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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. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. When it comes to hunting, being consistently successful, really no matter the species, is
the first thing you have to think about is being able to identify the tactics that give you the advantage. And you do that by looking for the right moment to make a move. Whether it's a late season elk, early season mule deer, rutting caribou, open country pronghorns, it doesn't really matter. The recipe is the same. Observe behavior, find a weakness, make a move.
This week, we're going to cover those tactics. But first, I want to share the story of a recent hunt for woodland caribou and using spot and stock tactics to get a shot with my bow on a bedded giant.
This season, I was fortunate enough to be able to get the opportunity to chase woodland caribou with my bow. I was actually up filming it for one of the Matthews Proving Ground videos. So I got a chance to take out the new bow just launched this week and then, you know, go put it in the test throughout the season, different places. And one of the places that I decided to take it was Newfoundland Inn and chase woodland caribou.
That's right. So one of the things that I learned there, you know, I used to call it Newfoundland. And the locals informed me, they're like, if you do anything for the rest of your life, it's heavy in the land, Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Newfoundland. Say it five times fast. And I know exactly what they mean, because coming from Nevada, a lot of people pronounce it Nevada. And when you're from there and you hear it pronounced wrong, you're like, man. So if you hear me say Newfoundland, Newfoundland.
That's the correct pronunciation coming from the people on the ground, what I was reported to report heavy in the land. But I will say my, my trip there was one of, I would say probably my definitely one of the most memorable hunts of the season and a hunt that I definitely would want to do again for a lot of reasons. I haven't, well, up until this, this season, I actually have not had the opportunity to hunt Canada before.
And it just so happened that I got to do a sheep hunt in BC and then caribou and moose in Newfoundland this year. And the caribou hunt was one that I kind of thought about for a long time, but also, you know, just didn't have the right timing or the right opportunity or enough open schedule to do it. And I'm really glad that I was able to make it happen.
So if you aren't familiar with a woodland caribou, I kind of think of a woodland – you think of all these species. So you've got mule deer, white-tailed deer in the deer family, like different species of deer. And then there's a few different species of caribou. There's barren ground that you might find.
like in Alaska, you've got your mountain caribou that you find kind of in BC, you've got your Quebec Labrador. There's actually five species of caribou and then the woodland caribou. And these would be found in like, I guess, Nova Scotia, I think, but primarily in Newfoundland. And it's a, when you think about these caribou, I kind of think of them as like the coos deer of the caribou world. They are the smallest antlers. They don't necessarily have these large migrations. Now they might migrate from
like a summer range to winter range, but it's generally like an isolated migration with these small pocketed herds. So not huge migrating herds, but like little isolated pockets that they're kind of more within a certain area. They like, they'll maybe have the summer ground up high and then they move to these valleys. But very similar terrain to something you might find caribou in anywhere where it's like
They kind of open tundra that kind of moves into a little bit of forested, small subalpine type trees. And then, you know, you've got that more like big open tundra, big valleys and then mountains in between where they're kind of hanging around.
When I went, it was probably peak rut. One thing that I found was interesting is like they're very, very active during the rut. There's some tactics that could get employed using like a white bag or even calling like they get very curious and very, I would say, very active.
I would say like decoyable if you had the right like decoy or whatever. But also the other trouble is just like anything that's running, I kind of, it's one of those things where it's like almost like an antelope hunt, pronghorn hunt, where during the rut, you see a good pronghorn and he's running all over the mountain. So first day we get dropped off, we're able to use a helicopter there for drop off. So a lot of places, you know, you fly in with an airplane here, we could, we could get dropped off by helicopter. So we got dropped off, set up camp.
And just glassing around and, you know, we're seeing a few little isolated herds, maybe 20, 30 caribou here and there. And we'd seen some, you know, just from our glassing vantage, seen some animals starting to move. And you could tell they're rutting, they're starting to push around there. They call the bulls stags and the cows does.
