Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Now. Picture this. You're bugling
Speaker 1: at a bull and he's all fired up. He calls back,
Speaker 1: and everything you do is right. It seems like this
Speaker 1: bull is going to come right to where you want
Speaker 1: him to do, right into bow range. But you're hunting
Speaker 1: in a fairly open area and you just, for some
Speaker 1: reason can't get this bull any closer than maybe that
Speaker 1: hundred hundred and twenty yard maybe hundred and fifty yard mark.
Speaker 1: The bull just keeps hanging up out of range. What
Speaker 1: can you do? And why is that bull hanging up?
Speaker 1: You may not really be doing anything wrong. That bowl
Speaker 1: is just as close as he needs to be and
Speaker 1: is letting his eyes do the rest of the walking.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, congrats you tricked his ears and
Speaker 1: his nose as well, But how do you trick his eyes?
Speaker 1: This week, I'm going to break down the use of
Speaker 1: a cow elk decoy and how employing them adds success.
Speaker 1: But first I want to share my favorite story of
Speaker 1: decoys and karma. This story takes place in New Mexico
Speaker 1: and it was right when these decoys or Elk decoys
Speaker 1: came out, and honestly, when I first saw him come out,
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, this is definitely something that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be able to use effectively, because there are so many
Speaker 1: times where I thought, if I just had something to
Speaker 1: show the Elk, I could get him to come that
Speaker 1: further distance on those bowls that just kept hanging up.
Speaker 1: And so when I first came out, I think it
Speaker 1: was a Montana Elk decoy was the first one that
Speaker 1: I ended up buying, and I bought a couple of
Speaker 1: them before I headed down to New Mexico to guide,
Speaker 1: and a couple of the other guides that picked him
Speaker 1: up as well, because it was like, oh, these things
Speaker 1: are pretty awesome. They're a little expensive, you know, on
Speaker 1: a guide salary, but I thought, man, I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: the ship out of this. So I ended up getting
Speaker 1: two of them, and when I got down to where
Speaker 1: I was guiding in New Mexico, a couple of the
Speaker 1: other guides actually had him as well. In this particular
Speaker 1: place we had this piece of private that we can
Speaker 1: hunt on, and this one week it was actually an
Speaker 1: early rifle hunt, so it was like the first week
Speaker 1: of October, somewhere in there in October, and the elk
Speaker 1: were still running, but it was just like this really
Speaker 1: hot week and they weren't making a lot of sound.
Speaker 1: And it's fairly difficult because there's a lot of timber around,
Speaker 1: a lot of oak brush and some real thick stuff.
Speaker 1: And then there was this one meadow like pretty much
Speaker 1: across from where we were staying, and every freaking night
Speaker 1: the elk we're just getting in there, and you could
Speaker 1: just hear them bugling, running around doing their thing, you know.
Speaker 1: We could see them just after shooting time come out
Speaker 1: into the meadow and start filing out and feeding out
Speaker 1: in this meadow, and it was really making me mad.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Man, there's gotta be a way we
Speaker 1: can get these bulls to come out a little bit earlier.
Speaker 1: All we need is just a half hour ten minutes
Speaker 1: in some days, like we just need them to come
Speaker 1: out earlier. So we got to talk and I started thinking, Hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we pull all of our decoys together and
Speaker 1: I'll create like a miniature heard of elk out in
Speaker 1: this meadow, and then we'll set up and wait. Maybe
Speaker 1: that will draw them in because they're clearly hitting the
Speaker 1: edges of it, but they aren't coming out to where
Speaker 1: we can shoot, and we don't know exactly where they're
Speaker 1: going to come out at. But maybe just having some
Speaker 1: noise and then them seeing the decoys will just draw
Speaker 1: them out sooner. So everyone's like, that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: So I grab everyone's decoys and I think we have
Speaker 1: like half a dozen, maybe seven of them something like that.
