In this episode, Les Welch of Iron Will Outfitters talks about why hunters need to be in shape no matter what. Whether it be an elk hunt in Wisconsin or whitetail hunt in Iowa, hunters need to be in top shape physically and mentally. Les also talks about hunting being more mental—that 90% of the killing is done by only 10% of hunters who are willing to put in the time and effort for the hunt. Lastly, he describes how he promotes DIY hunting and hunting in public land.
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Listen to the podcast here:
DIY Hunter With A Passion For Whitetails – Les Welch
We’re heading to Wisconsin. I had an interesting October 30th in Wisconsin. I’m talking about Les Welch. He lives only about a mile-and-a-half from where my truck went upside down. Les is an interesting guy and he’s into a lot of things. The biggest thing that we found some common ground on is that he loves helping people with anything to do with hunting or fitness. We’re going to dive into the fitness part. First, we’re going to talk with Les about how he has gotten to where he is, not as a paid person in the outdoor industry, but as an individual that has done some Pro Staffs, he is doing fitness at DYI and hunts like a fool come fall. Les, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Bruce. It’s good to be here. You pretty much hit the nail on the head there. A lot of fun things are going on here between Wisconsin and Colorado. Ask away and we will cover all we can.
I know a few years back, you want to come out west hunting and your body was not in shape, so to speak.
It was in Wisconsin, a whitetail deer, a treestand shape was about it round, I guess you call it. I got on this kill one morning at 230 pounds before my first west trip back on August 26, 2008 and decided I need a life change at that point. It was not because I was going out west, it was not because of anything another than I knew I would not last a long time like that. I cut a bunch of weight and started working out and that’s been up for years. I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned a lot from a lot of good people and I have been able to reciprocate that in helping some others along the way. It’s been a great journey.
What was the hardest thing you had to overcome with the weight loss?
110% mental. If you ask me, that’s the hardest thing of hunting in the mountains, overcoming the mental part of it. Anybody can do that. Anybody can come from Wisconsin and go to Colorado and kill an elk, regardless of what the stats say. I remember being skinny, that’s what I worked on. I wanted to be skinny for a number of years, but I did not want to be because I did not do anything about it. I took it on the scale one morning and the light bulb when on. It was like that. I don’t want to say it was easy, but it was not difficult.
There are a lot of people, me included, for a lot of different reasons, we’re carrying extra weight. What is the first thing they need to do to start in that journey of getting to where they need to be weight-wise?
Anybody who wants to start their hunting journey need to have an end goal that is achievable. Share on XVery simple, they need to have an end goal, a goal that’s achievable. They need to understand that they want it. Anybody can do this. There is maybe 1% of the people in the world who are stuck somewhere because they have a disease, they have a certain condition that limits them, but 99% of it is mental. “Is that what you wanted to do?” I tell everyone of my clients at the gym. I get paid a good wage to help these people, but I tell them if they’re only going to do one thing, that I never want to see them come into the doors of the gym again. 90% of what they need to do is learn how to cook in the kitchen and shop in the grocery store. If they do those two things and they do them 75% or 80% of the time the way they should, they will lose the weight they need to become healthy or go to the mountains or whatever it is that they’re looking for. Have a goal and learn how to eat and cook, plain and simple.
My wife and I should not go out to dinner on Friday night.
There’s that wonder, maybe two times a week where I tell everyone of my clients, “I don’t care what the worst meal in the world is. If it’s ice cream topped with ice cream and wrapped in bacon, if that’s your deal, go do it.” You’ve got to do that because you cannot 100% of the time stay to a strict focus diet, you will fall right off the wagon like probably 80% of the people do. Maybe you have a beer on Thursday nights with Bill, George and Sue. On Saturday nights, you go out with the wife and have whatever it is that you want. Try to stay on the wagon 80% of the time and I guarantee you will have success.
When you talked about the mental attitude, we both know on hunting that’s 90% of the hunt. If anybody can start day one and you’re all full of piss and vinegar. Day two, “I know he is out there,” day three, day four, “My foot hurt.” Day five, “I don’t know.” Day six, “This hurts.” Day seven, “I cannot get out of bed,” and you’re done. That’s how it goes, right?