So I might just use those interchangeably, but you know, you get so used to calling caribou bulls and cows that I might just stick with that. I always like to use when I'm there, whatever the people there use, but in for this purpose of this podcast, I'll probably just call them what I want. Now, the first day we kind of got in and spotted some good animals.
My original assumption was they were going to just be like small antlered caribou, but we saw some serious giants. I think it was just one of those years. I mean, my whole hunting career, I've, I've shot a few really nice animals and this year I happened to shoot a really big elk. And now I'm like staring down the spotting scope at another Boone and Crockett size animal, got my bow in my hand and thinking, oh my gosh, like this is going to be awesome.
So the first caribou we ended up stalking was like, I spotted him. We decided to cross like from our camp, we see this one bull. So you got like these bulls cruising just like anything during the rut. Bulls are cruising between groups of cows and then they're fighting fairly aggressively. And then you've got the one that maybe is in control of the herd for that period of time. So we see some lone bulls and we're like, okay, these are nice. We hike across the valley to get a look back.
back up this other valley. You know, I don't know how far it is. It's a ways get to the glassing point, sit down. We're going to glass the other side of the mountain, but I turned around and look back kind of the direction we came from in a spot that we couldn't see. And sure enough, I mean, from maybe two miles away, I'm like, oh my gosh, there is that one is huge. So I've got two friends of mine with me filming. And then Daniel, who's from there guiding. And, and I'm like, there is a giant bowl
over here. So like, yep, we look at it through the spotting scope. It disappears behind the ridge. We're like, we got to go, we got to go make a move. So we get over there, you know, get set up, um, on this ridge where we can see down. And sure enough, he had pushed off. We saw two good bulls. Like one was really nice. And then this bigger one pushes this other one off. I'm like, man, either of those would be incredible. Get over there. And sure enough, like the one, now we just see the one big bull and all the cows.
The one big stag and all the does, whatever you want to call them. So it's like, all right, in the wide open, how are we going to do this? So we go and we do, we like plant a stock on them. We've got like a white bag. It's kind of like a decoy. So Daniel's right there with the bag and then we're stocking in and it's kind of like, they're kind of intrigued by it, but the wind is just howling and they're just constantly on the move. So they're moving, pushing. We try to get in, we almost get a shot and it's just like bad wind, not necessarily like
them winding us, but just too much wind to shoot them moving, like just no good shots. And it just keeps happening. We keep chasing and moving them. They're just pushing each other and moving. And you hear like, I know with certain caribou, it's like, I know when I was hunting Northern Alaska, it's like when you're on those migrating herds, good luck. You see one good bull a long ways away. Good luck catching up. But we're like, this is a big, it's a big one.
We're going to keep chasing him. So they're moving. They cross the river. They go essentially where we spotted them from two miles away. They're over there. Now we are running, trying to catch up, drop down, cross around, stock up in front of them, get in front of them.
End up blowing out the herd again. I don't know how many times it's like you've got all these different caribou moving. They're pretty riled up. Then they go back the other direction. So we're essentially running, sprinting, jogging, doing all the things to catch up again. Go up and around. I think I was tracking how much we did in... It was close to marathon. I mean, we put in miles, just...
essentially jogging, trying to catch up and get ahead of these things. So they'd be going up the mountain. We'd try to jog around and get caught up and get set up for an ambush. And it just didn't work. We were getting run ragged. So we get back onto the point and we see the bull. We see, I see some cat, one cow bedded and the bullet kind of split off from the group. And sure enough, that bull is bedded. And I'm like, Oh man, this is our opportunity.
