Ep. 75: Answering Your Questions, Part 14
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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 everybody to the Cutting the Distance podcast. This is our first full podcast of 2021. The last one just eked in there last day of 2020. So this is our first 2021 podcast and I figured what a better way to start it off than to head to the mail sack and answer your questions.

I figure I like to make this podcast as much about the things you want to learn and to make everybody better. So I gather up all the questions. A lot of them, some are very similar in nature. So I try to answer those ones first.

Where I'm at today, I'm in my little podcasting cabin, and the weather is just hellacious outside. It is windy, raining sideways. So if you hear a light wind whistle or heavy driving rain, those are not sound effects. Those are real, but I'm not actually sure that it'll translate through this microphone or not. But if those come through, it's not your car isn't making sounds or they weren't added in. Or maybe we should just add in some storm sound effects and you can get the whole

male sack room cabin podcast vibe. But anyways, we're going to start off here. The first podcast question comes from Cody. He says, Hey man, hoping you could cover locating, developing, planning for water, et cetera, on cutting the distance. For instance, any ways you've used to find water sources in Nevada or Arizona where every drainage doesn't have a creek and some water holes are frequented by cattle. Plenty of hunters are hitting late season archery in Arizona right now. Of course it's winter and there's some precipitation to help.

I'm heading down in January to somewhere he's never been before using Onyx, Google Earth, etc. Looks pretty sparse when it comes to water, so he's trying to plan on not carrying much and spike camp location, etc. That's a great question, and this is why I love asking questions because I got a bunch of questions this month about...

finding water sources in arid areas. And it's not even something that maybe I would think about, but it's something that I encounter all the time. And it's a great question because if you're planning on spiking in or camping out, you need water. You need lots of water generally in those hotter areas to hunt well, to survive. And the animals, it depends on the type of animal or where you're at as well. Some areas in like the far South where they have succulent plants like cactuses and other things,

A lot of animals will get their water from the plants that are around and they might not actually need to visit physical water sources as often as you might think. But us humans that are walking around sweating and hiking and hunting hard, we need that water. So how do you go about locating water sources?

It can be very difficult. You can't always rely on, like he says, a map that shows a water source. One thing that I look for, springs are generally a good thing to look for as far as something that might have water more year round. So I look at my map, I locate springs that are located on the map. That's a good place to start. Other things to look for in arid areas, tanks, if there's cattle around, it's a man-made water catchment system.

and then creek areas. So there might be a drainage or an aurora or a wash or whatever that shows a creek. Now to decipher whether that's going to have water the time of year you're there or not really just depends on understanding how the kind of precipitation in areas received over the year. If they're in a drought, it's very likely that some of those water sources will go underground. Really, it sucks to say, but the only option is going to be to carry your water.

I've done that many times on many trips in many places. There's a place that I hunted for years in central Nevada. And when it's dry, there's springs marked up high. So I'd hunt it around 10,000 feet. Yet what happens is the springs sometimes will go underground in those higher locations till they pop out at a lower elevation. So down at 8,000 feet, water's running fine out of the same creek. Follow that creek up all the way to the head and there's no water. You get up there and you go...

crap. There's no water up here. It's a 2000 vertical foot drop or more to get water every day. And it can be very physically strenuous and, um, and just kind of suck. You know, by the time you go down and get water, you hike back up and you've used your water.

What I do is I plan on in arid areas, just adding extra water weight and carrying my water. If there's, I know there's an area that I'm going to be hunting. What I like to do as well as I, the first time in, I carry enough water to make sure that I've got two or three days where I can kind of scout it out and figure it out. Maybe go back, get some more water and then pack water in if I'm going to be there a long time and find out that it's a good area. But what I like to do is on my maps, locate first potential water sources and

And then I plan my route hiking in on ways that it's like, okay, I can scout out water while hunting because in many places that don't have succulents or the animals might not get enough water from the food sources, they're going to have to find water somewhere. They're getting it somewhere. So,

You know, what I like to do is I will follow a creek up and then potentially maybe along the way where it goes to other springs or things. So I look for that and then I mark every water source that I find. So as I'm working my way into an area, I'll follow a creek bed. What you'll find is I look for low elevations in the creek or maybe some dugout pockets, other things. What you might notice is it'll be dry and then there'll be a little water puddle that's remained and then keep going and it's dry or whatever.

