Tag Her Out's Podcast
Two women. Two bows. One goal — helping women hunt with more confidence and grit. Real stories, real lessons, real elk. From first draw to filled tag.
Tag Her Out is a podcast for women who hunt, or want to. Hosted by two women who chase animals. This show is real talk about what it actually takes to hunt hard: the draws that didn't pan out, the mistakes that taught us the most, the gear and strategy that actually worked, and the moments that made it all worth it. Whether you're new to the woods or you've been doing this for years, Tag Her Out is here to help you build the skills and confidence to hunt your own hunt. Building Confidence and Grit, One Season at a Time.
Apple Podcast URL: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tag-her-out/id6798465745
Tag Her Out's Podcast
E-Scouting to Boots on the Ground: Our Elk Scouting Process
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Morgan and Kaitlyn break down their full elk scouting process, from e-scouting with onX and Google Earth to boots-on-the-ground scouting in the field: reading terrain and elevation, finding bull bedrooms and rubs, decoding elk sign (poop, game trails, and rub age), understanding what elk actually eat, and the most common scouting mistakes DIY hunters make before archery season.
Hey, guys. It's episode three of the Tag Her Podcast. I'm Morgan.
KaitlynAnd I'm Caitlin.
MorganAnd today we get to talk about scouting, right? We did some scouting up in the mountains over the weekend, so we're here to share what we look for when we're out there, stories about our fun weekend, how we're looking at maps, terrain, et cetera. So let's get started.
KaitlynAll right.
MorganTitle.
KaitlynTitle. Title music.
MorganAll right, Kaitlyn, how about you dive in. Walk me through the entire process, how you look at things, what you're most focused on, that sort of thing.
KaitlynYeah. So I'm gonna just talk, I think, about this weekend and how we just went out there and were starting to look.
MorganYeah.
KaitlynI think, we're going to an area that we're, we've been hunting for the last two years.
MorganYes.
KaitlynSo we're familiar with the area. We know where we have found elk. But we were really going out there to look at some new areas to see maybe they're bedding in this area, maybe this is a good spot, where does that... so we did check out some new areas and doing a little bit of investigative work. So since we were going to a new spot within the same area we were just trying to get out there and decide, is this a better spot? Are the elk over here? And so yeah, I think when we first started, we're walking out on a human trail- and then we do what I would call off- off-roading.
MorganOoh, that sounds fancy.
KaitlynAnd then so once we get to a spot, we're like, "Okay, we'll go off of the human trail," and then start looking around. And I think the biggest thing we're looking for is elk poop. That's, I think, sign number one. And then also game trails. Like, where do those game trails cross the human trail? And then we're, that's how we're deciding where we wanna go off-roading. So where does it go? Like, where is some water? Where is some feeding? And so that walking the human trail is a starting point, and then looking for game trails. Like, where do those cross the human trails? And then kinda doing some investigative work, which I think is kinda fun.
MorganCool just to kinda give the listeners viewpoint of how I look at things. So first off, when we're finding an area, right? We've already fallen in love with this area. So we have a advantage that our listeners haven't jumped in on with us, right? So let's imagine we're going through an entire new spot, right? So we're looking at unit, I'm making this up, unit 103, Don't even know where that is. I'd have to look on a map.
KaitlynThe Rockies.
MorganHuh? The Rockies. Okay.
KaitlynNo elk there.
MorganOkay. We're looking in downtown Denver. Are there no, What are your thoughts, and then I'll dive in with my thoughts. What are your thoughts of how you're picking your location to start that, Cause we already know there's elk where you and I are scouting. We were expanding our scouting range. But if this is a new unit, or you're an out-of-stater and you don't have that luxury, walk me through that thought process.
KaitlynYeah, definitely starting on onX and doing some e-scouting. So just, I think you're a lot more analytical about this than I am, so I'm just gonna say I just look at it and I'm like this is a north-facing slope. That's number one. Like, where's water? Where are some bedding areas? Looking at the elevation too, like not wanting to get up too high. They're not gonna be up in the rocky stuff. They're still gonna be a little bit higher in September because it is so hot. So I'm just kinda like looking for like the nice honey hole. Also looking at roads, camping areas, hiking areas. We have a lot of that in Colorado. Yeah. And so it's like, how can I get away from the humans? 'Cause I wanna be away from the humans 'cause I know the elk also wanna be away from the humans.
