In this episode of Sportsman of Colorado, host Scott Watley dives into the transformative impact of e-bikes on outdoor recreation with Randy Curranci from E-Bike of Colorado. They explore the advantages of using e-bikes in rugged terrains, particularly for hunting and exploring the backcountry. From technical breakdowns to personal anecdotes, this insightful discussion reveals why e-bikes are becoming a favored choice for hunting enthusiasts. Randy shares his experiences and technical insights on the versatile Segway e-bikes, detailing their performance on challenging routes. Joined by outdoor enthusiasts AJ and Brian, they recount their impressive rides on Wyoming’s rocky trails, highlighting
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, just a quick reminder now, if you miss our live show here on Saturdays 1 to 2, you can catch us twice on Sundays, 8 a.m., 8 p.m., and then also the following Thursday at 9 a.m. So four times a week here on KLZ 516, of course, wherever you get your podcasts. You can find Sportsman of Colorado. Hope everyone’s had some great success here through the hunting season thus far. I did get a nice buck here a week ago myself. And so, hey, it has been fun. And we’re going to be getting you a story here pretty quick of a Marine friend of mine that was a double amputee that died. We were able to help get a hunt through God’s Country for our heroes. And it’s a big bucket list hunt for this friend of mine, 75 years old. And last week he took a nice bull over in Trinidad. And we’re going to get Tim Lee on the show with us to walk through that with us. So it was a great, great hunt for him. And I’ve been following all the social media and seeing all the success. So, hey. continued success here throughout our hunting season. We’re going to kick things off today with our good buddy Randy Curranci. It is E-Bike of Colorado, 544 Front Street in downtown Louisville. Randy, thanks for being on Sportsman of Colorado. How are you, sir?
SPEAKER 15 :
Scott, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, man, always love getting you on. Now, you can catch Randy every week. He’s on at noon, every Wednesday with us on our Haystack Help Radio show, all things e-bikes. And I do read some things on social media. I read once last week, Randy, where these guys were mad at the guy on an e-bike. I guess they had got up and hiked and hiked and hiked and hiked and hiked and got there about 45 minutes before daybreak, and then here comes a guy buying an e-bike. And so they felt like, hey, that shouldn’t have happened. But, hey, folks, if it’s legal to ride in the area, come on. You don’t know the health of – The person could be an older person like me that needs that little extra help maybe to get to some places in the back country and high country. And you do want to check all your regulations on that. And we have desperately tried for three years to get Colorado Parks and Wildlife on with us to give us some very, very clear details of the legality of e-bikes, where and what trail systems and different things like that. hang tight we’ll get you some of that but randy i really want to get you guys on because um you’re in you’re in wyoming and um you got a couple of buddies with you um aj is with you again aj how are you sir well great can’t complain good you can’t complain you’re up in wyoming hanging out and also a good friend of theirs named brian from north carolina brian thanks for being with us how are you
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me on today.
SPEAKER 07 :
I appreciate it. Good, good. You bet. So, Randy, walk us through. And the reason I wanted to get you now, all the e-bikes that you’ve got. Well, I’ll let you kind of say it. I don’t want to say anything out of turn. But as far as e-bikes in the outdoors has grown exponentially. And I love mine. So kind of walk us through that first, Randy. And then I want to get these guys on because I know they just did some test rides up there in Wyoming.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yes. And I shouldn’t have laughed when you said that guy came up on that e-bike. But I thought you were going to say something different, like, I wish I had one of those e-bikes. So, you know, one of the strongest brands for backcountry is going to be the Segway. And we’ve got a couple of really strong models with that, especially if you can ride on private property. We have a very spectacular bike for that. And then if you’re not riding on private property, you’re riding on public land where it’s legal, and I want everybody to check their own jurisdictions. I’m not going to name any of them because I’ll get it wrong, I’m sure. But the Segway brand will be very, very strong for anybody that does any type of backcountry. You know, bow hunters, rifle hunters, turkey hunters. Turkey hunters are typically lazy. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. And they love e-bikes. They love them. And I think these guys can attest to riding them on the backcountry. And you know what, Scott? It’s always better to hear from somebody other than, in my case, the owner of e-bike Colorado. But I think Brian and AJ can give you a little better insight of that. how the bikes perform on rougher terrain than I can.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that’d be great. AJ, I’ll let you step up first and tell us about this Segway bike you rode.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, so I bought a Segway Safari from Randy over the summertime. And the reason why I went with it, because of the terrain we ride up here, where we’re at in this undisclosed location in Wyoming, is a lot rockier terrain. all dirt roads and lots of elevation changes, things of that nature. The reason why I like it is because it kind of has a little bit of a mountain bike feel to it. It’s got some nice shocks on it. What I love about it is that it comes with these beefier tires. And Randy actually had me not trying to pad his wallet in any way, shape, or form. It was actually for my own good, upgrade the tires, and we put some extra tire protections and things inside of them. And man, it has performed so well. I’ve had zero concerns about, oh, what happens if I hit a hard rock area or anything like that? Am I going to get a flat? And I’ve done it because I’m not that great at riding bikes. and I’ve had zero issues, so I’ve really been very impressed with this Segway Safari that I have. So impressed. I have a buddy from North Carolina with me who’s very active, and he said, hey, do you mind if I take this thing for a ride? I said, sure, no problem, man. Go ahead, and kind of gave him a quick tutorial, but I didn’t really tell him about everything because I figured he was just kind of going around kind of the area where we all hang out, and he’d be gone for 10 minutes, and Two hours later, Brian shows back up, and I said, dang, do you have a problem? He’s like, no, man, I just couldn’t stop riding the bike. It’s awesome. That’s hilarious, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, Brian, we’ll let you pick it up from there, bud. Again, thanks for being with us. So tell us about this bike a little bit. Tell us about this bike a little bit. Give us an idea of the look of it and how it felt to you, maybe some of the dials and gadgets on it, and just kind of walk us through for our listening audience.
