Episode 16: Don’t give up until the tag is filled

Wind and weather will get you every time, but a dedicated hunter never gives up. Steve Raudenbush with Mnt2Coast Outdoors is one such hunter. His YouTube videos have attracted thousands of views, and as a filmmaker and hunting enthusiast, he’s particularly attune to the sport’s challenges and victories. 

Fall 2022 was a particularly eventful season for Raudenbush, who was keen to chase down Roosevelt elk in Washington and Idaho. Modern outdoorsman that he is, Raudenbush is a savvy e-scouter and even uses an e-bike to traverse old logging roads. He’s not afraid to sleep rough, though. He’ll hike into a decent area with little more than three days’ worth of food and his Seek Outside Cimarron tent. The reward? A symphony of surround-sound bugles all night long. 

In this episode of The Slayer Hunting Podcast, host Tommy Sessions gets all the details of Raudenbush’s Fall 2022 archery season, hunting big bulls in Washington and Idaho. Stick around until the end to hear which Slayer products are Raudenbush’s favorites in the field. 

Elk hunting articles:

- E-scout to maximize success on out-of-state elk hunts

- Star of The Wild Race lands a 6x8 bull on her first elk hunt

- How to speak the language of elk

- Elk hunting with pack animals: Part I

Slayer calls related to this episode:

- ArchAngel acrylic elk call

- 200 Series Gladiator

- Slayer mouth reeds

---

What was it like the first time an elk responded to your call? Drop us a line at podcast@SlayerCalls.com to share.

Thanks for listening! We’d love to have you back, so subscribe to The Slayer Hunting Podcast to make sure you don’t miss an episode. Listen to The Slayer Hunting Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts.

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 duck season. 

#Hunting #HuntingLife #ElkSeason #ElkCalling #ElkHunting #Elk #BullElk #CowElk #BigGame #ElkCalls #BugleTube #MouthCalls #ElkReeds #IdahoHunting #WashingtonHunting #Podcast #HuntingPodcast #SlayerCalls #CallTheWild #SlayTheDay #SlayEm

Transcript

Bill Ayer:

Hey, all. Welcome to The Slayer Podcast. I'm your host, Bill Ayer, owner of Slayer Duck Calls, a company founded on family heritage unraveled quality craftsmanship and an uncontrollable obsession for hunting. Let's get to it.

Tommy Sessions:

Okay. Welcome everybody to The Slayer Podcast. I'm Tommy Sessions. Today, we got Bill Ayer, the owner of Slayer Calls on, and then if you guys remember, oh shoot, it was about August, mid-August, we had Steve with Mnt2Coast Outdoors on Steve has had quite the adventure this fall leading into the early part of the winter and he's been successful, had some failures, it sounds like, had a pretty good 2022 season. And I'm just going to let Steve jump right into it, introduce himself again, tell him what he is been up to and what's coming up.

Steve Raudenbush:

All right. Yeah. I'm Steve with Mnt2Coast Outdoors and we have all sorts of stuff still coming up and we went on quite a few hunts this fall already. So we started off our season in Washington on a Roosevelt hunt and then went to Idaho Archery over the counter chasing bulls there and then came back home for a few weeks and went back to Idaho with a rifle and chased some mule deer, which was a great time. And now we're back home in Washington waiting for the late buck and archery oak to start back up, so that's what we got going.

Tommy Sessions:

Sweet. Let's see, you started out, you had a week before Idaho, is that correct? In Washington or Oregon? Washington?

Steve Raudenbush:

Washington, yeah. We spent three days there before we went to Idaho.

Tommy Sessions:

Now it's chasing Roosevelt.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, on the coast, chasing Roosies, which was an interesting start to the year. I don't know if you guys pay attention to Washington, but probably not, which I don't blame you, but we had quite a few fires over here. So where I hunt, it's permit access only. So the timber companies require you to purchase access basically. And because of the fires, they close all of their country basically for us to hunt. So that was the day before our season opened. So we were, I guess you could say back to square one, threw a dart at the map and went to some other areas that were open and we hunted there for a day. We got on some elk but no shots. And luckily the following day, they opened up the area that we've spent the last 15 years in. So we came back that direction and things got interesting quick.

Tommy Sessions:

So the parts you say they opened, that was with the timber company. They opened it back up because they had fires under control or whatever happened.

Steve Raudenbush:

Year, there was some warm weather that came in, and when they sent out the email, they closed it for 24 hours and then they said they would update us. So we got the update that they were going to open it back up. So we hopped back in the truck, drove three hours back to the coast and went into the areas that we know pretty well.

Bill Ayer:

How did it go?

Steve Raudenbush:

So it was pretty quiet. We covered, I think, it was 70 miles, 71 miles in those last two days. Obviously, a lot of that was on our e-bikes. But the night of our last day, it was like 6:00, we were working our way down one of those old logging roads. It was overgrown and we were just cow chirping and cow chirping through the tube. And we had that answer down on the bottom of the drainage and it was on. We dropped in and the bull ended up being on the other side of the drainage from us. So we were working our way down the draw, down the draw, down the draw, cow calling and cow calling until we got in nice and tight.

And accidentally, we got between the bull and these cows. We had no idea the cows were there and they busted out to our right, which really hung us up honestly because we got forced into our setup and we wanted to move to our right, but those cows were bedded there. So when they blew out, we were pinched, and that bull, he came across the drainage on a string and came into 20 yards right underneath of us, but we had no shot. It was just a wall of brush. So the bull whirl back across the drainage. I cow chirped. He stopped perfectly broadside. Jake moved to the left, but he didn't range that far to the right, so he was ranging everything in front of him where he had shooting lanes, but he never ranged that direction.

So when he stepped out, he guessed 50, which we shoot a lot of 3Ds, so his guess was good. But as soon as he shot, the bull spun to the right and he just missed the bull right in front of him because he spun to leave. And the lesson we learned there was, if Jake would've taken a few steps to the left and just ranged that pocket and he knew that distance instantly instead of thinking about it for that 15 or 20 seconds and he would have let that arrow go, that bull would have been dead. I got it on video. You can see the trajectory was perfect, but it was just one of those situations where we got caught with our pants down and we watched a nice herd bull walk away.

Bill Ayer:

I was going to ask, is it a nice bull?

Steve Raudenbush:

For a Roosevelt bull, yeah, it was a solid, heavy 5 x 5, dark frame, pretty wide, a solid Roosie bull for sure. And he had I'd say eight to 10 cows, so he was a good bull.

Tommy Sessions:

So the bull, Jake, when he was getting it, basically the range was coming through his head, he was trying to range it, he took that long to take the shot?