MorganYeah.
KaitlynBut you're way more in depth on your e-scouting and you're you really dive into that. Whereas I'm just like, Yeah, this might look good." And I like to go out and walk around and look for like the physical sign. And that's not always a luxury for people, and I know
Morganagain, you go off vibes. Yeah. I go off Data it's like food all over again. So when I'm looking at an area, the first thing I'm doing is I have onX on half a screen, or if you have the luxury of multiple screens. And then I also have Google Earth. And so I am looking at it from two different perspectives. So on Google Earth, I automatically move it to September. You can move the date back and forth. It'll tell me so much, right? So I wanna be away from the people, so I wanna know how hunters move through an area because that tells me how elk are going to move in retrospect. So I have it, I move it straight to September so I can see cars, I can see that involvement, at the same time as I have onX. So I'm looking, yes, at north-facing slopes, i'm only focused either on food- Water or bedding areas, one at a time, and I am just plugging in. There's thousands of pins you've seen. Yeah. There's thousands of pins. And then I have the filter on onX that brings out the purple where it tells me the distance it is away from a road. And so I look at the purple sections, which I love on onX, it talks about the getting a mile away from people. Because realistically, we know your average hunter does not move more than a mile. And so the elk know that. They're not dumb.
KaitlynNo.
MorganSo I look at that, or I'll take, on Google Earth I can do those little lines, and I'll do, from a section that I'm interested in, I'll do eight to 10 different lines that are all a mile long so that I can find that middle circle. So I've got it from every single road area. Then, I look at it from, okay, so now I'm gonna find the north-facing slopes. Gonna knock every single north-facing slope. Done. Now I'm gonna do water, so now I'm gonna zoom in and I'm gonna find a random bench. There might be water there. Is it more grassy, right? Is the landscape on onX greener? If it's greener, there might be water there.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganSo then I'm gonna go through, I'm gonna green all of those spots and I'm gonna list them as feed. Then I'm gonna do the third one- which or not feed, I'm gonna do it as water, right? And then I'm gonna look for feed. Yeah. So now I'm gonna do a south-facing slope, and I'm gonna put 40 pins. Gonna find where all the feed is. And if it's in that center circle, it's got, it's way far away from hunters, right? So high density from the road, terrain, all of that. Then I find these little pockets. That's how we found some of the areas that we did between you and I with our different thought processes. Then on top of that, now I'm gonna look at the terrain. So then I'm gonna go on onX and Google Earth will be on there, and I can block off anything lower than 7,000 feet. I can block off anything higher than 10, 10,500. We're not climbing Mordor here. They're not there anymore. They're not mountain goats. So then I'm gonna block off all that area, and where it blocks it out, now I can see that little middle section. And it's just finding the pockets because let's be real, they're only interested in where it keeps them fed, keeps them safe, keeps them watered. And that's just to kinda give you guys a backdrop of how we're originally finding our areas. And then, yeah, if we can get out there, great.
KaitlynYeah. And I, so I think some of these features that you're talking about on Onyx are only available on the desktop version, correct?
MorganYes.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganYep. Yep.
KaitlynAnd so that's I know I would be, like, looking at my Onyx on my phone like, "What the heck are you talking about, Morgan?"
MorganNo, but you can move them. But
Kaitlynlike it's
MorganYeah. Yeah, it'll connect.
KaitlynI know, like sometimes we're looking on a computer just because it does have additional features of Onyx on a desktop version- Yes versus the app version, so that's helpful.
MorganAnd assume this is gonna take three to four hours, guys. Yeah. And that means you didn't do enough work. My poor husband, that man, when he sees me looking through a new area- I just yeah. It's a full-time job.
KaitlynIt is.
MorganHey, they know where they are. I have to find them. But the really cool thing about Google Earth is that it'll tell you, right? You can even zoom in deep enough where I've found game trails.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganAnd if you see a game trail- somet- there, there's game.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganYeah.
KaitlynYeah. Whether it's mule, deer, elk, or
MorganWell- Those little bunnies, that run through, they make their own game trails. Yeah.
