The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 393: The Weirdest Little Elk Hunt in America

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Steven Rinella talks to Janis Putelis, Garret Long, Cory Calkins, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Phil the Engineer, aka Phil the Song and Dance Man, performs in “A Christmas Carol”; Steve’s lesson the United State’s bifurcated legislature; Sen. Martin Heinrich explains Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA); the coveted elk buffer zone tag; how it became legal to cross national parks with a firearm; interpreting “impossible or otherwise impractical”; crossing the river; Steve Rinelli; years of accumulated preference points and Steve’s good draws; going back to the day before; when the effort to size ratio doesn’t mean anything; when the biggest bull you see is the first bull you see; being able to repeat the experience; discovering mange; being a little sad after the fact; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light, go farther, stay longer. Phil, we're going to see you. You're coming too? Turn the podcast machine on. Turn the podcast machine on, Phil. It's on. Alright, first things first here, Phil. This morning my wife

was buying tickets for the whole family. Black Panther 2? No. For the whole family. Black Panther 2? No. Oh. For the whole family to go see you in, what's it called? A Christmas Carol? Christmas Carol. Yeah.

Ebenezer Scrooge. Well, I'm not Scrooge. No, I got you. He's in the play, yes. It's great. What is you? Who are you in there? A couple guys.

I play a guy who takes out a predatory loan with Scrooge. Gets really, really screwed over. And then a guy who robs us. I don't remember that part. Yeah, it's in the book. I don't think it's in any of the movies. You ever seen the Muppets version? Oh, yeah.

With Michael Caine? Michael Caine. Where he forgets to act a lot of the times? Yeah. The Muppets will start singing and he forgets. I know. He looks like he's lost. He seems so baffled by these puppets around him singing. Yeah forgets i know he looks like he's lost he seems so baffled

by these puppets around him singing yeah he like totally stops acting for whole songs yeah it's charming i love it i didn't like that version okay so you play that then you come back out and do what now uh the the ghost of christmas future comes you are well no i'm not the ghost but he comes and shows like what's gonna happen to scrooge after he dies and i'm robbing his house. I'm cleaning it out. Yeah. That's great.

Yeah, it should be fun. So when I'm there, how many minutes will I be able to have a chance to yell or heckle or anything when you're up there? Oh, 15, 20? You'll be up there for 50 or 20 minutes? Maybe. I think so. I'm doing other stuff. Yeah.

I'm on stage. My little boy's going to probably Maybe. I think so. I'm doing other stuff. Yeah. I'm on stage. My little boy's gonna probably sleep. That's fine. I fully expect it. I expect you to sleep as well, which is also okay. I'll be riveted. That's one of my favorite stories, man. That's good. I like it. Well, I'm excited you're coming. I'm also terrified. I saw

a thing one time where it was like Christmas Carol Part 2 and everybody took horrible advantage of him this was not like a dickens story though is this like a 50 years later and like yeah like later and everybody would like manipulate him and and tell him lies and sob stories and con him out of his money and take advantage of his generosity so scrooge is the victim in this sequel becomes a victim yeah this sounds bad. I can't remember what I was looking at.

What makes The Christmas Carol one of your favorite stories? Well, I imagine it being in the same vein as Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, which is a great story. Like the story of the making of, I don't know if you know, but that production company went bankrupt. It was a huge flop. Kappa had been a World War II veteran, came home, wanted desperately to do something positive. They put all their money into it.

Everything was horrible. And then the ultimate redemption of it being, no one went to it. It was panned by critics oddly and then now it's an american ritual to watch it every year but the idea of being able to see your life when you're not around it is kind of an eye-opening story yeah you get to see your yeah so like seeing your life and one And one, Jimmy Stewart sees the world without him around and it's horrible. Scrooge has a face with, you know, life with him not around and no.

Yeah. Everyone's doing just fine. Yeah, I like that shit, man. That's good. I'm excited to go see a film. Good. Okay. You would never lie to me, Steve, right?

No, probably not. How often do you practice or rehearse? Every, every weekday now. Oh, really? And Saturdays. Yeah, it's getting up. Wow. That final stretch.

You put a lot into it. Yeah. That's cool. That's a lot of time. He's a song and dance man. Keeps me off the Xbox. I know, I just. I know Steve was.

How do you rehearse being a robber? Are you just like. Oh, it's so much fun. On your tippy toes all the time, Oh, it's so much fun. I get to kind of ham it up for that scene. I put on my like Dick Van Dyke Cockney accent and really, really go, go nuts. How does that Cockney accent sound?

You'll have to go see the play, Corinne. Come on, but our listeners can't go see the play. Why are you talking? Who are you talking to while you rob? Like I, I picture robbers being more discreet.

Oh, I'm, I'm with my, my, my buddy. We're robbing it together. You're like ransacking. So yeah, we're, we're, we're having a little dialogue. Yeah. That's great. Oh, I'm with my buddy. We're robbing it together. You're like ransacking. So yeah, we're having a little dialogue.

Yeah. That's great, man. I'm excited. It's fun. Joined also by Garrett Long. What's up, dude? Yeah, there you go. I'm coming down from a high high,

so I'm just like in this very mellow state right now. Yeah. No, I told Yanni you'll be chill. Why'd you have to tell Yanni that? Because he's talking about coming down. He said, how crowded is it? I said, well, it's crowded. But my name came up and he said I'd be chill.

Yeah, didn't I? I don't think of you as just a guy like me, like just talking about stupid shit all the time. You're like, you know, get in there when you need to get in there and get done. Yeah, I'm like in this self-reflection phase right now. Yeah, self-reflection. Are you going to tell us about this high of all highs? We're going to get to that. Well, I think we'll get there.

Oh, we will. Yeah. I see. Corinne's here, song and dance Phil. Giannis is here. He has no idea what we're here to talk about today. He's going to be in an interviewer role. That's not true.

Yeah. I rushed down here. No, you know what we're talking about, but you don't know the answer. You're the only one That doesn't know Correct No no no no Correct

Seth Morris Howdy And then We have Do you want to introduce yourself there? Oh Mr. Corey Calkins Yeah You've been on the show

Trivia player Trivia Corey used to be the guy That when he wrote an email in That was your guy Yeah Not anymore Unfortunately

Did you miss it? I do Yeah Easy now Talked to a lot of great people You used to be the guy that when you wrote an email in, that was your guy. Yeah. Not anymore, unfortunately. Do you miss it? I do. Yeah. Easy now. Talked to a lot of great people. You were always good about sending me the interesting emails. Yeah.

When we're saying on the show, when we say like, you know, a guy wrote in and then we tell something to happen to him, Corey used to vet all that. Yeah. A lot of folks didn't make the cut. Gatekeeper Corey. Mm-hmm. A lot of folks didn't make the cut. Gatekeeper Corey. Makes me wonder what didn't make the cut that I should have known about. Not great stuff. You think so?

Yeah. But we appreciate everybody writing in. We had a guy write in recently. No, we had a guy write a great story in recently where he got caught stealing a tree stand and wrote us in about it. He got caught? The guy got, he stole a tree stand, got caught, and wrote us a letter about it. No, he didn't steal it. Kinda. Just go listen to the episode.

I was there. He was there. I participated in that con. And he called him a surface shitter. And he was right. Yeah, I got mad that he was a surface shitter, not that he took a tree stand. Wow, what a story. Did he have an accent like Phil? Oh, we didn't. Couldn't tell.

Okay, we got to do a couple things. If you listen to Cal's Week in Review, you've been getting a weekly synopsis of what is going on with an important piece of legislation that's sitting in Washington, D.C. right now called Ra recovering america's wildlife act we're going to get a little lesson on rawa um it passed the house so you know we have our like bifurcated legislature where we have how many how many congressmen almost 400 right maybe more than 400 nothing personal personal, any congressmen.

Don't look at anybody in this room for that answer. No, well, look how close to right I was. What is it? Oh, no. It changes all the time. Alaska, like Montana just added a seat. Changes all damn time. It's a moving number. 435? 435.

But let me tell you what never changes. The number of senators is fixed at 100 each state having two you know i'm gonna do a quick civics lesson for americans younger younger folks or older if you don't know okay seth explain to me you're young oh yeah okay explain to me how and why how and why do we have a bifurcated legislature, and what is the difference between the House and Senate? I thought you were giving a lesson. I've been trying to see. I'm the type of person that needs that lesson.

Oh, okay. So to give an equal balance, your congressmen, those are rewarded on population. Okay. And then every state gets two senators one might look and be like well how would a state like i don't mean to pick out wyoming here you have a state with 600 000 people and they send two senators to dc and then you have a state how many people are in california over 13 million oh yeah is that why montana just got a senator because our population's going no no no

20 2021 was 39.24 million okay so do this divide that number by two and and Wyoming's population in 2021 was 578,000. So divide that by two. 300,000 roughly. So 20 million Californians get a senator. And what?

300,000 Wyomingians? Wyomingians? Wyomingians get a senator. Here's the other thing about being, here's the other cool thing about being in Wyoming. How many of those people are legal? So pull out the, pull out everyone under 18. You'd now shrunk the number way down,

pull out who actually votes. It's like a very small number of individuals sends a person to the Senate in Wyoming. And meanwhile, in California, they got to split the same number. But then they get a shitload of representation in Congress, which is doled out by, I'm assuming Wyoming has a congressman. Yeah, they would have a congressman. And California has 50-something, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So there you go, Seth. Thank you. Does that make you feel proud of being American? It does. That they thought all this through? So Rawa, back to Rawa, Rawa passed the House.

And everybody loves it. All the wildlife people all like it. They all worked on it. And it'll pass the Senate if it votes, but they just don't vote. And we're going to learn about what Rawa is, why it isn't getting across the finish line, and what it would take to get across the finish line from Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, who's joined us on the show before. So he'll be joining us right now. All right. Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico.

