Ep. 108: Hunting and Wildfire Smoke
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance.

Fire season sucks. Wildfires are definitely a reality when it comes to Western hunting, especially in these early archery seasons or any early seasons. Now, even if there's not a fire burning in your particular area, I mean, last year, it seems like we're affected by fires that were hundreds of miles away.

Most of Montana, Idaho was just like inundated with smoke from fires that were in Oregon, California, and Washington. So just because there's not a fire in your specific area, it doesn't mean that you won't be affected. And with really dry conditions in a lot of places this year and a lot of big fires already, I want to help give realistic expectations on how wildfires are going to affect your hunt and how maybe some ways you can persevere and still find success.

But first, I want to share the story of a buck in the haze. A few years back, my buddy Joe came to hunt with me. It was actually his first hunt in Montana with his bow. And we'd planned the hunt. I tried to do it in between when I was guiding. I had a week that I was like, all right, we'll just, we'll hunt this week. And unfortunately for Joe, that week was tough.

A wildfire week. There was some fires in the area. And the smoke was just bad. It was like red skies in the morning. Really thick fog like smoke. Hard to breathe. Hard to see. That's what we were dealt with. Now if you've ever hunted in.

smoky conditions like that, you realize pretty quick that it's going to be pretty difficult to be successful. I mean, the week before it was clear, it was nice. We actually had a temperature drop, you know, guiding the week before it was like on fire. And actually the week after it was on fire too, but not that kind of fire, like bugle fire, the good kind of fire.

And so while Joe was there, it was just like, it was slow. It was hot. It was smoky. There was no visibility and there's not a lot you can do. We got into a few elk. They were pretty sluggish and just not really firing off in the mornings, not really bugling hard, not really turned on. So we did our best. We covered a lot of ground and you know, you're just, you're hiking, you're hiking, you're hunting, you're hunting as hard as you can because you want to be successful. Your lungs are just, it feels like you smoked five packs a day.

And then you aren't really finding the animals that you think you should for the amount of ground you cover. Plus, you can't sit in glass as a backup.

So he just decided, I was like, oh, let's switch gears for a little bit. Let's go hunt deer because I'd scouted out. I knew there was some pretty decent bucks where he had his tags. So I was like, let's just go take a middle of the day and go check some areas where we can kind of still hunt through these logging roads, go up these logging roads and maybe find a buck. So gather up our stuff, load up and head up.

trying to get to the area where I'd seen some pretty decent bucks earlier in the season. So we're like, we come around one of these corners in the logging road and there's a small buck. I'm like, let's just keep looking. So we keep going up the mountain and hoping to find one deer that I'd seen. And as we come around the corner of this old logging road, a buck jumps up like,

Dude, right there. And we were already... We jumped the buck up pretty much within range. And it was so hazy. I remember... I don't even think my range finder was ranging very well. I mean, like, the buck was there, but just...

It just was a blur. Like my entire memory of this day was a blur. I think because there's so much smoke inundating into my lungs and into my brain that I think I lost a few brain cells just breathing in so much smoke. But I just remember the sky was really red and it was so hazy, like the range finders hardly wouldn't work. But we surprised that buck as much as that buck surprised us, I think. So Joe gets ready.

I'm like trying to get my video camera out because it just all happened pretty quick. It makes a shot, hits the buck, the buck runs off. I'm like, oh, sweet. So from where I was looking, like the buck ran not very far and just kind of disappeared in the smoke fog. So we ended up moving in and he hit the buck good, but just put another arrow in him. Like sweet, buck's down. It was Joe's best mule deer, nice four by four.

Good buck, but his best archery buck. So we were like, oh, sweet, stoked. So we had one more day to elk hunt. But it was like, good thing we switched up tactics a little bit and started going into an area where at least we knew there was animals and they were bedded. And we just happened to jump that buck up pretty close to us and get a shot. So we ended up finishing out the hunt.

