Ep. 34: Calling Bears in New Mexico and Essential Tactics for Filling Your Spring Tag
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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.

Well, hello, everyone. I hope everybody's doing good. And this week, we are talking bears 2.0. So last week was bears 1.0. And we were just kind of laying the groundwork, how to identify where bears are based on behavior, food sources. And then we even touched a little bit on seasonality of the food sources and where you should be looking certain times a year. And we're going to talk a little bit about that.

Once you've keyed in on where bears will be, now we need to employ the hunting tactics. So this week is going to be all about bear spot and stalk and western bear hunting tactics. And the three that I'm going to cover are going to be glassing, then a still hunting tactic, which would be more roving on logging roads, and then the third tactic, which will be calling.

Now before we get too far into the tactics, I'd like to first share a story, one of my personal favorite stories out of my collection of hunting experiences. This involves a bear hunt in New Mexico while I was guiding and it's just one of those stories that needs to be told. This story takes place in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Now, I used to guide down there for an outfitter and it's primarily elk hunts, but the hunters every once in a while would have a bear tag in their pocket as well. This year in particular was just a crazy year for acorn growth.

there's all these scrub Oaks, just, I would say like head high, super thick Oak brush. And for some reason this year, every Oak tree had just thousands of acorns, whether it was a, a,

the right combinations of spring and dry summer and weather before this time, whatever. This particular September, there was just acorns everywhere. And because of it, it really drew the bears out of the pine forests in the surrounding areas. And we were seeing and encountering quite a few bears. So the food source was there just everywhere, acorns on the ground. And because of it, we're seeing more bears than we'd ever seen in years past.

On this particular hunt, we were primarily focusing on elk, but it was just kind of hot in a really hot, dry September. And the elk activity, the rutting activity was pretty slow. So in the middle of the day, I just figured we're going to go walk around and maybe try to find some elk sign, maybe throw out some bugles, whatever. It was just getting pretty slow. And my hunter happened to have a bear tag as well because we'd been seeing so many bears. So we're working in this particular area today.

And I think this was actually the same hunt. I told a story earlier in a different podcast about the elk almost stepping on me. This is in that same area. So there's to paint a picture, there's this big open meadow. So there's these big slopes that go up the mountain. And then there's these big drop off canyons on one side. So there's a big canyon that drops off in, in between the meadows. It's these big pine forests, open meadow going up, maybe some, some Aspens mixed in and,

And then it drops off into this canyon on the other side and in the lower parts and on the drier sides of the hill. So all the north faces, normally, you know, a lot of places, north faces would be meadows. In this particular area, it seemed like most of the north faces were like really choked thick with this oak brush. So on this particular day where I'm walking through the pine stuff, the wind was coming down the mountain. So we're working the morning up.

And we end up at the top of the hill and we've got this kind of overlook over this valley. And we just start working the pine edge around. And I look and I start seeing a lot of bear sign here. So I kind of investigate the bear sign and I look and go, okay,

There's like bear scat everywhere in this one particular area. And I think, okay, I kind of analyze it and they're just acorns in it. I'm thinking to myself, there's only one real spot on this particular mountain up high here that has acorns. So I get my hunter. I'm like, Hey, let's go see if we can try to find a bear. He's like, okay, cool.

So we walk up and there's this perfect overlook. It's just, it comes out of the pine forest and it's just this like perfect rock rim, maybe a 10 foot drop off the rocks. And it's surrounded by pines and it's just this thick oak brush coming right up to that from there.

I'm like, okay, out of everywhere, this is where this bear has got to be living. I mean, it's got the right habitat. It's within a good range of where we're at. It's just thick in there. There's a ton of acorns. This has got to be the spot. So it's the middle of the day, and I tell my hunter, I'm like, all right, I'm going to bust out my call. I just carry this jackrabbit and distress call with me.

