then statistically speaking in Colorado, it's going to be a spike or a raghorn or a small five. Da da da da da. Or you could have done one hunt with a guide and outfitter, got all that collegiate level experience if you want the right outfit or if you got that college or PhD level experience in seven days and actually spent less money. So that was kind of a big epiphany for us. For a lot of DIY clients, a quick bunny trail to that is that was one of the reasons why zero outfitter fees started. And I want to be real clear with how I say this, because we wanted to create a way where somebody could go on a fully guided hunt for less than the cost of a DIY. So there's always going to be DIY guys that are DIY to their core. That 5 to 10%, we love those guys, they're our friends. But the majority of elk hunters would go with a guide if they thought it was affordable. So it's that middle 80 to 90% that we're saying, hey, zero outfitter fees was designed for you because now you can Go on a fully guided out hunt with North America's largest elk outfitter for less than the cost of a DIY and be more successful. But you're critically right. Like reps of anything. There's a book or, you know, there's a book about 10,000 hours of master. You're not a master of anything, so you've done it for 10,000 hours. You know, in our flying community we talk about you're not a master pilot, so you've flown 10,000 hours. Elk hunting, you're not a master elk hunter until 10,000 hours. So repetition is huge failure. And being comfortable in your own skin, feeling that doesn't mean going out there and sabotaging yourself, but just knowing that even when you do everything right, I probably, I don't want to sound exaggerate like I'm exaggerating, but I've probably made five or six hundred stocks where we did everything right only within the last 30 seconds to a minute before we were going to kill, just to have the wind slightly switch and turn to my back where we've done everything right. And then everything was perfect. And then a monsoon rolled in. And for whatever reason, when that lightning went off, those bulls moved 200 yards. So repetition is going to be really huge. I think what you also said that's really important is should they just go with a guide? Clients need to do their homework more. I think it's probably easier now in some ways because there's so much information available at your fingertips, you know, like on social media, to find, to distinguish between the full time guys, which admittedly there's very few of, and the part time, the part time versus the full time guys, which is us and a few others that are also awesome. But if it's, if it's not affordable, that's why we made zero outfitter fees. If it is affordable, then yeah, get that repetition. I also like what you said. I think it bears repeating. If you've got a buddy that's going on an Elkhart, if you can get a mentor that's going on in Elkhart, or maybe you just even volunteer yourself to an outfitter to go be a packer in his camp for, for, you know, a hunt or two, just tell them like straight up, hey, I don't know anything about outcounting. I'd like to learn. I don't know much about it, but I've got a strong back and I'd like to pack out some elk. One of two things are going to happen. They're either going to welcome the help. That's one possibility or two. If it's not exclusive rights property, then they may have their guard up that you're just there to learn good hunting spots. So be prepared for either answer because nobody's going to want to teach you where they've been hunting for 40 years, where all the elk go under pressure. So just be prepared for either one. But yeah, repetition, getting out in elk camps, I. I'm a big believer in again, checking the regs, making sure there's not an active hunt going on. And then there's a lot of do it yourself elk hunting practice. I know people have been on me to start a course, but you can just YouTube. You guys have contacts. I know where you can do like calling. When my new guides are interns, they have to spend the whole summer when they're driving by themselves with different calls in their mouth while they're driving, making different elk sounds. Like, listen to podcasts, listen to these videos and see why they're. How they're talking about when to use the calls, how to use these calls. And then just practice