Speaker 1: We get out in the meadow like mid day and
Speaker 1: we're just gonna set up, and I at up all
Speaker 1: the decoys and then I made a blind on the
Speaker 1: one corner. And the way this meadow was is just
Speaker 1: like a mountain above it. This was down in the valley,
Speaker 1: and then there was fence on either Side's like a
Speaker 1: barberer fence on one side, barberer fence on the other side.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a pasture, but it's just a
Speaker 1: natural meadow and this particular area wasn't sometimes private land,
Speaker 1: and it's just like really good and there's elk everywhere,
Speaker 1: and this this was just a lot of thick timber,
Speaker 1: and there were a good amount of elk, but could
Speaker 1: be difficult to get the elk. So I figured this
Speaker 1: would be a good set up, or we could just
Speaker 1: hopefully drawn one of these elk out before shooting time ended.
Speaker 1: So I built a blind on the one side out
Speaker 1: of some milk brush that I cut, and we just
Speaker 1: had it all set up, and so I just started
Speaker 1: calling and about like maybe two hours before suttingdown, just
Speaker 1: start letting out a few bugles kind of back in
Speaker 1: the timber behind us, and then just some cow calls
Speaker 1: out in the direction of the meadow, hoping maybe entice
Speaker 1: some eyes, maybe some elk cruising buyer, just let them know, oh,
Speaker 1: there's some milk out here. So it's about maybe an
Speaker 1: hour and a half before sundowns something like that. And
Speaker 1: there's a road in the bottom and it actually went
Speaker 1: onto some public land, but like ways down the road,
Speaker 1: and so we just I see like this, Jimmy, just
Speaker 1: like driving down the road or about a hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour like whatever, and you know, we were ways away,
Speaker 1: and so we're sitting there and I wasn't thinking anything
Speaker 1: of it, and now I'm like, Okay, it's about that
Speaker 1: time when we should start seeing something. So I'm throwing
Speaker 1: out some more cow calls and you know, really getting
Speaker 1: into it, and we're watching and glass and the timber
Speaker 1: and kind of back where I expected the elk to be.
Speaker 1: I'm glassing and I see some movement. I'm like, Ei,
Speaker 1: there's some movement back there. But I was like, what
Speaker 1: the heck? And sure enough, this dude pops out like
Speaker 1: in the middle of our meadow and I look, I'm
Speaker 1: like looking at him through the binoculas, I'm like, what
Speaker 1: the heck is going on. He's got like a face
Speaker 1: mask on and he's carrying like a bush master, a
Speaker 1: r like style to I said. We stand up and
Speaker 1: we're like, hey, hey, dude, what's going on? And he's
Speaker 1: like a ways across the thing, like four d yards
Speaker 1: three hundred, four hundred yards across the meadow, and he
Speaker 1: immediately realizes that the elk that we're out there, we're
Speaker 1: not actually elk. My summation is he was cruising down
Speaker 1: on the road, looks up, saw those decoys, and then
Speaker 1: decided that it was going to be a good idea
Speaker 1: to sneak in there. So he's got I've got like
Speaker 1: my video cameras because that it all set up. So
Speaker 1: I zoom in and I'm filming this guy and he's
Speaker 1: got like, you know, he's full face masked up, definitely poacher,
Speaker 1: perrying around, and he's he definitely wasn't like the most
Speaker 1: agile dude either, so he's kind of a big guy.
Speaker 1: Now he knows that he's been caught and he's going
Speaker 1: to get out of there as fast as possible. So
Speaker 1: he goes back to the fence that he came through,
Speaker 1: and as he's scrambling to get over the fence, his
Speaker 1: leg gets hung up on the top strand of wire.
Speaker 1: So he's deciding he's going to go over it, and
Speaker 1: now's legs hung up on the top strand of wires.
Speaker 1: He's like straddling this fence and then he falls because
Speaker 1: he's like hung up on it and he falls over
Speaker 1: and as he falls, I don't know how it happened,
Speaker 1: but the fence catches like his pants in the crotch
Speaker 1: and rips like the entire ass out of his pants
Speaker 1: and he stuck on the fence, just struggling. And I've
Speaker 1: got this whole thing on video, just like watching, and
Speaker 1: we are just rolling like the Karma just bit this dude.