caribou hunting generally it's an ambush game they're moving they're constantly moving and now we've got the advantage this bull is bedded down he's kind of like it looked like at the time by himself with just a couple cows there's kind of like this creek that comes down behind him and i'm thinking this is going to be perfect there's a big mountain behind him so we're like all right
play of the day. We drop down, we cross around. We just got to go wide. I keep saying to myself, go the best way, not the easy way. There's an easier way, but we got to go to the top of the mountain, get around them and then come in from one side. So we're, we're, we're stocking in, blow out a couple of moose. And I'm like, Oh crap. Is that going to, I'm going to blow them out to a cow and a calf moose blow past him. And he ended up not really getting up, like looking behind him, you know, whatever, and let the moose go.
back out again, get up higher, go all the way around the mountain, come in from the top. And it's perfect. There's like a shoot he's bedded just behind this little knob. And I'm thinking, Oh man, this is awesome. So I've got myself, Daniel and, uh, Nico's filming, uh,
I always mention the people that are filming because it just adds that little element of difficulty when I'm doing a hunt. And if you watch a video or something, you don't necessarily see that. If it's that's to be a hundred percent honest, I actually prefer self-filming sometimes because it's just me and the camera and it can be difficult to set the camera up, but I'm more used to it now. Um, sometimes it's hard when you like got other people with you because sometimes
I've always say this, like one person is too many on a stock, like just yourself being there already makes it difficult. And then you start adding more people and makes it more difficult. But I'm like, this is my bread and butter stocking bed enamel. So remind me of early season mule deer hunting. Like this is what I'm good at. So we're going to get in on this, this bull and get a shot.
Sure enough, it's like we've got maybe, I don't know. We're like, again, I'm like, we're like balancing the clock of like 20 minutes left of shooting time. Now we're moving in. We're about 30, 40 yards. Drop the packs. Probably about 50 yards. Drop the packs. He's bad. I can just see the antler tips. We get down and we all start creeping in. And as we're creeping in, it's like perfect. Well, there's this one cow and she happens to be coming up like right where we're at. Kind of spooks out and goes down around the bull.
well, that's okay. Like he's still bedded, you know, he's looking away. This is perfect. So get into about 20 yards, peak over range. I'm like, oh, and I've got him where he's, he's broadside. But if he could see me out of the corner of his eye, I imagine if I popped up there. So I, we back out, come around the backside. So I wanted to get like his, his back end toward me, blocking his eyesight. And then, you know, draw back, I would be able to get a good quartering away shot at embedded there. It was open enough. Or when he stood up,
You know, it'd be perfect because I could just see the top of the Xander. So at this point I draw back and I didn't catch the cow doe down below us looking our direction and caught that movement of the drawing back. I think plus with two other people there kind of at that point for her would have been skylined and that her alert look like whipping head back, uh,
I'm at full draw now, and I'm just about to take one step and settle in and take a shot. And that bull ran out a hundred miles an hour. And it was like 20 yards away, dreams crushed. We just chased this thing for frigging, I don't even know how far, how many miles. And it was not going to happen. And based on the way he was running this time, we probably weren't going to find him in the same area code tomorrow. So long hike back to camp. Everybody put in a good effort, put in some good miles.
And it's like, man, it was, it was a bummer. It was a big animal. And you're like, man, that was my opportunity. You know, on a hunt, I rarely think that, you know, just getting a good opportunity is sometimes the challenge. So, you know, and especially at an animal that caliber, I was like, oh man, I was, I was just, I was bummed. So we get back to camp, cook up a good meal, you know, like, well,
You can't have, uh, you know, you gotta have that roller coaster. That's bow hunting, man. So next morning we're gearing up and we're like, there was that other, that other good caribou, but you know, we're glassing and it's like pretty much a ghost town at this point. So we're glassing and getting our stuff set up. And this caribou, like a big caribou walks over the ridge and he's like walking down, um,
essentially where we'd seen a nice one the day before, but we hadn't actually seen this one. And it was like as big or bigger than the one we were stocking the day before. Just different looking, awesome fronts on him. He walks and just like from like 60 to zero, he's just walking, plops down in beds. Like no way. Right here, another good bull and we're going to get our stock. So this time we decided, okay, we're going to kind of split up. We left one of the camera guys here to kind of get a side angle.
