Pursuit With Cliff - Cliff Gray

You almost always have a rock-solid rear rest on your body — and most hunters never use it. Cliff sits down with Mike from Tricer to break it down. This one gets into the weeds on glassing tripods vs. shooting tripods, stabilized binos vs. tripod-mounted glass, reading bullet trace, and the simple rear-rest tricks (a puffy jacket, your pack, even your bino harness) that turn a wobbly hold into a l...

Brian Gilroy runs Wildlife Partners, the largest exotic animal breeding operation in North America and a Cape buffalo herd that didn't exist in private hands a decade ago. He's also hunted Dall sheep in remote Alaska, muskox on Nunivak Island, and elk in New Mexico. This episode is a reality check on how the hunting industry actually works and why the free-range vs. high-fence moral war...

A 36-season Colorado wilderness outfitter, Scott Limmer, doesn't sugarcoat it: the new 50%-random draw is about to blow up point inflation and gut the predictability that made Colorado elk hunting plannable. We get into that, the big-bull reality most hunters won't admit, and a stack of Africa stories you won't hear anywhere else. In this episode: Why the 2028 draw overhaul tripled...

AG makes the most expensive and strongest flip-flops on earth. Sounds insane, but I like his business. This is a conversation about authentic materials, the economics of making something real, why almost everything in your life is fake, and what happens when an environmental group comes after you with a campaign. AG is the founder of Toehold, a Las Vegas-based company that sources elephant, hippo,...

 A decade-plus of guiding off horses and mules, distilled into a Q&A with Vince who is going on his first horseback elk hunt. Cliff doesn't sugarcoat it: horses are always a cost, sometimes a massive advantage, and never the shortcut people think they are.  In this episode:  Why packing horses is something you do after you have horse experience — not how you get into it Buying and culling...

Brian Poor, a former Marine scout sniper and SWAT instructor who now teaches Western hunters through Gunwerks sat down with me to break down what actually matters when an animal gives you an opportunity at distance. In this episode: Why truing your ballistics is the #1 thing most long-range hunters skip — and why a half-minute error means you miss half the time at 800 yards Why prone is overrated...

Joel Turner spent 11 years as a SWAT sniper instructor before becoming one of the most well known instructors in the hunting world. His take on why hunters miss is unlike anything you've heard — and it applies equally to archery and rifle. We start with how bullets actually kill. From there we get into the pre-ignition flinch... why there's no such thing as a subconscious override of the...

Colorado's Parks and Wildlife Commission now has zero experienced big game hunters on it. The chair is a former Humane Society attorney who spent his career suing game agencies. Six of ten commissioners voted to impose a commercial fur ban that their own agency and director recommended against — in writing — with five expert witnesses and a hundred years of combined expertise. Dan Gates was i...

Evan Koster just got back from seven days of public land hunting in New Zealand — no helicopter, no lodge, no estate stags. He hunted tahr in a glacial valley and red stag in the Canterbury High Country with guide Jurgen, carrying everything on his back and doing 5,000 vertical feet of gain literally the day he got off the plane. This conversation is the honest version of New Zealand hunting. We c...

Craig Doria spent 30 years in Africa as a professional hunter in addition to running two anti-poaching operations in Zambia and Tanzania. He's also just written Bateleur, a suspense thriller built on all of it.   We cover what poaching actually looks like from the inside: the subsistence guy with a muzzleloader trying to feed his kids, the 150-snare line bisecting the wildebeest migration cor...

Cliff sits down for a live Q&A and answers two hours of questions from the audience and membership group — recoil and cartridge selection for elk, the case for a "two-rifle" system (a low-recoil trainer and a hunting rifle), why most North American hunters under-rate predator hunting, how to scout migration corridors in May and June for fall success, the realities of bow hunting in A...

Most hunters think wolves can be managed like any other predator. The data says otherwise. In this episode, I sit down with Justin Webb, founder of the Foundation for Wildlife Management (F4WM), to dig into the unfiltered reality of wolf control in the West... what works, what doesn't, and why the "predator-prey balance" we all learned as kids isn't how this actually plays out...

