Episode 9: Bagging the bull: DIY archery hunt with over-the-counter elk tags

When this pair of blue-collar Michigan hunters hits the road for their first archery elk hunt, their destination is a unit in mountainous northern Idaho. Their plan? Pick up over-the-counter tags and see what happens.

After 33 hours of driving, countless attempts to perfect their elk calling, and an awkward urinal conversation, these first-timers are traversing peaks and gullies on their do-it-yourself hunt. Swarms of angry bees, a handy fanny pack, and an 800 lb. monster bull await them on this wild adventure.

In this episode of The Slayer Hunting Podcast, Tagged Outdoors Media's Art'om Rank and Mitchell Langer talk with Slayer Calls' Bill Ayer and Tommy Sessions about waterfowling, fishing and their group's mission to "Hunt as One."

Follow the team at Tagged Outdoors:

- Tagged Outdoors Instagram and Art'om's taxidermied bull

- Tagged Outdoors YouTube

- Tagged Outdoors Facebook

Get ready to bag your own elk with these articles:

- Archery elk hunt: 7 tips for a first-timer

- 4 hot weather elk hunting tips

- Elk hunting tips for beginners: The do's and don'ts

- You've located a bull. Now what?

- Tips for choosing your first elk call

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What last-minute decisions made all the difference in your big hunt? Leave a comment or drop a line to podcast@SlayerCalls.com to tell us all about it. 

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Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel to feed your obsession between episodes.

If you’d like to support Slayer Calls, 10% of each purchase goes to organizations that protect the environment and wildlife, support conservation efforts and preserve America’s hunting heritage. Grab a gift card for the hunters in your life to celebrate everything from birthdays to holidays to the start of elk season. 

#Hunting #HuntingLife #ElkCalling #ElkBull #ElkHunting #BigGame #ElkCalls #DuckHunting #DuckCalls #Fishing #IdahoHunting #MichiganFishing #Podcast #SlayTheDay #SlayEm #HuntingPodcast

Transcript

Tommy Sessions:

Everybody I'm Tommy Sessions with Slayer Calls, we have on Bill Ayer. Bill.

Bill Ayer:

Hey guys, how's it going?

Tommy Sessions:

We have with us today two guests from Tagged Outdoors, Art'om he's out of Michigan. And then Mitchell, you have to excuse me, but you are the owner is that correct of Tagged Outdoors.

Mitchell Langer:

So I am co-owner with Cody Henson out of Iowa as well.

Tommy Sessions:

Cool. All right. Give me a little bit of background on Tagged Outdoors.

Mitchell Langer:

So we're a team made of all former baseball players. We all met in college ball or professional ball. Well, I played two years of pro ball. Met Art'om in California when he got traded to our team. The guy walked in holey jeans, boots, and an American flag shirt with a bald eagle on it, and I knew he was going to be a good buddy from there on. Got the long locks and everything, but we essentially just started a thing. They all met Cody and Art'om go hunt together all the time now. And we just currently brought on one of our old teammates from Indian Hills Community College in Southern Iowa. We brought him onto our team and he's a big whitetail guy. And we just have a passion for the outdoors and for hunting. We all played ball and it just kind of worked. We all clicked together and we're just rolling, seeing where this is going.

Bill Ayer:

And Mitchell, what state do you live in?

Mitchell Langer:

I am now in Alabama.

Bill Ayer:

Gotcha. Okay.

Art'om Rank:

That was part of the thing that was really cool about our Tagged Outdoors is for whatever group that we have as a main part of it, we're all geographically different. Nobody's really in the same state, we've got guys in Iowa, we've got guys in Alabama, we've got guys in Michigan. Many of us have had Western experiences as well, so we can factor all that in. And it makes it fun for the storytelling aspect. And when we first had met, that was really the big part of it is we were just super stoked to hear each other and talk about experiences and strategize and get into it. We're like, "Maybe it's worth showing some other people this stuff." And we formulated that into the page and started out with social media stuff. And then now we're even getting into a lot more of the filming aspect.

Bill Ayer:

And now you got the Slayer team in Idaho, you could put that state on your checklist.

Art'om Rank:

Oh, that's right. We're going to get together and make something happen. There's no doubt.

Bill Ayer:

There you go.

Tommy Sessions:

Is Tagged Outdoors what is your guys' not vision necessarily, but what do you guys do? What's your theme? What's your niche? What do you guys set out to do?

Mitchell Langer:

I think the biggest thing for us is we just want to bring a blue collar style to our hunting experience. The work's going to be put in. We're not going to be out there with high dollar stuff, chasing the biggest hunts and the best hunts and everything. We work with what we have. We go where we can. And we just want to show that we're going to put the effort in to harvest an animal regardless of what we have. And I think the big thing in our group, and we have something that's kind of in the mix right now that we're working on is we want to start it sounds cliche, but like a movement I guess you can call it, it's called Hunt As One.

Mitchell Langer:

And the thought process behind it is just nowadays there's so much bashing, and so much hate towards folks that don't have certain rifles or certain bows or the $1,000 equipment, whatever, there's a stigma nowadays with that. And we want to show new hunters and youth hunters that are getting into it, that you don't need the best stuff in order to do it. You just need the hard work. So I think that's something that we're going to bring to the table is people can come to us with questions and concerns about anything in the hunting world, and we're going to provide feedback to them and be positive with them. We're a very positive group.

Mitchell Langer:

We're a close group. We're really a tight family. And I think we have a lot of good that we can provide, and we're just waiting until the day that people will buy in and trust us. We're very excited that we're working with you guys now with Slayer Calls, we love your product so far. But that's our vision is just to help who we can when we can and bring more youth and more female hunters and just continue to grow in a positive manner.

Tommy Sessions:

I think that'll go a long ways. One big thing that I see all the time is people fear if you will the unknown, or the fear of not having enough or being insufficient out in the field. And don't realize that it doesn't take the very best $5,000 rifle or a $2000 bow or whatever, to go out and harvest an animal and be successful. It could be something that they go and buy second hand and how that goes and we'll follow along and help you guys out as we can too. Art'om you're a busy guy.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I definitely stay busy, so I apologize for having to take the podcast in the truck. But between the heat outside, I needed to find somewhere with AC and a decent connection, so this is the best I could make happen.

Tommy Sessions:

Perfect. And you're fishing, well, you're in between fishing. You're in Michigan, on lake Michigan.

