Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and it is August first, and you
Speaker 1: know what that means. We have thirty one days until September.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody else is counting those days
Speaker 1: besides me, but man, this is the time of year
Speaker 1: that I get kind of excited. You can almost it's
Speaker 1: been super hot and you can almost kind of feel
Speaker 1: a change in August, especially the further along we get.
Speaker 1: Usually by the fifteenth they start feeling those changes. The
Speaker 1: mornings are a little cooler, the air is a little fresher,
Speaker 1: you get maybe a little more of a crisp. You
Speaker 1: can tell we're on the cusp of entering fall. As
Speaker 1: hot as it's been, and it's been dry and hot
Speaker 1: across the west here. I think we're all probably welcoming
Speaker 1: those kind of mornings definitely. So we have thirty one
Speaker 1: days to finalize our preparations. Are we ready where you're
Speaker 1: at on your fitness goals? So I really really like
Speaker 1: to ramp my fitness stuff up in August. Stay pretty
Speaker 1: active all summer, but in August I'm really going to
Speaker 1: get more granular on my day to day fitness. I
Speaker 1: need to be hiking the hills, do some bicycle work,
Speaker 1: taking the dog for a walk around the neighborhood, whatever
Speaker 1: I can do to get steps in every day. Here
Speaker 1: in the Tresure Valley, we have the Woisey Foothills which
Speaker 1: have a really great trail system, and there's some really
Speaker 1: steep ones and there's some really mild ones, but you
Speaker 1: can really get in some good, good hikes in there.
Speaker 1: So I really like to start hiking those a lot
Speaker 1: more often in August, so that way kind of prepared
Speaker 1: to climb mountains and chase elk and the good part,
Speaker 1: I guess then the bad part is those foothills. There's
Speaker 1: no trees, there's no shade, it's just hot. So unless
Speaker 1: you get up super early in the morning and beat
Speaker 1: the heat, which I never can seem to do. I'm
Speaker 1: not an early riser, so I'm usually suffering in the heat.
Speaker 1: But it's good because if I'm used to dealing with
Speaker 1: hot sun and sweat and discomfort during those hikes, then
Speaker 1: it's gonna acclimate me to do in the same thing
Speaker 1: during September when the mornings are cool. So that's a
Speaker 1: great way to fulfill my fitness goal to do some.
Speaker 1: I also like to do some dumb bell workouts. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm doing curls for the curls, as they say, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a lot of shoulder stuff. I just want to
Speaker 1: be able to be strong and that way, when my
Speaker 1: pat goes on my back, I won't get fatigued all September.
Speaker 1: And that kind of goes along with your your you're hiking, right,
Speaker 1: you're rocky. Put on some put a put your pack on.
Speaker 1: Put a little weight down there, you know, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: pounds at the beginning, and as as season gets approaches,
Speaker 1: puts put a pretty good load in it. Shooting your bow,
Speaker 1: that's that's paramount. At this point of summer, we should
Speaker 1: have started. If you haven't, you should have probably started
Speaker 1: that a couple of months ago. But shooting, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty dedicated, uh schedule of shooting. I like to
Speaker 1: shoot in the mornings before it gets gets warm here,
Speaker 1: before I start my day, shoot shoot a few rounds.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big believer in shooting one hundred arrows
Speaker 1: a day like some people. I feel like high quality,
Speaker 1: shorter rounds, shorter amount of reps works better for me.
Speaker 1: That way, I can just focus on all the fundamentals
Speaker 1: and focusing on hunting the bow or holding the bow.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm focusing on releasing the arrow correctly. I'm just
Speaker 1: working on all the muscle memory of doing it right.
Speaker 1: And when I start getting fatigued, then that's when things
Speaker 1: start slipping. My group starts slipping. I start practicing bad habits,
Speaker 1: so I like to I like to practice good habits.
