PodsGPT.io - Podcasts Summaries and Transcriptions

Welcome back to the Ridgeline Hunting Podcast brought to you by Phelps Game Calls with your host David Crane and David Sandana. Yeah, the internet's important. So can you just tell our audience exactly what you do with Phelps Game Calls, what your role is with the company? So I'm the marketing manager at Phelps, which that's my title, but man I do, I don't know, I do so many things besides that. I'm a jack of all trades, if you will, master of none. My day consists of whether the social media management content creation, whether I video something or editing stuff, writing up treatment for a video project, working out packaging. We've got a lot of new products coming out and I work with one of our contractor graphic artists John Gabriel, buddy John, him and I work together on packaging, making sure the aesthetics right, making sure that it looks right, has all the right information on them. I used to do a lot of project management with Jason as far as new products and stuff, but that's kind of a transition out of that role. But I still do a lot of R&D with Jason. So anything that's new products and stuff, we're always working on new stuff there, so that's coming across my desk. And yeah, go ahead. Sorry, how exactly does the R&D work with game calls? From the very first idea, so we talk about an idea, Jason or myself will put it down on a cocktail napkin for something similar, scratch paper, and try to have each other understand the concept and what it's going to look like and what kind of a problem we're going to solve with it for the hunter. And then we work with an engineer who will make drawings and we have to go through several different iterations of the drawing. So the first one, they'll come back to us and say, okay, this is what your cocktail napkin meant to me. Does that look anything like what you guys had in your mind? And then we say, yeah, kind of, or yeah, that's perfect. Then we kind of dial it in from there until it looks really good on paper. So we had a wait, for instance, a project earlier this winter, we're working on everything said, oh, yeah, this probably would work. So we got just fine-tuned this thing down to down to the nitty gritty and then we prototyped it. So we got to a company to have a prototype to come back in and it was a slop. It didn't work at all. It didn't work at all. And we just bagged the concept, it's like, well, we're done. But the funny part about it is people don't realize the cost that goes into the R&D, the research and development of any kind of new product from starting from just scratch. So just the man hours involved, the engineering costs, and then prototype samples. They're not cheap. And you have four or five samples built. You could be spent in 1500 bucks every time you do that. So it adds up really quick in the cost of the research and development, definitely. So it's fun because a lot of times, that's been our only project lately that's blown up on our face. But our easy bugler, for instance, we worked on that for two and a half years, probably. Just working on it this slowly because there were so many little nuances to make sure it sounded right, it was easy to blow. And we wanted to make sure it was good. We didn't want to release something that was just like, oh, I kind of think it's good. So it took a long time from the first iteration, which was very awkward and crappy to what it is now. So we continue to refine it. So we've had one inline rolling change to the revision of it. And there'll probably be another couple coming down the road just trying to make it better, make it better, easier to produce. Because those things are super expensive. Some of the things that we build are pretty expensive to build a lot more than the guy might think. Yeah. I was involved in some manufacturing of a product that I had developed. And everybody's like, man, I could make that out of a stick. You're sitting here. You're like, dude, you don't understand. I had three different aerospace engineers go over this product. These are guys that I know, because in the Northwest, we have a lot of aerospace folks and they're your neighbors and friends. So I call on these people and I said, hey, how could you do this thing? I have an idea. And he's like, oh, come over to the house. We'll have some coffee. But he pulls up his computer and he's got solid work suite. It's like all the engineering things you can make. And it communicates with all CNC machinery. So every different manufacturer has their own software. Well, solid works is like universal language to that stuff. So going through this R&D process with my product, which is for construction, it was difficult because I saved a lot of the initial cost. But what you're talking about, like just a mold for a bugle tube, it could be $25,000 for an injection mold. And you're like, hey, let's go ahead and just make this random shape thing. And hopefully it works. And people don't understand that upfront cost. I think this stuff is just like, I don't know how they would make it. You know? Oh. So in the process of manufacturing, a lot of people don't understand. There's so much involved in it. And you hope it works. And I had just on mine, I had four samples. I had to have engineered and done. But when you make the small quantities, they're way more expensive. I mean, you have to make them in mass to bring the cost down. So people say, you know, something that's $6. Well, I had to make $35,000 of them. It's like, you know, it's like, that's a chunk of training. Yeah, you know, $200,000, $300,000 at a time to get a one read because the cost would be so high if you only made just one read. Yeah. And then no one's going to give you 30 bucks for one, you know, or 40 bucks or whatever. You know, it would be at that expense, the higher cost. So I totally understand, man, I feel you're paying not envious, but it sounds like a fun job. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. And you know, it's kind of, it's funny and a little bit frustrating. You know, everybody, you know, wants everything made in the USA. And we've been working super hard and diligent to like bring and have as much stuff built in the USA as possible, like all our gear calls that we just came out with for built in USA. Thanks. A lot of our stuff is built and assembled here in the USA. But we've been looking at some new products and we talk about mold, you know, a mold in the United States going to cost you 20 is going to cost you double. So if it costs you $20,000 off shorts and it costs you $40,000 here in the United States. And then when you start talking about specifics and guaranteed tolerances and stuff, it's been our experience from the people we've put this thing out to quote to is they don't want to adhere to the plus or minus tolerances on the finished product. You know, on a injection molded product or a blow mold product. So where they want you to buy the pay right up front for the mold that may or may not work accordingly to how you told them to make it work. And then if it doesn't work, then they'll charge you to make any updates, which is several thousand dollars. Whereas offshore, they're super easy to work with. And they're determined to make sure that you get what you need and to your specifications. So I mean, I guess they're willing to, you know, eat a little bit of that cost here and there and then they try to make sure it's, you know, they try to build in as many efficiencies into the process as possible. But, you know, some of the people we try to do stuff here in the States with it just like, man, you need to be a little hungry or are they just, everybody says, bring back more jobs, United States and bring more manufacturing in the United States. But geez, believe some of them sometimes bring somebody that wants to work. Hey, I'll tell you that they don't seem that hungry to me. Yeah. So a friend of mine, he has a company that they make injection molded shower drains. It's a pretty big company. It's a small company, but they're known worldwide. And he actually went and had his molds made overseas initially, his first molds. And what he told me is that like in China, they've been building molds for a lot longer than we have most recently. So they're really good at it. So they'll make a mold like they can make a mold and it's really good on tolerages. And the one issue that he had run into was the whatever you're making inside that mold is going to either like cool down and shrink or stay the same size. So you're either either fits or it shrinks after. So once it comes out of the mold, it may not, it might fit the mold. And then when it cools down, it's smaller than the mold. So there's other challenges like environmental things that happen in order to make those tolerages stick. And a lot of people just don't, they don't want to say, Oh, well, we're going to make sure it's right. I ran into the same thing with injection molding my product. They were like, it's not going to work because of, you know, it's going to shrink or it's going to twist or whatever when it cools and the product wouldn't work. But there are so many challenges to manufacturing. It's crazy, but I look forward to a day when we do get it right over here and everybody gets, you know, a lot more practice under their belt and starts down and take, you know, take personal ownership for your product, have some pride in your craft, you know, yeah. Good thing, folks. Absolutely. I'm so glad we've been happy with the products and everything for years. Yeah, definitely. I shoot, I want to say it right after Jason posted his website. I was like one of the first ones to get like a custom, easy cow call. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Like one of the first customers. I'm going to get number one thing. We'll try this. Yeah, I've had it ever since. Yeah, awesome. It'll work. So the cool thing about that one, the cool thing about that new cow call, you know, we did we were able to build that one. So now are you talking the Phelps easy sucker? Yeah, the new easy stuff here. Yeah, that thing's freaking sick. Yeah, so easy to use. So we're going to continue to do, you know, produce stuff here in the USA. If it's at all possible, you know, the costs are going to be more here, of course, but once you start looking at import taxes and stuff like that, a lot of it, you know, as piece for pieces, you're not that far off. And we want to support, you know, USA and build everything we can here. Sometimes you just kind of run into, you know, manufacturing issues where nobody wants to make it. So yeah, yeah, that's happened. That happens, you know, yeah, I mean, it does happen. And I mean, the stand business and to make a product that is up to your standards too. Like it has to be affordable. Yeah, when it's done down the chain, you know, when the chain supply, you know, a supply chain has to get their cuts, you know, so as it goes down the chain, it gets a little more expensive. And if it starts expensive, it ends really expensive. Well, I've been happy with the products. So perfect. Yeah. So what do you do for fun? Well, some of the things I mentioned, my job, what I do is kind of what I do for fun too. But what I really love to do for fun is I love to go camping. I love just some time with my family. I love elk hunting. I love here hunting. Yeah, turkey hunting, those are things I enjoy. But I'm fortunate enough to a lot of the stuff I do for my work. So like video editing, you know, it can be frustrating, but when it all starts coming together and it's awesome. So I can send it a desk for eight hours and videos where back in school, you know, it's sitting at a desk for eight hours, you know, learning geography and English and everything else that school had to offer. Yeah, I was bored out of my mind. But this is good. It appeals to me and I enjoy it. So yeah. Yeah, we had a little video editing fiasco last night, but it was super simple. Like this program, it was a dobei rush or something. Dobei rush, but we're just trying to link two parts of a video together and we were both huddled over the computer for like half an hour. And then finally it all clicked and we just high five. Yes. Like a professional editor would have been done in two seconds, you know, we're over. You got to get this thing together, you know. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's funny, some of that stuff like editing, if you don't do it like the first like a certain treatment you're trying to do to it, if you're not doing it all the time on your editing, then you're like, how did I do that? So then you had to get YouTube like, okay. And then you have to figure out how do I type this in so YouTube knows what I want to know. Yeah, definitely. You're trying to do any type of color corrections or anything like that. It's like, Oh, I've done it. Where was I? Yeah. The way beyond my skill level and that color correction. Yeah, man. And yeah, speaking of you. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. You know, we're just sitting here talking about this new video you had come out and I had a question about what, what you've seen happen with YouTube in the hunting industry. Because the last several years, there has been, YouTube has really just exploded with everybody that's doing elk hunting videos, tours, all the informational things. How has that impacted your guys's business? And like, have you seen that huge jump based on like YouTube exposure? Or is that like your biggest proponent of business there? I think it's been, I think it's been really good for business. You know, number one brand awareness, you know, if, if you're somebody's using your calls on, on a video and, and people like what they see, they're like, Oh, what's that call? And I don't know, you're probably like this. I'm like this. And I think everybody, all the hunters are like this when they watch your YouTube video. They're looking for every little like nuance. Like, what's like I got in his pocket? I see something peeking out of his pocket. What is that thing? I've had people message me, Hey, I, on your butt, bino case at, at, uh, three minutes and 27 seconds in the video that I saw this little thing. Like I see in the silhouette of it that you have inside of your pocket of your bino care case. What is that? But, so, you know, they, I think, you know, people are, I think people are always looking for more knowledge. They're always looking for a product that maybe will work for them. So you know, it feel like help calls, you know, I like to, I like to think ours are the best and stuff. Um, I will say, you know, it's sometimes you just have to kind of try calls until you find the one that just works for you. Um, as an individual person. Um, David, number one, you may like, um, Maverick call and David, number two, you may like a, um, uh, black hands, you know, on the shelf. I'm, you know, so David Crane is a David, number two, because that is my go to, that is my go to, uh, I almost said you're going to be David, number two anyway, but. I think it's been good for people to see what there is out there in the world about calls or products in general. Um, I think, you know, I feel like people can have a pretty positive influence too, especially, you know, if you teach a little bit of knowledge and teach them some ethics during your, your own, you know, that, you know, people may let that sink in and may stew on it. Maybe they agree right away, but, um, I feel like, and all I think, I think it's a good thing. Um, some people will kind of get a little disgruntled and saying, yeah, you, YouTube guys are ruining hunting. You guys are, you guys on social media are running hunting, but the fact of the matter is people are in general are getting outdoors more. Um, you saw this during COVID, right? Yeah, I don't understand how that would be a bad thing because we are putting, or I guess a social media, a YouTuber guys, we're putting hunting in the forefront instead of trying to put it in the back burner like what society is trying to do. Right. Right. Absolutely. And then you see like in COVID though, like everybody bought the RVs. Yeah, you couldn't hardly buy an RV. You know, you go try to go camping in the summertime. There are people camping everywhere. Well, 90% of those folks aren't hunters. You know, people just want to be outdoors. So I think if, if I think YouTube and social media, the positive part about it is, um, what what you put in is what you get out of it. If you're putting out a good positive message like, you know, ethical, uh, hunting, respectful hunting, whatever, um, if you're putting that out in the world, you know, there's probably more people that are going to let that sink in and they're probably going to want to do the same thing. Um, if you're doing it for likes and it's all a big facade and your faith and your, your shooting your boat and your bikini. That's, you know, you're, all you're doing is looking for likes. You're not really making the world a better place. No more bikini shooting Dave. Number two. Well, got something from Steven Rinella, you know, he was doing like these photo shoots where he was like shooting his boat, the shirt off or he would like dunk his head in a bucket and fling his hair back and that's funny. You ever know is doing it up in that social media aspect. You know, that's, that's pretty much every, every single topic, right? You can have, you can be talking about basketball or football or anything you could talk about in my, in my world. It's, you know, I'm a professional Tyler in the construction industry and you can put, you could be a day two guy doing