Layout layout for us real quick. Remind everybody. What is Rawa? Rawa. How do you guys what do you like to say? Yeah, I usually call it Rawa. OK, what is Rawa? And what exactly is the problem?

So Rawa is the Recovering America's Wildlife Act. And it really creates a mechanism for being able to conserve species, all the various species of wildlife that people care about, before they get into an emergency room kind of situation. If you think about like the Endangered Species Act, if a species ends up on the endangered species list, they're already so far gone that it's incredibly expensive and really difficult to bring them back from the break. And this shines a spotlight on all those species that are nowhere close to being listed, but are in decline and gives us a tool to be able to recover them and maintain healthy populations. And who was on the hook for it financially? What is the money? Where does the money come from? That has always been sort of the rub with this legislation. And we're in the midst of negotiating that literally as we speak. And I think we're getting close to being able to announce a way to raise the money in a way that doesn't increase the deficit and has both Republican and Democratic support.

What is the how long has it been ready to vote on? Or when you say that you're literally that you're working on it as we speak, do you mean you're that they're finally drafting the final bit of the legislation or what? The main portion of the policy is already passed the House, and it's also passed the relevant committee in the Senate. So we're very close to being able to get this done. Most likely because there's not a lot of time left in this Congress, it would be included in the end of year spending package. What were the, tell people how it went when in the House, you know, I mean, would you factor in total vote, Republican support, Democrat support? We've had really strong Republican support for this legislation. It's been very bipartisan because it was literally drafted from the ground up with the input of the state wildlife agencies.

They're the groups that would implement this legislation. And if you look, if you're looking for something that is like government that is popular, look at your state game and fish agencies. And so all of them have a plan in place called the state wildlife action plan with a bunch of species that they just don't have the money to work on. And this bill would really change that dramatically. How does it happen in D.C. when there's a there's a bill that has bipartisan support and there's really no doubt that if it came to a vote that it would pass,

how does it come to be that you just can't get it up for vote? There's a couple of dynamics at play. One is just a lack of time. If you watch the Senate at this point, you'll see things constantly filibustered, and it only takes one person to really gum up the works. So you can have something that has well over 60 votes, as Rawa does, and still not be able to get it on the floor and get it passed. Is there only one argument against it, or is there an argument against it coming from each side? No, I think this has been worked on for so long and it's so bipartisan that, I mean, there are always a handful of people that will find a reason not to do something. But I think what is really attracted

bipartisan support about this legislation is if you wait until some species is on the endangered species list, let's take the monarch butterfly as a great example. If the monarch were to get listed tomorrow, the compliance costs for agriculture all across the Midwest would be in the tens of billions. And we have a tool here where you can, you know, if the Endangered Species Act is like the emergency room, this is like primary care. This is spending a small amount of money early in the process to start sacrificing on behalf of something that's really imperiled. I mean, that's when things get ugly. Right. battles we've had, we can avoid those and make sure that we're avoiding both the political battle and the compliance costs that come with trying to bring something back from the very brink of

extinction. So when you and I spoke about this the other day, you brought up that we've had midterm elections. It creates turnover, new people coming in, priority shifts. if we can't get this across the finish line. And I can tell you, you know, John Dingell, one of the great sort of conservation heroes of the House of Representatives, tried to pass very similar legislation multiple times and came very close. People have been working on this problem for 50 years. We've got an opening right now, and we need to take advantage of it. So what do you recommend to listeners who care about wildlife, want to see these problems addressed early before they become emergencies

that are incredibly divisive and expensive? What do people do to get it that you guys get it in front of you and vote on it before the end of the year? I would really recommend people reach out to their member of Congress and both of their senators and say that this is something that's important. And given the breadth of support for this, I mean, all the state agencies support this. You have all of the conservation and hunting groups from the National Wildlife Foundation to TRCP to Pheasants Forever, you name it, go to their websites. Most of them have some sort of alert on their side about how to engage your member of Congress and your senators and say, this is important. Let's get this done now.

All right, man, we'll get people on it. And, uh, I appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us. Oh, it's my pleasure. Keep up the great work. Yeah. All right, everybody. That's a Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. Um, a friend of the show, been on a handful of times, big hunter, big fishermen. He does all the stuff he's supposed to do um and while he's doing that he really just keeps his eyes peeled on access issues things that affect hunters and anglers he is a a friend of outdoorsman um martin thanks for coming on man best of luck to you always a pleasure steve all right take care all right everybody this is this is one of our special Best of luck to you. Always a pleasure, Steve. All right. Take care. All right, everybody.

This is one of our special Hunt recap issues and episodes. And the reason this episode is special and you really ought to listen because it is what I think is the most politically. Is this fair to say? In terms of elk hunts, it's the most politically convoluted, contentious, weird little elk hunt in America. America's weirdest little elk hunt. Title of the podcast. That'd be a great title for the podcast. If I was just a dude at home and I was thinking about what to listen to and I saw that pop up, some bitch, I'd be listening.

Yeah, it sounds kind of like the, what's the Reno tech? America's best little whorehouse? Close. What's that? You know what I'm talking about? What is that movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dolly Parton? That's not what I was thinking.

What was it? Reno has a catchphrase that's sort of like America's favorite little big city or something like that. Yeah, but what am I thinking of with Dolly Parton? It's terrible. Help me out. Yeah, Dolly Parton is in a movie, right? Is it a musical or a movie?

Something about a favorite little whorehouse, yeah. Best little whorehouse in Texas? Yeah, somethinglly Parton is in a movie, right? Is it a musical or a movie? Something about a favorite little whorehouse, yeah. Best little whorehouse in Texas? Yeah, something like that. Never saw that one. Not familiar. It's a good family movie for tonight. What was it? The Weirdest Little Elkhunt in America?

Yeah. Okay, we're going to talk about actual Elkhunt, but first I want to lay out why, this the weirdest little elk hunt in America. Okay, Yanni? I'm listening. And then you can ask about, there will come a point where you'll be like, so what was the elk hunting like? Yeah, I've heard a lot about this elk hunt ever since I moved here. I know several people that have hunted it, including Garrett, prior to this hunt.

Oh, really? His grandpa. No, his grandpa had it. Grandpa had the chag. Garrett pretty much guided him, though. Wow. Grandpa. Garrett described his grandpa to me.

I wish I could remember the sentence exactly. A lifelong public land cow elk killer. Yeah. Yeah, the first 25 points we saw up there, it was like, should I shoot him? Cramping. I have six on each side at least. Yeah. He said it was hard for him to get used to the idea of him.

Passing up an elk, man. He's like, are the brow tines long enough on that bull? I'm like, God dang. Yeah. It is a coveted tag. Well, I'll tell you. You want to know how coveted? Let my God. God dang. Yeah. It is a coveted tag. Well, I'll tell you. You want to know how coveted? Let's go.

Roll out the stats. I'll roll out stats. First, I'm going to roll out what it is. So there's a thing called the buffer zone in Montana. And it sits, it's 50 square miles and it kind of straddles the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park. Historically, it was like a general unit thing, and you could hunt right up to Yellowstone Park border.

And they would now and then have a little bit of a bloodbath over there where weather and such would really start forcing elk out of the park. There was a couple places like this. There's one in Gardner they used to call it the firing line. Was it the shooting line? The firing line. Firing line. Because things would just hit a crescendo now and then a like a crescendo of elk killing would occur in these places um they then for a while closed this little portion of land to give

elk room to move out of the park, disperse a little bit and go about various paths and not be in such a funneled situation. So it'd be like, imagine a funnel, if you will imagine an hourglass. Okay. The buffer zone is the neck on the hourglass. The cone on one side is like the park portions of the park the cone on the

other side is national forest and ranch land you know at large and that neck is just this place where a lot of animals come through and so they closed it to give elk a chance to get out of there and go about either hang tight in the neck of the funnel or take various routes and spread out. When did they close that? What was it, Corinne? Corinne knows. I told her to find it out. I sent her a message.

I was trying to tee you up. It was 1911. 1911. Yeah. Huh. Is that where the handgun name comes from? Because of the buffer zone? Well, that's impressive that long ago.

I had no idea. Yeah. Seriously? Yeah, 1911. I would have thought it was in the 60s or 70s. Yeah, that's impressive that long ago. I had no idea. Yeah. Seriously? I would have thought it was in the 60s or 70s. Yeah, me too. No,

I did like real quick math on that for some stats. There's been 8,500 in there in the last 112 years. Man, you should, you want a good job

producing the podcast. Yeah, swap with me. Corinne's out. Yeah, where's that on these notes? It's actually not in here that's all laid out garrett's little noodle damn garrett good job man

then well i got a little i got a little factoid for you when they first opened the buffer zone how many elk tags four oh jeez guys hot so decades went by and then eventually a region three biologist with montana fish wildlife and parks put some effort and work into creating the buffer zone hunt and this gentleman um he's still alive i've emailed with him this gentleman brought up know, we got hundreds of elk coming through here and wintering and whatnot. Is it really going to hurt anything if a few guys take a poke? Great question. And so they started

issuing some tags. And for long it was four and then it became five. This year... Has it ever been more than five? I don't believe so. I haven't seen any mention. Hold on, so they shut it down in 1911. When did they reopen it? Oh, not just recently.

2005? 2003. No, they started talking about it in 2003, but it opened in 2005. I'm not going to question you anymore. I'm sorry, Garrett. This guy is just like. Nobody likes a show off. No, it's great.

You'd think that when he dies, they're probably going to mount him and hang him at Fish and Game. Garrett Long's past. Garrett Long's Pass. Garrett Long Pass Knob. Garrett Long's Valley. The whole bumper zone. Garrett Long Creek. This guy's amazing. Long Trailhead.