them while you're driving around by yourself. Like, you can't. It's just practice, you know, get that 10,000 hours of practice of calling in. So I think there's a balance between getting yourself out in elk country even if you don't have a tag. You know, what's something I hadn't thought about before but could probably be very effective, something I've always wanted to do myself. You guys have probably all heard of Estes Park, Colorado. It's near, I believe, Rocky Mountain park. In. In the north. Would it be northwest part of state? But they're like elk in town and during the rut, they're like the big bulls are knocking the side view mirrors off of cars and stuff like that. I'm not talking about getting that involved, but somewhere in that area where there's high concentrations of elk, where you can go see them in the rut and just observe their behavior. One of the things too, that I don't think hunters do well enough. I talk about it in one of my seminars is, you know, my clients always joke with me when we leave our hunting camp to go look for bulls. Most of the other camps we drive by, their lights still aren't on yet. I'm always the first one in the woods because what a lot of hunters do, and I'm not picking on you or anybody else that does this, I've done it too. A lot of hunters will stay in their car, roll their windows down, shut off the engine, listen for a bugle, and if they don't hear one, start their car up and go another couple hundred yards and do that, do that and do that. And that may work very effectively for some. What I do is I go to an area where I know one of my target bulls is very, very early and then I wait for him to bugle, but then once he does bugle, I get the win. And I always say three times I get the wind, I get the wind, I get the wind. And then I get into a spot so that when I hit legal shooting light, whatever that state regulations are, I'm already within a couple yards where I find a lot of hunters are just now getting ready to leave their vehicles and they're already behind. Especially if they're light sensitive elk, not deep enough in the rut yet, where as soon as those bulls start feeling that sunlight, we're seeing that sunlight on the tip of their antlers, they're going to want to start going into cover, especially if it's an air with a lot of pressure. So if you've got some of those variables on you being out there first and being out there early. So, yeah, repetition over time. Get those reps in, read some books, read some videos, learn how to call, Go to these places that have high density of elk where you can go play. Twenty years ago, I think you could go do a lot of that stuff in Yellowstone National Park. I don't know that you can anymore. I don't know that the elk numbers would support that type of activity anymore. But you can certainly get them to talk back to you. So just go play fail forward, don't be scared to screw up and just get some repetition. And as far you know, I would, I love taking new hunters because they don't have any bad habits yet. So we, I've actually had new hunters go, you probably, you might not want to guide me. I'm like, nope, I'm gonna. You, you, you get, you know, thousands of failed stocks with me. Like, I want to take you. And they'll even be like, dude, I don't know the difference between an elk track and an antelope track. I'm like, I'm happy to teach you all that. I love sharing this because it's what my extremely passionate about. So you want to geek out with me? I will go to that level with you. Like, how old is this elk poop? Well, let me pick it up and tell you, like, I will show you how fresh or how old it is. So I'm up for geeking out on any of that stuff. I know you are too. And I will say this to any of your listeners that haven't done it yet, haven't taken that first step. Maybe it's just me, but I would put a six pack of your favorite soda or cold beverage that if you've never heard an elk bugle in person, go do it once. Find a way to go do it once. I don't care what part of the country you live in, even if you're in the Midwest. You've got Elkharts in Kentucky that are established now. Pennsylvania that are established now. Virginia, they're established now. Michigan, they're established now. Go find you a place where you can listen to some elk bugles. For me, it changed my life and it might change yours too.