It does and you heard the same, 90% of the elk are killed by 10% of the hunters and that’s a good portion of the reason why I’m right there. I work with guys who have so much drive. They’re talking about elk hunting, their applications in Colorado and they’re going back and forth. By night three, they’re down and freaking. They’re outside of Denver, they’re at the bar having supper because they needed a break. Those are not the 10% of the people who are going to kill the elk. It’s mental.
I either hunt solo or hunt with a gentleman here out of Wisconsin who will be retiring. I believe he is 57 and I’m 43. Can he keep up 100% with me on the mountains? No, but he is close 90% and he has a great mental attitude. We hunt good together. When we hunt, typically we leave Wisconsin and work on for a minimum of three weeks. Every one of those hours is spent away from the truck. We leave camp in the morning an hour-and-a-half before it gets daylight and some nights it would be 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. We will return because we chased an elk for eight miles across three ridges, we had no anticipation of doing. We don’t see a camp in the daylight unless we’re tagged out.
You can take naps on the mountain. You get your food, whether you get your water, your water purification pump with you, you should have the basic things to stay out. You can have your Jetboil in your mountain home or mountain house or whatever you want to do. The biggest thing that I have learned in the mountains is that I know when I leave camp, if I don’t come back for a while, you figure that out, I’m good. You sit high in the basin, it’s early, you hear some bull elk bugling, you wait to see him drop into the timber and go, “That’s good.” All of a sudden, you’re drifting towards those guys and then you say, “Did you see that bull?” and you’re gone. That first plan is gone.
You’re on the second plan and this guy is sucking you in. Eight miles away, you have no idea at the end of the day if you got him or not, it does not matter because you had one hell of a hunt. You smell an elk, see an elk and watch an elk pee, but then you’re five miles easily from camp. It’s dark, what are you going to do? Les, a lot of people are not prepared for that scenario. I truly believe they are, “I’ll get up, I’ll get out, I’ll come back for lunch, then I’ll go and call some elk over here and then I’ll come back, we’ll have supper.”
You’re 100% spot on it. You can read people on the forums on Rokslide, you had a lot of questions and that’s it. They’re back at 10:30 in the morning cooking lunch and were napping maybe at 11:00, 10:00 or noon four miles from camp and waiting. We always start every morning. We have got five or six plans in mind, but those all go out the window ten minutes after we leave where we were headed because we heard that bull. You go on seeing a different bull or whatever it might be, you’re 100% spot on. We’re there to hunt. I need to come back to work to recover. It’s the way it’s for me anyways.
Switching it up, Les and I are talking about elk hunting. We both enjoy it, immensely we love it or are passionate about it. The same thinking can be said for whitetail hunters. The tradition of, “I go sit in a stand for two hours and then I’ll come in the cabin and have bacon and eggs, some flapjacks stuff and then I’ll go out for two to five hours. I wonder why I don’t see any deer.”
Other than I’m sitting on the treestand here in Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri or wherever it might be versus right on the mountains out there, it’s the same concept. I’m out before daylight. Mostly, I’ll sit one stand, usually daylight to dark but if something is not feeling right, I’ll bump stands. I might be out between 11:00 and 11:15, go two or five miles hopping a new stand, the same thing daylight to dark. That’s much mental as it is. You’re going back to the food thing or trying to learn a new area from 1,100 miles away, whatever the case is. Sitting in a treestand from daylight to dark, there’s a lot of mental there because there’s a lot of downtime. You always got to be on top of the game because that’s the way it is. 11:00 to 1:00 elk hunting and we have killed some bull or bucks out here. We have killed some monster bulls out there, you’ll never know.
Take a couple of things. One, mentally be prepared for your hunt no matter where you’re going. From Alaska to Turkestan or whatever. It’s a mental game that you’re either going to beat or it’s going to beat you, it’s that easy. I have a good friend, Bryan Martin. He killed a huge Marco Polo in Turkestan. He has been on there a bunch of times taking people. He always tells me, “With the sheep hunting deal, you can get up the mountain, but can you stay after? Can you sit on that ridge? Can the fog come in?” All these types of things that get thrown in your face for that one shot, that one second, that three pounds of pressure, it’s amazing what we put ourselves through.
