00:00:00 Speaker 1: Okay today, honest I want you to say, welcome to the me Eater podcast and Lavian you can't give me just a little bit of a head zone, come the Meta podcast and Laban and then introduce everyone in Lavian. I don't speak Lavian, so you can can do it well. Spade and Nan Ms knock him shorty in No Bozeman, Montana. Met Podcast leads in st Steve Ornella, Ryan Callahan, Britney Brothers, Helen Shoe, Jan Pool telling ladies, gentlemen, and Latvian. We're recording the media podcast out of Bowsman, Montana. We're in a place called Flats on Maine, joined by Ryan Callahan of he's famous for working at First Light, and he's famous for um his mustache, and he's famous for saying once addressing a bear, smell us, not a lady. And Brittany Brothers who works with us at meat Eater, Helen Shoe, who works with a meat Eater, and then um, the Lavian lover your honestly tell us who works with us at meat Eater. And we just got back from Helen and Britney's firs hunt. We're gonna talk about first hunts. But first I was talkt with something that happened to me in be honest. This morning, we're driving back from Damn, New York, Canada, just east of Glacier National Park where you enter the planes. There's these little island mountain chains out there, and we were hunting there and we're driving back to then we happened to stop in and visit with Uh. We had to stop in the long the long drive home and visit with this outfitter. And we we pull in there and there's a a mule deer laying on a piece of plywood land between two sawhorses, and it was it was funny because the multitys season had been closed for some time and it's laying there and it had in the snow around it as all these magpie tracks and it's frozen rock solid, and uh, we're told this story about how some guy was out and had killed it a couple of weeks earlier, and UM didn't want it and they were going to donate it and did we want it? And it had been there two weeks and I was so depressed UM leaving there and we had a big I had like a big like uh, like a crisis. We almost took it family that was gonna get it. It's just and it's like, I don't know, just the whole thing is weird and ugly. And then put me into a funk and we're driving on the road and I'm like talking about game wasters and how much how much I don't like them, and um, Yanni has some comment was like, well, yeah, well not everyone had a upbringing where that stuff was respected, you know. And it's like an education thing more than anything else. And and and and as I'm saying is I'm almost ready to tell Joannice about how I was like, I was gonna tell him this story where I was like, my old man would even go check other guys gut piles to get the heart and liver out of a gut pile. And as I'm about ready to tell Joannice this, we blow past a gut pile off in the field. We actually heard the cold, right, you guys did too, So apparently these guys up in this area had gotten onto herd it out. They came out into the flat, and um, I heard rumor. I can't say this is true. And I say a rumor because it's not. It's it's very illegal but they apparently got after these elical cell phones. And there was a herd of like twenty seven cows and two spikes, and was all said and done. All the cows are dead. And uh, I mean legally tag But you know, I don't I don't know that that is what a guy said. It might that might have not been true at all. But here's his gut pile on the side of the road out in the egg field. And I said, you know what, turnaround, and I'm so upset about what happened earlier that day. I'm gonna turn around. I'm gonna go and get the heart and the liver out of that gut pile. So Yanny turns around, drives back. I walk out on the field of my knife, start digging through the gut pile. I'm looking for a ziplock back. I'm looking for a ziplock bag in the back of the truck. And the heart and liver had been taken by the hunter's And then I was back, and then I was back into a good mood again, meat season groceries. And then I was back in a good mood, and I was back in a good moon. We had a nice drive home. Wow, that's like, did you guys check if her heart and liver telling them there when I when I blew through, the guys were out there skin they were got another one across the street. I guess he called across county road. They were got another one. Did you stop in and asking about the heart and liver? I did not. That brings us to what we were doing up in this in this chain of hills. And why don't you guys introduce selves Brittany and Helen. Helen has been on the podcast before you guys took me fly fishing for the first time. First for Helen crafted with catch and release fishing. Did you release anything that day? You shouldn't release it, She shouldn't release her. Help. So talk a little about what you do and and what we did. Don't talk about what we did. Talk about what you do, Like how you came to be introduced all this? Oh? Um, well, so I worked for z p Z, I work for meat Eater, worked with you probably for four years, four years, four years. Um. Yeah. Basically we started the social media since the world within when you were in travel Channel and built the knee eater um social press presence from the ground up. So had you. Uh that was your introduction to hunting. Yeah, I met you through your photos. Actually, Like I remember, one of my first jobs at CPZ was to scan all these photos from this like personal you know, like archive, and I'm going through this photo album and it's like, you know, it's like this kid, I don't know, he's like maybe four years old or something like it gets progressively like this kid gets older and older, and it's like every single animal, you know, it's like snakes, raccoons, And I was like, who the hell is this dude? Um? Well, yeah, that's how it was introduced you first, and I was like wow, I mean it's like every I mean, you know, I grew up in New York. It's like I'd never seen a moose, like someone holding a moose like that, or like you know, like dear um hanging. I mean everything just born Helen was born and raised and lives. Were you born raised in Manhattan? I was born in Manhattan, raised in Brooklyn, still live in Manhattan today and even went to you went to n y U for college. So the point is your New York to the core. Yeah, So I mean my mad, mad New York He's trying to learn to have a zip, your zip your way of communicating. He's learned, Mad Brick. I don't even know that one. Apparently it's very cold anyways. Yeah me, um, yeah, so I've I've also worked for ZPZ. I worked for zz for like four years now, I think, and have worked for Meat Eater since the beginning in some capacity or another. Started out in the equipment room, started out down the Deep South, started out in the Deep South. Yeah, I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. Um, but yeah, I have been lived in New York for seven years. You guys still fly that Confederate flag down here now now they took that down goodness because they lost right a long time ago. I guess they're yers had to come down there and show you guys house done. Yeah. Well, you know my families from the North. Originally, I was born in Michigan. I don't have that. I was born in ann Arbor. Yeah, so I don't have this. You're like a cart you guys are. Your family is like a tarpetbagger fall um. But yeah, eventually made my way to New York. I went to college and yeah, I started working for z b Z in equipment well as an intern for Helen. Actually Helen hired me, so we go way back, is that right? Yeah, she hired me is an intern. There's some highs and lows went along, just all high. One of my first jobs as an Internet EPC was trying to find a powder blue tuxedo for Ron Jeremy. That's a that's a true story story, um, and that's my life has never been the same since. Um. But I started working on mediator and equipment, um impact all the gear, and it was always just like the dirtiest, messiest gear that we got back. I was just like what goes on? Always something broken? What do you mean by gear like camera gear? UM? I mean we were in charge of camping gear too, so we you know, sometimes you would come down to the second floor and like all the tents were oute. It looked like nobody wanted to come to the second like the smelliest smelly man. That must not have been my tent. I don't know who's tent. That's weird. That a personal problem. I just I just slept on the cot next year, and I want to be specific about saying I slept on the cot next to you for the last for four nights and I never smelled the lady lady smell. Yeah. So I worked in equipment. The gear was always horribly messy and dirty, and I spent many nights cleaning it. Um and uh, I was just always kind of curious what went on, what was going on out there? Yeah, exactly. And you grew up thinking that, um, the hunters were like the devil spawn. Well, you know, I grew up, you know, and I'm not saying this is all you know