SPEAKER 03 :
No problem. I mean, I saw it in the garage, and I was like, AJ, you’ve got to plug that in now. So the night before, he was like, oh, we’ll plug it in later. I was like, no, plug it in now, because you’re going to forget if we do it later. I definitely want to take this thing for a spin. So next day, I came back into the garage, and I take her for a ride. She looks aggressive. She looks like she wants to be put to the paces. It’s definitely a mountain bike on steroids with some fat tires that just wants to eat up some big rocks and heavy terrain. So I took it to the test. Yesterday morning, we went out on a hunt, and we took out the Rangers, and we went all the way to the top of the mountain, probably 2,000-plus elevation climb. So I just replicated it later in the day. Like, you know what, see if it can actually make it all the way to where we saw and where we started our trek earlier that day. So I got about six, seven miles in, and I was only down probably, you know, 15, 20% of the battery. So I was like, let’s just keep going. So I definitely wanted to push that thing to the limit. So I started, you know, exploring trails that even me and AJ were a little scared to even use his Ranger on. And I was able to even find some new areas just because the bike was just that capable. You know, like you were saying, you know, using a bike almost feels like cheating for hunting because, you know, we’re in the Rangers, we get out, you know, we’re making noise. And it’s just a part of the game to cover that much, you know, amount of area. But I stopped a couple of times on the e-bike and I just – I just sat there in kind of awe of how quiet it was. I stopped for a second like, oh man, I’m this high. It’s so perfectly quiet. Nobody around me could hear me. Definitely kicked myself for not wearing enough orange because I was so quiet. Coming up around the bend or coming up on people. But I thought about that. I’ve seen some hunting e-bikes before and I’ve seen hunters use e-bikes. And I was just like, man, AJ, I came back to the house and AJ had left me a note, said, ah, we’re actually, you know, we’re going hunting again. I was like, crap, I wish I knew where they were. I would just take the e-bike and go catch them. Just because, you know, it was a lot of fun. I started going down some crazy elevations and I do have, you know, a mountain biking background and I have the scars on my body to show it. But just be able to go down really steep slopes where, you know, I’m probably going about 25 miles an hour and and just have the confidence that the bike would suck up whatever’s going to come my way at that speed was extremely impressive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sure. So how much more enjoyable was it? I mean, when you look at what time would you have had to get up probably to start walking to where you ended up there where you are?
SPEAKER 03 :
I literally made it eight miles out. So if I walked fast, maybe I can get three miles an hour. So it would have taken me two and a half hours. Two and a half hours to walk to the point where I was. And that’s, you know, if I’m carrying gear, three miles an hour is going to be very ambitious. So I’d probably say it’d probably been a three-hour walk where I got to probably… you know, probably 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Wow.
SPEAKER 08 :
That is so cool.
SPEAKER 07 :
And so you charge it up and stuff, and Randy might be able to help us better here. Randy, in that type terrain there in Wyoming and all, what’s your safe guesstimate on battery time and, you know, miles you might could get on that?