your first job and be like, Hey, everybody, what do you think of this? Here comes 10 Banshees. You know, you're like, Hey, you're talking to a second day guy here, like give him some props, good for effort. Here's what you might want to do in the future, you know, be positive, helpful, all those things because it helps people to come up in the right way, you know, and they're going to look up to you in the end, they're going to say, okay, these are the people that have been helping us out, um, leading me down the right path. And now look at me now, you know, now I'm a stellar installer. Yeah. Yeah, you need that positive reinforcement. I mean, obviously you're not going to get it all the time. You're going to have some haters, but you know, let that feel the fire and keep it pushing. Yeah, it is what it is, man. The internet is a cruel playground. Well, it's rules out there. They've had some questions about this video. I'm going to bring it up on the screen here. So this is going to be on our YouTube channel. We just started doing video and. Oh, perfect. Yeah, we figured, you know, we're starting a new year. We almost have a complete year down with the podcast and we wanted to kind of step it up a notch and we do have a YouTube channel. It's basically all just hunting. We do have the audio of our podcast, but now we're going to start implementing video. So perfect. Yeah. So I did have a couple of questions for you on now. I know this was filmed, you know, back in September, but I know that you probably just got done editing it. That's why it probably came up. Just like two weeks ago, I was done editing. So it's fresh. Oh, yeah. So I had this, this problem in 21 and it was more or less bowls just hanging up. They would not come in. They would come into maybe about a hundred, maybe as close as 80 yards and then they're getting their cows and boogieing out and I, and the wind was in my favor. I thought I was doing everything right. Now looking back at it, I was probably way too aggressive with my, my bugling and they just got uncomfortable and, and boogered out. But I noticed that, you know, you were kind of running into the same, same problem. Now for, for your video, you, you're in bowls like nobody's business, like a hand in a Dorito bag here in Washington, you know, you might get one opportunity and then you don't have any for the next couple of days. Yeah. What advice would you give somebody that's in, would be in like a similar situation that I was in because I was actually caller, film or and shooter. I didn't have anybody with me. A subcontract some of that stuff. The filming thing just went to like, I did have a bigger camera, but it went strictly to GoPro once things started heating up. So that didn't really, that was not that big of a deal. It was the shooter caller problem. I just, I had a bull working for probably three and a half hours and it would just, it was like a yo-yo effect. Just kept on yo-yoing and I noticed when I would bugle and have a chuckle with it, that aggravated him. But I noticed when he was chuckling, he was chuckling and stabbing his cows all over the place. Like, come on ladies, we got to get out of here. So then I stopped. Once I stopped and got closer to his cows, because he had like, so here in Washington, we have a problem with foot rot. He had a group of about six to seven cows with foot rot and I was getting in between those cows and he had about eight cows that didn't have foot rot and that's where he was at. He was mainly with the cows that could move. But he was getting pissed off that I was in between them and that's when he started coming up. But what would you do to close the distance in that? Like go quiet or? Well, it all kind of depends on terrain features. So I don't like, if you remember back in the video, it was a lot of open country there. There's just one part there towards the end of the video where there was this big bull up on the hill there. He just wouldn't come in. He was kind of like some open aspens. You could kind of see him up there and you're like, he's one little bit and then he's kind of like a ball. This is actually right here, Dave. You're right. I've watched the video probably 18 times now. Right. So the biggest problem with that scenario, which I hated that scenario was there was just way too much open ground between me and that bull. He can stand up there on the hill and look down there, a hundred yards and I snuck up, snuck up, snuck up as far as I could. My collar, he was probably another hundred yards behind me, but he just was not going to break loose because he could see a long ways. And that's the tricky part about setups, right? If you're bulling your mess and you can see a pretty good distance either out of your effective range or he can stand back behind some brush and kind of look and see where you're at, then they're going to hang up and they're going to stand there until they see an elk or they lose interest. So I was on top of this bull. Yeah. So if I'm solo, especially solo and it's pretty thick country, as long as I don't see eye to eye with that bull and he can't see my feet, I say I got a big bushy tree between him and me and a lot of brush, I will walk straight at him. I'll be able and I'll walk straight at him. If not run, I'll charge right towards him. And a lot of times they're looking for that little leap of faith. So for instance, it's like those bulls will close the distance and then they hang up. They're kind of saying, I've come all this way, it's your move. The bull is in your coordinates, your move. So if you just kind of hang back and don't and just call from where you're at, a lot of times they'll just kind of lose interest and move off. But if I feel like it's kind of been a stalemate for very long at all, it's like, okay, I'm moving up and I almost do it to a fault to where sometimes maybe I will be a little too aggressive and kind of push them off. But more often than not, they'll hold their ground as I'm walking stomping up there. And as I'm moving that towards them, you know, I'm kicking every rock and breaking every branch. I can't make it as much noise as I can. And rip a big mean-ass mule. And a lot of times they'll show themselves or they'll kind of move off a little bit. And then wherever they move to is a better spot to set up. Like, you know, maybe I've got a bunch of crap in the way where I can't shoot. But once he kind of breaks loose and if he moves off 50 yards or so, 100 yards, and then I move up, now I've moved into a better position where if he steps out a little bit, I've got him. So it's, but that set up, like it's your, your, your situation is not unique. I mean, it happens to me, it happens to a lot of people, you know, when pulls come in and hang up and I can always, when they do, I can always look around and be like, well, I see why I hung up. You know, I, I, he could, he can see down here and I'll plainly see there's no elk. Or I'm not making my move. I'm, I'm playing too reserved. If I'm not pushing up towards them after he's come a long ways, then it's, it's basically my turn to make a move. All right. Yeah. And that's looking back at it. And I've been watching a lot of videos and listening to do a lot of podcasts and just trying to like break down what I, what I possibly did wrong. And it was just that I wasn't aggressive enough going to the bull. But it was like old timber, you know, it was tall timber. It was like nettles, like the like pine needles and stuff like all over the ground. It was fairly open, but he couldn't see me. He just, he was looking around for cows. Oh, I know what you're talking about now. You, so Dave was actually down on the bottom of the hill with another buddy and never working the bottom part. Now it was up on top. Yeah. That was, that was pretty interesting. That bull was huge. It was a big Roosevelt. It was huge. Six by seven. Do you feel like, um, elk after listening to you guys talk, I kind of had this little epiphany. Like, like the elk would expect you to act like they're acting, you know, like if, if an elk's like, hey, I'm coming down there and you're just in one spot calling and that's not doing what he's doing or what elk would normally do. Like what he's experienced already in his life, like when he's like experiences a bull, they does a locator call and he comes in, but he's got cows or whatever and he's coming down. Now he's expecting you to reciprocate the action unless he feels like I've already won this encounter and I can't see anything so I'm just going to move on back. Well, this was like 800 yards of moving, but just in general. Yeah, I just, yeah. Like if you're, if you're having a tussle, you're having a call off, Durk and you got it. You got to melt coming in. If they're just going to come in, I'm a firm believer and let no do what they're doing as long