Welcome to the Huntback Country podcast presented by Exx Mountain Gear.

This is episode number 554, and our guest is one of you guys, a listener of the show.

Blake joins us to tell us the story of his very first elk hunt.

He was able to join a couple of buddies who had been out west to hunt before,

but Blake, being from Arkansas, had never done a hunt like this. And ultimately, at the end of 12 days, he filled his tag

on a great bowl. What's also interesting is that Blake reached out to me after hearing Ryan's story.

So Ryan was a guest earlier this fall on episode 546,

and Ryan and Blake ran into each other in the field on their elk hunts and cross paths.

And then Blake actually heard Ryan's show and reached out to me, not actually to get on the podcast, but just to share a little bit of his story, his elk success, and some feedback on our pack, which Blake uses.

But once I saw that email and started talking with Blake, I knew we needed to get him on the podcast.

And having now had this conversation with Blake, I'm so glad to get him on the podcast. And having now had this conversation

with Blake, I'm so glad I did. You guys are really going to enjoy this one. As always, we appreciate

you guys tuning in and your support of the show. If you have any guest suggestions, topic suggestions,

or questions for us, for the show, just send an email to podcast at exomountaingear.com.

It would be great to hear from you.

Right now, let's get right into this conversation with Blake.

Well, Blake, thanks for joining the podcast, man.

I'm super excited to chat.

We don't have, we've never met.

We haven't, like, talked too much about what we're going to talk about today.

We'll tell the story in a second on how this podcast came to be.

But before we get into that specifically, just

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