Southern hunters, but I grew up thinking that they were just a bunch of like hillbillies drinking beer and shooting things for the hell of it. Well those aspects of that. I'm sure they're handful of those people. But I literally never thought of hunting is like a source of food at all. I just thought it was just like again, like people just like to go out and shoot things. Yeah, I don't know anyone who ate wild game, No, never at all. I mean even today, Like none of our friends eat wild game. I mean people people who work you know, on the show. But I know a handful of people now now back home, and I mean I never realized before. But yeah, but then from equipment I worked started working in social Media strangely enough, um, and pretty much solely worked I mean we you know, we had all our other shows, but Media was sort of like the main show that I worked on. And that's really like how I came to know you, how he came to know the crew a lot better. Um, not just our smells else and from smells to smiles, some smells to smiles, oh my god. Um. Yeah. And then and then I worked on that cookbook shoot last year because Dan got super sick and so I kind of had to like take over the logistics of that, um which is super fun. That was a crash course and all things wild. Games are coming out for another year, but I mean just to mention it. And we started all talking about we start talking about doing this trip one year ago. Was it really a year ago? Feels like long long than No. I think it was, well, yeah, probably a year. Well, we kept bugging you, like you know, and I don't know if it was remember, but we talked about this at in in Vegas. Had shot show last year and I said, Antelope, that's right, that would have not shots too far. I don't think it is. I think we talked about it a shot. We did we definitely talked about that. I might have talked about it, but I would have said the shots are too far. Oh no, no, okay, I got you, not shot shots, shots you real quick. There's this big trade. It's like all shooting, sportsman's hunting, outdoor trade, that's what it stands for. But it's all out it's all um all firearm industry stuff, so stuff from like mall cop stuff to hunter stuff too. I think calam put it best when he was saying that you're talking to people and one guy comes up and he's a mall cop. The next guy come up and he's killed a hundred people in Afghanistan, and it's very difficult to tell which one is which correct all firearm related vote from hunting to military. Yes, I make and make a strong point to just be very polite, you know, in all circumstances, because you just can't tell us going other. So we were at this thing shot show and it's it's gigantic trade shown Apparently we talked about perhaps going Antelop Punton. It took a long time to settle on the Elk thing that we we we we just are coming right now. Today. We left camp this morning from hunting cow Elk and you know near the Montana Alberta line, and UM and you guys, I was pressuring you guys to do a something easier. I wanted to go to Doug Durn's place and hunt white tails. And I just found out that they had the worst white tail opening day on record. My god, wow, I'm glad that we didn't do that. Said he couldn't see seventy five yards? Why is that fog? Driving snow and fogg. Nothing happened, No one got anything, worst year on record. So you guys got lucky. And I tried talking to doing that. I tried talking to doing all manner of things, and you guys said you wanted to go to um Alaska, Montana Alaska. Then what was cool about it is you got you guys, UM had to do hunter safety. How'd that go? I mean, what was your impression? I mean it was it was an eight hour online course and then like a five hour classroom session with a very interesting instructor, super nice guy, and we was surprisingly enough, we got a bunch of people from ZPC to do it too, not only just one session, but like a second session that we were not a part of, Like we were surprised by how many people are interested at least like fifteen yet right, I had not. I had shot a gun on the cookbook Shoot with You was the first time I ever shot a gun in my life. But yeah, I've never shot a gun. So you're in Hunter's Safety and was it like, because here's the thing most people, like most people the grow up around hunting, Like you've already been hunting a lot or been around it, and then you go to Hunter's Safety. You have a formality, you know, Yeah, but you went I haven't really like no, it was like it's probably was presented. He was like, honestly new material. Yeah, it was. I remember doing the online course part of it on the subway and they have I'm not kidding, and part of like I remember it was like an interactive you know, each course would be somewhat interactive. So there was one part where they're showing you the different parts of like the rifle, and you can click on the bolt, you know, it shows you and it would be like click this to like, you know, move the bolt, and it would just show you how everything moves. So you can click the different parts of the rifle, like now, pull the like click on the trigger to pull the trigger. You're doing it on the subway. Yeah, well, I mean, you know it's an eight hour of course, and it didn't arrest. You know, you got a lot of weird glances. You know. I got picked up in the New York subway for having a knife story. Yeah, talking like Crocodile don d style, Like just like this right here, like a clip on knife. But it has to be a certain You can't have something it's like a certain length. This is a um Saga pentagon only the one that I lost was a bench made same style deal years ago. I had a clip to my pocket, okay, And I'm walking at the I got off at the fourteen I was going to a business thing I'm going to. I'm at the fourteenth Street Union Square station and I'm walking to go to a meeting at a restaurant. And we're actually meeting with the people who run the restaurant. So I'm walking and I got the knife in my pocket, and all of a sudden, there's like, uh, a hobo figure next to me, but he's not I just think he is. And he flashes a badge. He says, what are you doing with that? Knife. I said, I just carry this knife around and I was living in Alaska an Alaska driver's license. So first they take they take me this little this little police station in the subway station, and they got my driver's license and they're grilling me about Sarah Palin Okay. And then they're like, why do you have a knife. I'm like, I just have the knife. It's like I don't. I'm not. It's like, you know, the only I had in my hand was a New Yorker magazine and a bench made knife click in my pocket, and an Alaska driver's license. And they're baffled by what I'm doing here and why I have what I have, And in the end they steal my knife. I guess they would say confiscated it and give me a summons to appear in court for having a concealed or some kind of weapon. And I said, if I thought it had to be that it was like a long or three inches or whatever. And he said, it's a open assists knife, meaning you can had a thumb stud on it and you can open it with one hand, which made it an illegal thing to have. Now, one thing leads to another, and a well connected gentleman makes a couple of phone calls it within forty five minutes, I'm instructed to tear my summons up. Wow, you gotta be good to be Steve Ronella. And I asked, and I asked, well, what about the knife? And this gentleman looked at me like I was the in moron and said, forget about your knife at the end of it, because I've heard a couple of times, Mr Callahanna, are you aware that you have a bench wor enough? Nobody told me to anything out then, and I learned not then from then on when I'm on those subways, and then got I'm done ever being on those subways ever again. Um, I'm real nervous about betraying interest in any kind of weaponry. So I'll even you know, I'm like, I'll be reading like a sporting magazine and I always feel like people are looking at you know that are kind of like, give me the stink guy. It's just paranoia. So there you are studying for hunter safety on the thing. So you guys, then you have to learn to shoot. Yep, that was interesting. It was very interesting. I Mean, who knew that there was a shooting range out on State night. You had to help a lot one time. How are the steps in order to be like, okay, guns bullets shooting range. We spent quite some time out there, though they closed the range down the first time we went out there. Yeah, I think they're a little nervous. We told them we're coming on, we're gonna be shooting, and know that they closed dogs. We wanted to come out and film. But a body of mine is a is a member in good standing at this Staten Island range. And we went out there and they treated they like treated you guys like royalty out there. Man, How far can you shoot? East Coast Gun Range june Yard Bank. It's like the oldest or