Steve Raudenbush:

He took a while. He was actually asking me to range and we're trying to film, so I had my camera in my right hand. I had my bugle tube in my other hand and I was cow chirping through my tube. So I put my tube down and I was trying to pull my rangefinder out, but it's the coast in Washington, right? So there's a lot of really thick vegetation. And I got two clicks in with my rangefinder. One was six yards and one was 17. I was picking up everything right in front of me. I didn't have a clear shot to the elk like Jake did. So he put his 50 pin on him and let it fly. And as soon the arrow went off, the bull spun 180 degrees and took off straight up back to where he came from and clean, clean miss. It was definitely heartbreaking for sure.

Tommy Sessions:

So did you think he jumped the string or the bull was already ... It was just like that, the luck of the draw basically, Jake, as soon as he let go of that trigger, it was arrow was flying, the bull had already been moving or what do you think about that?

Steve Raudenbush:

The bull, I'm pretty sure from his body language, you could tell he knew something was up because he came in really tight. He was under 20, right underneath of us and he knew something was up, so he spun. And he didn't run away, but he just charted back across the drainage and then I cow chirped and he stopped perfectly broadsided and looked back at us and it might have been 30 seconds honestly. He was standing there for a while before Jake shot. And I just think he knew something was wrong and was on his way out.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah, watching for that movement or something ...

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, didn't see-

Tommy Sessions:

... [inaudible 00:07:31]. Yeah.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, so I'm pretty sure he knew something was wrong and left. And if those cows, if we didn't split those cows off and we would've went down to the right like we were planning on doing, we would've had a huge open window. But bumping those cows really, really forced us into that corner and it just didn't work out.

Bill Ayer:

It's so crazy. That's bull hunting, right? There's so many things that have to go and so many things that can go wrong in that situation. It's just crazy. And that's why when you're successful, it's such a big win because of that, because there's so many things that can go wrong. And when you get that tight to a bull and then you got 10 cows sitting there too, who's got ears and eyes and noses, right? So-

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah, feel for you. That was my elk season this year, was a lot of those type of situations.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, it's heartbreaking. And 70 miles doesn't sound like I guess a lot, but I have my tracker on and that's the truth. And three days of grinding and you get one bull to answer, you get your one chance, and when you don't capitalize, it's heartbreaking.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah, that's tough. So that was your third day, 6:00-ish at night, you were done at that point?

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah. Yeah. So we weren't sure. We couldn't find his arrow, so we looked around for a while. I think we ended up getting out of there at 11:00 that night, started pouring down rain and we went back to the truck and we drove out that night a couple hours home, came back home for a few days. Jake stayed off work. I went back to work for two days, cleaned up the mess at work and we reloaded the truck and off we went to Idaho, which was another great experience. We did the same thing we did last year, well, a little different, but we switched our tags last minute into an area that I was super excited to get. So that was pretty fun.

Tommy Sessions:

Awesome. So you and Jake both were headed to Idaho with tags in your pocket or just one of you?

Steve Raudenbush:

Both of us. So we both had over-the-counter tags, and in the same zone, which was nice. And we had 12 days including drive time, slotted out from work. So about 10 days of hunting we could do [inaudible 00:10:08], and yeah, so off we went, drove all through the night. We always plan on stopping halfway, but that never happens. We always drive all the way through the night. So we drove into Missoula and we have a tradition. We always stop at Buffalo Wild Wings in Missoula. I don't know why, but first year we ever went to Idaho, we did it, we killed a bull. So every trip back since then, we've always stopped at that same Buffalo Wild Wings, had our little traditional dinner there, some wings and some fries and then drove down to the unit and slept in the truck that night and it was on from there.

Bill Ayer:

So was the unit you've hunted before or scouted or was it completely new?

Steve Raudenbush:

All new again, man. Three years in a row, different unit, different zone, just e-scouted like crazy.

Bill Ayer:

Got it. Okay. So you had enough time to e-scout and pick where you wanted to go?

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, so similar to last year for me, I had my list again, right? My one through five, one through six. And this happened to be my second choice and I did a ton of e-scouting in all these units, all these zones prior to the December 1st sale date and a lot of research on harvest statistics and all that good stuff, bull-to-cow ratio. And that's why we were able to switch and it was no big deal. I had my hunt plan one, two, three, four, five. Hunt plan one ended up being a big no-no, there were so many people, there was an outfitter in there. We literally drove over that trail head, turned around, drove all the way back out, two and a half hours to the other end of the zone and we ended up going into our second hunt plan spot. And man, it was best elk hunt I've ever been a part of for sure. There was bulls everywhere. We should have came home with two bulls for sure, but we didn't.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah, and I think there's a lesson learned right there because a lot of people will pick their spot where they're going to set up their trailer and that's where they're going to put their wall tent and that's where they're going to hunt and that's the trailhead. And when you get there, there's two or three pickups or people already hunting at and you have to drive on the other end of the unit. Not too many people do that.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, I've learned it just pays off, man. Elk, they aren't messed with or a lot easier to kill with a bow. And I know there's elk all over these drainages. Every main drainage, every biologist you talk to on the phone tells you the elk are evenly spread throughout the unit. So every main drainage has elk in it. If you pull up to a trailhead and there's 10 trucks there, you might waste three hours in your mind, you're antsy, you want to get out of your truck, you want to hunt, but if you spend that three hours and go to the next drainage, you could pull it to a drainage like we did, there was one truck there and it was a main drainage. We had the whole place to ourselves. We went past the first side drainage, that's where those guys were in that one truck and we didn't see a fricking soul. Saw one person in 10 days.

Bill Ayer:

Wow. That's awesome.

Steve Raudenbush:

So it was great.

Tommy Sessions:

So do you try to go for the same tag next year or are you, knowing now country and little territory, this was your number two pick, say if number one doesn't come up but this one does again, you're going to go back to the same unit or are you want to cover Idaho?

Steve Raudenbush:

No, if I could get this tag again, I'd hunt there for the rest of my life, honestly. If the quantity of bull, the quantity of the elk and the size and the maturity of the bulls, if I could get that tag every year, I'd happily go back. It was incredible. And predators, I didn't see. We saw one bear which we could have killed with our bow, which I probably should have, but I didn't and no sign of wolves. That was the only bear we've seen. In every other zone I've hunted in Idaho, we've seen 15, 20 bears a trip at least, wolf sign, all of it. In in this unit, no predators at all. It didn't seem like to us anyway, which was pretty cool.

Tommy Sessions:

Interesting. I would be curious to talk to a biologist at some point and see why that is or what's the ... In comparison to that unit, if it's more hound hunters, if it's more bear baits, stuff like that to keep the population down or if it's just because it sounds like ... Everywhere I've been, where there's elk, there's bears, like you say. It's like the same habitat. They're living in the same place, but wonder why it's less.