Speaking of getting mounted at fishing game, I don't want to give too many details because I don't know if this is true, but I think this is true. There's a guy, I'm sure it's true but i i know it's true because i've even seen where it happened i've seen it and i've seen where it happened and i had the whole thing explained to me there was a feller that has a plane his own private plane one time he sees a giant mule deer on a someone's ranch. Do you know the story? I'm just shaking my head. Lands the plane, kills the mule deer. Gets in trouble.

The mule deer gets confiscated, and it hangs in a regional fishing game headquarters. On occasion, the gentleman who got it will still take his friends down to show him. There was another story. That's the story I heard. He still was like, let me take you down to Fish and Game to see my bug. He's still proud of it.

Didn't we have another story? You had another story just like that, where someone got busted and would take friends down to fishing games. That's the one? I never remember the plane part. That's the story. Last year, 12...

Does he bring down a couple beers? I was like, I'm going to put some camp chairs and shit and I got a little fake campfire I'd like, yo, I'm going to put some camp chairs and shit. And I got like a little fake campfire I'd like to set up. His man cave has hours. Like, well, we got to be out of here by five, boys. Thinking about having everybody over.

But it's at four o'clock on Monday. Not at my house. So the buffer zone, what year did it come in? 2005 So it came in 2005 And you know People really want to hunt the buffer zone They had

1200 people applied for the buffer zone permit I was one Five got it So you might be like well what astounding odds and it is astounding odds but keep this little detail in mind um we've explained bonus points a thousand times i'll do a real quick rundown again uh oftentimes as is in the case of the buffer zone which is an extreme version the demand um for a specific hunt hunt is greater than the supply. So we all know that if you live in pretty much anywhere in America that has whitetail deer,

let's say you live in New York State, anyone that legally can can go down and buy a deer license. You can just go deer hunting. The amount of deer tags sold has a lot to do to it how many people wanted one there's no cap there's never a point which they'd like you cannot have a deer tag um but you take something like bighorn sheep for instance hell everybody'd like to go hunting bighorn sheep but there aren't that many bighorn sheep so you need to allocate the permits and they do it generally there are notable exceptions um which we've covered in the past generally it, it's a democratic, they're allocated democratically, meaning you have a lottery, you have a raffle draw. A lot of states will reward return customers.

So every year that if you throw your hat in the ring and you enter a tag lottery and you don't win, you get what's called a bonus point or a preference point. In Montana, they square your preference points. So they used to not do this. So if you had two points, your name's in the hat twice. If you have three points, your name's in the hat three times. Some years, I don't remember how long ago it was, less than 10 years ago, they started to square your points. Meaning if you're going in with, I've never drawn a special elk tag in Montana in my life. I don't know how I had a shitload of bonus points.

So your name might be in the hat 400 times if you've got 20 bonus points, which is how long they've been doing the bonus point system, roughly. You go with 20 bonus points, it's 20 times 20. So 1,200 people applied, but a lot of them, their name's only in once, and some of them, their name's in the hat 400 times. So it's not like that crazy, but it's still crazy to draw it. Well, yeah, because you still have other people in there that have their name in the hat 400 times. Yeah, you're not the only one for sure.

It's to the point where people would, when I drew it, people would congratulate me as though I had a baby. Wow. Yeah. They'd call you. Congratulations. I mean, I felt like we had a moment on the phone, right? When you drew it and called me, I was like.

Yeah. It took me a minute to think it was true. I thought it was like, I thought they'd made a mistake. You're like refreshing it. Yeah. Oh yeah. I texted you when I found out I was pissed. Yeah.

That was your response. Garrett was happy you were pissed. Yeah. Really shows, you know, different ways you when I found out. I was pissed. Yeah, that was your response. Garrett was happy you were pissed. Yeah. Really shows, you know, different ways you can go about through life. It's a story called A Christmas Carol. You can take some lessons with it. I was happy for you. Why are you mad, Corey?

Because he wanted it. Well, you know, some of these coveted tags might need to be restricted to Montana natives. One of these days. That's a good idea, actually. That's an idea that gets traction. Don't you think That's a good idea, actually. That's an idea to get on board with that. Don't you think that's a good idea?

Great idea. I could get on board with that. But I was happy for you. But still, right away, I was like, God, out of stater. You know what? I wouldn't even,

if that happened on some things, I'd be like, yeah, whatever. That's fine. I wouldn't be pissed. It's a good idea. Especially now that I did it. Now that I got mine. Here's where the thing gets the thing here's where the tag is tricky contentious so there are certain access

issues um try to picture in your mind close your eyes and picture in your mind's eye that you have i'm trying to think of how you can explain this. Yellowstone National Park, where you're hunting, the border of Yellowstone National Park is a river. Okay. It's the upper Gallatin River. If you're facing, we're going to do this where you're facing upstream looking into the park. So you're facing south looking upstream on the Gallatin River into the park. And you're on a highway.

It just so happens that the highway is not down the center of the river. The highway is off to the side of the river, right? The highway sits to the center of the river. The highway's off to the side of the river, right? The highway sits to the east of the river, but the park border is the river. So you have a little strip of ground between the edge of the highway and the edge of the river and the edge of the river, because the highway parallels the river.

So picture this. You have, it could be 30 yards. It could be 200 yards. Where you would leave the road and need to, how clear is this to someone who doesn't know what I'm talking about? No, it's good. Got my eyes closed. I got it, I got it. I got it.

Okay. Lay your hand down flat. Listeners, lay your hand down flat. This is perfect. Lay your left hand down flat on the ground. Unless you're driving. Then just look at your fingers. Okay.

Now, nevermind. Okay. Nevermind your pinky and your thumb. We're only focused on your three middle fingers, which are laid flat on the ground, on the table. Your index finger of your Yellowstone National Park is off your fingernails. It is your left hand laying flat. You don't have a thumb and pinky. Your index finger is the highway.

Your middle finger is the upper Gallatin River. Your ring finger is public land. You need to get from your pointer finger to your ring finger. Right? Now, at a time, that was illegal. Because you couldn't have a gun in the park. This is where the story gets interesting.

Couldn't have a gun in the park. I was shocked to hear what president signed the legislation that made it that you could have a gun in the park. I was shocked to hear what president signed the legislation that made it that you could have a gun in the park. I knew you were shocked. It starts with an O. And ends in Obama. Hey folks, exciting news

for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery

24k topo maps way waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet onxmaps.com slash meet welcome to the to the onx club y'all people in the press were not happy crin read that line from that heart that headline you found or that that line that lays out so once they made it that you could cross through the park with guns here's how it was described in in a newspaper article well i mean it like it was all over mainstream media right so abc nbc i mean anywhere you guys get but give the new reality but um so should i name you had it which source this comes from? Sure. Okay. So this was just an ABC News article from February 2010. Hikers in the Grand Canyon, visitors to Old Faithful, and anyone else sleeping at hundreds of National Park campsites across the country might now be surrounded by other tourists carrying shotguns or rifles. Surrounded.

Surrounded by. This is like when that guy was worried about all those robo-deer. Yeah, the guy was like, I want to live in a world where the woods are full of robo-deer. Thanks to a new law that took effect today. They got us surrounded. Thanks to, it is now legal to carry loaded guns into our national parks. So, they did that, which made it now once you could do this you could now with a gun cross your middle finger back to the hand lying on the ground you

could take a gun on the highway wearing hunter's orange and just as i can tell you from personal experience now this causes some consternation with motorists. Because they know they've just passed a huge sign that says Yellowstone National Park. And then lo and behold, what do we have here? Bunch of rednecks wearing their crazy ass orange clothes with guns. Doing what looks a hell of a lot like going hunting. Yeah. And they hit the brakes.

They slow down and they look. And it is not a friendly look. It's a what in Sam Hill? And they're like, I need to report this. These people are blazing. These people are blazing. They're surrounding me. Does it get reported on often?

I don't know. But judging by the part... Let me continue my story. Because it gets better. What that left off, though, was that left off archery equipment. So, for a while,

the idea that you can cross the park with a gun is no longer contested. The Park Service don't like it. You can tell the park rangers hate it. They don't like it none. But there's nothing they can do about it. Some years ago, though, they had to take on the issue of archery equipment. And if you draw the buffer zone tag and you get to calling around, you will not get a straight answer from anyone about what the situation is with archery equipment.

It is very similar to if you happen to be a hunter from Missouri and you wanted to go corner crossing in Wyoming and you talked to a lot of different law enforcement people who all told you it was okay up until you got to a lot of different law enforcement people who all told you it was okay up until you got arrested by one of them. Up until you got arrested by the one that told you it was okay. Right? It's like no one will give you the straight answer on archery equipment.

But where's the law, Corinne, that they had? What is the wording for the law? I know it by heart. I don't need it. If you can just pull up the year while I say it. Some years ago. For archery?

Yep. What year did they address it with archery? 2018. In 2018. Because it's like a little weird that you can have a gun there, but you can't have a bow there or a crossbow. For a while, you, it was the way they were

reading the rules. You had to disassemble your bow. No kidding. You couldn't have an assembled bow. Then they made it. Now, Yanni, why are you yawning? This is fascinating. What do they mean by disassembled?

That's nothing no one really knows. It's not assembled. People think it means if it's a stick bow, just take the string off. If it's a compound bow, you got to have a bow press to put it back together once you cross the park. Like, I know the park. Like, I know the law. I know it now, but I'm trying to paint the picture of how you cannot get a straight answer.

And I got a great story from a guy that had the tag a couple years ago. So, what year was it? 2018? 2018. They said, you can cross the park with a unloaded, and I asked asked like, what does unloaded mean? It means you don't have an arrow in it.