Art'om Rank:

Yep. Yep. I'm right on Lake Michigan, the Southwestern side. The port I'm fishing out of today is actually Holland, Michigan. I also fish out Saugatuck in South Haven, which are the next two ports south of here. I've grown up on the lake fishing my whole life after I had decided that I was done with baseball. One of the main charter captains here, he is one of the better fishermen on this side of the state. If not the whole state, he came to me and he goes, "Hey man, I've fished with you." And I had made it for him a little bit as well. And he goes, "If you're willing to get your captain's license and you think that you can handle this job, I'll pay for half your captain's course fees." And I was like, "Well, why not? We'll give it a go."

Art'om Rank:

Then I got my captain's license. I've got a 100-ton Masters with towing, it's more than what I need for charter fishing up here. But we go out twice a day, every day, seven days a week from the end of March to about realistically it's about mid-September, because the offshore winds really start getting gnarly then. And the only other days that we don't go is if there's lightning, because otherwise we're just a lightning rod out there in 200 foot of water and that's not a place you want to be. Or if it just gets too rough, four foot is pretty gnarly for a lot of people that haven't been out here before.

Art'om Rank:

So we want them to have a good experience. We don't want them to be thrown up on the side for a five hour trip, because generally they're two five hours or two seven hours. And if you get out there and you get sick right in the beginning, that's it. You're not going to enjoy the rest of the trip because you're going to throw up. You're going to sleep. You're going to throw up again. And you're not even going to want to reel in a king salmon or a lake trout, and that's just not fun for anybody.

Bill Ayer:

I could to attest to that. I've done some fishing out in the ocean on the west coast and I've only been seasick once, but the one time I was it was not fun.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. We have more than a handful every year, there's a bunch stories, especially amongst other charter captains, as we communicate. We'll send a quick text or whatever, if it goes throughout there and be like, "Dude, this guy just didn't play the wind and he vomited off to the side and it got in my eye." We had one where there was a kid and he just straight looked at the first mate and the mate asked him he's like, "Hey, are you going to throw up? Because if so, you got to get to the side." And he just looked at him just all down the front of you, man. So the rest of the trip that's all he had. We make fun of each other for it, but at the same point, we don't want to do it in front of them. We don't want to make them feel bad because we understand that it's a part of it.

Tommy Sessions:

Sounds like the fishing community's about like the hunting community, you give each other crap for always having problems, as long as everybody's safe and then it turns into a big joke and you laugh about it, and the camaraderie is there. That's awesome.

Art'om Rank:

Oh absolutely. Like I said, it's a riot, I really enjoy doing it. It's pretty demanding. I leave my house about 4:00, 4:30 every morning. By the time I get home it's generally about 10:30, maybe 11:00 at night. Fall asleep usually by about 11:30, it doesn't take much when you're running like that and then back up at 4:00 we go.

Tommy Sessions:

Perfect. Sounds like hunting season for you pretty much year round, so no sleep and I'll go.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I'd like to know more a little bit from you Bill too as to you're the founder of Slayer, correct?

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Founder of Slayer. We started this thing, oh gosh, it's probably been like five years ago. I've been building duck and goose calls for probably 10 years or so. I would say 10, but the years keep growing on me so it's probably more like 12. About four or five years ago we were like, "You know what, let's start selling these things." Everybody was raving and ranting about them, so started selling them. And then about two years ago, me and some investors we decided to get serious about it and so that's where you see slayer headed today.

Art'om Rank:

I can see why the call that you guys sent me it's awesome, man. I'm super pumped to use it this fall. I do a little bit of waterfowl guiding as well up here once our fishing season ends. I had some other calls and they sound good, but they seem to take a bunch of air even single reed, double reed. I don't mind that necessarily if it becomes a 35 mile an hour wind and it's just coming down in the snow or whatever, because you're going to need that anyway. On a nice bluebird day, I like to be able to kind of back it down a little bit, especially five, 10 mile hour breeze. So I'm not making it sound like I'm king duck of the marsh and me and the other 26 parties that are out there can hear it. I'm not calling for everyone.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah.

Art'om Rank:

So I like it it's smooth, man, it doesn't take anything to blow.

Bill Ayer:

No it doesn't and most people will grab it at first and over blow it. We do have a call, an open board call that takes a lot more air. Because some people just they have big lungs they can't back it off, so depending on the style we have it.... I go to that Drake Slayer call. I don't get tired of blowing it all day. I think it's good soft and ducky sounding. You could still get on it if you need to.

Art'om Rank:

Oh, for sure. Especially, for those stubborn mallards that want to circle 16 times.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Well, I want to hear about this bull you killed. I saw that mount on the side of the barn and I was like, "Holy cow." And we'd already been talking and I saw that. I was like, "Well, we need to get him on a podcast and figure out where did you get this bull? How did it go down? Did you kill it with a rifle, a bow?" I'm really interested in hearing about that.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Absolutely. You guys want me to just dive into it. I'll get going.

Tommy Sessions:

Let's chat about, like you said, you're from Michigan. We're in Idaho. You told us it's 33 hours give or take away. So let's start it the inception, I guess. What brought up Idaho? There's Colorado in between us. There's Wyoming next to us.

Art'om Rank:

Well, I guess the easiest way to put it and you guys will come to learn this as well is I am a different character of a person. I'm not a follower. I don't like to go where everybody else likes to go. I may look up units and success rates and anything in that regard. I'm not the guy that's going to go to the highest success rate unit. I may look at something that's in the middle or even on the lower end, because I see that as there's not going to be as many people in that unit. And it doesn't necessarily always pan out, but through my mindset towards it although there's not as many people, I'm going to have a better opportunity that if I get on for this instance on and elk, somebody else isn't going to be calling back and forth with me on it.

Art'om Rank:

And then I look into the idea of, "Well, why is it that that unit's such a low success or that there's not as many tags being sold?" Because Idaho was also an over the counter state and that was the big thing is I was looking for. I didn't really want to put in for draws. I didn't want to wait. I'm a guy that once I get it in my head, I want to go and I'm going to try to do everything I can to make it happen. So when I look into that, I'm like, "Okay, well what is that reason that there's not a lot of people there?" And you look at the terrain in Northern Idaho, Coeur d'Alene you see exactly why a lot of people get turned off it right away. They don't want to be going up and down the mountains nonstop for a week to try to stay with the herds, try to stay with a single bull or whatever it may be.

