LOCKED IN 🔒 EP 3 // Non-Residents BEWARE!

Guys, welcome back to the locked in series today. We are going to break down mobile versus spike camp versus Bivy versus base camp elk hunting. Then we're going to go over our hydration systems, how we get water, stay hydrated in the back country, what foods to bring on your hunt to sustain the most high octane output in the mountains. Finally, we're going to go over off-road vehicle options and what to do with that meat and how to get it back home so you can feed your family. Let's go. Hey guys, we love elk hunting. It's so hard. Most miles ever. Definitely a double digit day. Separations in the preparation. I'll have bugles across the canyon today where I've been hunting. This is a channel dedicated to inspiring you to be the best version or aspire to be the best version, the best hunter, the best dad, the best firefighter, captain, just the best dude that you can be. My sleep system is GoFast Camper Rooftop. If I'm mobile elk hunting from the truck, probably will spend majority of the nights there. Basically open it up in five seconds and put it away five seconds. Make all my food in the back of the truck, get my backpack ready for the next day before I go to bed. That's a gospel. That's the rule. That's like the truth. And then if I am really tired, I'll just roll out a canvas cutter. Just, I mean, if I don't want to fuss around, I'll just throw a canvas cutter down. So I always have a canvas cutter. Discount code elk shape 10% off. And then for the back country, it's the peak solitude. I may or may not bring the stove if there's weather, which I check weather all the time, whether it be if I have self-service or from an in-reach. I always want a heads up if weather could be coming in. I'll pack in the stove, the torrid, and that is my back country shelter. But that is our sleep systems. Uh, I would recommend being mobile, not setting up a base camp like my dad will this year. My dad will set up a wall tent. It'll take him two hours to set it up by himself. And, but he's almost 70 years old. He wants a, he wants the same damn place to go back. Half of elk hunting for him is memories made at base camp. Seriously. And that's cool. I respect that. I just love that. He's out. If that's you do that. If you need a mobile elk hunt like us, maybe get a, you know, the go fast system, definitely start with a canvas cutter. They are really good in the weather as well. So, uh, let's talk about hydration systems. Typically in the back country, I don't use, I don't use a bladder. I don't like the tubing and all that. Never have. Are you one of those guys? I don't like it. I don't like the sanitary aspect of it is what my problem is. That's actually fair. I don't like not knowing like my budget. Yeah. Like I can't tell how much water's in there. And I'm like, Oh, I'm really thirsty. I hope I'm like, well, I'm out of water. You know, I like analoging. I get the big ones though. The 48 ouncer. Oh yeah. I carry a 48 ounce one in the main backpack. And then I carry a 32 ounce on my hip. And then I'll refill the 32 ounce up from the 48 ounce so that I always kind of have my budget of water. Uh, I don't like running out of water and I will budget water if need be. Let's say midday, you want to get water out of a stream. You can run a filter system. That's gravity fed like a Sawyer filter or a platypus. You'll have a dirty bag. You fill up the dirty water. You'll never drink water out of your dirty bag. Yeah. And then you can just have it hooked up and it's pretty fast. The only downfall to those, uh, like Sawyers and stuff is that if it gets below freezing, you really need to like put that in your tent. Maybe even have it in your sleeping bag. If it freezes, you will break it. Uh, so that's only one downfall that, and I always have like Aqua tabs. Like literally Aqua tab water tabs in case I'm in a jam. Those are always light enough to where they should be in your pack at all times. I always carry, I don't know what your opinion is on this, but I always carry a, like a pretty small, lightweight LifeStraw if I ever need to get into a stream. The problem is of course it doesn't, it does have a screw on to go into a water bottle so you can at least fill a water bottle and then drink out of the water bottle with that straw and it's fine. Um, but that's like my last resort type thing. I have something similar that screws on so I can just screw it on and I just push the water from my hand through. That's always in my backpack as well. So like I always have like a couple of different options for water because you're made of water. You need water. Yeah. Um, one thing I add to all my water and it's kind of fall under the food category is hydrate and recover from wilderness