I. I love that sentiment. Just to be the devil's advocate, it's the most expensive noise you'll ever hear in your life. Because once you. Once you start, you can't. It's worse than drugs. Yeah, but no, it's such a good, such a good point and awesome podcast. A lot of great tips in there. I want to give you a second to talk about Zero Outfitter Fees. What is that? It's a new thing you're doing. I mean, you own the largest outfitting business in the country, I think, right? And now you're kind of this whole new model. This is something that's crazy. I want you to explain it because I'll screw it up.

It is totally crazy. It is totally nuts. We joke that we broke the Internet with this one. I think I mentioned earlier or off there, my first elk hunts we did 20 years ago were about 1750 bucks all in for a fully guided elk hunt in Arizona where you didn't shoot anything under 330 or 340 back then. And really everything was 350 and above if you could. And so the game has changed, right? So I watched our L contents at a minimum go up to that seven thousand dollar price range, all the way up to thirty thousand dollars for some of these private land outcomes now. And quite frankly, the majority of my clients from the last 20 years can't afford where we've gone with the price. And I priced them out. I priced potential new clients out. And as we grew, we kind of saw that the writing on the wall. We knew we had to do something and due to our size, we knew we could do it. So we created a program called Zero Outfitter Fees. And it's Very revolutionary in what it does, but it puts hunters back in charge of hunting again. And for the DIY client, it gives you the opportunity to go on a fully guided elk hunt for less than the cost of going on a do it yourself elk hunt. And what it is, it's a, it's a hunting club, it's exclusive. Not everybody gets in because it's time sensitive. Like we only allow so many members in at a time and when the membership is sold out, that level the price goes up again and the price goes up. But when you join the club, currently it's 997 a year, your fee will never go up. Your grandfathered, so your jobs go up over time due to bonus points, but your membership fee is grandfathered as long as you want to be a member. So what is your outfitter fees in a nutshell? It covers currently five states, but that list is growing. So that's Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada. It covers 14 different species within the membership. I won't list all of them, but you can see it on the website or on your website. If we hang it there and you tell us you're the boss and this can be an ongoing thing that you change. You tell us which of those 14 species in which of those five states you would like us to apply for you. We do all of the draw paperwork for you, not only for those five states, but as a bonus we'll do all the draws for you in all 50 states as part of your membership. So we'll take care of all your draw paperwork so you never have to remember the 75 different draw deadlines. You don't have to know a good unit from a bad unit. Where the wolves and bears are, where the fires were, what type of elk size and quality is in an area. Is this a rut hunt? Non red hunt. We do all that heavy lifting for you. Zero outfitter fee solves a lot of problems. But there's two giant ones it solves number one. We've made hunting affordable again because all these hunts would get you drawn for we literally outfit you and guide you for free. So what does that mean? You still pay your tag and your license. You're used to that, the app fee, a guider cook tip and your membership. But if you draw a $15,000 elk hunt in Wyoming and a $7,000 mule deer hunt in Arizona the same year, both of them are free. You pick out of 37 different hunts for 14 species. Which hunts you want us to apply for? We do all the applications for you. You get all the receipts so it's fully transparent. You know what's going on. Anything we get you drawn for, we'll guide you for free. So if you draw a desert bighorn cheap tag, you're going to get a contract. It's going to say, you know, your hunt balance is $15,000. The next sentence will say zero outfitter fees are submitted. A check for $15,000, your balance is $0. So again, you pay the things you're used to. The state license, application fee, big game tag. You do that whether you go with us or not. Then your guide or cook tip, and that's it. Everything else is totally covered for you. It's made hunting great again. It's made hunting affordable for everyone. And there's no long term contracts. If you draw the first year, that's great. You don't need points. If you have points, you have them. I would probably summarize by saying this. There's a big misconception. It's one of my seminars, I'm doing a Dallas fire club this week, that you need X amount of points for a quality hunt in Arizona. X amount of points for a quality hunt for all these different species. When you hear people talk about that, they're talking about what I refer to as the max point draw pool. That's where you have to be to get guaranteed attack. Zero outfitter fees. Put us in for the best available trophy hunts in those five states closest to the rut as possible with the highest draw odds. And every single one of those hunts, including sheep, including Rocky Mountain goat, you name it. These once in a lifetime hunts, all of your elk hunts, mule deer hunts, etc, have to have random non resident tags. So if you've never been applied in a draw before or you've been applying in a draw for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, it doesn't matter. I'm only putting in for hunts that have random non resident tags. In the last five years, over $2 million has been given away through zero outfitter fees to clients that would have paid combined over $2 million in 2024 alone. Just 2024, 54 clients and zero outfitter fees drew trophy hunts that saved over $600,000. Cumulatively, that includes the one guy that drew a desert bighorn sheep and an elk within the same year and hunted them both successfully with only one week off in between. I've got another client this year that drew elk and Barbary sheep. He killed a big bull. He's getting ready to do his Barbary sheep Hunt next month. I've got clients that have been the program for five years and have drawn four tags. We do all your paperwork. The longer you're in, the better your draws go. But your membership is grandfathered. It's very revolutionary, it's very new, it's zero outfitter fees and it's really put clients in control of their hunting destiny. But we also provide that leverage. I said we did a lot of big things, but two of them are major. We save you money because your hunts are free and we save you time. You don't have to figure out how to do the different draws. Good units from bad units, draw deadlines. It's all done in house. When you register, you pick your species, pick your states. We do the rest for you. So it leverages your money, saves you money and it gives you time. There's a lot of other things it does, but those are the major two.