KaitlynYeah, I do think that even though you could find a perfect spot e-scouting, for those of you who can't get feet on the ground- or even my first year here in Colorado as a resident, and I had the ability to go out and scout, I didn't go more than I think twice. And it's because I decided to start... I was like, "I'm gonna get back into hunting." Which we'll cover some of that story, but I was like, "I need..." I want to hunt. And so that was, like, July late July, and so I only had a month to do some scouting, and so I went out and did some scouting. And this was with very little e-scouting other than like, okay, I can hunt in this unit. I have a tag for this unit. And then let me go out and get boots on the ground. And so I think someone who's out of state and can't... some- when you show up, this terrain looks significantly different. Or- You find food where you- That 400
Morganyards- Yeah is not 400 yards, guys.
KaitlynYeah. Or even, this weekend, Morgan and I there was a new area we went to scout, and it's because we had heard elk bugling in that direction. And then after we went out there this weekend, we realized it just kept going and going. It was like a, a canyon that was way deeper than we thought.
MorganPit of despair
Kaitlynis more of like- Yeah. We were like, "Maybe we might be back here." And then as we started going out, and then we were getting higher and higher, and I think we got up to 12,000 feet, and it was just all rock. And we were really deep in the canyon, and we were like, "There is no way we could hear a bugle a mile away from where we were that day." Yeah. Like, when we started looking at it, we were like, "Okay, this, on map, looked like a good area to check out." But then after... and we had heard bugles in that direction, but then after I don't think they went th- they were this far, and this just isn't their terrain. This isn't where they're at. And so sometimes just, and some- that might be part of your hunting your first couple of years, is just going to an area and checking it out, and you're like this isn't what I seen on the internet." This isn't what I thought when I looked at my onX maps. It had water, it had the food, it had potential bedding, like, all these potentials, but maybe they're not actually there 'cause you're not seeing the sign, like the poop, the rubs- the game trails and if you're not seeing those things, then it's like, okay, then the animal must not
Morganbe here. And that's a, brings up a great point, right? So two points with that. One time I scouted, it was before you and I really just joined together.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganAnd it was like the epitome. I could hear angels with the spot. And I was like, it has everything. It's a difficult half mile in which protects elk better than three easy miles,
KaitlynYeah.
MorganSo it was everything I wanted. And then when I got out there, apparently, and I started season, they were now doing logging there.
KaitlynOh, yeah.
MorganWhich you wouldn't have been able to find out. Ruined. Shot. And so one of the things that I think is really important, is that you're looking in let's say three different, make three different concentrations. Because you have your plan A, you have your plan B, you have your plan C.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganBut if you don't have a plan B, which in this instance I did not-
KaitlynYeah
Morganjust kinda hung out in my car for a good 24 hours, if I'm really honest. Going, oh, this is-
KaitlynWe appreciate some honesty.
MorganI was all butt hurt.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganI just sat there, and it's not like there was Starlink. So I just was like, oh I'll just go for strolls with my bow.
KaitlynYeah.
MorganDidn't work
KaitlynYeah. And I think it's true, like the area I was hunting in by myself that first year and then we went back and we had gotten into an elk, a bull's bedroom.
MorganYeah.
KaitlynAnd I think that's true. The area I was hunting by myself that first year, and then we went back the second year we w- we had a... We were seeing elk. We had the bull's bedroom. We had a bull. We were seeing lots of sign and things like that. And then we go back the second year and when we go back the second year, there was nothing. Nothing. There was no sign. Nothing. There was a serious game trail highway. I would call it the I-70 of game trails. It was serious the first year, and then the second year, like the game trail's still there, but there's no fresh sign. There's no fresh poop. There's no new rubs. Nope we're not he- I've seen a cow and a calf the first year. I had seen a spike with five cows the first year. So I did see all of that, and then the second year, there was nothing back there. And so I think even if you find a good spot, you're having to scout again. And that's what we're doing is like we know this area. We know there are elk there. But let's go back out and see what's out there. And so that's why we're adjusting and we're checking out some new areas. But we do know... We went back to, this weekend, this, the old areas, and we were able to say "Okay, there is still sign." We were able to find a rub that we didn't see last year, and so we know there's still an elk around there. We could smell them. Sign number one. We could smell them. That helps. So that was a good sign for us, to smell them. Just year over