You wonder why some people think we’re nuts, but it’s what we do. It’s definitely not always about the kill. Some of my most memorable hunts have been some of those hardest times. This is like racing. People wonder, “Why do you put yourself through fifteen hours of torture to cover 141 miles in a day?” I get nothing out of it, I’m not going to win, I don’t care. When I cross the finish line, it’s gratification. It’s the end game and it’s everything that leads to it. It’s like hunting.
Les does this triathlon thing. I have never done a triathlon. I have done triathlons because I was getting rescued in the coastguard, so I had to swim. I ran track in college. I had biked 100 miles. All combined, I have a triathlon. You think about that, the adventures you have. The thing I remember most about all my hunts that I have been fortunate to go on is the indigenous people, the people not in the airport, not in any other place, but the people that live there and lived that lifestyle. When everybody goes home, that’s where they live, and people miss that so much. It’s like, “Give me a break.” This is how they live and they lived that way for a long time. Your thoughts on how people live and its far-flung places?
Hunting is not about killing. It is spending some time with loved ones in the outdoors and helping people. Share on XI never had the privilege of some of the faraway places like in Northern Alaska. I’ve got a friend right out of high school that moved up there and she flies from remote village to remote village and works with speaking in different villages. I never had the privilege of experiencing that or any of the other faraway countries like Canada and stuff like that. When we have a mental, maybe it isn’t so much mental for them, they’re used to it. It’s rough.
It’s simple. Every time I visit these places, I come back, I look at my house, truck, refrigerator, stove, microwave and my shower. You let that go. These are flat out luxuries.
I thought many times that I’m born maybe 100 years too late. Granted we missed a lot of things that we were able to do as far as hunting Colorado one day, and Iowa two days later. To go back in time and be able to hunt, live and gather the way they did, sure it would be a bit fun.
Take for example the special people. They were tough. If you’re not, you die pretty much.
Sometimes when they did, it’s because of the simple things that we have simple cures for now.
Let’s talk about your involvement with Rokslide, MTN OPS and SITKA Gear. The different companies that I believe you Pro Staff for, what does all that mean and why should people look into being involved to some of these outdoor companies?
I get asked that question literally three to five times some days during the week, probably ten times, twelve times total for a week, “How did I do this? How did you get there? Why are you there?” I love to hunt, I love to work out and I love to help people whether they’re ten-year-old kids, a twenty-year-old college kid who has never been out west, having a lot of fun. Whether it’s I leave tomorrow afternoon to head to The Iowa Deer Classic. I’ll sit and BS with some of the biggest names in the industry. I do it because I like to do it. I don’t get paid to do it. I get some gear at a discount or I write some articles for Rokslide that I get paid for. I have a full-time job as a machinist in engineering in Presto here in Eau Claire. That’s what pays my bills.
I love the outdoors, the people I met in the industry. You ask, “Why should people do it?” For a lot of people, it’s not for them. I know a lot of people who are phenomenal hunters, better hunters that I’ll ever be. They want nothing to do with background lake. They want to do their thing and not have anybody know about it, that’s totally respectable. I don’t care if anybody knows if I ever kill anything, for me it’s all about that. I’m spending some time with my kids in the outdoors and helping people. That’s what I like to do. It got my start.
Corey Jacobsen, world renown elk caller, was looking for some people when he used to run the Pro Staff for SITKA back in 2011. Corey has been on the forums since I was old enough to type a computer and turn it on. I don’t know if I have to say hardcore is the right word, but interested in hunting. I did a lot of it, so he approached me and that started the ball there. In 2012, Aron Snyder with Kifaru, they started Rokslide. Due to my different posting, they wanted to know if I would be interested in writing some informational articles from a guy who comes from the east, goes out west and gets it done every year. They thought there will be some traction there. I have been with Rokslide ever since and the ball has snowballed so to speak. Working with MTN OPS, testing some new products and Iron Will Outfitters, Bill Vanderheyden, he is right out there by you.