athlete, uh, energy and focus from wilderness athlete. I have at least a serving of each a day all September long to make the water taste good, to make the water that I drink. So I just drink more and stay hydrated. Uh, it's a big deal. So make sure you do that. Discount code OAKSHAPE will save, I think 20% off at wilderness athlete. And these guys are a hunting company who make hunting supplements, which is pretty cool. Uh, as far as Steri pens go, I do have one in my pack as well. And it's just, I like redundancies when it comes to water. I'm not like that with a lot of stuff, but I am when it comes to water, just cause I've ran out of water before. And I've been in a jam and it really, it does not only ruins that day of hunting, but it could ruin the rest of the next day, not feel. I just want to feel my best Riley when I'm in the mountains and you've got to stay hydrated. And for you flatlanders coming out West, if you think you're going to go to altitude and kind of like conserve water, you got another thing coming. So over hydrate, spend as much time as base camp as possible. Work your way up. If you feel altitude sickness, come down lower. I always get a little sick at 10,000 feet or higher for about a day. Then I adjust and I live out West and I am fit, but it still affects me. So everyone's individual, listen to your body, stay hydrated, have redundancies in your kit. Next, we're going to talk about backcountry food. Now I could dive deep in the nutrition, but I want to just, I want you to do a couple of things for me. I want you to figure out what your estimated basil metabolic rate is. Meaning Riley, how many calories would it take to keep you alive? If you sat your ass in that chair for 24 hours, it's going to require something to keep you alive. Yeah. Okay. And you're 19 and you couldn't gain weight if you wanted to. I bet your basil is at 2000 calories or more a day just to stay alive. Yeah. I'm older than you, twice your age. Mine's probably less. So I can go further with less calories. You have a really fast metabolism. I used to. So you need to kind of figure out your estimated basil metabolic rate. We will list a link in the video description of a good one, but try multiples to try to figure out this is what I need to stay alive. Then you need to calculate, Hmm, I'm hiking with a backpack on. Most studies show that that's between three and 500 calorie expenditure per hour. How many hours are you backpacking a day? Bottom line is you cannot eat enough calories to sustain usually. So you're inevitably going to be at a deficit. How big of a deficit is how you pack your food? Find out which food agrees with you before season. The last thing I want is you to eat a freeze dried meal that blows up your guts and you have 16 of those in your cooler, ready to go. And you're just going to be running out of toilet paper by the end of season. I want you to find food that agrees with you that is tested and vetted. If you want a DIY freeze dried or DIY dehydrate meals, I've done that in the past. It's a strong high five, double thumbs up. If you can do that, if you have the time to do it, if not find the stuff that tastes good and get a variety and vet them. I like peaks P E K. Have you tried the peak, all the peak stuff? I haven't had all of it. Their stuff is good. I just tried the moose ridge nutrition stuff. Their stuff's good. They're out of Wyoming. Their stuff's way less salty. Yeah, that is a concern. I need the salt, but I do like the salt. Yeah. Something. So just get a variety of freeze dried meals. Make sure that you vet and test them. I pretty much eat freeze dried every night. I will have a cooler full of good food, but it's mainly for making like sandwiches and stuff for middle of the day. And then I have like a food bag, one gallon with all the snacks supplies. That one gallon has my instant coffees for on the mountain, the black rifle, my hydrate recover trail packs, and then all my protein bars and variety of snacks. And I would say majority of my calories still come from carbs. Probably 50% of my calories come from carbs. When I'm hunting 30 from protein and 20 from fat, that's the macro nutrient, that's the macro nutrient ratio that I've found to be best for me. I would recommend figuring out what works best for you. I'm not a fat adapted type of athlete. I, I do do well off carbohydrates when I'm doing strenuous hiking day in and day out. I typically get a Ziploc bag and I'm going to show you what I put inside of it. And I'll give you the stats. Hey Luna, come here. I'm going to give you the stats. So we'll start down here. I'll have an applesauce a day. And this is, is kind of an assembly line. I'll have a fig bar. These are nature baked or nature's bakery. Fig bar or crunch