year, just because you find a good area one year doesn't mean the next year it's gonna be the same. Especially in an area like Colorado where it's so easy to get into the backcountry. Remember, we went the second time, and how many hunters did we run into? Yeah. Just, if you listen to our other podcast episode, the muzzleloader. He was just walking through the exact area we had found, right? And so when you're making your A, your B, your C, if you have enough time to really hone in on e-scouting, I want you to always ask these three questions to yourself, right? Is the access realistic, or is it too easy, right? Again, a half a mile that's hard is safer for elk than three miles of easy, right? Does the water exist, and does it change over the year? Right now we're in a huge Colorado drought. Water looks completely different than it did last year. And some of those springs we had seen, Dry completely dry. Dry. Yep. Completely dry this year. And is the feed active, right? Without water, there's no feed. And then is the cover secure, right? So those all kind of follow under the second question, is the cover secure? And then I really want you to ask yourself- How much human presence is present, right? How much is there a human interaction? And you can look on Google Earth over the years, and you can keep moving it back and forth by date and start to get a gist, but that's why the second one it makes such a difference to have a type B, 'cause had we only had that type A that we had found from the year before- Right we never would've found another opportunity, and then now you've run out of time. Yeah. And even that human activity part of it, I'm thinking, Even from the first two weeks of September where you have, like, all the people coming to look at leaves and things like that. Yeah. And we still get the daytime people that are out in the woods. But by that, that third week of September in Colorado in the mountains, it... You're not having campers out there. Yeah. The only people out there are, are hunters. Yes. 'Cause who wants to sleep in 20 degrees at night. We're definitely below freezing at night, and people aren't camping in that, and so we'll have daytime people. And so you're not getting as many of the just campers- Yeah hikers that sort of thing. You're getting less of that. You're getting just the daytime people. And then thinking of, like, where are those daytime people going to? And that, adds into that one-mile- Yep radius. And I think another thing on distance I'm, I, keeps coming up is you're talking about getting away from hunters and other things like that. Something to look at when you're e-scouting is just look we looked at the map, and we were like, this is close to a trailhead, but y- the trail's 13 miles long." And we could follow a trail for 13 miles. And so we thought about that area, but we just weren't sure. And then we ran into a game warden last year. Yeah. He checked our tags and, we started talking to him. And he was like, Yeah, this area," which was this area we were looking at as a possibility. He was like, "People stay r- stay one mile from the trailhead. And then people push all the way out 13 miles, and then they're, back- backpacking, hunting, so they're way out there." Without fitters, yeah. But there's that middle ground in between. That half a mile. That's super hard. Yeah, and it was. It was an ass-kicker. And so that's where it was, like, this perfect spot, and we got up there, and we found a bull's bedroom again, and we found a bull. We ended up cow calling and calling him in and had a bad setup, but yeah, he was right. This middle spot because you have the short distance hunters, and then you have the long distance hunters, and then there's this middle spot in between that everyone's overlooking. And then that ended up being a sweet spot for us, and it worked out. Yeah. So another thing you can do on onX is you can put elevation change- as one of the little black and white, and it'll light up the area or darken the area. And you can put 30-degree incline. Guys, it is tough. But there's elk, so what's tougher? Not finding anything and hiking for miles uselessly or finding elk a half mile in? I'm gonna take the half mile any day. Okay. And so you can do that, and it'll light up, and it'll show you, hey, look, it's a really hard incline. It's a quarter of a mile, half a mile, but- There might be elk and now you can even hone in on that spot. Yeah. I think either one could be bad for morale, though. Not finding elk or climbing up the mountain, side-hilling for six miles, That was fun over dun- dead fall, we found elk. I don't know about the pack out, but, that's an issue to worry about when there's a dead animal, we gotta get it out. And, when you guys are building your hunt and you're figuring out your plan A, your plan B, your plan C, as we've talked about, your highest confidence area should obviously be your plan A. Logic. Your plan B, think of an adjustment, right? And this is that example that we just talked about and this would make me think of it. We were only, what, a mile away from the previous spot. Yeah. So that's a great plan B. Okay, so something impacted them. Something changed, right? And they moved from where they used to be. A mile's nothing for them. So make your plan B adjustments, right? And then your plan C, I like to make it a complete and total opposite location, right? Just in case