as you do what you want them to. But if they're, if they get hung up and all that stuff and there's something you didn't do, is that a sign of just just in generally being too timid and not acting more like an elk? Because you're kicking rocks and sticks and branches and stuff and that's all stuff elk do and they run it up there, you know, if they're not watching their feet. They're not quiet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think elk hanging up on elk. I mean, if you, if you spend any time around elk and bolts messing with each other, it goes, a lot of times they don't just come in on a, a B line, you know, a bowl will sometimes, you know, go, they'll get pretty close and then they'll kind of sit there and they'll rub antlers for a while and you know, work and work their selves up and, and it's almost like one of them draws a line in the sand. It's like, well, if you cross that line, I'm going to get you. So sometimes you just have to cross that line on the sand, you know, you have to get in their, you know, in their zone or their red spot, whatever you call it. But sometimes you just have to cross over that threshold where they, they, they're okay with it. And that's, that's the part of being aggressive there at the end. They're, they're locked up. Sometimes once you break that barrier, then they're like, okay, well, this is going to happen. They didn't, I've had it where I've moved up five yards and then bam, they pop out. I've had a, because they hear me coming. They're like, well, I want to see him now. I hear him. I want to see him. I'm going to see this sucker. And then they just pop out. And it's not always like, you know, a frontal shot. A lot of times, they're going to want to kind of make yourselves look big, right? So they're going to kind of present theirself at a, at a, at a side, you know, broadside view. So it's not always a frontal type presentation. Seemed like front, like a frontal type presentation, it may be as a bullet committed and he just, he just walking right, you know, walk right over you. It seems like that that's the kind that you, you have a frontal presentation, whereas a lot of times when we're doing this more aggressive scenario where I move up on them, whenever I do see him, it's either a broadside or he's turned to leave and I see his realm, right? Yeah. And if I, and if they're turning to leave and they're walking away, if he's not looking at stopped and looking over his shoulder, I'm moving. If I see that he's moving away, I picked up my pace and I charge right after him to screen the big viewable. He's stuck in the butt. Oh, shit, he's coming. Right. And it's almost like Simon says, right? So if he's moving away, I'm moving. If he stops and turns, I'm just like, I'll stop mid-stride. Like, you got to be ready for it. And I typically don't have an aeronaut at this time. Sometimes I do, but most of the time I try not to because I'm clumsy and I don't want to shisk about myself. Yeah, I'd be terrible. But I'll move up. I've done this several times and it may take four, you know, as they're moving away, it may take four times you charge an after him to where he finally turns around and he's like, okay, what's up? It turns around and comes back in and then you get a shot. But if not, but if not, I mean, if you spook him off, at least you played the game, right? If you just kind of do the wallflower thing and sit back and just don't really do anything, that bowl's probably going to think you're a coward anyway and not play with you tomorrow. That's just been my experience. At what point in your process, you decide like, I'm knocking up now. This is my time to knock up. When does that fly go off? I think it's going to happen, right? It's like, oh, so I find set up. As soon as I say, I've been calling into a bowl and he's coming. As soon as I stop and set up, I knock up. Or if I charge up, I charge up. As soon as my feet stop, I pull out my arrow and knock up then. As soon as I have a narrow knock, then I range. I don't do any range finding until I got my arrow on the string because your aim goes no good to range find if you don't have an arrow on the string. Right. That's true for sure. I had a... A lot of times if I'm running this game, this play, then you're not going to need your range finder anyway because a lot of times it's pretty close quarter, pretty thick stuff because they would have seen you if it's very open. It's going to be like a top pin situation anyway if they do turn around and come in. What pin am I using? The only one that matters. I'm using one pin, right? We had a... We had a mounted Adam's Wilderness area years ago. And so me and my buddy, we hiked on this big old cliff. I mean, it was not a cliff, but it was really steep hill basically. It was almost like a cliff. And we got down the bottom, we were going to hit this road and then hike this long road out to this lower road in the National Forest area and then hike the road back up to where we had parked. And it was probably like a five mile loop. And we got halfway down this deep hill. We started seeing all this elk sign. So he says, well, let's cow call from here. And we just kind of just sitting there. We were looking for a bugle. And he cow called three or four times and all of a sudden the stick snap and this elk was walking in on us at like 25 feet. A bull elk. I mean, and none of us are knocked up. So I just... You know, I was like, I'm not even going to look at him. I see him the first time I started knocking up. That sucker bugging. I had a shot that I missed because I couldn't get fully drawn. I thought I was drawn and I was probably three quarters of the way. And it did a weird thing because I had one of those rest that lifts up when you draw back the rest of the lifts. It was like the old trophy taker, first one. This is a long time ago. And so my arrow went like way low because it wasn't even on the rest fully extended. But after that point, I was like, you know what? If we're going to call, I'm going to have an arrow knock because that sucker came in 100% silent and he walked right into us. But this was much thicker area. You know, I mean, you could only see 20 feet because that's where he popped out. It was not a conducive area to getting... We call that guy the master of the five yard shot and that's what you had to be. You got to be ready for a five yarder and that was super thick. So yeah. But I typically don't knock an arrow either. If I'm walking around or doing something, I'm not having an arrow knock or anything like that. And that's, I feel like I'm going to shoot from this position for your surroundings. And in what you're doing, don't get too excited. Start running around with knocked arrows on your string because anything can happen. I mean, you could... Right. God forbid the worst happens on something that's supposed to be fun. You're supposed to be enjoying your time. And it does happen. One time is too many times and it's 100% preventable. So yeah, I appreciate hearing you say that. Because all you see is you guys out there hunting and these elk running around and you know, you could only think what's going on. But I'm not assuming the worst, but it's good to hear you guys are doing everything, you know, 100% safe. Awesome. Yeah, I try as much. Sometimes I'll catch myself back to move up just a little bit, you know, I'll stay knocked out. But man, if I have to go very far, typically I will put my arrow away because yeah, like I say, I'm clumsy and I fall down a lot. And you're not the only one. It hasn't burnt me really too many times. I've always figured I can knock up and get ready and draw my bow back pretty quickly. So it hasn't really bit me. But to your point of like you were saying in that area that that bull came in so super fast and quiet, I've had that happen myself standing on a logging road and, you know, I shell tracks, I'm like, oh, I think we'll call here. You make a couple calls and all you hear is hoofbeats coming and you're like, oh, crap. It's too late. They're on you. Yeah. So I have kind of made it made some slight adjustments to those kind of scenarios. If I see a bunch of smoking hot tracks and I think they could be close, I won't stand right. Metal dog in the road or right in the trail. I'll take a couple steps somewhere and put a big tree behind me or a big bush behind me and just anticipate, okay, where's an elk going to come from? Yeah, I think I might knock an arrow here just in case. And you'll know within, you know, just a short amount of time, if you need to put your arrow away or if you need to draw it back and shoot. But those kind of things are pretty uncommon. But those are definitely rookie mistakes to get caught with your bands down on the road like that. And I'm embarrassed to say I've definitely done that for the months over the years. So