bar, but that's it. Bar Kirkland fruit and veggie. Scratch energy. Choose wilderness athlete. Pack out bar. Wilderness athlete. Pack out bite. Cliff shop block stretch Island fruit strip pro bar. Two servings of cashew clusters from Kirkland. Two servings of Kirkland mixed nuts. Salted or unsalted, dependent on your sodium needs, which you should know. And two servings of peanut M&Ms. Two trail packs of hydrate and recover whatever flavor you choose. This is grape. In the mornings. I don't take the time for breakfast. I have a cooler full of these. These are Alani's. These are just ready to drink protein drinks, 30 grams of protein. So I'll put that here. And then for dinner, one freeze dried meal, typically from peak refuel, gastronome, wild society, whatever you have, I try to have at least 40 plus grams of protein is kind of my, my minimum requirement for a freeze dried meal at night, total calories, 3,520 calories, 32% of my calories is coming from fat, 47% of my calories is coming from carbohydrates. I'm burning carbs primarily. And 21% of my calories is coming from protein. I try to stay above 20% of my total calories coming from protein. It's really easy to miss out on protein. It's hard to come by. So I typically get it in the morning and in the evening, most of my food throughout the day is mainly carb or fat. And I'm just trying to sustain energy for high levels of output. I eat pop tarts when I hunt. Same, same. And I look forward to eating them every day and I never get tired of them. I don't eat them at any other time of the year though. Oh, same here. I haven't had one since September, but I bet you I had two pop tarts every day from August 30th to October 4th last year. Yeah. That and the peanut M&Ms are always, they're in my little, uh, Who are you? We're like related. Yeah, something like that. But I got them in my, I have a headlight and my peanut M&Ms and my, I make my own trail mix with Costco cashew clusters and M&Ms, peanut M&Ms. And I just put one cup of peanut M&Ms and one cup of cashew clusters. That's my trail mix. I have to have that every day. Yeah. I love that. But figure out your food systems, pre-bag it, ready to go. You're not making a lunch at the truck. Um, a lot of times I will make a lunch at the truck in the dark when I'm making dinner, I'll make my sandwich for the next day and I have a cooler with ice. And honestly, a big old sandwich goes a long ways with me with cheese, mayo, chunks of meat. It's on a bagel or whatever that goes a long ways. It's sustainable. Figure out your food systems in advance. Figure out what agrees with your gut in advance. All right. We are going to move on to supplementation. Um, every day for breakfast, I have an RTD that's ready to drink protein. I have about a cup to two cups of coffee. It's typically instant, but I do do pour overs at the truck with like my black rifle pour over kit. We have a discount code with black rifle. It is elk shape. Get those instant coffees. They're the best. Uh, that is it. Breakfast is like fast and furious. Go number two, head out the door. You take the wilderness athlete supplement pack, um, at night. Yeah. It's called the good stuff. It's got three multis, a probiotic, two tablets of fish oil. I take three tablets of their joint health. It has got glucosamine, sulfate, turmeric for the joints. That is a non negotiable thing. Every night before I go to bed, even if I'm at spike camp, I'll pack those and they're packable. Right. So load up guys, supplement back, fill your nutrition. You're not getting all the nutrients you need from the food you eat when you're off-road vehicles. All right. So locked in machines, they're nice. That gets you around the mountains. They don't beat up your truck. You're going to take a big UTV like this. This is a, the Polaris Ranger 1500. You need a bigger trailer. And, uh, when you have a trailer, now you need an extra tire or two for the trailer and an entire repair because trailers like to get flats. You TVs like to get flats. This one's pretty sick. Uh, if you guys haven't seen it before, it's a four seater. So you keep your bow and your friends and you can go really fast on the national forest roads. BLM. This thing does not have dust inside of it. It's got AC heated seats, Bluetooth navigation, all that. And then this electric tilt. So maybe you want to get this machine as close to where you're going to pack out quarters out. Uh, it does pretty good on gas. This is a giant beast, but you're going to have to take a big trailer over here is my tried and true reliable Honda. This is just a little rancher. I think it's a 400 or a 450, but it starts up every time and it doesn't climb great, but it also does do what this does, which is eliminate truck time. Trucks