Speaker 1: I could tell, like through my binoculars he's bleeding because
Speaker 1: he's just like he's just been completely stuck in this
Speaker 1: barbed wire fence. Like a pretty large guy that was
Speaker 1: trying to jump, like pretty much jump this fence is
Speaker 1: now caught on this fence, as ripped out of his pants,
Speaker 1: leg in the air, just struggling, and we are just
Speaker 1: rolling laughing. They're like whatever. So we get back to
Speaker 1: camp then, and clearly no ELK came in because we
Speaker 1: just had some guy like rock through our zone that
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be there and could have been like
Speaker 1: a kind of scary scenario, you know. And and at
Speaker 1: this point ELK decoys were pretty new. So we get
Speaker 1: back to camp that night and we got like you know,
Speaker 1: every night everybody comes back in its telling their stories,
Speaker 1: and we just like played it off like I don't
Speaker 1: say anything about what we saw. We're just you know.
Speaker 1: So everybody was really curious and how our first decoy
Speaker 1: session went and if it worked, so like, oh how
Speaker 1: did decoys go? Everyone figured for sure they like we
Speaker 1: didn't hear any shots, you know, I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: guys will never believe what we saw come into what
Speaker 1: they worked so freaking good, and everyone's super excited, like,
Speaker 1: what what do you see? What do you see? So like, okay,
Speaker 1: So I had the video teed up with the TV off,
Speaker 1: and I had it all plugged into the TV, and
Speaker 1: it's already and everyone's sitting around in the living room
Speaker 1: and we flipped the TV on hit play and this
Speaker 1: just this dude just splayed open and caught on this
Speaker 1: barbed wire fence, struggling and flopping around, and everybody is
Speaker 1: just rolling laughing. They're like, what the hell happened? Man?
Speaker 1: So of course we didn't get an ELK that day,
Speaker 1: but that did not deter me from trying it again.
Speaker 1: So I guess it was the next day or maybe
Speaker 1: two days later. I'm like, all right, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: this again. We learned our lesson. Even though nobody should
Speaker 1: have been trespassing, there's a million no trespassing signs, you
Speaker 1: just whatever. We just tucked him back on the other
Speaker 1: side where it's clearly invisible from anywhere that you could see,
Speaker 1: and try it again, and sure enough, I start cow
Speaker 1: calling early, still quite a bit of daylight out, maybe
Speaker 1: an hour before sundown. A nice five point. Bull walks
Speaker 1: to the fence. I can see him walking in the
Speaker 1: timber on the other side, stops, jumps the fence, starts
Speaker 1: walking in, walking right to those decoys, and then he
Speaker 1: kind of gets this look like what's that bob and
Speaker 1: his head back and forth, and then he comes straight in.
Speaker 1: My hunter lines up, boom, shoots and drops the bull.
Speaker 1: And that was the first time I successfully used elk
Speaker 1: decoys in bringing in in elk. So before we get
Speaker 1: into the tips and before you jump all over me
Speaker 1: saying like that's so stupid using an elk decoy during
Speaker 1: your rifle season, I know, you know sometimes you're thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, we were in the middle of private land.
Speaker 1: There shouldn't you know. You're kind of assuming that people
Speaker 1: would follow the rules whatever, and we didn't realize that
Speaker 1: you could actually see them from anywhere else. We learned
Speaker 1: that and then altered our plan. They're pretty new then,
Speaker 1: but it was definitely legal to use the decoys during
Speaker 1: the rifle season. Then. There wasn't even a thing. I
Speaker 1: don't even know. Maybe there's places you can't use them now.
Speaker 1: We were in the middle of a large piece of
Speaker 1: private land. There shouldn't have been anyone there and there
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been clearly like it was very well marked.
Speaker 1: The person definitely knew they were breaking the law moving
Speaker 1: in on those elk, like especially the whole face mask
Speaker 1: and like caliber rifle lent me to believe that that's
Speaker 1: what was going on. It was. It was definitely a poacher,
Speaker 1: So you know that in mind. That was pretty much
Speaker 1: the only incident, bad incident that I've had with elk decoys,
Speaker 1: and just so happened to be one of the first
Speaker 1: instances with them. But on the flip side, use some
Speaker 1: common sense when using them, you know, don't do something stupid. Also,
Speaker 1: here was another thing. There was no cow seasons in
Speaker 1: that area, just bulls only, so I was using cow
Speaker 1: decoys thinking, you know, that's a good indicator. No one
Speaker 1: can be shooting cows. Well, in this particular instance, that
Speaker 1: necessarily didn't work. But before I even talk about it, yes,
Speaker 1: use some common sense, don't do something stupid. And also
Speaker 1: if you're a hunter, make sure of your target, like
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be shooting at something that you don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. And he clearly figured out that they
Speaker 1: were decoys pretty damn quick, Like it was he didn't
Speaker 1: even have to throw his gun up on it. He
Speaker 1: didn't even have binoculars, but he realized like something was
Speaker 1: weird with the whole scenario. You could tell by the
Speaker 1: way he was moving and his whole posture and expression
Speaker 1: before I even had to make a noise. So they
Speaker 1: should be fairly identifiable that they are elk. But every
Speaker 1: once in a while, you know, just use common sense.
