Ep. 75: The ElkMaster, Josh Boyd
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Today I got my good buddy Josh Boyd in the house. We're at the Western Hunting Expo here in Salt Lake City. Beautiful Salt Lake City. Josh and I kind of go way back. We've known each other for, I don't know, probably since 2010, 11, somewhere in there, through 2010.

A love and passion for elk hunting. First became acquainted with Josh, seen some articles he wrote, some web articles on elk hunting. I immediately loved the information he was giving out, but I also loved the voice. Different writers have kind of a different voice in their writings, and I always loved Josh's voice of his writings. So I became an instant fan. And then as I get to know Josh over the years,

I like to kind of refer to him as the elk master. You know, some people know about the movie beast master. This guy is the elk master. Um, he's, he's probably one of the most humble people you're ever going to meet. And he would never tell you about his body count on elk.

But let's just say it's up there. And I'm not going to share it because some people don't like to share, you know, with everyone. But let's just say very accomplished elk hunter. And I have the most respect for this man. And I'm just happy to sit down and have an official conversation on a podcast about elk hunting. I mean, him and I can get on the phone or sit there and BS each other at this trade show. And hours will tick by talking about elk.

And it's probably one of the best conversational people I enjoy to talk to. So welcome, Josh. Thanks, Dirk. Yeah, no, it's an enjoyable topic. And like you said, I can talk about it for hours and any day, any time. And I do know my body count, and I've told a few people. But the only reason I know it is because I keep a spreadsheet of things

and when and how and how far I shoot each elk. And it goes way back, you know, into the 80s. Yeah. And it's nice to be able to go back and look at the drainage, how far I shot, what it was. Like, it just sparks memories. But it just gives me an idea of how things have changed and kind of where I've kind of progressed as an elk hunter. So I do know my elk, my body count. And a couple years ago, I had a

Yeah.

But you also love rag balls. You love elk hunting just for the pure love of the game. It's not about inches. It's not about anything other than this is awesome. You look up one day and it's like, hey, I'm approaching a monumental number. That's cool. This is going to be really cool. And then to be happy with what you came home with. That's, you know, not everybody has that attitude. So I appreciate that. Yeah. To me, I mean, success is...

packing elk meat i love i love to carry elk meat out of the mountains so anytime i can do that man it's success it is a successful hunt so yeah we were just talking yesterday about what makes good elk hunting partners you know that's a that's a that's a good conversation um

People have a lot and I have a lot with my friends and people who like to talk about elk hunting. And we focused on some key, the biggest key takeaway for me there was, and we're getting a little off track of what we kind of initially talked about this podcast is going to be about, but it's elk hunting related, right? But the fact that having an elk hunting partner that looks forward to your success more so, if not the same level of his own, is incredible.

imperative for a good elk hunting relationship. Um,

And I know personally, I want my elk hunting partner, I almost want them to get an elk more than myself. I always feel like there's no better, greater gift that you can give someone is to call in an elk for them and see the happiness and the joy, you know, successful elk hunting brings. Yeah. Some of the most tense situations for me, most nerve wracking are when I'm a caller and there's a bull coming in for a partner and

And you're just, you can't see what's going on. You can hear it and you know, it's getting close and you're just like, is this going to work for you? You're just on pins and needles the whole time. Just like nail biting. Is this happening? Oh yeah. How can you make this happen? How can you work this bull? How can you get them in his lap? And yeah, to me, yeah, it, to me,

That is one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking things for elk hunting. When I'm the shooter, I'm usually, I mean, I get excited. I have to take some deep breaths, tell myself to calm down. But it's way more exciting when there's someone else, like with the bull coming in, and you're trying to get it into their lap. Yeah, just seeing their success is great. But having a good partner is key. I sometimes feel like I try even harder sometimes.

If I'm trying to call an elk for somebody else. I'm like, if I'm just doing it for myself, I'm like, eh, I don't know. This bull seems like he's not cooperating. Eh, I don't know if we want to put that much effort into it. But if it's my friend, I'm like trying as hard as I can. Like I want, we got to get this elk in for him. Like this would be awesome. I remember back to...

Taking my son out elk hunting when he was 13, his first year bow hunting. He'd rifle hunted the year before. Bow hunting, 13, and calling in this bull. And as we're moving in on this bull, the bull wasn't getting real hot. He would just kind of chuckle and rake and chuckle and rake. And if I... We messed with this bull the day before. And if...

did a full bugle and got a little bit aggressive, he'd move off. So I'm like, we got to like play this like super reserve. So he would chuckle and rake and I would chuckle and rake. But every time he'd rake, we'd move up 10 yards and move up 10 yards. And pretty soon I can see that his antler tips and we're kind of coming up the steep hill, this old, this old logging skid trail. And,

he would he would rake chuckle and then he'd stare down the hill at us then i had this big stick and i would just beat the crap out of this tree and i'd grab the tree and i'd shake it and i'd let him see the stick even moving and then and then he would see that and then he would just go tear right back into that tree again and chuckle and then i tell my son i'm like okay now now he's raking now move up and he's like dad why are you talking so weird i'm like what are you talking about he's like you're talking really weird i've never heard you talk like that before and

Evidently, I was excited. I got up there. He's got his head down. Sneak up. I was talking funny, you know, to him. But that's what, you know, trying to get someone else an elk is all about. I get so excited for them. It's like there's so much anticipation you can hardly stand it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's nice to have a partner that feels that way for you. Yes. You know? Yes. It's good to have that mix. Yeah.

Yeah, you've got to reciprocate. Yes, you've got to be able to give and also receive. So it's a good relationship. And they're hard to come by. I've developed some pretty good friendships in my community. And there's a couple guys that I can just rely upon to drop everything off.

And just like, yeah, let's go. I'm ready. Let's go hunt. You want to do this hunt over the top of the mountain range and come out the other side, like a car to car hunt? Yeah. Okay. I'm in without blinking an eye. That sounds great. Sounds really fun. Yeah. Some people might say, you're crazy, man. It's a, it's a suffer fest, but. And I know where you hunt, kinda. And when you, when you would offer that up, I don't think there's very many people would take that, take that invitation. There's not. No.

Yeah. There's a few guys, but there's not many. Yeah. I mean, some people think it would be fun until they start into it. Yeah. And it just becomes, it can be miserable. Yeah. Throw in some rain, mixed with the brush, mixed with bulls that are not cooperative, don't want to talk. Yeah. And grizzly bears. And grizzly bears to boot. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. It's hard to get a taker on those kind of trips. It all sounds good on paper.

until it becomes a suck fest. But that's what makes, when you finally do find success, it makes that berry so much sweeter. It's not a bitter berry at all. It's like, man, that was so great. And it's a raghorn. And I just won the lottery. I feel like a millionaire right now because of how hard we worked for that thing. Yeah, yeah. There is that sense of, well, a lot of times there's a sense of, oh, yeah.

what did I just do? Oh no. I'm in trouble. There's a lot of times I'm by myself too. And that, when I, when I do that, I pull the trigger or, you know, trip the release and you hear, and you know, you hear the bull tip over or whatever. And it's like, oh no. Okay.