Art'om Rank:

Or maybe they even fear the idea of packing it out, that's a game in itself. So originally, years and years I'd always wanted to hunt or at least hunter elk. I think it started with my dad. He got me into hunting my whole life from the time I was three years old, I was sitting on the platform in this tree stand. That was well before some of the safety things they have out there now such is the harnesses, he just tied a rope to my belt, if I fell I'd hang there while he shot a buck. But we got into that when I was I think I was eight or 10 years old. And he went out to Colorado, Ellicott and I was just ticked that I couldn't go with him, but I gave him and I still have this thing today.

Art'om Rank:

You'll probably see pictures of it. I gave him this little fish, it's a little toy fish and I told him that it was good luck. And he went out there and they didn't have anything, they couldn't find any bulls, they couldn't get on any herds. Everybody said that there wasn't anything around. And he was with his buddies and he pulled out that stupid fish and set it on a log. And then all of a sudden a bugle fired up behind him and they shot like this it was a four by five bull or whatever.

Art'om Rank:

And when he told me that my fish was lucky, I carried that up until the year that I shot that bull. And I finally said, "I'm going to do it, but you did it with a gun, so I'm going to do it with a bow." And kind of like that one step up. I fell in love with bow hunting when I was nine years old and my dad got me into it. And I have nothing against gun hunting. I think it's still a riot. But to be able to see and feel like the challenge of hunting and elk or hunting any big game with a bow and arrow, to me that's just the cat's ass.

Tommy Sessions:

Yep. That's that's funny that you said, well, for one it's got to be a baseball thing because I was a baseball player too. It's the lucky fish buddy of mine and I that I hunted with. It's you find like a bottle cap and you gave that bottle cap to your buddy and he's the shooter for the day and then if you got whatever. So that's awesome I love the tokens and then that you gave it to your dad. Do you still carry that?

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I do. I got a special pocket in my fanny pack, which when I get further in this story, just keep in mind that fanny pack is the number one thing that I hunt with.

Tommy Sessions:

Perfect. Okay. All right. So you've decided now you we're going to Idaho. What's the terrain like in Michigan?

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Primarily flat.

Tommy Sessions:

Flat, obviously people know Idaho we're not flat.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Yeah. My training consisted of I'm on the lake, so there's a lot of sand dunes, fairly large sand dunes, I guess as far as sand dunes are concerned. Still nothing in comparison to mountains in Idaho, but that was where a lot of the training began for it. To be honest, I didn't really do a whole lot of training before I went out. I was a little stubborn and egotistical about it and I was like, "I'm in good shape. I can walk up some mountains. It's not that big of a deal." I was proven wrong quite quickly. The first day I was winded beyond belief, and I considered myself as a guy. I did more right definitely wish there would've been a little bit more training into it, especially as we got further down the road and hunted multiple days.

Tommy Sessions:

What's your elevation in Michigan?

Art'om Rank:

I couldn't tell you. I really don't know, but I doubt anywhere that I'm at we're even anywhere near a 1,000 foot above sea level.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. And you're probably up where you're hunting anywhere from five to 8,000 feet give or take.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I'd say at least.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. Nobody really thinks about that until they're hiking up that mountain and then they finally realize that 2000 feet elevation difference or more is a huge, huge deal.

Bill Ayer:

I just looked it up Holland, Michigan, 663 feet.

Art'om Rank:

Yep. That's about right. I was going to say it was like four or 500 at best, but I went with a 1,000 to be safe.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. That's a difference even 1500 feet. So if you're listening to this, wanting to take a little nugget out of there and you're going to go hunt something, that's a big deal. They make a lot of training stuff for elevation. Not that I necessarily buy into all of it, and you don't have to be the crazy person out there looking like Bane from Batman and have an elevation mask on. But take that into account your 10 miles in Michigan is probably going to be two miles or three miles in Idaho or Colorado or Montana or whatever when you get up high.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. The main training that I actually ended up doing, and it actually was extremely helpful and it's going to sound wild. Because it was more about being exhausted for the shot itself rather than getting the opportunity to the shot. Because I just felt like to me that was the most vital point of the hunt. If I got an opportunity, I didn't want to be taking a shot that I thought was going to be unethical, especially with my bow. Or just be too drained to a point that I couldn't really hold my mark. So it would consist of these honestly kind of dumb self training obstacle courses, where it would be eight to 10 laps around the house while carrying your bow as fast as you can. Whatever neighbors were watching or anybody that was down the road probably thought I was nuts, man.

Art'om Rank:

I'm literally running through the front yard 10 times super fast with a bow in my hand, circling this house. And at some point I'm sure there was like arrows that were falling out of my quiver that I was trying to pick back up or whatever it was. And then I'd quickly get to the like front of the yard and then I'd be like, "All right, well, maybe I'll get a quick range and I'll just tap it." And I'd be, "Well, that didn't work, but I think it's 60." And I'd swing one out at 60 and it hit and I'd be like, "Okay, well, I was consistent." Obviously, I didn't start at 60. I started at like 15 yards because I knew when, I first did that wasn't going to happen. But it was just stuff like that, run through the house and go up and down the stairs, and then jump out do a couple laps and take a shot off your knee.

Art'om Rank:

Or some awkward angle where I'd have a step stool and after I'd get done running around aimlessly around the house, which mind you, this happened for weeks. So people would've had me on a timer, they would've had a hell of a show. But for the step stool up there and have some kind of lean with your shot, just because I knew that the light terrain wasn't going to be flat.

Tommy Sessions:

That's pretty ingenious. People don't do that. They go out to the range, they stand on the line, they shoot 20, 30, 40 50 and say, "Cool. We're good to go. Let's go out and hunt."

Art'om Rank:

It's tough to do in the summer. You see a lot of guys that they don't want to go out and sweat and do it in the heat and I get that. But if you're not really prepping yourself now. You're not... If you can't do it when it's 70 degrees, what makes you think you're going to be fine and able to do it when it's 35.

Tommy Sessions:

Sure. So you're all prepared. Got your license, everything. You're set. You're going to hunt Idaho, so you're September range, give or take, you decided the unit you're headed. You're headed head in Idaho what have you got going on?