sometimes I have to stop myself like, Hey, wait, dummy, you've done this before. I go, go, don't stand in the middle of this whole logging router. Don't stand right in the wide open of this meadow. Go get somewhere where you can shoot before you call. Yeah, at one point, I thought, you know, I should probably write a book on elk hunting on the what not to do. Because I had screwed up so many things. Like every time, I mean, yeah, it was frustrating. You know, that was in my earlier years before I'd even kill the first elk, I was just, you know, all the experience I had was just terrible. But it was all like one step in the right direction, you know, not didn't do that again, not going to do that again. And then eventually it came together, you know, it's like all these bad things led into one time where I put it all together just right, you know, and from that point on, it was more like, okay, now I know I had to have all those hard, hard lessons. Yeah. And everything put together and be, you know, I got the stack of DVDs right here. You know, those those DVDs I studied them, you know, just watching people hunt elk, all those different, you know, primos and heighten outdoors, you know, all these different guys hunting things. And they had, they had this one episode or video where they were on this hunting ranch. Like a, it's like a Colorado, it wasn't a ranch, but it was a Colorado elk hunt, you know, just an open place. And every time they would draw their bow, the elk's head would be behind a tree. But every time the elk would stop, it's when its head came out from behind the tree and its body was covered by the tree. And I was like, I was like, okay, what is your, what is your fix to this? Because I, I have, I concluded after watching this happen like 50 times and on a bunch of different videos that people think I should draw one they can't see me, but their heads behind the tree, but they hear something or something, something alerts them to that draw unless they're just completely oblivious to it. But all the videos I watched, they were something alerted them to the draw. And when they took that next step, it put their kills on right behind that tree. Yeah. What is your solution that like, drawing, they're just going towards behind the tree. I mean, you're, you're kind of like, you know, the catch 22, if they see you, you know, maybe they'll stop in their tracks right away. Maybe they'll run right away, you know, but if they, so, so yeah, I'm watching body languages are coming in. So if they look on high alert, right, if they're like on high alert, they take a couple steps and they're looking at a couple steps and looking at their head held high and they're looking and smelling got their ears face forward. I'm going to be super careful when my draw my bow. I don't want to draw it too soon. But if they're coming in, head down, you know, and they seem to be just on a mission, then I'll be like, okay, I'll wait. But typically I will typically wait to the last possible place where I should draw my bow. I will draw it at the last spot. So if I can seem coming, you know, he may walk for quite a while from the first place I could draw my bow. I may let him walk it quite a bit further before I ever draw my bow because I don't want to have to hold my bow full draw for a long time, which I've had to do that. And I've had drawn too soon and then had to let down or I've drawn too soon. And then I think the longest I held my bow for like a minute and 30 seconds or two minutes or something. I want to the board and raise videos. I did that Wyoming. Oh, yeah, that was on one of the land of the freeze. I think it was. Was it the first one or was it the two point? Season one. Season one. Season one. Yeah. Now, bowl was raking and was kind of moving in and out behind the bush. And I was just waiting for the perfect shot. But I drew my bow. I then drew it and then popped out. And a cord towards me and kind of turned around and this and that. And finally held it as long as I could. And then he finally kind of turned away and I got him. Yeah, I watch a lot of, I can assume a ton of YouTube videos and I'm always watching and I'm watching people on and I'm like, no, don't don't don't join the bow yet. Oh, they drew their bow. They draw way too soon or they draw or they draw way too late. Right. So you can't wait till you're out of places to draw your bow. It's like you got to have you have to have their head behind something, dry your bow. And if they're not acting like they're super alert, then you can draw your bow a little sooner. But sometimes I will hedge my bets on not drawing my bow until I feel like he's kind of relaxed enough to where he's like, well, I think I'll come out and I won't spooking way. But there's a lot of things too you got to consider. So the bowl goes behind a tree and you draw your bow. I got I got nailed on this one. My body and my bow was behind the behind the tree was covered by the tree, but my backpack wasn't when I grew my my body moved and he seen the movement from my backpack that was exposed and buggered off. So the one thing you can see is right behind you. Damn. Yeah, this one you thought you knew at all that backpack got you. He's got me good. So, so there's that. And then I feel like I feel like a lot of people draw their bow way too fast and they've way too much movement. So yeah, maintain control. You study. Yeah, if I think at all there's a possibility that a bolt is going to see me, I'm going to draw that thing so slow, just like just creep that thing back. That's pretty difficult, but you just have to get a practice to throw on your bow like that when you're getting all your shooting in the backyard. If you practice drawing your bow super slow, then you develop, you know, your muscles get better at it and you become more disciplined to do it. And then it seems natural when you're in that, you know, high pressure situation. But I watched I watched this video. This is from the folder off home tour from 2000 shoot 1213 maybe. This guy named Russ Meyer, he's from the Boise area here. What a heck of a hunter man. That guy's killed more big game with a bow than Jeez Louise, man. He's a great hunter. Anyway, this bull is coming into him. He's kind of sitting down. It's really steep. He's kind of sitting down and he's completely exposed, but he draws his bow so slowly like a sloth. He draws it so slow. No movement at all. He just like molasses pulled it back and that bull's like five yards or less. He lacks it. It was like one of the coolest moments and it was just I want to be Russ Meyer. Yeah, that is cool. I'm a problem. I think of that. I'm like, okay, you know, draw it as slow as you can. But there's times, you know, when you got to rip that sucker back quick to it, like in the Utah film, I think it back pretty quick right before that bull popped up. But he was on a mission. I could tell he kind of hung up inside the timber a little bit and then he started coming again. I'm like, oh, yeah, he's going to expose himself. So as soon as he's head went behind that tree or after back and and luckily to get a shot. Yeah, me all excited. And I want to watch that video. Dude. Yeah. I didn't know it came out. Dude, I've been sick all last week, you know, I haven't really been anything. Let's take a quick commercial break for our sponsor, Phillips game calls and then we come back. We're going to talk about more fun. All right. Hey, everybody, if you were looking for a game call that is elk, turkey, deer, predator calls, waterfowl calls, we highly recommend philbsgamecalls.com. Professional grade game calls made for every hunter. All right. Welcome back. We're talking with Durham from Phelps game calls. And we were just talking about John, our bow with control, full control or not at all. You could have to yard it or just creep it. I mean, the discernment is going to be in the moment, I guess. And yeah, it's interesting to see all the different things you have to consider. But in this whole dialogue we were having about hunting videos and stuff, I had this little thought in my head, you know, there was a TV show. We just filled the ones on there. What was it called? It was, uh, who wants to be a millionaire, right? I don't know. He's like, here's a question for you. XYZ, pick your choice, ABC and D and you can ask an audience and all this other stuff. Well, it would be super funny if they had compiled a bunch of YouTube videos and it was just like, here's what happens. And then you, you show the video going up to it and then you have Jason sitting in a chair and then there's like, does he a ling, ling, ling, ling, just see how much. See how much money he can win. It'd be like a funny little, uh, you know, and obviously there's one that's. The right answer. Yeah, you know, the one's the right answer. But why do you