longest. There's something like longest running. It's called Colonial Gun Range. And this is a gun range in like an urban area and they spend most of their i'm an energy keeping themselves open. It's like every day is a new challenge to keep this range open. Great dudes, tons like tons of former cops. My friend out there is a is a driver drives for to stay so he'll drive like politicians and stuff for the city. But he's a member out there. Tons of former law enforcement guys are members out there and they go there and shoot, and we went out and started learning how the first time I went out, we took a seventeen h MR I think seven millimeter remy to magnum, I take your maybe two seventy. Yeah, I think we took something seventy and we're powerful, Yeah, because one was crazy loud. One was super loud and really like it packed a punch. Yeah, which seventy now yeah, him into seventy. We shot a whole We shot a ton of room fire around at targets, and then we all from the bench and you guys shot some center fire, like some bigger rounds, and then you kept going back. So how many times, like how many rain sessions? You had a number of range sessions after that with Joe, we went like once a month, I would say, for three or four months. Yeah, to the point where you're honest night before it's honest. We went down to the range here in in outside of Bozeman, and you guys are shooting for fantastic groups. Um Brittan, you hit a gong at what's the farthest going there, hit a going to hit it going at three right, it went at four thirty and then all of your shots were within a palm sized group at huntred yards, shooting from the bench, prone over a backpack, and sitting with a with a bipod. Over all very good shooting. I gotta just say, I think that's amazing and it's fantastic, but it kind of irks me at the same time because I know so many people that have never ever practiced those shots. No, you go to the range and shooting then anything, that's it. Yeah, they shoot three shots at paper and they're like, oh, yeah, that's two more or less. Time we go hunting, you know, said yeah, and you're never gonna shoot a big amy from a bench. They never, But it's like it's unlikely. Yes, it's unlikely. Yes, that's a lot of what we Helen and I had And be honest, we all covered this week. It was like things are not going to be perfect. The more you can have in your head that things are not going to be perfect, it's not gonna be like some Okay, we're gonna set up, get things rock solid, the Elk is gonna step out, gun deal, get the bench set up, get the sand bags out. So yeah, you guys got cracking on the rifles. And then we took off and the hunt we did was there's a there's this area up there where in Montana. The way it works is, uh, you buy what's called a general elk license and the general elk license depending on how many units are, and so that the states divided into seven regions. Each region is divided into a bunch of units, ten or more units per region. And when you buy a general elk tag, it's like that tag has different value, so to speak, depending on what unit and region you're in. And we're hunting in a region where a general elk tag is not good for a bull. Generally, a general elk tag is good for a branch antler bull and brow tine bull and not a cow. But in this unit, a general elk license is good for a antler lists or cow elk. So we're around a cow elk hunt and Eve enough to it. I correct me if I'm wrong. I think I said many times that success or failure on the hunt will come down to um walking up and downhills. He did say that, It's true. What was your first impression when I was like, okay, first time hunt, We're going after elk. You have to do it. And laugh. You know, I'm joking, why Donna, Like, is it a good idea to do Elk for the first hunt? Yes, Like, hey, we're taking Helen and Brittany from thirty ft above sea level. I'm assuming somewhere it's like straight up at depends on what apartment you're in, apartment elevation. Yeah, it depends on the crowd and the character. But you know, they're rambunctious girls. They're already jump, you know, both feet in earlier started with like a squirrel hunt, you know, and and then go to it. Let me put it this. We didn't want we didn't want that, Yeah, like just because we're women, we didn't want to be you know, like I'm just saying, did you exactly exactly exactly? They went to hunt deer at Bubbly Doug's not the first time, the first time they went to Montana deer not in the damn mountains, not out be honest. How long did it take you? And I'm sure you're you know, you're a rambunctious male. How long did it take you to kill an Elk? Took me three years and I grew up in Montana bumbling around the woods. Why do we weird deal because my first elk hunt was it was a drop camp, and then we did so poorly in the first four days that the outfitter that put us in this cabin, my father and a friend his. We did so poorly they invited us over for dinner. We're like, there's no elk in these hills. We got ripped off. We roll over to the main camp. Super yeah. We rolled into the main camp. They're like, oh, we killed six bowls and we were tagged out three days ago. You know, like, really, there's holk in these hills. So the outfiter took pity and took us up the hill. Next day about killed my dad and his buddy. Going up the hill, I just stop and be like, dude, serious, I think my dad's gonna like not make it up this hill if we don't slow down. Anyways, we make it up there. He takes me into the woods. Right, we've been hung in the same area all week. We walk in there, he bugles one time. I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool. You know, we're sitting there in like thirty seconds later, here you know, stick pops and here comes the herd coming up through the timber. This is the outfit or you know, like he took me out like twenty cows filtered through the timber, like fifty six yards, then to five point bulls come up to about fifty six yards and the first one turns around, starts sparring with the second one, and they spa in front of us for like ten minutes, just like a nice light little you know, kind of later October sparring definitely inspired by the bugle the outfitter sets. Of course, it was like, yeah bugles once, it was the you know, no no, no no, no, no, that just made him come up through this area. Anyways, I gotta hang out with that guy. What's this guy's number? Round up the herd? Yeah he doesn't he retired, but yeah, I hit the bull, but but I lost did Yeah, the first bull I ever killed. I didn't find him. Somebody else found him like four days later. But that right there put the drive and me to, you know, make better next time. But then basically by a year later thing six days, sixty five days later I was an elk hunting guide. It better, maybe sixty minutes together in the woods, and then me calling him the following months saying, hey, I need one of those beagle tubes. How did you do that? YadA, YadA, YadA. He's like, you know what, why don't you come up and you know spa on spending three months in the fall with me. I would uh run around the woods from an hour in the morning. Then I would like sand and staying cabins all day long, and they would run around the woods for about an hour in the evening. For when you take your first client out that next fall. How were you? H'm just killing that here. I think I had a couple of misses. Um, but I didn't have anybody been in on in your career guided or including my own, No, your own, you guiding friends, I don't know close to a probably all right, you gotta excuse us for a quick ad break and we will be right back. Building a website can be a pain in the ask. If you know your way around coding, which I certainly do not, you still got to craft something that looks as good as it works, which is time consuming. But if you've got a business or a portfolio, or a restaurant, or you're trying to make your name or whatever field you've chosen, you've got to have a website. There's no way around it. Thankfully, square Space makes it easy to build beautiful websites without all the hassle. They've got simple templates for you to work with. Not only that, but those templates are part of square spaces responsive Design, which means your website scales to look great on any device. 