About Time: Helen and Brittany Hunt Elk in Montana | S5E08 | MeatEater

i've always marveled at how exposure to the wild game lifestyle inevitably leads to a desire for direct involvement that was certainly the case with these two gals here helen cho and britney brothers for years we've worked together at meat-eater in that time they've eaten more than their fair share of wild game though neither has actually ventured out on a hunt now on a late season hunt for cow elk in montana we're gonna fix that problem the cold and steep way [Music] i'm stephen ranella to me hunting isn't only about the pursuit of an animal it's about who we are and what we're made of i live to hunt and hunt to live i am a meat-eater the sweetgrass hills are a few clusters of low mountains about 50 miles off the eastern slope of the northern rockies they rise abruptly from the great plains covered in pine grass bare rock and absurd amounts of wind in reality this hunt started about eight months ago when brittany and helen took a hunter safety course right smack in the middle of manhattan helen's birthplace and brittany's adopted home what type of rifle that bolt action bolt action from there they began the long process of learning how to handle firearms safely good and to shoot straight you're shooting great since i'm gonna need a little help on this hunt i call in my buddy ryan callahan we get to our hunting location just before dark and quickly erect a watertight and heated camp our hunt begins tomorrow morning well before daybreak [Music] i'm excited to be here because i've been working on the show for so long that i've developed this sense that okay if i'm gonna eat meat like i feel like i should at least once in my life take responsibility for it myself yeah that's my number one reason why i want to be out here working for the show has totally changed my perspective on the ethics of eating meat i mean even now in new york like none of our friends like hunt i grew up in brooklyn no one knew my family hunts yeah they don't even fish this is like so far from you know anything that i'm familiar with so if you get elk would your parents eat some meat yeah for sure as we start our hunt i'm feeling the familiar stress and excitement that goes with taking a new hunter out the first few days are quiet and tough not much happens the hills and the wind and cold beat us down and most of the time is filled with a lot of basic hunting lessons these are fresh outdoors see how they melt into the snow okay body temperature a lot warmer in ours are you starting to sweat yeah a little bit in that lunch all right well let me know because we'll chill out you know cutting there's an inevitable sprint but we don't need to do that yet but at some point it's like i gotta get there right now [Music] one of the good things about hunting is like it doesn't make you just a passive observer it tells me something that i need to know well you want to keep your feet as straight are you serious yeah that's like the most efficient way really yeah huh it's a lot steeper than it looks you might not think of walking as a hunting lesson but stability in steep country is a learned skill is he just made with like an extra joint or something oh my god there's no way i can do this afraid to leave this tree zigzag [Music] we all got to go far i have to remind myself that not everyone has logged the necessary miles to master the art of going uphill when snow assisted gravity wants you going downhill it used to work for a guy who described elk hunting as up the hill downhill it's not but here's the thing every bit of elevation we're gaining right now we will not lose you just got a lot of it out of the way right there you get up there and everyone see what the landscape offers after taking a lunch break ryan and helen hit a fresh trail where a large group of elk passed through not moments before and we missed them they came right underneath our nose 250 yards probably unbelievable yeah how does that happen we're just gonna ease around okay get set up for when they hopefully come back out in the evening they follow the trail hoping for the best and just as they crest the next hill they're right there 150 yards it's just very wide open we're gonna wait for them to make a move get put around in the chamber they're bunched up really tight so they're gonna decide to go one way or another and try to be as patient as we can just gonna slide down okay get ready get ready okay just wait for him to thin out find one by herself with nothing behind her see here broadside okay wait [Music] you swing back to the far left there's one in it's quartering away just be patient take the shot when you have it okay okay hang on it's okay they're not gone they're playing into our hand so we don't know what they're gonna do they could come right back through the saddle okay oh man stand up helen [Music] okay helen i'm gonna go pick up the stuff just start walking for the saddle right there and i'll meet you over there [Music] so it was amazing to see the hurt but equally as frustrating i had one in the crosshairs yep i wanted to shoot that cow so badly every single one had a little piece behind it i couldn't get a clear shot yeah you want to move to another one you did the right thing it definitely doesn't feel like it believe me for when i saw i didn't see a shot i could take helen and brittany agreed to limit their shots to broadside and under 200 yards i find that a lot of hunters confidence in their shooting abilities seems to increase in direct correlation to their desperation but not helen i'm proud of you did a great job it's what you're supposed to do i'm going to think about that shot for a long long time that's for sure [Music] while helen and ryan were mixing it up with their herd elk brittany and i made a long hike toward a prime glassing location after a couple of hours we finally get to the area we want to hunt [Music] hiking up these epic hillsides i'm kind of thinking like better be for something you know do you feel extra pressure to get something because you're a female hunter and there aren't many female hunters maybe that's why i kind of wanted to do a big hunt like this instead of tree stand hunt because i wanted to prove that like women are just as tough as dudes as much as i may have pitched and moaned a little bit i understand that we glass for another while with not much success until just before dark a whole bunch of cow elk no way where right down here coming up out of that bottom oh holy cow wow i'm initially excited about finding this group of cows but it's nothing to rush into we'd never reach them before dark we'll have to try to put a move on them in the am they might very well just be right back on that face tomorrow gives us something to work with man there's some elk around you know so excited the next day the wind is howling as time passes we're starting to think about how it might feel to go home empty-handed but after scouring the area we finally find what we're looking for there's the herd you gotta move fast come on [Applause] he smelled rare [Music] okay get ready stop right here look right there again can you find the elk they're all cows [Music] i don't see them anywhere yeah they're all gone it's tough to see through the trees yeah okay see that's okay see em all okay come here by this point