think that Jason, you know, like, what do you see coming into this thing? This, this, this elk or even you, you know, you could be in the chair and this elk's coming in. Oh no, he drew way too early and you know, you didn't see him creep that thing back. She off asked you, I knew it was going to spin away right away and just to see like, just by watching and repetition and how you're, how you're, uh, custom hunting these animals, like how and tune you are with what other people are doing. You know, just just to hear and see that. I think that'd be a really funny segment. That would be fun. That would be super fun. Yeah. But I mean, you guys are running around looking like Hulk Hogan and I think I posted that thing like six times on my Instagram, like these guys are funny. Yeah, you got to have fun, man. Sometimes it's just, sometimes it can be boring, you know, you're out there hiking around and you're just like, gosh, can we see something? Or can, you know, we see all the deal and I don't know about you guys, but well, they almost got it done looking like Randy Savage and hook Hogan. Yeah. I'm not kidding. They had some stuff going on on bright colors too. Like it was insane. What was that? Was that one on one of the land of the frees as well? Um, yeah. So, so yeah, that was, that was one of the land of the frees that was land of three, three maybe. Um, that was 2019. Yeah. Dude, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. I saw, I saw, you bring me back. I remember, you know, so many things that's happened in the last couple of years. Um, you know, all the negative COVID impact stuff. That was just like a blip. So it all just kind of runs together. Well, there was time, there was time during that blip looking back. You're like, oh, that was fast during the time when you're at home. I mean, did you guys, I mean, were you in a state where they were heading, locked down where you couldn't like leave your house? Um, you were in my own full time, right? I was in Idaho the whole time. And yeah, well, yeah, when it first came out, you know, for watching the news and my wife and I are sitting there looking, I was like, is this how it all going to end? Like, you know, this is the very beginning of COVID and that nobody knew anything. And they're like, oh my God, this is terrible. And we're like, what the heck? And then as time went by, you know, of course, um, different information came out. But, um, you know, where we were at, we're, small town North Idaho and we, they didn't really shut a lot of things down. You know, that they kept restaurants and, and things in business, you know, keep, kept things open, but, you know, um, and we didn't really wear masks at all. But when we moved, we moved to Boise, kind of right in the middle of that whole thing. And down down here, it was a different story. You know, a lot of things weren't open. Um, yeah, the water mask everywhere you went. And, um, it's just completely different. But yeah, it was nice to get through, to get through all that because everybody was, you know, people need to be together. Yeah, for sure. That's, that's hibernating in your homes. No good. Well, you know, we had a totally different thing in Washington than Idaho. And it was, it was very weird because I remember the last day, like I bought my truck the very last day before they shut down COVID for COVID. And I was like, you know what, I remember 9 11. I did some serious, like some silly stuff, post 9 11 out of reaction to, um, terrorism, right? Like everybody had the speculation on terrorism. They're like, Oh, they got secret weapons. No one knows about. And we're talking about these guys like they were the world's number one superpower, you know, though everybody's freaking out and all these terrorist things. The airways are shut down. So I was 18 years old and I was like, Oh my gosh, get there talking about gas is going to be $5 a gallon. I'm like paying $6 for diesel. Like gas can be $5 a gallon. Oh my God. This guy is falling. It was like $1 20 or $1 30. And I was like, Oh man, I need to get rid of my truck. You know, I can't afford this $5 gas. You know, so this time on COVID, um, I was like, you know what, I've done some other things in life that have made me look back and go, I regret that. So I went ahead and bought my truck the very last day they shut down. Well, now, I mean, they called me a year later, wanting to buy it for 15,000 more than I bought it for after, you know, they had no more vehicles because the shutdowns and stuff. Right. I was like, Holy smokes, called my wife and I was like, babe, should I sell the truck? And she's like, no way. We're going to get another one. We need this truck. I was like, yeah, true that. I don't need to sell the truck. So, um, but there was a two or three week period where every day when you wake up and you're at home, they shut down construction here and everything. Yeah. I was in my house. I was like, what are we going to do today? You know, like, what is going on? Um, you know, it was pretty wild just to just to be locked in like that where that blip seemed like a long time. Now looking back, it's like, dude, that was so fast. Almost like every hunt this season, you know, you get there on day one, you're like, this is going to be the greatest for us two weeks for you, like three months. For us, we're just going out there for two weeks and, um, you look forward, you have all these high expectations and, um, next thing you know, you're breaking down camp and it's just like a somber sad, like, dude, that went way too quick. Well, COVID lasted way too long. I'm done talking about that crap. Yeah. Yeah. I would. My segue was to maximize the time you have, you know, yeah, definitely. And when you're in the woods and you're, um, you get there on day one and you feel like this is just going to be the longest trip ever. It's going to be the best time. If you're fully prepared for it and you go out there, do the most you can do, you know, don't leave anything on the table. And I've had years that I had where I'm like, I'm not going to move forward. You know, I thought I had something in the bag and it didn't work out, you know, or I didn't, I could have gone another mile and I didn't, you know, I told you about on the bike trip with Chris when he's like, I'm not going in another pedal. And I went up the like three, four hundred yards and there was a whole herd of elk in front of me. And he's next thing you know, he's hauling ass up that hill on that bike. You know, he was also had energy to do it, you know, but that, those are the moments I look back at. I'm like, man, you, you let these things go by and next thing you know, you're, oh, it's over. You have all this, your hunting season's over. So, um, I try to maximize that and yeah, using good calls, what learning technique. Yeah, well a guy gets false sense of security on day one and two and three, like you're like, man, I got plenty of time. I don't have to hit it quite as hard. I got, I got eight days more. I got seven more days, you know, singing or going crap, I only got two days. And then pretty soon, pretty soon it's Friday. Yeah. You're like, oh man, and I wish it, wish it had been a little more energetic or a little more, you know, spend a little more effort hunting, you know, on day one and two. I think that's a, like a definitely a trap that I could fall into. So, like anytime I start thinking of that, like on one day one or two, I was like, man, I got so much time left immediately correct, self correct. Be like, we don't have any time. We have to hunt today, like we're going to hunt the last day because the days click lie and before you know it, it's time to go home. Yep. Yep. We always try to like, we usually have like two man groups and we spread out as far as we can go and, you know, calculate all, you know, all the data that we got from the day pretty much when we get back to camp only because you can scout as much as you want. Those are going to do whatever they want. They're not going to be in the same spot all the time. So where you were scouting during the summer, they might not be there even the very next next day. So we always just like, all right, we spotted, you know, this, this herd of elk or, you know, there's nothing over here, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, those first couple of days are pretty crucial for how we hunt. And yeah, if you're not putting in the effort, you know, we're not going to have any elk anywhere. I mean, we're, we're hunting sticker bush thickets. Yeah, we're like miles. Well, Jason's from our side, you know, and he knows he's hunting this thick stuff and there's, you know, there's, I mean, there's a couple of people that have said it the best, I think, and some people will never come back and hunt here. I mean, there, there's some pretty famous