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When you do it, make sure to use the offered code me eat or to get ten for sent off your purchase, and to show your support for the Meat Eater podcast. Seriously, you'll help keep us alive by helping yourself to a damn fine website. Square Space, Build it beautiful. Where were we? So? Yeah? He did you think it was a good idea to take these guys? Like, no one gets to go hunt for their first hunt unless it's unheard up. You know what, My first hunt was chipmunks. For like years, we hunted chipmunks and we smiled about it. And we didn't have chipmunks to hunt. We hunted pine squirrels. We didn't have that. We got the okay to hunt first starlings because they were introduced. It's not that we don't want to hunt squirrels. We do. You know you didn't want to do anything, but and I understand why, Well, no, we didn't specifically say I don't remember were saying we wanted to want to hunt Montana or right. We wanted to do something that was going to be challenging, you felt, you know, and I love where your head's at Montana or Alaska. That's yeah. But elk is just I mean, as you know. Now again, I don't think we did not gus by elk. No. And in fact, at Shacho last year, we were sitting at dinner. Remy was there and he I remember him saying, you can't. You should not go for elk is your first hunt, because you guys, if you get an elk, you'll be ruined. That's what he said. Yeah, remember that. Yeah, I told Bratty this four or five times, at least yether day I haunted. I moved to Montana and haunted elk, you know, twenty or so days that year, hunted out twenty or so days, and next year, and then killed an elk the third year, and by then i'd probably I'd probably killed my elk on my first elk, which was a calf that I shot with my bow, and probably my forty five day of elk hunting. Sounds about right. Yeah, I don't know what the point of this. Yeah, you guys trying to make us feel that I'm not. I'm just saying that we're just it's a good idea to take people on their first ever any hunt of any kind on a on an elk con And it's just like it depends on the person. I'm trying to think of parallels. I'm trying to think of parallels, like I'm trying to think like sexual things or food things or whatever. It'd be like I think a lot of them, but that's not really appropriates. It's so challenging, Like for me, it was one of the biggest accomplishments, you know, to date. At that point, I was like, I actually I finally did it, Like this is an help, Yeah, just it finally happened because there were so many days and so many failures, and so many days without ever seeing or hearing, you know, deciphering like you know, two weeks old wind Loan elk crap in the pentlers, Like I guess they're here. I'll just keep walking, you know. I mean, it's a very challenging hunt to start out with. So, um, well, what do you guys think should be like our first or what do you think would be a good like the first first five hunts for somebody squirrels and cotton tail rabbits for a year, and then they should do some deer hunting. I think ducks and geese are fantastic to get a shoot. Not that any wrong. What happened you guys got the major crash course. So we want this place. We want this this small island mountain chain and mountain range. And we set up a tent camp in a little canyon bottom um and started hunting. We had four four whole hunt days. And the way this place works this there's this sort of this resident herd in this mountain range numbers anywhere, depending on the air, from two four hundred animals. And they tend to, depending on who you ask, either they spend their entire year all balled up in a big ball, or they once the weather turns bad, they ball up into a big ball. And if you've never owned up for it's like there's this there's this term used in elk counting called like the herd, right, and if you imagine that you go to your buddy's farm, he would never and you're hunting white tails, he would never be like the herd will come through here in the morning because like the deer maintained individual identities, you know, like there's like the white tail hangs out here in some white tails hang out there and like they might come out into the field at night, but that doesn't mean that they all are. But in this mountain chain, this range that you call the chain, like a small range, this big wat of elk is only in one place at any even times. So it's essentially to to a to a degree, it's almost is like you're hunting one animal, but it just happens to be many, many tons and spread out over, you know, a big area, just this heard about that drifts around. And the goal every day and you wake up is to try to find like the herd and it's six d I don't know, three eyeballs staring at you, looking for you, you know, and you're trying to intercept this this moving target as this heard runs around. So we started out just by climbing essentially climbing up into the into the high country to try to glass up animals. And nobody had ever hunted here before, none of us have been there before. Talk to some guys that do hunt there. We open up some maps, we get given some maps. Yanni printed out some maps. A guy said, here's a couple of good glass and spots. And the first morning we're out. I go to the first good glass and spot and lone behold, there's two people there. And he's said, like the guy that gave me the tip, failing that, go to this glass and spot and go there, and there's four people on that glass in spot. We saw that night after hunt all day we finally saw two spike both. I think I was home with Brittany. Steve and Brittany. We're a team. Ryan Callahan and Helm were a team. So our first day we pounded the glass saw more mule deer than fella has a right to see every book. Who had his nose up a doze ass just rutting way hard. Brittany glassed up a man, another hunter who was defecating, and there's a lot of First it struck me the the indifference this man had to his his little creation there. Didn't do just stepped, pulled down his pants, did his thing. His friends, friends are right in front of him. Does it very brisk little clean up, just kind of throws the toilet paper to the wind, pulls his pants back up, takes two or three steps, glances back, you know, just to see like just checking out his health or whatever. And that has followed his buddies back to the truck. I understand anything like it. The only people watching complete disregard for all the people who are just pounding glass that day, and happened to be wondering about what was wrong with the guy somebody that might be walking that trail or yeah, or the guy whoever owns the lamp. So we glassed from a number of high points that day and saw a lot of bucks, and then we um went back at at dark. At dusk, we went back to another prominent point that was a positioned way above camp and spotted up a couple of spikes and but the problem is this area we're in, Um, can's gotta find cow out? And then climbed down and that was your That was like your first elk right, Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean it was. It was incredible. It was like, first of all, I'm looking all over the place. I finally spotted like some muleteer. That was the first thing that I pard Yeah, um, and then you spotted that, which I was like, I have no, I couldn't find him on binoculars. You pulled them up on the spotting pull pull up kout. Yep, you guys saw kat. He's looking like he's all majestic up on this peak. Yeah, she got onto scope and found another one. He had a body with him yea um. But yeah, I mean that was like the the coolest thing I've ever seen, like I had. I mean, I've seen pictures of elk, but i'd never like seen one probably in real life like that. So better than Google images, better than goes easily. We get down to Can't that night and Callahan comes down and his his story is looking in the same area he saw spike and maybe a cow, you know, the dark one. I just couldn't find horns and the spotting scope was that the only Alky guys found that day. No, we saw a bull uh um in the other drainage, all bedded down by himself the middle of the day he was out. We saw him first thing in the morning, he was bedded down, and then at like eleven o'clock in the morning he's up feeding on this wide open hills. And at that point I was like, this is gonna be good like or this elk knows that this is a general tag cow only area. The King's X Yeah, nobody can touch him. So but I mean, for Helen right, we saw mule deer at off off the bat later on that would not be such a novelty. And then we saw the two spikes that you guys saw, but there was also a five point bowl in there that you guys didn't see that we saw. And yeah, I mean that that pretty much was it. But then we saw those what turned out to be the two spikes come back out of the timber at last night, after we spent all day on top of the mountain bucking the wind, and Janice got in a lot of push ups, got in a lot of team up. Our second day out, we just talk about second day. I was still the first day. That was all the first day. That was all the first day we did the big hike. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, please, But Helen looks stunned. Helen looked like she had had the shock and all campaign done to her. That, yes, my impression. Also, I tried to pick the most efficient way up the mountain that still got us to the top of the mountain in in a timely fashion. And um, what did you what were you so shocked? And not about? I mean, I don't know everything. You weren't yourself. It was the most mind blowing yourself. I think it was after the first day. Only the first day we kept me, are you okay, Like, yeah, I'm okay. What I was just being quiet. I think I was just like taking it all in, you know, right. I think it was more that than like being like worked over anything like that, because you told me numerous times, You're like, man, I just can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm on the side of this mountain. I can't believe I'm way up on this mountain and looking at it all this like it's just so much. That morning Trophy Country, and that morning when we finally got to the top, we got the top, and when we drove into this mountain range, everything was the skies were clear everywhere, but the mountain was shrouded in clouds. Then we slept in our tents and woke up and climbed up and before it got light out and got to the top of the mountain and it was reversed. The top of the mountain was sunny and you were looking out at a sea of clouds below you. It was like you were it was like you're on everests. Man, it's amazing. And there's and then they got clear a little bit and there's snow underground and Mulder, to me are ghosts. Like against the snow, Elk looked like orange and warm, but like Mulder looked just like a little like ghosts, you know, like a little haunted apparitions. Man, They're just like crawled that day. It was November nineteen, just box everywhere. That was an amazing day. I think it's also really cool is like to see how train the hunter's eyes, you know, like even when we're driving around, like Steve would be like, oh, look there's a man dragon, a colbody in the back here. You're like, where do you see that? You know? Or like or like Ryan would you just be like, you know, walking around and be like two bucks, Like I'm like looking to my min oculars, like you know, I'm like shaking, like where do you see that? He's like with your with your naked eye, and how in the world did you see that? Like it's like could be a tree, it could be a bush. Like it's it's completely an acquired thing. Yeah. I felt like towards the end, you know, I was like more careful, had a system going of like hot glass and like, yeah, it's totally acquired, just like having a game eye. It's just I think you get a sense of the shapes, like shapes and colors. I really don't. I don't know movement shapes and colors. Like an is like deer and elk, they have eyes that are um out to the sides of their head. They have a poor ability to focus on things, but they have a great depth or what do you call it, peripheral great peripheral vision to see movement. I think, like picking up my movements really important. But we have like eyes centered in the front like predators, and um, we can make out shapes really well. So I think it's just kind of like a movement shape thing and color thing. Because when you're hunting, you spot your first something. It might take you forever to find spot your first something, and then you spot it and you know what you're looking for, and all of a sudden, the landscape comes alive with it. You're like, oh, now I see what that thing looks like. And then you're also like, oh, there that is there? That is there? That is um second day, we go out and Callahan had gone off after the spikes to see who else is hanging out there. We saw those leaves and then we had just a rip snorton of a climbing day. I don't think aiming happened that day, No, I mean that was when we That was the first day we I think we attacked the like the screen slide area did have that day. Right at dark, we saw four cows, two fours, two dark, way far away, way far away, mayards away going the other direction, spooped. But those you can see with without binoculars easily. Yeah, that was exciting. I was laying some deep stuff on you too when I spotted him. Oh yeah, we were talking about hunters, talk about female hunters. What are you guys talking about? We're talking about female hunters. I was giving the pros and cons, pros and cons of female hunters. Well, your cons were more. The cons were more just like about new hunters and hunters in general. My like, for instance, my brother. I was explaining to to Britney my brother. Okay, me back up one step. What was the most disappointing thing the first day we hunted? What was the thing we talked about most How many hunters there were other hunters looks like a pumpkin patch on some of the hills, right, Orange Vessel everywhere, other hunters. Everyone knows. You go out hunting and you see other hunters, you're like son of a bit, you know. He's like, no one wants to run a new bunch of other hunters. But on the other hand, I talk about an advocate to some extent hunter recruitment, and my thinking is that if if, if we have more hunters, we have more political clout, and we have more cloud un conservation issues, and we're a stronger voice. Right, My brother thinks that hunter recruitment, He's like, why would you ever want more hunters? Why would you want more times when you're out in the woods and there's no place to go. And he says, in the same people to talk about hunter recruitment talk about access issues. There's not enough access. Why is there not enough access? Because there's too many hunters for how much space we have done, it's too hard to get tags, like you can draw your whole life and not get such and such tags. And he says the only people that really want huntery cruitment is the industry because they want to sell more gear to more people, and so they camouflage their desire to make customers as being something that's for the betterment of hunting, okay, And I was laying us all out so and all of a sudden, here's his elk go in the other direction. And I optimistically thought we caught him where that we knew where there at betting, and they were coming out to feed that they looked a little bit nervous. And the next day we go down and realize that some guy had been running around on the side by side like a quad runner, and he come right down through that timber patch and clearly had spit those elk out spooked him out of there that day for us. Did you lay any heavy stuff on Helen? I don't think so, did I I think that until we saw that heard. Yeah, and and that intimately made it was like the highest high and the lowest slow in the exact in the in the same moment, right, I mean that was awesome. Well, why is that what happened? Well, we were sitting up on this mountain and ripping wind. Yeah, so yeah, we were just trying to keep warm, and while we're eating snacks and doing jumping jacks, the herd of elk had heard had just passed us. By, and we didn't even we didn't even hear them. We were making a very what we were doing. You're having like a gym class of the wind was you know, the wind was housing and we're making a very calm mistake. We make it often. A lot of hunters make it often. We're sitting on top of some peak and where everybody's looking at like a half mile plus, nobody's even thinking about like that role that like inst every five minutes, you're gonna walk out, tune your yards and peek over that edge. A lot could be going on, and obviously a lot went on. And every every time I went to peak it was purely because I was freezing. So I was like, I'm gonna walk down this hill and walk back up. And so one of these points, you guys are having a little gym class out there, strolls by, a couple head out. I literally making our second round of sandwiches for today, Like you were on sandwich position. Yeah, my better pot part there. Yahni was like, don't have another bar, have a sandwich, and while you're at it, make me so how over and we're like, yeah, we're going to leave for tour. We're two cold we're gonna walk around and we see the tracks and everyone just stops and it's like, can you do you guys, Like, this is not the This didn't just happen right, Like, we didn't just miss like hundreds of elk just going by right in front of us tracks on top of our tracks. And you one of the trails was like a foot and a half beat. Yeah, like it was a thundering herd. That's crazy. So then immediately we you know, go down that hill and try to try to follow them, yeah, to see if you know, I mean, we don't. It looks super fresh. Were like maybe they didn't go too far. And as we're walking, Ryan just like slow down, get down right there, you know. Um, so what do we do? We did we do the slide down? We did this? We did slide Yeah. So uh it's like a yoga position or something almost y're at You're on your heels, your hands and the heels of your boots and you're like crab walking with your rightfule in your lap. It's the most deadly approach. I think we never did that. It's tough on me. Right, check check this one out, you know, speak its deadly approaches some conditions you have to be coming down. What's deadly about it is when you get with the thermals are right, or the