Western Rookie - Wyoming Wildlife

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Western Rookie, a hunting podcast full of.

Tips, tricks and strategies from seasoned Western hunters. There are plenty of opportunities out there. We just need to learn how to take on the challenges.

Hunting is completely different up there. I've heard 26 became animals. You can fool their eyes, but you can't fool their nose. 300 yards spec to the road turned into 3 miles back the other way. It's always cool seeing new hunters go.

And harvest an animal. I don't know what to expect.

If there's anybody I want in the woods with me, it'll be you.

Welcome back to another Western Rookie podcast brought to you by Go Hunt. Today I've got another guest that we just found out in the green room. We were both at BHA as well. Jaden Bales from the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. You've been doing Hunt west. You've been doing some guiding, you've been doing some pod podcast of yourself. You've got a lot of irons in the fire. So I'm glad to have you on today's podcast and just talk some Western hunting, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's like you said, I've kind of got a mixture of past. I work for Cody Rich on the Rich Outdoors podcast, kind of like when I got started. And that just kind of has opened up a whole bunch of different doors over the years. So, yeah, now my nine to five, like you said, is with Wyoming Wildlife Federation and I do my Hunt west consulting on the side. So never a dull moment, man. There's always something going on.

So you would probably have some good insights. I'm in the middle of our Wyoming antelope application season. Right now I'm taking my wife on her first Western hunt. She wanted to do a Wyoming rifle. Well, she wanted to do Wyoming archery antelope. For a brief second, I was like, maybe not the best first hunt. It's very difficult or very hot. One of the two. And so we did a rifle because of Randy Newberg's antelope rifle hunting content, where he has a lot of, like, chill moments. Like, we wake up at the sunrise, we don't have to get up super early. We go get some donuts and coffee. She's like, I like coffee. We drive around in the truck, find a bunch of antelope, go look at them. And she's like, I want to do that. So that's what we're doing.

Oh, that's going to be awesome, man. And if I remember right, you said you had like four or five points and like, that's like in a level where you can go and have like a really fun hunt where you're not just like waiting for him to cross private into public, you know, and stuff like that. So, yeah, you guys should have a great time. It's. It's a good, like you said, relaxing hunt. You're probably going to be done as quick as you need to be or want to be. You know, like you can make it as hard or it's not hard of a hunt as you want once you're at that level, which is pretty fun.

Yeah, we have. I have six points. She has three points. So we're going to be four and a half average. I'm looking at units that are like 100% with four odds, 100% odds with four points just to be safe. And so you, you know as well as I do there's a list, I feel like Wyoming, there's like. And we've been doing application breakdowns across all of the. The. We do bonus series across the whole west. And it's mostly just to remind people when things are coming up because in order to fill a tag, you got to get a tag, right?

Yep.

And. And so it's like to me, there's three phases in Wyoming. Antelope. There's the, the bottom phase where you probably honestly best off applying for the fences with your first point and then doing like a hundred percent draw odd second choice and build points as you go. Right. Which is getting harder. There's less units that you can draw on your second choice. And the hunts are very hard.

One or two. Yeah. There might only be one or two in the state this year.

Yeah, yeah, hopefully. But numbers come bouncing back up in the next few years. We had a really mild winter this year. Hopefully we get good recruitment this spring and then we can just maybe get like, if we get lucky and get like one or two more mild years, like heavier rains in the summer, milder winters, maybe we can like double or triple the population over the next couple years, that'd be great. But yeah, you're right. There's only a couple options, but it's a good way to build points. Then you get into that midterm and you got to make a decision like, am I looking to just go antelope hunting and have fun hunts, shoot the first 70 inch buck I see and have a great time or maybe look at a bunch of bucks and try to find that 75 diamond in the rough, maybe an 80 inch buck? Or am I going to push to that next level where I'm at like 8, 9, 10 points and I'm really looking for like 80, 85 inch unit potential. And I'm kind of in that. Like I would rather hunt more often and just shoot cool animals than like wait for this trophy hunt where you still might not ever see that 80, 85, 90 inch buck that you're looking for. So that's my take on Wyoming antelope. I like to be in that middle range where I'm not like constantly having to knock on doors or corner cross or wait for bucks to go on to private or waiting for them to come off of private. There's. That's just not fun. Like the reason you go out west is to get away from landowner boundaries. In my book, like this whole mountain range, we can hunt. Where do you want to go? Like that's the why I go out west.