people that have said, like, I'm never going back to hunt Western Washington again. And it's, it is that type of space and it's not like everybody thinks it is, you know, it, I mean, when we, when we say like jungle, I mean, you understand, I went to Idaho, hunted unit four, Idaho last year. Oh, yeah. Shit, Dirk. I told myself, I was like, I'm not coming back here. Some of those slopes are like 4,500 and 6,000 feet on one side, you know, and we were, we were hiking over there. This is a rifle tag. I mean, my buddy and I was like, dude, how, how do you hunt here? Because it's all just like you're hunting one hillside, one slope, one day. And it's that, and it's huge valleys and huge hilltops. And so I was like, this is not what I'm used to. I'm used to everything being like four or five, 600 feet tall, you know, nothing real massive and then really thick. So you had time to work through the terrain and you couldn't see two, three hundred yards, you know, over there, you can see up to the top, you're like, geez, there's really nothing on the hill. Then you walk around the corner. Let's just keep going. Let's keep going. You walk on a corner, there's like this little huckleberry bush or something and out pops some white tail, you know, you're like, oh shit. I don't know if there's going to be deer around here, you know. And yeah, that's pretty much it. It's just different. And you know, I learned a good lesson over there. And you know, I could have been more energetic on that hunt for sure. Sounds like a perfect bear spot to me. It's tricky in Idaho. It's not like you think on like everybody says, you know, there's bears all the right ho. There are, but it ain't like you just can walk around and see them all the way. Oh, yeah. I didn't see a single bear when we were there. And then there was some sign, but there was a lot of moose sign, a lot of deer sign, a lot of elk sign, but it was old, you know. And I'm not sure how old it was, but there was a ton of it. I mean, massive amount. Yeah. But that's kind of how it is. You know, you got to take advantage of that terrain. You got to just put forth the effort and go for it. Yeah. That's funny. I know it's weird because there'll be hillsides that you could set and watch for all season and never seen a living creature on them. That's how I felt. It's like there's like, there's like in the draws, there's some water and there's lots of feed over here. And then there's big timber and like, oh man, I could post up here and sit for a day and probably see some animals. And you want to see a frickin squirrel hardly. Yeah. And there, you know, the areas have a lot of bears. You'd think, oh yeah, I should build it. See a bear in the springtime milling around. Some of that stuff, you just don't see the bears. But a lot of that brush is so tall. You couldn't see one anyway, because you know, it's waste high or something and those bears got to slip around through it where you wouldn't see them. But yeah, it's crazy country in North Idaho, man. Every time I ever go to North Idaho, I would say, I'm never coming back. And some stupid reason I talk to myself back in New York. Because you have the courage. You're like, I got to wherewithal to get this done and this land, this god forsaken hills over here. Right next to the, yeah. So how many, how many days do you guys spend out hunting in various states? What's your, what's your season look like? I left home on the 28th of August, I think, and I only slept in my bed three times in September. I was gone and then in October, I was home for a while. But wait, I take that back because I had to come home early this year, September. So last like September 21, I slept three nights, but I had to come home early because my wife had to take the cybus unexpectedly. So I had to cut my Idaho archery, I'll cut short so I came home before season was over to take care of her. But then I left again on the 13th of October, and I was gone for a few days there and then I was gone again for another week was end of October with Jason on his on his Washington state, Elkhant. And then I left again in November to go for 10 days go deer hunting in Kansas. And then I got home and then I was able to go deer hunting for four or five days here in Idaho before the season closed up north. So but yeah, I get a lot of time to hunt. It's pretty nice. But you know, you still like, it sounds like, Oh man, I was like, Oh man, I was like, Oh, I thought I could go hunting that much. I mean, it's awesome. But in the same token, I mean, I don't want to complain, but I mean, you're gone away from home a lot. And you the days can can wear you down, right? Yeah. If you're in an area where you're not having a lot of success, let's say you're just a grind, you know, the bulls aren't talking right or whatever weather's bad or it can grind you down. So you really got to kind of, you know, stick with it. But it's, it's awesome. I'm pretty lucky to have that. What is so going through the grind and we've all had these leg cramps or leg pains and what is one trick that you guys have used? Maybe it's not a trick. Maybe it's, you know, just a secret that you guys are using in camp, something that you utilize that makes you be able to keep going. Because it sounds like, you know, as many days as you're hunting, you're probably in pretty good boat shape, you know, and for the average gel, right? Your legs are cramped up. Your day six in the hunt, you've gone hard. What's something you could do? That would kind of like give your legs new life. So one thing I've kind of noticed like back when I was just a straight water guy, then I had issues with cramping. I had issues with the TV quite a bit. Just like, man, I'm just out of gas. I can't go, you know, halfway through the day is just like, I just got nothing. I just, I have the desire, but my legs don't work. Then I started drinking, you know, supplemental stuff, you know, whether you're drinking the mountain ops or you're drinking, well, in this athlete or whatever, brand X kind of supplements. So every day of September, every day I go hunting, I start off with 32 ounces. I don't drink any coffee. I'm a big coffee guy, but I help camp. I don't. I start out with 32 ounces of water and I put so I've been drinking. I've been doing the wilderness athlete. So I'll build a Superman. So you get hydrate and recover and then energy and focus. So like 32 ounces of that. And then on top of it, I'll throw a liquid IV packet inside there too. So I used a ton of stuff and I gulped that down first thing in the morning because it seems like no matter how much water you drink the day before, you always get kind of dehydrated. So I tried to like hydrate first thing in the morning. A lot of times I said, I won't even eat any breakfast. This year I didn't eat any breakfast. I just hydrated. And then I would eat something mid morning and then a lunch or whatever. But man, once I start, especially at this combination here, I don't get too sore. I don't feel too bad. I don't eat a bunch of crap though, especially this year because I have a bad ankle. I actually have been gimping around on since mid December because I had surgery on it. So I can't even walk on it right now. Oh wow. So this September, I tried not to eat any goodies. Typically September, I'm going to burn all these calories, be snicker bars and fruit roll ups. But the last couple of years I've kind of quit doing that, especially this year. So no beer in camp, no goodies, none of that stuff. And that really cuts down on my inflammation. My ankle felt a lot better, but still I still have problems. But it felt better this year than it did the year before. Nice. No, I think drinking alcohol in camp, I mean, I'm not a insecure alcohol. I mean, I like a beer or whatever just as much as the next guy. But man in help camp, it just dehydrates. And I think anytime you're trying to gain better physical fitness or better cardio or any of that stuff, then I think alcohol will rob you from whatever you're doing. So I felt like I always feel better if I don't drink in camp. And then, you know, get good sleep. You know, it seems like September of the days are long and the nights are short. But yeah, I try to sleep on a, I don't backpack not very good because I don't sleep or the crap on the ground. I've got a really good pad. I got it. I got all this stuff, but I still don't sleep very good on the ground. So if I, I would hike an extra hour or two in the morning just to sleep on a nice cot with a good big, fishy pad just to make sure I have good rest every night. Super important. But yeah. And then just yeah, stay away from the junk food. Eat lots of high protein, high calorie stuff, you know, whether you're nuts and jerky and dried fruit and stuff like that during the day and then eat like a freeze dried meal at night and drink a bunch