I’m helping Bill out running the Pro Staff there for him and making some great broadheads. All the different companies, I can name them all, but it does not make any difference who they are. The one thing that I never shied away from, all of these products or companies that I have bought full price in the past or I pay full price because I’m not sponsored, affiliated, whatever you want to call with those companies. I believe they’re the best products. Mathews Archery, you can flip a coin with Mathews’ coin. The companies in the bow business are the good companies, but I have been with Mathews since day one. I shoot with him, believe in him. I won’t take a product so I could put my name on it so to speak. I’ll not shoot it if I’ll not hunt with it and don’t believe in it because I don’t get paid. It’s not my life. Hunting is more of my life than put my name on top of that. I could care less about that.
Takeaways from Les’ few words is that he is passionate about hunting. He uses gear to go hunting. Broadheads aren’t the cheapest in the industry but they’re rock solid, engineered. They will take down a Yukon moose like a hot knife with butter. That’s what makes Les interesting is he does not have his hand out and he isn’t like, “Look at me.” Some people are and that’s the way it is. It’s a business and I get that. When you run across a guy like Les, he is a type of guy that you love being in the mountain with because you want it to be fun, you learn something and he’ll probably kick your ass, but that’s okay. That has been done before.
We all have our little quirks. I jumped on a hike with Mike and we have some standing jokes going back and forth. I always tell him he is too slow and he always says I’m too fast. There’s probably more truth to him that I work a little too fast sometimes because I have the ability to. Where he is a little more elevated age, still in great shape but he takes things a little slower. I cannot even tell you how much I have learned from the guy, but we feed off from one another well. All of the people I’m affiliated with or walk away from, I would still shoot all of their products, I still use all of their products because I honestly believe they’re the best in the industry. There are some other great ones out there, don’t get me wrong, that you wouldn’t get wrong shooting with.
I put 3,100 miles on my truck from door-to-door and had a multi-state swing. I don’t care if I’m shooting one $30 broadhead or if I’m shooting $1,000 bow. None of that means a thing if it does not work in the end when I need it to. I have wrapped up maybe $5,000 in gas, food and the whole time off or working that thing. I don’t care what the name is on the product they use as long as it serves the function that I need. When I’m using these products, I gladly tell people what they’re and help them with it because I do feel they’re the best. If it saves somebody’s hunt somewhere down the line, it’s perfect, we all win.
Let’s stop and hit a little hunting moment. Going slow beats going fast every single time. Putting your butt on the ground and glassing beat both of them every single time in my opinion. Chime in there, Les.
No matter what animal you hunt, be mobile and stay mobile. Share on XLet’s equate that. Not only the hunting, I do lots of things. I’ll equate it to triathlon. Going slow on the water speeds you up, going slow on the run speeds you up. I skied the American Birkebeiner, 50 kilometers and I could come out of the gates and go pretty fast and I would probably have a good race. Going slow and steady, there’s so much more benefit to it. All the way around and everything we do, it’s weight lost. Some guys want to see The Biggest Loser on TV, they want to see a six-pound weight loss in a week or a ten-pound weight loss. If you lose 1.5 pounds a week, every week, think about that. That’s 75 pounds a year versus the guy who loses twenty pounds in a couple of weeks and does not lose a pound because he went the other direction and then get things up. 99% of the time, slow and steady will win the race.
What about glass? How much time do you glass? I glass when I’m whitetail hunting because I believe at long-distance scouting. Let’s start there. Let’s take it out west and talk about the technique of glassing.
You’ve got to probably try to reach through the camera there and snapping a little bit. I’ve got a nice $1,000 pair of nice optics that usually stay in my truck when I’m out hunting because I’m deep and dirty. 99% of the stuff that I hunt is in the black timber. A rangefinder will do it for me, being 100% honest, I have been carrying those binos in the last couple of years. They’re sitting right to the nice little SITKA bino harness I got, where they stayed most of the time. That’s my elk hunting style and I love to hunt elk, call elk from early September all the way through the end of month.