Yeah, absolutely. Pronghorn certainly are like some of the exceptions to that. But like you're talking about, man, like I've been on some hunts that would take a non resident 10, you know, 11, 12 points for pronghorn. And you go out there and it's still like a freaking numbers game. You gotta just like look over. If you want to like find a next level goat, like their next level for a reason, it's because there's just not very many of them ever get to that size, even if they're ancient, you know, so right.

You have to be in the right and you have to look at like, just because there's 90s in that unit doesn't mean you're gonna. They're all 90s. Like there's still gonna be a ton of 55s and 60s and then there's gonna be a lot of 75s and 80s that are gonna look tempting. Yeah, we're just not interested. I mean, we'll shoot the nicest one we see. But if the first antelope, day one is a 72 inch antelope, I mean we're gonna be tagged out immediately and we're going to go to North Dakota and do a whitetail archery hunt.

That's perfect, man. I mean, look it even. And this is my thought process related to some of those lower tier units is like, look, if you can go three times in 10 years, let's just say, yeah, you've got as good of a chance as getting a whopper. As if you waited 10 years to draw a tag and go one time. Like, there are some giants that are shot in that eastern part of the state every year. And this, the issue is that you don't have that flexibility to look over a whole bunch and like kind of go shopping through them.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's the big difference. Right. It's just like, okay, well let's just go more often, bring home some sweet antelope meat and have a good adventure and. And then on the other side of things, you'll look back at, you know, a handful of adventures and be like, oh yeah, in that one year we found a whopper and that was awesome.

You know.

Yeah, that's my, that's my take and that's my take with probably all hunting really at this point.

I always like to swing for the fences, but I like plan. I don't know how that you say it, like plan A or plan. I don't know how you think about it, but like the main plan is to get an elk tank. Yeah, we'll see if we get drawn for the limited entry, Montana, like in the breaks or something. But either way, we want the elks egg versus like, no, I'm not gonna go unless it's the best hunt ever. I mean, I've drawn some really incredible tags, already gotten very lucky. I've probably used up all of my elk luck for my entire life. And so now I'm back to like, I want to shoot rag horns with my bow at seven yards and fill the freezer. Like, that's just what I want to do. They're easier to pack out. You don't have to pay a huge tax dermy bill. It's fun. And either way it's fun. Like, who's not going to like shooting a. You know, unless you are one of these guys that shoots 50 elk, 60, 70 elk in your lifetime, maybe then you start thinking a little bit differently about it. But most of the people I've had on the podcast that have hit those, like I had one guy that's getting close to 50 elk, 50 bulls, almost all of them with his bow, and he's like, yeah, I just shoot the first, like, whatever makes me happy. First good shot. Like, sometimes it's raghorn, sometimes it's 350 inch bulls. You know, most of those people are more back around to like, I just like being out there filling the freezer. If there's a rag horn that just gets my heart pumping and like, runs me over, I'm gonna fill my tag on that raghorn.

Absolutely. And one of the most, I think, underrated approaches on all this western hunting stuff is to utilize some of the cow licenses that are available during these archery seasons when everything's going nuts.

Oh, we messed up so bad on that this year. We should have. Oh, no, we should have applied for a cow rifle tag in Wyoming for the same units that we planned on hunting antelope in. And then she could have done a combo. Like, we'll both have antelope tags, but we would have probably just bought one elk tag that she could fill. And in some of these units where there's like 100% chances for a type 7 or type 8 tag with no points, like, it would have been. I don't even think there's point systems for the like, type sevens and type eights in Wyoming. Yeah, but we passed the window like that. That's in January 31st. Right.

For the antlerless, it is maybe offline. You and I can talk some specifics though, because they created a bunch of unlimited tags this year, so you still might be able to.

Ooh, spicy.

Just go pick one up.