like from where he's watching at then nico and i are going to sneak around daniel's going to be kind of behind us here and that way if for some reason he stands up or whatever maybe we could pull out a white flag get his attention to steer that way and then i'll continue stalking but we're going to play it just like i would mule their stock or anything like that bedible so i'm watching him and he just plop down goes to sleep like man this thing is
Then I'm assuming he's just been running hard, just chasing and moving and fighting and like wore out. So it's like perfect. Same, same plan. Go the easy way. Sorry, go the best way, not the easy way. Don't go the easy way. Go the best way. So it's like the wind's going uphill. We do want to be out of sight the whole time. So we cruise around the mountain, come over the top, get in a good line, you know, made some good references and start creeping in.
I'm ranging the whole way, kind of like, okay, you know, from, from where we're looking, it looked like there's some trees and you can get to those trees and you'll get a shot. So on my stocking plan, I get over there, I range the trees, range the bed where I think the bed of caribou is at, because I can't actually see it from my vantage. And I'm like, man, that's too far. I'm going to have to replan the stock because the way the hill looked when we're glassing at it across, it's completely different when we're getting down. So
I arrange and find a spot. It's like 20, 30 yards, some bushes. I think it gets you. So we start stocking down, get into position in between like the caribou sleeping, picking his head up, looking around. So when his head's down, just moving when he's heads up, just stopped.
We get into about, I don't know, 40, 50 yards and there's no shot. He's bedded, but I'm like, okay, I can use this opportunity. Every time he puts his head down or looks away, I'll creep in. So it's kind of like a shoes off situation here, but I left my shoes on because it was just soaking wet and pretty cold. So he's got his head down, sneak in, ranging, get set up.
Uh, just kind of subtracting the distance to each little bush. Like, okay, next one, I'll be 40. Next one, I'll be 30. So I get into about 30 something yards, maybe 35 yards. He's bedding. I'm like, all right, perfect. I get set up, get my feet set. Just like, just like I do. One thing I always think about is like when I'm in that situation, it's like, okay, here it's crunch time. I might be waiting all day, but I need to be waiting in a comfortable, ready position. So click my release on, do all the ranging, range, all the trees and bushes in case he gets up, whatever. And just wait.
His head's down. I'm like, okay, cool. And I feel like the wind's a little swirly and I don't, I'm just thinking about, oh, last night the bull blew out and within range. And it's like, it was just perfect. And then it wasn't like, I don't want this to get blown. So I kind of, I decided there's a little bit of brush in front of me and I use that opportunity. I'm like, okay, he's looking, he's pretty alert.
And he puts his head down one more time. And I just use that opportunity to just sneak in, get into range, get set again. I'm like, all right, perfect. If he stands up, I set my pin. If he stands up, we're good. If he moves out, we're good. This is awesome. So he's got his head down and then kind of like picks his head up, shakes his hands. I'm like, oh, get ready to draw nothing. So then, you know, then I feel that kind of swirly wind. So I draw back thinking, well, maybe the noise of it drawing back
We'll kind of get him to stand up, but not know where it's coming from because the wind's still stiff enough. I can get full draw and pop my cams back a couple of times. Not loud, just enough to, you know, get steady and, and, and see, put the pin there. I just have no shot. All I can see is head and antlers above the kind of brush. So draw back down. He doesn't even notice that I'm there and nothing, you know, it's good. So waiting a little bit longer and, you know, it's like, okay, now it's the waiting game. I'm standing because if I kneel or sit, I would have no shot. Um,
Then all of a sudden, you know, I see that he's bedded. I see that head come up. He kind of does like a weird stretch thing. And as he's standing up, I draw back. I think one good thing was he was like pretty stowed up from running and hunched back. So he's stand up going to do a stretch. He'd been bedded and he's going to stretch out. And I'm thinking, I don't know how long he's going to stay there, but I want to be anchored in and ready the second he's fully standing. As soon as he got standing, I'm anchored, I'm ready.
pins on the vitals, release the arrow. Perfect shot. Spins around, like not even knowing that he was hit. I don't even think he heard the bow go off.