You will definitely want to have some form of water filtration in stagnant water in those kind of areas can be pretty poor, pretty bad quality. So you definitely want to have some kind of water filtration.

I often use a UV filter to purify my water. But if I'm going in an area where I know I'm mostly going to run into stagnant water, I prefer the pump type filter because it just cleans out some of the sediments, that muddy water. There's like bugs and weird stuff in it. It just looks gross.

you can do that. And then you could also even add in some potable aqua or some iodine after that, just as kind of a double filtration. So you've got filtration and purification. I kind of covered those two things in an earlier podcast, but what I'll do is I'll just recap. So filtration just means you're like filtering out sediments and other things. For the most part, you're taking out the stuff that's harmful. Purification purifies the water and essentially kills those

smaller microbes. I prefer a purification, but sometimes if you've got really bad water, I'll do both. I'll filter and then I'll purify with the UV filter. So it's a little bit extra weight to carry, but those are some options you have, especially if you're using things like cattle tanks and stagnant water pools and just weird stuff like that. Now,

Packing in extra water, I like to use those collapsible dromedary type, I guess like water. I don't even know what they'd be like water bottles. It's just like a collapsible plastic water bottle.

Try to get the BPA-free ones because they're going to be sitting out in the sun and whatever, and that water starts to taste weird in some of those if you don't get the right ones. I've used the non-BPA ones, and you just get like that plasticky taste, and it's really not healthy for you. So bring extra water. Carry it up. It's a slog, but hey, you're getting into an area where maybe other people have avoided. As long as there's game animals there, you should find yourself in a good situation.

Next question comes from Tony. He says, hey, my brother recently turned me on to your podcast and I just want to say thanks. I've been hunting for 10 years and I've only caught a glimpse of one buck. I've listened to each episode multiple times and wish I could give it more than five stars. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

I'm going to take everything I've learned from your podcast and put it to work in the field this coming season. Can't wait for more cutting the distance episodes. I guess that was more of a testimonial than a question, but I appreciate that. I appreciate all the, I get a ton of great feedback like that. And I just thank you guys for sending that in. I say it every episode because it's true. I really do appreciate the questions and the time you guys take to send that kind of stuff to me.

Now this question comes from Matthew says, I'm new to your podcast and just listened to episode number 13. I appreciate a lot of your ideas and plan to play with them on the range for the last decade or so I've carried around the longest bipod Harris makes it's heavy, but worth it. And I have also worked with my daughter to shoot off of it. The day after Christmas, we got close to some cow elk. It was late season. So lower elevation sage flat sage was about waist high. So we opted for her to shoot seated with the bipod fully extended and

She had a hard time getting steady. Luckily, the cows were bedded, so she had time. Ultimately, she made the shot 360 yards. He actually attached a photo. Awesome work. And he said, any other ideas on how to make that setup more stable for her and or me? That's a great question. And that's the plus and minus of having a bipod. A bipod can be super steady when you're laying down or seated, but

If you need to get a little bit higher, it kind of hits its limitations. Now, for those that aren't familiar, Harris bipod is essentially one that's permanently, not permanently, but it hooks into the sling stud of your rifle. It's kind of spring-loaded in a way. It folds down and then it's got two legs that come out. If I remember correctly, the longest version has essentially three segments where the bottom part comes out in increments,

Then it's got kind of a dial one that kind of shoots back up into it. And so it extends out what I would consider sitting. For those hunts where you might have to be seated or a little bit higher, you know, the bipod has its limitations, especially if you're talking waist-high sage. What I prefer in those would be more of a shooting stick.