Got the tea? Yeah, we'll have to talk offline because, yeah, we're also not going to be like, which unit do you like unit, you know, 1, 2, 5, 10 for antelope. And then all of a sudden the draw odds get like, completely out of whack. Obviously you've got hunts west where you help people plan out their western hunts. That's probably a good option if someone really wants, like, a personal relationship with someone. And like, I want to build this relationship. I want to trust the person. I know. Like, you know, there's a lot of resources online. It's like hunt planning is the same as hunting. Like, you can go fully outfitted and you show up with your rifle or maybe not even a rifle. Or you can go the completely other direction 100% DIY. We're going to like, sleep in a tree somewhere in a hammock. Like, planning hunts is the same thing. Like, you can just buy a tag and see what happens. Or you can do all your own forum research, which is probably pretty jaded. Or else you. Obviously we're partnered with Go Hunt. You can get signed up, do a lot of really good research, but you're still on your own or you find someone that's been there, done it, and you can get first hand experience and, and I think that's probably where Hunts west comes in. Is that pretty accurate?

Yeah, man, and it's exactly. What you're talking about is like, I saw a little bit of a gap there where like, I love using Gohan and I use it with my clients too. And oftentimes they end up like getting subscriptions or whatever because it's fun to look at the filtering and see what options are.

Well, there's also so many tools that they can use with Go Hunt even after they've got the hunt plan that they worked out with you, like mapping, point tracking, the gear shop articles. I mean, there's so much information, even if you have your unit picked out, your season picked out that you can still get, I mean, just with the overall membership that they have. So, yeah, it's definitely not a competitive space.

No, and it's one of those things too where like, you know, I don't know who helped you get into western hunting, but for me, one of the things that I grew up with was dad and grandpas on both sides of the family who hunted the same spot forever, forever and ever and ever. And then it was kind of interesting. Like, so I grew up in northeast Oregon and the way that the mule deer licenses started working is like we stopped being able to draw every year. And so then it was like, okay, well we'll just get the landowner license and then just hunt our farm. And which, you know, basically that just consisted of us doing a deer drive over the top, this one piece of good habitat and calling it a day. So, you know, then when I was in high school, we did these deer drives over the butte and we stopped being able to draw the landowner tag. And then I was like, God, Lee, like, now I gotta go find if I want to hunt. Like these things had point crept out of, out of reach for being able to hunt every single year. And so I'm like, well, if I want to hunt, I gotta. What I did is I picked up a bow and then started like, where do I go now? And I just started walking around and like, what's next? Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, like, like dad, both grandpas were really good about sharing information about how to hunt the honey holes that they were always, you know, the place where we had always been but then you were left with, like, okay, well, what? I have the whole state all of a sudden that I have to, like, figure out how to hunt. Where do I even go? And so, like, as an example, it took me like seven years to shoot an elk. My first bull. And I grew up doing Western hunting my whole life. Like, it was. It was really hard. And it was like, I wish there was somebody there to help me cut the learning curve, you know, behind the scenes there. Cody Rich, actually, who, like, has the Rich Outdoors podcast and does a bunch of things over there with elk Hunt. He helped me cut my learning curve. But it wasn't until, like, year five or six that I was into that process that I met him and he was a good mentor for me. So basically, the whole thesis behind, like, the Hunt west, helping people is giving them a resource that they can go to, just like Cody did for me and just like other people have done for, you know, people. Just trying to figure it out, man. Because, you know, there's a lot of free resources, but, like, it's really hard to wade through and it takes a long time if you want to go through that whole process.