Speaker 1: And acquiring gear. Seems like once you hit the fourth
Speaker 1: of July, everybody starts getting pretty pretty ramped up on
Speaker 1: buying their gear, you know, for hunting season, whether it's
Speaker 1: new new hunting gear or freeze dried meals or elk
Speaker 1: calls or what have you. Then yeah, it's time get
Speaker 1: that stuff ordered. If you're wearing closed or boots, get
Speaker 1: those ordered up right away or bought from your local
Speaker 1: retailer that way, have time that's like, ah, these don't
Speaker 1: fit quite right, you can always return them, get them,
Speaker 1: get the right size that way. Come September, it's all good.
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about waiting on that stuff
Speaker 1: to get shipped out right away to you, or or
Speaker 1: maybe they're not in stock in your local retailer. And then, last,
Speaker 1: but not least, learn and a call that you know.
Speaker 1: I always recommend starting months in advance, a September. That
Speaker 1: way comes September, you have really a really good grasp
Speaker 1: on calling and you feel really confident. But if you
Speaker 1: haven't done that, not to worry. I mean we can.
Speaker 1: We still have time, but you don't have to be dedicated.
Speaker 1: You have to spend some time here. We're going to
Speaker 1: have to do you know, every day, practice every day.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be hours a day, but that
Speaker 1: ten fifteen minutes a day will let you crush that
Speaker 1: learning curve on your commutant, on the way to work,
Speaker 1: maybe when you get home, out in the garage or
Speaker 1: somewhere where you're not annoying the rest of the family.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of tough to call it home
Speaker 1: sometimes when you have a family, because everybody doesn't appreciate
Speaker 1: those loud bugles like a lot of us do. But
Speaker 1: this is going to kick off our series learn to
Speaker 1: Call Elk, and we're going to talk about fundamentals first,
Speaker 1: cow calls and bugles, and now, whether you're a season
Speaker 1: vet or a beginner, I got you. I always like
Speaker 1: to tell people to practice the fundamentals first. If you've
Speaker 1: been calling for a long time. If you practice these fundamentals,
Speaker 1: it will definitely help you improve your your game. It
Speaker 1: will help you make your calls a lot more realistic. Now,
Speaker 1: I always like to say, you want to crawl before
Speaker 1: you walk, right. We want to build muscle memory, and
Speaker 1: we want our tongue and our our internal diaphragm to
Speaker 1: know how much how much pressure to put, how much
Speaker 1: air to blow, how much tongue pressure to blow every
Speaker 1: single time we put that call in our mouth. That
Speaker 1: way we build confidence to when it comes time to
Speaker 1: blow it in the elk woods, then you know what's
Speaker 1: going to come out of your mouth. Right. If you
Speaker 1: haven't practiced much, sometimes it's like, Okay, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to make this certain call, and you go to make
Speaker 1: it and it's like, oh, I didn't come out like
Speaker 1: I anticipated, And that's just lack of practice. So tuning
Speaker 1: up your calls every day for ten to fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: will definitely take that guess work out. But crawling before
Speaker 1: you walk has to do with if you're a new caller,
Speaker 1: don't just open a package. If you never tried to
Speaker 1: call a bugle before, don't just open the package and
Speaker 1: throw the read in your mouth and try to rip
Speaker 1: a big bugle because I promise you it probably won't
Speaker 1: sound anything like an elk. Then that can be kind
Speaker 1: of discouraging and be like, oh man, wow, that was crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know I can do this
Speaker 1: elk call and stuff. So get your diaphragm, put it
Speaker 1: in your mouth. If you're using a phelps Amp call,
Speaker 1: we have the little silver dome on top of our diaphragms.
Speaker 1: And you want to put that that silver dome on
Speaker 1: top towards the roof of your mouth. And you want
Speaker 1: to put the latex, the flat, the flat into the call,
Speaker 1: not the round it in, but the flat into the call.
