Ep. 15: My Biggest Archery Buck and How to Plan Better Stalks
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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. Stalking game animals with either a rifle or a bow can be difficult, but I have a foolproof mantra when it comes to planning a stalk.

Something that I say as a guiding light nearly every time I plan to sneak in. It's this. Go the best way, not the easy way. I want to talk about what that means as well as the three factors that generally get you busted. Wind, sight, and noise. And how those factor in to the best way to stalk.

I constantly have to tell myself this over and over as I plan a stock. But one particular time that stands out ended with the biggest mule deer I have ever taken with a bow. Everybody loves a big buck story, and this is my biggest buck story that I've got. Now, I drew a limited entry tag in Montana and had heard rumors of a big buck in a particular area.

I ended up getting permission on this block management area, which is private land where they allow public access. The morning started out with my buddy Brett and I in the area, posted up on a glassing knob before sunup. Now, we're working into the wind, and as the sun's coming up, we sit there. Just like most mornings, the sun starts to come up and get a chill in the air. It just felt like a good day. You know, besides that...

One thing that happened that is very of important note for this story. On the way there, my lucky song, Cashmere by Led Zeppelin, hit the radio. Now when that happens, that's a good omen for me and my buddies. That means it's going to be a kill day. Not only that, but before the sun even came up, my buddy Mike texts me, Hey man, Cashmere came on the radio. Good luck out there today.

I don't know why that's important for this story, but it means a lot to me because this is a day that I will remember forever. As the sun came up, the temperature started to drop. I was hiking up a pretty steep hill, so I was in pretty light clothing, shivering a little bit, get my jacket out, start glassing. All right, I'm just going to, there's got to be a big buck in here. Summer is great looking country. Saw a few smaller deer, but well, that's the way it was going. Then I looked down into the valley and

And here's a group of nine bucks. All what I would consider possible shooters. With one in there that just stood out leaps and bounds beyond the rest. It was one of the biggest deer I'd seen in the state of Montana. I knew that I had to make it happen today. So I decided to watch the deer, see where they went, hopefully be able to make a play and make a good stock. As they moved up the canyon, they started feeding and milling around. My first initial thought was,

God, it'd be easy to drop down and pop up that ridge right behind them and then trail them up. The trouble was I knew that the wind, in order to get to that spot, there was a slight chance that it would give me away. I had to tell myself in my head, go the best way, not the easy way.

Which in that moment you think, yeah, of course I'd do that. But the best way involved practically running around the mountain, up a steep incline and over the backside to come in the other direction. So there was no possibility the deer could see me and or wind me on the route. There's a way to get there faster, but it involved potentially getting winded and across through an open section, which could get me spotted. That wasn't going to work.

It was time to get athletic and take the best way, not the easy way. I don't know if my buddy Brett really liked that whole mantra. He's like, let's just go this way. I was like, no, we're going to the top. And he stuck with me because he knew how big that buck was and how excited I was to try to make a play on it. So we dropped down out of sight, go two canyons around, climb straight up the steep hill in the direction that they were feeding in hopes of cutting them off as they got to the top.

As I neared the top, I'm coming over and I see antler tips 60 yards out moving in our direction. The lead buck stops and just pegs my direction. I'm like, oh no, did we get spotted? I lay down, not moving, still. Now, it would have been easy at this point to get impatient, to sneak up, maybe try to get a shot, hoping that that bigger buck was within sight.

But I knew I had to just be patient and do what was best. The best thing at that moment, because I didn't see the bigger buck in the group right then, was to just lay there motionless. I laid there and resisted the urge to peek up, to look around. About 30 minutes went by before I decided to move again. At that point, the deer had gotten back into their rhythm, ignored me, started feeding and moving past me. All the deer had moved out except for two out of the group.

The two missing were the big buck and the smallest buck. Now, in between the point where those deer went over, remember I took kind of mental notes on the mountain and there were a couple trees down below in this canyon.

My thought was, the sun's out, it's getting hot. That buck had to have stopped and bedded in that shade. I waited for about an hour. The big buck never came up with the rest of the group. So I was assuming that he was down below kind of where I last saw him before I went around the mountain. Now it would have been easy to just sneak down from where I was at, but I knew that there was a chance walking down that way that I would get busted.