I don’t get above the timberline much. When I’m going to be out antelope hunting, high country above timberline mule deer hunting, I have got the spotter, the optics, the binoculars. For elk, I don’t use binos much. For the last years, I’ve carted them along every single minute in the woods. I don’t regret it. It’s 2.5, three pounds and I don’t use a lot. I know I’m different than most people. Most people love to set up, glass and get in front. I’m not about killing a 350-inch bull or 330-inch bull every time or any type for that matter. I’m experienced, I want the bull in my face. The best place for me I found that is the dark timber.
That’s interesting because it’s styles. I love to leave 4:00 in the morning, and get up before dark and get above the basin. I’m above timberline and then I snuggle in, I might get one locator bugle. It isn’t a big raspy dude, you hit it and you don’t do anything even if a bull comes back. I get my glasses up and then that’s how I use my glasses. I agree 100% if you’re in the dark timber and stuff, you can smell the elk, you don’t have to worry about where it is. You’re smelling him, that’s what you’re doing and you better be smelling them because they’re not, he is gone.
Mike and I hunt, we tandem hunt quite a bit or we each hunt solo. We’re the only guys who can hunt with, so it depends on where we draw tags. We each did New Mexico in 2017, I was lucky and drew a 16B Gila tag and he drew a tag in another unit. We were solo for quite a while, but then we headed to Colorado, we got some hunting time together there. We coined the phrase a number of years ago. He has got a good smell and I can hear really good. When we hear a bugle, he is pointing this way, I’ll point this way and we go that way. All of a sudden, he will stop and he will say, “I smelk.” We combined smell and elk, so we say smelk. He could smell well. It’s pretty fun. We had the two senses combined. If you don’t smell an elk and you’re not seeing them, it’s probably time to do something a little different.
It’s definitely time, especially if there are rugs, wallows, scat or poop. If you have seen all that stuff, then you’ve got to put on the breaks and figure it out. You say you write for Rokslide. Jordan Budd is one of the writers there.
Jordan is awesome. She had a good sheep hunt. They got some good video and some good footage. She is headed back home to do some editing there. Rokslide has got the coolest group of people. There is no bullcrap. You get that typical guy on there that wants to troll and cause trouble, we don’t even mess around, he’s just gone. All the different writers, moderators, forum people that are associated or with Rokslide, you can email him, private message him or post a question on the forum. If you want to put somebody out there and say, “Tony out of Michigan is a phenomenal hunter, he is one of us.” Anyone of us, we see our name on the forum, we’re going to answer your question. You can private message. I answer messages multiple times a day usually.
It’s a great resource for anybody that wants to do Western hunting. Tony and myself, we try to kick in a little bit of an eastern kick because he is in Michigan and I’m here in Wisconsin. We bring a different perspective to the Western forums as well because we both seem to get it done on a fairly consistent basis. There’s like, “You’re glassing a lot and I’m not.” I bring a different perspective. Rokslide is a great resource. I cannot say enough good about it.
Let’s talk about DIY in Wisconsin. What it was, what it is now and what it is going to be tomorrow?
I have a cabin up on Lake Superior in Cornucopia. It has been in the family since 1946, the year my dad was born. He went off in Vietnam and came back. My grandpa to my dad, my dad to my myself and eventually it will go from me to my son, Hunter. It has changed a lot. There are still pretty big woods up there. Locally here I’m in West Central Wisconsin in Eau Claire area for people from all the bigger cities. In fact, when I was in high school which has been a while, I could hop out my mom and dad’s door and I could walk for two miles and shoot squirrels, grouse and tramp through beaver ponds and all that stuff. It’s like everything else. Times have changed. Hunting isn’t the same.
We have got some great deer population, elks and bulls, but I have been lucky. All I hunt is public land. Whether it’s here in Wisconsin, Western Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Wyoming, it does not matter, I’m a public land DIY guy. I have met one guy that bear hunts and I’m going to Ontario with my son again. For Wisconsin, it has changed a lot. The public land, they’re more crowded, which is a good thing. It means we’re bringing more hunters, more youth, more women, more men into the foray which is good, but it’s harder to find access. There is a lot more leasing going on. Obviously, everybody is familiar with Buffalo County in Wisconsin where there are more Pope & Young bucks than any place in the world. There are still some of the good old boys down there who occasionally once in a while somebody will sneak in, knock and shake a hand, maybe a beer afterward, but that’s few and far between now.