Speaker 1: You want to put that towards your teeth, and you
Speaker 1: want to put that up in your in your mouth
Speaker 1: there and get it on your tongue. That don would
Speaker 1: put it too far back because that's where that gag
Speaker 1: reflex will come in. And you get it too far back,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll you'll start gagging. Uh. And if you get
Speaker 1: it too far forward, a lot of folks have a
Speaker 1: problem with a tickle. It'll tickle their tongue. So you
Speaker 1: try to find that kind of a happy place in
Speaker 1: the in the middle of your tongue, where your tongue
Speaker 1: feels the strongest. Now, I like to picture having a
Speaker 1: grape on my tongue, and if I were to push
Speaker 1: pressure with my tongue on that grape and I want
Speaker 1: to crush it, I'm going to put that grape and
Speaker 1: the strongest part of my tongue. So if you put
Speaker 1: that drape too far forward, you just don't have you
Speaker 1: just don't have any leverage. It doesn't seem like you're
Speaker 1: the tip of your tongues as strong as right in
Speaker 1: the middle. You put it too far back there again,
Speaker 1: it's not very strong. So find that strong part right
Speaker 1: in the middle that you feel like you can push
Speaker 1: the best pressure. And that's that's where that that diaphragm
Speaker 1: is gonna want to sit. And then you want to
Speaker 1: you want to push it hard against the roof of
Speaker 1: your mouth, and you want to seal off all the air.
Speaker 1: You want to exert a little bit of air pressure. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not going to try to push so much pressure
Speaker 1: that we're trying to like air up a tire with
Speaker 1: our mouth. We're just trying to push enough pressure to
Speaker 1: where how much air would you blow If you're trying
Speaker 1: to just blow some air through like a straw for instance,
Speaker 1: like a drink straw. It's not a huge amount of air,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to push push a little bit
Speaker 1: of air and you want to be able to seal
Speaker 1: that air off. So seal it off with your tongue
Speaker 1: and also around the sides of your teeth and the
Speaker 1: sides you're the of your of your cheeks. Don't let
Speaker 1: it escape around those places. Now, once you have things
Speaker 1: sealed off, you want to relax your tongue just ever
Speaker 1: so slightly, and if you can. Some of us have
Speaker 1: a very articulate tongue where you can, like you can
Speaker 1: roll it up like a leaf. You can. You can
Speaker 1: control how much pressure or strength you put into things
Speaker 1: depending on what part of your tongue you're using. So
Speaker 1: I like to try to, like relax if I can
Speaker 1: that middle part of my tongue to where the air
Speaker 1: would pass between my tongue and that latex. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: relax just enough to let a little tiny bit of
Speaker 1: air go across that late tex and it's gonna make
Speaker 1: a tiny little noise. It's gonna make a little noise
Speaker 1: like a like a mosquito. And it's gonna sound something
Speaker 1: like this. Now I'm not pushing lots of air like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, like we're just we're just getting
Speaker 1: some air flowing. It doesn't have to be loud, but
Speaker 1: I just want to make that first initial noise. And
Speaker 1: at first you may may not get that high note.
Speaker 1: You may get a note like this. If you're getting
Speaker 1: a little a lower pitch note, that means you're not
Speaker 1: pushing hard enough with your tongue. Apply more pressure, and
Speaker 1: apply more pressure until you can raise the octaves of
Speaker 1: that sound to this an experiment. You notice how I
Speaker 1: went from low to super high to a little lower.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna have to to find that right pressure.
Speaker 1: And this is a little bit difficult the beginning because
Speaker 1: your tongue's never done this before, or maybe if your
Speaker 1: seasoned vet, this is not how you normally typically do it.
Speaker 1: But if you can find that high note every time
Speaker 1: you put your diaphragm in your mouth, then later when
Speaker 1: you try to bugle, it's going to be easier to
Speaker 1: hit that high note. Because a lot of people struggle
Speaker 1: with hitting that high note. You know, it seems like
Speaker 1: some folks just they can't get that high note. That
Speaker 1: high ringing note, which is what a lot of elk
Speaker 1: really respond to, especially when you're going to challenge them.