Art'om Rank:

So I actually couldn't get my printer to work, so I didn't have a tag. And I was like, "Well I hope they got them when I get there." Like I said it was the over the counter thing. Originally, I planned on going solely by myself. I was all set up to go and do a solo mission. It was my first elk hunt. I couldn't really get anybody else that wanted to come with me. And it was like two or three days before the trip and I threw it up on my Snapchat. I was like, "So I'm still going out west to elk hunt if anybody wants to join." And one dude I'm pretty sure he just broke up with his girlfriend or something and was just looking for something to do. He replies back and he's like, "Dude, are you serious? You want to have somebody?"

Art'om Rank:

I'm like, "Dude, that'd be sweet. Here's the expense list. This is what it's going to cost. We're going to split the gas every other tank. I got a trailer, everything's loaded down, be at my house at this time. If you haven't done any training, which I'm sure you haven't, here's a map of the terrain. If you still want to do it, just be here three o'clock in the morning," on whatever day we left. And I'll be damned if he wasn't there at 2:30 and neither one of us had a tag, we had everything else ready to go and we just started driving and it was pretty cool. I actually didn't really know this guy super well. It was our first year friendship together. We became real close friends as we were learning to elk call for 33 hours, some simple minded YouTube videos and this and that.

Art'om Rank:

And I was like, "Okay, that doesn't sound too bad." Didn't start that way. But I'm like, "That doesn't sound too bad." And then we get out there and I had bought multiple different diaphragms and different types of bugle tubes, because I didn't know what worked and what didn't. And there wasn't really a whole lot of guys I could go to with questions around here. I took what I could for my dad and then kind of built on that, it made some kind of high pitch sound.

Art'om Rank:

And I was like, "I guess that sounds all right." We're en route, man, we're pumped. We're ready to go. We're listening to podcasts. We're trying to learn these calls and YouTube videos. I don't think we slept a whole lot on the way out there. We did the drive straight through. There was a few gas stations, we definitely floated into on fumes, especially in the North Dakota area, which I kept a gas tank. I used to do a lot of duck hunting in North Dakota and I told my buddy I'm like, "Whenever we stop make sure that this five gallons is filled up because it still may not get us to the next gas station, but it'll get us five gallons closer to the next gas station that we're not pushing."

Bill Ayer:

I used to hunt Idaho as a kid and we made long trips from California, it wasn't like yours, but it was 15 hours. So it brings me back to the times when we're like, "Oh, we'll stop at Jackpot and sleep." It was always straight through, it's like you're so fired up to get there, you're just like, "Nah, screw sleep. We'll just get there."

Art'om Rank:

It's like the hurry to be in no destination. You're so excited to get nowhere, but also get somewhere at the same time. There's just all these expectations off that immediate feeling of being there. God, it was so cool because we were driving and talking and learning all this stuff and also growing our friendship, which is being maintained probably because of this trip. Originally, I had actually called out to the CEOs out there and talked to them, and gave me a little bit of guidance as to where to go and maybe a better idea of why to be there. And I told them where I was coming from and where I had planned on going. And there was always like a bear silence of, "Well, have you prepared for that?"

Art'om Rank:

And I'm like, "Nah, not really. But I think we'll be all right." Then they clearly would try to steer me in a different direction. And in my mind I'm sitting there thinking like, "Oh, so you're just trying to pull me away from some of those big elk, save them for yourself." No, they were actually really super helpful, really good dudes. I tried to link up with one of them and buy them dinner because he guided me in such a good direction. And we didn't actually hunt where he had recommended, and all that happened solely because of a truck stop in Montana. When we were five hours from where we were going to be in Idaho. We pulled over, we had a full take of gas. I had to piss a race horse and I just couldn't hold it anymore and I told him the same thing.

Art'om Rank:

I was like, "Man, don't care if you got to go to the bathroom. We don't have time. We got to get there." Our plan was to be there at least to scout one day before the opener. And I'm like, "We're going to get up there. I want to get to like at least partway up this mountain before dark so we can set up a camp." None of that panned out. We ended up getting lost in the first portion of the day at the bottom of the mountain before we even got going. Set up camp thinking that we were somewhere deep in the woods, we were right off the road, so that was pretty neat. We got to Montana and pulled in this truck stop. And it was a very odd exchange, but I took it as a sign. Kind of with the whole superstition we were talking about with baseball and this event that happens that shouldn't make sense at all.

Art'om Rank:

And I'm just in the bathroom taking a piss and this other guy walks right up next to me. You know how it always is. There's that one guy where there's like 10 urinals and he's got to be at the one right next to you. And he comes right next to me because I'm wearing camo and just strikes up a conversation. And I'm like, "If we could maybe wait till we're washing hands or something," whatever the case. He just gets going and he is like, "Oh, you guys scouting for mule deer. We just got done looking around here, not really seeing much. What are you guys seeing?" I'm like, "No, no, no mule deer this year. We're going over here to I Idaho and going to try for some elk and doing that for the first time." He's like, "Oh really? No way, man. Where you going? Who are you going with? Is it an outfitter? You guys by yourself?"

Art'om Rank:

We're like, "No, we're just going to go over the counter and try it out ourselves and do it that way. I like the challenge of it." And he's like, "Oh, well, follow me. Follow me." We got done in the bathroom followed this super anxious and excited individual out to his truck. And he pulls out this massive map and he's like, "Well, I shot my first bull here and they just had a big burn over here, so you might want to check that out. And then this front side hill doesn't look like there's a road, there's actually a really nice road that goes in there." Honestly, we got done talking to this guy for after an hour, we sat in the truck. My buddy and I looked at each other, we're just cracking up because we couldn't believe this guy was just all about it.

Art'om Rank:

And I sat there and thinking for a second, I'm like, "Dude, that's got to be a sign. We're changing our plans. We're going to drive an extra three hours north and we're going to go right where he told us to go." Because there's no way that something like that happens and you don't use it to your advantage. But that was probably one of the funniest parts of the route getting out there, so suddenly it got changed.

Bill Ayer:

Did you change units or did you stay in the same unit?

Art'om Rank:

No, it was just at the top of the unit that we were already in. And like I said to this point, we still hadn't gotten our tags because it was the over the counter deal. And we pulled in, we got our tags in a Walmart with another dude named Brandon that was super helpful. And he sat there and tried to keep us at the counter, talking to us and telling us everything that he knows of the whole area for what felt like two, three hours. And finally, when we got away from Brandon, we got on our way. And like I said, we set up camp in the bottom mountain and planned on scouting up the whole next day until where we decided we were going to set our camp. We got out there, man, it was just gorgeous country. I couldn't believe it.