Okay. Not like just, it's just like, you know, it's unloaded. There's not an arrow in it. You can cross the park with a bow if, if it was impossible or otherwise impractical to get to that location by other means. Impossible or otherwise impractical. Right. There is so much room for interpretation. A friend of mine in law enforcement,

when I was discussing with him the other day, he says, man, the minute you throw a word like impractical into a law, you have just opened up the floodg day. He says, man, the minute you throw a word like impractical into a law, you have just opened up the floodgates. He says, no person in law enforcement, he says, wants to see the

words impractical. The hell does that mean? Well, this same individual years ago, not years ago, a couple years ago, drew the buffer zone tag. And if you call the park service, the park service will tell you that you can't cross that little strip with a bow.

They'll say you have to go. It's about a nine mile trip to get back into some of these areas by horse. Some of the areas. Some of the areas. Now, listen to this too, though. Well, no, to get to the area that's like, that people would want to go hunt for archery if they had the buffer zone tag

is nine miles from a trailhead. And then you wind up a few hundred yards from the road. So you're doing a nine mile trip to wind up a few hundred yards from the road. So you're doing a nine mile trip to wind up a few hundred yards from the road. Because you cannot recover game across the park anyways. So it opens up this thing that you could go in with a gun or go in with a bow, which we'll get to.

But if you kill an elk, you can't retrieve it across the park. You have to find another way out of there. Okay? So this individual that I know had a plan. He's got access to horses. He's like, oh, no, if I kill one, if I cross the little strip with my bow and kill one, I'm going to go get my horses.

He's going to go get his buddy's horses, and they'll just ride nine miles and get the damn elk. Fully plans on it. Well, he runs into a park ranger from a Yellowstone park ranger. Park ranger says, if I catch you doing that, I'm going to write you a ticket. He says, man, I just got off the phone with the people in Washington, D.C.

about how that rule will be interpreted. I also brought it up. I brought it up with Whit Fosberg, president and CEO of Theodore Rosebud Conservation Partnership. Not an elk hunter. Doesn't put in for the buffer zone tag. Has zero skin in the game. He was, he basically was like, he remembered, he remembered working on codifying the legislation around this.

And he said, hold on a minute. There's an argument about whether it would be impractical to walk a couple hundred yards versus a nine mile yeah trip he's like i'd love to see someone make that case anyways this ranger that was that was i don't want to use the word harassing this ranger that was yeah i don't know semi harassing a friend of mine was putting it that his interpretation was that's not impractical. I had a person from the national park come and check my license a couple of days ago. I said to him after he checked my license, I didn't know, I didn't know they could do that. Like apparently, I mean, you can't hunt the park anyway, so I don't know what it has to do with

him, but check my license. I then said, sir, I got a question for you. And listen, bow season's over, and I'll never have this tag again. This has nothing to do with me. I'm just curious. What's your read on the law? And he didn't want to answer it. He wanted to have like an ethical conversation with me um he felt that this tag is meant for the kind of person who would want to go nine miles oh give me a break that a lot of people now just want that easy hunt he said no offense

to anyone here but they just want that easy hunt for Instagram no he brought it up that easy hunt for Instagram yeah with the odds against him. Five people getting it. Unbelievable. It burns their ass so bad that they could have a dude crossing that little chunk of park to go hunting. It tears them up. And then he kind of tried to be a little bit misleading to you on how to get to some other elk. I was looking at, we were looking at, we weren't even looking at elk. We're looking up a mountain, not too far above us.

And we're standing there in waiters. Okay. And he's like, you guys got your eyes on a bull. I said, we had, we were watching one. We're trying to see if we can find him again. And he said, oh, so you'll go around to a trail. There's a trail a few miles down. So you'll go around to

that trail and take that trail up in there. And I'm standing there, chest waiters. I said, no, we're going to cross the river. Zero reply. So it's contentious. Like they don't, like they, really, zero reply. That's really interesting. No reply to that.

That's real interesting. Wow. And then did you go and cross the river? Oh, and my friend a couple years ago, he hunted the piss out of it with his bow. Walking across that thing and never got a citation. Because he's like, like I said, he called DC. He's like, I don't want to deal

with any, I don't want to deal with a ranger there. I want to just call the National Park Service and get their take on it. I don't want to have it be, I don't want to deal with a ranger there. I want to just call the National Park Service and get their take on it. I don't want to have it be, I don't want to have someone like interpreting what this means. Because I just want to know the truth. And once I knew the truth, there was no thing an individual was going to tell me there

because I knew the truth. And I was more than ready to hash this out with them in a court if I needed to. Hmm. Sounds like a great hunt so far. Okay. Let's look at the flip side though. The first day we were there, we saw 27 bulls.

There's something like that. First five minutes we were there, we saw. Hard hunt for video because you can't shoot something. You can't. You can't. Even so, we even looked into this, like, you know, there's like certain right away stuff. Like normally you can film off a road, you know, but when the park owns both sides of the road, you can't like, you can't use it. You can't film anything like that.

Right. You can't be on that road filming off the it's it's strict yeah with permission yeah even this guy weirdly too knew like he knew even though he's with nps he knew where we had film permits asked me and before i could answer he told me me. Huh. Maybe there's some information sharing that needs to happen. Well, they've been sharing it. No, it was weird because he asked me a question, but I didn't get a chance to answer it. I was bummed out because then he told me the answer.

It was so he was setting you up for a gotcha or something. I want to know, like, I'd love to have to do a Freedom of Information Act to get the body cam conversation. It was such an interesting conversation. Huh. Especially when I got shamed, when I was getting shamed a little bit. I would love to have the body cam conversation to be like, this is an interesting, just play the conversation.

Was he shaming you about being skinny? No, no, no. He has like a body camera. No, I didn't get body shame. No, it was like, this hunt's kind of for people. Oh, the easy hunt. You mean how there's like two feet of snow and it's negative 30 degrees and you're not going to like go up Skyline Ridge?

He had mentioned how there was another tag holder that killed a bull far in. Did everything right. And he did it the right way. And then, you know what I had to point out to him? It was two people that had, they had party tags. And so he's talking about one of the people in

the party. I had to point out to him, oh, you know, right now, while you're telling me this, those two individuals are right down the road with waders on. Like literally right now. Yeah. The guys that did it right, did everything right, they're down there in waders. And it's not like that's just what we wanted to hunt was right by the river either.

I mean, it was just the reality. If I was a buffalo hunter, I'd go where the buffalo are. Yeah. That's where the buffalo are. That's where the buffalo were. We tried to make it as hard as we could. We were all over the damn place. We were way back there. There just wasn't any elk there. But it's neither here nor there.

It's called the buffer zone. What does it buffer? It buffers Yellowstone National Park with the surrounding national forests. And it's kind of like hate the game not the player.

We should get that body cam footage. I had zero to do with instituting the buffer zone. Right. Totally. Right.

Like I'm sorry. I didn't know that it was such a problem. I applied for a thing that my state is handing out. He's just projecting I'm trying to do everything. I'm sorry. I didn't know that it was such a problem. I applied for a thing that my state is handing out. He's just projecting his anger onto you. I'm trying to do everything. I'm doing everything.

I've done exhaustive research. I don't understand the problem. Someone feels a way about it. I wonder if there's any park rangers that are hunters down there. There's got to be. There's got to be some nice park rangers. He didn't in any way threaten. But it wasn't like, hey, guys.

No. Welcome to the buffer zone. Welcome to Yellowstone. I saw a nice bunch yesterday. It's just weird. So anyways, that's all I got to say about the content. Have we covered the contentiousness of the issue? Like it's Disneyland, on to the, that's all I got to say about the content. Have you covered the contentiousness of the issue?

Like it's Disneyland. Welcome to the buffer. Have a t-shirt and a free sticker. Moosh it, I told you. Yeah, it should be like

you jumped through all the hurdles and preference points and basically got one in almost 1,300 entries. You win a prize. Welcome.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Zero to complain about. I just like, it's like, I've just, the older I get, the more I'm interested in things that I'm like, how is this not just that everybody agrees on what the issue is? Such as the corner, like with the corner cross thing, I would just like to see it clarified in the courts. Yeah.

How is there a question mark over something like, how do multiple states not know whether or not they can't agree on whether or not something is legal. Right. And to have it be that you can ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers about what you can and can't do when you're hunting the buffer zone

is insane. You'd think there'd be like a pamphlet. Yeah. Like a all agency alert do i mean just like the letter we got from alaska fishing game before we went to a fog knack yep like heads up that's what you're going to deal with you think and this is how you deal with they said you're if you kill an elk well first it's like it's hard if you kill elk elk, well, first it's like, it's hard. If you kill elk, the carcass will get confiscated by a bear. And it's like, here's what's up. When I drew the DI-454 bison permit in Alaska, they send you a letter.

The letter basically says, you drew this, but you're kind of screwed. Here's the deal. And they lay it out. Access issues, blah, blah, blah, blah. Historic problems. There was a state biologist that also, another hunter I know, that they warned the other hunter. Of what? Just what I'm talking about.

Oh. A chilly reception. A chilly reception from the park. That was me. Oh, that was you? Yeah. Oh. I was warned.

I was warned before my, when my grandpa drew the tag, I called one of the biologists and they told me like, it was known you don't, heckledled is the wrong word but you'd get misleading information just like him asking if you're going to go around the trail that go to the elk instead of right at him through the river uh that person warned me that that was like it was very contentious yeah and then i think you were talking about too about people that were watching elk that were about ready to cross out of the park and they'd have like company to watch them yeah yeah to help them interpret whether or not the rangers like oh is that really far enough like is it going to go back in like just making them nervous man which that that's like i think the most irritating thing about it is it's it's just trying to make you feel uncomfortable with a thing that you're not doing anything wrong about yeah yeah it's like borderline hunter harassment yeah kind of leaves you feeling that way but i can't i

can't in good conscience go that far but it's something it's something yeah i think there's a way to handle like i like to imagine um i like to imagine myself in that role and that i would come up and be like what's going on guys um everybody having a good time here's what's going on listen let's uh you know if you got any questions about any of this let's talk it through i can help you understand where i'm coming from on x y and z and just so we can all be not cross wires yeah i mean the point is that people are, you know, they're supposed to be enforcing the law.

