The Fundamentals of Scouting For Mule Deer & Elk | Solo Round

Foreign to the Hunt west podcast, here's your host, Jaden Bales. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hunt West Podcast. Before we get rolling, I just wanted to take a minute and make sure that you knew how much I appreciated you listening. I know that a lot of you have been reaching out after podcasts and talking to me about the different topics that we've covered or you've reached out to get a service with Hunt west to help plan your. Your fall, help plan an upcoming hunt, whether it's elk, deer, antelope, any of them. And I just really appreciate it and I, I appreciate you being here and listening. The other thing that I think is really interesting is a lot of you guys have tuned in for the solo podcast and that's why we're doing another one today. They seem to have a lot more downloads and, and maybe it's because when I'm running solo, I can be really targeted about a specific topic and hopefully help you cover some ground when it comes to one specific item at a time. And I know that a lot of the stories and a lot of the tactics woven into stories are helpful for people and really entertaining. But today I wanted to do another solo podcast and keep it rolling. This one all about scouting. I did a Instagram story the other day. If you aren't following me on Instagram or Hunt west on Instagram, please do so. It's going to be linked up below in the show notes. I try to interact with a lot of people on there and try to help people with some quick questions. And if you do have other quick questions and you just want to get a quick response that's really detailed, you can also check out the Hunt Buddy, as I called it. It's linked up below. You can ask it some questions. It's got all of my knowledge from podcasts and from client sessions and articles I've written in the past loaded onto there and can really help you out with tech. Different questions you might have asking. Jeez, I said that weird. Different questions you might be asking. In particular, I saw that someone used it the other day to explain the difference between preference points and bonus points. And the response it gave, I swear, was better than something I could have gave myself. So if you have quick questions about upcoming hunts that you want to check out, go give that little AI bot a try. I know it's weird because it's all this new technology that we haven't tried before, but it would be really cool if you go try it. Let me know what you think and give me some feedback. And if you really like it and you're likely using it a lot, I would love it if you help me pay for it. It's nine bucks a month. If you wanted to have unlimited messaging. It cost me money to run it and a lot of time to upload and keep it fresh. So that would be much appreciated. Keep in mind that that little hunt buddy, it doesn't do great with specific, like little drainages of specific little hunt areas, but it can really help you fill in the gaps on gear or on timing of your hunts, on planning and the how to of different areas and what you're looking for on a bigger picture. So go check that out if you haven't already. Okay, let's dive into this scouting episode. Today. I wanted to give you an overview of scouting for mule deer and elk and break it up into, you know, pre migration hunts for the low country and the high country for mule deer, as well as migration and rut hunts for mule deer. And then talk about scouting for elk when it comes to mostly September and early October hunts when they're rutting and we're going to talk about the difference between low country and high country. Some of the different questions that people have been asking me, and I will use those kind of questions to queue up a story. I've been spending a lot of time just diving in deep as to what it means to do this stuff to the fullest extent. It started off because I was just wanting to be really successful and. And then it turned into like kind of a love of the game, a love of the craft for this stuff. So I, whether it's been through reading or listening to podcasts or interviewing people or experiences on my own, I have definitely kind of ran the gamut, especially as it's related to different approaches that might be successful for mule deer and elk. And I apply those every fall, you know, whether it's my own hunts or, or guiding guys. And I hope that basically this podcast will give you kind of the one on one level of, of scouting. If we're going to dive in super deep, you usually have to start talking about a specific scenario. And those, you know, are all on a case by case basis. But I'll. I'll let you know what has worked for me with specific stories and try to back up some of the answers and some of the principles that I think work as someone who is wanting to scout. Also, I should address the elephant in the room. There's probably a lot of you who don't have the time or the money or the resources, or you're just live a long ways away from the west and aren't going to be able to scout. And I wanted to acknowledge that that's a real thing for you people. Hunting the same place year after year is your version of scouting. It's understanding that when you roll into some place for the first time, you're going to. Doesn't matter how good of e scouting you can do, your success is going to vary based on the specifics of the location and your knowledge as to how to make good on what you're finding on the ground. Right. So as much as I want to tell you that, you know, my services are the silver bullet, I do think it's really important to acknowledge that there really isn't a replacement for just spending time afield and specifically time a field in the places you're going to be hunting. Whether that's scouting and making time to go out there in the summer before the hunting season start, and then launching into your hunting season on a different trip or by hunting the same place year after year, it just like, there's not much of a replacement for spending time in the woods. When I was a kid, we. My best friend, his. His grandpa, actually he was living with his grandpa. His grandpa owned this property at the end of the road right up against the national forest. He had 640 acres and he got landowner elk tags. These elk tags were in one of the best units in Oregon. And consistently, Larry would shoot these freaking tank bulls. I remember shot like a 364 bull. Larry was consistently shooting bulls that were in that 330 to 360 range. And you know, we would ask him, we'd get advice from him. And this is when we were in junior high, high school, maybe even before junior high. And oftentimes he would just say, like, yes, I put a lot of time in and he does a lot of scouting, runs, trail cameras and. But he set up his life so he could also spend as much time out there doing these things as he could. And that's the biggest difference when it comes to actual success on the mountain, is honestly just time a field. And that means for a lot of us who are traveling, exploring new areas, time a field means getting time in a field in the summer by doing some scouting and understanding the places that you're going to be hunting. So let's dive into the mule deer example. Everyone knows, I think, who listens to this podcast, that I really love mule deer hunting for myself in particular. It Seems to be like, I have guided a lot more elk hunts and I've hunted a lot more for myself for mule deer. And a lot of my summer time is usually spent scouting for mule deer. But if I draw a tag or if I have clients on a specific elk hunt, I will go and do scouting for them, too. So we're going to address the elk side a little later. But when it comes to mule deer scouting, a common question that I got, you know, I posted this on Instagram, and a common question I got was, how early is too early? Will mule deer be there? Like, et cetera, et cetera, like, can't. Is scouting. How effective is scouting? And I don't know how to drive home the fact more aggressively that mule deer scouting is the difference between getting a higher quality buck and not. Most of the time, mule deer just are so predictable when it comes to their habits. On the long term, mule deer, you know, there's a lot of good studies that show how mule deer are going to migrate the same path every year. They're going to stick to the same core home range. They're going to be doing the same thing year after year. But there's some, like, micro changes, right? Like you still are working within a bubble that is probably a couple miles around as far as a mule deer's home range. So you have to think big as to what the home range is. But then once you stick to or once you find a deer that's in this home range, you can stick to understanding that little home range and really getting it figured out and know that you can come back in September or early October and find that deer in that same place. It's the same with mountain deer before they migrate. And it's the same with, especially with low country deer