I guess this just got real. Yeah. Yeah. It got real. And then you rely upon those same people to, to come help. I've got, you know, two or three guys that they will drop their, whatever they're doing at work. Like, yep, I'll tell my boss, we'll take a day of vacation, come help you pack meat.

Which is, I mean, that's worth more than gold. Yeah. When you have people like that. Yeah. You can't pay for that kind of a friendship. Like, you could offer people, I'll give you 500 bucks to come pack meat. They'd be like, hey, I'm not doing that. You're crazy. I know where that is. It's wet. It rained. Yeah, it's raining right now. But at the same time, I've done the same. This past year was one of those years where...

I had some, a couple bulls. I killed two bulls last fall, one in Montana, one in Idaho, and I needed help with both of them. And I had some buddies that, I mean, it was weekdays. It was one day, the one in Idaho was raining really hard. Wind was blowing. We had to pack this thing uphill up this ridge through brush. There happened to be a grizzly bear right there in the area that came in that night. When we went back in the morning, there was fresh tracks, like

Probably within 75 yards of the meat pole. Wow. And we all kind of got our spidey senses tingling when we saw that. But the bear didn't get on the meat for some reason. I don't know if the wind was not blowing over to the trail the bear came up. But, I mean, I could see from the track, I could see my meat hanging right there. Wow. So, anyway, it was a difficult pack. And these guys...

Pulled through. They were laughing and giggling the whole time. I have a picture of them sitting on the hillside taking a break, and they're all just smiling, making jokes. And fast forward like a month, I got a text message from, I just settled into my hunting camp. I drove a camp up on top of this mountain. It was super cold, like 10, 15 degrees out, snowing. Early November, I think, and I was going mule deer hunting.

And I was planning on hiking way out on this ridge in the dark. And so I had a fire going in my teepee. I was hanging out and I turned my in reach on and I get a message from my buddy Tyler. He's like, I got, we got two bulls down over here, you know, 10, 15 miles up the river from where I was camped. But about a two hour drive, I had to go off the mountain and down into the valley. And I'm like, well,

I mean, my first instinct was like, oh, I'm settled in. I'm about to go hunting in the morning. I want to shoot a big mule deer. I know there's a buck out here.

But my reply was like, yep, what time you want to meet in the morning? Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, you just got to reciprocate. If you're asking someone to pack for you, you have to be willing to do the same for them. Anywhere they kill one at any time. So that's sort of the rule I go by. Yeah, I love that. And it all evens out. Yeah, I love that. So, Josh, for those who don't know you,

your personal life, what do you do for a living? Tell our listeners a little bit more about Josh Boyd behind the scenes beyond the elk hunter. Yeah, so I work for the U.S. Forest Service in the realm of hydrology. So what I do for the forest is I monitor water quality and stream health and analyze for any activities that occur in

the forest that will affect or not affect water waters and streams and the health of rivers and stuff and so I do a lot of monitoring of streams stream flows in the spring and summer I also measure different like different parameters of a stream channel to kind of measure the health or the status of that river channel and to see if it's like functioning properly and

looking for disturbances mostly past disturbances that have occurred historically and then try to like remedy those through some restoration efforts like it's like some stream channel restoration work so some of the stuff in the summer we implement projects where we're rebuilding like rivers like installing like rerouting the river in places and rebuilding the riffles and the pools and adding wood and rock and

and changing the slopes of everything and changing the meander patterns of the river. So that's real technical work, but it's super just fun to do. And when you're done, it's incredibly satisfying to see the end results. It's one of those things where it's like hands-on tangible results. And we, of course, we monitor it over years to see how it's functioning over time.

Are the fish populations coming back? Are our slope patterns, profiles of the river maintaining? Are they staying within this suite of slopes and dimensions that we built it at? And just, yeah, that's super satisfying stuff just to see the health of some river systems become improved.

over time. So and then in winter I do a lot of planning, designing for those projects, but I also go out and measure the snowpack. For a sister agency, we're a cooperator in the snow survey program. So we collect snow data and send it off to the NRCS. It's like starting in like December through April. Okay. And so that data is used, we use it,

to plan projects, plan runoff, and just kind of look at floods, potentials. But the NRCS uses it to forecast reservoir volume, operations, irrigations, like how much water is going to be available to people later in the summer. Is some of that data displayed on SNOTEL? Yeah, that's exactly what SNOSurvey is. So the SNOTEL data is just automated sites that measure the snowpack.

And give you kind of a real-time reading sense of what's up there. And a lot of those sites are, you know, fairly high elevation. So it's giving you good information at the upper elevations. But the snow course surveys that we do are all manual measurements. And we'll go out at the end of every month and physically measure it by, like, stabbing the snow with a snow tube, coring it, and weighing that core to see how much water is in it. And so we'll measure typically three sites per...

in a drainage area and get a high low and medium elevation range to see what's happening up and down you know the mountain okay so you know what's happening like you know some winters we might get real warm storms come in and the snowpack builds up pretty hot built pretty decent up high but in the valleys it's been raining so up high say like right now we might be at like

Where I live, we might be at like 75% of normal up high, and that's what the snow tells the reading. Right. But when you go out and measure the low elevation stuff by hand, they might be like at 35%. Oh, wow. So it kind of gives you an idea like how much snow is out there spread across the landscape. So interesting. Yeah. But yeah, that stuff online is just a good way to look at the snowpack and see where we're potentially sitting. Right. It gives a rough idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting stuff. Yeah, if you guys ever get bored or wondering about, yeah, my elk hunting spot, look on Snowtel for that real-time data. It's kind of interesting. There's some places that get some incredible, like in the Bitterroot Mountains, get some incredible snow packs and linger a long time. It's just different. You look at different states, their snow doesn't linger as long. It doesn't pile up as much, but they have really...

They're known for big winners. It's just, it's so...

interesting from one part of the country to another. I think if you have any kind of interest in that, you can really geek out on that stuff. Oh, yeah. You can spend hours on it. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you can look at each individual site and it'll display a graph of like what the maximum amount was ever recorded at that site, what the minimum amount, and then what the average is. And it's usually, you know, like this nice green line through the graph and it's

And then it'll plot where you're at for that year as the snowpack builds and where you are compared to that average line.

And it's always changing until you get to that peak point on the snowpack building. Right. But, yeah, it's interesting stuff. It's fun to see where you – and it'll also show you where it starts to melt out and what the average melt-out point is. Right. So it's good for planning, like spring trips. Yeah. I use it all the time for spring bear hunting. Yeah. I'll look at it and say, oh, yeah, we're definitely on track to melt out two weeks earlier than normal, it looks like.