And sometimes advice is worth what you pay for it. Yeah. And then when you having the right tool for the job can make all the difference in the world. And that applies for Western hunts, too, especially if you're coming from the Midwest like myself, because if you don't have it, there's no going home to get it. And that's why many of us Western hunters are also gear junkies. And the same is true for the folks over at Go Hunt. They have built the Go Hunt Gear Shop to be jam packed full of the best, best, highest quality gear needed for your Western hunt. They try out everything that gets into the shop. And if they don't like it or they don't use it, it doesn't make the cut. So if you need something for your next trip, Go Hunt has something for you in the gear shop. They've got everything from optics, gear, camping accessories, apparel, footwear, they've got packs, and they've got some of the best brands in the industry. So if you're in the market for some new gear, consider checking out the Go Hunt Gear shop. They're an avid supporter of the outdoors, they are supporters of this podcast, and most importantly, they're supporters of you. They want to help you be more successful in the West. So there's no better place to shop for gear, information and knowledge than Go Hunt. And if you use the code Western when You check out, you're going to get 10% off most of the regular priced items in the shop. So head over to gohunt.com get the gear you need, use the code western and get the right tool for the job this fall. You go and find a bunch of free advice. Well, that's also what it was worth. Like you could, for example, you could google southeast Montana deer hunting and you will have, especially if you don't filter your results, you will have the whole gamut of results between like, it is the best thing that has ever happened to outdoorsmen. To like it is sure noble. And there's nothing alive because that's what's out there. Like you go find a forum post from 2004 and there's booners behind every sage bush. Now, it's not the same. Like we've had pretty much three, four years of heavy droughts and a lot of hunting pressure and, and there's deer, there's a lot of private and there's not a lot of size. I mean those deer are in tough shape. They've. They're trying to earn a lift. I mean you go to some of these places in the west, aside from southeast Montana, just everywhere you look at some of the things, you're like, these things live here. Why? There's an alfalfa field four miles over there. Why would they ever be here? And it was the same thing in New Mexico when we were shed hunting. Like I'm walking around and like when we're in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and you're shed hunting the sage flats, like it's full of grass, right? There's grass everywhere. When we were in New Mexico, there was nothing. It was dirt and brush. And I'm like, what are these elk surviving on? They're 800 pound animals. Like they have to be eating something and there's nothing here. And there's ton of elk that scratch out a living in some of those climates. It just boggles my mind that they can do that. But yeah, that's like you said, sometimes you got to really know like, is this advice that I should take or is this just a grain of salt and having someone that you can have a phone call with or probably a lot of face to face zoom meetings where you're just like, hey, I've been here before. This is what you're gonna find. I was there last year, I was there last week. You know, this road's washed out, you can't use that. This is, this is. It looks like a public road, but it's not. Which I was just looking at earlier today. I'm like, there's no way this road is not public. Like, this is a. Like, I can see it on Google Earth. Like, it's a maintained gravel road. You tell me the landowner maintains this road all the way through this 50,000 acre BLM piece. I think I'm gonna call BS on that. Like, yeah, they might have a gate across it on their land, but to me, it's like, if taxpayer money built that road, taxpayers should be able to use that road.

That is. That is a whole issue, man. And it was when I first moved to Wyoming. That was an issue I ran into right away. I like got across from this. So the way that like a lot of these western states work is like the creek bottoms or river bottoms are private and then the mountainsides are public. And I got across the drainage from this public land that I knew I could come in through the back on, and I scouted it for deer. And I saw like, it was something silly, like 12 bucks in an evening up there on this, like, hillside above this private. And I was like, sweet, I can drive around the back la. You know, drive in and then hike in a couple miles to get to where those bucks were. Yeah, well, the big thing was like this road that had been built by the. It was the exact same thing you're talking about. This road that had been built by the county, that had been maintained for years by the county, then was like the landowners made a deal with the county. And if you think about a county that might be county road system that might be stretched on their budget or whatever, they're looking to have less work. So the landowners go, hey, county, like, don't worry about plowing this road anymore. We got it. You know, and the county will think of it as, you know, putting yourself in their shoes. Like, oh, sweet. That's a whole eight mile stretch of gravel road we don't have to maintain from November through May. And sure enough, I mean, that just shut off access to. It was like a 12,000 acre parcel back in there. And I had to. I was calling everyone I could find to see. Like, I was like, can you still get in on this county road? And it took a call to the county clerk's office to be like, are you guys still maintaining this county road? For them to be like, nope, nope. That was like two years ago we stopped maintaining it. So now it's private. Those are some serious issues. And only, it only takes, like, it takes some firsthand experience to figure out how to get those answers, because, like you said, otherwise. I just had one of my. One of my really good friends just got a trespassing ticket for doing. What you're kind of talking about is, like, drove on a road that looked like it was public and it was. It was private. So, yeah, it's a tough. It's a tough road to hoe. And it's, like, really hard to understand what the right move is on a lot of these, like, specific instances.