Speaker 1: Whether you're the hunter that's not having a decoy and
Speaker 1: you just see elk, or you are the one with
Speaker 1: the decoy, use some freaking common sense. Now we can
Speaker 1: get into the awesome part the tips those two minutes
Speaker 1: of me explaining safety, which I shouldn't have to do,
Speaker 1: but you know, so here's the breakdown of using elk decoys.
Speaker 1: I have three ways that I use them and think
Speaker 1: that they help really well. So in the in the
Speaker 1: scenario that I set this whole thing up with, a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, when you've got a bull elk
Speaker 1: that is being super active, he's bugling, he's responding to
Speaker 1: your bugles. You see him come out and you're like,
Speaker 1: why is that bull hanging up at a certain distance.
Speaker 1: There's sometimes where you get these certain bulls that just
Speaker 1: they hang up and it seems to just be like that,
Speaker 1: just out of range or just out of being able
Speaker 1: to sneak in where there's too many cows, too open.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I factored in out of all
Speaker 1: those scenarios when that happens is he's either hung up
Speaker 1: because he has cows, or he's hung up because it's
Speaker 1: open enough that he doesn't have to walk over there
Speaker 1: and see what's there. And if I was a real
Speaker 1: elk in a natural environment, you know, we would show
Speaker 1: ourselves to each other. Yet I'm hiding and not coming
Speaker 1: to advantage where I could see him, and he would
Speaker 1: expect another elk to do the same. So he's doing
Speaker 1: a check with his eyes and he says, that's not
Speaker 1: a threat or nothing interesting. I'm just gonna keep calling
Speaker 1: from here. If that bull wants a piece of this,
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to show himself, and we're gonna do
Speaker 1: this like gentleman, we're gonna duel. So that's where this
Speaker 1: visual aid comes in. Now, Yeah, he's probably looking for
Speaker 1: a bull, but throwing out a cow as a visual
Speaker 1: aid is a good thing to say, Oh, there are
Speaker 1: some elk over there. Maybe he's got one of my cows.
Speaker 1: Just behind that ridge. And I found that using that
Speaker 1: decoy as a visual aid in certain scenarios works really
Speaker 1: well to get those bulls that just happened to be
Speaker 1: hanging up. And it works really well in open country
Speaker 1: or where it's like sparse enough timber I've I've used
Speaker 1: them in Pondo forest or it's just not a lot
Speaker 1: of thick canopy. The elk doesn't really have to get
Speaker 1: close to see what's going on. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of places where there's a lot of elk like that,
Speaker 1: and the the challenging calling them in is the fact
Speaker 1: that they can see a little bit further than maybe
Speaker 1: something in some dark timbers. So having that visual aid
Speaker 1: can work really well, but you just have to know
Speaker 1: how to use the decoy right. And I've messed around
Speaker 1: with them long enough and in as many different creative
Speaker 1: ways as possible to know what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: What doesn't work is walking behind the decoy and using
Speaker 1: that to block your silhouette in like a direct way
Speaker 1: that the elk can see you, because for the most part,
Speaker 1: the cadence isn't right, something's off, and it generally doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I have used it in times where I need to move,
Speaker 1: but I want to. I'm like in enough timber where
Speaker 1: it's not direct, but I'm just kind of holding it
Speaker 1: and carrying it, but not trying to stock behind it.
Speaker 1: Stalking behind it for me personally hasn't really worked too well.
Speaker 1: I have used it to draw behind I've used it
Speaker 1: also as kind of a blind in the open when
Speaker 1: I get a bull fired up. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: stalking behind it doesn't necessarily seem to work that well.