So that would be, I generally just use my trekking poles crossing the two straps together and making a pretty solid rest out of that. Then you can be fully seated or you could go up to kneeling if you had to. I think the best way to get stable quick would be to also brace the back end or the butt end of the rifle. And I do that mostly with my pack. So I arrange my pack in such a way that

The front end can be rested on the stick in either my elbow or even the butt of the rifle could be rested on the pack. So I've got multiple points of contact that way and it's easy. One way that you can think about doing it is sitting down, throwing your pack around the front of you, like in your lap, setting the rifle on that and then steadying it. So you're kind of like hugging the rifle, like wearing the pack backwards and then firming it up in both the shooting stick and the

I see a lot of people try to use the bipod in a way where it's like, okay, they got to get higher up. It's a little too high. So they set the bipod on the pack. So the, like the legs of the bipod would be on the backpack. It's really not that stable. And I can see it like taking a little bit longer to get steady. So having a more of a shooting stick or using trekking poles or something as those cross style shooting sticks is,

It's lightweight on something like that where you might encounter those kind of situations. It doesn't hurt to have both, especially if there's two people. One person is carrying the gun with the bipod on it for laying down shots or maybe more sitting shots. And then you've got those collapsible shooting sticks for maybe a little bit higher type shot.

It never hurts to have something to shoot off of to get steady because a steady shot is a good shot. So having, you know, multiple options might just make it a little bit easier. The reason that those cross type sticks are good is because it's easier to move. So I just use, I put one hand. So if I'm shooting right hand and my right hands, you know, would be on the trigger and holding the rifle, my left hand, I put on one leg of the stick.

So I lift it up and move the legs closer to go higher and lift it up and move it out to go lower. It's really fast. It's really efficient and it helps you get on target quickly. So that might be something to think about next time. Next question comes from CJ. He says, Hey, big fan of yours. I'm new hunter. And to be honest, not sure where to start. I just bought a Winchester SX four and was looking into the rifle game.

He was looking for a 308 Weatherby or Winchester, but he's been reading a lot about the 6.5 Creedmoor and a 270. He says he'd like to hunt deer and would like to have option to do bigger game in the future. I'm not sure a hundred percent where to go. Do you have any recommendations? I hope you have a great holiday and a happy new year. I love being able to follow you and your wealth of knowledge. Hope to meet you someday. Cheers. Thanks CJ. So honestly, you know, there's probably some more in here that I will answer, but honestly,

questions about rifles, calibers. I mean, that's got to be one of the number one questions that I've been getting recently. And it's a great question because there's so much information out there. There's so many options. Everybody's got their own favorites, their own ideas. You know, I think if you're starting out, I've talked about this before. My favorite all around caliber is a 300 short mag, because I think it's very versatile. I hunt a lot of larger game like elk,

You can go up to moose with it, bison, whatever. But you can also kind of hunt down with it, white tails, mule deer. Some people think it's a little bit overkill for deer, but...

No kill like overkill, I guess. Now I will say there's a lot of people really jumping on the 6.5 train, the 6.5 Cremor, 6.5 PRC. And I've recently, this whole season, I essentially hunted with a 6.5 Cremor. I hunted deer, white tails, a cow elk this year with a 6.5 Cremor.

And with the right shot placement and the right ammunition, it can definitely handle larger game. There has been thousands of elk that have been shot with a 270. Antelope, deer, everything. So,

In this particular instance, somebody new getting into it, I would probably recommend one of these smaller calibers or lighter calibers than the 300 short because one thing you definitely don't want to get is a little bit too much recoil to manage. So even with these lighter, what would I do in air quotes over here, lighter caliber 6.5 or 270, I really highly recommend some form of

Muzzle break, even though you've got your sound, it's going to be louder, but it just kills the kick, lets you stay on target a little bit better, and just makes you a better shot overall. 6.5 Cremor, I've been very happy with, but the .270 is just a great caliber as well. 6.5 is good because recently it's become very, very, very popular, so you know that there's also always going to be ammo for it.