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, so that’s a really good question because the terrain he’s talking about, that Brian’s talking about, is extremely aggressive terrain. So, you know, him getting there in that period of time and using 20% of a battery or 15% of a battery, it’s phenomenal. So you’re going to go, because, you know, you go up that climb, you’re also going to come down it. So you’re not going to use near the battery coming down. So it probably averages out. So you should be able to get about 35 to 45 miles. on that battery. Now, that’s assisting it. You’re pedaling it as well. You can’t just throttle that. If you throttle it, you’re going to go just only throttle. You’re going to go 20 miles. In that type of terrain, you might even be a little bit less. I don’t want to embellish this. I don’t want it to be something that it’s not. But if you help it, and it’s not hard to help it at all. Matter of fact, it’s enjoyable to help it. you’ll get that 35 to 45 miles. Wow. Folks, it seemed like… I mean, for a hunter, you know, Scott, this is a dream come true.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I’m telling you, you know… Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, we climbed… That trail takes you up 2,000 feet of elevation. So we’re at the climb and climb and climb. You know, like I said, the climb’s all the way there. I didn’t even realize it until I came back because… the trail is so long and you kind of lose kind of your, your, your sense of, of how deep the trails at some point, but you’re just cruising down the trail back. And it was just, it was impressive how it just ate things up both, you know, going up a trail, but then also going down a trail can get a little sketchy at times on a, you know, a bike that’s not quite capable. You start to get some, some big rocks that are loose and a, you know, you can definitely lose your confidence quick and you don’t want to be falling down on a trail, you know, six, seven, eight miles from camp. So having a capable bike that will definitely get you back with confidence, it just made it a lot of fun.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and I’ll be honest with you. I got that tire protection in my bike with Randy, and I mean, to me, that’s an absolute no-brainer. Why in the world would anybody not get that tire protection? That’s a great deal. Randy, take a minute and explain that.
SPEAKER 15 :
Sure. So we put a heavier tube in. in it in we take out the original tube that comes with it with the tire we put a heavier tube quite a bit heavier we put a sealant in there and we don’t use slime but everybody would refer to it as a slime slime freezer so we use an orange seal it’s called orange seal it’s good for i don’t know 32 below before it freezes and i don’t i think it’s that and then we put a liner on top of that in that tire Scott, we guarantee those flats for two years, no flats for two years, and we could probably guarantee it for longer. But, you know, you put a time limit on it anyway. And then we refresh those. Every two years, people bring it in, and for a fraction of the cost, we just put new sealant in it. And we check it over, too, you know, because sometimes those guys are, you know, hunters, especially, they’re putting some pretty hard stress on those bikes, on those tires.
SPEAKER 07 :
Wow. Let’s e-bike of Colorado, 544 Front Street, downtown Louisville. Hey, they’re open 10 to 7 for your convenience. Now, Thanksgiving is a few weeks away, but Black Friday, they will be closed as well as Thanksgiving Day. But then, of course, right after that, they’re closed. On that Saturday, they’ll be open at 10 for your convenience. If this is your first time to hear Randy on Sportsman of Colorado, they have a trail system really close to the store, folks. You can go out there and test ride as many bikes as you would like. The staff is super knowledgeable. If you know a lot about e-bikes, great, but if you know nothing like I do, Was in that position several years ago before I met Randy, and I’m telling you, these things are a game changer. We’ve said this in ads and different things and just phrases throughout the shows for the last few years, but hey, if you want to feel like a kid again, this is the way to do it. It’s eBikeofColorado.com. 544 Front Street. When you go in, make sure you let them know you heard them here on Sportsman of Colorado or KLZ 560, and we would appreciate that as well. Folks, this will enhance your experience in the outdoors. You know, Randy, real quick, last couple minutes about Kevin Flesch, our attorney that does our show with us, and co-host when he can here on sportsman of colorado you and him did an interview at the international sportsman’s expo and kevin was talking about how hey man loading that thing loading a couple of bikes on their trailer him being able to get up early in the mornings and go down and do some fishing while his family slept and he’s got all women man three girls and a wife so you know But that let him go down the river and really do a lot of fishing and come back and not disturb anybody. And he got to go out and enjoy even more of the outdoors. So hunting, fishing, camping, hey, maybe you’re an artist. You like to go up in the mountains and paint, whatever. It’s just an easy, great way to enjoy the backcountry. and some of us are aging that part here. Randy, how do you say it? Aging into life. Aging into life, yeah, where, hey, the knee joints don’t work. Hey, I’ve had, let’s see, one, two, three, four, five. Five surgeries on my right knee and one on the left. So, hey, I get it. But my e-bike, I love, Randy, and I’ll try to shut up after this, but when I was going through my rehab of my most recent surgery, uh where they were just kind of cleaning out after my replacement some scar tissue and different things you know man i wanted to get that motion in there and man my e-bike was absolutely perfect for that because it let me uh put as much pressure as i wanted to on it and man i think that was a huge reason of why you know the process of my healing uh just went so quickly and now i’m 100 with it you know and it was in july so it was awesome But, Randy, I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER 15 :