Speaker 1: What does work is a system kind of like you
Speaker 1: would do for geese flagging. So what I like to
Speaker 1: do is, in this particular scenario, I've got a bullets
Speaker 1: hanging up. It's open enough, maybe there's a roll or
Speaker 1: a contour. What I'll do is I'll throw that kelk
Speaker 1: decoy up. While that bull is looking way sees it,
Speaker 1: I'll be hidden. I'll be doing my calling. Then when
Speaker 1: that bull looks away or whatever, I will move that
Speaker 1: elk decoy down and then continue the calling. So he
Speaker 1: kind of has this thought in his head like I
Speaker 1: saw something. It was supposed to come my direction, come
Speaker 1: to me, Yet now it's disappeared. Where is it? And
Speaker 1: that curiosity I've drawn in a lot of bulls now.
Speaker 1: Another setup that I've used decoys with a lot of
Speaker 1: success is actually kind of a play on that first
Speaker 1: scenario of in the meadow, like creating this visual aid
Speaker 1: in a very open space where I'm planning on ambushing
Speaker 1: and elk in. Over the years, i've honed that to
Speaker 1: get a little bit better at understanding how to set
Speaker 1: the decoys where to set them, But it's worked pretty
Speaker 1: well as far as getting elk to draw to your location,
Speaker 1: and that that tactic works a lot um in later
Speaker 1: or as well as like pre run when you don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of calling activity, maybe the elk are
Speaker 1: going to be kind of quiet, but you can spot them. However,
Speaker 1: you can't spot them during enough time to make a stock,
Speaker 1: or it's too open to make a really good stock.
Speaker 1: So what I generally do is in those scenarios, maybe
Speaker 1: the elk aren't making a lot of noise where you're at,
Speaker 1: but you can spot them, and you've just got your
Speaker 1: spotting them in a meadow. Let's say a meadow that's
Speaker 1: five hundred seven hundred yards wide or long, and those
Speaker 1: elk can pop out in multiple places from the timber.
Speaker 1: They aren't calling, but every day they're just happened to
Speaker 1: be feeding. So what I like to do is I'll
Speaker 1: be glassing in the morning all glass those open feeding areas,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's in an area where you can't glass,
Speaker 1: but you've got these these meadows or parks or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you see the elkcoming out. They're coming out quiet.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you get them to your location
Speaker 1: or set up in the right spot. So what I'll
Speaker 1: do is I'll figure out where they were in the morning,
Speaker 1: I'll watch, and then I'll go and set up a
Speaker 1: blind very close to where they went out, kind of
Speaker 1: set up just off of that, and then set those
Speaker 1: decoys just off the edge of me. So what I'm
Speaker 1: planning on doing is when those elk come out, the
Speaker 1: first thing they do is they look around, they see
Speaker 1: there's other elk out there, and immediately drops their guard. Now,
Speaker 1: they might be more like keyed in on those elk,
Speaker 1: but in combination with that calling, it draws them to
Speaker 1: your location. And I've had a success doing that where
Speaker 1: I've spotted the elk in the morning, I go in
Speaker 1: there mid day, get set up, throw out some calls,
Speaker 1: just like I did in the story, and then as
Speaker 1: those elk come out to feed in the evening. It
Speaker 1: draws them to my location. The only thing that sometimes
Speaker 1: doesn't work as well with that is if there's a
Speaker 1: lot of cows, it will draw that lead cow often first.
Speaker 1: But there's many times where I've had it happened. I
Speaker 1: mean I try to set it up in a visual spot.
Speaker 1: I could even do it across from where the elk work,
Speaker 1: and I've had the elk come out cows and bull
Speaker 1: and then that bowl will just kind of see those
Speaker 1: cows and be like, oh, fresh meat, and then go
Speaker 1: down there and check it out. Boom bow range. And
Speaker 1: so that's a really good way to draw an elk
Speaker 1: to your position using those decoys. They kind of walk
Speaker 1: in a little weird to him because they aren't moving.
Speaker 1: But you can throw out some cow sounds. You can
Speaker 1: even bugle back into the timber behind you, and that
Speaker 1: sometimes incites that bowl to bogle and then come in
Speaker 1: and check it out, and he'll generally try to circle him.