And I found even within this ammo shortage, I can find 6.5 hunting rounds because they're a little bit more expensive as far as just some of the more high-end 6.5 rounds, which is good if you're kind of worried about not being able to pick up ammo. But I think, you know...

in time that'll kind of start to slow down. Hopefully, you know, I've, I've been enjoying the six five creamer. So that's a great round. There's a lot of people that are stoked on it. I do not think it's the best caliber for every species of animal out there. It's not a long range elk gun. In my opinion, it's a little light for shooting long range, but yeah,

I shot a cow elk one shot stone dropper at right around 400 yards this year. And that I would say would be the maximum that I'd want to shoot an elk with a 6.5. But, you know, it's perfect shot placement. It was steady rest. Everything was perfect and it worked out good. So I would say my recommendation just thrown out there. I think I'd go with the 6.5. It's just kind of cool. It's a good caliber. There's a lot of people that are stoked on it right now. And you can just jump on that train and hopefully find some ammo for it.

All right. This next question comes from Eric. He says, I've been using a crossbow for the last couple of years, but I'm now looking to start actually bow hunting mainly for whitetails. I found a Browning Timberwolf for sale that's in great shape, but was made in 1991. Any reason I should avoid this old bow as a starter? That's a good question.

Good question. I think there's probably a lot of people that fall into this category. And I actually have personal experience with the Browning Timberwolf because I shot that bow back in the day. Here's my thought on it. You should absolutely find a newer bow if you can, because not that there's anything wrong with that bow.

But I remember shooting that bow and what it is, is the technology has advanced so much over the last, I mean, even the last 20 years, 10 years, whatever. It really just outperforms those older bows and you're just going to be able to quickly advance, shoot better groups. There's going to be less string jumping. It actually throws the more modern carbon arrows, you know, like faster with the newer bows. The whole setup is just going to be

I would say more accurate and better. So you're going to be starting out in a lot better place than using an old bow from 1991, just because the technology's advanced so much. I remember, so I had the Browning Timberwolf and then I really wanted to get a new bow and I upgraded to the Matthews LX. This is in, I guess, 2002, 2003.

I could shoot my Browning fine, like out to 30 yards. It was kind of like that pie plate grouping, you know, at 40 yards or whatever. So not saying that you'll end up needing to shoot that far, but my groups were mediocre at best. I would say a three, four inch group at 20 yards, something like that. I got that newer Matthews bow, which was, you know, new at the time.

And my first two arrows out of that bow, I Robin hooded at 20 yards. So I shot the target aimed at the same place and my two arrows stuck in the back of each other. That's the difference in accuracy from a bow that was just made essentially 10 years later.

And now you think about the type of technology and all the accessories and everything that's out there, you can definitely advance. I would say the cheapest bottom line entry level bow that you can get now would be light years ahead of that bow from 1991. So you might as well start out giving yourself just a little bit of an edge where the bow is that much more accurate that you're gonna personally progress faster, be more lethal and make better shots

than if you take an old bow. Now, the caveat to that is, I mean, I've loved shooting traditional bows as well. And those are going to be at...

accurate as they are for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years, you know, hundreds of thousands of years, but for, for a very, very long time, traditional equipment really hasn't changed and you can still be a lethal successful hunter with it. I'm saying if you're going to get into just bow hunting with a compound bow, you might as well just start with even just the basic starter bow from any company manufacturer is probably going to be a lot better than that. Now the price might be a little bit more, but

I'm sure you can find something at a good deal. Also, the bows today are a lot more quiet, so the animals don't tend to jump the string as much. You're just going to be more successful and just make more ethical shots, I would say. 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, only tangentially related to what they carry.

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Next question comes from Sharon. She says, I'm thinking about buying my husband a Saco S20. He hunts elk. I would appreciate your opinion on this gun. Also, does the suppressor significantly reduce the kickback of firing? Appreciate your time and thoughts.