Speaker 1: So figuring this out right from the beginning will help
Speaker 1: you later on. So once you find that note, then
Speaker 1: we want to practice that mount. Now this is boring,
Speaker 1: and this is not sexy. That's not these big sexy,
Speaker 1: badass bugles. It's like, oh wow, you may press your
Speaker 1: friends with right, this is just kind of annoying. And
Speaker 1: little kids do this like you had a kid a diaphragm,
Speaker 1: and before you know it, that kid's running around making
Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy noises, annoying, annoying you. Pretty soon
Speaker 1: they're trying to talk like a Donald ductor talking like
Speaker 1: whatever they can with this stupid read in their mouth. Right,
Speaker 1: that's why kids aren't pick this up so quickly, because
Speaker 1: as adults, we're a little bit stoic, right, we don't
Speaker 1: really typically act like that or do those kind of things.
Speaker 1: And unless your baby a little bit of a character
Speaker 1: and like to mess with people, But experiment, find the
Speaker 1: boundaries of that diaphragm. You know, with just a little pressure,
Speaker 1: just barely touching your tongue to that diaphragm, you can
Speaker 1: get that really low note, and that really high note
Speaker 1: takes a lot more pressure. So from the low to
Speaker 1: the high, play with it. Try to make all sorts
Speaker 1: of weird noises. Just finding the boundaries that this call
Speaker 1: has will help out. It's like, Okay, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: see how this thing works, right, light time pressure, low notes,
Speaker 1: hard tongue pressure, high note. So practice that mosquito noise
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be boring. So I always say, take
Speaker 1: a deep breath, let that air start seeping out, and
Speaker 1: then hold that same note for the length that you
Speaker 1: have a breath. And you know, towards the end it's
Speaker 1: going to get weird because you're fighting for air number one,
Speaker 1: number two, the air pressure. You're running out of air
Speaker 1: pressure air volume, so you're gonna have to change how
Speaker 1: hard you're pushing that air. And we're not gonna want
Speaker 1: to push the air with our lungs. We're trying to
Speaker 1: push this with our internal diaphragm b' bracing our core
Speaker 1: tight and using our internal diaphragm to push air across
Speaker 1: that read or diaphragm. So that may take a little
Speaker 1: little more tongue pressure, a little less tongue pressure, or
Speaker 1: a little more push on air pressure. But as you
Speaker 1: as you play with it, you'll under you'll understand it,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon your brain, your tongue, here's your core.
Speaker 1: All that stuff's gonna start working together. They know their
Speaker 1: job at this point. That's where that muscle memory comes in.
Speaker 1: So practice that that mosquito noise until every time you
Speaker 1: put that diaphragm in your mouth, you've got it. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no hesitation. Just like what I did. I don't
Speaker 1: have to search for the note. It just I put
Speaker 1: it in and my tongue knows exactly how hard to push.
Speaker 1: My diaphragm knows how much air to push across the reed,
Speaker 1: and everything comes out perfect. Now once you get that down,
Speaker 1: Now we want to learn variance, and you know, from
Speaker 1: the high notes to the low notes. So I always
Speaker 1: tell people practice the siren sound. So it's going to
Speaker 1: sound like a siren. So you're gonna start at the
Speaker 1: low sound, barely any tongue pressure. You're gonna push, push, push,
Speaker 1: until you get that up to that mosquito sound, hold
Speaker 1: it and then let it slide back down the other
Speaker 1: side to that low note. And if there's a lot
Speaker 1: of work to be done, by your core here, by
Speaker 1: your internal diaphragm. There's a lot of work to be
Speaker 1: done if you brace up and just really try to
Speaker 1: articulate those those note changes smoothly all the way up
Speaker 1: all the way down. That's that's where the key of
Speaker 1: controlling your elk bugles comes from. So this is where
Speaker 1: the old old veterans elk collors could maybe use a
Speaker 1: little help if they don't have perfect el calls already,
Speaker 1: because some of us, as we climb those notes, our
Speaker 1: diaphragm may may crack or pop, it may break that sound,
Speaker 1: and then it'll kind of take back off. So this
Speaker 1: is where we practice that to get those really really
Speaker 1: smooth transitions, and it's gonna sound something like this. M
Speaker 1: m hmmm mm hmmmmmmmmm. Start out slow in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and that once you get better at going up and
Speaker 1: down that staircase, then you can speed up your sirens sound.