The last evening of the last day, we got a group of elk to fire up. We started calling. They were just... It was just one of those where it's just... The bull was just out of range. It started to get dark. The fog and the smoke was so thick that...

that we could barely see the pins, barely see the elk. They were within range, still within legal shooting light, but it just really wasn't any shot because the visibility wasn't there. Fortunately, we found some success. And unfortunately, the smoke, we pretty much got smoked out for a good elk hunt, which is pretty typical when you're talking about wildfires.

While I am definitely a guy that likes to make lemonade out of lemons, the truth about smoky hunts is it sucks. And they are not as successful as when you can see or when the air is clear and it's,

Due to a lot of reasons. Generally, when it's smoky and there's a lot of fires going on, it's hot out. And it's not a lot of rain, not a lot of precipitation. It's probably hot during the day, the fire is burning, and the smoke, one, inhibits your ability to glass. Two, it makes it difficult to hike.

And three, it makes you and the animals quite sluggish. You just are not getting the normal oxygen. I have hiked a lot during the smoke. When they say like air quality is as bad as it's ever going to get, stay inside. And I'm up hiking 10 miles a day. But I definitely feel like at the end of the day, I'm just drained. I'm tired. I'm sluggish. And when I think about it, I'm like, yeah, the animals probably feel the same way.

The reality is that not all scenarios are rosy. When it's smoky, when it's difficult conditions, when you've got a combination of things that are hot and something working against you, many times on some hunts it could be weather that's working against you. But during fire season, it's often smoke or even closed. I mean, God forbid you got a tag in an area that you spent a long time trying to draw and the area is closed.

Now, while smoke and fires do make it difficult, I think there are ways that you can adjust your tactics to try to find a little bit more success. Now, I will say that if you could hunt, if you had the option of hunting while it's smoky and while the fires are raging or after the temperature is cooled down and everything clears up,

You definitely want to hunt when everything clears up, but that's not always the case. Sometimes you plan your hunts. You've got one week, you're out there. It's smoky. You got to make the best of those situations because it's going to be a situation that many of us are going to run into. I'm going to run into it this year. You'll probably run into it this year. And that doesn't mean that the hunt's over. It doesn't mean that elk aren't going to rut. It doesn't mean that you can't be successful. You just have to adjust your tactics a little bit and find different ways to

to find success. So I think the first thing you got to think about is what does the smoke and the fire do to the animals? What does it do to your ability to hunt? And then how do you kind of adjust your tactics based on those adversarial things that are affecting it?

So one thing that I like to think about is when I have trouble seeing, when I have trouble glassing, if glassing is my main mode of hunting a certain area and I lose that visibility, whether it's from weather, whether it's from smoke, it doesn't really matter what it's from. What I like to do is I like to change my tactics and go more to areas where you don't need that visibility, where whether you could see good or not, you're hunting the same way.

So I'm not having to adjust my tactics. So that includes things like hunting a bedding area, focusing on places that maybe you scouted, still hunting, and then we can go into some other tactics after that. So let's start with hunting bedding areas. One thing that I like to do when it's smoky is I kind of think about, okay, well...

the animals are not moving around as much. And that's definitely the case from my experience. I've guided through, I mean, as an elk guide, we hunt every week. It doesn't matter whether there's a fire or whatever. From the beginning of the season through the end of the season, we hunt every week. And over the years, I've kind of found the same success every week. It doesn't matter if it's the first week of the season or the last week of the season. It's kind of very consistent, but my tactics do change. So on those weeks where we have

and other things, I kind of realized like the animals are not moving around as much.

They're bedding up longer. It's not necessarily even just the smoke, but it's kind of when there's smoke, there's a lot of heat, not from fire, but just hot temperatures around. So you've got animals that are already trying to get out of the heat. Then you've got the smoke factor and you've got kind of this, this uncomfortability of the animals. They just kind of quiet. They hide, they stay put. It's kind of like whether a storm moved in or whatever smoke kind of does the same thing.

especially when it's really thick.

so one thing i think of is okay well i'll focus on where they're spending most of their time and that's probably going to be a bedding area somewhere where they can get out of this sun somewhere where they're going to be in the shade where they can stay cool and they don't have to move very far to get the things done that they need to they're going to need to drink some water because it's going to be hot they're going to want to bed up and stay out of the heat whether the sun breaks through that smoke or not it's probably pretty hot out so they're going to be bedded they're going to be not expending a lot of energy