So, and kind of plan accordingly. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So how did you get into bow hunting for elk? Did you have like a mentor in the beginning or how'd that all go? Yeah, that's a good question. So, I mean, ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to hunt, but my dad didn't bow hunt. He rifle hunted a lot. My dad grew up in Wyoming. My dad and his brother were always hunting elk. They, you know, they hunted up in the Wind River Range and,

as kids and even, you know, into young adults. But then they both moved to Montana and continued to elk hunt. And I would elk hunt with my dad and my uncle and deer hunt and all sorts of hunting. But my dad didn't bow hunt. But I really had this fascination with archery gear since I was, you know, five years old.

And my grandpa made me a little long bow out of a piece of laminated. I don't even know what it was. It's almost look like plywood, but I just walked around and shot everything I could with that thing. And then I graduated to, I traded my buddy down the street and,

a fly rod for a bow, like one of those old Sears compound bows. Oh, yeah. I remember those. Yeah, it was almost like they're made, like, they're almost like plastic. Yep. It was like a compound bow, but it was like 50 pounds and I couldn't draw. I was a little kid. Yeah. I couldn't draw the dang thing. So I'd like sit on my back and

And I'd draw it with both hands and put my feet on the riser and I'd shoot arrows out in the field laying on my back. But my parents were like, yeah, you can't be doing that. We're going to get you a bow that fits. So they ended up buying me a little Martin Bobcat bow.

Oh, yeah. When I was a little kid. Little compound. It was a cool little bow. Those were cute little bows. Yeah. And there was my best friend down the street, his dad bow hunted and his older brother bow hunted. And they were kind of known in the community of being like successful elk bow hunters. I mean, they'd killed a couple elk. This was, we're talking 80s. Right. When like killing an elk with a bow was...

Unheard of. Nobody was doing it, really. Yeah, it was like if someone got one, they were kind of like put on a pedestal and looked at as like this hunting hero. He's good. Yeah, so I kind of, like my buddy kind of brought me down the street and helped me shoot with him and his brother and his dad, and they kind of helped me out, and there was a point when I could,

finally draw enough poundage where I felt comfortable to go elk hunting with a bow. I bow hunted whitetails across the street when I was 12, but I don't think I went elk bow hunting until I was probably like 15. Right. I could finally draw enough poundage and I was accurate enough that I could probably shoot an elk, you know, out to 20, 25 yards. And so I'd go with my friend Dale and his brother Kenny. His brother Kenny was like

I don't know. We were 15. He was probably like 20. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, he was out of high school and he's kind of living on his own. He had his pickup and he would take us out and he was, he was a good caller, but I was just kind of tagging along, learning the ropes from those guys. And Kenny would shoot a bull like almost every year. And so he, he's a good elk hunter.

But I just didn't get any real good opportunities at elk when I was with them. But I was just learning the ropes, kind of figuring it out. So without those guys kind of taking me into their wings, I probably wouldn't have been able to go elk hunting. My dad didn't have a lot of time in September to take me out. My mom was great. She helped me out as much as she could.

Um, while my dad was off, he did some fire, a lot of fire stuff with the forest service. He was a forest service guy as well, but he did a lot of like fires. The Sue's always gone in September. Um, but my mom would take me out and like drop me off at my tree stand and then come pick me up after dark. So I'd hunt white tails when I was younger, but for elk hunting, you know, my mom's not going to drag me up in the mountains and, uh, or just drop me off anywhere. Right. So they, uh, they're super supportive, uh,

And they let me go out with the neighbor down the street, my buddy and his dad and his older brother. So those were my mentors of the area. But I just remember when I was like 11, 10, 11, 12, the neighborhood right behind where I lived, I'd walk back there one time and one of the local guys rolled in with an elk in the back of his truck and it was in whole.

Rib cage was split open. He had his bow jammed in there. I just vividly remembering those orange Eastern arrows in his quiver just sticking out of the rib cage. Yep. Bear razor heads were what people were shooting back then. Everybody was shooting PSE from the local shop over in the Flathead. So it was like, when I saw that, I was like, I want to hunt elk with a bow. That's all I want to do. And so I've kind of tried to gear my life towards like,

my lifestyle to like be able to hunt as much as I can hunt elk. I want to live in places where they're available. I can do it every year and I can do it as much as possible. Yeah. I think, I think I succeeded. Yeah. Yeah. You've done great. You've built a great life around that. Yeah.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. I feel like your, your, your career, your personal career, um,

is a very complimentary field to be in to help you achieve those life goals of being an elk hunter. And you're out in the mountains a lot. You probably see some elk sign, and you probably make a little mental notes. And just having the love of the mountains and the outdoors, that's so complimentary. It's just like you live the dream. Yeah. Being able to spend as much time as I do outside is just unbelievable. I mean, I get to spend a ton at work, and then...

A lot of my free time, I'm out. I mean, I probably spend counting time at work and hunting and other activities. You know, it's easily 250 days a year I'm outside. Wow.

That's awesome. But yeah, it's fun. It's good. Yeah. Your beginning elk story is reminiscent of mine a lot. My dad and uncle, you know, they went elk hunting all the time, rifle hunting. They were never bow hunting. In fact, my dad was always, ah, them damn bow hunters. You know, he's just, you hear all the stories. You know, they'd find a, somebody would find an elk with an arrow in it, you know.

It's really hard to tell if you find an elk with a bullet in it sometimes. So it's always, you know, at the time, the bow hunters really got a lot of blame. And I showed interest, too. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to hunt elk and deer and anything, you know, big game. But elk and deer were on the menu for where I lived in Idaho. And my first encounter with elk in September, I thought I was going to shoot a bear at this pond.

And I was 14 and my dad dropped me off like an hour before daylight. And I walk over and get to sit next to this pond. I've been seeing bear tracks. I'm thinking, oh yeah, this bear's going to come in the morning at first light and get some water. I'm going to get him. And I sit there and hear a bunch of brush popping and out pops these cow elk and a raghorn bull. And they come over and get a drink and the bull goes out in the pond and splashes around. I'm like 20 yards from these things, sitting, leaning up against a tree with my rifle hunting

or hunting bears and they wander off. And I was about ready to explode. Like I have got to get to town and buy, buy some arrows. I had a bow at the time, a yard sale bow I'd bought. It was like a bear, a Kodiak Magnum 50 pound, but I didn't even have a good arrow to shoot out of it. I didn't even know if I could hit the broad side of a barn or,

Um, but I'm like, my dad come pick me up. I'm like, okay, we got to go to town. We've got to buy some arrows. We've got to get broadheads and an elk tag. And I'm going to come back tomorrow. I'm going to shoot this elk. He's like, you're not shooting an elk with a bow. You can't kill elk with a bow. I said, yes, you can. I know people. There's the same thing. There's those guys in the community. Like they get an elk pretty often with the bow and it can be done. And he's like, no, I'm not doing it. I was so pissed. I was so deflated. I was so mad. Um,

That's about the only thing good going I had going. We didn't have anything fun to do. I lived in a town of 800 people in North Idaho. There's nothing to do. We didn't have video games. We didn't have... I mean, you might get to watch Gilligan's Island at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. That was about the highlight of your day, right? I was just like... I was so crushed. I'm like, well, I told him, I said, well, next year, I'm working all summer. I'm making my own money and I'm going to buy my own bow and everything. He's like, okay, whatever. So anyway, I worked hard.