Speaker 1: You notice mine kind of broke that little cracking noise right.
Speaker 1: I tried to rush it a little too quick. So
Speaker 1: let the call climb. Brace your brace your core, let
Speaker 1: it climb, and then let it descend. Just mood transitions
Speaker 1: top to bottom, top to bottom, top to bottom, it's boring,
Speaker 1: it's a weird noise. And but the great part about
Speaker 1: it is you can practice these two exercise mosquito and
Speaker 1: siren in the comfort of your car on the way
Speaker 1: to work, and people won't look at you weird like
Speaker 1: when you're practicing with a bugle. So, now, how do
Speaker 1: these relate to calls? Right? Well, those are kind of
Speaker 1: fundamental sounds to call. So that mosquito noise we can
Speaker 1: put that to work in a cow call. We can
Speaker 1: put that to work in a locator bugle. The siren,
Speaker 1: we put that to work in a standard full bugle.
Speaker 1: So we're taking that that mosquito noise to a cal call. Now,
Speaker 1: so hit that high note, that mosquito noise. You hit
Speaker 1: that high note and then just kind of relax your
Speaker 1: tongue real slow and just let it and just let
Speaker 1: it fall off the back notes there. Just let it
Speaker 1: gonna go slow. And then as it goes lower and
Speaker 1: lower on the note scales, as you get to to
Speaker 1: where your your tongue is barely touching that call, you know,
Speaker 1: the notes will get a lot deeper. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: sound something like this. So practicing that now we can
Speaker 1: shorten that up. It doesn't really sound like a cow call.
Speaker 1: Just be by the speed and the tempo of the call.
Speaker 1: But it's the same notes. So as we speed that up,
Speaker 1: so we don't we don't linger so long at the
Speaker 1: high note, we don't linger so long in the no
Speaker 1: Lo note. We just let it kind of. We can't
Speaker 1: make that that cow call, and it's gonna sound like this,
Speaker 1: And we want to do this with just light light
Speaker 1: air pressure. Right, we're trying to make cow calls right
Speaker 1: now that are relaxed, that that aren't alarming, that aren't excited.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to make those super sweet, mature cow calls. Now,
Speaker 1: the more you let your tongue linger on the low
Speaker 1: side on those lower notes, the more mature it's going
Speaker 1: to sound. The less you let it linger on the
Speaker 1: low side, it's going to sound more like a calf.
Speaker 1: So here's a demonstration. That's a mature cow just a
Speaker 1: little bit of high note, but a little bit more
Speaker 1: low note. It lingered a little longer on that low note.