And that's going to be the places that I'm going to focus. So what I'll do is I'll get in, I'll think about, okay, well, where do these animals bed? Probably going to be on a North face. If I'm thinking about elk, it's just those North faces are a little bit more lush. There's a lot more water on the North faces.

there's going to be a lot more option for them to bed somewhere. And there might be some, you know, places I like to think of maybe a North face where it, it drops over to the other South side where they can feed just by dropping over and then walk over to the other side in bed. And those are kind of the places that I start to think about. And those are the places that I move into because it is not somewhere that I can glass and it's somewhere that's going to hold elk.

The trouble is, you know, they might be few and far between or they're going to be, you know, bedded. But what I do is I'll start moving through and then focusing on still hunting, walking, glassing, trying to spot them before they spot me and moving through those bedding areas, especially middle of the day.

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Now, the second thing I like to do is focus on the places that I scouted. In that story where we were elk hunting and I was like, I'd already scouted out some mule deer. So let's go back to that place where I'd seen animals before and

obviously if you, if you scout it and you put in some time, you're probably going to be hunting where you scouted. But one thing I like to think about is when I was scouting, where were those animals bedding? Because I might not be able to, even if it's more open country, I can go in there and I can start still hunting into those places that I know they're kind of like high density preferred habitat areas. Um,

There's a lot of country with not a lot of animals, but if I know this certain Canyon was holding a deer, this certain Canyon was holding something I can start to still hunt through there and hopefully pick them up before or get in close and kind of hunt that smaller micro area.

When you don't know where animals are at, you kind of got to try everything. And if you can't see or it's really smoky, it's really difficult to cover a lot of country effectively. And that's kind of what leads to poor success. So if you've got an area that you've scouted and you saw, like, I like to think back and say, okay, during the summer, where did I see animals? Because during

early fall or even late summer, early fall, they're probably still going to be in those same patterns, especially if it's still hot out, especially if they're kind of holding tight, they're going to be into some of those same patterns. So I like to go back to those same patterns and then, um,

change up my tactics a little bit from glassing to move over to still hunting. Now, when I'm still hunting in the smoke, one thing I've noticed, well, a couple of things I've noticed, you would think that with the low visibility, the animals can't see you as well because you can't see as well. And that is kind of the case. But I have also noticed that when it's smoky, when it's foggy, when their eyesight is impeded,

They're actually a lot more on edge. Like animals, you would think it's like, oh, they can't see as well. So I should be able to sneak on them easier, which kind of can be the case. But I've found that more often than not, it's actually the opposite. Because when their senses are overloaded, they're smelling smoke all the time. They are having trouble seeing things.

So they're using other cues to sense for danger. They're actually paying a lot more attention. So while it might be harder to see, they're paying more attention to the sounds, to the smells, to the noise, to the sights. They're looking around more and they're on more high alert. Whereas if it's a normal day, you might do something that kind of messes it up, but they jump out, they look around, you sit down. Whereas I found that when it's,

Like when they're at a disadvantage and something spooks them, they go, they blow out and there's a lot more likely to blow things out. So when I'm still hunting, especially in low visibility, I actually try to key in even more than when it's clear out because it's harder for me to see the things, see animals, whatever I'm hunting, deer, elk, whatever.

But it's easier for them to just blow out, I've found. So what I like to do when I'm still hunting in the smoke, in low-vis...

is a combination of like, almost like I'm stalking through that area, moving really slow. I say this a lot, but when I'm still hunting in the timber or whatever, I'm using my binoculars, especially when it's smoky because elk for sure kind of blend into that haze. It's like this monochromatic color and that color of elk gets really hard to spot. So I'll put up my binoculars and I'll scan. I'll take a step. I'll scan. I'll

I'm not only just looking for the animals, but I'm also looking for fresh sign because what I'm going to do is I'm going to narrow down the places that I'm hunting based on what I'm seeing around. Even if I'm not seeing the animals themselves, I'm trying to narrow down those spots where they're likely to be at some point because I can't see a broad range. Maybe they aren't being active. Maybe they aren't bugling. Maybe they aren't calling. So I'm trying to narrow down those places based on what I'm seeing on the ground and then

moving slow through preferred areas, glassing, taking my time, going slow, getting the wind right and sneaking around, like covering country and hunting, moving slow and looking for the animals that I know are in there.

