Ep. 13: A Montana Elk Hail Mary and Getting Steady with Your Rifle
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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. This podcast is presented by Yeti, built for the wild. Now, the question I want to ask you this week is when it comes down to the moment right before you squeeze the trigger.

Have you done everything you can to make sure that that shot is going to go where it's supposed to? I mean, think about it like this. You've spent the entire week elk hunting. You've stocked in. You're within range. The bull's out in the open. But as you show up, he starts to move off. You've got your pack and nothing else. You throw the pack down. Can you get that rifle steady for that one split second he's going to stop before disappearing in the timber?

Because I honestly think that being able to steady that rifle fast in the field makes a lot of difference between going home empty or just having another elk hunting story where the one got away. This week, I want to tell you a few of those stories where it just didn't work out right. But I also want to give you some tips so when you're in the field, you can just learn from experience and be so much faster getting that rifle steady instantly.

Now, I feel very fortunate because of the guiding that I've done. I get to see a lot of the mistakes that most hunters make.

Now, a lot of the people that I take out, I would consider pretty decent hunters. They spend time hunting, especially where they live. They get a lot of practice hunting there. But when they come out west or they're on an elk hunt, some of these people even live around here. Yet one of the things that I see as a little bit of a tactical error or not practiced enough is when it comes to setting up a rifle.

Now, I had a client that I guided a lot over the years. And when he first started hunting with me, it was completely different than when he finished hunting with me. And I think I'll tell a few of the stories where it just didn't work out right. We did everything right up until the point where it came time to shoot.

And that honestly is the most important time. So we'll take it back to the beginning of the elk season, the end of October, about six years ago in the Montana wilds. It's day four of the hunt. We've seen bulls, but just no real good opportunities. The guy I was hunting with was a little bit older. And so he's a little bit mobility restricted, but he definitely gave it his all.

Now, on this morning, the temperatures seem to drop. I'm at a spot that I've hunted quite a bit, and I'm glassing off one direction. And then I hear it. The best sound in the elk woods, late October. I call it a late October bugle. Off in the distance, in the valley below me, I hear a bugle rip out. And I think to myself, this is it.

And when a bull starts firing up that time of year, you know that you're probably going to get a chance at that elk. We work our way down the hill and it's pretty well timbered, but I know this area really well. And I know that there's an opening in the bottom. I'm throwing out some cow calls and I hear just a bunch of noise down in the bottom and another bugle. I hear cows talking.

Now what it is, is as we work down, we get about a third of the way from the bottom and it's clear cut at this point. And then it's just an old clear cut. So it's maybe eight foot conifers, really dense pine trees in the bottom that opens up into this little marshy meadow. And then the other side's big, darker timber after that. I find a good log. Now, one thing I should mention is before I take a guy hunting, I always have them shoot.

It's not because I don't trust that they're guns on, but that is one thing. But I also study the way that that person shoots. I have them shoot not from a bench, just off of shooting sticks or whatever they've got that they're planning on hunting with. And the reason is because I like to know how comfortable someone is with a rifle. So I know at this point, he's going to have to get pretty steady. And there are a few stumps and logs around. I'm like, perfect. This will be a great rest.

We get set up and I can hear cows just mewing down below us and a lot of racket. There's a bull that just for some reason, he's all fired up right now. He's pushing cows around. They're moving around. And now the lead cow has decided she's had enough and they're moving single file out of the small pines up through this little meadow and into the timber. This is perfect. We've got time.

I get him set up. I put the pack on top of a cut stump. He's sitting down and the elk are starting to file out single file. I'm assuming that the bull is going to be in the back. I tell him, look, put your crosshairs right where those elk are filing through. They're pretty much going to be right there.

Now I look over and he just does not look steady. I'm like, are you stable? No, he's like, I can't get steady. He's like, give me my shooting stick. Okay, sweet. So I grabbed just the bipod type shooting sticks, but the sitting kind, you can think of it where it's just two crossed legs with a place at the top to put your rifle. So I get him set up on that so he can get a little bit higher up. I look, I'm like, hey man, get your right elbow on your knee. Steady that rifle a little bit there. Okay, so he gets it.

He's set up. You on the elk? Yeah, so he's on the cows that are walking out. Look, none of these are stopping, but as soon as that bull walks out, I'm going to rip a really loud bugle, and it should get him to stop and turn and look our way, and that'll give you your chance to take a shot. He's like, yep, got it. Elk are filing through. I see antler tips coming through the small pines. This is about to happen. It's a 300-yard shot. It should be good. He's got his sticks.