we've shadowed the herd for almost an hour we keep bumping elk but there are so many of them and they're so confused that we have constant shot opportunities almost it's one of those situations of having too much of a good thing it's impossible for me to convey exactly which animal to shoot at okay there they are i just don't know what to do to get you to shop it's 276 yards there's a lot of wind eventually we hit the bottom of the canyon as the elk are cresting the other side man i'd love to tell you to take that but i don't think you should take it i won't take it if you don't think i should take it [Music] no too windy too far [Music] god there [Music] what did you think of that was pretty exciting huh when we were going above the herd when we were paralleling them i was just like come on man just one little open band or anything or they hit a field or how come they can't have a screen slide when you want one man because if they had to come across the screenside below us you'd have been loving it yeah that was close i'm impressed with brittany's ability to show restraint i think of hunting as a discipline and it requires just that discipline there are bigger things happening out here than just shooting bullets at animals got like what half an hour left yeah what are you thinking what can you do with only a little daylight left it's clear that britney is not gonna bag an elk you ever see a movie called jeremiah johnson no it's about life and death and beauty and all that stuff through the lens of a guy who wants to be a mountain man but anyways there's this guy he's kind of an old sage at one point he tells the new arrival you can't cheat the mountain you can squeeze it and kick it and in the end it's just gonna kind of do what it wants to do sometimes yeah no kidding i don't feel like i cheated anymore see [Music] here while brittany and i had our chase callahan and helen were having their own piece of action they spent much of their day freezing their asses in a makeshift blind but toward dusk they ventured out instead of focusing on this one spot we'll kind of retrace our steps and glass where we haven't been glassing all day and that way we have enough time to try to hustle and make a move on something if something is poking out because this has been unfortunately quite quiet today with the exception of the howling wind and wouldn't you know it they get onto some elk oh my god ain't tight hang tight it's gonna be a long shot if we go from here about 350 right there and try to get closer [Music] wind is just way too big to take a 350 yard shot yeah i don't want to take that shot you're okay come on there's still some feeding in the trees right there that's doable let's get down to this next little group of trees go really slow you see them put around you get a good rest you can shoot that cow the dark one across the creek it's okay it's okay you can shoot the one on the right whenever you're ready just take your time right in the shooter yep i'm gonna shoot her okay hold on hold on it's okay helen 60 of them down here to the left okay sit up you see it on the right-hand side yeah the one behind it is a cow all right i'm gonna shoot her hold your cross hairs about five inches to the left put it right on the shoulder okay whenever you're ready nice and easy you hit her that miss don't reload i don't see her where she she's the lone cow chewing down put your gun on safe die mister no you smacked her i got her yeah she's down we're gonna go down there together okay okay as the adrenaline i'm like shaking be excited but also like have your damn face on you don't want to get up and run away all right get up and run away yeah they do that sometimes they're tougher than males following me around get up there i think she's alive i don't know what do you think joe this is like unreal i have no words it really turns the day around huh you made a heck of a shot i didn't quite get it where i wanted to get it before i studied it off the top of the pack that's pretty darn good any elk is a trophy beautiful one of the most amazing experiences ever highs and lows right i'm so grateful for this opportunity thank you so much i couldn't have done it without you that was awesome i'm proud of before you do it i can't believe it [Music] after a few days of suffering helen is rewarded with being able to gut her first big game animal yep cut this yep that's a big heart thank you now we can all have a taste of the best game me on earth starting with the heart and liver that's perfect i'm excited to try this it's good when i was a kid we would always eat the heart when you got something there's a symbolism you can't escape when you feel something strong it's there it's like beating in you you need to have the first bite of the heart yeah absolutely it's your first kill [Music] heart is where guts meat meat it's delicious just so good that is delicious yeah i did not expect that that's a very very very good liver well i cooked it very mild wow the liver is it's strengthening yeah you guys defied my expectations man i was worried for you where are you you remember i tried to talk you out of it i know we were very persistent what's your relationship to hunting ollie didn't get one we didn't want like an easy hunt really and maybe we got a lot more than we bargained for but it was definitely worth it because like those few moments of adrenaline that we had got me so excited you know getting an elk in your scope is right a passage getting your hands on an animal is a huge right to pass beginning to eat something that you shock is a huge rate of passage i have like a lot more respect for hunters you know it's definitely yeah it's like it's not easy but the opposite you're just sitting there being patient hours and hours in the hopes that an elk or herd or whatever will walk by it makes you good at being uncomfortable yeah yeah which is a hard thing to be good at i'm gonna buy a stairmaster i mean i was like somewhat prepared for those hikes but not for the wind and that is like a whole other thing that will just drive you insane it is maddening we had some adventures man thanks guys thank you so much you know we have been talking about this for for many many years i can't believe it finally happened we're here you guys are fun company man it allowed me to like really see a lot of stuff through new eyes you know i've accompanied my own wife and a handful of ex-girlfriends on their first hunting trips and while i've never had someone regret seeing something so emotionally raw as harvesting one's own meat i have encountered perspectives and emotions that are either absent in most guys or more likely buried deeply beneath a cloak of macho phoniness if we're gonna be seeing more first-time women hunters in the outdoors and believe me we are we should learn to welcome them as equals though to do so without missing whatever fresh perspectives we might be lucky enough to have them share with us times change but the mountain does not [Music] it's here for everyone always has been you

Channel: MeatEater

Views: 418,624

Keywords: Montana elk hunting, RMEF, Steve rinella, Steven rinella, elk hunting, first time elk hunting, hunting, meat eater, meateater, montana, outdoors, sports

Id: fOGm8dM3yGo

Length: 21min 17sec (1277 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021