I put another arrow on drawback, release one more arrow for good measure. Another perfect shot. I mean, he goes a few yards and falls over dead. Exactly what you want. A perfect clean kill with the bow and an incredible animal. I mean, walking up to it, it was just like one of these scenes that I'll never forget because it was just incredible.
in this beautiful place, a place that I'd never been, something that I always dreamed about. I thought this would be cool. I love chasing caribou. I love chasing caribou with my bow. To be able to take like a woodland caribou, not just because he's big, but just like looking at the whole scene. It was in some ways, I don't know, there's certain hunting moments that almost feel like overwhelming. You're like, how am I so lucky that I get to do this? And I really felt it there. I was looking, it's like the snow's coming in, the sun's over the valley. There's like a rainbow in the snow. And I was like,
And I'm walking up on this incredible animal thinking just, man, I'm so blessed to be here and to be able to experience something like this. And it's definitely a hunt that, you know, I would love to do again, but I will remember that memory and that experience forever. And just an incredible stock. But one thing that I kind of took away from it was,
you know, here's, here's these moving caribou and we're trying to keep making plays on them while they're moving. And it put us at a disadvantage, but then they bet it down. And that gave us like the perfect opportunity to make a stock and use tactics that I use for so many other things, early season mule deer, maybe elk after late in the post rut where it's like, Hey,
We've got an animal that's bedded stationary, and it gives us a perfect opportunity to sneak in with a bow. Using tactics for one thing on a species that I've never hunted. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you, the other day, I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.
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I think that observing the behavior of what the animals are doing at that time, being good at that is probably the most successful tactic that you could pick up. And the reason is because once you've got, let's say, a stockpile of hunting knowledge or hunting experiences, you can really go and hunt anything anywhere and use different tactics at different times, but just kind of observe at the time and then use the tactic that will work best for you.
for those animals for them. Because what you're going to try to do is you're going to try to observe their behavior and then find that weakness that you can exploit to get within range. This is especially true when it comes to bow hunting, because within bow hunting, it's a game of proximity. You have to be close enough to make an ethical, clean shot that you know 100% sure when you release that arrow, you're going to take that animal. And in order to do that, you've got to be close.
And that can be the hardest part because, you know, finding an animal is one thing. Getting within range is another. You know, I like to always think when the rifle hunt ends is where the bow hunt really begins and then get even closer. So you really have to learn how to exploit that weakness. But it's not just for bow hunting. It can be for anything. When I'm thinking about, you know, some difficult hunts,
like rifle season, general units for elk. That can be an extremely difficult hunt. October season mule deer, that can be a tough hunt. Even rutting mule deer can be a difficult hunt. You know, you got a mountain unit or a general tag or whatever the tag is. Maybe you've got a limited entry tag and you're using rough. It doesn't matter what you're hunting. You need to be able to find the animal, but you also need to be able to get close and exploit that weakness. If you've got a rutting mule deer that's just on the cruise, you spot him at five miles away. Well, you might not ever catch up to him.