Bought my bow, bought a brand new compound bow, bought all the arrows, bought my Easton orange arrows, XX75s. Had a high country trophy hunter bow. Okay. Built in Lewiston, Idaho. Yep. Yeah. That was a big local brand for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Bought some camo. And my dad's like, wow, you're really serious about this. I didn't squander a penny on anything other than hunting stuff. Bought some diaphragms and bugle tube. And he's like, I'll tell you what, if you kill an elk, you kill a bull elk.

I'll pay you back for everything you spent. I'd spent, I don't know, 500 bucks. Which was a lot. A lot of butt money for a 15-year-old kid. Had been bucking hay bales all summer, sweating like a dog. And fast forward, like third day of season, I bugle in this bull.

and shoot it, kill it. And my mom, she took me out. You know, she, she, we had elk close to town though. So we, I didn't have to hunt the mountains. We were down in the low country. And my mom, she was sitting in the pickup waiting for me. She could hear the whole thing. Me, me get this bull bugle. And she heard all the exchange and then everything went quiet. And then I come back to the truck. I'm like, I got it. So I sent her back to town. That's awesome. Yeah. I sent her back to town, get my dad. And, uh, she's like,

Well, get your come along and your 500 bucks. Dirk just shot a bull elk. And he's like, no, he didn't. He did.

So he grabbed, we had this old beater truck. We used to haul firewood in. Wood truck. Wood truck. So four wheel drive. He brought that and he had this big chain driven come along, you know, and we, we found the bull, we recovered the bull, gutted it out. We were able to pull the truck right up to it, load that sucker hole, you know, with the come up, loaded a hole. And, uh, I don't think I ever said, ever seen my dad so proud, you know, ever. He was so pumped. Um,

He made it good on the deal, paid me. But local, I talk about mentors. I didn't have a lot of mentors. There were some of those guys in community. One of my high school teacher I had, Mr. Powers, he taught physical science and math and calculus and all this stuff. And I wasn't one of the smart kids. I didn't take any calculus. I think I had general math and physical science. But he was just a dick at school. He was just...

He kind of talked funny and he talked fast and he's kind of hard to understand. And the kids kind of gave him a hard time. Man, he would get mad and just kind of, he was a little bit of a dick. But one day, it was like right after Labor Day weekend, he brought a big elk crack in. He's like, I got this bull, shot this bull with my bow. And I was like, Mr. Powers is cool. I think he might be cool. So I went over to his house after school one day. I'm like, hey, can I shoot your target out here? And he had a target out in his yard.

So that was the year before I started bow hunting. So then he's like, yeah, you can shoot my target. So I practiced. I'd go shoot his target. And he'd tell me elk hunting stories about, you know, calling in bulls. And he'd get to...

he'd get to telling the story and you just start cussing like a sailor, like this mother effer this. It's like, this guy is cool. He was dropping like, like he had the horrendous language. Right. And I was like, Holy cow, this guy's so cool. And, uh, man, I, and for years, you know, for decades after that, I'd go, I just go visit him and his wife sit in our house and visit. And so he would, I would call him a mentor and another guy, uh,

I had this friend growing up my age, and his dad, him and his dad were into archery big time. And his dad was a very accomplished tournament shooter and had shot a lot of elk with a bow. This was in the 80s in Idaho, the heyday, right? I thought, this guy is pretty much God of elk hunting. So I'm like, Rick, you got to tell me.

Help me out here. I'm trying to learn how to call elk and how do you do it? And he's like, I bugle a lot different than everybody else. I'm like, oh my God, this is going to be great. My brother-in-law...

Randy, who was my best friend at that time when we were growing up in high school, he was there with me and we're just all ears really just like just hanging on his every word. And he's like, he's like, well, most people, they take their tube and they, when they bugle, they, they kind of go to the left. I go to the right with my tube. And he was just like dead ass serious. And I'm like, okay. And I'm waiting for the rest of it. And that was it. And I looked at Randy, I'm like,

We've been had, this guy don't know shit about calling elk. So we're like, okay, cool, man. See you later. So we got, we had our tubes and our calls and just would blow them constantly, nonstop. My dad and I were cutting firewood one time and I was blowing, blowing my elk tube. And pretty soon a whole bunch of ravens came in, like sparrows.

Like 10 ravens just came flocking in and like, ah, ah, like in the tree. And they stopped and perched in the trees and were looking down. I'm just ripping bugles. I'm like, I don't think that's a good thing. I'm calling a raven. They think something's dying over here. Oh, that's too funny. Yeah, that is fun. Yeah, it was like learning to call was one of those things that like you just –

Some guy, well, when I started, people were voice bugling a lot. Yes. Carrying PVC pipes. Yes. They would spray paint them. Some of them had special, they'd heat them up with a torch and put a little band in them. Oh, yeah. To get the sound waves to travel differently or something. A lot of voice bugling. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the diaphragm came along. And then we know how that turned out. Yeah. It's changed. Oh, it changed the world. It's changed the sport for sure. Yeah. My brother's had a friend named Harley and he was...

big bow hunter too and he was telling me about he was one of those voice buglers with the PVC pipe and he's telling me about I bugle this bow so long my throat bled you know he was one of the guys that would inhale you know bugle yes it almost sounded like he was calling hogs that's the way I had the voice bugle I couldn't do I couldn't do it blowing out I had to like suck in and it I

I could do it, especially as a teenage boy. It was a lot easier. Yeah. But as an adult, no. No. It hurts my throat. I do it. I try to do it every now and then. And if you like, even if you grab your trachea and constrict it a little bit, it'll help the sound. But I end up like coughing a little bit and it sounds like I'm trying to squeal like a hog or something. Right. It just sounds terrible. But so tell me, are you, are you, do you rely on calling a lot?

Or are you more of a spot and stalk? Do you kind of do a hybrid? What's your go-to? Everybody kind of does a little different thing. Yeah, so, I mean, where I, the local herds that I hunt, I'm a caller. It's thick, it's brushy, heavy, deep timber. And if they're not talking, it's really hard to kill an elk. Yeah. So I rely on calling when I'm hunting local elk. Yeah. I've hunted elk.

In a bunch of places. And I find that the more open ground there is, the less I call and the more I rely on just dogging, just kind of shadowing a herd or shadowing bugles, working in close. Some of the bigger bulls I've killed with my bow have been...

in more open country, like, you know, east side of Montana or central part of Montana, southwest. A lot less timber. Less timber, just more patchy. They spend more time in the open so you can get visuals on them. You can see where they're going to bed. You can hear them in their beds or you can hear them when they get up from their bed. So I tend to do a lot of like just strategic dogging placement of myself between them and where they want to go.

Or just creeping in next to the herd and hoping the activity of the chase will bring them in. So I kind of rely on a little bit of both when I'm hunting that more open country. And places where there's more elk, you can get by with not calling as much. I'll locate a lot of times and then I'll sneak in. But I love to call elk. I mean, it's one of my favorite things to do. And I love calling brush country bulls.