that may migrate, may not migrate much. One of the cool things about, you know, mule deer scouting is it just gets you more reps. It gets you more reps in glassing. And I'm going to go through a couple of these questions just a little bit rapid fire. And then I'm going to tie them into some stories here. First, my friend Aaron. She's done some sessions with me. She's great. She asked me how early is too early for scouting mule deer. Most of the time. I really like scouting for mule deer. Right around the 4th of July and on a couple of years ago, it was that hard winter and things had stayed green really long. And I got a collared buck on a trail camera. This trail camera was helping me understand what was happening with Deer that moved a lot in this little area. Because some days I'd glass and there'd be, you know, this buck is on this hillside. The next day I glass, and there wouldn't be any a couple miles away. I'd be driving by and I'd see them in the dark, and I'd be like, oh, where are they living? And I'm trying to piece all these things together through my scouting and through the use of trail cameras. And that's what I had this trail camera set up for. It was on a pinch point. It wasn't even. It wasn't on a water hole. It wasn't on, like some sort of a tract in or anything. It was just a pinch point in the rocks where the deer and other animals, like, walked through all the time. And I got this deer that had a collar on it. And this is the year after the bad winter. So things had stayed up, stayed green for a lot longer. And this buck walked through on July 12th. And immediately after I checked the camera, I started asking around to try to find out, you know, whose collar was this deer. And I asked one researcher, they say, no, it's not ours. You know, they were probably like 30 miles away doing their collaring. And I was like, okay, well, maybe not them. They obviously it wasn't that caller. So I was like, okay, who else has collars out? They sent me to the next person over, and I was like, oh, yeah, 60 miles away. Like, maybe we'll see what they say. That person goes, no, that's not our caller. And I said, okay, well, who else has got these callers? And they pointed me in another direction of this study that I. I hadn't known about at the time. And sure enough, it was this, like, last, you know, this third person that I had asked, it was their call. And this deer had started migrating in early July. And when I had seen this deer, he had already traveled. And I'm mapping it out real, real quick. He'd already traveled like 70 miles to get to this point. But I had my trail camera. And then I stayed in contact with that researcher, just kind of curious, like, hey, did he stop? Or like, what? You know, what ended up happening with this buck? Turns out he went up another 10 miles past where my pinch point was. And I was like, holy crap. Like, so if deer migrating, you're not going to get great reliable information from scouting super early. That's in these, again, these migrational, like, herds. If you're in a localized deer herd, maybe you're scouting in June can start turning up some better information. But really after that, I stopped scouting so much in June, and I started scouting just right about the 1st of July, 4th of July, somewhere in there. This year. It was really interesting. I confirmed some thoughts that I had on some really low country stuff. These deer in this particular spot frequent an ag field and they bed on. On public land, and then they go to the ag field where you can't get them. And last year on, I went back and looked at my photos. I found a buck on July 15th, and there was three of them running together. That were four points, three bucks running together. And none of them were really like next level bucks. They were nice, but I didn't necessarily want to hunt those specific deer. However, a friend of mine contacted me during the deer season in October. And it was right after I killed. It was. I killed my buck in the morning. This buddy hit me up. He was like, hey, do you got. Do you want to hunt deer this evening? And I was like, yeah, dude, I know where a couple bucks we're living this summer. So this is like the 19th of October. And I was like, let's go back to where I saw these three bucks all summer long. And he just wants a four point, right? Like he's, we're not being picky here. But I go, there's three bucks that you should. You could shoot out of this group. Let's see if they're around. So we go sit on the glassing knob. And the first buck pops up, walks straight into. He was like, popped up right next to the private, walked into private. And we're like, God dang it. Well, there's one. The next buck popped up, he's in private already. He was like bedded in this little cut over there. And I was like, God dang it, there's two. And then we're sitting here waiting, and it's feeling like it's getting dark. And I'm like, man, guys, should we. Should we probably bag it? And we stand up and there's a buck right below us. And it's like, oh, crap, there's three. Sure enough, that buck, my buddy laid down shot that buck. And we got one of the three deer that we had spotted in July 15th on October 19th. That was awesome. That made me feel really good. It was just like, yeah, clearly this stuff works. And now keep in mind, that's a, that's a low country area. There's not much migration happening that far out in the desert. And maybe there's some movement, you know, especially once it comes to rut time, but for the most part, you can rely on those deer being there. Funny thing is, I went out there not that long ago, like on July 2 this year to check out what was happening on that section, and I found both of those other two bucks. They both got lived through the winter. They didn't get shot on the last day of season. And those two deer are right back on that same parcel. And I was like, God dang, dude, this is sweet. Like, very, very tied back to their home range. So that's one of the beautiful things about scouting is one, you get to know some deer, you get to watch them get a little bit bigger every year, and you get to understand a little area really nicely. Like, I, if, if we wanted to shoot a buck out of there this year, I wouldn't think that it would be terribly difficult just because we understand how to get up to a good glassing knob, watch where the deer are coming through. And basically the only factor is whether or not the deer play the game like we want them to play and stay off that private so that we can get a shot. So that is like a really classic example. And just to tie that all in a bow. Aaron asks how early is too early? I think June is pushing it awfully early. Beginning of July isn't too bad, especially if it's not like a major migration. But you can still find some deer that continue their migration in early July. But once you hit about that mid July mark, that's really when things are settling into their suburb patterns. I like that mid July into, you know, the early part of August as when to hit it really, really hard. Weirdly enough, this year I'm not going to be in like the sweet spot that August 1st to 10th. I'm going to be up in Alaska with my brother and my friend Jeff Lund. So I'm going to miss some of that. So I'm putting some scouting days in, in July this year, seeing, seeing how much I can learn in some new areas before, before the hunting seasons hit. So another piece of this equation when you're scouting, you know, low country mule deer, or high country for that matter, is and Garrison asked this question, how long am I giving a buck that I scouted before I leave in the hunting season? That oftentimes is a question of the scenario and like, how picky you're wanting to be. A few years ago, I found, and it was the best buck that I've taken to date. I found this deer on July 16th. I saw him and went in There scouting a whole bunch of times. And I saw him on that July 16, but I went in there three or four, maybe five more times. I was looking around while in other spots, too, breaking up the days that I had available to get dedicate to this buck versus other ones that I might find. And I saw him on July 16, and I never saw him again for a while. I kept finding his running mates, though. The deer that he was with that day that I saw him on July 16, I ended up going back in there, and I hunted around that area for a lot of September trying to find this. This buck and try to get an arrow in him. I never did find that specific deer. And I was like, man, like, what in the world's going on? I think part of my challenge was I kept bouncing around to different glassing knobs, thinking that maybe he's just over the ridge, Maybe he's just, like, in a new drainage. Maybe, you know, he just moved a mile or two off, and I can't see him. So I kept bouncing around all the time. Then came opening day of rifle season, October 15th. My brother was hunting with me, and I knew that those other bucks had been in there so consistently, it was the last place I'd seen this one big