Art'om Rank:

That alone just seeing everything we did the first day between moose running out in the road and we could hear bugles, but we couldn't see them so we knew we timed it decently. And we had bear running clear across on another little ridge top and stuff. A guy from Michigan, it's something different and being able to take that all in. I was like, "Honestly, dude, at this point, I don't really care if we get one. This is just too cool." And just being able to take it all in. Like I said, that was worth its weight and gold alone. Our plan when we got out there we were like any legal bull, first time out that's what we wanted to do. We were putting our boots on the ground and getting our scouting in.

Art'om Rank:

And again, we ran into another two guys that were kind of making fun of us for how we were hunting and what we were doing. It is what it is. I don't really take that stuff too close to heart, so ended up becoming buddies with them as well. And they actually helped us improve on our calling tremendously actually. So they showed us a bunch of stuff and hung out at our camp and they were... There was a guy named Josh and his brother and they fought the wildfires out there. So they knew where all the burns were and maybe some of the areas that they had seen some out prior. And they're like, "We'll tell you exactly where they are because we don't think you're going to get one." And I was like, "All right. Well, I'll take that challenge. Why not?"

Art'om Rank:

And of course everywhere they told us was like the deepest, darkest hole in Idaho with the steepest ridge down and shale rock that has no footing whatsoever. But by God we set it, opening morning came and we tried to take an easy way out, for sure. We found a big wallow where there's a ton of tracks and we're like, "All right, let's just set this for the morning and see what happens. We're out here for a week. Let's just see what this first morning does." And we sat there and the only thing we saw was another hunter. That was the only thing that walked through the wall. So we're like, "All right, well this whitetailed method of hunting, probably isn't going to work." And changed the game plan from there on out. And like I said, boots on the ground was the biggest thing.

Art'om Rank:

I don't remember how many miles we covered a day, but it was a lot. And I think the biggest thing everybody out there was making fun of me for was the fact that I wouldn't wear a frame pack. I had the mindset of whitetail hunting, where if I shoot one I can just come back to pack it out. I'll go back up to camp and grab my frame pack and then I'll come back and pack it out. So I ran around all the Idaho wilderness with nothing but a fanny pack and one bottle of water.

Tommy Sessions:

That can be a little tough.

Art'om Rank:

Like I said, I think the excitement took away for the fact where it almost made me like forget to eat or forget to drink. And you could tell by the end of the day because we were just beat down, but it worked. I had my fish, I had my water, I had some scent wafers, range finder and that was pretty much it. I don't know how much else was in there. Maybe a granola bar at best and a little wind detector for the thermals or wind coming up and down in the mornings. And we were on bulls every morning. It was cool. We just couldn't close the deal. I think after opening morning we got on three bulls the next morning and I want to say about the same amount in the afternoon. And within 15 yards in all that under story, would get them in these logging trails on these tickets and just couldn't get a shot opportunity in the open. Wasn't really willing to take a shot I wasn't comfortable with and my buddy was the same way.

Art'om Rank:

And finally it became the third day of hunting and we found this rub line and I was like, "Screw it dude. We're getting close, but it's not close enough. We're going to go back to a Midwestern style of hunting here." And we found this rub line cleared down to the bottom up again the deepest, darkest crevice. And right at the very bottom, we're a 100 yards from the base of this little gully and this bull lit up. Now it's like, "Okay, from everything we've learned so far, that's a pretty nice bull." And we got on him and we stayed with him, I think for probably four or five miles and the thermals kept being wrong. So we couldn't advance or we had to pull back out and we could get him fired up, but we couldn't get him away from his cows.

Art'om Rank:

And he had like 10 or 12 cows with him. We had a one satellite bull that was coming down the hill and we're like, "Well, we can't loop around this little gully here, because we're going to get caught up by him with our scent." It was just like this cat and mouse game for the entire day. And finally there was this little opportunity where one of the big pines that was falling across this gully, when I looked at my buddy and I was like, "All right, dude, you just run around this backside and get up. So if that satellite bull comes down, when I bugle after I like Dukes of Hazzard down this tree that you're ready to shoot him. And my plan is I'm just going to fly across the street that goes across this gully, get back up on this high point and maybe catch it before they cross."

Art'om Rank:

So he went sprinting that way. I went dart across his gully and we came back up to the top and all I could see was the ass of a cow 15 yards away. And I was like, "Oh man, that's it, that's our herd. I just got a feeling." And there's this little sapling right in front of me and I looked. And next thing directly across from us, just cow crossing, cow crossing, cow and I'm like, "All right, he's got to be at the back." So I quick put a range, said 60 yards. At this point I'm ridiculously out of breath, but I'm super amped up, so everything's telling me to black out. But I'm trying to fight it just so I can remember everything that's happening. And right underneath one of the big pine limbs, I just see a rack.

Art'om Rank:

we were pumped with any legal bull, so this thing comes out, this steps out and I'm like, "All right. Stop looking at the rack. Stop looking at the rack. We got to just focus on the shot because otherwise I'm going to butcher this. I know it." And I'm at full draw and he gets cutting right in front of me and he stops for like a quarter of a second and that was all it took. And I let her fly and I heard a big smack and he curled around the corner and then everything went silent. We're cow calling, trying to make everything feel fine and dandy. And I just stopped in the middle of it. My buddy's come 100 yards behind me. I'm like, "Dude, we did it, man. We fucking did it. You got to get over here.

Art'om Rank:

I'm so pumped. I might have hit a tree, but I'm pretty sure I smoked him because that was really loud." Immediately start second guessing yourself. I know I watched the shot go perfect. And he gets over there he's like, "Did you really? Did you really dude?" Honestly at this point I'm blacked out. I'm like, "I think so. I think we got him." He's like, "Is it a big one?" I was like, "Does it matter? It's a bull. It's legal." And we went down, it took us 40 minutes to get down this gully and back up to where we had shot and it was only 60 yards. All we find is like the three fletchings of an arrow and then the rest was broke off. So I'm looking around and I'm like, "I don't really see any blood."