Steve Raudenbush:

I don't know if it was just luck or what, but the sign wasn't there and we didn't see them. And compared to the other places I've hunted in Idaho, it's very obvious where they are. You hear them, you see them. They're all over the place in my experience.

Tommy Sessions:

Perfect, so you hit out of the trailhead and you're on your way. So let's hear it because I know that it's on YouTube. A lot of people have probably seen it. If they haven't, go over and check it out, [inaudible 00:15:24] on the Mnt2Coast, subscribe to that, check it out because it's pretty good, but let's hear it from you and your experience on that.

Steve Raudenbush:

All right, so day one, like I said, we drove to that number one hunt plan area and it was a bust, so we turned around. We drove three hours or two and a half hours back to our second hunt plan. By the time we got our packs loaded, which we always go in with three or four days; worth of food and a spike camp. This year, we brought a tarp and a small Cimarron, Seek Outside Cimarron with a little stove. Actually, we didn't bring the stove this year, I take that back because it's pretty warm, but we got our packs loaded and we headed in with three or four days' worth of food. We went in about four miles up the main drainage. And then there was this nice side drainage. It was all north-facing timber that we had picked. It was the first area we wanted to check.

So leaving the truck later in the afternoon that day with our late start, we made it in about, I don't know, maybe a half mile up that first drainage that night and actually located a bull that we thought was in the same shoot we were in, but ended up being across the drainage from us. So that night, we worked our way up into a saddle and we slept for the night and woke up the next morning and we worked our way up into the head of the space and we always do a ton of calling. So I'd say every 200 to 300 yards, side hilling through there about a thousand feet above the drainage, we would rip a bugle, sit for a few minutes, listen, nothing.

We just worked our way all the way into that basin and ended up not hearing a single elk that morning or that afternoon. So we turned around. We dropped about 500 feet and side hilled all the way back out of there, and that evening, we crossed the main drainage and went up into the chute across from us. And that ended up being where that bull was from the night before. And we relocated him about 6:00 and we dropped back in. And long story short, on day two, we ran out of daylight, so we ended up setting up our cimarron and sleeping in there that night with a plan to get on him first thing in the morning.

So morning of day three comes and there ended up being bulls bugling around us all night long. We ended up setting up our camp in a perfect spot and it was like until 5:00 in the morning, one would scream way to our right, one would scream in front of us, one would scream to our left and we were just surrounded by them. So in the morning, we picked the one that sounded the closest, which happened to be to our left with about a thousand yards. [inaudible 00:18:06], he was pretty fired up. He was answering almost every call. So we got to that tight bubble, that 100, 120-yard window and we set up. Jake got in front of me like 40 yards and we started calling and that bull came in on a string, but we got winded and that was the story of this trip.

We had these mid-morning and late afternoon thunderstorms rolling almost every day and the wind ... First thing in the morning and this was like 9:00, we're checking the wind, checking the wind and it's sucking down the drainage just like it's supposed to perfectly. And that bull's coming in on that side hill and we're on that same level and the wind's just perfectly coming down across our body to the right. But you could feel it switched, the wind would pick up, and boom, the bull would come in and then just instantly whirl and take off at a hundred miles an hour breaking everything in its path. And that was super frustrating. Pretty much other than the day that Jake killed his bull, we got winded so many times. I couldn't even tell you, probably 20 times.

Bill Ayer:

Was that that around the 16th or-

Steve Raudenbush:

It was.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Because where I was hunting, we were getting the same deal, thunderstorms coming through and wind from all different directions changing constantly. Then the bulls were going off that 15, 16, 17, which made it even more frustrating.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, and setting-

Tommy Sessions:

I had the same story. No, I had the same thing happen to me the entire season. It was like you get bulls bugling at night or you'd be walking in at 5:00 in the morning and cranking off, and then all of a sudden, you're like, "Perfect wind's going to keep sucking down," and even at 8:00 in the morning when the thermals are coming down, you get a switch of wind and you get a dominant wind all of a sudden and you're blowing them out and you're like, "Dang, what's going on?"

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah.

Tommy Sessions:

That was your first day and then you guys ended up being successful on day two, is that correct?

Steve Raudenbush:

No, that was when we got winded. That was the morning of day three. So Located a bull night one, got a late start that day, ended up being across the drainage from us. You know those bugles can kind of echo off the canyon and they sound like they're here, but they're over there, one of those deals. We got turned around. Morning of day two, we dropped down and relocated some other elk, didn't work out. And then that night of day two is when those bulls were screaming all around us. So the morning of day three, we went to that closest bugle to our left and that's the bull that winded us that morning. And the good thing about that though was when that bull was answering us on that side where we got winded, there was another bull in the same drainage but on the other side.

So as soon as we got winded, we pretty much were like, "Oh, well, we'll just draw down. We're going to go get on this bull." So same deal, we dropped down to the bottom, we filled up our water, we were out of water from the night before and all that stuff and food and everything in the morning. We filled up. We worked our way back up that other side and that bull was, again, every time I bugled, he answered, every time. There wasn't one bugle he didn't answer, but the wind, it was that midday fricking ... It was going everywhere. It was blowing like 40 and then it would calm way down and it was blowing 30 and then it would calm way down.

And I kept telling Jake, I'm like, "We just need to sit here until 6:00 when the sun starts to go down and then we're working on this bull and we'll kill him." Well, I don't know what it was, but it got the best of us. We're like, "Ah, no, we can beat the wind. It's no big deal." I kept checking it. I look at Jake and he keeps checking it and they're like, "It's been consistent for five minutes. We'll be good. We only need a couple minutes." So long story short, we work our way up the draw, get in tight. That bull is still answering every single bugle and it's in the video, call him in, coming in on a fricking string, coming in so fast you can hear everything breaking, right? Just stepping on everything, horns hitting everything, gets in tight, and then all of a sudden, it just shuts off. It's silent.

And the wind, I'm hitting my puffer and it's blowing straight at my back, straight through my brother and straight out the bull. And I honestly chucked my bugle tube. I was fricking pissed because we were just talking about, "If we were just patient, waited it out, let the sun go down, we would have killed that bull." And we didn't. And so that night was over, that was day three. We were out of food and we brought three days' worth of food. So that night we hiked all the way back out to the truck and pretty much slept in the truck, regrouped. We ended up leaving that area. We felt like we [inaudible 00:23:30] those elk up. So we drove to our third hunt plan, which ended up being the cubby holes of cubby holes of cubby holes. Let me tell you. That was crazy.