Can I mention one thing? I’d like to mention one thing real quick if I can. That bike that they’re talking about, the Savari, it is $23.99 normally. Right now, on sale with the Colorado rebate, $1,349. There are e-bikes out there that you see in all of the big box sport facilities, you know, to go buy your guns and your hunting gear. Those are well over $5,000. This bike is phenomenal for that price, and it absolutely competes with those $5,000 bikes, 100%.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, we probably need to make this clear, too. There are certain places you can ride e-bikes, but then the main deal we’re talking about on this particular one is more for just your private property, correct? Correct.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, the one I’m talking about, the one that they’ve been talking about, is legal on anywhere you can ride an e-bike. So sometimes backcountry areas, you know, National Forest, some of that stuff, I don’t know if they’re legal on. But the bike that they’re talking about, this is not, this is, we have two very strong bikes for this type of rider.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. I just want to make sure we clarified that up. And then the next step up for that one, take a minute. I got a minute. Explain that one real quick, too.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay, so there’s the – it’s called the Zyber, and it is a 35-mile-an-hour bike. It does have pedals. You can pedal it. It is classified as an e-bike, but it sits right on that. Because it goes 35 miles an hour, it doesn’t fit the classifications of 1, 2, or 3. And, you know, we talk about this on – just try an e-bike at Colorado on Wednesdays at noon. But – So it can’t be ridden on a regular trail system like you do around your house. That bike is not legal on that trail system in Colorado. Absolutely. And, you know, we’re here in Wyoming. We’re on private property. Sure, sure, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Can we have that bike up here? All right, man. Hey, I’m going to come up here and see it, too. There you go. All right, and get Brian’s credit card while he’s there. I think he’s ordering some for North Carolina now. Hey, AJ, Brian, appreciate you guys being on the show. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER 07 :
We appreciate it. All right, Randy. Hey, you guys go have fun in Wyoming, and we’ll get back to the show here in Colorado, and we appreciate your time, sir.
SPEAKER 15 :
Thank you, Scott. We appreciate you very much.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, you too, bud. That’s Randy Krantz, the owner of E-Bike of Colorado, 544 Front Street. As I said, seven days a week, 10 to 7. Go see him. Tell him Scott sent you. You heard him on KLZ. You heard Randy. Whatever. They’ll take great care of you. The rebate is $450 now just through the end of the year, and then it’s going to $225. So don’t wait. Take full advantage of that rebate now. This is Sportsman of Colorado. We’ve got to hit a quick break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Here’s why you need personal injury attorney Kevin Flesch on your side. He understands the way the jury thinks. In the context of a personal injury case, you’ve been hurt by someone else’s negligence. The idea is that you’re going to try to recover so that you can get back to where you were just prior to that incident occurring. What that really means from a jurist’s perspective is that you’re going to be asking them to award you money. So when we talk about fairness, we’re talking about six people that you don’t know. Those six people view the evidence and make a unanimous decision that will decide what the fair value is. When you’re the one who’s hurt, you have a good idea of what you think it’s worth. The question is, can you persuade those other individuals whom you don’t know and were witnesses to believe that’s what the case is worth?
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
If you’re in the market for a new rifle for the big game season or a new shotgun for some doves or upland game birds, head on over to The Gun Room. Kevin Flesch here from Sportsman of Colorado, inviting you to visit Denver’s oldest gun dealer. And that’s The Gun Room at 1595 Carr Street in Lakewood. They offer buy, trade, consignment, transfers, and appraisals. And if you purchase a gun, we’ll cover your background check fee. It’s The Gun Room, 1595 Carr Street. Tell them Sportsman of Colorado sent you.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
This is AM560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to Sports from Colorado. Again, thank you so much for being with us today. We’re going to go to the phones now and talk to our good friend Scott Gillespie, Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery. And Scott’s been a great friend of the show. We’ve had him on several times over the last several years. And Scott, first of all, welcome to the show. How are you? Hey, I’m doing good. Thanks for having me, Scott. You bet. Hey, you’re going to be part of our Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo again this year, aren’t you?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, sir. All right. The third year.
SPEAKER 07 :
Third year. Yep. And I tell you, it’s hard to believe that already. I know. It is March 20th through the 22nd. And you’ll be hearing more about this in the months to come. But just we’ve been mentioning this every once in a while. We are not going back to the Gaylord. All right. We are at the brand new facility at the National Western Events Center. They’ve kind of built a new convention center there, and it’s going to be held there. It’s going to bring so many wonderful things for us, and we’ll get into all that when I get Phil and Avon and Mendoza and Avery in. It is just going to be a great, great expo again this year, but I want to get the dates out there again March 20th through the 22nd. Well, Scott Gillespie, Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery. Let’s just reflect here on the year thus far and maybe some things you’re seeing out there just overall from general hunting perspective. And then we’ll get into the recovery part.