Art'om Rank:

It wasn't a pass through. We were just at the top of the mountain, the highest peak riding the high and we can't find blood, now we're sunk right back down to the bottom. We're sad. To be honest I looked over at my buddy and he was kind of being a dick. I don't know if he was being funny or not, but he's like looking in the trees, he's like, "You sure you just didn't hit one of these?" I'm like, "No, I didn't hit a tree. I know I smoked this thing." And we get looking and finally find a spec of blood. I'm like, "All right, dude, just stay here. We're going to just mark it and follow it, trail it out." 20 yards, there's another spec. 20 yards, there's another spec and then just a big drop off.

Art'om Rank:

So I look off, I was like, "Just stand here. I'm just going to peek over there and see if I can see something down there." And as soon as I peeked over, I saw just this massive bull laying there or to us, what was massive. He comes running over, I threw my bow in the air. We were like two kids in a snow fight, man. We were bear hugging, rolling down the rest of this mountain. We're getting scratched up by the shale and it don't even matter. We get down to the bottom. I go to try to pick up the head of this thing. Can barely do it. We're leaning into it.

Art'om Rank:

High fiving, just super amped up. Couldn't couldn't believe that we actually did that. We had no idea where we were at and how bad this pack was going to be. None of that mattered at that time, we were just so pumped that somehow two dudes from Michigan that have never done any of this and only dreamed about it through YouTube videos or outdoor channel videos. Got what we would consider a world class bull to us with a bow in Northern Idaho mountains we've never been in. Everything had to light up perfectly. Couldn't believe it, man, we were just pumped.

Tommy Sessions:

Well, that bull it's not any slouch. I've shot some pretty decent bulls and to come in to Idaho for a week and shoot a quality bull like that that's a pretty world class bull. Have you gotten it scored?

Art'om Rank:

I actually got it scored by an official scorer in Michigan and they put it at like 321, but then again it's a Michigan score. So I don't know the truth to that, because we don't really get elks with that size and not many of them.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. It's every bit of that I would say. And again, I got to imagine that scoring bone is scoring bone, you're taking the same dimensions and that. But a 321 is no slouch, that's a great bull. I'd shoot that thing any day of the season from opening to end.

Bill Ayer:

Especially over the counter, never been to Idaho before, never been elk hunting, that's an awesome bull.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm still trying to like wrap my mind around this because Idaho we have over the counter tags. But as a non-resident you only have a certain amount of tags, like 10% of Idaho's tags go to non-residents. So what year was this, was this last year or when was this exactly?

Art'om Rank:

So the amount actually took me I think three years or four years to go back, because everything about this has a story and it's wild. But essentially my tax service had a ton of health issues and he just couldn't get it done for, I think it was at least three years now.

Tommy Sessions:

Okay. So it was 2018, is that the season you hunted?

Art'om Rank:

I believe so.

Tommy Sessions:

Okay. So when you hunted Idaho 2018, you may have still been able to get an over counter tag as a nonresident. But then we started having a huge influx of not just people coming from out of state to hunt Idaho. But we actually have so many people that have moved to Idaho that don't have the residency yet that actually get tags. So our out state tags sell out within a matter of... it used to be a week, and then now it's up to a half a day they'll sell out. And then just yesterday tags that get returned, which is not very many there's maybe a 100 total or something like that for elk that they go and sell again, and those sold out a matter of 30 minutes. You're pretty fortunate then, because now if you would've hopped onto the highway and drove 33 hours, you would've come to the conclusion now that you wouldn't have been hunting elk in Idaho without a tag in hand already. That makes your story even a little more wild when you think about that now.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah, that part was crazy too. We noticed that because we were talking about coming back the next year and maybe doing it again. And immediately like we paid more attention to it, but like the year... it was either '17 or '18, I believe it was '18. But the CEO told us like, "They probably won't sell out in that first week, you could still pick up a tag." And we're like, "All right. We'll just get it there." Because realistically, we wanted to make sure we could make it there before we got one. And now I see, I think it was eight hours because I was thinking of trying to go back and I was online for eight hours waiting for a tag. And then it got to be my turn and they're like, "Yep. We're all sold out."

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. So it's a little bit different now, but that's super awesome.

Bill Ayer:

The part of this story that I'm really curious about, you have a fanny pack on, now you have an 800 pound animal on the ground. I'm not sure how far in you are. How did that all work out?

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. So like we had our knives in our fanny bag, everything we were going to use to do that. It was a tarp, it wasn't very big, but it was enough to kind of just jam in there with a perfect fold that you had to try a 100 times to get. And we left, so we had to out there, we had it down and we got looking on a map where we had to go and we were like... I think it was three and a half miles or something from the nearest road, the old logging road or switch back that they had. And we're like, "Well, that's realistically our best bet. We know we can get there." And follow that all the way up to the top to where the truck was.

Art'om Rank:

So we're like, "All right. I guess what we'll do it was cool out I suppose, so that part was nice. It was 40 some degrees or high 40s, low 50s." I'm like, "I really don't want to wait. But also I think the best thing for us to do is just leave this here and run up and grab all that stuff because that was originally the plan." So I got thinking about it and I was like, "Before we go, dude, I don't really want some wolves or bear or anything to get into this thing because we're kind of-" There was a lot of bear signs in the area that we were at, and I just didn't want any kind of issue because we don't want the meat to spoil. We were really looking forward to all that.

Art'om Rank:

And now that we had what was a really nice bull, we didn't want any of the hide or the face or any of that getting ruined. So I was like, "You don't have to because it's my bull, but I'm going to take my boots and I'm going to take my socks off and we're going to hang the sweaty socks from his antlers to try to mimic a human scent around." Thinking that maybe that'll help a little bit. And my base layer undershirt was covered in sweat because of all the excitement. So we hung that across his antlers like a flag and just pinned on our... At the time I used HuntWise as an app, so I pinned on that. I had just enough service on my phone and I was like, "All right, dude, let's go." And we sprinted three and a half miles up the hill, about killed my buddy, for sure. I didn't want to leave him. But if we were in a foot race against a bear, I'd be here and he wouldn't, there's no doubt.