And if you watched the video, there was fricking bull ... We were surrounded by bulls. They were everywhere, but it was day four when killed. So morning of day four, bright and early, we reloaded our packs with a couple days' worth of food, hopped on our e-bikes and there was this old skid row that had a hundred blowdowns on it. So we made it in about two miles on the bikes, jumping all those blowdowns and came to this old landing, left our bikes there and that got us up to, I want to say like 7,200. So we climbed about a thousand feet on our bikes and then we side hilled up this ridge into this big basin. It was around 9,000, the top of it, but the basin was probably like 8,500 or whatever. And we were working our way through there, doing the same playbook, ripping, bugles and we got a bull that sounded off. And by this time, it was probably noon or so midday.

So same thing, the wind was going fricking every direction, right? And this time, we learned our lesson. We got into 500 yards, 600 yards and we sat there and waited until, I don't know, about 5:30 I want to say. And from that point, we picked up, we reloaded our packs and we started moving in and it was on. It was the best experience I've ever had. There ended up, we thought there was one bull and there had to be ... In that one spot, there was at least four. And that night coming out with meat, we probably heard, I'm not kidding, eight or nine different bulls going off all the way out back to the bikes. They were sounding off in every direction. They were everywhere. It was crazy.

Back to the shooting part, so we working in and I was just cow calling, just cow calling and cow calling because the bulls were answering the cow chirp. So I figured, "If we could get in and get one of those bulls just to sneak in and get a smell, we could get a nice tight shot." So that's what we did. We snuck in tight, cow chirping, cow chirping, cow chirping. And we actually had three different bulls come in before Jake got a shot, but we had one come into 10 yards, but it was so thick, there was no clear shot. So he turned and he never winded us. The wind had switched. We were in the head of the basin and the wind was sucking down the drainage perfectly and the bulls were all above us. So we had the wind just money in this scenario.

That bull came into 10, didn't see an elk, stood there for a few turned, walked away. A second bull came in tight, no shot, same scenario. And then the third bull came in in a straight line between Jake and me right on the line, came to, I think it was 24 yards, stopped perfectly. Jake sent one arrow right through the frontal area, right in that pocket and that bull didn't even bleed. It made it, I don't know, 25 yards and piled up. It was insane, man.

Tommy Sessions:

That's awesome because I hear all the time people, they'll be like they'll cow call and they'll get a bugle and then they'll cow call again, they'll get another response, and then all of a sudden, it's like, I don't know if it is their ego or what it is that comes out. I'm guilty of it too at times, but all of a sudden, you're like, "I'm going to bugle," because that's what you feel like to do or whatever and challenge this bull. But I like how you just stick with the plan, stick with what's working because if they're responding to cow calls, it's less threatening. In my opinion, if you start a bugling, you likely would only have one of those bulls come in or rather be able to chase one of those bulls because you're challenging rather than being the inviting mistress out there on the side of the mountain.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, don't get me wrong, we've learned that the hard way. We've switched before from cow chirping to bugling and the bulls went silent and we learned that, I wouldn't say this year, but in Washington, when we called that bull and across the drainage, all I was doing was cow chirping and he came in on a fricking string. Usually when they come in, when you're bugling, like you said, you get one bull to run in and you get your chance, nice and it's over. But I totally agree that cow chirping in that situation, if they're answering cow calls, stick with what's working. There's no reason to challenge them. They're going to come in, curiosity's going to kill them. And that experience, cow calling with those bulls was the best experience I've ever had by far.

So anyway, that bull hit the ground and we got to work. By the time we got to the bull, I want to say it was about 7:15. And this year, we switched to a deboning method. So that was a good experience. Normally, we've always packed them out meat on the bone, but this elk, we broke down, did all the pictures and the video stuff we could get before it got dark and then we broke them down. We took everything out that first trip except the hinds and got back to the truck. I want to say it was like 1:00 in the morning that night, which was, obviously, we were on cloud nine at that point, four days of grinding and almost five days and we finally had a bull on the ground.

Tommy Sessions:

What were your temperatures during this hunt in the evenings, daytime in your area?

Steve Raudenbush:

I'd say in the midday or during the day, I'd say it was probably mid-60s or so is my best guess, but in the evening, in the morning it was fricking cold, I'd say mid-30s, high 30s, low 40s. We got snow at one point. The next day, we actually got a little bit of snow where we were at. And so-

Tommy Sessions:

So what's your deciding factor because ... So how far are your e-bikes? You said two miles, give or take from the truck?

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, yup.

Tommy Sessions:

So why not, and I'm just curious on that, because for me personally, if I got bulls, bugling, I got one more tag in my pocket and I'm packing out meat that night, why not hang the meat at the e-bikes or at a low spot by then or wherever and go back in, try to kill another bull without going all the way back out and then take your last couple days or whatever it may be, but what's your guys' deciding factor on that or why did you guys decide to do it the way you did it?

Steve Raudenbush:

So we actually went back in there with my bow and I'll admit this is probably my number one regret from this trip was I guess I got cocky honestly. I got overconfident. So we got Jake's first load out that night. It was probably midnight, 1:00 in the morning. The next day, we slept in, got lazy, slept in and rode the bikes back up to the top, hiked back in with no bow like an idiot. There was elk bugling everywhere. Got Jake's hindquarter and we're like, "Okay, let's let him settle down. We were in here. We just blew this place up. We killed an elk. We got meat hanging everywhere." That's when we saw the bear. We got Jake's hindquarter out and we bombed. We were in and out quick. We went in light and came out with the hinds.

And our plan was, like I said, "Let it calm down and we'll come back in." Well, this is where we bumped into that one guy. So the following day, it's my turn to hunt. Jake's on the camera, he's calling. On our way back in on, I think it was day six, that morning in day six, we run into a local Idaho guy, probably in his mid-50s and really good shape. I was shocked. This guy was a stud, solo. And I'm like, "What are you doing back here, man?" He's like, "This is my honey hole." He's like, "I got cameras all over back here. What are you doing back here?" I'm like, "Sorry, man. Don't shoot us." He's like, "Yup." He ended up being super friendly, which was a ... You never know how people are going to be ...

Tommy Sessions:

Sure.

Steve Raudenbush:

... when you run into them in their honey hole and you're not from Idaho. First thing, he asked is, "Where are you guys from?" I'm like, "California." No, I'm just kidding.

Bill Ayer:

You, for sure, got shot.

Steve Raudenbush:

Anyway, so I guess long story short, I honestly think if I would've went back in with my bow the day we took the last bit of Jake's elk cow, I probably would've killed a bull because they were fricking ... We didn't make a sound. They were screaming all on their own at 2:00 in the afternoon. And I took it for granted and we got bit. He came in with his bow and he was there first, so we backed out, let him have it and we ended up not going back in there. And so we moved to a whole another area and relocated for the last four days with my tag. And we had several opportunities, man. I probably saw the biggest bull I've ever seen in my life in another area. Got in tight on that bull and it was the same story of the trip. We got winded and winded and winded.