deer that I was like, there's not a better place for us to start. Let's just go in here. On October 15th, sure enough, we get up to the knob, and right at first light, we spot the band of bucks. We get in there, and my brother shoots a nice 4.1 that I had seen a whole bunch of times in my scouting in this area. And then I shot the buck that I was after since July 16, right after that. And in looking at the map, you know, from where I saw my buck to where he got killed was 600 yards. He was on the same slope. He was doing the same basic thing. It just. I had missed him. I probably didn't give that spot enough time during the archery season to turn him up. So that all taught me. It's like, man, if you know there's a good buck in an area, stick with that glassing knob. He's probably right there, and you just haven't seen him yet. Especially because all those other bucks were doing the same thing the whole time as well. Maybe he had just broke off and he went to bed earlier, or he had taken a different route, or he had, you know, gone over the ridge right before everybody else. And it just was one of those things. I was just missing him. I wish I had spent More time on that glass and knob in September. But as it worked out, you know, my brother and I both got nice bucks on opening day of rifle season, October 15th. So Garrison, to answer your question more succinctly, I am not going to leave a buck if I am dedicated to getting that one. Now that I know that. Another example would be a couple years ago, I found this deer that was just a stud. He was the best deer I've ever found while scouting for myself and I was stoked to shoot this buck. I patterned him a few days before season and then it just so happened, like on opening day of archery season, a helicopter came through and was spraying cheat grass right where this buck was living. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening. So then I basically bounced from that spot middle of the day. And just so happened I turned up another really nice deer. It was 27 inch, 170 inch deer that I ended up shooting with my bow, which I was tickled pink. I was so excited about that buck and still am really excited about the deer I shot that day. However, I've been back to that other glassing knob looking for that buck so many times and I'm leading. You know this, we're two seasons later now and I haven't seen this like just absolute stomper again. I think if I'd have stuck with him, that would have been my best chance to have turned him up. Because having left him, I'll never know, you know, I'll never know if he was back in that spot the next couple of days or not. So I would just say if you're finding a, if you've got a buck in the low country and you've scouted him, don't leave that spot. Just grind it out. Now that's like the not fun answer because when you're grinding out one glassing knob, it is so boring. That hike in, you just about Dan near fall asleep every time that you're walking in on the same footsteps as the day before. But I think know in talking to guys like Robbie Denning, Travis Hobs, Braxton Hamilton, like guys who just consistently find a buck, stick with him and get him killed. Dion A much. See, I got that name down. Now those are the kinds of of guys that constantly say the same thing. It's like stick with it, stick with it. He's right there. So if he's really good target buck, I'm not going to leave him. If you have other deer found and you're like, fine with shooting in different deer, then obviously, like, go, go look for another buck if you're bored. Like, if you're at that stage where you want to keep it fun and keep it interesting, like, sure. But if you're ready to grind it out and find that, like, next level deer don't leave. That's what I've learned, and that's what a lot of those. Those guys who've gotten some really crazy big deer have imparted on me. So that's the answer to that. In addition to Garrison's question about how long do you hunt a buck that you've scouted? Before leaving, he asked me, how, you know, would I decide to build an inventory of deer or get to know one or two deer really intimately? If it's scouting. If it's scouting season, and I've seen a buck once or twice, probably three times even, and I know he's, like, in this general vicinity, I'm going to leave and keep looking. And I know this is kind of crazy because a lot of people just sit there and watch this one deer. But for me, it's like, I'm going to confirm that this deer lives in this area. Whether that takes two days, whether it takes, you know, a couple of trips to glass him up one day and then glass them up another day. Once I've identified that that buck's living there, I'm going to go keep looking until hunting season, because then once hunting season hits, I'm going to focus all that effort on the. The. The deer, the target buck that I really want to get after. But you never know what's around the other bend. So use your scouting time to have a lot of options in your pocket. Heck, you never know when you're going to roll in on opening day and someone's going to be sitting right on top of that buck and shoot them out from underneath you, and you got to go find other deer. So like I said, in scouting, I'll build inventory more than sit on one or two bucks. Build, build inventory in scouting, dedicate to one buck once hunting season has started. So that's my answer. With that, Brett asked, how do you scout open country muleys? I think you can kind of pull some of these things that I've talked about and create some sort of, like, tactics or strategies. But essentially, what I'm looking for in open country, low country, badlands type things is some sort of reason for the deer to be there. Usually that means it's going to be kind of hard to access. You're going to have some private sanctuaries around it. You're going to have some sort of feed or water situation that is unique to that area that is going to create better habitat for them. And you're going to want to make sure that there's some sort of escape kind of habitat. I, I, you can kind of say that's private. But if the private's just a flat alfalfa field and is surrounded by flat, you know, sage brush where they can't escape very well, you know, I'm gonna judge that one differently than if you have a private where there's some like steep canyons, coolies type things where they can go bed and not be seen super easily. So what I'm looking for again, I'm looking for maybe there's an alfalfa field, there's a hay field, there's something that they're feeding on, or there's, there's a creek bottom nearby where they're getting water consistently and it's got good feed. Something that's going to attract them into a concentrated area. Another version of that might also be like a fire. Like a fire comes through and oftentimes the regrowth right after that, even in low country is really, really good. It's really nutritious and it's the stuff that is going to hold deer in the area. So that buck story I just was telling you about with my brother, those deer were using a burn that torched off fourth of July weekend. I think it was a, it was a lightning fire. It wasn't actually a, it wasn't like a rogue firework, but there was a lightning fire fourth of July weekend. It died out a few days later. And in the wake of that really short burn, basically that we also got some monsoon rains. And those monsoon rains made it look like a little golf course underneath all of the scorched trees and all the scorched sagebrush and other things that were in the area. So they were really attracted to that burn and they still are. I've been in there last year and they're still using it. So a burn is another feature that I would look for in the low country and in the high country, really that would attract, attract critters, especially if it's a newer burn. I think people often times will wait until that 3, 4, 5 year mark on a burn to, before going in there. I'm in the opposite camp. I want to be in there first. And even though you might have other friends, AKA just other hunters that are going to be in there at the same time as you. I'd rather be the first one in there than be the last one in there. And especially if it's like a mountain burn and a lot of the, the vegetation has grown up so high that you can't really see the deer using it. I'd rather be in the early versus later in that situation. So again, if you're looking for low country, open country, badlands type muleys, I like burns, I like agriculture, I like water, and I like private land nearby where they can have sanctuaries as well as some rugged country where they can, they can get away. So I hope that answers your question, Brett. I really appreciate it. So my friend Rob, he is the wi fi physio on Instagram. Rob is awesome. Rob asked how do you start glassing? So like, when you actually get to a high point that you've identified via E Scouting, how do you start glassing? And I know a lot of people like to talk about gridding and doing that whole thing, but I am not a