Now, one super advantage when there's wildfires in an area, when the conditions are really bad, is kind of being able to play weather changes. Whether it's a fire nearby or just an area that's just getting pummeled with smoke from somewhere else and there's some kind of inversion that's holding the smoke in an area, it's going to be a really good idea to play weather changes.

Anytime you get those breaks, those areas where maybe the pressure change shifts or a wind comes in, blows the smoke out. Sometimes you'll get these fires and then you'll get that rain coming in for a night and it clears up for the morning. The temperature drops. So once that smoke clears, it's like that temperature plummets. Playing to those weather changes can be super effective. I would say most of the time when there's been good fires,

And then all of a sudden there's a break. Maybe it's just for a morning. If I really pay attention to the weather forecast while it's smoky and any time that I think that there's going to be a break, if I can time it, those are the times that I want to be out in the woods. Those are the times that I'm really successful. A lot of the elk that I've taken have been during a smoky time. It's been slow and

And then I catch that weather change. I go to a place where it's like, okay, the wind's coming from this direction, man, it's stacking smoke into this end of the valley, or I'll even go to maybe try another unit or a different area around this.

Where I know that I can get, maybe it's like, okay, I got to go high because the temperature is going to be colder up there. They're going to turn on and you get these fire up, especially when it comes to elk. So you'll notice in those weather changes, like the animals, they've been cooped up. They don't like it as much as we don't like it.

And then once they get that clear, once they get that quick temperature drop, things shift, they click on, they change. And that's especially true with elk. I've had a lot of success hunting elk where everything seems slow. If you live near an area where it's like, okay, I can kind of time my hunting a little bit, find those times where you've just got that quick weather change in the smoky, in the fire season. When

When that quick weather change happens, you're going to see a lot of animals turned on a lot more activity and you're going to probably find yourself in a lot better position to make a move. And so it's really good to capitalize on those things that could be your big break in something that's, you know, generally a lot harder to hunt. Well, elk season is pretty much here and we're probably going to cover a lot of one of my favorite topics, elk hunting.

So make sure to send in any elk questions you have. You can send them to at Remy Warren on Instagram. I generally check my Instagram

direct messages there, especially during the hunting season. So anywhere that I get service, I'm going to be on the mountaintop. I'll scroll through. I might not reply right away just because I'll start, I just start, this is my method of answering questions. I start screenshotting questions that I like. And then when I sit down to record the podcasts or whatever, I scroll through that gallery and find those questions. So make sure to put your name, whether it doesn't have to be first and last, it can just be first name, maybe where you're from or state where you're from.

That way I can give a little bit of context to it. I try to keep, like, I definitely, even if you put units or areas or whatever, I keep all that stuff out because I like to, I don't like to put anybody's spots on blast. But yeah, send me your questions, especially pertaining to elk hunting. If you've got an elk tag coming up, you've got some questions, shoot them my way. And a lot of those, maybe they won't be answered in a Q&A or anything, but it might kind of direct the direction of questions.

some of these future elk hunting topic podcasts. I don't know. Maybe I've got, I'm definitely going to be out in the elk woods a lot. So maybe I'll try to do, that might be cool. Like get a sat phone and just do like a call in, call in, uh,

where I just like call from the elk woods and be like, here's what's going on. Here's what I'm doing. This is what was working. This is what's not working. A little bit of real time thing. I don't know if I can get that worked out, but it might be kind of something different, something cool. So I guess in the words of the great Smokey the Bear, remember only you can prevent forest fires unless you're lightning. Lightning also causes forest fires. I don't know about that, Smokey.

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