That's a great question. Yeah, I've shot the S20. I actually have an S20. So the S20 is kind of a modular system for the rifle. So what it is, is you can kind of go from a bench rest rifle to then putting like a sporterized stock on that same action rifle.

and use it for hunting without really changing the impact, sight impact. So I think it's a really, really great gun for guys that like to go between precision long range shooting and then hunting as well. So it's a guy that spends a lot of time in the summer shooting, bench rest shooting, maybe even doing some long range shooting competitions or not necessarily like professionally, but just for fun. That's a great because it's so customizable. You can

The thing about precision shooting is everything needs to be the same. Your head needs to be in the same place. So you want the same cheek weld. You want the same grip on the rifle, where you even place your thumb on the stock makes a big difference. And a lot of people don't realize that. So when you are able to take a gun that you can kind of customize to really fit your body, the angle that the butt plate goes in and everything, if you're really talking about shooting long range and being very accurate and

at the range for just long range shooting sake, having a bench rest style rifle is nice. They're heavier though. They're heavy because they...

shoot well heavy, and they also help you kind of maintain your position and target. So when that gun fires off, the kit recoil comes back. If it's real light gun, the recoil might mess up how you're holding the rifle for that grouping. So it might be a little bit off if you change things. So less recoil, heavier rifle stays on target better.

Now that gun's cool because it's a little bit module. You can then kind of take that bench rest style setup, feel everything, gun that you've been shooting a lot and then put a more sporterized hunting stock on it and go out. So yeah, I mean, it depends on what he likes to do, but it definitely is a cool gun. Now the suppressor, I got a lot of questions about suppressors.

I'm a big fan of suppressor shooting. So suppressor, some people call them silencers. They're silencers. I've talked about them before on the podcast. But yes, it severely reduces the recoil. It reduces the muzzle jump and it also reduces the noise output. So it's just a smoother shooting. You're going to shoot better because you don't have that muzzle jump. I like it because...

If I'm shooting by myself or hunting, I can stay on target. I can watch the impact of the bullet. There's been many times that I've shot my suppressed rifle and I've been zoomed in fairly well with the scope. The sun's been at my back and I can actually see the bullet. Like you see the impact. It's pretty cool to be able to just not blink, not lose your sight picture and just be able to shoot better that way. It really does make you shoot better. So

There are some things you have to do to get the suppressor, but I would highly suggest it if you can for people looking into it.

The next question says, Remy, I've been hunting my entire life and turned 58 this year. It never fails to amaze me where I still learn tricks and tips. Your podcast is a solid source for that, for sure. I listened to the latest one on getting ready for 2021 this morning. It was all pretty much a refresher for me, but as I started my training for next year, it sure was nice to revisit the basics. Thanks for doing what you do and lifelong hunters alike. Oh, and don't get eaten, Russ. Thanks.

Thanks, Russ. I will try not to get eaten. And I appreciate that. Anytime, you know, even myself included, one of the things that I really enjoy is just seeing how people took some of these tactics or kind of refreshed them on getting serious about certain things. One thing that I also really enjoy is kind of seeing ways that people took a tactic and then how it applied to a certain situation and then something that might be a little bit different because I constantly learn. I mean, I was...

This year, my wife went on her first archery hunt and just watching her go through the process really made me remember some of the things that I kind of forgot about. Like, okay, this is something or maybe explain some of the things that I do. And I go, wow, that's actually something that I do and I don't even think about doing.

She hunted 12 days. She's four months pregnant and hunted 12 straight days, including Christmas Day. And so I'm like, man, she really understands now the perseverance that goes into bow hunting. And that's something that I don't really talk about enough. I think, you know, we talk about the tactics and the other things and we forget that there's a lot of struggle in between success, especially when starting out.

And then I struggled for a few more days and, and, and I ended up not getting a buck, you know, I was mostly helping her, but I had a few days at the end there to chase deer and, and things didn't work out for me. But, you know, really when it comes down to it, I thought to myself, one thing that I learned this year is just the perseverance of bow hunting and how important that is to success. I think we should actually make that a podcast here pretty soon. So thanks for that, Russ. I appreciate that.