SPEAKER 16 :
OK, Scott. Yeah, like I was telling you before, I mean, every year it’s just a little bit different this year. You know, our group has grown to almost 60 tracking teams in the network. Yeah, we’re covering, we got tracking teams in eight different states right now. So when guys call, you know, whoever they might get a hold of on our map, if that person can’t, Can’t take a track or help somebody out. We just all communicate through WhatsApp on our cell phones. And if somebody is in the area or wants to make a drive to a hunter, you know, they’ll contact that hunter and say, hey, you know, ask them all the questions. And a lot of times, you know, we’ll get a tracking team on site now. Do we 100% of the time? No, it’s just not feasible. It’s almost impossible to do that. But, yeah, we get a lot of tracks covered. This year we had three different tracking teams from back east, guys that track a lot of whitetails. Everybody wants to track an elk, so we had three different teams from back east. We had one from Illinois. one from Michigan and another one out of Missouri that was out here helping us with our network. Yeah, it was actually quite successful. But that’s kind of the way it’s grown today. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
And you were telling me a little bit before we came on air here, some different things you’re seeing, resident, non-resident hunters and the way the draw thing works now. Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, that was the big eye-opener. I will say this, tracking calls were down this year from every year I’ve done this. This was our eighth season, or my eighth season. A lot of our teams, it was only their second or third. The Um, you know, I would say approximately last September, we were at 300, maybe, maybe a little few more, uh, tracking calls just in the month of September for archery hunters, you know, through, and I’m talking, you know, the whole Western United States, um, from New Mexico to Montana, Idaho, Utah. Um, I would say that those calls were down probably. 25 to 30% from last year. And I, and we were trying to figure out why that was and talking to a lot of different people. I, um, actually one good buddy that’s, that’s been around a long time. He, he blamed it on the wolves. He goes, if wolves are in the area, the elk aren’t going to call. They ain’t going to respond to a call. And I, yeah, that could be a few of them. Um, but the big one I noticed was the amount of hunters on the mountain. Um, And it goes back to the non-residents having to apply for archery tags. I mean, this was the first year because we, you know, I’ve done a lot of elk hunting myself, and I kind of quit, you know, archery elk hunting, and I kind of quit doing it when I started getting into this dog tracking thing. And another reason was is some of the places I used to love to go into elk hunt were getting overcrowded with people. I actually got called in. three different times into my old elk hunting spot this last year. In fact, one of them, I got to walk by my old tree that I used to hang a tree stand in. I was right there at the base of it. And the amount of hunters that were in there was minimal. I mean, when I pulled into that trailhead to walk in there, Um, there was one vehicle and it was the guy I was going to track for, um, where last year you’d have pulled in there. That might’ve been 10, 15 vehicles of guys back there. Um, this year there was only one. And we noticed that across the board, everywhere we went, how much fewer hunters were in the woods this year. So I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Um, um,
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 16 :
And going back there, I mean, it actually looked like elk hunting was fun again.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
I mean, you know, going back there and, um, places where you, you would hardly ever see or hear an elk in the last couple of years, I’d go back there and elk sign was everywhere, you know, as we were tracking elk, we’re bugling. Um, so yeah, it was, it was exciting in that aspect. Um, But there were fewer hunters on the mountain this year. I can guarantee that one.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, absolutely. If you’re just joining us, Scott Gillespie is with us. He’s with Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery. And we’ll get into all the ins and outs of what all services they offer. But, Scott, I was telling a guy I was going to call you this morning and get you on. But I always see on Facebook, you know, people taking pictures of blood. What do you think? I see questions. What do you think? You know, just that. Let’s talk about blood amount that you see and blood color. And I’ll let you take that anywhere you want. But when we’re analyzing blood, help us out there.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, you know, really, quite honestly, you know, blood just confirms that we have a hit. And as we’re doing a track and my dog’s pointing out blood, either in the grass or going over logs, it confirms to me that the dog is on the right line and we’re following a wounded animal. Really large amounts of blood really don’t. because we get this a lot, you know, hey, there’s so much blood out here that he’s got to be dead, you know. Is that the case? Absolutely not. I mean, let’s just take, for instance, a bull elk. You know, there’s a lot of blood in that body, and they’ve got to lose a third of it for shock to set in. So a lot of blood on a line really – I almost think it’s a bad thing because flesh wounds bleed a lot. You know, a narrow through both lungs, you know, you probably shouldn’t really even need to call me, but, you know, they can bleed quite a bit too. Gut shots and stuff like that, you know, they can plug up and there’d be absolutely no sign that we’re on the right line. So, Um, you know, the amounts of blood, you know, do I like to see blood on a line? Absolutely. All of us do because it’s confirming to us that our dog is on the right line. Does it, does it mean the animal is, is, is it been hit with a lethal shot? Absolutely not. Um, so, but we all like to see that blood and, you know, color blood, you know, can tell us, um, um, You know, an artery, you know, the oxygen-rich blood, you know, is more bright red. And then, you know, we get a lot of, oh, he’s sitting late. It looks like liver blood. You know, well, yeah, it could be. But, you know, their veins, you know, the blood that’s going back to the heart isn’t oxygen-rich, and it’s darker in color. So, you know, can it tell us where they’re hit? Yeah, kind of. um is that a hundred percent absolutely not we really don’t know until we get on the animal um to see really where he was hit it does help us some you know um you know one thing we do have with the bow hunters we don’t have with the rifle hunters is sometimes we have the arrow um right you know and any any evidence on that arrow actually tells me more than than blood on the ground um We don’t have that with the rifle hunters. A lot of times the bow hunters know where they hit. We send them a graph of an animal and we ask them, where do you think you hit the animal in the graph? You know, you can take that for what it’s worth, too, because about 80% of the time, they aren’t even close to where they say they hit it on the ground.