Who is the ideal ideal client for this?

So mathematically speaking, there's a couple answers to that, what we have found. So let me back this up. We originally did it with the idea of blue collar hunters, mid income hunters who wouldn't be able to afford a 7,000, 10,000, 15, 20, $30,000 hunt. What's been interesting is my most affluent clients, my clients who can spend an infinite amount and do spend an infinite amount on hunting, not only the west but also internationally, have also joined. Part of it is because all of the membership perks that come with it that we haven't even talked about yet. So the ideal client, I would say if you're just putting in for one hunt with me, like let's say you're going for the North American 29 and you just need a coos deer and that's the only thing you're ever going to do out west. Then yeah, just book a koozie or hunt with me and go get your coos deer and check the box. However, 99% of people that want to hunt the west, they want elk, they want mule deer, A lot of them want whitetail, which for us is the coos. They want antelope, they want ibex, audad, oryx, desert bighorn, Rocky Mountain bighorn, bison, California bighorn. The list kind of goes on and on. So we put those 14 species in there. So who's the ideal client? The ideal client is somebody who meets the description of the things we talked about before from a mindset perspective, from an attitude perspective, from a patriotic perspective. You got to be a guy or gal that we're just going to want to be around. And you're going to want to be around us. You're going to be a person that's super positive, super fun, takes our hunting seriously, but doesn't take life so seriously that we can't have a good time together and joke about our successes and failures in camp. In fact, we often joke, if nobody's making fun of you around the campfire by day three, that's a sign that nobody likes you and that's not good. So we want guys to take their hunting seriously, but don't take their self so seriously. But here's the deal. At the end of the day, if all zero outfitter fees did for you was get you one hunt in 10 years, you still save thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So if you're somebody who's concerned about the prices and inflation that's come come along with hunting and if you're somebody who values your time and would just rather have somebody else manage your big game draws in all 50 states for you, then this 997 year membership is exactly what you want. We haven't even talked about some of the additional benefits. There's 1100 vendors that either have approached us or we've approached approached them that are in the hunting, fishing and outdoor space that say hey, here's what retail you'd go buy this product at Bass Pro or Cabela's for. But because you're an influential guide nowfitter, we're going to give you this price but we also want you to be able to extend that price to your clients. So I actually have clients and clients that really plug in and by that I mean they watch our our monthly Zoom town hall or quarterly Zoom Town hall. They read our weekly newsletter. Clients that actually plug in to what we're doing and are really part of the zero fitter fees. Family make money on their membership, whether it's the discounts on gear, there's travel discounts on rental cars and hotels and cruises and all inclusive vacations and you're thinking yourself what the heck does that have anything to do with big game hunting? Well, what we realized is when you're asking your spouse to go on a big hunting or fishing trip, their biggest concern is how much it's going to cost. Well, not only have we solved the cost by your hunt being free, but now there's a perk for her too. Because if I can save you 500 bucks to take her on a cruise, if I can save you 1500 bucks to take her to an all all Inclusive beach vacation in Cancun. Like those things alone are going to pay for your membership and everybody wins and there's no objection. That's why we have a 96 to 98 retention rate within the club. We just continue to deliver value. What we've learned is in the absence of values, when it becomes about money. So we're constantly, my team and I, every year, how do we bring you more value? How do we bring you more value? So again, if you valuable, if you believe that hunting's got expensive, whether you're a DIY guy or a guy like simultaneous, and you have no interest in learning the 50 different states for the draws, or even if you do, you just like the knowing somebody's doing it for you so that you never miss a deadline date. Because those are miserable experiences if you've never had one. That's just the most helpless feeling in the world is to know you miss a draw deadline. One states, I've done it.

I've done it.

Then this is for you. Yeah. Then this is for you.

So if I'm a member, if I'm a member, do I assume I automatically get into New Mexico draw or guided draw stats or whatever? So it's like for those who don't know, if you go to me, if you go to New Mexico, it's a separate pool. If you use a guide, essentially high, higher draw odds, right. For a lot of these. So say I want to draw an odd ad in New Mexico. Like I'm going to go guided. So I assume that if I'm a member, do I get guided for New Mexico and Nevada?