All right, this next question comes from Will. He says, hey, Remy, great podcast. All the professional advice you're giving out for free is awesome. I kind of feel like it's unfair that we get to learn so much without going through the failures to learn, but it just gets me closer to tagging out, so I'll keep listening. I had a quick question on boots. For a five-day September elk hunt in Colorado, do you opt for leather boots slash synthetic boots

lug outsole, logger type boots, low profile outsoles, not really focusing on a specific brand just to help clarify, say maybe between Danner prong horns or vital V powder horn. Um, also what would be the best all around boot if I wanted to go chase multiple species and what do you look for in a good pair of boots? Thanks. Keep up the great work. Will. Okay. So that's a great question. And I got a lot, a lot of boot questions. Um,

It's kind of hard to say, you know, everybody says, well, what boot should I get for everything? And for me personally, I have a lot of different boots for a lot of different applications. And if you got 15 people in a room together, everybody has different preferences, different types of feet, different things that they like. I'll go over what I like and kind of how I think about boots. There's two schools of thought. One is boots need to protect your feet. They need to be durable and they need to...

help you motor up the mountain. So the object of boots is to make it comfortable doing something uncomfortable, hiking in the mountains. Now, the most comfortable hiking in boots and durable and protecting boots are going to be heavy. So you've got this like ratio of weight and utility. Also, boots that are stiffer soles last longer. They're easier in big mountains, but they also aren't very quiet for certain stocking situations, other things.

So if I was going off of this, what you say five days, September elk hunt in Colorado, there's two extremes. So you've got the full leather six, nine inch tall boot, you know, goes halfway up your calf. And then you've got, I would say like the trail runner. It's more of a tennis shoe. I've used both. I use both and it just depends on the hunt. So early season, I tend to like

a lightweight boot, anything that's lightweight, more of a trail runner type. I've got some Under Armour boots that I use that are real lightweight. I mean, I've used Salomon trail runners, anything. Now the trouble with that is they aren't super waterproof. The traction is pretty poor, but they're light and you can go fast and be more sneaky.

I read it before a study. It's like a pound on your foot is like eight pounds on your back. So you want to take that into consideration how far you're going and other things. Now, my standard preference for most hunting that's later season, mid-season, whatever, I prefer a taller full leather boot with a semi-stiff sole. So if I guess some soles are rated on numbers, it's like one through five. And I like a number three.

So five would be just like pure mountaineering, super stiff. And why that would be good, that would be used for like sheep hunting, climbing super steep rocks where you got to dig your toes in. You really aren't flexing your foot much. You don't want a lot of foot flex country where it's super rocky and hard. Actually having that stiff sole keeps your feet protected. It also kind of keeps your feet from getting what I'd call stone bruised or wore out moving too much. And they've got good traction. I like somewhere in the middle where it flexes a little bit

You've got a little bit more give, but it's also stiff enough where you can hit that mountain, more alpine type terrain. If you're going Colorado early season, but more aggressive backpack style hunting, the taller boot's going to be great for giving you a little bit added stability with weight. Also, it's going to be good for climbing steep and rocks. I know that doesn't help, but those are the two options. Now, what you might want to do is just get a pair of trail runner type shoes. Those could be your...

I mean, travel tennis shoes type thing. And if the terrain and country and whatever, and the weather is going to be good, throw those on. If it's not, then throw the more leather type full boot on. And then there's like kind of like those mid boots to try to match both. Like you mentioned here, maybe a Danner pronghorn. I used to use something similar long time ago. The trouble with those, they don't necessarily like

last a real long time, but they are lighter. So it's really good kind of balance. You've got your mountaineering boot, you've got your trail runner, and then you've got something in between. The key is find something that really fits your foot. But I've done a lot of hunting and essentially a trail running tennis shoe. And I still do for most of the stuff that's not super slippery, super snowy or super steep.

This question comes from Greg. He says, Hey, Remy, I'm just a whitetail hunter from Iowa, but I've been trying to make the stars align to get out west either mule deer or elk hunting, preferably elk because I can only get three tags where I live. Whitetails aren't that much meat and I have a family of five. My question is, I've tossed around the idea of using a new style hammock instead of a tent. So I wouldn't think I'd need to pack a sleeping pad. And it seems like I can buy a hammock at lighter weight for cheaper.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the podcast or if you've tested any. That's a great question. I have tested some backcountry style hammocks. I don't like them. And here's the reason. You're talking elk hunting. The weather can be very unpredictable. It can be cold.