Speaker 1: So when I set up that scenario, I try to
Speaker 1: set up obviously I'm down wind, and you want to
Speaker 1: be down wind of where you think of those elk
Speaker 1: are going to come out, and then try to anticipate
Speaker 1: how that elk is gonna circle, and try to intercept
Speaker 1: that elk as he circles for a shot. So one
Speaker 1: of the ways that I do that is like I'll
Speaker 1: set those decoys out and then I might be up
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the meadow more hiding or
Speaker 1: in some way where that bowl might kind of circle,
Speaker 1: but he's fixated on those decoys and that draws his
Speaker 1: attention where I have enough timing to get up, aim
Speaker 1: and shoot. And so that's just another way that you
Speaker 1: can use them. And then probably the third way, in
Speaker 1: the way that I use it the most is when
Speaker 1: I'm hunting by myself, So I do a lot of
Speaker 1: elk hunting by myself, a lot elk calling by myself solo. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I would say calling elk when you're by yourself or
Speaker 1: if you aren't gonna stalk, is a lot more difficult
Speaker 1: than if you have someone calling or you're calling for
Speaker 1: someone else. And the reason is because elk do tend
Speaker 1: to hang up. It is certain distance because there's this
Speaker 1: natural expectation that two bowls should collide, and so if
Speaker 1: you have a guy that can draw back and then
Speaker 1: the shooters forward, you're cutting off twenty yards or more
Speaker 1: of that expectation of that other bull, and as he
Speaker 1: comes in, he's more looking for that other elk and
Speaker 1: not necessarily focused on where the shooter is. So you've
Speaker 1: got more opportunity to draw back, to be unseen and
Speaker 1: to have a good shot where if you're the one calling,
Speaker 1: he can kind of pinpoint that. And so hunting alone
Speaker 1: can be difficult and adds this little extra layer of
Speaker 1: challenge that for a long time for me, was hard
Speaker 1: to figure out how to kind of counteract that. And
Speaker 1: over the years I've I've really developed a lot of
Speaker 1: different techniques, which maybe some of those will be a
Speaker 1: different podcast, but using a decoy is definitely one of them.
Speaker 1: And the reason that is because it fixates the bulls
Speaker 1: point of attention as well as gives it a visual
Speaker 1: queue of something to focus in on. So I'll set
Speaker 1: up how I would, I'll call, I'll do my calls
Speaker 1: like back, I'll set the decoy up, and then I'll
Speaker 1: move forward into a position where I think the bull
Speaker 1: is gonna come. I think he's gonna see that cow decoy,
Speaker 1: and then I'm in a position where I can either
Speaker 1: draw and shoot where I expect him to be more
Speaker 1: unnoticed or it'll draw him in a good line to
Speaker 1: where he's going to move into a shooting lane for me.
Speaker 1: So it's a way to kind of help control the
Speaker 1: bowl at a visual aid and distract from you that
Speaker 1: is the caller slash shooter and lead to a little
Speaker 1: bit more success that way. When I am using a
Speaker 1: decoy by myself, I generally don't like to use the
Speaker 1: stakes as often. I've actually um used like clips or
Speaker 1: punch a hole in one end. I actually think they
Speaker 1: make some stuff now for this because people have been
Speaker 1: using this technique for a while. But I have a
Speaker 1: lot of my decoys. I'll tie parachord on it, and
Speaker 1: if I'm in a timbered area, I just hang it
Speaker 1: on a tree so I don't have to waste that
Speaker 1: time trying to get those stakes into the ground if
Speaker 1: I'm in a timbered area, and then I'll keep the
Speaker 1: stakes in my backpack or whatever as I'm moving in
Speaker 1: as well, I kind of use it as a sort
Speaker 1: of a shield where if a cow's there, I might
Speaker 1: be able to kind of can use the cow of oh,
Speaker 1: that's just an elk. You throw out some calls and
Speaker 1: then get out of sight or hunker down or do
Speaker 1: something where if I get caught moving in because I
Speaker 1: found that when you're by yourself, the closer you get
Speaker 1: to that bowl, the more likely you're going to be
Speaker 1: to get him to come into your setup. And that
Speaker 1: that really is anybody, whether you're by yourself or not.