I'm like, we're going to call this bear in. And the wind was perfect. It was coming up from the bottom. Everything was just set right. We could see all around us. And I'm like, ah, this is good. So I tell my hunter, I'm like, all right, you go and set up by this big pine where you can see down. I was about 10 yards away.

And I'm just going to sit here and call. And I give him specific instructions. I've called plenty of bears. It takes a long time for a bear to get active and decide to come in. So I'm like, it's going to be a minimum of 45 minutes and we won't leave until after an hour. So I'm going to be calling constant for at least 45 minutes to an hour. He's like, okay.

So I get over in my spot and start wrenching on the call. I mean, it's just like I'll do one of these stands calling for bears maybe every few days because it's just taxing to just blow on this call as loud and as long and as hard as I can for an hour. So I just get going. And you can just hear it echoing down the canyon. It's perfect.

All of a sudden, it starts attracting the birds, which is just like first step. Okay, it's working. Here comes some magpies. And about 10 minutes in, magpies are landing on all the trees around us. And I keep... About 20 minutes in, I am just taxed. I'm like, oh, gosh.

Here we go. And I can see my hunter is just kind of like, I'm like, okay, have an arrow on, be ready. You know, he's looking like, okay, nothing's happening. I'm like, just wait, giving him the hand signals. Like, it's okay, you know, be ready. So he's sitting there and I keep wrenching on the call. All of a sudden the crows start circling. I'm like, well, stuff thinks that this is a good setup and it just feels good. I know this is going to happen.

So we're about, I would say 45 minutes into it. And I kind of, I give him like the thumbs up. Like we've hit the mark now where bears should be coming in. We're just going to keep an eye out. And for some reason, I think he just got impatient. It's like, this is just not working. So he puts his arrow back in his quiver and walks over to me. And I look at him and he's like, I think your call's broken.

And I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, it's not working. And I'm like, okay, yeah, but I told you it's going to take like, even if it doesn't work, like this is now we're in the time zone. Like if a bear is going to come in, he's going to come in from now until the next 10 minutes. So I'm thinking, I'm like, what? Okay. And as soon as he said his back is now to the downhill side and he's facing me, he's like, you know, just talking to me like your call's not working. Like I, he's like, I don't think this is going to happen.

And I was like, what do you mean it's not working? He's like, huh? As soon as he said it wasn't working, a bear stepped out like 30 yards below him. Well, what about that bear right there? And he thinks I'm joking. He turns around and just locks eyes with this bear. And the bear's like 30 yards. It's below us. It has no, like it can't see us the way that the angle is.

And he starts shaking and he gets down and rat like rattling around, gets an arrow on, on his string. It was like from zero of, Oh, this call is not working to all of a sudden me nonchalantly saying, Oh, what about that bear right there? And of course, bear right there. So I range the bear 30 yards. He gets drawn back.

And I can see he's, it's just like the nerves, I think, got the best of him from the surprise of thinking that there's no bears to now here's a bear 30 yards away. He draws back and shoots.

I know the arrow hit the ground somewhere way away from the bear. I think between the adrenaline and the shaking and the surprise, that bear wheeled around and ran straight back into the oak brush that he came from, never to be seen again. I'm going to break it down into my three favorite bear hunting tactics. So we're going to call it glassing, cruising, and calling.

Let's start with glassing. Now, if I was to describe bear hunting to someone that says, hey, what's it like to go spot and stalk bear hunting in, say, Montana or Idaho? My definition of it is it is hours of boredom interjected with a few seconds of sheer excitement.

Now, the reason is because there's a lot of time in between spotting bears, and that's probably why it makes it so exciting when you actually see one. I think a lot of people, the first time they go bear hunting, they kind of get worked up too because the whole predator aspect, they've got teeth, they've got claws. It's an elusive animal that you don't see very often. Not that there's low populations of them, but they're just very elusive in nature.

They can be hard to find. And there can be a lot of time in between spotting. So when you actually do spot one, it's like, oh crap, there's one. What do I do? All your time has been spent focusing on finding the thing and very little time has been spent focusing on what are you going to do when you find something. So I think that adds to the excitement factor.