Every day from day six through 10, we had a bull or multiple bulls inside bow range and got winded every single time. It was very frustrating to say the least, but we had lost opportunity. It just didn't work out with that second tag.

Tommy Sessions:

And I'm not questioning your tactics or anything like that and you guys are obviously taking care of the meat the way that needs to be taken care of first and foremost before going to put another animal down or chase another one, so that's respectful. I'm just curious as far as with the temperatures that way and hang in and everything like that. So don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning you and thinking like, "Dude, what are you guys doing? What are you doing?"

Steve Raudenbush:

That didn't cross my mind. No, honestly, I don't know. Maybe it's just the way I am, but it will bug me for 10 years. To not have my bow on my backpack probably at all times was stupid. I probably honestly could have got a chance at a bull the same night Jake killed his bull. There was elk fricking every ... It was insane. It's hard to explain on a podcast, but there were bulls everywhere. Didn't matter which direction you made noise, they were sounding off. It was fricking crazy. And I just took it for granted, I honestly did and I'll never do that again, ever.

Tommy Sessions:

So you didn't have your bow with you when Jake shot his?

Steve Raudenbush:

No, man, we have this not really rule, but when dude shooter, he's shooter until he kills. If he misses, he misses. That's just how we do it, just dedicated to calling and no distractions, trying not to be selfish. I've hunted with other guys when they have their bow, they want to do, two guys are set up, one guy's calling and then one guy gets winded. It just doesn't work out. So at least in my opinion, it doesn't work out. So we just stick to one guy's shooter, one guy's caller and that's how we do it.

Tommy Sessions:

That's respectful. I get that. Well, when I would hunt with my buddy, we would hunt, we both have our bows because there's days that we shot elk within a matter of an hour of each other, but it was if you were a collar, both of us were in the same situation. It was like, if you're a collar, you're bow strapped to your back, you're not shooting and you're not peaking either or you're not doing any of that stuff. That's the biggest thing as a caller, is to realize that basically you have to be the most selfless person in a caller's position. You're not peaking, you're not doing anything other than playing the game with the elk. You're worried about the shooter, but you're not worried about seeing that elk.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, and I'll admit the camera brings a whole another element into that. People are going, "You're crazy for not killing an elk because of the camera," but when you're carrying a camera, you're carrying 10 batteries, you're carrying three different lenses. You got to switch batteries, you got to switch lenses or whatever. It just makes it that much more difficult to get into your pack when you got a bow strapped to the back. I got my spotting scope, I got two tripods I got all that other gear and battery, mics and all that stuff. It's part of trying to capture content. Honestly, we've missed opportunities because of it. So yeah, it's just the nature of the beast.

Bill Ayer:

Question for you, how heavy is your pack when you do a three-day spike?

Steve Raudenbush:

So, God, I've weighed it multiple times. I would say about 40 pounds and it's gotten lighter and lighter and lighter every year. So this year, I switched my sleeping system, I switched my food up. It's all weighed out. My food is right about two pounds, about 3,500 calories, slightly under that. So three days of food is about six pounds. And then I switched to a lighter sleeping pad, a Therm-a-Rest and then I also switched to a Stone Glacier Quilt this year. It's like a 32-degree quilt. And I also switched my water system up. So I don't carry a water bladder anymore. All I carry is 148-ounce Nalgene and then a smart water bottle.

I don't know, I've trimmed a lot of weight and that 40 pounds could be off. I can't recall off the top of my head, but I got it pretty fricking light, considering camera gear. The camera gear has a lot of weight. That one lens is a spotting scope above the 100 to 500 millimeter lens. It's fricking heavy. So-

Bill Ayer:

That's pretty impressive with your spotting scope and tripod.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah. Got it lean, man. Again, I'm big on lists and organization, so I don't really carry much of anything I don't need at all.

Bill Ayer:

And then let me ask you about doing the boning method. Would you recommend that after doing it, deboning the elk or-

Steve Raudenbush:

I'll never go back.

Bill Ayer:

Oh yeah?

Steve Raudenbush:

Ever. We thought it would take a lot longer. We also thought we might have a little bit more meat loss like trimming because you're exposing all sides of the meat now. We didn't experience that at all and we didn't feel like it took any longer. So my brother's gotten really good at breaking down a bull or a deer, whatever on his own pretty much. So we'll start both skinning. I bought a Marsupial ground cloth and so we laid that down on a nice clean surface, right? And then we both started skinning on one side. We got the hide peeled off and we got the hindquarter off. So I took the hindquarter to the ground cloth and I started cutting chunks of meat off, big chunks of meat off and putting them in game bags. Jake's at that point, cutting bag straps out, tenderloins out, rib meat, neck meat, took the front quarter off by himself.

So we're both working on the animal at the same time and the timing was pretty much perfect. By the time I got all the meat off the hindquarter into a game bag, that game bag was done. Boom. He peeled the front quarter off. I put that on the cloth. I was cutting on that front quarter. He was peeling off the backstrap, tenderloins, neck meat, all that stuff, all that went in one bag. Flipped the head off together. Flipped the animal over and we just repeated the process. And I don't really feel like we lost, but maybe 15 minutes max, but my pack, we came out with that second load of meat. It was all high quarter meat. I could have ran out of there. It was very noticeable the difference in weight, very noticeable in my opinion. So for sure, I would do it.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah, interesting.

Steve Raudenbush:

Unless you're close to the truck, then what's the point? But-

Bill Ayer:

Yeah.

Tommy Sessions:

So Jen may have edited this out or whatever, but Bill's Goat Knives, I saw that they're doing a giveaway. Is Slayer and Goat Knives doing anything together?

Bill Ayer:

No, we have attached to Montana Knife Company, you see, so-

Tommy Sessions:

Okay, I just wanted to ... Because I was going to ask Steve because I know he's tied up with Goat Knives and Travis was a buddy of mine from playing baseball with him in high school and that, but I was going to ask you about those knives, but nevermind, we'll cut that out.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah, you're more than welcome to talk about the knife. We don't have any formal agreement with MKC. It's just we help each other out. So-

Steve Raudenbush:

Honestly, it's a great knife. I love it. It's extremely lightweight and those 60A blades, I think is what they're called, are really, really sharp. So I'm a big fan of them. We broke down multiple elk, deer and they work flawlessly. The only negative thing I would say, if I was going to say one thing negative, is where the blade attaches to the Capra Hunter or the Ibex Mini, every once in a while, it will get hooked on the hide if you're not careful. If you're in a black in a hurry, they'll get hooked on a hide and that blade can pop off. I personally didn't have any problems with it, but my brother, he's one of those guys that's just always in a hurry. It doesn't matter. He's always in a rush. He's always somewhere to be, always something to do.

So he's just like, "Swish, swish, swish, swish," and he had that blade pop off on him once or twice, but other than that, I think they're fantastic knives. I love them.