Because I would be walking down the mountain in sight of where they could potentially be bedded. So I backed out, went back down the mountain. Now the thermals were coming up, but there was a spot where I could parallel around the hill and get into proximity of where I expected this deer to be bedded. I took off my shoes and I slowly started to creep in. As I got within range, I kept ranging the big tree, not seeing anything, not seeing anything. Crawling slow, steady, steady.

Then I see antler tips of the small buck. I'm like, sweet. They're here. I don't see the big buck, but he's got to be right below me. There's a little bit of a ledge below me, somewhere that he could be tucked out of sight. And I just decided to sit and wait till they start moving again. Now, as I sat down, the little buck caught a glimpse of something.

But I was already within range. I'd ranged the whole hill. The big buck started to trot out. Knowing something wasn't right, stopped. I grunted, drew back, stopped the buck, and let the arrow fly. It hit its mark. The buck ran over the hill and fell over. When I walked up on that deer, I was pretty much in disbelief. It was one of the biggest deer I'd ever laid my hands on.

Now, there was a lot of things that could have gone wrong in that stock. It was extremely open country. A lot of chances for those deer to spot me beforehand and blow out way ahead of time. A lot of chances with the way the winds were swirling to wind me. But every time I made a decision, I said, go the best way, not the easy way. There were so many ways that would have just been easier or faster to go. But in the long run, it ended up working out just right. And I got the buck of my dreams.

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When you're thinking about a potential stock, there's always these little outs, little ways to go a direction that will probably get you there, but something's just a little bit wrong. The best way is the way with the least amount of possible ways to get busted. Okay? So if you have all your options laid out on the table right in front of you, you have to pick the option that has the least potential to send that animal running.

And that oftentimes I've found statistically over the years, the best way is often the most physical or longest way possible. It's the way that kind of seems in your mind, I don't really feel like doing that. That's because there's an element in choosing the best route, not based on what's the easiest.

You have to pick it based on what is the most likely to get you in position without hitting the three get busted factors. Those three get busted factors are the wind, being spotted, and being heard. Those are the three things that you need to take into account when planning your stock. And then you pick the option that always lends you to get within range without the deer ever potentially being aware of your presence. Okay?

So let's break down those three factors. We'll start with wind. Wind is the one thing that might be invisible, but you can never get away with it. Once an animal smells you, they are blowing out. I always consider that as the most important thing to avoid, getting winded. Now, you have to first account for what's the prevailing wind doing.

When you're on a spot in stock hunt, no amount of scent control solution will prevent that animal from smelling you. The only thing that will work is using the wind in your favor. And that means putting the animal upwind of you. So your scent does not ever have the potential to reach it.

Now there's so many stocks where you start thinking about the other factors, sight and sound. I think, oh, I got to get around behind him because there's that tree. He won't be able to see me and I walk in, but yeah, I'm 600 yards out and my wind's kind of going that direction. You know, in order to get the wind right, I'd have to drop all the way around this mountain, down that Canyon and then up the other side. I'll just try going this route. It's a little bit quicker to get out of sight. The trouble is Murphy's law.

You think it probably won't happen, but majority of the time will happen. He's going to win you. He'll be aware of your presence. You're putting yourself in that category where he has the chance to know you're there before you want him to. The whole key is you don't want him to know you're there ever. You want to make your shot before that animal really realizes you're there.

Other things to consider when you're talking about wind, you can't just think about which way is the prevailing wind going. But you also have to think about will the wind or thermals change as time goes on? Is it early in the morning? Are those thermals still rising? Then the prevailing wind will kick in and shift. Is it close to the evening? Are you making a stock near the end of the day? Are the thermals going to shift and start going downhill once it starts to get shaded on that animal?

So you have to think about the wind where you're at plus future or potential actions and give yourself a timeline of how long it'll take to get there as well as, okay, is this stock going to work in the amount of time that I have? If you're planning on getting above him, but you think, well, the thermals are going to shift, I'm going to run out of time. You might need to rethink your plan and get into a spot that if the thermals do change, you're still going to be okay.