are slow. Even on nasty roads, this will go faster and get you into more places, which is the whole reason behind the machine. I have a 2022 and a 2024 Montana non-resident temporary use. Every state has different rules. Like some states like Idaho and Washington have reciprocity. Meaning if you have your sticker for the year for Washington, they recognize that in Idaho. If you go to Montana, you got to spend the money to get that sticker. And in Colorado, they have a different sticker. You got to buy it. So if you're going to Colorado, you're non-resident. That's part of doing your due diligence and staying locked in. This is my Yamaha TTR 250. This is a 2001. You can see, I got a 2023 Montana sticker right here. Uh, this is air cooled, so it's reliable. It's electric start. It does mean you got to have your battery and forget, don't forget to turn it off or you'll have a dead battery. Uh, the other thing is I put custom sprockets on it so that it's geared so that it can tractor up steep, steep single track. The thing that this has that I would recommend is a light bar. I did an aftermarket light bar because this factory 2001 light sucks and you need to be able to see really well when you're riding with a bow on your back up steep single track. So this is kind of my go-to, uh, for like steep, nasty single track. I got another dirt bike and e-bike to show you. So this is a beta. I treated myself to a newer bike. This is a 2018. It's a two stroke. It's pretty quiet for a two stroke. Uh, two strokes do pretty good on gas, pretty low maintenance, maybe a top end. This thing comes ready for the woods. It's got a pretty decent light. I didn't have to change sprockets. I did add a bigger gas tank and this thing can climb anything. It's not great on forest service roads, but it really shines in the woods. So if I'm hunting more like national forest, just roads, probably hop on that older dirt bike. If I'm doing really technical single track, I'm busting out the beta. And then this is a Baku e-bike. I think it's the mule. I think it's a 750 watt. The battery life's pretty good. It's got the rock shocks, all that stuff. I got an extra battery in here. It'll do pretty good, but you're going to have to be able to recharge it with some sort of battery pack or solar or a generator pretty much every day. And if you think you're going to just throttle your butt into places, you're going to wear that battery out really quick, especially in Idaho, where it's steep, I can smoke a battery in six miles. If it's pretty flat rolling hill country, I can go 30, 40 miles. But again, you have the hassle of recharging it. I don't have like an e-moto bike yet. I think I'm a couple of years out from investing in one of those, but as you can tell, I have a lot of toys. Every toy I have means that I got to do the maintenance on it, changing oils, making sure I have spare parts, making sure it's serviced and ready to go. And things can and will break. Let me show you some of the tools I always bring on all my hunts. Area right here is nothing but extra air filters, oil filters, different lubricants for different machines. And I have to keep it all organized in there. I'll bring some of these things with me in my truck. And then over here, you can see that like I've been on hunts where you're in the mountains, a windstorm comes through and you go to your truck and you get in it and you start heading down the forest service road and there's a bunch of trees that have blown over all. If you don't have a winch in the front of your truck, you're going to need a saw. So I got a still 271. Um, I got another still back here. I don't know what it is. It's a bigger one. I got a Husqvarna. It's a smaller. It's a 235 and then this is actually what I bring on most of my hunts. This is Dewalt 20 volt battery. Um, I do need to put in brand new chain, uh, chain on it before the season. Chains are cheap or sharpen them, but this thing is really slick. It weighs nothing. You keep it in there and I have a couple other tools. I'll show you that coincide with this, but this is the best money. I think I bought it on, um, I think I bought on Amazon for maybe a hundred bucks, but we like our chainsaws. Let me show you where I keep some of my tools in my truck. All right guys. So here's a nice camper that fits the family and it's lightweight and it's easy to pull with a half ton and I will never take it with me elk hunting. Here's why I'd rather have a machine. I'd rather park my truck in a central location and then use and abuse one of these four wheelers, dirt bikes, UTVs. So this is cool for camping, but I'd never take it when I'm hunting. I'm sleeping out of my truck or on a canvas cutter or a teepee in the back country. So over here, you guys have