Now, out of all the successful bear hunts I've done, I would say that I probably, many of them, the success is probably split up amongst the three tactics, the cruising, glassing, and calling.

Glassing, I think, works best early in the season, but then where you glass changes throughout the course of the season. So at the beginning of the spring, I'm always looking for those more alpine areas, big rugged canyons where I can get up in there, post up, and look over a lot of country at once.

Now, the thing with bears is you expect them to move and be fairly crepuscular moving mornings and evenings. Yet I've found throughout the years that sometimes you find bears moving at just random times. They might decide this certain bear likes to move at noon and...

That's when it's going to move. Now, because the days are super long in the spring, that makes it a lot of time between sitting and just watching the same area over and over with nothing happening. And then all of a sudden, boom, there's a bear. My particular tactic and my tips for glassing are this. What I like to do is I like to get into an area where I can get comfortable and set up overlooking as many openings as possible. A lot where I can...

I'm within range of what I consider probably my a area the best area where I'm kind of expecting something where I can look at that with my eyes and if something did pop out in the open I would be able to see it and then stuff further away that I can look at with my optics.

Now I do my setup this way. It's very optics intensive and very looking intensive. So I prefer to use high power binoculars during spring bear season mounted on my tripod. I generally go with either 12s or 15s. I've even used 20 power binoculars. A good set of high power optics is key.

You don't necessarily need a spotting scope as much, but I do carry the spotting scope for those times where I'm looking at a bear at a far distance away and I really want to judge that bear. I want to say, okay, that bear is two miles away, three miles away. There's a lot of stuff to get into position for that. I better make sure that that's the type of bear that I'm looking for. And I'm going to take the spotting scope out and zoom in and say, okay, does it have cubs? Is it a boar? Is it a sow?

I'm going to really judge that bear through the spotting scope. Some of the key tactics for glassing are really just like it sounds, sit there and watch one area for a prolonged period of time. That might be an entire day. Or if you want to cut your day down, sometimes I'll choose whether I'm hunting mornings or evenings on those long days. And I'll go early, I'll get set up in my position for the sun to come up, glassing, and then I glass until say 2 or 3 p.m.,

Or if I'm just hunting evenings, maybe I'll start at noon and then glass until dark, which is that time of year could be 10, 30, 11 and walk out and whatever. Because by the time you get back to camp and eat, it's just a long day. I've done those all day glasses and it's just mentally beats you up. So I found that for me personally, I just like to pick now a morning or an evening and just hunt half the day really hard. But

But if I've got the time and I'm in the back country and camping, whatever, I'll probably just glass as much as I can. But you want to be set up in an area where you're overlooking the same stuff and you really get a sense of what is in front of you. Now, you'll notice there's things that will start looking like bears and you'll be glassing. And then you'll start to really understand and kind of memorize, okay, I already looked at that. I didn't look at that. So when something pops out, it catches your attention immediately.

And that's what I do. I just sit there, get comfortable, have your snacks or whatever, and just look.

The longer you're looking, the more likely you are to spot something. And it sounds like, yeah, that's a no-brainer. But there's so many times where I've been sitting there and I go, okay, there's nothing here. And then all of a sudden, a bear pops out. And 15 minutes later, another bear. I've been in one spot and seen four bears when previously I thought I sat here long enough that I would have seen something and there's nothing here. I've seen it all. And all of a sudden, something pops out.

The key is to just find those areas like we talked about in the last podcast and then just know that, okay, they're here. This is a good area. Now I'm going to sit here and play the waiting game. How long is too long to wait? Well, if you've gone a couple of days and haven't seen anything, maybe it's time to move spots or check a new area.