Tommy Sessions:

Perfect. Yeah, so boning, I've done that for I want to say four or five years now and one thing I will say is that it's pretty hard to find a butcher though. There's a lot of butchers out there that won't touch boned-out meat and I don't know, I've heard different things about why. They don't know exactly what cuts they're getting into and stuff like that if it's not on the bone or they can't make the cuts that they want. I found a few butchers, some buddies that have been gracious enough to just ... I do a lot of burger with mine and that. Then backstraps, tenderloins, I'll make steaks, but everything else a lot of burger. And so they don't necessarily care at that point, but that's one thing I will fair warn anybody that's wanting to bone out is probably talk to your butchers prior to making that decision.

But 100% I will say that, if I got a pack, I'm taking it off the bone. People will argue with it that it's only a couple pounds per leg or whatever, but ounces or pounds and pounds just add up.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, I was that guy. I'm like, "It's not even worth a time. It's like what, five pounds?" You cut the meat off the bone and you grab behind hindquarter bone, you're like, "Man, it's heavy," especially with the front and behind. It's probably, I would say 35, 40 pounds with the fronts and the rears, the bones stacked up together. I mean it's got to be 30 pounds plus. At least it feels that way.

Tommy Sessions:

No, I agree. It's super heavy, especially when you get set antlers in there and everything else. It's not light. But again, people go check out the Mnt2Coast Outdoors and check out that video because it's on there. Everything is on there that Steve just talked about. Pretty awesome. Then you guys came home, well, came home, I say, but you went home to Washington, then what was next after that Idaho hunt?

Steve Raudenbush:

So we came home, I want to say it was like the 25th or so of September, 26th, something like that. We always process our own elk. It's just how we are. So first thing we did was unload the truck real quick, get the coolers out and we ground. We do the same thing as you, Tommy. So we pretty much eat elk three, four days a week in my house. We give a lot of elk to my mom and dad, some of our close-close family friends, and then of course, Jake eats a lot of elk at his household. So we grind everything into burger except the tenderloins and the backstraps.

So we ground everything up. We have our scale. We vacuum seal everything into one-pound packages for burger, nice and flat stacks really good in the freezer versus a ball, so we [inaudible 00:45:10] nice and flat and then we cut the steaks up, package that, put the elk away. We resituated our gear and then we just counted down the days until [inaudible 00:45:21] came, which was October 10th. And the whole time, we had it in our minds that we were going to pick up rifle elk tags while we were there too. So we left there to hunt deer, but elk were still in the mind. You know what I mean? And so we went back to work, got caught up on work and reloaded the truck and we had two deer tags in two different zones.

Again, I was able to switch my deer tag for a deer tag that I felt like was a pretty good over-the-counter deer tag. So we went to Jake's zone first and we drove in there. We got in there, I want to say it was like noon or 1:00 on day one and loaded the packs, hopped on the bikes. We rode seven miles in on the bikes and then we got off and we hiked in on that first night into a basin. We made it ... Or not quite the basin, but we made it in about two miles and we set up our cimmaron and we glassed before dark. Didn't see anything, but morning of day two, our first full day there, we loaded up a spike camp after glassing all morning, didn't see a single deer. And we made our way another mile and a half in up to about 9,500 feet, circled up into the head of this basin and we ended up locating two bucks, one 4 x 3 with high guards and then one small 3 x 3.

And long story short, Jake ended up smoking that buck. He told me, he's like, "Hey, man, you got a good deer tag. I'm more than happy with this buck. Let's take this buck. We'll get out of here and then we'll go spend some good time in your unit looking for a big buck." So I was okay with that. So we ended up dropping down the drainage up the other side like it always seems to be. We got it on ... That buck was bedded down. By the time, we got over there, the buck was back up feeding and we ranged him at 340 yards. We set up the camera. He had no idea we were there. Jake adjusted the MOA on the scope real quick, laid down, got nice and comfortable and the buck finally turned broadside and Jake made a nice shot, smoked him.

He ran straight down the hill into the right a little bit and piled up in the basin below us that evening. And so pretty much our first full day in Idaho basin, mule deer, we killed a buck, which was awesome. And again-

Tommy Sessions:

Because in Idaho with the resident, basically, as I'm aware, unless something has changed and I don't hunt deer, but if there's any, a general deer tag is open for any unit?

Bill Ayer:

Yeah, that's how it is.

Steve Raudenbush:

For a resident?

Tommy Sessions:

For a resident. So as a non-resident, is that different? You have to have just an elk tag? So elk tag for an Idaho resident is locked into one unit. You have that unit, you can't go anywhere else, but a deer tag is open to anywhere is. So the non-resident, you're locked in?

Steve Raudenbush:

I have to pick a specific unit. It's worse than elk. Elk, I got a zone. As a non-resident gear, I have to pick a unit and I'm stuck in that unit as far as I know. So we were tied to those two units and that was it.

Tommy Sessions:

Huh? Interesting, I've never looked at that.

Bill Ayer:

And that's fairly new, I think-

Steve Raudenbush:

It is new, yeah.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Non-resident used to have the same thing, Tommy, where it was any general unit you could hunt.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, which, I'm not complaining, because it spreads everybody out. And again, we didn't see anybody, which was ... That's what we all want, right? You're in a drainage you want to be in and you're not seeing people. We saw some boot tracks. Once we parked our bikes in the first mile in, we were seeing boot tracks, but once we got past that mile, one mile in part, there was no fresh tracks, nothing. No sign of any life besides animals. So yeah, we got that buck broke down and then we hiked out that night and there was actually a wildfire. From where we were, it looked like it was burning where my truck was parked and I was like, "Oh." That ended up being a long night.

So we got all the way back to my truck, it was like midnight. I had a flat tire which sucked and there was a wildfire. So we fixed my tire, threw the packs on the truck and then we ended up driving four hours to my unit, got to a hotel at 4:00 in the morning and the guy's like, "You got to be out of here by 11:00. Let's check out." I'm like, "Come on, man. That's six hours away, seven hours away." Anyway, he wasn't budging, so we got a couple hours of sleep, took a shower, which was nice and, "You're into my unit," so didn't waste any time.

Tommy Sessions:

No, I don't know. Is it a [inaudible 00:50:31] to go to four hours or five hours of hotel and get it or is it better to just jam to the unit and go?

Steve Raudenbush:

I don't know, we were just feeling like a shower sounded good. So we went for the shower option. We went really lean on this trip. We slept in the back of my truck for 10 days in the canopy. So normally, we bring a wall tent. It's a Cabela's Alaknak, so it's not really a wall tent, but we usually set that up somewhere so we can come back and sleep in a cot or something with a wood stove. This trip, we knew we were going to be doing a lot of bouncing around, possibly picking up a returned elk tag, so we came really lean and just decided to sleep in a bed and take a shower.