Like some of that brushy stuff, you know, in Western Montana or, you know, Central North or North Idaho. All that stuff is, it's thick, it's steep. And man, you'll have a bull 50 yards away and you can't see them. You can hear them. You know they're coming. And you don't know what it is. And I think that's a big part of the draw for me is you don't know what it is until it shows up. And then it's always a surprise. Yeah.

Sometimes, you know, you'll call a bull in or you'll think you're on like a small bull because they're being timid and they're squealing. And next thing you know, it's just this dinosaur just turns his attitude on and spins around. It's like, I've had enough. And it'll just growl on your face and push through the brush. And it's like, oh, my God, this was the bull I was chasing. I thought I was just going to try to kill this raghorn up here. But, yeah, I like to call.

Um, that's my preferred method, but I try to be well-rounded as much as I can. Yeah. I like to be as good a hunter as I possibly can. And if I silo myself into like one particular technique, then I don't know, I don't feel I'm all that well-rounded. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. I think that's super important for folks to realize is, yeah, calling will take you so far in a certain type of terrain. But like you mentioned, that open country, yeah, you definitely, it's great to locate and stuff, but you're probably going to have to do a lot more shadowing, a lot more strategic movement without calling.

Maybe you call again when the time is right. Right. But maybe not. It's just being smart, hunt smarter, right? I think some people kind of don't understand that. They think, oh, well, I can see those elk from...

you know, 500 yards away across this open country, I'm just going to call him and call him in. But more times than not, they're probably going to go the other way because they can see there's no elk over there. Right. But it's almost like a chess game or some kind of a poker game. I'm like, you've got to really hold your cards tight until the time's right. Yeah, and I think, you know, in that open country, there's just more elk and there's just –

Those bulls don't really, they don't care that much about the other bulls. Right. They're just more concerned on what that herd's doing. So they're not, they're just, they don't, I mean, they're callable for sure, but they're just not as concerned with another bull coming into the herd to check stuff out. They're like, oh, that guy's way over there. I'm not worried about him at all. Right. The cow's right here in front of me. I just got to sneak in there and peel one off. Right. So, yeah, in the, in...

Other places where it's thicker and there's less elk densities, there's just not as many elk. So the bulls are more susceptible to like, all right, I've got these two cows. I'm keeping that bull out of here. I'm going to be more susceptible. He's going to be more susceptible to going over to a call, I feel. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree with that.

Do you think, how much has elk hunting changed since you started? Like, especially archery elk hunting, how much has it changed? And do you think technology, how is it affecting? Is there any kind of technology you're concerned about? I mean, yeah. I mean, there's always that slow creep of technology and changing. It's hard to tell how it's changing and how quick it's going to come or even to foresee that it's going to change it until it actually happens. Yeah.

But, I mean, it just seems like there's been a slow creep of electronics on bows. You know, there's been some states. I know there's states that outlaw, like, electronic sites and stuff like that. There was one, I think, Garmin made one where it had a range finder built in, and a pin would light up at the range. And it just made, to me, it's like, that just, it's kind of taken away the...

I don't know, some of the art of bow hunting. Yeah. And bow hunting, to me, is supposed to be hard. It's not supposed to be efficient. Yeah. I kind of like a little bit of struggle to go along with it. Don't get me wrong. I like to kill elk, and I want to make sure I do it efficiently. Right. But that just means I need to shoot effectively, and I need to limit myself. I don't need to shoot at 80 yards. I'm not effective at 80 yards. Right. I can do it, but...

I'm not going to kill anything efficiently. So I don't know. I think just there's a little bit of, I don't know, there's stuff in the zeitgeist out there right now that people think they need to shoot long distance. And I think it would be nice if people would just kind of dial that back a little bit. It's great to practice at long distance. It's great to be proficient. It makes shooting something at 30 yards a slam dunk. Yes. And I think just...

So just that slow creep of technology is changing things. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but as soon as bow hunters start to become more effective at killing animals, the fish and game agencies are going to try to dial that back some way. They might put equipment restrictions in place or they might just start issuing fewer tags. So I don't know. I just think that the creep of technology is...

It's slow and steady, and it's hard to tell what it's doing until it actually kind of happens and it kind of comes into fruition and more focus. You know, people start to realize what's going on around them. So that's changed a lot. I mean, technology in archery equipment has changed tremendously since I was a kid. Yeah. And I started. But so has rifle technology. Yeah.

And is it good? Is it bad? I don't know. It's hard to say. It seems like, I don't know, it seems like the success rate for archery hunters hasn't changed that much. No. I think the elk have kind of adapted to people's techniques. Right. I don't know. I know they're not as...

callable as they were right back in the day so they're just more tuned in to like people's hunting styles and the dangers that are out there yeah yeah I think you're right I agree with all that

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Absolutely, you should practice 80 yards and 100 yards and become super confident and super proficient with your bow. That way, those 30-yard shots, they're just a slam dunk. A 40-yard shot's a slam dunk. But...

A lot of us practice in our backyards on a very controlled environment. You know the distance. It's easy. You're comfortable. There's no pressures. You go out, it's like, yeah, I'm really feeling like shooting, you know? Right. I feel like shooting long distance today. And man, you know, I was shooting my bow and I can hit good. Right.

A hundred yards or 120 yards or, you know, the sites and the technology we have today for these bows, you know, we can get the slider sites. We can, you know, move them and do all this, these crazy accurate shots. Um,

I will say this. I've, I've been to a lot of these elk training camps, um, where we have shooters there, you know, whether they're a seasoned vets or people who are new and when they sign up, they, they have to put down what's your maximum effective range. And some, some guys will be like 50 yards. Some guys will be like 70 yards, some guys 30 yards. So day one, we say, okay, Hey guys, you were guys wrote down a number. Um, we're here at the archery range. You got your bows. Cool. Um,

You call them out. Hey Josh, you said you could you could shoot effectively to 80 yards. We're standing at 80 yards right now. There's the elk target. I want you to draw your bow back and shoot. Make a killing shot on this elk. And you got 30 other people standing there looking at you, judging you, wondering about you. The pressure's on. Dirk pulls out his cell phone and starts videoing you for about six inches away to make you uncomfortable.

Okay, you said 80. Let's do it at 50. We're just going to start at 50. We're going to help you out. We're going to start at 50. I don't know how many times, like at the 50-yard mark. Most of the class said 50 yards, they're dynamite. Sometimes they don't even hit the target. And if they do, it's like in the ass or in the neck. They barely hit it. Very few are a lethal killing shot.

And the whole point that we're trying to get at is we're trying to get that dose of reality. You're here in comfortable clothes on a flat ground. It is uncomfortable to shoot in front of people. It's intimidating. We've raised your heart rate. We've made you uncomfortable. You couldn't make the shot you think you can execute, that you said you can execute. So let's get real with ourselves. Let's take a closer look at ourselves.