Great question. So I'm going to let you in on a little secret that I don't tell everybody, but I'm going to share with you guys. First of all, the answer. Nevada is very easy. We don't do the guided outfitter mule deer draw there. And I want to tell you why. The guided outfitter mule deer draw in Nevada is very specifically to be to the benefit of guides. I'm not saying that's bad. Don't mishear me. These are my brothers. They got to eat too. We have what we call the diamond standard. And if the hunts that they're offering in that pool don't meet our expectations for what a trophy mule deer is, which is a 170 to 180 type minimum here in the States or 180 and above in our private land camps in Sonora, Mexico, we won't take that hunt. And so we've watched that pool year after year, not Produce what we call the diamond level type hunt. So it's not a bad thing that they're designated for the guides. But I believe win win or no deal in business. So it's got to be 50 good for me, 50% good for you or we shouldn't do it. Even if it's 51% for me and 49 good for you, we shouldn't do it. So I believe that's how we build long standing winning relationships is by being very transparent. I'm not saying you can't go kill a good buck on that hunt. I'm not saying you could have a good time. But we don't do that specific pool in Nevada, New Mexico, where this is where I was going to let you in on a little bit of a secret because this has changed a lot since COVID and I don't often talk about this on the national stage because I almost do feel like it's this little hidden gem. But I'm going to share it with you in your audience. In years we, since COVID we've experimented with clients in the guide and outfitter pool and guides outside of the guide and outfitter pool. And just so everybody knows like you say and they designate, I'm going to say 6% towards not in the pool and 10% towards the pool just for numbers sake. And what we have found, especially in the last two years was clients had more success in the non resident draw than they did in the guidance outfitter pool. And part of the reason in my research has been because since COVID there was a lot more people going to the woods, a lot more people seeing value and having a hunting guide flooded that pool to the point where even though there's more tags, statistically speaking, you had a better draw outside of it. For example, this year just Barbary sheep, you would think, you know, those are random. Who would ever think about those? Well, we have 80 outfitter fee Barbary sheep hunters in February and we haven't had eight people draw that hunt in the last three years combined that drew it this year in the zero outfitter fees pool. In the non outfitter pool we had more hunters in the Gila, we had more hunters in the Lincoln in the non outfitter pool than in the than in the outfitter pool. So we always talk about when we put you in for these draws, what's going to give you the best opportunity for trophy genetics, closest to route where possible, with the best draws. I talk a lot about a big pile of a big pot of soup those first three ingredients, which are the major. Even though there's 10 ingredients, those first three ingredients are the most important. Best trophy genetics. Closest to the route, where possible, with the best draws. So we have a whole team dedicated just to the draw. My staff, and that's kind of how we pick every year. So we're always trying to do what's in your best interest. And if we're going to continue to have more draw success outside of that pool than in it, then we'll continue to do that. But it does vary from year to year, and we will always put you in the draws and what we think is your best interest. The motto of zero fighter fees is hunt more and spend less. But as you can appreciate, this program doesn't work if we don't have hunters out there tagging animals, being successful on free hunts. It only works because there's so many hunters out there that have been on Free Hunt. $2 million in the aggregate, over $600,000 in 2024 alone. That's what makes this work. If I was just out there selling zero outflare fees, it wouldn't work. But it's in the proof of $2 million in savings and trying to navigate how to get people drawn the most often as possible. Like, I don't care if you draw elk in the same year in all five states, we'll take you on all five hunts for free. That's not always what typically happens. Clients will run out of vacation time or whatever. But that's our level of commitment to the program. Whatever you draw, we take you on. And again, anything you don't draw that you get a bonus point for, your draws go up dramatically over time. So even though your membership price is grandfather, your draws go up. So that's kind of how we navigate those draws. The big two ingredients, big three ingredients, I'm sorry, in the pot of soup. Best trophy genetics possible. Closest to the route where possible, with the best draw. So those are the first three. There's about seven minor ingredients I can share if you want, but those are the the most important ones. And the big three that we base our integrity off of to make sure you guys are getting the most bang for your buck.