winds right, and the winds blowing uphill, and you're above elk, and they always are not always they tend to look downhill. One The assumption is that trouble's coming from down there. I'm at the kind of the top. Anyways, I need to watch down and you're up above them and your crab walking and your crab walking down, sliding along with your weapon bow or rifle in your lap. And then when it happens, you just sit up and do it. You just sit up and well, I think it's also worth mentioning that when we go on hunts, it's not just like two people. You know, we have cameraman and it's like not you know, so it's a group of people trying to do the same thing, trying to capture you know, the heard I was complaining about that very fact today. What that is a group of people get I mean with what like forty yards less forty yards something insane? You know, you didn't shoot any with a rifle, however, did not what was the shooting situation? So we were looking downhill and there they were, you know, and I was like, this is this is my moment, Like this is this is going to happen right now. And I'm looking through the scope and Ryan's like, you have to find your shot. You have to find your shot. Make sure there's no elk behind them, um behind the cow. So I'm scanning across and it's just they're everywhere. I'm like, I could shoot any one of these elk, just pick one, you know. But as I'm scanning a ass, it's like I could see I'm like, I would stop at one and be like, I've got a shot. As soon as I thought I had a shot, I would see a head from behind just creep up right behind it, or like a butt of one just like slowly moved back, you know. So and I guess one of them got So the situation is if you take that shot, that bullet could potentially pass through that animal that gave you the nice, perfect Google image shot opportunity and injured or kill another animal. I've seen it on several occasions. Right, it does have right, And I didn't feel comfortable taking the shot, you know, because I didn't know I couldn't see what was behind it, so I wasn't for sure that it was a clean shot. And how many animals were there? I mean two hundred, right, I mean something like a hundred and fifty two hundred, both bulls and cows, you know. But I just couldn't see behind it. It was just you know, too sloped, and I couldn't see how far back they were. And then all of a sudden, you know, we kept You can never see through somebody else's scope, right, you can't see exactly what they're they're saying. So what I'm saying, well, look to the far left. It's the far left there, that one from the left, and it's literally it's like this swirling ball of elk, and you know, for a brief second, one would you know, from my perspective, like stand out just slightly apart from the rest of the group. Uh, And then all of a sudden they were gone. And then they were gone, and I was like, oh, like I mean long gone. Yeah. I was like, that's it, it's over. Now was the end of your second hun day? Ye? And I kept asking everyone like did I have a shot? Because I kept replaying that you know image, but there's no way to answer that question, because that question is it's for each person, right, I might be in a situation from like I would have put a box of shells into those out, but wouldn't be a shot for a lot of other people. And there's other people who would have said I would put two box of shells in those out. I just yeah, I didn't feel comfortable taking this hell and kept saying to us, was great, there's two d elk right in front of me, and I couldn't even kill one, Like what what would people think? Like forty yards away at two d I can't even kill one. So that that to me kind of stood out was like the lowest low of the whole. Huh. Yeah, it was like, I mean, it was amazing to see like that many, you know, that many animals and that many elk. But at the same time, it was like it was like almost like a tease, like there were all these animals so close, yet I couldn't you know, I couldn't make the shot. So it was definitely like, you know, I had dreams about that, you know, from the eight thousand pounds of elks. You know, it was the tease. It happened exactly that way because it had to happen that way, you know, right, the hunt went perfectly because as you killed it then, I mean, think about what you would have missed. It happened then after forty tons about So now we're on the best conservative day three here we wake up and I go down to reconnoiter the five four or five cows and two spikes. Well, go down there to reconnoiter it. Run into a bowl, can't shoot it anyway. Realize that what bumped the elk out of the timber patch wasn't that they're just moving from that timber patch to feed them back into the timber patch. But some guy was in there driving around, got a side by side stuck in snow, and spook the alco out of the timber patch. Gets set up in the windiest place on the planet. A calf elt comes pouring through a pass. We're going to try to intercept the calf out and intercept a gentle named Kenny instead, and had a long talk with Kenny. Never found the calf Then Kenny informed us that um he in fact was trespassing. Well, I'm not saying where he was or what his name was, Kenny. I think there's a handful of Kenny's run around Montana. I'm pretty sure it was Kenny G the saxophonist. I'll let it out. It was the saxophonist, and he was standing on public land, which he didn't realize, but he had accessed it by cutting through, so he's very frank about it. We had a nice chat and it seemed like that was a common thing because as we broke cant that's how it works. Yeah, as we brought camp today, another fella and a young gentleman came strolling up through our cane that we've been camping for four days, you know that we had access to, and they were just like, hey, yeah, we're supposed to be here. Kind of really me when I don't know what was funny there too? How do you guys find out about this spot? When I told Kenny, I was like, as a matter of fact, Kenny blm land not terribly. Wasn't like a surprised or happier disappointed by that information, just irrelevant so trying to put the moves on his calf could ever find it. I had just a miserable day, glassed up some elk that were very far away on what became known as stink hole Mountain, climbed up in there, crawled a freaking mule deer couldn't find um, I couldn't find the elk. But I just want to talk about that for a second, because the whole time, like I've been trudging up these mountains, hills, whatever you want to call them. But I want a little credit for hauling ass. At that point, I gave you a pep talk yeah and motivated you. It did well, And I mean it was just like over there you're saying it was your motivator. That wasn't that adrenaline. It was like right over there we had to get, you know, to cross all these other very large hilltops to get over there. And to clarify to one of those people on a weight loss TV program, I was so inspiring. It was like the Gettysburg address. Yeah, you need to find it in you to kill these out. And she just was like, you're right, damn it. What like, let's go to the beautiful you smart, intelligent man and see if that's really clarified. Though trudging is the correct term many many many times in now counting, it is one ft in front of the other. I gotta be frank, with you on that chase. I didn't realize that the hell hole that was between us and Stinkhole Mountain. And when we got to the bomb that thing, I looked up. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. I did not feel like going up there. Then we tried to leave after dark by a strange route that brought us pretty much into Canada up three tests from mile from Canada watching side, a bunch of people walked down the road with the headlands and rifles, basically walking parallel to the border. In the middle of the night, Montana Militia North settled the score. That was our third day hunt. So we get a little have sat in the same spot essentially, Yeah, Ni les you guys too, right. Yeah, we're bouncing back and forth between two saddles all day long, working on a hunch that these elk are going to magically appear in one of these saddles. And we we're definitely seeing orange all day, popping in and out of some of the lower saddles and even right up where we are. And we go as far as building a blind because the forty mile per hour wind is right in your face. How did you construct that blindness? With some pine, some large pole bottles. We used juniper you know, nice dance um and stacked it in with a bunch of you know, just dead fall and uh yeah, it worked out, worked out nice. You could just see right into the saddle. But the only problem was you just had this ripping wind right in your face and it wears you down. Man, it makes feel like you're losing your mind. Yeah. Absolutely. Mofolon told me last week. He said, it's like, I don't know what it is when I'm standing