And if you're not breaking any laws, it's not like you're showing up and asking for opinions and weigh-ins on you abiding by the law. Well, it's funny too, is he knew I was Steve Rinelli. Yeah, of course. Yeah,

he called him Rinelli. Before I was even able to identify that I was the tag holder, he knew he was looking for Steve Rinelli. Yeah, he's a pretty ballsy guy. Pretty ballsy guy looking for Rinelli. I loved it. Did that sour things going in? No, because I knew.

Making more tenacious? I had heard so many stories about it okay and and um in preparation for it like i had even gone to people um i'd even gone to people like trying to understand the law understand the rules because i didn't want to be in a situation debating it so no it didn't because i'm like i knew the law in fact um i would, this is going to sound a bold ass statement. I would say that I perhaps knew it better. I perhaps had more of an understanding of what it actually said than my interlocutor. Sure.

That's a word for someone you're talking to. So when you crossed and you're waders, did you turn around to see what his facial expression We want to know something? I never stepped foot in that goddamn river. No, never had to. Really?

No. I think never got to is the better term. Maybe we should have? Yeah. We should have. Never stepped foot in that water. Huh.

Never went over there. We hunted stuff that had nothing to do. We hunted other stuff. We spent a lot of time looking. Cross went over there. We hunted stuff that had nothing to do. We hunted other stuff. We spent a lot of time looking. Okay. Across that river. Too much time looking.

Too much time looking across that river. Couldn't help but look. It's too interesting over there. Okay. All right, Yanni, what else do you need to know, man? You said you were going to interview. Well, are we going to do like a, are we doing a play-by-play or is this just Yanni What else do you need to know man You said you were going to interview Well are we going to do like a Are we doing a play by play

Or is this just Yanni asking us He's going to lead the play by play Oh gotcha You guys were filming That's correct Meteor season 12 That's correct Who did you have on as like actually on camera

As your guests These two Yehoos Nobody can see. Corey and Garrett. Yahoo number two over here. Corey and Garrett. Corey and Garrett. Yahoo number one.

Who's filming? New guy. And I think you spent some time with him. Bobby. Bobby. And Ridge Pounder. Yeah. Bobby saved me on my big run in September.

At the top of a big, long, nasty climb in the heat of the day. He was sitting there with a backpack full of ice cold water and was like, hey, you want me to dump this on your head? I was like, Bobby, where did you come from? Yes. Yes. Just by chance? No, I mean, he was hanging there. I mean, he's done the race a bunch. And so he knows that when you're coming out of this climb and you finally get up on the service road, you're wondering who you are and why you're there. And a little cold water can do a person some good. That explains. He was having not much.

We were going through a lot of snow and a lot of miles at times. He didn't seem to change tune. No, he's pretty strong. Yeah. Mountain runner kind of fellow But that's good Sounds like a good crew and Sam Bates is with you too Sam Bates is there

Now that tag was The season was open how long? Six weeks of archery Six weeks of gun And you hadn't stepped foot in there until The final two weeks I was going to bow hunt it with Phelps In the Wilderness area where you hadn't stepped foot in there until the final two weeks. I was going to bow hunt it with Phelps in the wilderness area where you can't film. But we were just going to go in there and bow hunt it.

And that was our big plan. We had all kinds of time figured out. But then I drew an Idaho firearm mule deer permit and scrapped my plans with Phelps. Canceled on Phelps so I could have best both worlds. I see. And I went deer hunting. You just draw so many premium tags that you have to.

I drew two. I drew two good tags and last year I drew zero. And I'll point out to people, I apply for everything, everywhere, and I've been at it a long time and have accrued a lot of bonus points. After a, I'm an old man, I'm 48 years old, I've been applying for shit for a long time and have accrued a lot of bonus points after a i'm an old man i'm 48 years old i've been applying for shit for a long time and now i'm cashing in yeah you are investments no it's uh

it's a good uh for all those people think that it'll never happen and it's not worth i think steve's a prime example like you know we've been doing this together 10 years and i remember when we first started this we were like i was like yeah dude let's do all of them like yeah i was talking to a tag draw consultant i can't remember if it was garth carter that told me this or chris den i think it was denim denim yeah he maybe it was chris denim from western hunter he had said if a guy comes to me he we're talking about tag draws but we were specifically talking about specifically talking about drawing a bighorn permit. He said, if a guy comes to me in his 30s, I'll tell him to get in on the tag draws. It's not too late.

And you'll draw one or two bighorn tags. If a guy comes to me in his 40s, I'll tell him, you might save all the time and hassle and just buy a guided sheep hunt because you're going to be at this for years and then by the time you get it, you might not be in the physical condition to capitalize on it anyway.

So just save yourself all that heartache and just go buy a doll sheep hunt. Yeah. Save the money up. And go on a sheep hunt that way because you're not going to draw the tag or you'll draw it when you're 80 and it won't do you any good. Not to hack on 80 year olds. No, there's some 80 year olds that can pull it off, but I know a bunch of, you know, guys

that guide those sort of hunts, you know, hard to draw goat hunts, sheep hunts and stuff all over the country. And they often deal with the problem of, okay, you know, George is coming in. He's 82. He's got, he's got one hunt, like literally, like he's got one trip up the mountain. Cause after he goes up there once and comes back down, he's not going up again.

So like we have to find the animals when the opportunity is the best and to pull it off. So it is. I mean, I said that often when I had my sheep tag. I was so fortunate to draw at 43, I guess that was, and have legs to go just cruising around the mountains, you know. Corey, did you encounter that stuff? Corey got it for how many years?

14. 14 years. Did you encounter that stuff? Corey guided for how many years? 14. 14 years? Did you come across stuff like that? Chris Gill said you had a groove as though you guided for 14 years. Yeah.

Cool. Wonder what that looks like. It looks like you. Just the way you carried, just the way you carried around that spotter. Yeah, that spotter. He was impressed by how quick,

he was impressed by how quick, he was impressed by how, he didn't even have time to like register and someone had said

something and you already had it in focus. Nice. Yeah. A lot of practice,

for sure. Yeah. But yeah, definitely had those clients. Just the old timers, it's like,

you know, they only have a little bit of steam left. Absolutely. Yeah, do a lot of driving around sometimes. Yeah.

Or horseback and whatever, wherever you're at. Yeah. I imagine, you know, those clients, it probably those guys that come every year as they get older and older, it's like,

it's probably hard for them to give it up. Oh yeah. It's like the thing they did every year. You can tell Seth just got married cause he still fiddles with that ring all the time. Yeah, I can't stand it. Being that some folks, Garrett, or Corey, you can weigh in on this too. Some folks would say this is

possibly the best elk tag in the state of Montana. I would say it is. I would say so. And if not, it's top two or three. Well, let's qualify. I would say, I haven't been to all the units, but I would say in terms of BPMs, bulls per minute, I don't know how you're going to, like BPMs,

you're not going to beat it. Without paying for it. Yeah, I'm sure you could get greater BPMs at like whatever. But like for public land for non-guided public land hunting i don't know how you'd get more bpms yeah and this is something i mentioned on when we were filming probably too much but i think what makes it the best unit is just the amount of bulls that come in there from nowhere right like you got the break stuff that everybody likes to do but i feel like a lot of those bulls are come in there from nowhere right like you got the break stuff that everybody likes

to do but i feel like a lot of those bulls are named by everybody around there and we would just like all of a sudden a bull like al would show up and he's just this freak bull that's just maybe he never came out of the park in his life and then that like one week he decided to trot across the line you know like you just never know what's going to show up. Yeah, people might have looked at him, but no one ever looked at him lustily. Yeah. No, he never had a lustful glance his way. And then all of a sudden, like some crazy bull, he doesn't know he just crossed the line.

And also when he crossed the line, he's standing there. The other thing, I don't know how far we want to get ahead of ourselves here, but he was still an elk, right? Like he got bumped one time and he disappeared for the rest. Like we never saw him again. We saw him get bumped by someone. He got bumped by someone from a couple hundred yards away, probably 300 yards away. Ran, never, ever laid eyes on that son of a bitch again. Yeah.

And we looked. Yeah. I mean, looked, looked. Oh, because you were looking at him lustily. He had a hand. Oh we looked. Yeah. I mean, looked, looked. Oh, because you were looking at him lustily. He had a hand. Oh, yeah. He had a freak hand. Back to your hand.

Imagine you had an elk, and then your hand is made out of antler, and it's glued to the back of his beam. He was a 5 by 11. Holy. Well, because he had this freak growth, like a growth. Being that you applied for nearly 20 years, one of those coveted tags in the state. But I never applied for, that was the first time I applied for, I used to apply for different units. Sure, but still, you put a lot of time and effort into applying for trophy units.

Did you feel? There's been four I applied for, and this is the first time I tried this one. Did you feel the pressure of having such a coveted tag? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It changed everything. Were you scared a little bit? How did it manifest?

It manifested like this. We kept telling ourselves. We'd be like, you know, like Garrett and his grandfather's footsteps is a public land cow killer it's like you don't you know if you're out on the national forest and you see a bull it's something to get excited about yeah you're like you know during general firearm to be, you know, and then to be like, oh, there's eight, just fives, little sixes in range. Let's get out of here. Yeah. It's like just, it was just different.