SPEAKER 08 :
Is that like a 50-50 shot there, you know, where they say, oh, man, it was right in the shot?
SPEAKER 16 :
I think it’s more like 30-70.
SPEAKER 08 :
Really?
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, yeah. You know, guys are in the heat of the moment, and they, you know, the adrenaline’s pumping, and they’re in close proximity to their quarry, and… Man, sometimes, you know, just reasonable thinking is just out the window. And, you know, I don’t know if they really remember what happened, but they like to remember what they think should have happened, possibly. And, you know, because we get a lot of them, oh, you know, I double lunged him. Well, no, you didn’t. Because if you did, you really shouldn’t be calling me. Right. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Just a sec, Scott.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Again, Scott Gillespie is with us.
SPEAKER 16 :
I’ve got a dog in my office here. Okay. And the UPS man just pulled up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Uh-oh. Love when that happens.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah. So let me ask you this. If you had to just say percentage, is one of the big mistakes is we just don’t give an animal time after a shot?
SPEAKER 16 :
That is the number one reason why we do not get a recovery or the hunter doesn’t give a recovery is they don’t give it the appropriate amount of time to wait before they start tracking.
SPEAKER 07 :
What are your suggestions on time frames?
SPEAKER 16 :
You know, if you see the animal go down, there’s really no… that there is no time frame you know i would tell guys to be very cautious because we get a lot of phone calls where um mainly with the rifle hunters you know of high back hits where they just drop immediately yeah um you need you need to put your you need to put another shell in and keep your scope on that animal if you can see him and if he starts to think that he might be trying to get back up you put another one in him sure um You know, many times I’ve gotten videos from guys and, you know, somebody in the background, don’t shoot him again, you’ll ruin some meat. Well, you’re going to ruin a lot of meat if you don’t find that animal. You know, if you’re just positive that you ran one through both lungs, but he did disappear in the timber, I tell you two hours, minimum two hours before you start tracking. If you go back in the animal, you know, maybe just dead center of the animal where you think you might have taken the liver, I would wait anywhere between four and eight hours before I started tracking.
SPEAKER 07 :
And why is that so hard for us to do?
