Show Notes
This conversation with Briggs Pittman breaks down what actually kills elk on hard, public land hunts. Not theory, not gear hype, but decision-making, preparation, and execution. Briggs and Cliff cover why smelling elk is a non-negotiable stop, how elite hunters manage time in the woods, why mindset mathematically affects success, and how rifle hunters should think more like bow hunters. They dive deep into rifle setup, bipod selection, shooting positions, dry fire training, backpack weight d...
More from Pursuit With Cliff - Cliff Gray
We had three bull tags, good snow, almost no competing pressure, and two herds patterned in the Flat Tops during Colorado’s first rifle season. We killed two bulls. This is the honest breakdown of why it wasn’t three, and the guiding decisions I’d make differently. In this episode: How snow changes what you can see in heavily hunted OTC-style units The meadow hunters overlook and why bulls die there The pinball analogy: why bumped elk blow their pattern for days or weeks Groupthink, two gui...
Dr. Ed Ashby has records on 631 big game animals he's taken across 26 years, and only four were never recovered. He explains why most wounded game is hit too far back, why lack of penetration was the number one reason a hit wasn't lethal, and why hunters need to quit being afraid of the shoulder. We get into his Natal Parks Board arrow research at Mkuzi Game Reserve, bowhunting rhino with a 115 lb longbow and 1,286 grain arrows, and why it took 650 grains to reliably break heavy bone. From t...
Access decides more elk hunts than gear, calling, or strategy combined. Private land, resident tags, draw odds, generations of local knowledge. That one variable is why comparing yourself to other hunters is mostly useless, and why the only real measure is for you to calculate Coffee with Cliff, mostly unedited. Assessing your own progress is a harder, but more useful way to judge whether you're actually getting better, plus why the hunting content world keeps getting people in legal t...
Double rifles are the least understood firearms in hunting. They cost more than most trucks, the two barrels are regulated by hand one pair at a time, and most guys buy one for a charge that is never going to happen. I brought in Chris from Heym USA to explain the whole thing from the ground up. Why they cost what they cost. What barrel regulation actually is and why lasers cannot shortcut it. Why 50% of the weight has to sit between your hands. Why a 26 inch barreled double carries shorter t...
Most elk hunters don't lose animals because they don't know enough. They lose them because they bugle in the middle of a meadow, creep at 800 yards, sprint at 200, and talk themselves out of the stalk halfway up the mountain. Cliff sits down with outfitter Cade Cole and Eric to break down what actually went wrong, and right, for the guys who came through the in-person Elk Hunting Masterclass in Wyoming this season. This is the unfiltered debrief: pacing, careless vocalization, wind discipline...