you have absolutely no control over it or they're now logging in that spot. Elk are nowhere near there now. No. There's way too much noise. Yeah. And their habitat's being torn down, ooh, that's a good segue. Tell me about their habitat. Didn't even set that one up. Nope, nope. That one j- that was natural. Yeah, habitat. I, I guess thinking of early September's gonna be a little bit different than later September. Of course. Just because temperatures and what, how high are they going or July, they're gonna be up higher. You're gonna have that north-facing slopes where they're gonna bed down. A lot of that in Colorado the north-facing slopes, bunch of pine trees, and then on the south-facing slope you have your aspens. And like, where are they bedding? And looking at their food, looking at their water., They're not really hanging out in the rocky the rock stuff. Yeah. I think, like- that's really- what you're looking for. The moose are down low in the willows, not so much the elk. Not- You know they'll water there in the night, but then they're going right back up. They're following the wind. Yep. Yeah. The thermals. The thermals. The thermals are a big deal. Yeah what do you think when you're looking for elk habitat then? Obviously, okay, we're talking direction, but I've gotten into just really understanding what they eat- as a really unique thing, right? And I haven't heard it from other podcasters. I haven't really heard it from other hunters. So we found, and this is what sparked it, just to give the listeners some backstory, we found an area south-facing slope, and it was covered in columbines. And we're like, Great, there's lots of little clover-esque looking things. Do they eat this?" And you did the Google research- 'cause we found zero poop. Yeah. Not even a little trickle. We were finding a lot of bear poop in that area. Yes. Lots of bear poop. But no elk. So you found out why was it exactly that they don't like columbines? Yeah, they don't eat the columbines because it has a natural bitter alkaloids and toxins, which naturally are a deterrent for large animals like deer and elk. And then it does have a toxicity, and it impacts their, it causes digestive upset. And so yeah, they're not eating the columbines, so if there's a lot of columbine there, they're not munching on it. They're not going to that. Yeah. And so that's, just as helpful as what are they eating. Yeah, and you're not gonna be able to scout that, right? You're not gonna see that on Google Earth. But so then we really went and dove deep into what they do eat primarily, and I want you guys to Google these after the fact, they're eating a lot of wheat grasses. They're eating a lot of what's called timothy and mountain yulee. Totally am gonna spell that wrong. That's in higher elevations, and this is their largest part of their diet. They're eating bluebunch wheat grass. In the summer and early fall, they're moving to clover, sticky geraniums, dandelions.. Lupines, asters, yarrow, And then obviously, once, for those rifle hunters that are listening, late season and winter, they're going for the aspens, in the summer, they're eating the shoots, but the bark in the winter, willow, chokecherry mountain mahogany, snowberry, antelope bitterbrush. So you guys can start to look at that. I know on onX it'll say, "Hey, you can find aspen groves." And it'll highlight those. But I want you guys to start looking and getting used to those kind of grasses because that's where they're going to feed, and we know where they are when they feed. They're feeding from dark Into early morning when the thermals are heading, down the mountain so that they can walk up the mountain to their bedding area. They're feeding along those ways, and without food they're not making it very far. Yeah. And then just Google searching those. I don't know the names of a lot of plants, but I can look at it and maybe be like, "Oh, yeah, that's one of those plants that the elk eat." I'm in my millennial era. My, my garden era. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm starting to care. Okay. Okay. We're good. Not into birds. She's into plants. Plants that elk eat. Merging of two hobbies. Can't grow a zucchini to save my life, but I can figure out yarrow. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about rubs, right? You have found a rub. How awesome. Those are obviously the definition of elk was here. Yeah. Tell me about- During the rut. Yes. Like- when you care. Yeah. Tell me about a bull bedroom, and then throw that into rubs so we can start to learn about that. that's the season. Yeah, then. And the really cool thing- Yeah about a bull's bedroom is that they feel super safe there, guys. Now, I know when we've done research, traditionally they are on north-facing slopes. And the way you're gonna know, they have a lot of dead fall around them so that they can hear noise. That bull is protecting himself- in that spot because he doesn't have cows to protect him. And let's be real, cows are the ones who are actually keeping the men alive. Like- Same in every species. Same. Let's call a spade. So guys, think security. Yeah. That's gonna be the number one deciding factor for you to start looking for bull bedrooms, and you'll know when you see one. Yeah. It... we see a rub here and there. There's a couple spots where we've seen the rub of all rubs, which is it was this huge tree that was