Speaker 1: That's just my strategy. But having that decoy as a
Speaker 1: sort of a shield really helps. Now a couple of
Speaker 1: things you want to be careful of, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're using as a shield, just make sure you aren't
Speaker 1: like rocking up on some other dude that's calling at you. Also,
Speaker 1: another thing to think about is just as you're moving,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of like to have my hands
Speaker 1: free where I can glass and be ready on the
Speaker 1: bow and other things. So sometimes just having that decoy
Speaker 1: available and out in front of you can be difficult
Speaker 1: to maneuver with, but it's definitely worth it to add
Speaker 1: that extra point of attention to draw that bowl to
Speaker 1: your location and give him a visual aid, especially in
Speaker 1: more open country. I really hope that this kind of
Speaker 1: deep diving too some aspects of elk hunting helps you
Speaker 1: out this September, or at least get your mind thinking
Speaker 1: on things you can use, things you can utilize. There's
Speaker 1: so many different strategies, and all those strategies can be
Speaker 1: employed super effectively in the right scenarios. And just what
Speaker 1: I want to do is build out this library of
Speaker 1: understanding these different scenarios and then how to essentially strike
Speaker 1: from there. And the more you can grasp that and
Speaker 1: know what moves to make, when I promise you, you're
Speaker 1: going to be a lot more successful, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like a broken record saying probably ten percent of
Speaker 1: the guys take nine of the elk every year. It's
Speaker 1: just that the same guys who understand elk behavior and
Speaker 1: understand what moves to make. Elk hunting can be extremely easy.
Speaker 1: For people new getting into it, it can be extremely difficult.
Speaker 1: You know. I've read so many statistics of for most
Speaker 1: people just to shoot an elk, it takes five to
Speaker 1: seven years. And that's because that's that learning curve. And
Speaker 1: then they get in there and it's like, Okay, it
Speaker 1: took them seven years to get their first elk, and
Speaker 1: now they're shooting elk every year. But what I want
Speaker 1: to do is I want to cut that learning curve
Speaker 1: time down to listening to this understanding and taking so
Speaker 1: many years of just elk experience into the field with you,
Speaker 1: you could be successful in your first year and every
Speaker 1: year with just that knowledge and that learning gap decreased.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that this helps you. And if
Speaker 1: you have an elk hunted yet, you know, keep thinking
Speaker 1: these things. So we're gonna keep building this out. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go back and we're just gonna compile like some
Speaker 1: of my favorite tips of things that I think you
Speaker 1: should think about. As it now rolls over into September.
Speaker 1: You should be gearing up, getting everything ready, and I
Speaker 1: just want a few of these other tips at the
Speaker 1: top of your mind, because really I could pin down
Speaker 1: a thousand elk tactics and how to operate each one,
Speaker 1: and over the course of the life of this podcast,
Speaker 1: hopefully we can build that out. So I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed it as a reminder if you are going out hunting,
Speaker 1: or you like these tips or whatever, seriously tag me
Speaker 1: and social media and other things. I love seeing that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gotten some pretty awesome success photos from
Speaker 1: people early season archery talking about specific episodes that they
Speaker 1: I mean, so many people brand new to Mule your
Speaker 1: archery hunting have been sending me pictures some awesome bucks
Speaker 1: they've taken, just with some of the tactics that they've
Speaker 1: learned through this podcast. That's some of my favorite stuff
Speaker 1: to see. So please send those out. I'd love to
Speaker 1: share those and tag you back in them or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate that. And then thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for the comments and the good ratings. You know,
Speaker 1: if you don't subscribe, or have friends that are hunting
Speaker 1: with or no people that would like this podcast, share
Speaker 1: the knowledge. Man, It's like I might as well have
Speaker 1: everybody in your crew understanding what you know and and
Speaker 1: helping them kind of cut the distance of the learning
Speaker 1: curve as well. So if you could share these, that
Speaker 1: would be great. I really appreciate it. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Feel free to shoot me a message either
Speaker 1: at Remy Warrant on Instagram or Remy at the mediator
Speaker 1: dot com. I want to get into a few question
Speaker 1: and answers here coming up, and then good luck this September.
Speaker 1: I hope that you can take all this stuff you've
Speaker 1: learned and be successful. I actually know that you will be,
Speaker 1: so congratulations on your success. Preemptively until next week. Don't
Speaker 1: go chasing elk decoys. Stick to the live elk that
Speaker 1: you're used to h