seen the go fast. It's on top. It deploys fast, but I had go fast. Put this in on the side so that I have a battery operated. This will basically inflate any tire you just screw on. You put the PSI that you want it to hit play takes two seconds and then I'll just pack probably three or four of these. These are cheap. Charge them all up before you hit the road. I have all these sockets, sets and wrenches and things to repair. And then I also have flat tire repair kits underneath the seats and the inside the truck, but I'll keep, I'll bring a shovel. I'll bring toe straps. I mean, guys, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If you want to lock it in, you got to have your machines dialed and you got to have your tools dialed. UTV would be my first pick just because it's bougie. My second all around would be my Honda ATV. Motorcycle. Dirt bike. We like our dirt bikes. We have people who think I have been written tickets for a dirt bike and I have not ever, not even a warning. I like a dirt bike because it's faster than a four wheeler or UTV. It can go places that they cannot. And there are a lot of places out West that are open to dirt bikes only. You got to figure out if the trails you're riding are open to dirt bikes. If they are, you should check out an e-moto bike or a regular motorbike. I like old school two strokes or four strokes, air cooled, older, heavier, mess with the sprockets, get it gearing so it can tractor because the last thing you want to do is crash at four 30 in the morning in the pitch black through a shitty headlamp on an old dirt bike with your bow on your, with your bow on your back and they have to deadlift it. Not wearing a helmet like I used to just, you know, got to know how to write, you got to practice. Um, so I would upgrade your headlight. That's what I was trying to get, like get an led light bar. We put one on ours, makes a huge difference. So you can see everything down, have a repair kit in your truck of everything you need, fixing tires, fixing chains, whatever size wrenches, sockets. If it can break, it will break. I've had to fix everything at camp. So I bring so many tools when I go out climbing, you have to pack the tools. But if I had to pick between a two stroke and a four stroke, I have a beta. It's awesome. It's fancy. It's electric start. It's the best climbing bike I've ever had. But I like the price point of like a 2004 to 2006 TTR two 30 TTR two 50, a Honda 400 XR, a 200 XR there's a variety. I like the old air, cool four strokes. Less things can go wrong and you can get them geared up. It's great. The last is e-bikes, which guys I have an e-bike and a lot of you do too as well. And some of you keep riding your e-bike where it says no motorized vehicles. E-bikes are considered in the eyes of the national force as motorized vehicle. There's class one, two, and three. And there's little nuances between all three, but most likely you're not allowed to ride it. It's basically like riding a dirt bike. And so you're like, well, it doesn't make a sound. I can go back here. I met a guy last year, nice guy who had just gotten a ticket. He rode his e-bike around this gate that said road closed. And it's a road though. It's nice and flat. And he's like, I can just ride my e-bike. Well, the fish cop and the ranger, the national force guy, we're waiting for him. And the guy wrote him a ticket. This is the best. He's like, well, how many days you've been hunting up here? He's like four days. You've been riding your e-bike every day. Yeah. He wrote him like four tickets. I'm not sure. One for each day. E-bikes are not allowed on motorized vehicles. I don't even bring my e-bike hardly ever. I'll come in because it's just the same as a dirt bike. So I'm also just take a dirt bike because I don't have to pack a generator and charge up the batteries. Baku does make a bad-ass e-bike and I've used it more for whitetail hunting. And I do like an e-bike for night bugling because you don't have to like turn anything off. You can just pedal pedal assist throttle bugle. They are awesome. So maybe I'll take both this year, but I really, it rarely gets used because it's not legal. So BLM has different rules and regulations, and it's up to you guys to figure out what's legal, what's not. But don't be that guy who's riding an e-bike around gates that are not allowed just because it's an e-bike is still considered motorized vehicle. Class one, class two, class three. Know the differences. Do your due diligence. Put your best foot forward. And finally. Oh, do we need to talk about the motorized vehicle use maps? I think you've covered check your rags. Okay. Finally, meat care logistics. Bottom line is if you have, if you're flying somewhere, you're going to have to hire