just, like- It was a monster Very tall, it's not like a huge tree, like round-wise, but it was very tall. It was taller than you? No, I'm say- I'm saying in huge as in like diameter. The tree wasn't huge in diameter. No, height. I'm saying height-wise it was high, and the rub went up very high, and so we were like, "This is crazy." But yeah the rubs, like you'll see one or two here or there. You might see a group of them, like a bunch of them in a spot. But a bull's bedroom is you can tell he's marked his ter- like this is his territory. He is. He's in there. He's angry. He's, has all that testosterone coast, and he'll come back to it year after year. Yeah. Guys, like this is his spot. As long as he's alive and there wasn't a huge external factor, that is his home. Yeah. So once you find that, mark that. Don't share that with anybody. Yeah, so I think the first Yeah, it was the first season Morgan and night we were hunting together. It wa- it was just a weekend we did, we do an out and hunt t- together, and we made it to this one area incidentally. Just kinda stumbled upon it really, and we are like, "Oh, there's a rub." And then we're like, "There's a rub. There's a ru- e- every single Ev- every tree you could see- Every tree in this little circle was rubbed on, and it was definitely an elk. It was, like, the size of the trees, the height, and all of... And we were just like, "What is this place?" We did a cow call, and we had something coming close. It made a weird noise, but what you gotta think, there's high pressure hunting in an OTC unit in Colorado, so they're not talking too much. And so we did have a bull come on in. Don't know how, don't know what he looked like or how big he was or any of those, but he, he did come into that. And so yeah, that was a bull's bedroom. And then last year, again, we went into the spot, and we get up to the top. We're like, "Gosh, it really smells like elk." It's like a strong elk smell, which is like a cow. It smells like cattle. It's- That's a good way to describe it, yep. Yeah, it's like farm animal. It's cattle. And so it's just this strong smell, and you're like, "Oh, wow." Then we start walking, and we're finding fresh pee on the ground, like still wet pee, like urine, a spot of urine. Not rain, nothing else. Here's some urine. And then we're like, "Here's a fresh pile of poop." And then we made it to the trees, and there's just rubs everywhere there. And so we think we had stumbled into this bull's bedroom. A different bull. Yeah. Which is kinda nice and luxury. Yeah, a different area. Yeah, and we were like, "Oh, wow. There's another... here's another one." And so this bull's bedroom is, like, where, when the bull, the bulls are all in bachelors groups during the earlier parts of the summer or the winter, earl- late winter, early parts of the summer after the rut. Basically, they're in these groups, bachelor groups, and then they start, they grow their antlers, and then they start to reach a point where their testosterone's starting to get all fired up. And they're like, "I don't wanna be around you." And they start rubbing off that velvet. Yeah. And they'll start to pull apart from each other. So the, the guys will all go be individuals for a little while, and they're gonna go to their bedroom and hang out there, and so that's the bull's bedroom. And then when the ladies start to get to where they're getting ready to be bred and things like that, that's when the bull then comes out, and he's gonna start h- rounding up his ladies and fighting the other guys- and all of that. Marvin Gaye is just playing in the background. And then I think it goes into, the age of the rubs, which I think- Yep you had talked about a little bit when we were out there. We were ta- like looking at some different rubs- Yeah and we were looking at the age. Yep. So the age of the rub- yeah, of course, I took that analytical Google-friendly approach, right? So when you... Let's say it's the last few days to a couple weeks. So you're in the middle of season. You've seen it. Your wood's gonna be light-colored. It's still gonna look wet. Sap may or may not be visible yet, right? So it's gonna be brand new. There's gonna be tons of bark shavings. You might even get fur on there. That's awesome. Fresh. It'll, it won't be gray and dried out. That's the key. Edges of the rub will still be sharp, and it'll have that really strong pine scent that we expect, right? I have a photo of Morgan sniffing a tree, so she's checking for that pine smell. So recent, the season's but older, right? So we're looking weeks to months now, So let's say you're at the end of season or you're a first-season rifle and you're finding rubs. Wood's started to dry and darken, shavings on the ground. They might be missing. There might still be some left No strong scent. That's gonna be really key. You're probably now gonna see sap and then if you're looking and it's old, last year, older, that sort of thing, the key is gonna be the color. Wood's gonna be gray. It's gonna be weathered. It's gonna crack down the straight vertical lines bark may have tried to grow back. It might have tried to heal in spots. It's gonna look dull. It's gonna look dead, and then you can see, a lot of the times, a whole tree dies. So in the recent or this season, there's still gonna be... The tree's gonna be alive at above and below it, right? If it can. When it's old, a lot of times it can't handle it, and it's going to die, and that's a huge indication it's at least gone through a winter. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, like the winter. It's tough for a small little sapling to survive the winter after it's been destroyed by some antlers. Yeah, and the higher the rub, the happier we're gonna get, right? Yeah. Yeah. The bigger the boy. Okay. I think we had some questions. So Morgan had shared on our Instagram page- Ah asking some quest- if anyone had any questions, and We got a couple, yeah. Yeah, I think if you wanna dive into that. The one question was, like biggest mistakes people make when they're scouting. Yeah, I think one of the big things is it depends on the time of the year. So people assume elk are gonna be there all year round, right? So if you're scouting before July 1st, that is not where the elk are, team. They're not there anymore- once season starts. So I think one of the big things people do is they go looking for elk, and then they find elk, and then when they get back, they're like where are they? I was so excited about them," and they're gone. Yeah. They've moved off into a a good indication is where they calf is where the cows will be. And just like across all species- the men come to the big groups of females, and females aren't moving to go find them. So if you can s- find out, even if you're talking to a game warden, a biologist, if you can find out where they're calving- that's gonna be a really good insight there. But they're calving in May and June. True. So- True that versus where they're gonna be in September might be a little bit different, but the general area- General area that's where they're hanging out. Yeah, they might not be as stuck in this quarter-of-a-mile range, but they're still going to be in that similar area as long as there aren't huge changes in food source. They're focused on that. I would also say later in the year females run the show, and I think the big thing is that people keep looking for bulls or bucks. The kicker is that you need to really hone in when it comes to scouting on those females. Learn as much as you can about cows. They're, what, they're focused on what matters to them. Yeah. And I think that's the big thing that people do with scouting. They automatically get in this rut obsession and the bull obsession, and they only can focus on antlers, which I can't blame them for. But that's not where the bulls are always gonna be. Yeah, no. Where are the cows? Where are they coming from? Where are they going to, and where are they bedding down? 'Cause when you're out there during hunting season and it's rut time, that's where the bull's gonna be going, where the ladies are going. He's not going too far from the cows, and the cows are keeping him alive, so yeah. Yeah, and I think you really have to, again, we've talked about their lifestyle, their security side. So even if you don't see elk, let's say you're glassing, right? You can look in those little patches and see if you can see them, but I think the big thing is people assume they're always going to see elk when they go scouting and glassing, and you're not always gonna see them. You and I had a successful scouting trip. We didn't see a single elk this week. But, eh, we were able to cross off two big areas- Yeah that we were interested in, but now we know during hunting season we're probably not gonna go there. And they're not there either. Yeah. Yeah. There was no old signs. We were able to cross off two big areas. We were able to look at- To other areas where we have hunted and we have seen elk before, and we were able to say "Okay, there's still sign here, and there's some newer sign, and so they mu- we can smell them, and so they're still hanging out here." And so that gives us a good indication when September comes around to head back there and see if we can get on an elk. And the tip, guys, like a tip that we would give you guys Just the tip. Just the tip. There it is. don't fear as much of spooking 'em, right? A light spook right now, they'll still go back to that area if they're happy. Yeah. I think you and I were so worried about breaking in and messing with the elk that we weren't as able to scout a spot that we wanted to for fear of bumping em. They're gonna come back. You've got weeks in between. Yeah. If they feel safe. Yeah, and I think we did. We went and we were "Do we go in here?" We know an elk was in here last year, but do we wanna go there while we're scouting and, yeah, that doesn't seem, you know- The worry's not there productive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll come back. They might run off. They're gonna run off today, but they'll probably come back. Yeah. Cool. All right, anything else you wanna talk about? A little synopsis on our scouting trip, and then we we had a ton of fun. It was great. So hopefully you guys got some information from us that'll help you out with scouting, planning and getting ready for the hunting season- Yeah coming up soon. And follow us for more. Subscribe to it, that way you get our other episodes that we're gonna do coming up to this. We're gonna start going through every single week of season and what to expect, how to plan for it, et cetera. So we're really excited for what's, the episodes that are coming further from here. Yeah. It's gonna be great. All right. Follow us on Instagram, guys. All right, bye.