in the wind. I cannot think. He's like, I cannot form a thought. And yeah, I mean it definitely makes you think like that, um or not think. But so we're back. Really didn't move once we got to the top. We did not move all that much basically because we were every direction we wanted to go, there was somebody else already. You know. He came across milk tracks. We followed the Elk tracks. All of a sudden their boot tracks that dumped in on the Elk tracks. I had that problem a lot. Turn around, go back the other direction. We're like, well, maybe we'll go up to the other saddle, um where the you know, the herd came through the other day and I look up there and there's two people sitting up there. Um, so I guess you know, we're stuck. And then we get this distress call. Wasn't it was a well composed distress call, but it was we are going to need a pickup on the County Road in Canada. Basically, we're going to follow the strainage. We we're gonna follow this drainage to Alberta. And yeah, I mean we were probably an hour and a half from dark at that point, and you know, we were all the way on top. I wanted to play out to day, but you know, our friends are facing it along windy cold a couple of hours on the road no matter what at that point. So that's definitely wearing on us. Yeah, the road, like the mccormi mccarfew novel, The road that's our journey, that's our journey turned into when hours and hours went by and no sign of call, what six miles or more, we got off my map. We had a big map of the area. I was like, I don't even know anymore. We just left the map miles ago and hour is out, you know, trying to like we're talking about trying to find a farmer and be like, oh yeah, and my bodies with the guns who are out in the ditch, they're gonna need to ride like, you know, the friendliest guy on the crew and then me a woman, so it's not like super creepy. And they're like, oh, I didn't mention my friends in the ditch with the rifles. They're open to catch a live too. They're pretty cool. We were like before we heard from you, snacks and coffee. They love them. So I'm having this internal crisis that I'm trying not to relate to Helen. So we're running out of time, all right, but I want to get this out. You want to finish up the hunt the blind. When I'm constructing the blind, what you're like, does this ever work? Well? It just seems so perfect. You know, you were making it level to like my perfect you know, I was trying to get a good shot and whatnot. And you're like, yeah, you know, I think I think things about these blinds is that you never stay here long enough for it to work, you know. So anyways, you get the distress call no, so like, well we'll walk around warm up. Then I want to end up at the blind because I just know the elk are gonna come through that saddle for some stupid reason. And we end up at the blind. The wind is just still just ripping through that saddle, and you know, the whole cur you know, everybody's kind of like, well, should we just call it because we gotta go pick those guys up, and and I'm torn, and I'm like, I want to sit this is gonna work. I want to sit here. And it's like, well, I'm trying to be positive, you know, let's just you know, it's really windy, and I don't think anything's gonna come out early, So let's just get up on top of the next little knobs. We can look all the way down the ridge and look at the whole timberline. And we walk two hundred yards words from the blind, and I look over and there's seven cow up staring at us, and I internally immediately I'm just like, you dumb, You're like what I was saying, No one stays in the blood that I mentioned. And so like I sit down, you know, Laura profile, and I'm halfheartedly and like, yeah, I get ready for the shot that's not gonna happen because there's no way in hell these chicks are gonna hang around long enough to provide a shot. And the grass is like three ft tall. For some reason, I'm just beat mentally at that. I was just like na, and you know, I was like, should have put around the chamber. And at right at that point, they all turn and blow into the timber, gone like ghosts vaporize, and I make second stupid decision of the day, which I never do because I've learned so many times it's a terrible decision, which is I leave our packs, like, just drop everything, frustrated, Like, just leave everything. We're gonna run up here to the next tree and see if for some reason we get a shot at something. So we drop our packs, run up to the next tree, which always leads to the next tree, and I'm just just sit here if they come back out again. Internal dialogues reading as there's no in hell these cows are gonna come back out again until dark. But if they come back out again, it's gonna be right at dark. So just get set up for a shot. As soon as you see you knows throw around in the chamber. We've been talking about this all day. If you get a shot. Shoot, I'm gonna run back and grab her packs. So I take that opportunity to have a little alone time. I walk back your packs and beat myself up even more about how I just screwed up the perfect opportunity that I just wasted an entire day of a four d a l hunt setting up, and I totally blew it. And I'm like, I just ruined Helen's l count. I just ruined the entire opportunity, you know, that was it. And I pick up the packs. I turned around and it's like, uh, what, what the what do you when people are frantically waving. I turn around and is there it's kind of a jazz hand. Yeah, it's like they don't they don't want to really wave because they're afraid they're gonna scare something off. But it's like, yeah, jazz hands, I think is what I was going for. And so now I sprint down to the tree with the packs and look around the tree and it was like, oh my god, look at and I see like four balls like the very tail end of the herd, and it's like three fifty yards and win. And so I'm like, okay, let's pick up the stuff. Let's go. We all butt up around the timber, drop half the packs, drop the tripod that we've been packing around, dropped the Helen's back, uh, and basically it's set for the sprint. And then we're cruising through the timber. And I mean, it's your story. Take it from there. What happened? I don't know. You were doing all this crazy like crouch running and crawling on the ground, and I was I felt like I was so awkward to the movements, like you were so graciously just like trudging through the snow, and every movement seemed like, you know, it's like wait on me, Like I couldn't move fast enough, you know. And we don't remember what happened. Like we ran up to this one We've got this behind this one tree. The whole time we were like we want to have some cover, right, um. So we get to this tree and we don't have the tripod um and you you're pointing them out again the hunter's eye, Like I'm like, I can't see them. It's like all the adrenalines, you know, rushing through me and I'm like I can't see them. You're like you're like breathe, like you see right there. You're pointing at all these different landmarks. You see the dark the dark patch of timber. Um. I find that in my scope, but it runs away, like basically as soon as I get in my scope, it just balks away. And I look at you and I'm like, this is happening again, Like it's in my scope, and then it's gone. And You're like, there's another one right to the left of it. Do you see that one? How like two d seventy yards maybe less or more. The furthest was like two sixty and the closest was and so so I see the one that he's talking about and I look at it in my scope, but then there's a bull in front of it, and I'm like, this is this is like replaying, This is like deja vu, just happening again. I don't have a shot. And as soon as I'm like, you know, I'm still waiting, waiting, the bull just slowly walks away and it's like the cow elk is clear, and I don't know. I was like so nervous, but like if we didn't have a stand, I'm like trying to sit down, trying to get a shot. But those all that, Um, what was it stage or something, but just grab sweet grass right so I couldn't I couldn't see, so you were like, sit up, you prop up the backpack, you know, and uh. And then I just look at round. I'm like, I'm going to shoot this cow. I'm at that point, I was kind of like, whoa, all of a sudden, that's like the most firm statement I've ever heard of. I'm gonna shoot and uh. And then because it was so windy, you had kind of pointed me to shoot um at the shoulder right and that was that and and and then I couldn't tell, like my hands were shaking. Afterwards, I was like I kept asking you like did I miss, like you know, and you you kept like walking like, let's walk forward, look through the binoculars, have your rifle ready, and you were like these things are tough, like you might have to shoot it again. And I looked you like what, like okay. It was very clear at that moment that nobody had said