Do you remember when we had the guy that killed the biggest whitetail in America? Yes. Dustin Huff. Dustin Huff, the Huff Buck. Killed a buck, tail in America. Yes. Dustin Huff. Dustin Huff, the Huff buck. Killed a buck, follows the Indiana State record for not being the biggest typical white tail ever killed in the U.S. That night, like up until that day, he was trying to get a personal best.

His goal every year is to get a personal best, and I think he thought if he could get like a 135-inch buck, be personal best. That's what he was out in the woods for 135 inch buck and kills a two something, 200 something inch buck. At the end of that podcast, I said to him, so what now with the personal best deal?

He goes, I go back to the day before I killed that buck. That never happened. We had a lot of conversations about, um, that, you know like just reminding yourself just how unreal it is yeah yeah reminding yourself how unreal it is and then being like joking about can you believe that we have the audacity to be like, stupid six points. Yeah, it was like the first night,

he was like mid-320s bowl, Corey got on his phone scope there, and we were like, not worth going back there. Yeah. Didn't see anything interesting back there. Right, so you passed up how many and how big.

Well, there's like, I was like, when people say like, I passed up a blank, I'm always like, meaning, meaning what?

You saw it and didn't go after it. It was in range. You saw it and didn't go after it. Yeah, saw it and didn't go after it. Okay.

Like it didn't, it didn't, you know, get you excited enough to be like, okay, we're going to put some effort to close the gap between where we are and that bowl. Yeah. Okay. Like it didn't, it didn't, you know, get you excited enough to be like, okay, we're going to put some effort to close the gap between where we are and that bull. Yeah.

If we were market hunters back in the old days Corey was down by the river, he saw 17. And that same night, and this is just bulls, that same night, what, we saw 14? We've seen a lot of cows, too? Nope. Some. Some bands. Yeah, I take that back. Yes. More than I expected to see.

For sure. You see some cows, bands of cows. Not like two, three hundred packs, but probably the biggest group. Maybe in excess of a dozen. They'd have little spikes with them and stuff. With all these bulls, one of the hardest things,

we talked about it a lot. Yanni, you and I have talked about this coos hunting. How you always think the biggest coos deer is at the top of the mountain. Mm-hmm. Um, effort to. That kept messing with us. Yeah.

Effort to size ratio. Like it didn't mean anything. No. So we kept thinking like, oh, we got to get to that like isolated far back spot. You had to hike for the dinkers. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

The big ones were very accessible. If you got two and a half miles from the trailhead, you're going to see a bunch of dinkers. You had to leave the big bulls to go up in the mountains and find the little ones. Remember I saw that single track way up high in the mountain in the deep snow. Like, oh, that's got to be a giant out there. No, I was laughing about that. I think with Yanni, I was like, how could something that far away be small?

Yeah. It has to be big if it's that far away. I think it was Al. So, yeah, some of that. So the only other bull before you killed yours that you were lustily looking after was this weird Al. No, I was lusty for four bulls. Oh.

I was lusty for four. What. Oh. I was lusty for four. What prohibited you from? Greed. Yeah. Greed and lust. Oh. Available time. We got there one day. The day we got there. We got there at daybreak. The morning version of dusk.

Dawn. Yeah, about the time we were actually at dawn. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Morning version of dusk. I'm not kidding you, man. I'm not kidding Dawn. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. I'm not kidding you, man. I'm not kidding you. I think I'm right when I say this. The biggest, probably... Maybe the biggest bull we saw was the first bull we saw.

It would have required a little... What, in that spot? How far to get off? No, you wouldn't... there was just yeah it was a straight shot yes you could have walked you could have stepped legal the legal distance off the center of the road and shot and and shot he was like sparring his buddy a couple what he was i don't know maybe 200 yards yeah under 300 yards and my thought was if that son of a bitch is standing there imagine how big of the one that must be behind us right yeah yeah yeah and that set us

down a strange path you know that happened to me a little bit in latvia which we'll get to another time but it happened to me the other day when i parked to go deer hunting i forgot i got access where i was going to park on private to go hunt some public. But I mean, I was literally like on the fence where I parked. And as I'm in the car, sort of fiddling around, two does walk within rifle range across a little meadow into the woods. I get out, put my pack on, and I'm literally grabbing my gun out of the back seat. And I look back up the hill and there's a nice eight point buck. And like without having any effort invested, it just didn't feel right.

And the same thing happened to me in Latvia where I had an opportunity. It was so early in the hunt. I was unfamiliar with the land, the woods, the habitat, the animals, and just didn't have the gir in me at all. And I'm sure that you probably had a little bit of that too, that first moment where you're like, oh, well, there's a giant, and you don't want it to end. Yeah, it would have felt totally weird.

It would have felt totally weird. What also got us though is how trackable they were, man. Like that bull was 200 yards The second day from where we saw him On the first day And then the next day he was in the same exact spot Like it almost just seemed like they were always going to be there Until they're not

Until they're not Hey folks exciting news For those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and

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onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Now, I'd always heard it was kind of a migration hunt, where like every day or possibly you're going to have critters coming out of the park because there's cold weather and snow up higher in the park. They're moving. Did you guys see that? That remains. We got there right after a severe weather event, meaning a onset of a severe cold snap, of snow and stuff had a stirred up feeling

about it okay just weird stuff but then it stabilized very clear skies no precipitation extraordinarily cold like we uh the coldest morning we hunted was negative 29 we'd spent whole days in negatives i don't know it crept up in like nine or ten or whatever but like and then it just everything just that frenetic craziness seemed to pass like did seem like there was like new stuff you know i don't know that was my perception anyways you're like how could there be this many tracks and brand new snow felt feeling about it you know like what in the hell must have been going on here to make that number of tracks and snow that hasn't been here 48 hours it's like how could that be possible and that definitely seemed to chill but like it was like a wave of stuff happened

and then it stabilized just very cold we had that suit you know what was interesting that negative 29 morning we were looking at elk at night you know what was interesting that negative 29 morning we were looking at elk at night and the next morning was negative 29 and we were able to find all those elk and they were like six feet away from where we found there's like they that they didn't they didn't strike out in that they seem to be like i'm just hunkered yeah yeah here feeding they didn't seem to shuffle yeah and that In that extreme cold, it was like they just, for whatever reason, they seemed to just. Conserve energy.

Yeah, they just seemed like I'm where I'm at. I'm not doing some crazy exploration right now in negative 29 degree weather. Yeah, they can't afford to stop eating right then. That's cold. Yeah, I remember kind of getting excited for that cold weather and then realizing that it wasn't helpful. Everything seemed to just stop.

Yeah. In my mind, I was thinking, oh, this cold snap, those bulls are going to have to move all night long. They're just going to be in the park and be like, I'm getting to greener pastures tonight because it's cold. Yep. But that's not what happened. I think it was by the third, by the third day,

I think we saw the last new bull of significance. Yeah. Whatever day Weird Al showed up. Were you ever glassing into the park? Oh yeah. Yeah. We wouldn't, we wouldn't pour the coals to it, but we would look in there.

And see bulls in there. Oh yeah. He saw, he, I didn't see it but he saw firing away well he said firing away the biggest bull was was in a drainage sam and i we went up into an area and and then he cut down and went down this drain other drainage down through the park and he saw a tanker there was he was with 14 he was with 13 other bulls in there yeah we we walked out what it was like one o'clock i think and sam and i would only pull up glass if we could see something with our naked eye pretty

much and we saw 20 bulls walking out of there one group of 14 and yeah man like a straight six 380 class bull in there that just blew my mind. Wow. Yeah. Did you get a little video? No, we didn't get a video of him. We didn't have a spotter with us. But, you know, that big landscape called Yellowstone National Park got in the way of Steve going in there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess tell me about the one that you did crack In the end I want to tell you about something different first Well I'll tell you two interesting things We were the whole time wondering Like a negative 29 And then the snow was up to the middle of your shin

Definitely wasn't knee deep snow It was shin deep snow And then That was the lowest temperature Negative 29 But there was a it was always uh at least negative 10 in the mornings cold mornings and we kept thinking are the grit like what do the grizzly bears do like they gotta go they don't they're out wandering around just freezing their little feet off can you imagine what that must feel like man

they're out freezing their asses i'm a i'm i'm anthropomorphizing i don't know if they're cold just seemed like a bad way i'm surprised they weren't uh in their little dens you know they're gonna get back out again later when it warms up yeah they're just out pounding the pavement you guys saw quite a few? No, saw one track and one bear. Just cruising. One day, we're on the highway and Garrett sees a bunch of where all this kinds of stuff was crossing the road and he just stops and

looks in his headlights thinking it's all elk tracks, but it's all wolf tracks. And that day we're going to do a big hike up a drainage and get on that drainage and wolf tracks just crisscrossing everywhere. But eventually the wolf tracks all line out and they're just going down the trail we're on. I mean, it looks like sled dogs going down that trail. It looked like a dog park.

Yeah. Like just insane amount of tracks. Big old beautiful shit pile. Yeah. Piss going on that track. It looked like a dog park. Yeah. Like just insane amount of tracks. Big old beautiful shit pile. Yeah. Pissing on sage bushes. You could have got down and ate that piss snow. Wolf piss snow. You could have.

I seriously thought about it. I don't know why you would, but you could. I seriously thought about eating that wolf piss snow. I thought about smelling it. For the power. Yeah, you might get some kind of power out of it. I think you would. See where they're lifting their little

legs, and we're going, going, going. And I started to get, I just started to be like, we are going to see these, because there's a bunch of elk up here. We're going to see them. And lo and behold, on a faraway ridge, there they were. Garrett took

a poke. Yeah, man. Here's the thing It's killing me Well no it shouldn't I had always said to Garrett When we were talking about He's going to come with I had said

You can You know we each had a wolf type I'm like if we see a wolf It'll be your crack And he didn't grab his Precision His own personal Precision long range rifle

Which he shoots competitively with And he knows real well, like an extension of his hand back to your hand again. Yeah. I think the disappointing part about it is, uh, I was having an argument with myself walking up the trail about going back because we got on the trail and what it was within 50 yards.