And I think a great way to do this is go to like events like TAC. Yes. You know, you're on, you're like such true life type shots. And there's some shots that stretch out. Way out. Hey there, Mr. Accuracy Guy. We got 80 yards straight downhill, 30 degrees or whatever. Through the lodge pole. Through the lodge pole. Go ahead and take that shot. Yeah. And it's astounding of how tough those shots are. And there's some people that can make, they're still great. But still, that's a foam target. Yeah.

You factor in, this is day seven of a hunt. You're dehydrated. You just sprinted 300 feet straight up this hill to a bugling bull. You're out of breath. Your heart rate's pounding. You have a pack on your back. And here comes the biggest bull you've ever seen in your life. And if your wife told you, if you come home without any elk meat, you're a dead man. You can't tell me there's any more pressure than that, right? How about that 80-yard shot?

I feel like you, we have to like police ourselves and look internally and be like, we can only take the most ethical shots that we know that we're going to put that elk down quickly and humanely. And even on good shots, these, those 30 yard shots, um,

20-yard shots, they can go awry. Easy chip shots can go awry through no fault of the shooter, but things happen. Elk move. They're a living animal. They can whirl. They can move. They can do something different than you anticipated and make an easy good shot into a bad one, and now we have a tough tracking job. And if you're at 80 yards, all that stuff just amplifies. So I think everybody just needs to really be honest and really look internally like, you know, I want to have a good experience with this.

I want to have the best hunt ever, and I don't want to taint it with taking bad shots. Yeah. No, I hear you. I try to be conservative with my shots. I mean, that being said, I've made bad shots. But you know what? The ones I have made have been kind of like at that stretched out distance. Yeah. When I say bad shots, I'm talking like a shoulder. Right. You know?

Seems pretty superficial, you know, at the end of it. I'll always follow up regardless. You never know. But, you know, usually those shoulder shots end up in being a bull walking away, probably sore, maybe a little tender in that front shoulder, but it's never fatal. I've never seen him be fatal. And it's like you just have to, like, step back and reevaluate, like, okay, what went wrong? Why did I feel I could take that shot?

And what am I going to do different next time? Yeah. So back to your mentorship and people who got you into hunting. Did you have someone who instilled ethics and etiquette into your hunting persona? Did you have somebody like your dad, your uncle or grandpa or maybe one of your mentor friends down the street that said, hey,

This kind of behavior is unacceptable. We only do this kind of hunting etiquette to other hunters. We only take these ethical shots or this is what ethics are all about. Did you have somebody mentoring you with that or did you kind of have that internal thing where just maybe the way you were raised as a kid that kind of set that bar for you? Yeah, I mean, I think it was a little of both. I mean, the way I was raised by my parents is one. I mean, they're very ethical people.

But, you know, as a kid, you kind of always are a little bit rebellious and you kind of want to, you know, kind of push away from your parents' thoughts and ideas and whatnot. But peer pressure is a big one. I mean, that drives ethics for sure. You kind of behave like your peers, especially when you're a teenager. Sure. But like some of the ethics I learned from like my best friend down the street and his older brother and his dad, one of the biggest things was like,

Hunting spots are sacred. Yes. Well, we're going to take you here and we're going to enjoy hunting with you and you, you know, have as much fun as you want, but don't bring anybody else here and don't tell anybody else that you're hunting here. And if you do want to come back, ask. Yeah. I mean, it's public land. Everybody has a right to go hunt there, but not everybody knows where to go hunt. So just don't, don't spread the word. If you want to go back there and hunt, ask us and, you know,

We'll say yay or nay, but I've kind of lived, I've taken that to like the next step. It's like I never try to invite myself on a hunt with anybody and I try not to like go back. If I get taken to a spot, even to this day, man, that's like I was brought there as a guest and I'm going to treat it as that. I'm not going to go back and tromp through that area without permission.

that person like saying yay or nay yeah man i've done i've been back to places that i've been shown by other people but i'll call them up say hey man do you mind if i go in there back and right you know we're i know we're hunting in there together in archery season but i was thinking of going in there for rifle usually are you okay with that yeah oh yeah go for it so i yeah it's sort of that that's the big ethic in my area is like if you're shown a spot that's not your spot you're a guest i'm

You're more than welcome to go hunt it, but please just, you know, ask. And even like some of my best friends were that way still. Yeah. So, and yeah, I kind of learned that from the folks down the street and my, you know, my best friend, Dale. Um, and you know, there's been some stuff that like you, you see stuff in the community of people doing sketchy stuff and you hear of people doing sketchy stuff and I don't know, I,

you just tend to develop like ethics as you age too. You kind of realize that, you know, the repercussions of your actions and how they affect everything. And they really affect your, uh, your reputation. Like as I got older and I became more successful as a hunter, you know, I started thinking, it's like, man, I can't, I can't make a mistake. Like, like I, if, if I, if I got busted for like

shooting something after hours or you name it, shooting something out of the truck of my, you know, my truck, which is illegal. It was like, people would be like that dude, everything that you've done up to that point is now suspect. Yes. Like your whole record is now,

Like, oh, yeah, I knew that guy was shady. He shoots out of his truck. Yeah. Or, yeah, he trespasses and everything he kills is on private. So you just, yeah, I just kind of came to that conclusion, like your reputation is everything. And once it's soiled, it's hard to get it back. Yeah. So don't soil it.

And just try to be as ethical as possible. Mistakes happen. Yeah, sure. Honest mistakes happen. Absolutely. But there's some people that do stuff nefariously, like they're doing it on purpose. Right. And trying to break the laws, trying to weasel their way into success. And it's just, I don't know. I just don't want to have this animal tainted by any of that. Like one of these animals I kill, I just don't want them tainted by anything.

cutting corners, so to speak. So I don't know. I just developed that as I've aged, for sure. It's just been one of those changes in my mindset. Like, yeah, your reputation is super important. At least mine is. I feel like it. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of, yeah, I have a lot of self-respect.

for myself to where I don't want to do stuff to make, I want to be able to hold my head high and people to be like, Hey, there's, there's Dirk. Hey, he's a good guy. I don't want to be like, Oh, Hey, there's that asshole that poached. He did all this crazy stuff.

crazy stuff. He did all, you know, all these things. It's like people would look down on. I don't want to be known for that. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I know like, you know, I've been fairly successful hunting, you know, elk and deer and, and black bears and whatnot. Um,

I've heard rumors in the community about myself, which I find quite funny. But I've heard, oh, he shot that whitetail over bait. Or he totally shot that in the spot. I mean, it's like, dude, when you do stuff legit...

the rumors still come. Right. And if you got caught doing something illegal, it's only going to like be magnified. Everybody's like, I told you so. Yep. Told you so. I knew it. I knew it. Yeah. I had his number. Yep. So the guys that I hunt with, I, you know, they're all super ethical. They're all very restrained on how they operate and,

in the, in the mountains. And, um, yeah, I, we just try to do this the same. We try to act the same and, and feed off of one another. Yeah. I feel like right now, every year there gets to be, there's growing more and more division in the hunting community. And I think a lot of it is around ethics and etiquette. Um,

And I feel like a lot, some of it, maybe all, a lot of it is to blame to a lot of these, um, the new, um, adult onset hunters who haven't had that mentor, um,

to guide them, you know, to say, hey, you know, we don't do this. That's not cool to treat another hunter this way or to take these kind of shots. That's not acceptable. You know, they don't have grandpa or the guy down the street that's telling them, hey, this is the right way to do it. You don't do it that way. Maybe they didn't have an upbringing where mom and dad, you know, taught them right from wrong. Right. But now they found interest in hunting as an adult.