Speaker 1: Now the calf call is going to be slightly different.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna give a little bit more of that
Speaker 1: high note and we're just not even going to give
Speaker 1: the low note, we're staying that higher octave, so we're
Speaker 1: not loosening our tongue all the way up. And calf
Speaker 1: calls they take even less air pressure than the cow
Speaker 1: calls because the call is a lot longer. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of a delicate procedure, and at first it'll
Speaker 1: probably be a little bit tough to control that air
Speaker 1: pressure because we'll tend to, like a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: really have to work on that air pressure control a
Speaker 1: lot in the beginning, and tongue control, of course, but
Speaker 1: getting those to work at the right time together, it
Speaker 1: does take some work. That's why back to that whole
Speaker 1: mosquito the siren, we're learning that tongue control long before
Speaker 1: we're trying to learn how to make a call. That way,
Speaker 1: it makes this a lot easier and you can make
Speaker 1: a lot more realistic kind of sounds. Now, if your
Speaker 1: calls are kind of harsh or squeaky like this, you
Speaker 1: may be tensing up your mouth too much. Oftentimes it's
Speaker 1: almost the human nature to kind of like brace your mouth,
Speaker 1: like your cheeks and every part of your mouth to
Speaker 1: make this call. And when you do that, it'll make
Speaker 1: a squeaky or a kind of a less calming sound
Speaker 1: of a call. So my cheeks are relaxed. The only
Speaker 1: thing that's flexing is my tongue. Okay. And as I
Speaker 1: go from the top the high note to the low
Speaker 1: note on that cow call, I might even be slightly
Speaker 1: relaxing my jaw, dropping my jaw down a little bit.
Speaker 1: So experiment with that to see how it suit you.
Speaker 1: I know some guys will drop their jaw and let
Speaker 1: a lot and let them create a larger cavity inside
Speaker 1: their mouth for the sound to resonate out of. And
Speaker 1: they just do it all with tongue work. That takes
Speaker 1: a lot of takes a lot of strength in your
Speaker 1: tongue and a lot of practice and discipline and in
Speaker 1: practicing in front of a mirror. But just to start out,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't try to open your jaw too much. I
Speaker 1: would just kind of let your tongue do most of
Speaker 1: the work, and then slightly as you hit that lower note,
Speaker 1: just slightly let your jaw relax. Now, Bugles, that's the
Speaker 1: one everybody likes to do, right. Cow calls calend caf
Speaker 1: calls are deadly. There's a lot of folks that love
Speaker 1: to use cow and CAF calls to call in bulls.
Speaker 1: I like to couple my calend CAF calls with bugles.
Speaker 1: Whatever camp you're in, bugling is very effective. Now maybe
Speaker 1: you don't maybe you don't finish your elk with bugles,
Speaker 1: but you get them started right. You're trying to locate
Speaker 1: a ball from a long distance. Bugles are loud. You're
Speaker 1: just trying to get that bold to sound off to you.
Speaker 1: So it's important to bugle. If you want to call elk,
Speaker 1: you got to learn how to bugle elk. So for bugles,
Speaker 1: we're going to go right back to our good friends
Speaker 1: Mosquito and Siren. First things first, though, when you bugle,
Speaker 1: I always recommend to practice with a tube. You can
Speaker 1: definitely practice without one, but everything you learn without the
Speaker 1: tube changes when you put a tube to your mouth.
Speaker 1: I've conducted a lot of training courses with folks hands
Speaker 1: on in person when we learn bugles, and if we
Speaker 1: practice too much with how to bugle, then when they
Speaker 1: put the bugle to their lips, it's like something changes,
Speaker 1: and then everything that their tongue and diaphragm and brain new,
Speaker 1: it's all changed all about the window. Now we have
Speaker 1: to relearn, so I like to recommend make sure you
Speaker 1: practice your bugles with a tube. And also they're just
Speaker 1: gonna sound better. And all tubes are not created equal.