And one of the main purposes of a sleeping pad is insulation from the ground and the cold, but also comfort as well. I personally didn't like the hammock because you just seem to freeze your ass as off in it. I mean, if it's August season, like real early season, yeah, that would be great. When it's hot out and you know, you're maybe in a drier climate, perfect. But then in that case, there's often not a lot of trees, but they're, you know, they're probably enough for a hammock.

They can be comfortable at first, but you can also without the right setup. Personally, my back kind of felt a little kinked with it. You know, some other options lightweight would be like a more of a bivy sack type thing.

It just depends on the time of year that you're going. If you're going real early season, I wouldn't mind the hammock option. It's a great option. It's super lightweight. And then you could kind of throw a tarp in to kind of cover yourself up in case any rain does keep you up off the ground. And there are definitely some benefits to using it. I can see guys that maybe are really into it, especially early season, really enjoy them. I just find that many of the places that I hunt really aren't conducive.

conducive to getting like the hammock set up right. You're limited on the types of places that you could use the hammock and the type of weather patterns and things is just a little too unpredictable for me. Whereas I know if I've got a tent and a sleeping pad, I know that I can insulate myself from the cold air that comes up off the ground or would get underneath me. And then I also know that, you know, if I run into some weather and some other things, I can kind of hunker in and

and feel a little bit more protected from the elements. So that's my personal thought on those. Not to necessarily discourage you, there is a time and a place that probably works really well for them, but me personally never found them as useful as it sounded. This question comes from Jess.

It says, Hey, Remy, love your podcast. Very informative. I'm slow to change, but let my friends talk me into a single pin adjustable sight. It's really made me a better shooter for stationary targets, but mostly we hunt Nebraska for turkeys, whitetail, muley, and antelope.

Most of the single pin is feasible, but like decoying goats, the rapid distance change is impossible to adjust for on the fly. My son and I wanted to go elk hunting and assumed it would be a similar situation. Thought maybe that would be an idea to talk about on your podcast if you haven't already. Thanks for the info. Keep up the good work. Jess.

That's a good question. I do, I've talked about it before, shoot essentially a single pin slider sight. Mine has two pins on it. So you could, here's my suggestion for it, for rapidly moving things like, you know, it might be anywhere from,

20 yards to 50 yards. I actually, the way that I set my pin up when I'm just, I call it walking, when I'm just walking around or when I'm getting into situations is I set my pin for my bow speed. It's like 36 yards. Um, and then what I've done is I've kind of on a target. So I've got a target and I just kind of make like a 12 inch circle.

And I shoot there's, you could probably do this with like some, I actually know you could do this with like some formulas and some bullet, like archery ballistic software type stuff, but I just do it just shooting out there. Um, you know, you, you've got your vital zone and I know that essentially with my pin set there with that one pin, I can shoot out to 55 yards for me on a, definitely on an elk size target or even 60 yards. I just know where to hold.

Some people do it where it's like they can put it on the animal and hit within the vitals. So close, I just aim low, like heart shot. And then further, I aim center or high. So I aim high. One thing that I think people kind of forget about is shooting holdover. And the more you shoot holdover, the better you're going to be at just shooting.

Uh, what that is, is just knowing that if my pin set here, 30 yards and that animals at 50, I just know where to hold. Essentially. It's like for my setup, it's like high in the body and then I can shoot to 60 by just top of the back.