And lately I dwell and I think on this a lot, like the turmoil and the division and hunting. And I feel like people need to really think about instead of like tearing each other down and beating each other up, especially in public on social media. Instead of doing that, like what can we do? What I can do? What you can do?

And I think it's like, hey, be that mentor that you always had or that you maybe wish you had, but you kind of had to learn the hard way. Be that mentor to some new hunters. Maybe it's a 40-year-old person, a 50-year-old person is just getting into hunting, but they don't have that point of reference and understand those ethics and etiquette. Help them out. Teach them. Tell them, yeah, I'll take you hunting.

but it's a sacred spot. If I catch you in my spot again, I'll kill you. You bring somebody up here, it's going to be bad. That's the worst part. However you're going to explain it to them, but let them know that's unacceptable. And that's what's accepted among the whole hunting crowd. And I think if we can help each other, mentoring out, if you're in a position to mentor, do it. And sometimes we're really guarded, I think, as hunters because we don't want to share any of our secrets.

Um, but maybe sharing the right secrets and sharing some, some things with people in a positive light, um, on how to act and how to behave in the woods is, would go a long ways. And I, and I think I want, I really want to kind of like really almost start a movement. I don't know if I want to, I don't want to start the movement, but I really want to open that conversation and people that listen to this, I really want them to like, think about that and kind of think, you know, I could probably do better helping people out. Um,

being better. I think, I think, I think we all just need to start treating each other better because anti-hunters looking at us, they're like, look at these jokers. We can take them down so easy. They're too so busy bickering with themselves about stupid shit that they're an easy target. Yeah, we really are. I mean, competitive, I mean, hunting is competitive by nature, especially when you start throwing multiple people out into the same area, going, you know, chasing a limited resource and,

And I think if people, people just need to be more polite to one another. I mean, that's what it all comes down to. Yeah. Just being polite and just more, just, I guess, more aware of like what other people are thinking, feeling, doing. I don't know. Just kind of just take a step back and, and think about how you would want to be treated in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cause it is getting competitive out there and people do.

some kind of crazy stuff. Some people lose their mind over, I mean elk especially. People really lose their mind over elk. They'll do some dumb, dumb stuff to get an elk. I mean they're hard to kill. They're hard to come by. Some guys only get an opportunity once every so many years.

And they will just, they will push their grandkid out of the way to shoot a bull. You know, get out of the way, kid. I'm shooting. Yeah. So, yeah, it's almost like a fever takes over. They lose their mind. I've seen it. I've seen guys do it. Yeah. But I think if you just, people become a little more just self-aware and aware of other people.

I think it would go a long way. I mean, it's a good starting point maybe. Yeah. But man, I see some stuff online, some bickering going on and just some shots, low blows back and forth. Yeah. Name calling. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. People get so heated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're all passionate about it. Yeah. Sometimes like, let's say you had, do have something to say online and pause, push pause for a minute.

Think about it. Put your phone down for a little bit. Think about it and be like, how can I tell this other person they're an idiot without telling them they're an idiot and give them something to take away of value? If I call you an idiot to your face or just on social, all you're going to do is you're going to walk away mad. Right. Or escalate it. Yeah, or escalate it.

Or if I try to have that conversation, like, hey, you know, I understand maybe where you're coming from, but did you think of this or that? And just try to maybe put your opinion out there in a polite way to where it's non-confrontational.

But for them to think about that, I feel like you are really good at those kind of conversations. Me and you here at the show have had some conversations. I kind of get off track a little bit. I start getting pretty opinionated. I start forming an opinion. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's another thing to think about this and that. We're talking about wolves and habitat and elk dying and all this stuff. And it's so easy to get really ingrained into this mindset that

And it's so good and refreshing to have someone point out another point of view and a thought process in a constructive way that someone starts thinking about it. Like, you know what? He ain't wrong. And pretty soon, I think it caused you to think deeper, you know, if you're the opinionated guy that's kind of trying to, you know, get a little bit puffed up. So if you want to correct someone and help them out, maybe don't call them an idiot or a jackass. Right.

It'd be better to like give them, give them another way to think about something in a polite way. Um, maybe like your grandpa might've done, or maybe your favorite person, um, would give you, uh, a different way of think to think about something. Um, that's how real change happens. That's how real, that's how relationships build. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, putting people on the fence. I mean, when you start like just attacking somebody, you immediately put them on the fence and you're not going to change their mind. Right. I get that way. I mean, it's just, it's how things get delivered to me makes me, if I, if I, if it's delivered a certain way, I can stop and think about it. And I always, I try to be very open-minded with different thoughts and ideas. Yeah. I'll try to think about it as much as possible, but yeah.

Yeah, attacking somebody, it never works. No. It's like trying to convince your grandpa that he's wrong. Yeah. When people get so conditioned in their mindset, it's just like, well, hear them out, think about what they said, and maybe just throw out something that they might not have ever thought about and try to throw it out in a way that they have to chew on it for a little bit. Yes, yes. Yeah.

And I'm for all, all transparency. I'm not going to set, try to set up on a pulpit here and say, I've never been that other guy, the hothead. I'm a little hotheaded, you know, and I've probably said some things online before. There's like, you know, that was, I was kind of, I'm kind of an asshole. I probably shouldn't have said that. Um,

But I'm trying to have more self-awareness. And if I can't change me, how can I change anyone else? So I think all of us can take that look in. How do we change things for the better in ourself and our fellow sportsmen? Yeah. Yeah. But I agree. I think we need to be more unified. Yeah. Because...

You know, we're not... The antis are going to be antis. They're going to attack and they've got their techniques on how they're going to go about change. The way they're starting to change things is they're bringing stuff in front of the voters. And you have to realize the majority of the voters are not anti-hunters. They're not pro-hunters. They're neutral. And we need to figure out how to convince them to vote against the antis' agendas that they're pushing through.

Super important. I mean, the majority of people kind of have a favorable look at hunting until it looks unfavorable. Until it's in a spotlight that looks nasty, gross, and tacky. There's some stuff here at the show that I walk around and look at. Like, dude, if some neutral media that we're just kind of like...

want to see what this is all about and put it online or put it on the local news network. It's like, do they need to see iguanas getting shot in the head? Monkeys getting shot in the head with an air gun on a big screen on the back of the convention center? That is not a good look. That's something that

I don't know the context of what that stuff was filmed in, but it just has a bad look. And it's like, let's just maybe keep that stuff to ourselves. I'm not saying censoring, but we just need to think about our image and how it's presented to the non-hunters because those are the people who are going to decide. The antis are going to vote.