We have a very small window to stop him in. So I got to do it just as he steps out because by the time that sound travels to him, he's going to hear that. He's going to stop. He's already quartering away. So even if he just takes one half step toward us, perfect shot, be great. The bull breaks through the trees. I rip a bugle. He does textbook, slow turn step. I'm looking at the bull. I look at the guy and he's just messing with these shooting sticks.

I'm like, you got to get on him. You got to get on him. He's like, it's moved. I can't get steady. So he grabs both shooting stick and he's trying to readjust the shooting sticks. At this time, we are losing critical time.

When it should have just been a small adjustment, he's messing with the sticks. The bull then starts to walk again. As soon as he gets it steady, it starts to walk again. Now he's grabbing the sticks and moving the sticks. The bull walks off. I stop at a bugle again. The bull stops. He gets impatient, fires when I think maybe only one leg of the bipod is even on the ground.

shoots right over the elk's back, all the elk run away. We were so close to having a bull, yet his lack of being able to steady that rifle fast cost him an elk. 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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And I think a lot of that I attribute because I practiced getting a rifle steady while I was a kid, growing up in the field. I would constantly throw the gun up, practice putting it on inanimate targets or out in the field shooting, shooting a small game with a light caliber rifle, just being extremely familiar with a rifle, having one in my hand all the time, using it all the time. Now, if you don't have the time or the background in that,

Getting steady when the action's coming down, you've got a split second. It can be hard to do because your mechanics, the way that you operate, the way that your brain functions isn't smooth. A lot of fast action is smooth action. Doing a task in its simplest form, smooth is fast, fast is smooth. You want to be able to steady that rifle in a way that it makes sense. You have the fewest amount of movements and is natural.

So when you think about steadying a rifle, there's four major ways. There's prone, where you're laying down. There's kneeling. There's sitting. And then there's standing. Obviously, prone is the most stable because you've got the most on the ground. You can really steady that rifle. And then standing is the least stable. While those are all good shooting positions that you need to know, I'm going to talk about ways to use what's around you for those adaptations of shooting positions.

What I really want to talk about is just in the field experience, simple things to readjust and reacquire whatever the target is quickly and to get steady fast with what's around you. So it's more of a critical thinking and how to set up as opposed to just going through the basic type of shot positions that you might learn in hunter safety.

Let's start with shooting sticks. A ton of people bring shooting sticks, and I think they are an extremely easy way to stabilize your gun. But a lot of people, their brains in action, you just mess up and adjust them in the most inefficient ways possible. Think about a double stick or a bipod-style shooting stick.

When you get it set up, I think the best way would be, say, an elk's coming out. You're able to sit down on the ground. You're a right-handed shooter. Therefore, your right knee goes up and you can rest your right elbow on your right knee.

Now the gun is between the shooting sticks. Now the animal's moving up and you need the rifle barrel to move up as well to get closer. You've set them up, the gun's in there, but the animal's moving. You need to follow with it. A lot of people I see make the mistake because your brain says it's two sticks. They grab both sides and then try to readjust and then set the rifle back in there. Take your left hand, your off-gun hand, keep that on the left side of the stick.

Now to move it higher, you just pick the one side up and move it closer to the other side. To move the gun lower, you pick it up and move the leg out. That raises and lowers the gun. It's one easy movement to raise and lower the gun to move the stick with just a single hand while you're still on the animal and still steady. If you're going to take a shooting stick, practice with that shooting stick. If you don't even have the ability to get range time in,

you can still practice getting those sticks out in an efficient way and adjusting at home. Take the bolt out of your rifle. Obviously, make sure that it's completely unloaded. That just goes without saying. Common sense, but I have to say it.

And then on the floor of wherever in your bedroom, get your shooting sticks out, get down fast, set the rifle in there, and practice moving and adjusting higher and lower. Another way to readjust, think about anything you're using to stabilize the front end of your rifle. Say it's a pack. To raise the barrel of the rifle, whatever your gun's resting on, move it closer toward your body. That lifts the barrel up.

As you move it further away, that lowers the barrel. So when you originally get set up, set up whatever you're resting your rifle on in the middle. If you have to raise it, you can push it closer and to lower it, you can push whatever it's resting on further away. That's a more efficient, smooth way to steady for a shot.