But for the most part, if you sit there and you watch it and they're there, you should see them because they should come out at some point while you're there. You just have to stay vigilant. And that's where that boredom factor of, okay, am I doing this right? Am I looking hard enough? Comes in. Now, in those times where I try to use my eyes and my chest binoculars, my lower power binoculars to glass the more open stuff, I

in those times where I'm not really seeing anything, then I'll use my higher power optics to really grid some of the thicker stuff that I should be able to pick something out in with more magnification. So I'll constantly go back and forth between looking wide at, say, the openings, the edges, the grasses, the good food sources, and then I'll spend my downtime looking in cover with my more magnified optics.

Now the key is to grid it. So I'll just sit there. I know it's, I'm pretty stationary and I'll go start at the top and go left to right down and then right to left. So what you're doing is you're just covering, you're like making a grid on the mountain and then you're using your optics to cover every square inch of that. And that works really well because you can, you can actually see into some more of the covered areas with those higher power optics. So

I'll do that, and then I'll jump back and forth between looking intensely and then taking my eyes out, letting them adjust on the hillside view.

using my smaller optics to just get a broader view of the more open stuff. So I'm going back and forth between cover greeting and just taking my eyes off the binos and looking at different ranges. That also helps keep the headaches down and the eye strain down by kind of going in and out of your optics so you aren't constantly focused at one level. And then you pull your eyes off your optics and you get kind of this blood rush headache effect.

weird vision because your eyes were focused looking through these magnification and then you kind of pull it off and your eyes don't adjust to the real world so fast. So I like to go back and forth between the two. I have my tripod set up, gritting, head off, looking at the open, glassing some stuff back to my gritting pattern and don't lose track there.

I've had a lot of success spotting bears that way. 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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Go to fishingbooker.com today. That's fishingbooker.com. So I talked a lot about in a canyon early season. Now, as the season progresses, I like to change my viewpoint to maybe looking toward other

other open areas, more meadows and parks, as well as glassing into elk calving, elk feeding areas. So as the food sources change, you're going to change your positioning and where you're glassing from and what you're glassing into. And that's key for spring bear hunting is being adaptive to where the food sources are and then moving your locations based on that. That's key.

Now we're going to go into cruising. So cruising, I consider cruising country is in more thick country, so more timbered areas, areas that don't lend themselves to glassing very well. And these can be super productive because the food sources can be more limited in these timbered areas. They come up later, they're in a smaller area, but the cruising tactic just

just means that you're moving a lot more and covering more country as opposed to letting your eyes do the walking, you're doing the actual walking. And I've had a lot of success doing this, especially in timbered areas early in the spring and even a little bit later. What it is is these logging roads, most of them would be gated logging roads where there's no vehicle access, but you could walk these roads from previous logging activity.

What that does is it opens up the canopy of the forest and allows sun to grow and hit these roads, and they start to get the new growth. So they'll get the new grasses, you'll see a lot of dandelion, a lot of clover, especially early.

And these roads draw the bears in from that surrounding thick country. The best time to hunt the roads is when you notice there's not a lot of growth in the timber, but there's growth on the logging roads because it provides an area that's open for the bears to feed. And then it's easy walking, quiet walking, a way that you can move around and cover a lot of country.

Just by covering more country, you're increasing your chances and your odds. Now, I've even gone as far as scouting these roads on like a pedal bike or even some of these roads you can take like a four-wheeler or a dirt bike or whatever, but just using it as a scouting tool to cover a lot of country and look for sign. Now, I do the same thing to try to figure out when a bear is using signage.

that portion of the road. So what I'll do is I'll cruise these logging roads. When I'm looking for bears, you're kind of looking off the side of the road, on the road, all around, but you're also looking for sign, any kind of droppings. Now, if I find bear sign, what I'll do is I'll pull out my phone on my Onyx map. I'll just drop a pin scat right here and I'll put the time that I saw it. And then I'll kick that off the road. Then I'll walk the road back out

and then come back. Now, I pay attention both ways in and out and see if there's any more sign. Okay. And then I walk that same road a different time or that same time the next day or a different day. So what I try to do is I try to have a bunch of different roads that I know are possible good spots for bears or a route and then I walk that route and then as I see sign in a certain area, most of the time what will happen is the bears will keep coming back and feeding in the same general area. Okay.