hey, sometimes you know sitting there, um, so yeah, we're getting close to it. And you kept looking through the blockers. I kept looking through my blockers, but my hands was shaking. So you kept being like what do you see And I was like, I can't see anything my hands, um, but yeah, you know, we approached it and it was amazing. It was just like one of the most amazing spe um. I don't know I was telling I think I was telling you guys earlier, like I felt. I was really emotional when we made the first approach earlier that day to the two bowls. Then I was, you know, I think when I came up to it, I was just like in awe, how huge this animal was and beautiful, you know, yeah, absolutely beautiful. Um. I want to make this quick, so you guys had no fourth hunt day. You got the butcher and hang out, socialize, be warm. That's not true. And me and Brittany were out pounding the mountain and right off the bat we got we go up basically to where Helen tagged out and got onto the herd and tried to catch him before they got in the timber. But they're already in the timber. And we picked up the trail which you can't miss anybody be able to track him. It's like it looks like a roto tiller. I went through the snow ye and you can smell them to smell him loud and clear, never you like, can you smell them? And I was like and then all of a sudden, I was just like wow, yeah, absolutely, And we got just minutes into the timber, hundred fift yards in the timber, and it was just elk from what I mean, just everywhere. And it's a thick packer pole, lodge pole, dog hair, lodge pole, however you want to put it. And um, it's just all these gaps and every gap is filled with some amount of elk or parts of elk or tons of elk. And we crab, we crab walked and what happened? Have no idea? Tell about that chase, and we're gonna wrap it up like just from your perspective, okay, yeah, So I mean you pointed them out and I finally I saw them through the trees. Um we went after. I mean, you know, you're like just like one camera guy. And so I was like, oh, this is kind of hell is how it works, like you know, like the boss on the scenes, and we get we we find like a tree or something, and you kind of you're like, okay, rest the rifle against this tree and chamber around and like chambered around, and I'm like looking through the scope and I'm like, I mean, I can't tell what's what. I just see bodies, I see heads, I see, butts I see, but I don't see, like, you know, a whole elk and I don't know what's behind it. And there are so many trees that I just don't don't feel comfortable. And the herb starts sidehilling and we're just ghosts in it above probably eight yards away, but the timber is so thick. I can see glimpses. They can't see us, and we're moving along. I'm like, there has to be a gap in the timber or screen slide or that's all we've been seeing. Something like we're gonna hit if we keep going, they're gonna have to cross an opening. We're gonna lay out and they turn. We do the same thing all over again, and it doesn't work, and so we eventually, I mean they we eventually lose them, right, and so we're kind of tracking them. We find like this big you know a lot of tracks basically go down like this crazy steep hill. I'm like, at some point, I'm just like I'm not even trying to like walk with my feet. I'm just like sliding down on my butt basically, and we go down, um and see we hit the bottom. We hit the bottom, well, we see. But before we hit the bottom, this was my last chance as we see those elk, like I don't know, four or five cows like right across with this like little valley or whatever you can call it, um, like a cross canyon shot. Yeah. And you set me up on your pack and I'm looking through it and you um use your range finder and it's like what three and seventy yards or something like that, and You're like, this is you know, this is this farther than we agreed on and it's super windy, it's you know yeah, um, and I have like some branches in the scope, like I have the elk in my scope, but then there are branches, and I just didn't feel comfortable at all, like it was too far. And meanwhile I was spike about six yards away, like what's just hanging around here in range? Um? Yeah, And then they they left, they went into the next patch of timber, and then you know, but we we tried to chase after him a little bit. We followed the trail and lost the trail and that was it. Many bummer for sure, But I already emailed already well a text message Doug. When we got all done, Brittany said, I wanna go, uh do the thing that I had originally suggested. We're gonna go. But I respected you like I respected your work ethic and I respected you professionally, and now I respect you in the way that only comes from trudging through the mountains of someone. And what's cool about you is I don't know if I was telling you this or someone else's. Most people I think they're more they're they're capable of more than they actually are. Right, You're like, oh, yeah, I'll go up that mountain, no problem. But he can't. You're capable of more than you think you are, or more than you let on, so you'll be like, I don't want to go to that mountain. You just go up the mountain. Most people are like, oh, yeah, let's go. And they get halfway and they're like, oh, I got a problem with my A C L or like you know what I mean, they come up with something that's wrong. Yeah, they come up with something like oh you know this boot like, uh, you know, I put these new uh, you know, insuls and you know, and it's like he just like, Okay, it's not gonna happen, Like you told me it was gonna happen, and now it's not. I mean, you know, it wasn't without my chair of a complaint went up. It was funny because at the end of it, I was exhausted and I realized you went the same distance I went, and it was I'm glad it without nearly the experienced training preparation that you have. I'm glad and I'm glad to have a couple of days off now. But I'm just gonna throw it because I was. I was there for a lot of this hiking. I just trudging, humping, whatever you wanna call it. We climbed big mountains, steep mountains, lots of elevation, and today we went on a little bonus hunt. Hunt was all We're done filming. We just had to go on another hunt. Me and Yanni and Kal Yeah, trying to get more trying to get more more meat, and everyone's I was thinking. I was like, well, I'll just wake Brittany up and see Joanska. And I was informed that I would get punched in the mustache and the mustache. We'll save what happened on our hunt for another podcast because we're out of time, but I will mention that all of us, Steve included, we're saying how we'll be glad to get a couple of days off of humping the hills and not do it again like tonight. We'd ratter just sit in a hotel room and got some dinner and get some rest. Unbelievable job though about what happened this morning, But I'm not going to give a teaser about I think we should just already have their own little private screw up. Oh absolutely, I think we should give some accolades to our first time hunters. Now, I guess the time. There you go. That's the attitude it was. It was a great it was a great ny. It was a great year long journey from my perspective. And you guys did like a tremendous amount of like education, training, taking the responsibility of shooting. Um you had. I never I never heard of with Helen or seen with you any desire to take shots that rod of your league. A lot of restraint, um you had, like you went into it knowing what you wanted and how you're gonna do it, and you didn't alter that in the moment in order to get one, and like, let me try to hit it that kind of bullshit. You guys are fantastic job. Oh the again, we're gonna be go on Dug's farm right at home, you guys know, Ynnie, I can't tell you the story joke, no, unreal man. I was incredibly impressed, incredibly impressed. So, uh yeah, hats hats off both of you. Good job, keep well. I think, I mean, I don't know, I don't. I think we're just like incredibly fortunate that we could hunt with pretty much two of the best hunters that are out there, and like nobody, not very many people get that opportunity. So absolutely very thankful for you. Yes, know one. That means a lot coming from you guys. It was fun. Let's do it again, so dogdurn if you're listening, you'll have to put up a couple of extra blinds. On flat countries, they need to be the same elevation as the farm much and we would like mid fifty daytime high maybe lows around forty um son would be nice, and uh and some bucks rolling in. We don't wanna be there too long before they show up, maybe like cocktails at the end of the day, maybe around seven thirty AM, some bucks will show up. Um and cocktails are five all right? From Bows in Montana, Helen Choe, Britney Brothers, Ryan Callahan, you're honestly tell us and me. Steve Ronella signing off me Eater podcast. Take Care