For their ballot initiatives every time, it's like, how are we going to convince the rest of the general public who are non-hunters, how are we going to convince them to vote for us and preserve what we have? Because this is super important. We continue this North American model of wildlife management. It's like what drives...

This whole industry right here that we're sitting at, but it also, it's more than that. I don't, the industry is whatever. It's for me, it's like how I maintain my sanity in life. Yes. I need to go to the mountains and hunt every year. I need to spend this time by myself thinking through problems of life and working through, uh,

stuff that's occurred and how I've treated people in the past, that all gets worked out in my mind. And I typically come out

with some type of resolution in my brain, like, okay, now I think I might be a better person and I would handle that differently. And when you're hiking around doing stuff, you're not just thinking about hunting. No. You're thinking about all sorts of stuff. Self-reflection, yeah. It's just a way to just, yeah, it kind of like grounds yourself back to like who you really are. What's really important. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I need that. And if hunting seasons go away or they get reduced...

Trim down to the bare bones. Maybe, you know, we could only do it, say, if you could only elk hunt once every five years because the permits are cut back so much that, you know, you have to draw for them.

I don't know what I'd do. I'd be hurt. I think I'd just start doing drugs. I might be down here on the sidewalk living, you know, in rags. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I don't know. There's something to it that keeps my sanity. The shocking videos and stuff, for us people who have hunted their whole lives, we've seen animals die. We've seen them die at our own hand.

We're not as sensitive to those things. Right. But for non-hunting people who have never experienced this lifestyle, it's very shocking. They've never seen a wild animal, any kind of animal die, um, in real life. Um, and to see one die in a, in maybe a manner that's not super respectful, um,

That is, that's hard to watch. It's hard to see. And I would, I have to think it gives people immediately like a, like you use the word gross. They would say, that's gross. That's, that's shocking. Right. That made me feel something inside and I don't ever want to see that again. And I don't agree with that. Unfortunately, that all gets lumped in with

all hunters and all hunting in general. Right. So I think, yeah, you just got to be mindful of it. Is it legal? Yes. Right. Should everybody see it? It's not, it's maybe not for everybody to see. Right. Maybe it's, maybe you want to show people that you got to go into a little area that's just not blasted all over the whole show. Right. Or, you know. Keep it amongst your friends. Keep it amongst your friends. The ones that think it'd be fun or cool to see. But yeah. Yeah.

Just keep it tasteful. Yeah. Keep it tasteful. Keep it classy. Like us. Yeah, like us. The pin-up girls of the 50s, right? That's completely different than what's going on with that type of material these days. Back in the 50s, it was a little risque. It was pretty classy. Today, there's some real nasty stuff out there. So, yeah. Think that in mind. And also, how would you...

how would you go into, you know, like local church and start using a bunch of foul language? It'd be very insulting. It'd be very revolting to a lot of the people in there. You wouldn't. So if you have that like restraint in a setting, then why would you talk like that in another public setting or show things in a public setting that could be of offensive to people who didn't know about hunting? So just, I just think you should keep it classy. Yep. I agree. Yeah.

So if you could tell your 12-year-old Josh anything about elk hunting, if you could go back and say, Josh, I'm from the future. Here's some information. What would you tell yourself? Oh, man. Well, one, I would tell myself build points wherever you can as early as possible. As soon as you can. But as far as just like general elk hunting, I would probably tell myself just go.

Be prepared to work hard and success is going to come if you do that. And I would give myself the information of like, all right, stretching yourself out and doing hard hunts is mental. So just work on figuring out how to like get more mentally comfortable hunting elk, like way in the back country. Yeah. And you're going to have more bulls. You're going to kill more bulls.

If you can do that. Yeah. So, I mean, those, those are the things that when I was first started, like getting away from the road and the truck was like, Ooh, we're way out here. This is, if we get an elk, what are we going to do? I didn't realize, I mean, I hadn't killed very many elk when I was, you know, I killed my first elk when I was like 13 with a rifle. Yeah. And, um, it was a cow, um,

And we got elk out whole. My uncle managed a ranch down in southwest Montana. So I got to go hunt that ranch in rifle season. And I did hunt it a couple times in bow season after I got like a little older. But I mean, elk we killed down there. We'd go shoot them out in the sagebrush, you know, as they're coming up out of the meadows in the morning, heading up to the timber. And we'd just go pick them up in the truck.

So everything came out whole. We'd hang them up with the tractor, skin them. Sure. They had a walk-in cooler. We'd hang them in there while we were down there. It was awesome. It was awesome. Unbelievable. But when I started hunting on my own, off in other places, I just didn't realize how much work it was going to be. And I was scared. I knew how much work it would be, but I was just scared of putting that much work into it and how punishing it could be.

And so I think I definitely limited myself on where I would go and how far I would go. And it wasn't good elk country where I would hunt. So I would probably tell myself, man, it's not that hard. Work at it.

And it's going to, you're going to be successful, more successful. Yeah. So that's what I'd want for, for the young Josh. Yeah. Be more successful when he's younger. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Man, this has been a great conversation. Yeah. Where can people find you on, on Instagram? You still, you're still writing web articles. Yeah. So I do gear reviews for Rockslide. So you can find me on Rockslide, which is, you know, kind of,

back country centric kind of discussion. It's a forum. It's a forum with like gear reviews and articles like on the homepage, but it's mostly just like a forum. Yeah. So you can find me there. Username's just Josh Boyd.

There's articles on the main page you can find that I've written, you know, shelters, backpacks. I do a lot of like gear reviews on like backcountry gear. Yeah. Which I love, you know, I'm a gear geek. So you can find me there and you can find me on Instagram. I've reluctantly been on social media. I remember years ago, you and I were talking at a tack and you're like, are you on Instagram? I'm like, no way, Dirk. He's like, you should get on it. I'm like, I don't know. And

And that might have been like the next year Brinker and Ryan Holm from Mystery Ranch both kind of talked to me about it. It's like, you should get on it. Okay. So I'm on it. Yeah.

Back then it was a whole different world. Instagram was like cool pictures and little stories and stuff people write. Photography was king. That's what I loved about Instagram. That's what kind of convinced me. I like looking at cool images from people that I respect and have a lot of talent.

And now it's like ads and videos and just stupid stuff. It's so shallow now. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. I do too. It's one of those necessary evils, I guess they call it. Yeah. What's your handle on Instagram? Josh underscore Boyd underscore MT, maybe. Something like that. I could look. But I bet if you just wrote in Josh Boyd,

MT as in Montana you'd probably find me there'd probably be a few guys on skateboards in the city though with that same name there might be no just kidding oh man thanks so much for taking the time to join me here it's been been a great great pleasure catching up yeah and then recording this podcast yeah it's been great I've loved our conversations yeah this whole week so yeah awesome this has been a good one yeah we'll travel safe back home thanks yeah

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