Over the course of my time hunting, I can kind of build out a timeline of when the bears are hitting it. So if I walk the road in the evening, I'll walk it the next morning. And if I see sign there, then I'll know, okay,

It was coming out in the evening. But if I walk it in the morning, kick the sign off, and then walk it in the evening and see it again, then I know it's coming out in the daytime between those two times that I walked it. So what I keep doing is I keep narrowing the times that I walk it into pinpointing when this bear is particularly coming out. It's a fairly rudimentary system, but...

it ends up working over the course of time because you've got multiple areas that you're going, you're creating data of saying this bear's probably coming out this time. So you'll walk those sections of the road at certain times when it's most advantageous that that bear's going to come out. I hope that makes sense. So you're just building a bunch of data based on

okay, the bears are out here. I'm seeing sign here this time, or maybe you're seeing sign every couple of days that, you know, okay, well in a day, and you can kind of build these patterns based on the sign that you're seeing and the times that you're walking those logging roads, those gated areas.

Now, the key to the cruising method is you have to have the wind right. So you have to find places that have the wind right, have the grass and feed, and you're going to be able to be more successful. If you're walking a section where the wind's wrong, it's essentially pointless because they could be right there, but bears have such a good sense of smell. Their sight, they don't really pay much attention to. Sound, they don't really care about. But if they catch your wind...

it's all over. So the key to the cruising technique is you have to have the wind right. Now you can also go a more shotgun approach to the cruising where maybe you aren't seeing sign but you've got the food source, you've got the wind right,

just continue cruising and keeping on a lot of different roads that have all the right things. Sooner or later, you will bump into what you're looking for. Now, it doesn't seem as predictable as maybe some of the other methods like glassing where you go, okay, I'm sitting here, I'm actively looking. It feels kind of random. But what you'll notice is over the years and the time of doing it, you'll find certain roads that

during certain times that attract the bears. And what you need to do is you need to kind of make note of that because as we talked about in the first one, bears are very predictable and patternable. It's just on a larger scale. So once you understand which roads they like, which areas they're going to, and maybe not necessarily the time of year, but what's going on on that road,

Over the years, I take notes on, okay, I walked here, I saw a bear here, what was going on? Okay, the grass was this tall. Here's what it looked like in the forest around it. Was there any calving activity? Was there any of this? And what's going on in this area at that time? And then replicating that each and every time you go out.

Because the more you hone in on the spots and the places and the things that they like, the more likely you are going to be to intersect their paths. And that's all it is, is bear hunting a lot of times is just like spending time to where your persistence intersects with their pattern. And that's the key to a lot of this as far as spring and spot and stock bear hunting goes.

Now, another tactic, and we did touch on it last week a little bit, along with this cruising is if you start to find like a really grassy patch and you say, okay, there's bear sign here. There's a lot of tracks. There's a lot of sign. Maybe it's a wallow or something that you find along the way of cruising. You can also, if it's legal in the state that you're hunting, put up a trail camera and see and try to gain a sense of a pattern of where that bear is eating and

and then hunt that. I've had a lot of friends that have walked roads and they keep finding, say, a green grassy patch that has a lot of sign. Well, the bears are going to keep coming back to that. Maybe it's got some good clover, some good dandelion, and it's just the sun hits it right, the snow melted off just right. That's its food source for right now.

while that's happening, if you find a place that has a lot of sign, don't be afraid to just set up and wait. I've been very successful just cruising logging roads and finding the spot like, okay, this grassy bend is the best one. It always has sign in it. I'm just going to sit here and wait. And almost like you would set up a tree stand, set up a blind. I don't really do a tree stand, but I would set up like a makeshift ground blind, tuck in, get the wind right, and just wait and watch that spot. Because

because that's the spot where they're preferred feeding and they're going to keep coming back to. And that's all just based on the knowledge you've gained by cruising and covering a lot of country. Now the third tactic is going to be calling. Now I think calling works great in both the spring and the fall. In the spring, I find it pretty effective, especially in elk calving and deer fawning areas.