Tommy Sessions:

Well, I understand that. Then if you're bouncing that much, sleeping in the back of the pickup, I would probably do the hotel too.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, sleeping in the back of the truck, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best either.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. I wonder what people really think about us when they look at hunters and what we do to go chase animals if they're like, "Are these people fricking clinically insane or what?" Come on. We do some of the most dumb things ever to go chase animals between the time and energy we put in scouting and the money we put in and just the things we do to go scout and then hunt. It's like, "Geez," but it's all worth that one chance, isn't it?

Steve Raudenbush:

Absolutely. Man, I'd do it again over and over.

Tommy Sessions:

So you guys rolled into your unit, one deer in the bag and then what happened?

Steve Raudenbush:

Same kind of story as elk hunting. So I had four areas really narrowed down, super high, as high as you could get from my research and things I've learned here at that time of the year or still in their summer habits. So I was looking for stuff as high as I could get, 9,000, 10,000 feet. And day one, we made it in. We went, it was eight miles and we ended up running to an outfitter who had a fricking stud bull getting packed out, but he was camped in the basin we wanted to be in. So we did see four small bucks that morning, two, three points and then two a spike and a two-point and we did see three bulls, which sucked because we didn't have an elk tag, but we ended up making a 24-mile circle that day and decided, "You know what? There's too many people in this basin."

We ended up seeing that outfitter, and then on our way, we're making the loop on the way down and back up, we ran into another group of guys that were camped about two miles below that outfitter on the way out. And then we got down to the bottom of the trailhead on the other side and there was like several horse trailers parked there and trucks and blah, blah, blah. So we went back to my truck that night and we drove to the very northern tip of the unit and slept in the truck that night. And the next morning, we ended up going in to where I shot my buck. And that was an awesome experience as well.

So we made it in that night about four and a half miles, set up our little spike camp of the cimarron and made it into the first basin we wanted to look at that night and there were three bulls and eight cows 400 yards below us, two branch bulls and one spike bull that we couldn't shoot. But we knew that the next morning, the list for the return tag sales was coming out. So the next morning, we had two bars of service and we checked the list and there were two tags available in one zone and four in another and there was plenty to choose from, long story short. So deer were on my mind, but honestly, they took over again. So it was like, "The first decent buck I see, I'm shooting and we're going to go try to get an elk tag."

And we ended up spotting that afternoon or that mid-morning around 10:00, we worked our way down this little ridge that split two basins and we ended up picking up three bucks and a saddle and one was a decent four-point, the one I ended up shooting. So we circled back around, made it down this other side ridge and those bucks bedded, which we thought they went up over the saddle and out of sight, but they ended up being bedded right in front of us for all day, six hours. We glassed and glassed and glassed and glassed and glassed, which was painful. Hunting deer is really slow paced compared to chases and bulls with bugle too.

But anyway, finally right before dark like 6:00, those bucks just appeared out of thin air. They were right in front of us all day. I don't know how they do it, but they're just glassing and glassing, all of a sudden, there they are. And we saw three bucks in that saddle originally. So when they first stood back up, we only located two of them and I wanted to wait and see if that third buck was the big mature buck that was by himself. And then long story short, it ended up not being the big buck, but the big buck was the four-point that I shot. And he bedded down on this cliff with another buck right above him. And I didn't want to shoot him bedded, but the sun was going down and I kept telling Jake, "Man, I don't want to shoot him bedded. He'll stand up eventually, hopefully."

And long story short, it was getting dark and I decided I'm going to shoot before I lose my opportunity. It was 583 yards. I adjusted my MOA to 11 on my 300 wind mag and I let one shot go and ended up shooting him right in the heart. It's probably one of the better shots I've made with my rifle and that buck honestly couldn't even get up. He piled up pretty much right there and rolled off the rock face. And unfortunately, he broke off one of his forks, but I was thankful that he died quickly. And again, it was on. We found ourselves in the middle of the night packing out another animal.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah, there's that insanity thing coming out again. So you guys are ... How far are you away from the truck on that one there?

Steve Raudenbush:

Three or four and a half miles at that point from the truck.

Tommy Sessions:

And then you basically had one, what is it? One day to get back and hang out until the tags come out?

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, so we got that buck broke down, packed them out that night. The whole animal [inaudible 00:57:19], her light, which was nice. We got back to the truck. Jake always brings this little Jetboil frying pan. We made up some backstraps and tenderloins. He always carries this little Tupperware butter and Montreal mix in this little container in his backpack. So we eat grouse and stuff all the time when we're back there, but anyway, we had some steaks, slept in the back of the truck. We woke up the next morning. We took Jake's buck into town and got his buck ground, dropped it off at the meat processor that would take it. And then we told him, "Hey, on our way back home we'll swing by. We'll pay you and we'll pick it up," and we did.

So we took care of his deer, actually and my deer, both of our deer. And then we pretty much researched the closest Idaho Fish and Game Office to our area and we slept in their parking lot all night. And the story behind that is there were some tags available that we wanted. And the lady I talked to on the phone said, "What we do to see who's first in line is we check our cameras. So the first truck in the parking lot is the first truck in line." So we're like, "Well, we got nothing to lose. Our deer tags are filled and we still had seven days to hunt or whatever, six days to hunt." So we went and had dinner, went to a laundromat, washed our clothes and we pulled in the parking lot like 8:00 that night, the night before the sale and slept in our truck all night.

Well, that turned into being a complete shit show. We had a person pull in at 15 minutes before they opened the next morning and they fricking threw a complete rigging fit. It was embarrassing to even be a part of, to be honest with you. I kept my calm. We never raised our voices or nothing, but that individual, I've been trying to get a tag, every return tag. And they had Idaho plates, but they weren't technically residents yet. So long story short, Idaho ended up giving them the tag we wanted, which was in the zone my deer tag was in where we had seen six or seven branch bulls and we knew right where they were. So we picked up another tag in an area where we've hunted elk before, which was nice. So we picked up that tag. We were still happy, disappointed a little bit to be honest with you because we had to drive seven hours back around, but we got our tag and off we went.

Tommy Sessions:

So yeah, I got a text from you asking about some unit information and I was like, "Oh, he must be planning for next year." And then I called Bill, I don't know, two days later or whatever it was and I was like, "Hey, you might hear from Steve. I told him that you'd hunted that unit before. Just FYI," and he is like, "Oh yeah, I talked to him. He hunted it." And I was like, "Dude, what? This guy's fricking hunting every tag he can get in Idaho."