big gritter unless it's the middle of the day. Most of the time when it's first, first light, I'm just checking the best areas. Animals are going to be moving and as they're moving, that movement in a stable bino or a wear spotter for that matter is going to be really apparent compared to gridding, where you're trying to find an animal that's bedded already. So I would start by looking at the best areas. You know, I'm checking creek bottoms where they're going to be traveling up or down. I'm going to be checking ridge lines that they're using as travel corridors and I'm going to be checking likely feet. That's going to be how I start my day. And then if I'm glassing middle of the day, which is how I found that, that archery buck a couple of years ago, that's when I start grading. That's when I start looking really close, underneath trees, underneath bushes, into timber, into burns. And I'm going to be just trying to find the horizontal line of a back or the flicker of an ear or like an antler as it turns out, in their bed. That's going to be the difference. And it's, it's like I said, situationally dependent whether I grid or whether I'm just kind of checking the best spots. And most of the time, if it's prime time in the morning or in the evening, then I'm, then I'm going to check the best Spots, but gridding is great for middle of the day. Thanks for that question, Rob. I really appreciate it. So we've talked a lot about, you know, deer, especially in the low country here. High country is very similar. I hunted a buck in the high country in 2020 that I had found in July. I went up for my birthday, which is July 19, and found this really nice deer that I wanted to chase. Was back in there on September 1, blew a stock on him on September 1 and blew a whole bunch of bucks out at one time. Got some more stocks on deer throughout that week. But it was very helpful to have been in there scouting in the high country that way. That was more at the top though. And I, I've gotten some other questions just organically on social media about especially like high country hunts where you're where you should be looking to do your scouting. Oftentimes if you're in the highest thousand feet, highest 2,000ft of a mountain range, you're going to be seeing mostly bucks up there until they drop out. Like AKA they've lost their velvet or even like after they've lost their velvet, they're going to hang up there well into October and usually, you know, big snow is going to push them out or you'll find out like some herds are migratory. Just on the calendar dates, you should do a little bit of research as to what you're dealing with. If you're an October deer hunter and you're going high, but for the most part, high country deer, again, they're like usually at the top. If they're going to be using the mountain, you're gonna find some, you know, find some deer that tell me I'm wrong, which is fine. But that's good because that means you found a deer that is in a different spot that people are looking. But essentially I'm gonna be hunting the extremes for scouting. I'm gonna be looking for deer in the extremes. Either the tippy top of the mountain, the top 2,000ft, or down in the low transitional stuff where they're non migratory. That's essentially how I break it apart. And again, you're going to be looking for very much so the same type of things like what's the best feed. I don't necessarily look for water that much in the high country because usually they get a ton of water from their, their food. But if there's a creek bottom 2,000ft down, man, it's nothing for them to drop a couple miles and go get water every three or four days and then come Way back up to the top. So I'm looking at the top. It sucks to live up there at the top because you usually need water and that means you have to drop 2,000ft to the bottom and get, get water out of the creek. But the bucks, that's what they love to do. It seems like they, their version of escapement up there is usually really, really rough country. And most oftentimes, if you're scouting high country, mountain type deer, you're going to be wanting to look for more rugged country, cliffy stuff with little benches and like little pockets of feed. Avalanche shoots are really great little basins that are really scree filled that have pockets of, of good jack pines for them to bed in, or little meadows and stuff. You're not looking for a giant golf course. Like you don't want it just to be a carpet of green everywhere. You're going to have to have some terrain breakups and some steep stuff that provide them with good bedding and escapement from like, escapement both from hunters, but also from just mountain lions or whatever carnivore predators there are up in the mountains. So usually when I'm in the high country, yeah, I'm looking in for steeper stuff. But a lot of the same principles apply. What's going to attract them there? Is there good feed? Is there good escapement? Burns are usually a good overlay over the top of all of these features to help open up some of the canopy and find deer that are in an area that you might not normally be able to glass. Um, for people like in western Montana, parts of Oregon, Idaho, those burns, I think are, you know, more often than not, they're going to be your, they're going to be your lifeline. I started hunting some high country and it was for elk and deer in eastern Oregon when I was in college. And we centered our hunt around this like big burn area. And we kept seeing deer and elk in this thing. And it was like very obvious that once you break up that canopy, it's an attractant. And they're not going to be necessarily in the center of it, depending on how grown up it is, but they definitely will be using the edges. So that's where I would, I would throw my glass if I'm in the high country. And you've got a burn to be, to be working with. So migration and rut hunts are hard to scout for, especially, you know, for mule deer, if you're talking about a November hunt or late October hunt, when bucks aren't necessarily rut in Full force is pretty darn tough to do great scouting for it. Every time I've had a migration deer hunt, I have either not scouted. Like, I. I didn't scout for my Idaho hunt last year, but I still went on it. I'd driven through that area enough, though, that I knew what I was looking for, like, where I wanted to start before ever entering the unit. So I had a little bit of a leg up as far as that was concerned. But, like, when I had my Colorado tag a few years ago, we went down in June just to get a lay of the land, Just to find out which are the best glass and knobs. I say we. My. My friend mason went down with me just to hang out, and we were taking note, like, there were deer in the low country at that point in time. So basically we kept saying, like, okay, well, if there's deer in the low country already, there's just going to be more of them once migration hits. So that's, like, something to think about and approach to take on these migration hunts is if you're in does that are in lower elevation already, you might want to come back to that area, especially if you've got some escapement for bucks to get old in, if that's what you're looking for. So be thinking about that. The other piece of this equation. I just was reading a story the other day about this guy who hunted. He wrote a book called the versatile trophy hunter. I think his name's Bill butler, and he was hunting in Montana, and he wanted to help his dad get a really nice buck. His dad was 75 years old and had never shot a really nice deer. He was kind of a meat hunter from back in the day. So he was this Bill Butler guy. He was a sheep guide. And as he was looking for sheep, he took note of this big wad of does that were in the high country. And it was early season. I think he was saying it was September, and he was looking for sheep. And he was like, man, that's a. That's, you know, 30 does or whatever in this basin. He's like, I'm gonna come back here and come back here with dad and see what we can find for a buck in later seasons. So it was like, the second week of November. Him and his dad drive up to this basin where he'd seen a whole bunch of does a while before, like, two months before. And they roll up there, and sure enough, those does are there, and they're like, all right, sweet. They break out the spotting scope and they're looking, they're looking, they're looking through these does and sure enough they find a suite like 170 buck. And his, his 75 year old dad shoots this deer out of this do group he had found early season. I think that is probably the best case scenario as a, as a scout for these late season hunts is you might take inventory of doe groups and if you find bucks like, certainly like, make note of that, especially if it's a big one. I would spend some time in there, in the local vicinity checking doe groups right near there. But for the most part it's like okay, if you're, if you're talking about the classic high country hunt in Colorado, I like