Now, I will focus in on those areas later in the spring season, and I use a combination of the methods. So I'll glass those areas. I might change my glassing pattern to a calving area. Also, a lot of times elk will calve in maybe, say, cleared timber or some more timbered pockets where there's good grass, a lot of cover for the fawns to survive.

So cruising through those areas can be super effective, but also calling in those areas can be effective. It's because bears will mostly use their nose to suss out food, but every once in a while they'll key into those audio cues of, oh, there's a free snack over here. So here's the deal with bear calling.

I have done it pretty extensively and had quite a bit of success with it. But there are a few things that you need to understand when you're getting started. Bears are very strange responding to a call, whereas a lot if you're used to other predator calling or what have you.

Bears, I've actually called to bears that I've seen just out, say, quarter mile away or whatever and start calling, calling, calling. And the technique of calling a bear is you pretty much have to blow as loud and as long and as constant on the call as you can for as long as you can.

It's very strange, but for some reason, I've seen bears where they're just feeding, they're doing their thing, you start blowing on the call, you'll blow on the call for 30, 45 minutes and nothing. And then all of a sudden, the bear will whip its head up and run in. I don't know why, it's just like maybe it's something in their head that like, if I hear that long enough, then it's worth going over there.

I don't really know the explanation why, but that just seems to be the successful tactic to calling bears. Very rarely have I had a bear just come in right off the bat. It's mostly calling, calling, calling, calling, calling, calling, calling, and then they just decide to come in quick after that. At least the ones that I've observed with my eyes while calling to them. And I'm pretty sure it's the same in any scenario.

The other thing you have to really consider when calling to bears is, I mean, it's fairly difficult to blow on a mouth call for that long that many times. So you really have to pick your setup correctly. So you want to pick a setup in an area that you know is very likely to hold bears. And that can be kind of how that story played out where you find sign and okay, what's in the sign? What is the bear eating? Where's an area that has that type of food source? And then get close to that area, get the wind right and start calling.

They're probably going to be hanging out in thicker stuff during the middle of the day. I've actually had some pretty good success calling bears in the middle of the day. And maybe that translates into why it takes so long to maybe they're just kind of hanging out, chilling, laying down, taking it easy. And then they hear something and think, okay, well, that's worth going and checking out.

There are a lot of setups where I've called, called, called, called, called, and nothing came in. And then I walk out and see a bear track downwind of me. So you have to pick your spot where it's going to be hard for the bear to circle you and get your wind because they won't come in. And for the most part, you're going to be blowing on that call for an hour. You're going to exude all your vocal and calling energy into calling. And that bear is just going to circle around, catch your wind and leave. And you won't even know that he was attempting to come in.

So when you set up, the setup is the number one thing. You got to find a spot where it's hard for the bear to get behind you and you've got the wind right. So I like to try to find places where I might be at the top of a hill or I've got a good like rock outcropping that I'm on top of and I'm expecting the bear to come from below me. That's generally the best, you know, calling in the bottom of something is tough because they can circle around you.

So if you're in a tight gut, you know, maybe position yourself in the gully where you think that the bear will come up from the bottom and you've got good vantage on both sides. I do like to use the call and I think it works really well, especially in southwestern states, more arid climates, it works really well. I kind of refrain from using the calling technique in areas where there's grizzly bears, just as far as a safety concern. I don't want to have to deal with it. So I just go with the cruising or the glassing in those areas.