Speaker 1: You know, the old vacuum cleaner style that everybody grew
Speaker 1: up using back in the eighties, and even today some
Speaker 1: people still prefer those kinds. Those sound good, but they
Speaker 1: don't always sound as good as possible. I know hunters
Speaker 1: who have been using those for a long time, and
Speaker 1: you hand them like a new, newer style tube, the
Speaker 1: ones that look like a baseball bat. Right here at Phelps,
Speaker 1: we have the Renegade, we have the Unleashed, we have
Speaker 1: the Unleashed V two, we have the metal Tube, we
Speaker 1: have the Unrivaled. We've got a lot of different tubes,
Speaker 1: but they're not those flexible vacuum cleaner style tubes. But
Speaker 1: when you give somebody that's been bugle in their whole
Speaker 1: life with one of those flexible tube styles, you give
Speaker 1: them one of these larger bat style tubes, it's an
Speaker 1: immediate improvement. And what I mean by that it sounds
Speaker 1: more crystal clear. It's the back pressure is better to
Speaker 1: where as they put air pressure into the tube, not
Speaker 1: all of it leaks out. The opposite end, and it
Speaker 1: lets them build those notes up of the octaves a
Speaker 1: lot easier without without putting pushing so so hard and
Speaker 1: pushing so much air pressure in there. So it kind
Speaker 1: of retains some of that air pressure. So it can
Speaker 1: make a okay or decent collar into a great collar
Speaker 1: just by switching tubes. That's just kind of a little
Speaker 1: pro tip. So back to learning how to bugle. So
Speaker 1: our good old friend Mosquito. Right, so we're gonna for
Speaker 1: a locator bugle. You just hit that high note, you
Speaker 1: hold it for a while, then, just like the calcal,
Speaker 1: you drop it off the backside. But this time, instead
Speaker 1: of being slow and lazy with the way it comes
Speaker 1: off the back end, what we're going to do is
Speaker 1: come off pretty quickly, abruptly, and then we're gonna add
Speaker 1: our voice. We're gonna inflect our voice to it, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna sound like somebody punched us in the gut.
Speaker 1: Now we're not gonna growl like a bear. We're not
Speaker 1: gonna do that. We're gonna take a punch of the
Speaker 1: gut because that adds just the right amount of bass
Speaker 1: in there that basse resonates in the tube and it
Speaker 1: just sounds good, and it doesn't sound too grally if
Speaker 1: you if you growl too much, it just doesn't sound
Speaker 1: quite right. But if you just add that to the end,
Speaker 1: then it will it'll sound a lot better. So practice
Speaker 1: this by starting out with your siren and then drop
Speaker 1: it off abruptly and then a punch to the gut.
Speaker 1: Now that didn't really sound like much like a no
Speaker 1: bugle at all, but if we do it into a tube,
Speaker 1: it's gonna sound a lot better. Sounds way better, and
Speaker 1: you can feel that base with inside the tube, so
Speaker 1: you get good feedback whether it's audibly, and you can
Speaker 1: actually feel that bass in the tube. So your hand
Speaker 1: picks that up and it say, okay, yeah, that felt right,
Speaker 1: sounded right. I like it, So practice that. And the
Speaker 1: transition from that mosquito noise down to the to the
Speaker 1: punch to the gut can sometimes be challenging for people.
Speaker 1: So it's sometimes it's really hard for people to blend
Speaker 1: those together. So I'll do this in slow motion, uh
Speaker 1: slow audio motion, I guess so, because there is kind
Speaker 1: of a disconnect from the bugle to or from the
Speaker 1: mosquito noise to that to that punch to the gut.
Speaker 1: H yeah. H. So some people have to break it down.
Speaker 1: They'll have to do the mosquito noise and then let
Speaker 1: their brain reset and then go oh at the end.
Speaker 1: So even if you have to do that, that's okay
Speaker 1: because as you do that over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: pretty soon you can connect the two a lot quicker
Speaker 1: to where it sounds like this. H Okay, that's your
Speaker 1: locator bugle. Now to do a fold bugle. That's where
Speaker 1: you start at the bottom, take it to the top note,
Speaker 1: hold it for a little bit, and then drop off
Speaker 1: the backside. Now that's where gonna where we're gonna use
Speaker 1: our old friend siren. Right, so in the beginning, when
Speaker 1: that that diaphragm is barely touching your tongue, you're getting
Speaker 1: that first loan note. We're gonna inflect your voice. Now again,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna growl hard like this. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: more of a like like you're clearing your throat. Like
Speaker 1: let's say, add some flem in your throat, or you know,
Speaker 1: you get a little bit sick, or you got a
Speaker 1: frog in your throat. Per se, it'd be almost like
Speaker 1: clearing your throat. So it's not like an ought like
Speaker 1: a you're using your voice to growl, You're just you're
Speaker 1: just clearing your throat. So it's more just like the
Speaker 1: the you're tightening your throat to make that noise versus
Speaker 1: using your vocal cords. Right, we don't want to use
Speaker 1: overuse the vocal cords because then it kind of overdoes it.