Art'om Rank:

We got back up there, got to the truck, stuck with the plan. Had ridiculous blisters on my feet from not wearing socks and nothing but sweaty boots. But, like I said, none of that really mattered because we were pumped. For us our hunt was successful, so anything that stemmed out of that, it didn't matter. I probably could have lost a limb and I would've been all right with it. We flew back to camp, grabbed our frame packs. Tried to call the guys that we met out there, and they said that they would help us out to pack one if we ever got it. And couldn't get ahold of them, tried their satellite phones and stuff and they were somewhere hunting without service, couldn't get ahold of them. So we're like, "Screw it. We'll just do it ourself." And we came back parked at the top off that road, where we had sprinted up to. And went back down and I brought ratchet straps to help us flip this thing over, that was my ingenious idea.

Art'om Rank:

I was like, "Man, if we could like prop this thing up on the hill, after we quarter up one side, we can just like hook into the other side and help us flip it. And then we can quarter up the other half." And it actually worked, but I think it ended up being a lot more work than it needed to be. But I was stubborn about it. I brought them for the reason, I wanted to use it and make sure that my idea worked. And it does, I just would not recommend it for anybody. But we got down there, we quartered up the back hams and front shoulders and realized how much meat that was, put it in the gam bags and put it in our frame packs. And we were like, "All right. We'll throw that in. There's still some space in the bag. So let's see how much more meat we can add in here, try to minimize your trips."

Art'om Rank:

And quickly found out that doesn't work at all, because we went to stand up with our frame pack and mine was also my dad's, who may as well have been my great, great grandfather's as old as it was. Because as soon as I put that much weight on it, one of the straps snapped.

Bill Ayer:

Oh no.

Art'om Rank:

And it became a over the shoulder sideways frame pack more of a European satchel bag that you can't take with hardly any weight in. And so had to take it back down, got rid of some of the meat. We had a rope, so we hung what we had in the game bags. And then slowly went back and forth and it ended up taking us 14 hours to get this thing out between the two of us of nonstop coming up and down.

Art'om Rank:

At one point we looked down the map and we're like, "All right. Well, if we go all the way to the bottom of this drainage, there's what looks like a river system, so let's just walk down that and we can leave it at the bottom. And then all we got to do is there's a road down there, so all we got to do is walk back up to the truck one more time instead of like 11 more times and we can just drive down." Well, this "river system" was not any water whatsoever, it was a bunch of deadfall covered in bear scat, a massive amount of undergrowth. And the deadfall of where one step you gain six foot and then your next step you drop down 10. So it was the most inconvenient thing to walk through, let alone pack an elk through.

Art'om Rank:

And we did that once and then looped all the way back around this road, which is probably why it ended up taking us 14 hours because that was like a two and a half hour mistake. And the whole time we're walking up the road to go back to the truck with this last set of pack. There was one car that went by and he just stopped and he looked at us and he laughed and just kept going. Honestly, it was dark, I don't blame him. We probably looked like two meth heads walking up the road. Our shirts are scratched up from the briars at this point, we're just covered and sweat. There's blood on us obviously from carrying the meat out. In that same instance one of those deadfall trees, I forgot to mention, that was probably the worst part about the entire hunt was the fact that when we stepped on one of them the logs was rotted and there was a Hornets nest inside it.

Art'om Rank:

And with all that meat we couldn't get away from it, so we just like laid down and let them terrorize us, thinking that they would go for the meat a sweat bee and they didn't. And then we got up and had to run away from them and just dropped the meat, drop the frame packs and run away at some point too. And I think we each got stung 30 or 40 times, through the process of this and wearing holy jeans and they're getting inside and tearing up your legs and the worst spots too.

Art'om Rank:

Inside your thigh or on your kneecap places that you don't even think to be stung. But by the end of it, we got it all out. We got it back up to camp. And I looked at my buddy and I was like, "Man, what time do you want to get after going for your bull tomorrow?" And he looks at me and he just goes, "Dude, fuck that. We got enough meat. We're splitting it. Let's go home."

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. That's another extremely under thought about idea of packing an animal, the size of a horse on your back from God knows how far away from a truck and how many drainages, how much elevation, how many logs you have to go over or deadfall depends on the area you hunt. My first elk hunt, I got a little bull down, and I told my buddy to put a meat bag and a rear on because I was in some pretty good shape at that time. And he was like, "Are you sure?" And I said, "Absolutely." Luckily it was only about 500 yards from the nearest skinner. And that was probably one of the worst decisions in my hunting, it was like I'll never do that again. But if I'd had to go three and a half miles there would've been no way. You definitely don't think about that until that... I don't know an average pack is what about 80 pounds give or take with your equipment maybe, maybe more, maybe a little less. You don't think about that until you start ripping up a mountain going, "Oh, what did I just do to myself?"

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. We're trying to be strong with it too. So we're like, "Oh, we can put 200 pounds and take this in one trip." And you can, if that trip's like 15 steps away.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. Well, and adrenaline's huge because you're still riding that high. You just gutted it. You got it quartered. You're happy. And then that adrenaline wears off pretty quick, when you get that weight on your back, start feeling the pain in your legs and the lack of oxygen and everything else that's going on.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. And then you're doing it in the dark too and little headlamps and stuff. And you hear all the wolves around you. Well, I ain't used to hearing wolves, so there's an eerie feeling in itself.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. I'd rather hike in the dark anyways. I'd rather go up the mountain in the dark because I don't know where I'm going. I just got to put one step in front of the other. So you're back to the truck with your bull 14 hours later, give or take, but that's not the end of this. We all know that we don't just go out to kill an animal, to kill an animal. We'll leave it on the side of the mountain to say, "Cool. Look at all this bone I've got. I got this 321 rack. And now it's going to go on my wall with this Euro mount or shoulder or whatever." That's not why hunt. I've got elk from two years ago in my freezer that feeds my family.

Tommy Sessions:

Ultimately, that's why I hope most people hunt is because of that. And then the added benefits are the physical conditioning, the adrenaline rush, the site seeing, just the being out with friends and that. You got to get this meat off the mountain, somewhere to wherever you're going to process it, 33 hours back home ultimately. What did you guys plan? Did it go as planned? From your story so far, it could be shit show who knows.

Art'om Rank:

It wasn't necessarily a shit show, but obviously it didn't go as planned. Nothing about this trip really did. And I think that's part of what made it like so memorable and so much fun. At the bottom of this mountain we had run into this little general store, which also began by obsession with huckleberry flavored anything. Absolutely love it. If you guys have some, please send me some. I miss it. That's probably the biggest thing that I miss from out there.

Tommy Sessions:

Huckleberries are the best thing about hunting September elk in Idaho.