Now, I never take shooting sticks when I'm hunting. I do have a bipod for my rifle that I've started using, but I would say most of the shots I take are off my pack. It's because my pack is always with me and I can pretty much use it from shooting prone all the way through standing. And I'll give you some examples that you may not have thought of before, but these are just the ways that I use my pack for the various shooting positions.

So let's go with prone. We've got an animal out there. Say it's bedded at 300, 400 yards. It has no clue we're there. We've got an area where the grass is low. We've got a hill or whatever in between us. So I can take a prone shot. That's always my first option. If I can lay down, I'll take that shot.

Because a pack has a frame and then it also has a bag, you can use both the hard part of the frame or the soft part of the bag to stabilize the front end of your rifle. When I'm laying down prone, I'll throw my rifle for stock on the pack itself. And then a lot of times, the key is to stabilize the back end of the rifle. So most of the time, I just use my binoculars or range finder or even a rock around me to get the butt of the rifle stabilized on the ground.

At that point, the gun is pretty much self-standing, self-sustaining. I'll move in, get steady, and take that shot. That's the most accurate way I can shoot. Not every situation that works like that. Now with my pack kneeling or sitting, what I'll do is I'll sit on the ground. I'll put the pack in front of me.

This is where I normally have the pack sitting upright. I'll rest the rifle on the top of the pack with the bottom of the pack on the ground. I'll rest my shooting hand or my trigger finger, the elbow of my right arm because I'm right-handed, on my right knee if possible.

If I have to kneel, I'll use the pack as what's stabilizing the rifle, and then I'll sit up higher. Hopefully, I can kneel with my right knee forward to rest my right arm on my knee because I'm trying to stabilize both the front and the back of the rifle at the same time. Now, a cool one is there are those times where you do have to shoot standing up. I remember a few years ago, I was hunting mule deer in Idaho, and I was

I ended up having to stand on this log. The buck was probably only 70 yards, but there was no way to get a rest because the grass was so tall and the hill was so steep. So I had to jump up on this log and take a standing shot. Now, if you've got a pack on already, a lot of times what I'll do is I'll reverse the pack to the front of my body, and then I can push it out with the strap of the pack on my arm, rest the front end of the rifle on the pack, and then have that pack come down to my hips.

That's a great way to stabilize the rifle while standing if you have a pack and you have to happen to take a shot like that. There's just so many ways that you can use the things around you in a little bit different way for shooting.

Now let's say you don't even have a pack. Oftentimes you got to keep an eye out for the things that are around you. Say a crook of a tree where you can stabilize the rifle in the tree or rocks or stumps, something that can use as a rest. There's so many rests out there, but I think the way is to practice using what you see while you're in the woods. While you're in the mountains, getting comfortable using your pack before it's time to actually have to get down and take that shot.

When you're at the range, don't just shoot off the bench. Shoot with your pack. Practice different ways to get steady using what you have or you're going to have with you. Because in the field, that knowledge and that practice is going to make everything smooth, everything steady, and it's going to get you more comfortable and take a better shot in a less amount of time. Sometimes it's just a matter of seconds between success and going home empty.

So having that knowledge and that practice, using the things around you is overall going to make you a more successful hunter when the moment of truth arrives. If you're going to be out there rifle hunting this year and some tip or something that I've said has helped you, shoot me a message via social media. I would love to see your guys' success stories. Hopefully you can learn a few things here that just get you thinking in a different way.

Now, if that is the major takeaway from today, just getting you to see things in a different light, whether you've been hunting your entire life or you're new to it, I hope that it just really gets you to just kind of look at things that you have with you and say, okay, how can I use this to be better? How can I be more stable? How can I get steady faster? That's the whole goal, just to make you a better hunter.

And then I want to just hear from you in ways that you've done something maybe a little bit different that worked out and was successful for you. Because I'd love to share that with other people, because I think that we can all learn from each other. Man, if you got, how about this? If you end up getting an animal this year, whether it's an elk, a deer, whatever, you

Even take a picture of where you shot from and give me just a little brief description. I'd love to share some of that with other people. Like, oh, this is a way that I got steady. Something that I didn't think about before. Because it's cool to share knowledge, share information. I can learn as much from you as you can learn from me. So I think it's a cool way in this day and age to be able to just share with each other. I appreciate you guys listening till next week. Shoot straight. Don't be shaky, man. You got this.

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