checking out the low country where you're going to be hunting in the later season and taking nowhere where deer are already in the low country and then coming back to those spots, especially if there's some escapement, some private land or some other feature that makes it hard to get to. In particular, here's like a really interesting story. I like to just go look at deer on the winter range outside my home in Lander. And a couple of years ago, I'm trying to think it was, it was right when the hard winter had started. So it was like November. There was a bunch of snow on the ground and I just wanted to go look at. I knew deer are going to be on their feet. I want to go look at deer. So I drove around, I found this really sweet buck. I think it was 32 wide. He had some crazy junk coming off. He wasn't a big scorer, but he was just like a big old deer. And I took a video of him and I was like, dude, this thing is sweet. So then fast forward to the next fall. My friend Jared, who was on this podcast, he shoots this buck and I'm like, no freaking way. That is the same buck that I just videoed last November. And Jared asked me, hey, can you help me pack this buck out? He's like, I trust you to keep this place, you know, to a, to a. Hush, hush. And I was like, okay, I'll come help you pack out. So I went in there the next day and I was like, holy crap, Jared. I videoed this buck in my phone and it was the middle of November. He was retting his face off less than a mile from here. It was just like really incredible to think about the fact that he shot this deer with his bow in September, less than a mile from where I videoed him rutting on does in, in November. So it is worthwhile again, if you're scouting some non migratory deer, it's worthwhile to take note of which bucks are in the area and try to find them again. Once that migration or rut type hunt like happens, it definitely can turn out, you know, and obviously, like, we didn't have this rut hunt for that deer to get hunted later in the season, but we confirmed that that guy was really pretty tight to his home range. So, you know, each haunt's a little bit specific or a little bit different and is going to have different specifics. However, I think it's worth scouting these migration and rut hunts if you can. Thanks for that question, Ryan, by the way. Okay, let's move on to elk here. Elk are super hard to scout for, but I think it's certainly worth it to know what's on the landscape, know how to get around a place and drop trail cameras and start gaining intel for hunting elk. The vast majority of people who are listening to this podcast are going to be thinking of hunting elk in their rut timeframe, whether that's early October or September. Most people are just fascinated with a Rhett and like, why wouldn't you be, right? Like, they're bugling their face off, they're doing their thing. It's so interesting. Like Joe Rogan wants to talk about. He's like, they're screaming forest horses with swords coming out of their heads. How's that not cool? And I, I totally agree. So when you're thinking about how to scout for a September hunt, I oftentimes used to look for bulls and this definitely is helpful in understanding what's in the area. I don't ever want to tell someone not to scout for bulls because that's good intel. However, it is not the same as meal deer hunting where you're going to find a particular bull and get him killed in September, October, very often. I'm not saying it can't happen and there's guys who do make it happen. There are scenarios where bulls do exactly what that that buck scenario was that I just talked about. They live in an area and then they'll be found rutting a mile away. Right? It can happen, but don't bank on it. The majority of the elk scouting that I do and suggest other people do is going to be looking for cows because cows are what the bulls are going to be attracted to come hunting season right now. This was something that Cody Rich taught me back when we did the the 201 podcast series on on the Rich Outdoors Podcast. And essentially, it wasn't that I'm gonna, you know, pattern each cowherd or, like, make sure that I'm, like, watching each cowherd under a magnifying glass, like you're trying to do with, like, a particular buck. But what you do make happen on scouting for elk is essentially taking inventory of how many different cow herds and cow groups you can find throughout your scouting efforts. So once you hit season, you'll be like, cool, I've got a cowherd here two miles down the road. I've got another cow herd there three miles down the road. I've got a cow herd here on the other side of the unit. I know where two or three cow herds are there. And then once it comes hunting season, you can just be in those cow herds immediately and know that there's a bull nearby. Especially if you're past the first week of September, you can go in there and basically just count on the fact that there's a bull somewhere near those cow herds, and that's why they're so important to focus on when you're scouting. In the inverse, I helped my good buddy Anthony. He might even be listening to this podcast. Dropped some trail cameras two years ago, and we dropped these trail cameras, and he got bulls on them immediately. Like, as we were looking up this drainage, we were like, oh, sweet. This is awesome sign. This is a wallow here. There's some bedding here. We dropped a couple trail cameras, and then all of a sudden, he started, you know, pulling them and showing me, like, different videos or photos of bulls and being like, dude, this is awesome. I'm going to be right back in here. Well, sure enough, right after the hunting season started, those bulls disappeared. And it's probably twofold. One is the fact that just naturally, at the beginning of September, bulls are gonna stop, you know, hanging out in big parties of bulls, and they're gonna go look for love. They're gonna go from best buds to mortal enemies in that first week. So they. They will stop hanging out in their summer patterns sometime in there. Each place is a little bit different, but that's usually a pretty good rule of thumb. The other thing that probably was at play was as soon as hunting pressure hits, those bulls are gonna disperse as well. And if you're not in there on, like, the first of the season before they've left and dispersed from either hunting pressure or they're looking for love, then I think scouting for a specific bull might work for you. And another good story is last year, my friend Hayden And I and our other buddy Dakota, we started hunting elk early. Like, it was like the 3rd or 4th of September when we really started getting after it. And for the first, like seven days of our hunt, so the first 10 days of September, we kept finding lone bulls and bachelor groups of bulls and we're putting stocks on them. We had multiple plays where it was like, oh, man, if this one thing would go a little differently, like, it'll work out better. And then once like the 10th or so hit, things totally changed and I was like, God dang it, like, now we gotta reset and. And we hadn't spent time in that first week finding cows, and then we have to go start finding cows again. And I will say that second week of season really like the 10th to the. When I left on the 16th or 17th, that was a much tougher time frame, minus two days of really good rut activity. It was a much tougher timeframe for us because we hadn't had cows found. And as a result, the second half, like that second part of September, we were like relearning. So it was a good lesson to me. And like, this was just last year. I'm always learning and I'm always doing things a little differently, but it's, it's a really good lesson to just remember as September goes along, you gotta be focusing more and more on cows and not so much on what bulls you're finding. That's not to say that those guys weren't successful at the end of September. They had, they had enough time to, to dedicate to the unit. Both Dakota and Hayden ended up with bulls out of that unit. I was gone hunting with a client, so I missed out on all the fun and all the good packouts. But essentially, you know, they spent enough time they could figure it back out. And it takes me back to what we started talking about at the beginning of this podcast. If you have more time to give, you have more time to figure it out and be successful, right? So if you can do that in the scouting on like a two, three day rip and then have information to go into your hunting season with, all the better. Now that's, you know, some of the things that might drive a high country hunt. The classic mountain hunt. You're looking for north slope, facing north facing timber slopes, little benches where they're going to be bedding. You're going to be looking for wallows, you're going to be looking for edge habitat which create feed. So either parks or meadows, or you're going to be looking at Burn some burn edges, something where those things all come together and create what I like to call like a really good fishing hole. A place that you can check. And whether or not the elk are in there might just depend on the day, especially if you're seeing sign. But essentially, when you have those, those things, those amalgamation of characteristics on the mountain coming together, it makes the recipe for an elk herd be in there. Then what you want to do is have a whole bunch of fishing holes that you can tie together and check a bunch of them until you find out where the herd is that specific day. Hey, so let's take a sec here and slow it down for a minute because I got some great questions from a client friend of mine named Josh. And he was really wanting to dive in deep as to how to scout for elk in these really timbered, thick units. In particular, he was asking a few questions about scouting meadows and looking at water and identifying areas where elk are going to be frequenting. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people can make is finding a single meadow or a single pocket where they think the elk would like to spend their time and consider that like, well, this is the spot, right? In particular, two things happen. One, elk don't spend most of their time there in the daylight at these spots, quote, unquote. We're going to talk a lot about in low country how elk will move a long ways away from meadows that they're feeding at night. And the same is the case in the high country. In particular, if you're finding a meadow and you're just like, man, there's a bunch of elk sign here, you might want to start your day there, maybe you end your day there. But if you think about it, they're only going to be spending a lot of non legal shooting time in those meadows. So it's important because it's a feature that makes up a fishing hole, makes up a reason for elk to be there. But when I'm putting boots on the ground or e scouting, I'm looking for these meadows, these like attractions for their feed and understanding that they're only going to be there for 30 minutes right at daylight and maybe the last 30 minutes before dark. So as you scout, you know, in particular, Josh, I think this question is another one that a lot of people think about as you're scouting. I like knowing that there's elk sign in a meadow or along a creek, but in particular, I'm looking for where they're betting, man. I'm wanting to catch them coming to and from their bedding areas, not on their feeding areas in particular. So yes, if you find, you know, a good meadow that's heavily used, basically work it backwards and try to find out where they're betting and then link those two things together to find really good trail systems, to find a saddle, to find some sort of feature that is, is going to help you actually get them killed and like understand how they're using the terrain as a whole. Right. You think about a big mountain, whether, and this is really common in like Montana, eastern Oregon, parts of Wyoming and definitely Colorado. But, but you'll have south facing slopes in particular where you'll have these meadows where there's really good feed and there's water and maybe on top of a basin on the south side. And elk can either go wrap around that basin to the north slope timber or they can go up and over, especially if there's a saddle not far from there, they'll go up and over right onto the backside of the north facing slope on the other side. So part of your scouting is basically just identifying how they use the country more so than it is looking at a meadow on the map. Me like, that's where I want to be. Because that's not where you want to be for 80 to 90% of your hunting day. Because elk aren't going to be there unless you get like a random bull wandering through the meadow or just like a rut fest. You know, on that particular one day in September that the rut fest happens in the middle of the day there. The other really good question that Josh asked is, he asked, how do you look for areas that elk will be pushed to once hunting pressure and you know, people start hitting the woods once the hunting pressure hits in particular, like if there's a big meadow and there's a trail running right along the edge of it, I look at that and go like, oh boy, there's gonna be hunters there. But I also don't necessarily think that they're gonna push the elk out because most hunters are back of the truck in the dark and those elk can come down to the meadow and be unmolested in the nighttime. What really ends up happening is where do they all go once pressure is hit for their betting? Right. In particular, you're going to be looking at. I'm going to, I'm going to try to create, I'm going to find on the map while I'm talking about this, a specific example of this exact thing. So I shot and wounded a bull and I spent like four days Looking for him and got to know this, this pocket of country. Oh, back in 22 maybe, I think it was 2022. This is, is classic, exactly what you're talking about. There's a big basin and you've got north facing timber on one side. You've got kind of sparser, drier timber on the south facing slope above, and then a beautiful meadow in the bottom. This spot gets hunted in particular, the first meadow that you run into gets hunted pretty dang hard. There's an old tree stand down there and it's very obvious like that first meadow is, is hit like really aggressively by hunters. But then there's another meadow that's hanging in the top of the basin and this is another. And I'm looking on the map while I'm talking about it, this is another half mile up the drainage from the main highlighter. Green on the map, it's not near as big, but there's good feed there, there's water and it's clear like elk, you know. And I confirmed this. Elk come down to that at night. What happened in this particular story is we came into that and we heard a bull bugling up on the ridge, but the wind was blowing up to him. We were at the bottom. You could have, you know, in the last hour of daylight, you could have tried to run up and get around on top of them. But then the wind's going to switch again. So then we're like, well, that's not a great plan because we're making that move as the wind switching. So what me and my hunting partner did is we just hung out in that meadow and started doing some soft calf cow calls. Made it sound like there was elk already down there feeding. And we just waited and sure enough and he came in silent. But like this bull just popped out right at the edge of the meadow and was skirting the edge of the meadow and they started like kind of wrapping around closer to where we'd been calling. And I just misranged and shot him high. Went kind of like, like probably through the back straps or you know, maybe in that, what they call the void. But moral of the story is that bull came in and it was maybe six minutes of shooting light left. It was right at last light that that bull came in. And he came in silent. But we understood that that meadow that we were looking at was where they were going to end up. So we didn't go chase the bull that we heard bugling up on the hill. This is at the end of September too. So oftentimes we were finding that as we charged in and bugle that elk, they would go the other direction. So we basically just were like, all right, let's just hang out here. So when you're talking about scouting, these meadows are important to understand. And the most important feature of these meadows, though, is where the elk are going to be bedding when you can hunt them in the daylight. So. So the next time we were in there, honestly, it was like the next day as we were looking for my bull. And we followed this trail system up into the bedding areas where it's really big old growth trees, a bunch of big boulders and stuff that make these cool pockets where they bed down. And it was just so clear. It's like, okay, well, we have this first meadow that we would hit basically in the dark, because we're like, yeah, there could be elk here. We're going to bugle there and see if we hear something. But then as you go up past that, we're hitting that second meadow, the top one, the one that they'll probably use after there's been pressure hitting that just as the light would start cracking, like, that'd be my suggestion. Or stay there just until dark. Dark at the upper meadow. And if you're going to be hunting them in the middle of the day, you're really going to be wanting to hunt through bedding areas trying to get something sparked up. So this is a long winded version of basically saying with. With all of your. With your questions, like, do you look at meadows? Do you, like, how do you manage? Like, if it's hard to get to, that's a bonus. Like, this one is again, I'll just throw this down here on the map. The first meadow that we came to is about a mile from the road. That's the one that I'm like, yeah, that's gonna have pressure. And it does. There's a tree stand that someone sits, like on one of the trails, leaving and going from it. And there's people that hunt that first meadow. But then the second