SPEAKER 16 :
Guys are excited. Their buddies are, let’s go get him, let’s go get him, you know. Guys go back to camp and I hit one and, well, let’s go find him. Well, no, let’s Because, you know, quite honestly, I find this with deer on liver hits, you know, just dead center of the deer. They will go anywhere between 200 and 400 yards and bed up. And if nothing gets them up, they will expire in that bed. And it might take four to eight hours. The farther back you go, you know, like… hit them in front of the hams, that is a lethal shot. But that can take, you know, I hate to say it, but it could take 24 hours for that animal to die. Could they die within an hour or two? Absolutely. But you’re also running the risk that they bed up. You go in there, you start tracking too early, and the worst thing you can do is get them up. to where they can run off because once they’re up, who knows where they might go. And a lot of times when they get up out of that bed, you know, the blood is clotted and they’re not leaving any sign on the trail. And it could actually be quite difficult for the dog to continue from that bed because the scent pool is so huge because they’ve been laying there. For hours, you know, we just see a spot on the ground or a bed on the ground with some hair in it. It’s a different world for the dog snows. I mean, that scent pool could be, you know, an eighth of an acre. You know, they get in it, and they can’t figure out which direction the elk went out of that bed. So we get a lot of those calls where I started tracking, and I bumped him. Well, we’re going to come in there with a dog, but do not be surprised if we can’t continue the line from where you bumped him out because they didn’t leave hardly any sign leaving that bed. And the set pool is so huge around that bed, it’s hard for the dog to figure it out.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 16 :
Can they? Yes. They can figure it out, but it could take some time for the dog to figure it out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. Walk us through the steps. We make our shot. We’ve given it, hopefully, the proper time. We found some blood, whatever. At what point should they call? Let’s help them out here. RockyMountainBigGameRecovery.org, that’s the website to go to. Let’s take that first. They go to the website. What do they do?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, you go to the website and there’s a link in there for hunter resources. You click on it and it takes you to a map and it shows you a map of everybody that’s a member of Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery that is running a tracking dog. Now you can look at that map. and i tell guys pick out the person that’s closest to wherever you might be hunting you click on their link it’ll give you their phone number and and you can talk to them now if if they don’t answer you can go to the next closest and so on and such forth um once you get a hold of a tracker you don’t have to and if they can’t help you you don’t have to go any farther because they’re going to let us all know about your situation right okay and we might have uh somebody that’s willing to drive four hours to get to them, to, to give them a hand, see if they can find their animal. Um, so that’s kind of the way it works. When should you call? Um, sooner than later is, is my best advice. Um, quite honestly, you know, if guys give me a call and I do have, but people do this, um, let’s say you take a shot at, at sundown. Um, And, you know, maybe it was a good shot, maybe it wasn’t. But the animal, you know, disappeared over the horizon or into the trees, and you just don’t know what to do. Give me a call. Give any of us a call. We’ll tell you what we think our best diagnosis for recovery is. You know, and you never know. you can get ahold of somebody and they don’t have anything to do the next day. Sure. If you’re going to walk in there and look for your animal and you have a tracking team that’s willing to come, um, wait for that dog. I mean, you know, if it’s going to take an extra half an hour to an hour from when you thought you were going to, if a dog is coming in, an undisturbed line is our best, um, the best scenario for us. Okay. Um, I will tell guys, you know, hey, go back in there in the morning. Don’t over-grid search, but see if you can continue the line. And you find a lot of blood, you know, track it. If you get to a point where, you know, you’ve lost it, give us a call back. And I usually tell people that, like, if I just know they’re just out on the dark side of the moon, it would be really hard for us to get a tracking team in there, you know, Um, just kind of help them out the best we can. But if they get into a situation where they can’t continue the line, that is the time, the last time to really call us. Um, we get a lot of calls, you know, after, oh, Scott, it can be two, three days after the shot. Um, and they, and they’ve been looking for that long for it. You know, is there a time limit on this? Yes and no. Um, you know, the sooner you can get a dog in there with scent, the better off you are. Have I recovered at the 72-hour mark? Yes. But your odds are way down when that happens. Another thing that people don’t even think about is, you know, and we find this mainly on elk. Elk is one of the toughest animals to track with a dog. And the reason is, is they got far fewer glands than a deer does. So when you do get them out of that bed or they, even if you didn’t bump them, they get up out of a wound bed and they walk away and the blood is clotted up where they’re not leaving any sign on the ground. The only thing that the dog really has to go on is ground disturbance. So as they’re walking away, you know, they’re breaking twigs, they’re walking through pine cones. Maybe if they’re in the sagebrush, they’re breaking sage and leaving a scent line. But the hunter goes in there and they can’t figure out which way the elk went themselves. And this happens. Right. You know, one or two guys isn’t that big of a deal, but you get your whole hunting party in there and they start doing a massive grid search going in different directions. Can think of all the different places that, you know, they disturb the ground. Can the dog figure that out? It can be really, really difficult. Yeah. So…
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Scott, let me tell you what. I’m way late. I’m so wrapped up in this. I’m way late for a break here. Let me hit a break real quick when we come back. I want to get into that grid search and kind of how to go about that when we come back. So hang with me one second. Scott Gillespie is with us. RockyMountainBigGameRecovery.org is the website. Put that in your phone. Don’t forget it. And they’ll do you a great job. This is Sportsman of Colorado. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Again, thank you so much for being with us. Scott Gillespie is with us, Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery. And Scott has been giving us some great tips here. So, Scott, you mentioned the word grid search right there. So let me ask you this. What… How do you – should we go to the last place we saw – actually physically saw the animal? And then explain to us what a grid search is and how to do that properly. Let’s say we don’t have any blood. What do we do?