someone to take care of your meat and ship it back to you. Make sure you spend a little extra on shipping so that it's expedited so that you don't lose it. I've heard horror stories. I prefer to break down my own meat. That means age it for 14 days and butchered all myself, cut and wrap. I know all the cuts. I know I did it. I know I'm getting all my meat, but getting your meat back home. All right. So I'm not sponsored by Yeti coolers, but I wouldn't be opposed to it Yeti. But this is a Riddick. I bought it off Amazon. If you guys look inside here, this will hold half an elk, but it will not hold a full elk. Even a rear quarter with bone in will fit here. And then another rear quarter will fit in here. That's it. Then what are you going to do with the two shoulders to lose me? You're kind of screwed that way. So you would need two of these. This is a one 45 court minimum. Like a Yeti 210 won't even hold an entire elk. So whatever you do, you're probably going to need two of these out of minimum. But I got one other half to show you up. There is my wild meat gear locker. It's kind of your DIY portable meat cooler. I've built meat coolers in the past at my cabin. I don't have one. So I utilize that. It's just over 1200 bucks, but basically it, uh, is a giant insulated ground blind that sets up with an, like a wall mounted air conditioning, 10,000 BTU minimum, get yourself a cool bot, plug it in, override the air conditioner, bring it indoors. Like in here would be perfect. It's nice. It's got these huge metal racks that are aluminum and light, and you can, you can literally hang all your meat for 14 days. So in between hunts, if I come home, I'll set that up and get my meat aging. But when I'm in the back country and I'm in a jam and I need to like get the meat out, this is another option. I don't even know if Baku, the eBike company makes these anymore, but there's others out there. But if you look, if you're in a jam, you could fill that one 45 quart with two shoulders, and then you could put your loose meat and two hindquarters in here. And then put some dry ice or block ice in here or even loose ice and zip it up and hit the road. At least, you know, that your meat is going to be taken care of. So I always pack this with me. Baku made it, I'm pretty sure it's made in China, but I know there's other competitors out there, but like fishing companies make stuff like this. See if you can find a giant bag like this that's insulated to keep your meat cool for the drive home, especially if you don't want to take up the space with two giant coolers, like two one, two, one 45 quarts would fill up a lot of the back of most guys' trucks. So in my case, I bring one of these and a one 45 quart. I have the meat locker. Lock in your meat care solutions. And same with my coolers. I always build a bridge to where when ice melts, that the water that creates a lake in the bottom of your cooler never touches my meat. I do not want water in meat. Some people will tell you to throw your meat in a creek or something. I'm the opposite. I don't want any water touching my meat. I want my meat to age, and I'm very particular on how it's cut. There are some good processors nearby your hunts. You need to make several phone calls because I've noticed that a lot of wild game processors will eventually get so big that they will turn down. They'll turn down you guys, the hunter, because beef is so much more profitable and cleaner and easier for them to process. They're going to say yes to beef and no to wild game. So call ahead, have several options. Look ahead into maybe having a packer help you get your meat off the mountain. And if in doubt, gut it out. If you're in, if it's hot in September and you're by yourself and the elk died, or you were late getting to finding your elk and it's in the sun, pull the guts out first, otherwise go gutless. Get him, keep it meat on bone if possible. I think you'll save more meat in the long run, but if you have to debone, I understand, keep that meat cold, get it near a creek with a breeze, take several trips, get a packer, get a processor, do logistics, get your meat, separation is in the preparation. Now on episode four, our final installment of the locked in series, we're going to cover your questions, the oh ---- checklist, a full rundown of what you need to check, what you need to pack and what you need to do before you go. Like this is the, this is the day you're leaving. Awesome. We appreciate you guys support comment below what we miss, what you liked. Smash the sub. We do want your subscription. We want to earn it. We want you to earn that elk meat. Keep your head down. Keep working hard in the name of better elk hunting. We'll catch you on the last episode next Monday. Peace.