We were on those tracks again and we're walking up the trail and I'm like, it's the trucks right there. All you gotta do is turn around and go grab that gun. But man, I I've also borrowed my gun to people and have a missed stuff and then blame the gun and be like, Oh no, I was on him. So I don't want to even pull that argument. Like that I used your gun and shot. That gun's been working good for me. Yeah. Like I don't, I don't, I don't want to go there. I think what eats me the most is just when you've hunted enough and you've shot enough, you think that you can detach from the emotion side of it a little bit. Or you can be like, no, I probably shouldn't take this shot.

Or I should probably maneuver to get a little closer. We weren't getting any closer. We weren't getting any closer. Unless you shot the one I told you to shoot. Yeah, maybe if I would have listened to you. But I think that's what gets me the most is instead of doing that, where I could detach a little bit, I was just, it was a wolf, man. I've been chasing wolves ever since you could buy a wolf tag. And it was just like, I got to take somebody else's gun at a range

that's probably a little bit too far and had to do it. Oh, man. It's just, yeah. Oh, wow. Clean miss. Fun. Very clean miss. Watched him for a long time after that.

Yeah. He ran real well. Yeah. Scared him. Yeah. So there's that. That's fun. Mm-hmm.

Corey, you haven't said a whole hell of a lot. Where are you at on this whole thing? Oh, just still reliving it. I mean, we just got back today. So, you know, like Garrett said earlier, just coming down from the high. But you've hunted at some, you've guided at some premier elk locations. Yeah. Did it feel different for you?

No, it felt very similar. I mean, passing up. It felt like what it feels like guiding at premier elk locations. Yeah. Passing up world-class once-in-a-lifetime elk to hopefully see something bigger. And then hopefully keeping those big bulls in your back pocket to come back later.

But a lot of times it doesn't pan out like that. Yeah. So did it live up to the hype? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to have yeah if you want to look at a ton of bulls and i do i was talking to jake about that because after i don't know if you were already

shown in pictures we were getting a lot of pictures those of us that weren't on the haunt from steve being like how much how big is this one score this one how big are the fists on this one i told i said jake probably likes to play this game too. So I don't know if you started. No, I roped him into it. Yeah. I started sending him videos. And he said that he hunted it like four or five years ago.

A buddy had the tag. And he said it was the best hunt ever. They spent like almost 30 days in there. Wow. And just had unbelievable bugling. Some people think that the guarantee is not the 400-inch bull. The guarantee is seeing a lot of bulls. And to go in there every day and be like, oh, let's just start cow calling

and just be almost guaranteed call-in after call-in after call-in. I mean, that's why our buddy Jay likes to hunt on some of these ranches like where he used to guide. It's like you ain't gotta go days without seeing an elk or whatever it's like you step out of the truck and sometimes they bugle when this car door shuts you know you know what uh you know hayden one day said something to me that a little bit listen it was a tremendous blessing i had a wonderful time it was crazy to see all those elk, but here's the,

here's the issue. Hayden one day said to me something about, um, that he likes to spend his time exploring replicable experiences, meaning, and it's, it's like a thing I feel. And he put,

he put a good word to it, meaning you're always looking for like a thing that you can make part of your discipline, that you can make part of your annual cycle. Do you know what I mean? The difference between finding a great fishing spot that you can get to and you understand it. It's like, yeah, yeah man i've over like take fishing halibut okay i've got 15 years into my little halibut area and it's a really cool

relationship right to have with a place and to be able to like grow with it and watch it change and be like oh i can't believe we used to always go there. And then we realized one day that if you go over there, it's, or, or if they're not there, go check there because, and you, you establish this whole elaborate interplay with something over time. Right. And, and you watch the way it changes. So to go and do a once in a lifetime situation, and I feel this every time it happens to me,

you're so thankful to do it, but you go do it and you're already, you're already like, there's nostalgia is not the right word for it. You right away get hit by, oh, I can't go do this again. Like now that I know it'd be so interesting to go again, knowing what I now know.

That's why Garrett had, I mean, Garrett's never drawn the damn tank, but he had such a good time because he thought when he was there with his grandpa, he'd never get to do it with someone that could no, no offense to your grandpa, someone that was going to go real fast up the trail.

Cause he was, come on, grandpa. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got to go.

I was way, you know, I was so excited when he drew that that tag but you're right having been in there man i was a hundred times more excited when you drew it because it was like i get to go back to this place that i know a little bit about yeah the thing is though is it's elk hunting dude and it's like what I experienced with my grandpa was very different than what you and I experienced as far as where the elk were, how the elk moved. And so maybe that's the takeaway is like, yeah, you're not going to go in there and hunt it next year. But you learned more about elk because you had so many encounters with them. That was a, you made that point. And I hadn't even brought up the feeling I get of doing, when I get to go have those really special, like when I drew the toke doll sheep tag.

It's great. But you're like, man, I wish I could go do that next year. But you'll never do that. You know what I mean? But you were addressing that, and has impacted how I hunt elk and that I'm able to watch so many bulls relate. They're still elk. Right. Right.

They still got to eat. They still got to sleep. They, you know, they, they come out of the timber, um, right before dark, they go back into the timber, you know, right at daybreak and you're like i got to watch how elk be elk to a degree that would take a lifetime to accumulate that many experiences of watching how bulls be bulls like what they do and that's true you could go sit there and then you imagine that you're shrinking it down to where it's a 10th as many a 20th as many a, a 30th as many, but you still have in your head, like that little timber patch seems like a place that a bull would want to lay in this cold, snowy ass weather.

And I bet you when he comes out, he's going to do this thing. He's going to do this thing. Yeah. I had an elk hunting buddy telling me that he spends 90% of his time looking at 10% of the mountain. And I, you know, that's like, we got to see

what 10% of the mountain elk live on. The river is a little bit. Because I would, I would look, I would, I would make a hobby of trying to be like, why can't I ever find a bull in huge areas and be like, I don't care what you do. You cannot find a bull in a huge area that I would have thought would be loaded with them.

They ain't there. Right. Right. And I can tell that because I know where all the ones that are there are. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Like no one likes that spot. Right. Yeah. No elk likes that spot. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's not always convenient, man.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I like this idea of replicable experiences, but I also, for me personally, I like, because I'micable experiences, but also for me personally, I like because there's nothing better than the second time in a spot where you were titillated the first time, you're coming in feeling cocky,

like know where they're going to be, I know what that hillside looks like, I know where to look, where not to look. The third time often, I'm kind of like, okay, yeah. And I'm starting to all of a sudden juggle in my head like, God, it'd be cool if I was just in a totally different spot and learning new country and just back at ground zero because I enjoy so much just newness. Mm-hmm.

You know? Mm-hmm. So anyways. The bull we got, there's a lot to talk about. We, Corey spotted it from the highway in a crazy place. Like up in like rock, up in a rock pile cliff. Not crazy, but. Steep enough that you had to tie him off, I saw, when you guys were chopping him.

The only reason he didn't go down that whole mountain by himself is he got hung up on his own rack. It was a bull we had seen a couple miles away. Probably a couple miles. Yeah. We'd seen it a couple miles away. He was very identifiable

because he had busted off his... He had big... Big royals,als swords fourths like really impressive like his other times what everybody had is like just freaking narwhal tusks coming out of his uh fourths and he had snapped his rack off behind that so you knew you knew who you're looking at. Here's where this gets interesting. We had seen three bulls that looked like they had rubbed

the hide on their backs. If you had saw it in September, you'd be like, oh, he's been wallowing and has dried mud on his back. But it's not September or October, right? We're in mid-November. Three of them that have this. And we had talked even about, like, what is going on with that dude's back?

Why is he having that problem on his back? Hold that thought. Because it had been a very cold morning, and the sun was just starting to hit the rocks. And he was in this cliffy rocky area like you could imagine area that would have great radiant heat and i don't know how in the hell cory sees it it was like 500 yards above the road we were going 60 miles an hour too yeah and it's because of some not not that detroit i mean it's one of the most incredible game spots I've ever seen, but he had come out to sun and was sitting broadside up by a rock,

like basking in the sun. Stock ass still, okay? But on his feet, not bedded. Keep in mind the shit with the back stuff. Okay. So we turn around and go park at a trailhead and we figure where we could climb up and do like a ridge to ridge shot. We get up there. He's still there.

We have a debate about what's up with that bull why is he doing that and at times he's got his eyes closed and he's got his eyes open we're like he's like basking in the sun um and killed him we get up there and that stuff on his back like the hair on his back you could pull it out in clumps he's got a big patch around his mound around his hump i later got on the phone with a with a state vet the bulls we were seeing had mange and she said it's hard for him to keep warm i bet it can be bad enough where, and he was thin, like a big, long body, but he tasted fine. We ate some last night just because we were curious about it. Hip bones sticking out, not like small back straps, small back ham, smallish back ham.

Just look poor. You know what he looked like? It was like a milked out dairy cow. That kind of like skeleton here and there. Sure. Even though like a big heavy rack, he had been feeling frisky enough to snap as, to be fighting, like built like, like a great rack. Going to have a rough winter. He's not going to make it through the winter.

Yeah. No, there's no way. And when I talked to that vet, she said said well he was skinny she said we see that they can't keep warm right and they don't want to bed down and they're just eating and it takes so much caloric energy um and and what's funny is that was his that hide there was frozen, like wet and frozen. And she said, they're so hungry, they can't keep warm. He had gone a couple miles. She said, they're just on their feet, eating, eating, but they can't keep up with it.