Yeah, it's. I'm so torn on it because I am a private landowner. My family has been private landowners for years. And if. If someone were to drive up my driveway right now and knock on the door and say, hey, I saw turkey out on your land, can I go hunt it? I'd be like, nope, sorry. I don't even hunt turkeys. I'm just like, no, I don't want other people hunting my land. I'm a hunter. I. I plan to hunter. He's like, there's. You know what I mean? But then I'm the first, so I understand their side of it. But then the western hunter in me is like, that doesn't sit right. Like, we pay. It's way more expensive to build the road the first time than it is just plow the snow off and, like, it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't want to offend any large groups of people, obviously, because I am a landowner and I understand it. But it's like, why. Why are. Yeah, I don't know why. Why can't we all share a road? Why can't. Like, it's a road. Like, why can't. It's not damaging to their land. If we drive over a mile of private land on a gravel road and then start recreating on public, like, where is the damage here? Are they worried that, like, hunters are hunting land that they lease because it's still not their land? Like, if you're leasing that BLM for grazing rights, that's still not your land. Like, you still can't keep us off that land. Like, you shouldn't be keeping us off that land through whatever means just because you graze it like you're renting it, I'm owning it.

I think we need a. We need a startup to come in with, like, little mini transport helicopters. The ones that just like, I. I saw one actually in Wyoming recently where the dude drives this little helicopter around on a trailer bed on a trailer that he pulls with his pickup, and then he can just, like, fly that Little. That little bastard, like, up and over and then down in like a couple hundred yards, you know?

Well, those drone technology started getting there. Drones are getting there.

That's a good point.

I had a buddy. Well, I shouldn't say he's a buddy. I had Mikey Oder on. So he's out east in Ohio, and he started drone deer recovery a couple years ago.

Oh, right.

It took off. And he's using a drew, a big drone with a huge camera. He has like 60x optical zoom and a thermal imager. So he can like, if you lose your bit your boytail buck at night and you're tracking it, you can't find it, which is a big thing in the whitetail world, is you just can't see him tip over. He puts that thing up in the air and he's like. So he told one story. I got called in to like, day three of the adventure. Grandpa shoots a buck. You know, that's t0 biggest buck he's ever seen on his farm. He's on this farm for 60 years or whatever. He shoots the buck, they bloodshot, they lose it. They look all night, they can't find it, they back out, you know, and that's grandpa. So son or middle generation is helping, like, all right, everyone go to bed. We're going to start in the morning. Well, little did anyone know, Grandpa and grandma decide, nah, we're gonna go back out at like midnight. And so they get out on the four wheeler, go back out, accidentally tipped the four wheeler over in the creek. So they get all banged up. Right. Everyone survives the story. They get all banged up, though. So then day two happens and they're like, well, okay, it's obviously getting kind of out of our control. They call in a dog for day two. So the dog tracker comes, can't find the deer, look all day or whatever. So now it's like day two and a half days.

Sure that those guys looking for it.

Yeah.

Holy. Yeah. And screwed up the dog track and. Yeah.

Who knows? Yeah. So they. Now eventually he gets called. He comes in, he puts the drone up in the air, spins it in 60 seconds. Was like, there's your deer over there.

Wow.

Yeah. He's like, oh, and by the way, grandpa's hat is still in the creek over here from when they flipped over the four wheeler. And so, like, it's incredible. Well, then he got another drone and he can now recover your deer with a drone. I don't know how far, but there's a video of him picking a whitetail buck up with his drone and flying away with it.

Wow, that's crazy.

And now he's doing new way egg, which he's spraying like, he's using drones as like sprayers and he's got big water tanks on them and these drones are like six feet wide. And so I think it's not like obviously technology's been there, we've got helicopters forever. I think what's unique is like you can get a drone license to run a drone pretty easy. And if you can, I don't know what all the rules are, but as long as the drone, like, is there a special rule if you're picking up a human being now where you have to be like a pilot but you're not, you're on the ground, you know what I mean? It's gonna be weird. It's gonna be a weird space. But yeah, you put a gas powered engine on a drone and put some bigger blades on it, sure you're gonna be able. I mean you just got a four blade helicopter that's a lot more stable. It's probably not as efficient as a helicopter, but it's, you know, a lot easier to operate. Pick them up 12ft, bring them over the fence, drop them off.

Yeah, that, I mean, that I would. I'm really interested to see how that pushes the hand on, on public land access in the west.