Or you've got a late season elk. It's like, well, they're barely coming out. They aren't out in the open. How do I pinpoint and figure out what these animals are doing? And I say that the best tactic is using observed behavior and then finding that weakness. So here's a couple of examples, you know.
let's say you're, you're hunting deer during the rut, kind of their attitude during the rut is their weakness. It puts them out in the open more. It puts them moving around more. That's that weakness. So in order to exploit that weakness during that hunt, what am I going to do? Well, I'm going to be finding the glassing advantages because I know that they're going to be moving more. They're going to be out in the open more. They're going to be cruising more. So that that's my advantage when they're normally brushed up or
very well hidden. I'm going to use that time of year to exploit the fact that they're out. Let's say it's late season elk. This is a good one, especially very timely. Well, what are they kind of focusing on that time of year? So say it's a general unit, rifle tag, late season elk. What are they focused on? Poster rut,
They're focused on, they're going to be really tied to food sources because they've got to bulk up. They got to keep that winter weight going because they're going to be heading into winter. Food's going to be scarce. So they're going to be really tied to food sources. So what am I going to do? I'm going to try to
to pinpoint and figure out this food sources. I'm going to use those food sources, like those open grassy areas, maybe those like timbered area, like it's all timbered, maybe a meadow or something. Maybe it's, you know, maybe it's all open, but I'm going to kind of exploit the preferred food source, that grass, maybe those south facing slopes, things like that. I'm going to figure out what they're doing at that time.
And then figure out what's the place that I can pinpoint and kind of like figure out how these animals are using the resources around. It's the same if it was like an early season elk hunt. I've talked about this stuff before, but...
You know, if it's an early season elk hunt in a hot area, well, they're going to be more tied to that water. So I'm going to pinpoint that water and I'm going to observe the behavior of what's going on that time of year and then figure out the tactics that allow me to get close on this particular last time. It's like caribou, they're rutting, they're moving. We couldn't really catch up. Now we could use some flagging and decoying, which worked, but
when we were doing that, it was like windy and they're moving and it didn't offer us really good shots this particular day. It could have worked the very next day. You know, if we saw, Hey, this stag is like being really aggressive or these ones are doing whatever that would probably work and it would work really well.
But we saw that they would get tired after cruising all day and fighting really hard and go, the bulls would pull off and go bed down maybe with one cow or no cows. And it's like, that's the time that we can exploit it. Just like an early season mule deer when they're, you got the heat of the day and they go out and feed and they're out in the open and then they pull away and go bed for the rest of the day. It's like, that's our time to attack. So what I like to do is I like to figure out the observed behavior, pinpoint a weakness and then make a move.
When it comes to making a move, there's my school of thought is this. There's the watch and wait. There's act fast. And then there's plan ahead. So I'll kind of go into that. Like watch and wait. I can think of many like early season mule deer hunts where I was looking for a specific buck, maybe a really big buck, a really mature buck.
set up on a glassing knob. I'm glassing the feeding sources in the morning going, okay, they're going to be out in the open. They don't like to be in real thick stuff, but they also are going to be bedded a lot of the day. So I'm set up and I'm watching. And then I watch the deer and they go bed and they've got everything to their advantage. They've got the wind coming downhill. They're bedded below the tree. They're in the shade. That's going to be stay shady most of the day. And they can see over the area. Plus they've got
All this dry balsam root around them, which acts as just like an alarm system for sound and a shale slide on one side. And I look at that and go, not that I couldn't try stalking that deer, but the odds of me making a stalk and being successful are very low percentage.
If I blow it out, then I probably won't get another chance. So I'm just watching and waiting. What I'm waiting for is that deer to do something stupid. And if you wait and watch long enough, the animals that you're hunting, eventually you'll find one that does something stupid.
That's kind of like the key to hunting. Go out, observe what they're doing, and then find one doing something stupid that gives you just a slight advantage. I'm waiting for that one deer that's like, hey, the wind's a different direction now. It's blowing uphill. And for him to get in the shade, he's got a bed behind this rock. And so he goes and beds down behind that rock. I've got good wind. I've got an obstructed view. I can come in from the top and
And in my mind, I go, that's almost 100% chance that I'm going to get within range. Now, a lot of things could go wrong, but when I see that stock or that opportunity, it's like, now's the time. So I watch and I wait for the deer to make a mistake, especially if I'm hunting something that's like,
you know, I'm hunting one deer, I'm looking for a mature animal and that's, you know, or whatever. Maybe I'm just looking to harvest any deer, but I've got a whole pile of deer over here that are doing something that's doesn't really lend itself for me to make a good stock. And I've got this one over here that just did something stupid. Well, I'll go and stock that one because it's a high percentage stock. I'm waiting for those stocks where I have a high likelihood of making it happen. Now, the other make a move factor is the act fast.