For me, for DIY and on the public land here like I do, I gave up hunting to Bayfield County up there because the wolves have taken over. I see more wolves on a typical week-long hunt up there than I do whitetails now, so I have gravitated. I have to switch gears. You all have to move if you want to be successful. Successful sometimes is seeing a deer. It has changed a lot. I don’t see it getting better for the DIY guy. There is a lot of money involved now, but it isn’t an excuse either. We killed some great bucks for the last years on public land, heavily pressured. You’ve got to work harder, be a little smarter, you know the drill, it’s the same as all west.
What are the five tips that allow you to put bucks on the ground?
We get 86,400 seconds a day. Use them wisely because we don't get any redoes in this grand scheme. Share on XI’ll steal Heads Up Decoy’s slogan, “Be mobile, stay mobile.” I use that in everything. For whitetails in Wisconsin, my number one tip is, find a big sign and hunt it. Big bucks will leave little signs, little bucks will not leave a big sign. I don’t care if that’s Missouri, Wisconsin, it doesn’t matter. From October 24th, somewhere in there, I’m looking for the freshest, biggest sign I can find. I run cameras on public land, I do all that stuff. At that stage of the game, it does not matter. Those bucks are on their feet, they’re moving. It’s like Heads Up Decoy’s, “Be mobile, stay mobile.”
I run a decoy, I rattle and I grunt. I do a fight sequence and it’s my own. I have used it to kill. Some of the bucks I have killed astound me for public land, for deer that are pressured, but they fall for it. Aggressive, I’m not passive. A lot of guys will go to their one stand. I’m not going to get into the whole baiting debate. That’s not my deal. They’re going to their one stand, maybe they got bait there, maybe they don’t and that’s where they’re going to hunt regardless, not me. We are thigh-high up here, maybe twenty, eighteen inches of snow on the ground, but I’m looking for sheds. I know the travel patterns and corridors and when I find the fresh sign in those areas and I’m familiar with or what I’m familiar with to that matter, I hang a stand. I hunt it immediately and I’m vocal in the run. A lot of grunting, rattling, fight sequences and with the decoy is pretty killer setup.
You talk about Heads Up Decoy by Garrett Roe. Garrett is out of Kansas and he has done some fantastic things. I have been able to see some of his video footage and talked to him extensively. It’s amazing what he does some pancake-shaped Kansas not a tree within 100 miles, and you think I’m joking, I’m not. There are yucca bushes and there’s Russian olive and there’s this and that. He will get right on top of a buck and then he will snort wheeze at him or he will tick some antlers. He’ll do something, the buck stands up and he shoots it. That’s 30 yards from a buck that has got a lockdown. If you never checked out Garrett Roe, go to Heads Up Decoy and tell him that Les and Bruce sent you over. I use his turkey stuff, elk stuff and deer stuff.
I carry his elk decoy. From the time I have to park my truck, it’s sitting on the back, it’s nice in the back of my car. The way I got it set up is so I can pull it out while we’re elk hunting. If something happens quick, I got clips so I can clip it if I’m solo or if Mike’s with me, I can wave forward ten yards and I could be back flashing the decoy or whatever. It’s awesome, antelope is amazing. If you want to do some spot and stalk pre-rut, rut time, you want to be careful with the rifle hunting obviously. Turkey hunting, I have shot turkeys in Wisconsin, in public land, these are highly pressured birds. They’re not smart, but these birds are wary. I shot two turkeys inside of three yards with this thing on my bow, it’s ridiculous. I cannot even explain how fun it is because this hunter was seven years old. It was a few years ago when I first started using this.
I had this on the front of my bow and his arm is out in the field. He is about 95 yards away and I was holding my bow up, to my left side here and I was trying to yelp, but I did not have a diaphragm and I was trying to yelp when I slate call. I yelped a couple of times and as I set the striker down, Hunter was like, “Shoot him.” This bird was at ten yards running wide open at me. I struggled to reach the bow back right in there and ended up, he comes into full strut at five yards and I shot him at three yards. That happened a couple of times with that turkey decoy, but multiple times, I have shot numerous bowerbirds inside of ten yards of the decoy.