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s when the human is going to grid search. There’s absolutely no sign of which – what direction the animal possibly went. So they’re going to go out and they’re just going to, you know, maybe look at Onyx and lay out a square map where they think the elk might have gone or whatever, you know, the deer. And they just start walking back and forth across the cornfield or the side of the mountain, you know, hoping that they just stumble into them. You know, which brings up another point, you know, some people think that calling in a tracking dog is a last resort. uh it isn’t the grid search is the last resort because we can’t get a tracking dog in there so you’re going to have to grid search it and you know but it’s basically just looking for a needle in a haystack you’re really you have absolutely no idea what direction your animal went and you’re just going back and forth hoping that you just stumble in on them. Does it happen? Yeah. You know, you’ve got to make every effort to recover that animal.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 16 :
Once you resort to a grid search.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
It kind of depends on the terrain you’re in. You know, mountain terrain can be really difficult with dead foal. I mean, you could walk right by, you know, a big bull elk and… within 10 feet, and if you aren’t really looking, you know, opening your eyes, you might not even see them laying there. And the plains of Colorado could be a little bit different scenario where, you know, if it’s grazed off pasture, you might see them laying out there 200, 300 yards, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 16 :
So, yeah, it could be very, you know, grid search is the last resort, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, for sure. So let’s hit this real quick because a few minutes left here, but walk up. Cause when I tell people about you, everybody, Hey, well, how much should I give him? Or, you know, what’s the cost of this? Explain that because man, so many people will say, Hey man, I’m willing to give the guy, you know, $300, you know, $500, whatever. But explain how that works.
SPEAKER 16 :
You know, it depends on where you’re at. Most of us do this. We don’t charge for this service. You know, in certain areas, are we allowed to take gratuity? Absolutely. You know, and, you know… know gasoline isn’t cheap diesel fuel whatever it took a person’s time to get there sure um you know it costs money um so if we’re in a place where we could actually accept something you know a couple hundred dollars is is fair um i’ve given i’ve had guys give me four figures before in places where i could you know legally accept it um so it you know you know it kind of depends on the person Also, Scott, I mean, you know, I’ve tracked for veterans, you know, and recovered their bowl and they just want to give me something. I’m like, dude, I ain’t taking none of your money. Okay. Kids, kids, nobody’s going to charge a kid. It’s just fun to be out there with a kid and get them and have them experience what we do. And you can read people. You can tell when somebody, you know, this hunt might be something they’re doing just to feed their family. I’m not going to take anything from them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, as far as Colorado, are there any guidelines in Colorado you have to follow?
SPEAKER 16 :
You mean for payment?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, we cannot legally charge unless you’re an outfitter. Okay. And we have one member of our group that’s actually an outfitter, but he can only charge in the units that he’s licensed to outfit in.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep. That makes sense. Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
So the Colorado thing is very, that’s where we really watch our P’s and Q’s. And we don’t accept anything mainly on public property. Private property can be a little bit different story. I still don’t charge because once I start charging, I’ve taken something that’s kind of fun and I’ve turned it into a job.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, but, I mean, you know, everybody wants to show you respect and your folks’ respect, too, though. Because, like you say, man, you raise a dog, you’re feeding a dog, you’re taking your time, you’re gas, and, you know, different things like that. So I would just tell everybody to do all they can to treat you guys right, you know?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, you know, and we also have a, you know, we are a nonprofit, right? There’s a place you can go onto our website and donate. And I tell guys, you know, guys that just, oh, absolutely want to give me something, I don’t want to take anything. I just say, just go onto the website and you can throw, you know, a couple hundred dollars into the Donate Now button. And we use it for stuff like the Mahi Expo. You know, that costs, you know, Phil money. We pay him to have a booth there. But that’s where all that money comes from is through the nonprofit and people donating.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Scott, I wish we had more time. We’ll do this again. But, man, we thank you, and I appreciate your personal friendship and your support for us as well. And, folks, once again, hey, big key is take your time, make a good shot. All right? And then, as Scott said, the number one thing that he has a job here in doing this – is you’ve got to give that animal the proper time after a shot. And it’s better to give it an extra hour than rushing out there and bumping it and maybe not being able to get that animal. But I’m telling you, these guys do a great job. Are they 100%? No. But I tell you, they do a great job, and they will help you all they can. And once again, it is RockyMountainBigGameRecovery.org. So, Scott, we appreciate it, and I’ll be in touch, sir.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hey, thanks for having me on again, Scott.
SPEAKER 07 :
You bet. You’ve been listening to Sports from Colorado. Thank you so much for being with us. Quick reminder now, Saturdays, of course, 1 to 2, Sunday morning at 8, Sunday night at 8, you’ll hear the replay. Then the following Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m. right here on KLZ 560. Hope you have a great rest of your weekend. We’ll talk to you next week.
SPEAKER 11 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