All of this planning is continually thinking, what's the best option? What's the option that gives me the least amount of chance to get busted?

Next, we'll talk about sight. This is one where you can get away with a little bit, but it's the easiest one to see visually. As long as you keep that animal's eyes to where it's blocked, its vision's blocked from where you are, it can't see you. That's something to think about. Just because you can see its body, you want to keep its head or its eyesight from even being able to slightly pick you up.

Now, I tend to go overboard because what I like to look for is what I call a blind approach where I can get to within range, whether it's a rifle, a bow, whatever, wherever I plan to get within range and make my shot from. I want to be out of sight all the way through that point. Let's say you're six, 700 yards out and you got to cross this big open.

I would rather drop down and walk an extra half a mile, quarter mile, or go up a steeper section to get around the backside where I know I'll be out of sight or I can keep popping over and checking in on him on the way, but using all my travel out of sight because I know that there's no potential to get busted before I get within range.

Now that's not always possible depending on the scenario, but if you can't, then you need to keep his eyes away from where he can look and see you. You also have to remember that a lot of animals you'll be stalking have a lot better peripheral vision than we do. They can see behind their head a lot better than you might give them credit for. Take an antelope, for instance. It can see all but maybe 45 degrees directly behind its head. So their eyesight is the second most important factor that you need to consider.

Now, the third thing, sound. So noise is a factor that you can control while on the stock based on your speed and the type of approach. Earlier, we talked about in an earlier podcast, and if you haven't listened to it, go back and find it. The shoes off situation talks about moving in stealthily.

Now, moving fast creates a certain amount of noise. Slowing it down creates less noise. Before you even stalk in, look at what's around that animal. A lot of times, say mule deer, they'll bed in areas that lend themselves to be noisy where they can add that audio cue to danger.

So if there's a shale slide behind the animal, one, that's going to be exposed. Two, it's going to be loud. Try to plan your approach on a quieter route, the best route, not the easiest route. So many times it's just, oh yeah, I can creep down this shale slide to him instead of go around, get parallel with it and then crawl in. Because slowing down and crawling a lot of times can be a pain. Same goes for sight. You know, you might have an animal bedded facing the direction that you need to come in from.

Well, you can stay out of sight oftentimes by just crawling that extra distance. Especially with a bow, I've been really successful by doing most of my stalks crawling. It can be painful. It can take a long time. It sucks to crawl through a lot of this stuff, but it's quiet. It's out of sight. It's more difficult, but a lot of times it's the best approach.

So constantly thinking about the best way, not the easiest way. Yeah, it's easier to crouch over and move in and this, that, and the other thing. But if the best way is going to be to crawl in, to stay out of sight and to stay quiet, that's what you need to do. So plan your stocks with that mantra in mind. And over the course of time, I promise you, you'll be more successful.

If there's one takeaway from this podcast, this episode right now, honestly, I think it should be don't get lazy and cheat yourself out of success. This might be about stalking an animal and you might only hunt from a tree stand for whitetail deer or be a turkey hunter. It doesn't matter. That principle is successful for all types of hunting.

Think about when you're selecting your tree stand, picking the right wind, getting in silent, going away that might be a little more difficult or setting up in an area that might be a little more difficult, but you know is the best option. Doesn't matter what you're hunting. If you choose that and be persistent at it, you're going to be more successful. And that's the whole goal here. More success in the field.

I really appreciate you checking this podcast out, listening. Honestly, the best thing, my favorite thing is all the response we've been getting. A lot of people are listening to these while they're headed out to their deer stands, while they're headed out to the mountain, while they're headed out hunting. And that's what gets me excited because you're out there, you're getting after it. I always love to hear your feedback and your response as well as your success stories. So keep that coming in. I appreciate it and good luck.

May the force be with you. You know what I'm going to do on the next Q&A podcast that I do? I'm going to read some of the suggested sign-offs because some of them are great. I'm going to start using a bunch of those. That's fun. It's fun not having a sign-off. And I like the aspect of talking about it nearly weekly. It's entertaining for me. All right. May the force be with you.

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