And that works really well. Like I know where it's set. I know how to shoot. And I know that where my arrow hits it, all those ranges out to 60 yards without even adjusting my pin. You might be really surprised at how well your brain can adapt and adjust. And it's kind of more like shooting a traditional bow where you aren't worried about the range so much as just drawing back, getting settled and making good shot. And

and you're in the zone. So that's the way I set my bow up. It's just get out there and shoot it a bunch at different ranges. So set your pin at 30 yards, 33 or whatever, just know where it's set and then know where it hits at different yardages and then kind of figure out how much the drop is. So if it's four inches, five, whatever, know, and then now calculate that into the size or vital zone of whatever you're hunting. So, you know, deer, you got an eight inch vital zone.

or a little bigger, a little smaller, whatever elk, maybe a 12 inch vital zone. I like to kind of keep it at the eight and 12, just kind of tighten the groups up and then kind of know where on that body you're holding for those different distances. You should be able to shoot out to 50 yards without moving that pin. And that's good practice. And then if you've got the time, adjust the pin. Now where it's really difficult is if, say you got an elk out there at 50 and he's coming in, you set your pin to 50 and now he's closer. Well,

Shooting lower is really hard. When I first started with a single pin, I made that mistake. So now what I always do is I under set my pin if something's moving my direction. So it's like if I see a – this actually happened to me on a fallow deer. I was set up. I'm like, range him. He's like 50 yards. I set my 50-yard pin, and he like is moving in, moving in, moving in. I don't have time to adjust, and he's like 30 yards now. And I draw back, and I'm like, okay.

you know, now how low do I hold? Cause I know my hold over, but I don't know my hold under. So actually practicing some hold under is not a bad idea either. But from that point on, what I always would do is that I would underset for those longer. So it's like 50 yards, but he's kind of coming this direction. I set my pin to 30 and know that if he stopped anywhere, uh,

Before that or got to that range, then I can hold over and it was just easier for me to my brain to compute. I actually made a great shot on that buck and he ran 20 yards and fell over. But it freaked me out mentally a little bit like, oh, crap, I've never had to hold under something intentionally. So that that's something to think about. And then you could also make like a mark on your pin there.

I've done that before where it's just my buddy uses like nail polish on his and he just marks another mark on his pin. So when it's set at your walk around fixed distance, know where that mark hits as well. So you can kind of go single pin. Okay, that's 30. And then that mark, you know, maybe is 45. So you can kind of use that as a gauge as well. If things change fast and give that a try.

All right, we'll just kind of end here with a little testimonial. This one comes from Alec. He says, Hey, Remy, I just wanted to thank you for those off-season archery drills, especially in this case, the one to two minute hole drills, which allowed me to put down my biggest whitetail yet. Love the podcast and your content. You've got an awesome, just giant whitetail buck. And that's the kind of thing that I like to see. That's what the podcast is about. Just helping people be more successful. I can't remember what episode it was, but

but some off season drills. I think it was during the summer to the spring ways to make you better hunting shooting. And we kind of did a little bit of that kind of stuff in the last podcast. So we're going to be going into this year, just giving you more and more content to hopefully get more and more pictures and testimonials like that. I appreciate all the questions that came in. Um,

As always, feel free to reach out to me, social media, mostly on Instagram at Remy Warren or Remy at TheMeatEater.com. You can send us in questions, success photos, topics that you'd like to suggest. And we try to hit as many of those as possible through our Q&As. And then just like a lot of the topics that we got

over the course of the year, kind of become podcast topics. I try to make them topical and timely as far as what's going on now and some of the hunts that are going on. So if you have any suggestions or things you'd like to hear in the podcast, please feel free to shoot me those until next week. I don't, you know, next week, I'm not sure I've got a lot of ideas and topics from a lot of suggestions. So I'm going to be kind of sitting down this week and really hashing out some of the

the things that I want to cover and some of the things you guys want me to cover. So feel free to just infiltrate the mailbag, the mail sack, send me in your questions and the things that you guys like, and we'll try to get to as much of that as possible. Looking forward to more success in the future and hearing from everyone out there. Appreciate it. You know, as always, if you think about it, feel free to

drop a comment in the wherever you listen to the app at also you know if you if you're if you listen on itunes or whatever stitcher it doesn't matter wherever if you can rate it um if it's got a rating function give us a five star rating if you can i appreciate it some good comments share it with your friends or on social or whatever you guys like to do um but i appreciate y'all so until next week keep those questions coming in talk to you guys later bye

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