Hypothetically, say I become a member. Can I say, oh, here's the hunts I want to do in New Mexico? Or is it kind of. Is it a little bit dictated by the hunts that you guys can outfit in, or.

Yeah, great question. So. So you're in charge of the states and the species, so you say, I want to do Elk in these five states, antelope in three states, mule deer in two states, whatever. Now let me just take a side trail from that and say when we don't put you in for a hunt, here's what you're telling us. You're saying I wouldn't go on. So let's say somebody says, put me in for mule deer in three states, but not in Utah and not Nevada. Okay, so what you're telling me, Cody, is if I got got you a free hunt in Nevada for a 170 or 180 type and better mule deer hunt, you wouldn't go on it? It doesn't meet your goals? Well, if it were free, I would go. Okay, then we should put you in so the more out of the 37 hunts we can apply for, the more hunts you apply for, the better your overall draw. So you tell me the species in the states, then my staff and I pick the units and, and you pick your, your weapon type. So if you're rifle, muzzleloader, or archery, you give us that data based on your goals because this is all about you and your membership. So you're the boss. You totally dictate what you want to do. What we're never gonna do is put you in for a bad hunt. So if you're like, hey, I want to put in for zone W in Nevada, and we know that's like you're gonna see three meal during a week, we're not gonna do that. So going back to that big pot of soup, it's gotta be the best trophy genetics closest to the rut where possible with the best rods. So those are the first three things we're gonna consider because we don't necessarily put you in for the same hunt year after year after year. We talked about the smaller ingredients in that pot. Let me share with some of those because it comes into play. How did we do in that unit last year? Let's take elk for example. Did we kill off all of our top end elk? If we did, we might not put clients in for that unit next year. Now if we have a crop of up and coming bulls that are going to be shooters next year, then we'll take that back into consideration. But what if there was a disease outbreak? What if there's too many bears or wolves in that unit? What if there's a wildfire? What if there's a drought? What if the habitat and range conditions are poor? Any of those other smaller ingredients in the pot go into consideration for what hunts we're going to put you in for? So any of the hunts we put you in for have to meet the diamond standard. They have to be closest to us, possible for the best genetics with the best draws. So you're going to tell us the species, you're going to tell us the states, you're going to tell us the weapon type, and then my admin team and I are going to take care of the rust because it's based on what you told us you want. Now, when you register with us, we're going to do an onboarding and we're going to pick all that stuff. But guess what? You're not locked into it. If a week later, like, hey, I don't know, I, I didn't put antelope on it, but I thought about it. If I drew a free antelope hunt, heck yeah, I would go, well, then my staff's going to upgrade your file so you can update your file with us. My office is open Monday through Friday 9 to 5, but you're also going to have your own online portal where you can literally click on the state. So literally, you could click on the state of Arizona. It's going to say, okay, here's what we're doing for you. And you're going to go, oh, antelope's not checked. You're going to check antelope, you're going to check the weapon type, you're going to check apply for me. And magically we're going to do that. So even though when we onboard you, we interview and say which of those 37 hunts you want, you can always change, change your mind at any time during your membership because you're, after all, you're the boss. So you pick the states of species, of weapon type and then you trust us to make sure we're putting for the best trophies and that closest to the route where possible with the best rods, we leverage you. That's, that's that time component. We want to save you time. In addition to solving the financial picture problem and take you on a guided hunt lesson diy, I also want to save you time.

Yeah. Now this is. I'm gonna have to dive into it, but I check it out for sure, man. And I appreciate so much coming on. Lots of great info, lots of great stuff. We're gonna have to have you on again because we didn't get to the thing I wanted to talk about. But hey, there's always room for another podcast. But Dan, thank you so much for, for coming on, sharing some knowledge and, and I opening my eyes to this whole zero outfitter fees. I like it. I like free hunts. I can get on board with this.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and your audience and God bless you and God bless America and really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today. All right.

Thanks, Dan, so much.

Yes, sir.

That was good, man. I sorry it went so long, but no problem. Yeah, yeah. This is interesting. I have to dive into it. I you like a part of me.

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.