of water and do it again in the morning. That's how you lose 30 pounds in a week right there. It'll do it. It's like every, every oak season comes around me. I lose a bunch of weight that first week. It's like, oh, just drops off. You're like, these pants are freaking getting worn out. They're like loose now. You're supposed to be good. You know, exactly. How about you, Dave? Oh, I drop a lot of weight and I eat good. I do the, I do the DERC program and I eat pretty good and try to stay as hydrated as possible, but I always end up dropping a couple pounds and I'm already kind of small. Yeah. You're like, I don't have pounds to drop. I need to be on this extra. Yep. Awesome. That's, that's brutal for skinny guys, man. They, they drop off pretty quick. I, I, I seem to, I seem to have a lot of a few extra pounds that lose compared to a lot of skinny guys and I've hunted with skinny guys before and after 10 days in Wyoming, they look like they're ready to die and I'm like, yeah, I'm still pretty good. I got a, I got a little bit of left here. Yeah. Don't let, don't let them confuse you. They might look fit, but they're dying inside. They just don't want to say nothing. That's me. Like being on survivor. I'm like, we just got to make to the X and dying on the way out after shoes are missing. Well, Dirk, before we let you go, I have just a couple more questions pretty fast. Number one, what is the 2023 hunt that you are like dying to get after? Um, man, I feel like this year is, is I don't have a plan. I don't have any kind of a plan of where I'm going to go or anything. So, um, I do, I do plan on trying somewhere new where I've never hunted an idol here. So I'm going to spend a ton of time scouting this summer. So I really look forward to that. Don't know where that might be, but I'm going to, I've got two or three places I've got, um, units that I've kind of picked and I'm going to do my due diligence. Hopefully my ankles feeling good enough to actually put some deuce on the ground and use my equipment stuff, set some trail cams. But, uh, yeah, it, you just not never know. Um, I wasn't going to put in for Wyoming, but I think I'm just going to buy a point again. Wyoming, they're pulling some weird stuff with their, with their, their tags and, and I feel like this year, there's probably going to be a lot of people try to dump their tags in Wyoming, um, because I see next year they're going to jack the price way up. That's what I've been hearing as well. It, Wyoming is going to be very hard to hunt. And then Colorado might also be doing something funky where, um, the over the counter tags are pretty much going to go buy by. Yeah. It's the rumor right now, but the rumor mill is strong. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's, there's, there's some propositions in Colorado for sure. So I'm going to, I'm going to apply for Montana, I'd like to go to Montana and, uh, hunt again, but we'll, we'll kind of just see how everything kind of plays out and what, what tags present their selves, opportunities present their selves. But, um, half of me wants to go back up to the, the stupid, brushy, thick, nasty, no, no elk, north Idaho. Um, I don't, I don't think I will, but, um, who knows. Yeah. It's like, you know, it just has this magnetism to it. You know, it's a, I don't know. I have a spot like that to where it's, it's the challenge of the area, right? You're, you know what's going to happen. Like in your head, you're like, I know what's going to happen if I go back here. Uh, yeah, find my back and myself back in the same spot over and over because I know that I've had good times there. And I'm like, I'm going to go back, you know, to old trustee and, um, he keeps letting me down. And at some point in time, we're going to have a forever breakup. And I'm like, you know, I'm not going here anymore. Um, you know, that's kind of how I am with Mount Adams. You know, I have, uh, I love hunting down there and that, that is some beautiful country. You know, it's, it's pretty as anywhere. And it's Western Washington. But it has like an east side feel. It's weird side trees, man. It's almost like it's a crazy difference in the foliage and the terrain. So I, that's why I enjoy going there. I've never gone there and not seen bucks in shot deer. And I've always seen bears and, um, I think three out of the five times I hunted there, three out of the five seasons, we either were on elk, field elk. There was only the first year that was really bad. We didn't get on anything, but they had a bad, a bad kill, you know, bad winter. So we were finding like balls of elk for no bones, nothing like they just bedded down and disintegrated into the ground. And there was a little mice tracks. Have you ever found a spot like that, Dirk, where there's just balls of fur laid up in like 20 of them? Um, no, no, I've always found some bones with it. But I have found just like a big bunch of fur on the mill and no, no bones at all. But it's like like the fur off of one elk right there. I don't know if like a bear or wolves drag the rest of the carcass off where I couldn't find it, but it was weird. Here in this spot, they had in this particular season, there was a bad snow. It was like three or four feet and 24 hours. And they had, oh, wow, everything got sucked in. They had snowmog, guys in jeeps were lost. They had one guy lost for like three days, four days. Yeah, I remember that. The snowmogular, like they're ready to call it off because they couldn't see anything. They had helicopters and everything. But this once snowmogular was like, no, I'm just going to go one more mile. And he went down one more mile, found the truck, but it was covered completely in snow. And the guy just like said, he saw this crack and he was like, that's weird. And the people were in there and he saved them to call rescue and everything. But so it was the year after that and we were, we were hiking in. We found one ball of fur and it almost looked like a toupee. I mean, it was laid down just like a toupee. And then we walked like another 10 feet and there's another ball. And there's all these little lines in the ground, like someone had drug sticks like a kid would drag a stick on a dirt road, that type of line. But it was in the pine needles, like there was no pine needles in these grooves. It was just dirt. And so I was like, what the heck is going on here? It's weird. It's like a very movie. And ultimately there was about 20 of these balls of hair laid up like toupees. No bones, but what it was was the rodents underneath the snow eating the bones. It just totally just took the animals away. Only thing left was hair. And that was a spooky thing I'd ever seen. I was like, oh, let's get the hell out of here. That was bad, bad news right there. So that's where it might have been Bigfoot. Could have been Bigfoot. You just zapped about life right out of them or something, right? Yeah. That was super sketchy. So yeah. What else, Dave? What's the last question? The last question I have for you, Dirk, in 2023, is there a new call that everybody needs to be looking out for? Absolutely. Absolutely. I can't tell you too much. But yeah, we usually do our new call launches around June, July. Perfect time for you. We'll have another. Yeah, right. Right when everybody's getting ready to gear up to go hunt. So you'll see a new call come out then. And I promise you, you're not going to be disappointed. It's going to be really cool. You got to call it the one time where you're just blowing it once and that's it. They come right in. The one time. The one time. Awesome. Well, Dirk, I appreciate you coming on the show, speaking with us, taking time out of your day. I know it's late. It's almost 10 o'clock your time or nine o'clock your time. He's an hour ahead of us. Yeah, it's almost nine. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure and a great time. Can't wait to do it again. Yeah, definitely. We'd love to have you back on the show. So thank you for actually being the first sponsor to our podcast. That was huge for us and we just thank you for everything that you and Phelps have done. And yeah, hopefully we can keep it going and keep growing together and... I like that going. I was drinking half first thing in the morning, Elle Cuntan. You're like, yes, we're doing something, right? We're just... Now we're 37 episodes in. This is number 37. Yeah. You know, so it's going by and now we're, you know, we'll get the media going on cameras and sounds like Dirk knows how to edit this stuff, so we got to edit her. Yeah, perfect. Yes, send it over. Just send it over. I'll put it in your drop box. Perfect, perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks again. Yep. Yep, I'll play your guys anytime. Awesome. Have a good night. Yep, you too. Bye. Bye. . .

EP.37 THE BUGLER Dirk Durham