meadow, the upper one, it's another half mile down the way. But really, those elk are betting another half mile up the hill from that. So we're like at that 2 mile mark from the road, and that's where we start really losing people. They don't really like climbing that much after they've already gone, you know, a mile and a half or so in. So I hope that's kind of answered that question. Basically, it's like, look, finding meadows is cool. Like, that's a. I would call that one third of the total equation. I want to find out the travel corridors, and I want to find out the bedding as well. And on top of that overlay, where are people coming in? Where are they stopping? Where is it going to suck to get an elk out? And that's probably where they're going to be. So I hope that that kind of answers that question for you, because that's a really good one. And I think it's. It's one that just. Hunters in general just get hung up in all the time. And another piece of that question was, have you found that elk avoid meadows that are. That are along the banks of a noisy stream? Like, no, they don't necessarily avoid those things. They just don't spend much time in the daylight in meadows in general. So it's like, okay, it doesn't bother me to know how much, you know, they're using this meadow. Obviously, I want to. I want to know which parks are going to be the most beneficial. Usually it's a bit wider, marshy, like, I don't know, 100 yards across. Like, that kind of a thing is kind of a highlighter on the map. But really, like I said, I'm not really caring too much about the grass along the edge of the creek. I'm looking at where they spending their time betting and. And going to be living when pressure does hit. Do you have any ways to predict hunting pressure based on what you see when scouting? That's a. That's another really good question. And again, like, walking into this place, seeing the tree stand that was on the trail, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's probably some hunting pressure in here. We're going to have to go deeper. But really, it's oftentimes just a factor of how hard it is or isn't to get into a place. And that's going to be the same for low country or high country. So I'm going to dive in a little bit of what that looks like in the low country. But often high country is pretty simple. Does it suck to walk there? Yes or no? Does it take a lot of time to get there? Yes or no? That's going to weed out a lot of people. And I think that you can add some creativity when you talk about private, public land interface. But for the most part, man elk are just gonna go where it sucks to be. So I hope that that helps answer your question there. What I got a lot of questions about is, what do you do for scouting elk in Sagebrush and pinion juniper type country. Travis in particular, he pointed out, he's like, dude, that nobody really talks about this. And it's. It's a fun topic to dive into. Cause I've gotten real into it these last handful years between drawing a tag like this in the sage brush and pinyon juniper country and also guiding in that kind of stuff in different hunts. Like last year, I had this client come out for the second week of October and bulls were still. They were still rutting, they were still herded up. But then there was bulls starting to break off, and it was very much just like starting over in a new unit. Like, how do we find where elk are in this pinion juniper, sage brush, dry deserty type stuff? One of the things that I learned from my low country hunt was essentially that you still have to look for the same things. Where are they bedding, where's their escape, where's there not going to be pressure? And in particular, where's the good feeding water, right? Especially like cows in particular, they need good feed and water and escapement. They need to not die, and they need to eat and drink every day. So oftentimes in the low country, that is like a creek drainage, that's a water tank, that's an alfalfa field. Something that breaks up the whole ecosystem from its just standard flat sagebrush, pinot juniper type country. One place that I found in scouting for my desert hunt was like a whole string of ponds that were just out in the middle of nowhere. And these string of ponds, gosh, they were. It was flat as a pancake out there until you, until you started looking at the terrain. So these ponds obviously had good feed right around the edges. As the water recedes. Sorry, as the water recedes, there's really good feed that comes up at the edges of it. So that's like your quote unquote alfalfa field, right? Obviously they have the water that is creating the feed to drink out of. And then you start looking like, okay, well, where's their escapement? Well, each of the draws that lead into these ponds has sagebrush that is over your head, tall. And it doesn't look like much until you start walking through it and you start realizing like, oh, crap, this can hide an elk really easily. So I was out there glassing just in scouting, and I'd heard about this elk herd that was somewhere out in these string of lakes. And as I was looking, I was looking and I was like, man, I cannot believe there's an elk out here. And then all Of a sudden, a cow walks across the top of one ridge into the next drainage, and like a little coulee, basically, and I'm like, oh, there's one. And then all of a sudden, the whole herd starts following her. And it was like, very obvious. When they're moving, you can see right where those elk are headed. And then they disappear again in the sagebrush country. And you're like, how in the world did they disappear in that? It's really cool stuff. I really like hunting that country because you get to use your optics so much to turn up elk. But I think the biggest difference between, you know, glassing like the high country and glassing the low country, sagebrush pinion juniper type stuff is that those elk move even more than they do in the mountains. So these elk, essentially a different herd that I was chasing. They would feed at night on these fields, on these private land, and then they would bed two miles up the road or up the drainage to cross the main road in the dark every day. And they would go way back up into these pinion junipers and bed down. And I was like, what in the world? So at first light, or even in the dark, I'd drive by these fields and I'd turn this truck off, I'd sit and listen, and sure enough, you could hear bulls bugling, and you could hear where they're headed, Especially if they were leaving before it got daylight or it was really hot out and they were leaving in the dark. Would start walking, and I'd be like, oh, okay, well, they're going that side. And then you got to make a game plan as to how to get around. And usually it's a couple mile hike in and around the private land to get to where they're betting on public. So that is a really, really solid strategy for sagebrush, pinion juniper stuff. Find whatever the attractant is, whether it's these, you know, middle of nowhere ponds and, and lakes that offer feeding water, or it's this private land that might be irrigated and have a creek running through it with a hay field. Something's gotta be the attractant to those elk. And then you can work outwards from there and make sure you're sitting way back to see where they're headed. In particular, that scenario where those elk were using that hay field. Some days they would go to the east side, some days they would go way to the west side. We stock these elk after we had kind of watched them go up and over the hill, Me and a couple friends, I was the Only one with the tag. But they were tagging along just to see what was happening for the day. And, dude, I'm pulling this up because it was wild. We saw these elk on the fields and saw them go over the first ridge, saw them go over the next ridge, and we, you know, ended up hunting them in this back basin two miles from where they were feeding at night. So take that into consideration as you're hunting these low country areas. You're. You're talking about glassing within two or three or more miles from where this, like, kind of main source of attraction is. They just tend to wander a lot more when they go to bed in that low country, sagebrush juniper type country. It's one of the things that Cody talks a lot about. He likes to hunt some really open terrain for elk. And Cody Rich, he oftentimes will discuss. Sticking with a herd usually means driving five or six miles to between their, their bed and their feed. And it's tough to do, right. You put a lot of miles on your pickup. You got to really know where they're headed and, like, get a good sense of what the elk herd likes to do. But that's where that scouting can come into play. If you know where the cows are moving, you know, from their feed at night to their bed in the day, then you can really, you know, anticipate where they're headed and, or be on the right glassing knob to. To watch where they're going. So if you're, if you're scouting