But if you're in a spot where there's no grizzlies, you've got a good setup and you know that there's bears close by, calling can be super effective. The other key is just after you've got the setup right, being consistent with the call, long, loud, keep it going, keep it going, keep it going until you pretty much can't go anymore.

you're going to find that the most successful calling is going to be when you're within, I would say, 800 yards or so of probably where that bear's at. So you really have to pick your spot precise the first time because you're going to run out of energy to do this multiple times. I mean, the idea of, oh yeah, I'll just go calling bears is great. It makes stand after stand after stand, but most states don't allow electronic calls and the actual act of blowing on

a predator call for that long that many times is exhausting.

So you really have to pick the scenario, right? And I do find that in the springtime, picking a scenario where you're near a calving area, or say you've glassed and you saw a bear in this elk calving area sniffing around in that area, going and setting up in those kind of scenarios, you're going to have a lot more success than if you just start blind calling in the woods. So you really want to pinpoint your calling setup and then call long and hard and loud

And you will be surprised at how successful it can be.

Also, as a note to the calling, you just got to watch your six. I mean, you can't treat it as, oh, I'm just going to start calling here because a bear's coming in expecting a meal and they can be aggressive predators. So you should have your gun loaded. You should be ready. You should be watching and paying attention and also have something against your back so they can't sneak up on you. I don't know how many times I've called, called, called, called, called, think nothing's there, turned and look and there's a bear 10, 12 feet away. I mean, I've had bears walk up

there. I actually had one one time I was calling set up had a big rock behind me and I kind of hear a little bit of rustling and maybe six seven feet away is this bear standing on its hind legs looking down at me. I

I mean, they walk in so silent, so quiet. So you just really have to be on edge, paying attention and really, you know, be smart about calling. Although black bears tend to not be aggressive, there is always that off chance that you could do something stupid and have one become aggressive, especially if it's got cubs and comes in or whatever.

I'm sure at this point with everything going on, a lot of you are feeling pretty cooped up right now. I know I definitely am. I actually somehow got sick while pretty much avoiding everybody. So I don't even know what's going on. But yeah, you're just kind of ready to get out and do some hunting. But I really hope that this bear hunting episodes, this two-part deal helped a few people out because I did get a ton of questions about it.

And I thought, okay, this would be a good thing to take a little bit of time and talk about. Now, if there's something that you didn't understand, or I don't know, maybe you want more information, more specifics on, you know, feel free to shoot me an email at remy at the meat eater.com at Remy Warren on Instagram. Probably the emails, you know, we do a lot for the podcast and then as well as the Instagram, I kind of take from both.

So next week we're going to do another Q and a, so if you got any other questions on spring stuff, whatever hunting tactics, shoot me messages this week and we'll try to get as many answered as we can next week.

label it. If it's like a hunting tip that you want to know, maybe a gear stuff, we'll do some gear stuff in the subject. Just let me know, kind of break it down into category. We also had a little category we called life advice or whatever, any kind of just random questions that might be fun or funny to answer. Those are cool too. So reach out, shoot me some messages. Also, while we're all quarantined and everybody's kind of like in this weird holding pattern and we're whatever, we don't know what's going on.

If there's people that you know that might enjoy this podcast, share it with them. If you listen and you don't subscribe, please just click the subscribe button or the follow button on whatever kind of podcast app you listen to. We appreciate that. And if you haven't given us a review or rating and you like the content that's getting pumped out, please jump on there and do that. I honestly really appreciate all the messages and the responses and the ratings and

all that stuff that, that means a lot to me. So it keeps me excited to do it. And I'm just, uh, hope that honestly you get something out of it. Everybody that listens gets, gets something. And maybe you aren't a guy that's going to go bear hunting this spring. That's okay. You can take some of these tactics into other types of hunts and hopefully some of the stories are entertaining as well. But if there's things you want to know about, shoot me some ideas, some questions, whatever, we're gonna answer some questions next week.

And until then, I got to use the same as, yeah, don't cut the distance to each other. We got to stay separated. I don't even know. Crazy times, friends. Crazy times. But we're going to get through it and we're going to have some pretty awesome, exciting outdoor adventures in the months to come. Catch you later.

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