It's still tied to that. Oh, there's something doing something stupid. Or there's the, you know, that maybe it's that observed behavior. It's that late season elk, right? And it's like, well, it's a general unit. It's with a rifle and finding a legal bull is fricking difficult. You might hunt seven days and you might have two spots on a legal bull, right?
Well, now it's time to act fast. You know, you maybe don't have the perfect opportunity, but you don't have time to watch and wait. You know, if you wait, you aren't going to find another one. So you got to act now. You got to get where they are while they're there. And that's the act fast plan. It's like, okay, let's say the difficulty in it is this. The observed behavior is they don't come out of the timber very often. They're hard to find. And I got one feeding now or, hey, he moved out and bedded in a burn or bedded in the open or bedded behind something.
it's like, okay, not everything's perfect, but finding one is difficult. So I got to act fast. I got to go and make my move and make my plan now. And then the other one, the third move is the plan ahead. So you think about this and this is ties back to the behavior of the animals that you're hunting and what's going on that time of year. So if we think about
let's just tie it back in with late season elk, right? You've got some elk and you see them out feeding at night and you're, or let's say you see them out feeding in the morning and you go and you're, I don't know, wherever you're hunting. We do this a lot in like Eastern Nevada. Okay, we'll be set up glassing five miles away. You got all this cover, all these places, it's late season, snow's on the ground and these bulls come out and they feed in this one little basin. You're like, oh, there they are.
five miles away and you watch it for five more minutes and they walk right into the thick mahogany juniper and you're like they aren't coming back out we know we could go in there we could act fast we could just do our stock and probably blow them out of their beds you know the wind won't be right everything will be wrong and you probably aren't going to see those elk again
or we can make our move and plan ahead. So you go, well, it's late season. Those elk are tied to that food source. It's a tiny little opening. It's a sea of cover. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to spend the day getting up in there into position. I'm going to get the wind right for those thermals coming downhill. I'm going to set up and I'm going to wait for those bulls to come back out in the evening. And that's the plan ahead. And it works as well with
whatever you're hunting, maybe it's, you know, deer, let's say deer during the rut. You've got a group of does in this particular draw. You've seen bucks kind of like,
checking it out the does tend to be there every day so we're going to instead of be glassing that far away we're going to get ahead the next morning get into there within a range where we can make a move on a like cruising buck and be set up we're seeing deer on this particular ridge one day but they're cruising you know so we're going to go and get into position and plan ahead to make our move in advance we're kind of like doing that chess game of thinking a couple moves ahead
Do it even early season mule deer. It's like, hey, the deer feeding in this particular sage basin. Instead of watching them from across the valley, I'm going to go get in that sage, that feeding area in the dark. And then as they feed out in the morning, I can crawl and try to get ahead and do an ambush stalk. So I'm using what the animals are doing in that observed behavior. I'm thinking, what are they going to do next? And then I'm planning ahead, making a move.
So those are the three ways that I consider making a move when it comes to planning a stock. When I think about hunting or whatever species I'm chasing, one of the fun things that I love about Western hunting that you maybe don't get other places is a variety of species. You know, there's elk, mule deer, white tails, moose, sheep, goats, pronghorn, like
wolves, bears, mountain lions. There's so many different species, caribou, moose. Like it's just, there's so many different species to hunt. And yet, you know, you go, well, how do I be successful? If I, if I draw a, uh, even when you go like, Hey, I'm going on a hunt in Alaska, DIY hunt, first time, first time chasing caribou.