Art'om Rank:

We had our obsession there at this general store because what we had planned on is we saw they had showers for five bucks. We're like, "Oh, okay, well, maybe in a couple days or whatever, we'll come down when the outdoor shower is out. We'll refuel and shower down there." But it was our first trip down, so we're like, "All right. We'll just go in there." And they said that they would help us age the bull. So we got down there and we had all our meat and we're like, "Hey, we want to pick up some dry ice. And if you guys are cool with aging this that'd be nice to know." And they said, "Well, we haven't really seen a bowl this old right here. It's at least nine and a half years old. It's only got one molar in it. It's probably on its decline."

Art'om Rank:

And I'm like, "Oh, all right, sweet." That makes me feel awesome that I shot like this... I basically beat this animal at it's game and he's had this much education through the years, definitely, gave me another high. And then they're like, "But we don't have dry ice." And I was like, "Okay, do you know anywhere I can get it?" And they're like, "No, no, we don't really have that anymore." So I looked at my buddy and we tried to get a hold of a meat locker that we also saw a sign for and that didn't work out. So we're like, "All right, dude, let's just-" I said, "Are you serious? You don't want to try for your bull? You just want to go home?" He's like, "Yeah. I'm ready, dude. There's no way I could do that again. If I shoot one and it dies down there, I don't know what we're going to do."

Art'om Rank:

And I was like, "All right. Well, like I'm willing to do it." He's like, "No, no, let's just go." I was like, "All right, cool." So back to the Walmart we go and everything's loaded up camp is set. We got our mat. And at this point we may have slept three hours or so. We're like, "I don't want any of this meat to spoil or any of this stuff to go bad. So let's go to the Walmart, load it down with ice and drive it straight through back home and get it to the-" We thought we were going to get it to the processor at home.

Art'om Rank:

Well, come to find out long story short on that point, that didn't work out. We ended up having to process all of that ourself as soon as we got back, but it was just two hours at a time we would just trade out. I would sleep for two hours and then we'd be at a half a tank and we'd flip. So then he would sleep for two hours and we did that the whole way home. We got back. As soon as we got home, we checked the meat, made sure the whole ride back it was night that we were keeping ice on it, keeping everything cooled and chilled and that was it, man.

Art'om Rank:

We drove it straight back and we got here and then we had my dad and his buddies met us at the house. And we had this little trailer and we slid all this meat right out into the bar, and butchered it up and processed every last bit of it, and then I think I probably slept for two or three days. I used the rest of that time that we were going to be hunting to just counterbalance everything that just happened. They're all pumped, they want to hear the story, I was like, "Hit me up next week and we will tell you about this story."

Bill Ayer:

That's a great story. And the fact that you want to come back is pretty impressive.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Being able to make it. And like I said, we didn't want any part of it to go bad. And just felt like that was the right decision for not really knowing anywhere else to go with it, and making sure that we were able to have that. He and I split it half and half with the meat we meat, we made broths out of it, we had steaks, we had jerky, just everything. I think we ate on that pretty well nonstop for I'd like to say at least a year and a half, if not two years which was awesome. By far some of the best meat, I'm super thrilled and excited for whatever opportunity I get to chase after another one.

Tommy Sessions:

You want to chase after them, what is your plans? Well, obviously, this year it's late, you can't get a tag in Idaho anymore. You have plans in the future to hit up any other states or to come back to Idaho, or what do you got going on there?

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Ideally, I'd love to go back to Idaho, that would be a riot. I love the challenge out there I really do, the scenery like I said is second to none. So it just makes you feel a little better that if it doesn't work out, that I'm able to take all that in. Going to be sitting on the computer every year trying to get that over the counter tag. If it takes eight hours every time, then it takes eight hours every time. But aside from that, I try to target different species and go on like over the counter public land hunts that challenge yourself. And really make you have that adversity towards accepting a challenge and making sure that you can learn everything about that different species, or meet the different people that you do when you go on out of state hunts, it makes it fun.

Art'om Rank:

I think this year me and Cody from Tagged Outdoors, maybe even another are going to try for maybe a mule deer hunt in Nebraska. I've done like the antelope hunt, which was the year after the elk hunt and that was a riot. And to keep it all with archery, just because that's where my passion lies. Kind of go with it like that and last year I actually ended up doing a seek a deer hunt on the east coast, kind of went the other direction and that was a challenge in itself and that was fun. We've been successful on a lot of the trips that we go out of state. I think the biggest thing on that is having your boots on the ground, being able to cover ground, being able to scout. Making sure that when you're going into something you're not giving up on it.

Tommy Sessions:

I look forward to seeing more of your guys' stuff, more of your hunts and I know that we'll be talking more. You guys are partnered up with Slayer Calls now, so hopefully when you go out on to another elk hunt you'll be able to blow our reeds, use our bugle tubes. You won't be switching back and forth between different calls here and there trying to figure out which one's the best one. You'll pick up either the Enchantress or the ArchAngel Bugle Tube and one of our reeds so [inaudible 00:59:09].

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I'm super excited for it and looking forward to it. Like I said, hopefully, we can all get together and do a hunt too, that would just be a riot. But I would like to avoid the bees, whatever part of the hunt we have, if we could avoid that that would be great.

Tommy Sessions:

So every year I look forward to the bees or I did because it was never me. I was usually either far enough behind or far enough in front that I'd step on that log. And the bees would get my buddy behind me and it was a riot, so I always carried BENADRYL because he was allergic too. He'd get hit, I'd give him some BENADRYL, we'd be on our way hunting again, but little simple winds in the woods.

Art'om Rank:

That's right.

Bill Ayer:

That's a great story. That's awesome. I hope that inspires others who have a dream to go elk hunting to just go for it. You don't have to know everything. And like you're saying along the way you'll meet people and whatnot, and somehow hopefully find success, so that's an awesome story and a great bull.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. I appreciate that. Another thing for anybody else is just be personable too. Don't be taken back by people that maybe are willing to offer advice and trying to be nice. Nowadays, it seems like it comes off weird. People don't necessarily take it that way, but more often than not they are trying to help you. You can use that to your advantage for sure.

Bill Ayer:

Right. Well, thanks guys. We appreciate it.

Art'om Rank:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Keep in touch on your hunts too waterfowl or anything like that. We'd love to hear about how you guys are doing and see some photos and whatnot.

Art'om Rank:

Can do. No problem on that.