in the sagebrush, open juniper country, I usually like starting at whatever sort of magnet might be there for elk and then watch where they go that first day and try to piece it together a couple days in a row. And again, what you're trying to do also is to have a couple of these to hit. So I'm going to be guiding a client this year in that same unit that I was just talking about. And I just set trail cameras out there basically to confirm when the cow herds are going to be in those areas. Granted, this is where hunting a place for years really comes in handy. I'm like, okay, I know there's cow herds in here. Eventually I just need to make sure they're here when our hunter's here. So I dropped a trail camera on the place where I killed my bull. I dropped a trail camera on the meadows that were or above the meadows that we were just talking about. And I put one out on a water hole where there's really good feed. There's not as there's not as much agriculture near that one. And it's wet, though, and it's not a really wet environment. It's a really arid, pinion, juniper hills type thing. So I'm going to be looking for when those elk show up in those places and when my clients in, we're just going to go from each of the. The kind of core areas where I've seen cow elk in the past and go check and see what kind of bull is in with each of those herds. He's going to be out, I think it's September 18th to the 24th for his guided portion of his hunt. But the idea there is essentially, once he's there on the ground, we're going to take an inventory of what bulls are in each of these herds. And if it's a bull he wants to take, we're going to go after it. Right. The nice thing is, is from multiple years of data, we have reasonable expectations from looking at bulls as to what to expect. He's not out here trying to find a unicorn, which I appreciate, and he just wants to have a good hunt. So I think we're going to have an easy time of that. One of the things I think a lot of people might be wondering is like, okay, well, these are the fancy tags in, in Wyoming or you know, places in Colorado that are built like this, that, like that northwest corner, Area 10 2, that type of thing. I'm never going to draw one of those tags. Well, there are general type hunts that are in these types of areas that are open sagebrush, you know, dry desert type country. And one of the biggest keys to finding those elk is going to be covering a lot of country. Like there's not going to be a ton of elk to be looking at every day and you're probably going to get skunked. But, you know, talking to the biologist, getting an idea of like, where you should start your search is a really good, you know, core principle. But then thinking really big when you're glassing, like get the biggest glass knob, like the most country you can see that fits the criteria you're looking for, and starting there is really important. The other side of that equation is if it's managed like a general unit and it's these dry desert country type stuff, there's probably roads all over the BLM and state land that's out there. There also is likely going to be some private land mixed in where the really good habitat is. Therefore, I would look around places that are hard to get to by vehicle. As your quote Unquote wilderness areas. Once you've added that filter in, usually you'll be in elk, and oftentimes you'll be in elk, but you'll see them from five or six miles away. Just the other day when I was scouting for this client, actually I was just referencing, I went to check this area that I had seen elk in before, and I was, I was on the attractant at that point in time. I was where they were going to be ending up. And I'm glassing, I'm glassing. And sure enough, I see this bull pop over a ridge 5.4 miles away in my spotting scope. And I'm like, ha. Gotcha. I have no doubt that those elk eventually are either coming into that field at night or maybe when things dry out even more in August, they'll start hitting that field more regularly. But the fact I saw elk five miles away from where I'm expecting them to end up in September actually just confirms that that is going to be the attractant, you know, that I'm going to be looking for once season hits. So hunting that low country stuff, man, it is its own beast. It's really, and I admit this, it can be really hard to build e scouting plans for. And building an e scouting plan around open country hunts is oftentimes a lot more a. A lesson in and talking to the right people and getting good starting points in different sections of the unit. More so than it is just looking at the map and being like, oh, there's definitely going to be elk here, like you can do in a high country classic mountain hunt. So to recap, man, we've talked a lot about mule deer in particular, and how especially early season hunts, that scouting can be helpful for finding the target buck, sticking with them, and getting him, getting him killed. The other side of the equation is with elk, I'm not really looking for the bull that I want to take, unlike mule deer, because in most of these September and early October hunts, you're looking for herds of cows and are going to be looking for the best bull you can find or just any bull that you can find that's with those herds of cows. The high country and low country is, you know, very much the same principles, but just applied differently. Make sure you find feedback, some water. The distance between those two things can vary immensely. Some escapement in low country, that's oftentimes private land. In the high country, that usually means some really rugged country, some really rugged terrain that is probably going to suck to walk around in. And once the migrations hit, you kind of have to work backwards. One of the things I think is valuable for elk migration hunts is not so much where the does are like we're talking or the cows are like we're talking about with does and mule deer. But largely where do they spend their time running and then what's the rugged terrain where they can hold up afterwards and, and recover from the rut without being molested? Now, do they want people walking through there, et cetera? That is more of a lesson in scouting the terrain type you're looking for than it is scouting for the animals you're looking for. If you're finding cows, and this is the inverse of a rut hunt, if you're finding cows in anticipation of a migration bull hunt late October into November, December, you're probably in the wrong spot, man. Be thinking about where they're going to be escaping and learning the road systems, learn where people can be where they can't be, and also find good glassy knobs. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on that one because the vast majority of people, even the hardcore hunters I know, do not go scout their migration post rut hunts for elk. But I do think it's worthwhile getting to know country and how you can get move about it most effectively. All right, that's going to be the podcast. First of all, I wanted to, you know, wrap up with thanking everybody for sending in their questions. Aaron, Brett, Rob, Ryan, Travis, John, and Garrison. In particular, Hayden, my buddy, who I hunt with all the time, he even sent in some questions and I think we got them all covered here on this podcast. So my friend, my friend Josh, he also sent me in a bunch of questions on, on text, but I'm pretty sure we got those things covered. So again, thanks, Josh, for, for asking some of those great questions. I would basically say from here on out, if you're not scouting and you don't have the time to do it, go into your hunt this year with maybe the scout mentality. If this is your first time in the hunt, just go in expecting to learn a lot, be open minded about, you know, where your E Scouting can take you, and then what you're going to be seeing on the ground, you're going to add some creative license to your E Scouting. Just because you dropped a pin there doesn't mean that you need to walk past the elk trail and not explore a little bit and understand how they're using terrain. So for those of you who can't come out and scout, just be thinking about that while you're in your hunt this year, especially in the first couple days when you're just starting to get a really good feel for how the place lays out. Thanks again for everyone who's listening. I hope that you've enjoyed the Scouting podcast and as always, I appreciate it. If you share this with your friends and and if you have more questions or more ideas for future podcasts, feel free to drop me a line either on social media or via email jadenuntwest.net and if you want some more information about our services, you can also get a hold of me on both those places. So thanks again for listening. That's the pod. Thank you for listening to the Hunt west podcast. If you like like what you heard today, the best compliment you can give is to share the show with a friend. We will see you on the next episode and we hope one day to see you Hunt West.