I don't know much about caribou, but what I can, or let's say, I'm just saying like, if you don't know much about caribou, but you can use tactics that you've learned from other things, observe what the animals are doing, and then employ it in those weakness. If you've got moving caribou that are like migrating through and you're like, Hey man, they seem to be crossing this one Valley or like they're cruising up this Valley and following the wind. Well, then the next day you can kind of plan ahead and like get into that position and be ready. I know I've done that many
many times or like chasing animals that you've never hunted before and using tactics that you find from other species, other hunts, other places, and then just trying to figure out, okay, what, when this animal does something, how can I best it? How can I get ahead of it and really observe what they're doing and then try to find that weakness while I'm doing it? It's one thing, like if you're coming from somewhere else, you've got your first elk hunt, your first deer hunt, whatever, trying to just really observe like what's going on. What do these animals need? Pinpointing that
and then focusing on how can I exploit that, that's how you're going to be consistently successful no matter what you're hunting. I really appreciate, I've been checking out, there's some great comments on Twitter
bunch of different podcast platforms. I try to read those and thank you guys so much for all the kind words. I really appreciate it. A lot of people enjoy the podcast and I really thank you guys so much for all that, especially like the ratings and all those things, some new, there's some new comments and stuff like that. So if you feel so inclined and want to drop a comment or rating, I always appreciate it. This, the, I like talking about some of the things that have just happened recently. I've actually got
I know you like hear a hunting story and then it's fun to see it as well. So, uh, last this week, I posted a video that we just edited of that caribou hunt. So if you want to go check that out, that's on my, uh, Remy Warren, YouTube page should be able to search that, find that if you don't subscribe already, it's a, you know, please do. I appreciate that too. Um,
feel free to drop a comment or whatever came from the podcast or whatever. You know, it's always fun to see where like where people come from and whatever. And as always, you can reach out to me via social media. Generally Instagram's the best at Remy Warren. I know there's all, it's like all these platforms. I'm like, go here, go that, check this out. But it's always fun to be able to kind of see something that I talked about. You can kind of visualize it in your head and then it's cool to see how it plays out. And I know
Like when you edit a video, you can't see all the details of like what's going on, what I'm thinking. And when I'm telling the story, you can't actually see it all. So it's kind of fun to just see it all together combined. So if you get time and want to do that, that's awesome.
Yeah. And, oh, speaking of videos, I was doing, I was selected, got to select some finalists for the Western Hunter Film Fest. There's, you can go in there and check it out if you guys are looking for some, I don't know, I always like to point people in the direction of some fun stuff to check out. I love watching hunting videos. I mean, you know, I started doing solo hunter. I've
love filming my own hunts. I love watching people's hunts. So it was really fun to be, for me to be a part of that process, help select some people. You've got like amateur shorts, amateur longs, pro shorts, pro longs. So that's something else. If you're just like looking for some cool stuff to check out a Western hunter film fest, you could probably just Google search it and find it that way. I think there's a little bit of a voting period where you can kind of vote on the ones that you like. I think it's kind of fun. Those guys are,
we'll get some pretty sweet prize packages and stuff like that. So that's always fun for me to be a part of and see guys getting into it and filming their hunts. And there's some incredible stuff out there. So, um, appreciate you guys sharing all that stuff with me. Also, man, I've gotten so many, the October and some of the deer tactics stuff, um,
really helped a lot of people be successful in mule deer. A couple of guys already using those white tail rattle tactics, like guys that are, I'm not even saying like guys in the West guys that are like, man, I have this area. I was like kind of public land went in there.
you know, I got sick of sitting. I did this like calling sequence and I got a picture last night. Great buck. A guy took just, you know, finding the deer that wanted to play, you know, honing in on one, one little tactic and making it work for yourself. So that's, that to me gets me pretty stoked, pretty fired up. So I appreciate you all. Thank you guys until next week, plan those stocks and exploit the week. Catch you guys later.
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