It goes back to your question. Be mobile and stay mobile. I don’t care if you’re elk hunting, deer hunting, turkey hunting, you’re going to be where the animals are. Corey Jacobsen says it best. He might walk by 50 bulls a day because he is looking for the one that wants to die at that time. It might be a bad way to put it. I don’t care because he is 100% right. I can sit in a treestand 300 hours a year and wait for something to come to me. When I get the chance to turkey hunt, antelope hunt or elk hunt, and I want to take the game to them and the decoy they call in, finding the one animal that wants to play at that time, that’s what my whole season is about. If I don’t kill them, I don’t kill them. They get to win, that’s okay too. At least, we got that interaction and experience, that’s what it’s about.
If you’ve never used a decoy, we’re pumping out, Heads Up Decoy, but there are a lot of other decoys on the market. You owe it to yourself and start off simple. Start off with the turkey, with the antelope, then you move it up into your deer and then finally elk or you can do whatever you want. If you’ve never seen a buck come in and bust the crap out of the decoy, it’s unbelievable. You have seen those YouTube videos and you go, “My goodness,” some of those planned out decoys he just comes ripping in. That’s fun.
You cannot explain it to somebody. Watch it on YouTube, but to see it in person. To see a turkey cover eight or five yards in twenty seconds, you know how they run, they got everything swinging side to side and you’re like, “What is wrong with this thing?” There they are full band or that elk as he crashed the decoy or whatever, that elk comes charging in with saliva snot running down and they bugle at your face at five or eight yards. I shot an elk in 2011 in Colorado at three yards. I was on the ground kneeling and it could come in. I’ll never forget it, it’s a 4×5 at three yards.
Who cares? It doesn’t matter.
I’ll never forget it. It’s amazing. If you have not hunted with a decoy, you owe it to yourself. There is a learning curve. You’re going to scare some. You’re going to do some things wrong. Anything you do, it does not matter. Give it a whirl. It’s amazing.
We have covered a lot. I have been laughing my jaws. Les, I look forward if we can get a day or two to hangout. Take our decoys from Heads Up Decoy, and go to see what we can see. I hunt down by Baraboo River, that’s where I hunt. I have been hunting the same farm for years. It pretty much is and that’s the second generation that are running the farm now. Needless to say, we talked a lot. We have talked a lot of techniques, the industry, certainly elk hunting, but we talk about techniques that will work no matter what you’re hunting.
That’s the best thing I want to get with Les because I cannot wait to have him on the show again. We can unpack some things specifically when he talks about the big sign. The rub that’s on a sixteen-inch tree or the scrape that looks like a community scrape, that’s what it is. There are a lot of different things that we can do. The whole thing that they do at Rokslide and I know we do here at Whitetail Rendezvous is give you some information. I cannot give you all answers because I don’t have them, but I have enough bud on the woods, it got my butt kicked enough by critters to know a little about something. Your thoughts, Les?
You summed it up well. I know for sure I’m going to be out. I’ll try to give you a holler. I’m going to be up in Boulder doing Ironman up there. Maybe to step away from the industry, away from the woods, from all that. We’re a small piece in a big universe. We get 86,400 seconds a day. I hope you all use them wisely because we don’t get any redoes in this grand scheme. I hope somebody who needs help, who has got a question, maybe it’s a kid, your neighbor, someone new in the industry, in the woods, whatever it might be and smile, laugh and live life big because it’s our only one. Bruce, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. I had a lot of fun. I cannot wait to share that beer with you. Good luck, everybody and stay safe.
Important Links:
- Les Welch
- Rokslide
- MTN OPS
- SITKA Gear
- Corey Jacobsen
- Kifaru
- Iron Will Outfitters
- Mathews Archery
- Les Welch on Rokslide
- Jordan Budd
- Heads Up Decoy
- Garrett Roe – previous episode