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, that honestly ended up being ... We just got weathered out honestly. We had about a half a day, and as you guys know, the weather, that system blew in and you couldn't see 200 yards. There was so much rain and snow and wind and fog. It was like being on the coast, but the elk aren't talking. So we tried to tough it out. We stayed for two days, and again, you couldn't see. So we just figured, "You know what? It's time to call it a year in Idaho," and we packed up and off we went. We did leave a brand new suitcase Honda generator though where we were camped. So if anyone finds that, lucky them.

Tommy Sessions:

Oh man. That sucks.

Bill Ayer:

You should have told me. I would have went up there and picked it up for you.

Steve Raudenbush:

I didn't even think about that until just now, but I'll send you the pin. If it's there, it's yours.

Bill Ayer:

Well, no, I'd give it back to you, but yeah, I'll run up there and grab it. You guys had a hell of a season, but it's not over yet, right? You still got more elk hunting to do, but I just watched your video that you put together for your deer hunt and I was telling you earlier, you did a really good job. So if anybody's interested in seeing a really good put together a video, Steve did an awesome job, him and his brother putting that together, so go check that out on YouTube. It really gives vision into who you guys are and what you do and how you do it. And I thought it was really cool. It shined a different light on. On the podcast, you get a lot of talking, you don't know what's true, what's not, but when you watch the video, you're like, "Okay, yeah, this guy's legit. What he's saying, he's actually doing," so go check it out.

Steve Raudenbush:

Appreciate that, Bill.

Bill Ayer:

Yup.

Tommy Sessions:

So I have one question for you because this is the first year of the ArchAngel bugle tube and then our reed. So just like Bill said, nitty-gritty, you're the hunter that what he says he's doing, he's actually doing it. So honest review, I'm curious to hear what some reviews from people are. So what's your thoughts on it?

Steve Raudenbush:

So I think I told you guys in our first get together that I love that ArchAngel tube. The acrylic insert, the flare on the end of it, honestly, that's probably my favorite part, the way it fits your mouth when you're trying to rip a bugle. A lot of the other tubes I've tried in the past, they're really skinny. Some of them have had flare, but where it flares, the plastic is super thin, so it almost feels like it's going to cut your lips if that makes sense. And with that ArchAngel tube, that hard thick plastic and that big flare, I personally was a really big fan of it. I love the way it fit. That's probably my favorite thing. And of course, it's extremely loud.

So when you're trying to call elk across the drainage, that's what you want, right? You want that volume to carry. So that tube with the 200 Series Gladiator, the orange reed, that was my favorite combination personally. It was just enough. There was enough latex there that I felt like I could really blow on it and get that good volume, but I could still get those soft cow calls with it as well. So those were the two I landed on for sure. And then I know-

Bill Ayer:

You didn't throw the ArchAngel when you got mad, did you, when you got winded?

Steve Raudenbush:

I did.

Tommy Sessions:

I thought the same thing.

Steve Raudenbush:

I did throw it.

Tommy Sessions:

Just some durability testing out in the field, making sure it was all good to go.

Steve Raudenbush:

I honestly threw it probably 60 yards. It was straight downhill. It will happen.

Bill Ayer:

It didn't break though. That's good.

Steve Raudenbush:

It didn't break. It was still good.

Tommy Sessions:

Yup. So when you're coming up, you've got one more hunt to go to cap off your season. Is it 2022 or 2023 in this hunt?

Steve Raudenbush:

I still have two. I have a multi-season deer tag year, so it allows me to hunt. I haven't hunted deer yet here, but I could have started hunting in September and hunted all the way through December 30th with the bow, but I have what's called late buck year, which they give you a four-day window November 17th through the 20th. So I'm going to hunt those four days looking for a mature blacktail. They should be right about ... And then the day before Thanksgiving, late archery elk starts and they give us about three weeks depending on which unit you're hunting in. But that's also a spot in stock hunt. Obviously, the bulls aren't talking, but you can kill a bull three-point minimum and any cow.

So it's a good opportunity hunt. Don't see a lot of bulls honestly that time of year. They're pretty much on their own and it's so thick over here that you're not going to really glass them up. Every once in a while, you'll catch a bull out in a clear cut feeding first thing in the morning or right at dark, but they're very hard to find that time of year. So it's honestly more of a cow hunt at that point. But still fun, man. Sneaking up on a group of 12 cows is pretty fricking hard to do in a clear cut. It's extremely loud and lots of eyeballs to dodge. So it's a great challenge and I enjoy the hell out of it.

Tommy Sessions:

Awesome. Yeah, I envy your year. You've hunted a ton and extending it. It seems like it's a never-ending season for you guys.

Steve Raudenbush:

Yeah, we got spring bear earlier too. And I live for it, man. I'm already planning for next year. I'm going back for spring bear again. I'm going to get four tags. I'm going to get two tags myself. I'm going to go Idaho and Montana and then Jake's going to do the same. So we're coming back with four tags and then going to try to get a Montana elk tag and an Idaho elk tag again this year, archery and a rifle elk tag if I can for Idaho as well.

Tommy Sessions:

[inaudible 01:06:48] Montana.

Steve Raudenbush:

Sounds good.

Tommy Sessions:

Montana is only about I think an hour and a half away from me now. It used to be Oregon would have been my non-resident if I want to go hunt Western Oregon, but now I'm thinking I'm going to try Montana archery.

Steve Raudenbush:

Have you hunted in Montana before?

Tommy Sessions:

Nope.

Steve Raudenbush:

I have and it was great. Grizzlies are scary and wolves, but anyway, if you need some intel, I'm happy to share with you what I know.

Tommy Sessions:

Absolutely. Yup. So well, Bill, you got any other questions for Steve?

Bill Ayer:

No, this is great. We talked too last time about last year's season and you put another season under your belt with success, which is awesome. We're glad to have you part of the team and using the Slayer products to help with your success. But at the end of the day, I think it's your grit, the way you prepare, the amount of detail and focus that you put on it. Like you say, you're already planning for next year, so you pull all that together and it doesn't surprise me that you're successful. So great job.

Steve Raudenbush:

Appreciate it and we're definitely happy to be a part of the Slayer family and you guys have been great to us and it's been a great experience so far.

Bill Ayer:

Yeah. Awesome.

Tommy Sessions:

Yeah. Well guys, if you guys are looking for some content to check out, go to Instagram, check out Mnt2Coast Outdoors. Go to YouTube, same thing. Don't just look at the 2022 season, go back and see what they've done in '21. Check out like we talked about that last time on the podcast with the bear encounter. Check out this year's elk hunt. Deer hunt just came out I think a week ago, give or take and keep an eye on these guys because they're hunting fools and they're just going to keep coming out with content. So that's it from this podcast. Go check out Slayer Calls. Check out Mnt2Coast. Appreciate you guys listening.

Bill Ayer:

Great, thanks Steve. I appreciate you spending your Sunday evening with us.