In this episode, Jurgen Schwanecke and Cliff break down how hunting in New Zealand actually works, from public land access to species like tahr and chamois, and what makes it so different from hunting in the U.S. We also get into the realities—terrain, weather, physical demands, and why success isn’t guaranteed just because opportunity exists. Jurgen also talks about culling work and the skills th...

 Most reticles are built for perfect conditions… but hunting rarely gives you that. In this episode, I sit down with Thomas to break down what actually matters when it’s time to shoot. We get into reticle design, wind brackets, and why simplicity often beats complexity when things happen fast. We talk about real-world scenarios—multiple animals, movement, communication breakdowns, and the kind of...

Most hunters think they understand shot placement and bullet performance—but the reality is very different. In this episode, we break down what actually kills animals, from bullet construction to impact velocity to shot placement. This isn’t theory—it’s based on thousands of animals, real-world testing, and hard lessons learned in the field with Dr. Ashby. Chapter 1 – Bullet Myths vs Reality (00:0...

Cape Buffalo hunting is nothing like elk or deer hunting—In this episode, we break down a real hunt where we tracked multiple Cape Buffalo through thick bush, lost them, picked them back up, and ended up surrounded.  We also cover gear setups, shot placement, what happens when a buffalo decides to charge, and the reality of planning an African hunt—from rifles to cost to what to expect. If you’ve...

Colorado’s draw system is changing, point creep is accelerating, and hunters need to rethink their strategy for elk, sheep, goat, and moose in the coming years. In this episode, Cliff sits down with Jimmy Oswald to break down the current outlook for Colorado hunting ahead of the upcoming draw. They start by discussing Colorado’s unusually dry winter and what historically low snowpack could mean fo...

Why do Tikka rifles keep working when others choke in snow, dirt, and real hunting conditions? In this episode, I sit down with Jared Smethurst from Beretta to break down the mechanical and manufacturing reasons behind Tikka and Sako reliability. We cover action design, bolt tolerances, primary extraction, magazine systems, safety design, cold hammer forged barrels, and why some modern cartridges—...

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...

This episode breaks down how elk actually respond to hunting pressure and why most hunters misunderstand where mature bulls survive once seasons open. Cliff talks with a self-taught elk hunter, Dan Vinson, who learned the hard way, without mentors or shortcuts. The conversation centers on pressure, access, and human behavior, not elevation gain or how far someone is willing to hike. Elk do not dis...

In this episode, Ryan and Cliff go deep into the real-world realities of pack animals — goats, llamas, horses, and mules — and why experience, animal behavior, stress, and decision-making matter far more than gear specs or romantic ideas of “backcountry horsepower.” Ryan and Cliff also discuss the drop testing of optics and the myth that most modern rifle scopes hold zero. Ryan's Instagram: h...

Real-world discussion on hunting bullets, suppressor design, long-range ethics, thermal optics, and how modern technology is changing effective range, shot selection, and fair-chase decisions in Western big game hunting. Ryan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avery_adventures/ Rokslide Forum: https://www.rokslide.com/ --- FOLLOW CLIFF YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGray Instagr...

What actually separates a professional guide from a good hunter? Cliff and Jay Scott break down how real experience changes judgment. Calm under pressure, controlling variables, and why most missed shots are process failures. Not shooter failures. The Tricer micro-panning device we discuss at the end of the video, Use CLIFFG for 10% off: https://tricer.com/products/tricer-360 From there, the discu...

Trends and gear relevant to hunters from SHOT Show 2026. --- FOLLOW CLIFF YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGray Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/Cliffgry/ Facebook - https://facebook.com/PursuitWithCliff Pursuit With Cliff Podcast https://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/ Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership   https://pursuitwithcliff.com/membership/ Hunt. Fi...

Tim Sundles and I rip through member-submitted questions, then go deep when it matters. The back half turns into a dark-timber masterclass: tracking old bulls in snow, reading intent from tracks, avoiding back-trail traps, and making a high-percentage shot in tight timber. Tim and Kim Sundles run a great YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@buffaloboreammo --- FOLLOW CLIFF YouTube - https://ww...