And she said, and in a bad winter, it can kill them before they get better. I don't think he was going to live. He didn't have many days left. Poor guy. No way. I don't think he was going to live. He didn't have many days left. Poor guy. No way. I don't think he was going to live. We saw one once when I lived in Colorado, there was a little batch of bulls. There was, I don't know, three or four of them.

They were up above the hill, the house on this hillside and it was public. We'd watch them every day. And one morning I'm laying in bed and I'm looking at him and I get my glasses out and I can see that he's got like snow on him. And it just snowed like a little dusting. I could see that he's like, he's like bedded, but like, looks like he's a little leaned over, you know? And then I just like finally went and got the spotter and really looked close. I'm like, man, I think he just perished last night.

You know, like we had been watching the night before. And so Jennifer and I, she was actually preggo with our first one. And we hike up there real quick, brought a saw with us. And, uh, sure enough, there he is dead as a doornail. And he had that same patch, but it wasn't on his mound, but it was right on his hip. But a dinner plate size patch. Is that right? And, uh, when I talked to the, and it was late, I remember it was my brother-in-law's birthday, which is, uh, middle of March.

And, uh, yeah, the warden said, yeah, winter weekends and spring kills. When I talk, we're bringing a patch of that hide. We got in touch with the state vet and they want to, we're bringing them a sample of the hide so she can take a look at it. She said, we see it. We've been dealing with it for some years. We see a lot of it. She named three or four places where they see a fair bit of it. Tends to hit old bulls.

Hmm. More than cows. Yeah, I don't know. And what's funny, though, is zip two shots right through the boiler room on him and he kept his feet for a long time. He wasn't like unstrung. Mm-hmm. But at that, I mean, it's mid-November, man, and he already looks like.

Yeah. It's mid-November and he looked like what you'd expect him to look like in March. Right. He wasn't going to make it. He's got wolves to deal with. Yeah, I was going to say that's an easy wolf snack there. And hanging out in them rock piles like that, he's going to get cougared.

There's no way that bull is going to be alive in the spring. A lot against him. There's no, I mean, if you're looking at how, and then he's not going to rebuild because it's already, everything's already covered in snow. It came so early. Um, we're coming out of weeks of like unseasonably cold weather.

I think that I wouldn't be, I mean, people killed a lot of elk this year. I bet a lot of elk are going to die this year. And then the fact that we saw three bulls like that, all big bulls. I wonder, we saw that bull down when we first saw him, he was down along the creek. Acting weird.

Acting weird. And then when Corey spotted him, he was way up high. And there was always like an inversion every morning, it seemed like, where it was way. Oh no, he wasn't acting weird down by the creek. I thought you meant that other bull that had that patch on his hump. Oh yeah, that six- point that bedded right along the road.

Yeah. Yeah. He was acting weird. He was in the park. No. Yeah. He was in the park. He was in the park.

But I wonder if he went all the way up high there just to seek warmer temperatures, you know? Yeah. Cause down on the Creek in the morning was fricking cold. I caught his track. He had been, he had been zigzagging up that

hill feeding on, you know, that some of that, some of that snow. What's it called when snow melts but doesn't melt? It's what you do when you freeze dry something. Like the snow sublimates. It just vanishes in the

sun. And it happens even below freezing. It sublimates. It bakes it off without melting it. Like around stuff that gets radiant heat. it sublimates. I don't know. It bakes it off without. Without melting it? Like around stuff that gets radiant heat. It just evaporates. Yeah. Versus melting.

Like you'll see it around rocks. You'll see it around tree trunks. Yep. He was zigzagging up that, feeding on that grass that was melting away from the tree trunks that were getting sunlight. But yeah, he might've been going up there to get warm. I don't know.

Something I forgot to tell you, uh, cause Corey and I talked to the other tag holders last night. Um, they had videos of that bull that you killed in daily. And I don't remember the name they had for him, but there was a goofy name because they had him on their spot. They had filmed him in the park. They'd filmed him in the park. And, uh, they, And he was just acting goofy.

Oh, was he? Like they said that he would just like, and they had videos of him. He would just turn around and kick up in the air. It was like spin around, kick up in the air, and then stand there and stare at the ground and then walk a little further. Like when he was walking, he would like, seemed like he was swaying a bunch and everything. Yeah, just acting goofy. And I can't remember the name they had for him. I forget.

It was like, they were like, what is up with this thing? You're going to get him tested for CWD? I was just going to ask that. No, well, I hadn't. I don't think they've had it in there. I mean, I could. I was just going to ask about that. I don't think that it's, like talking to the vet about like the hair loss deal.

Yeah. And we sat there talking about what was the hair loss deal. Yeah. And we sat there talking about what was going on with him. Yeah. We contemplated shooting him because it's like, man, is that a healthy elk? We contemplated just shooting him for, and then being like, hey, we shot him. Yeah. Management bullet. Shooting him out of his misery.

Issue another tag, please. No, I'm good. I'm good with what I got. It's a beautiful elk. Yeah, for sure. But it's a crazy area. It's a crazy area. I've never seen anything like it.

No, I've never seen anything like it. Oh, yeah, you can. You can do it with a Yellowstone. Go see. Yeah, just go hang out in Lamar Valley a little bit. Well, sounds like a good hunt. I'm going to start applying again. Yeah, we both know a few people that have drawn with a lot less points than you drew with.

Yeah. What you need to do is hook up with someone that's got 20 points and do a party tag. Sure. Ooh, give me a shout. Be careful what you wish for there. Good. Anything else you guys want to tell us about? Any other real highlights?

I don't know. It's been fun. Epic. Man, if you think going into that, like that week of hunting that we did, if everyone still had their tags, that would be a different experience. Oh boy. You know, just like constantly running into the other tag holder. Sure. Like I couldn't imagine there being all, like all five there at once.

It'd be interesting if, I'm not saying they should do this, but interesting if you broke it out. You made five chunks of time. Yeah. I mean, I could see in archery season though, there's kind of like the bulls are in one spot right now. Archery

season, they're probably more spread out. Yeah, they're in a very confined area. Yeah. No, man, was uh i don't know it was something it was interesting you seem a bit sad or down or something well i spent a lot of time thinking about that and then you know and then you do it over yeah you do it and it's like listen when i drew that tote doll sheep tag we had a big chunk of time squared up you know and got it like a beautiful Ram real quick and then I spent five years thinking about if we'd have just run

those ridges for ten days it's just I don't know i don't know like what you when i imagine sunday my kids will leave to go off to college and i'll be real sad and i'll think about when my when i when my buffering hunt was over that's why it's nice to live in a state like montana where now we can think about ducks for a little bit and then we got mountain lions coming right on up and before you know we'll be thinking about turkeys and i got you yeah you turkey at doug durrens that's the highlight of my year that's a replicable replicable experience very no it's just depressing man because it's like it was like so exciting yeah because you see you know you guys can't go next year yeah i don't know man it's just like man. It's just like, it's all part of the thing. It's all part of the experience.

I, I've drawn some incredible permits and it's like, I did a cool hunt in Idaho this year. And I was like, dude, if I could just go do that all the time, I would give up everything else. Corey and I were at the cabin this morning And we described it as like The day after Christmas Sure man It's all part of it It's exciting to draw it You're so happy

You do all the research You find all the people that had it before You share notes You're like living for it You know And then you pull the trigger Then all of a sudden you're done. It's just like.

It's just sad. Not in a bad way. It's just. It's. It's. It's. It's sad in a great way. It's sad in a great way.

It's sad in a great way. It's fun. Well when I draw the tag. You have a little shiny eye. When I draw the tag I'll invite you Steve. I'll need a second set of eyes. It's pretty fun, man. You too, Garrett.

It's a little sad. You feel sad for me, Phil? Should we make a musical called The Buffer Zone? Oh, I'd love that. Musical theater? We have one guy that can sing and dance. We know that. I'll play the park ranger.

Mr. Rinelli? You don't want to go that way. Rules is rules. Oh, I got to tell you one last thing, man. We got a show. It's a new show called Dog Justice. I'll tell you about it some other we got a show like if I ever it's a new show called dog justice I'll tell you about some other time it's a great show concept I'm gonna share them with you I heard about another new show concept uh I said last night at dinner or uh this morning my daughter

after we hunted Wisconsin deer camp this weekend she got to come for the first time. And she was on a high last night after dinner. She's like, let's play a game of cribbage, you know. Oh, because she got hooked on cards. She's been playing cards for a while. But just like, yeah, she was in the groove, you know. Was all the guys cool to her even though she's a girl? Yeah. We were worried about that because of the old, you know,

old fellers in deer camp. Yeah, they had to say a few jokes you know maybe under their breath you know or look around before they said something but no for the most part it was no i would not for the most part it was all great but she came at me last night or this morning was like i got a new show idea we got me j, Jimmy Rinella, we'll call it The Next Generation. I love it. I love it. Was Ina the first woman at Deer Camp? Yes.

That's crazy. Yeah, in over 50 years. Holy cow. She'll be running it someday. Could be. She'll be running De someday could be she'll be running deer camp yeah yeah and in 100 years there might be a guy who's like i'm the first guy that's been here in 50 years yeah it's all women well thanks for coming down yanni yeah you're welcome that was enjoyable i'm glad i got to hear the story you know full story full story. Full story. So busy these days.

We often don't get to swap hunting stories fully like that. Yeah. Steve, I've told you before that my favorite shows are the authors and the archaeologists and the historians. And I usually, sometimes I'll scroll my phone during the hunting stories, but that was a good show. This one was. This one was. Yeah. Are you saying next I bought tickets to your thing?

Yes. Do you get a cut at the door? No comment. All right. Thank you, everybody. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

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