Speaker 1: And then once you get that first note started and
Speaker 1: you start that that that wheeze or that that throat
Speaker 1: clearing grawl at the beginning, once you get that established,
Speaker 1: then we start climbing the octaves. So and it doesn't
Speaker 1: take much air pressure. Some people kind of overdo it
Speaker 1: and the being they like really do it super loud,
Speaker 1: like they do put lots of air across there, across
Speaker 1: the diaphragm. They put a lot of air through their throat.
Speaker 1: The problem is if you start out with lots and
Speaker 1: lots of air, as you climb the notes, it's harder, harder,
Speaker 1: harder to control your diaphragm. It's almost like driving your
Speaker 1: car right whenever you pull out onto a street, if
Speaker 1: you have a car with a lot of horsepower, if
Speaker 1: you just mash on it from the from the red
Speaker 1: light and you take a left or you take it right,
Speaker 1: you can break traction. It's just kind of hard to control.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you just kind of put putt putt putt
Speaker 1: out into the intersection and once you get on a
Speaker 1: straight line, you gas it way easier to control. Right,
Speaker 1: It's the same thing here. Start out with a modest
Speaker 1: amount of air and then as you climb the notes,
Speaker 1: put more air pressure behind it. So as you tighten
Speaker 1: your your tongue, then tighten your core and push more
Speaker 1: air pressure. So it's going to sound like this. This
Speaker 1: is without the without the tube. So just like our
Speaker 1: locator bugle, once you get up to that top note,
Speaker 1: you hold it for a little bit and then when
Speaker 1: you drop off the backside, we come down quick. Come
Speaker 1: down quick, and add that punch of the gut. Now,
Speaker 1: to add some variance to your call, you can draw
Speaker 1: that out on the backside when you bring it down.
Speaker 1: But just for for beginner purposes, just to start off,
Speaker 1: start learning how to do this right off the bat.
Speaker 1: I would come off in the backside pretty quickly, because
Speaker 1: it seems like once if you start out the other way,
Speaker 1: draw it way out on the you know, draw it
Speaker 1: like a longer note coming off the backside it's hard
Speaker 1: to kind of break that habit and then to gain
Speaker 1: more variants. So the important part about calling elk is
Speaker 1: like these, these first few calls I'm showing you, these
Speaker 1: are just the basic call. Once you get those mastered,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna want to practice adding some very to him.
Speaker 1: So you can shorten up. You can shorten up the
Speaker 1: first half. You can shorten up the back half of
Speaker 1: the call of the bugle. Same with the cow calls,
Speaker 1: same with the calf calls. You can change how hard
Speaker 1: you push your dut with the tongue on the diaphragm.
Speaker 1: You can change how much air you're putting across. You could,
Speaker 1: like for cow callis and for instance, you can make
Speaker 1: you know, push a little more air pressure, a little
Speaker 1: more tongue pressure, makes some real loud calls, and then
Speaker 1: kind of back it off, make some quiet, quiet quiet ones,
Speaker 1: almost a whisper. This adds depth, It adds the illusion
Speaker 1: that there's more than one cow elk there. The bugles.
Speaker 1: Not every bugle bowl bugles the same. Not every one
Speaker 1: of them sounds like a dinosaur, Not every one of
Speaker 1: them sounds like a kid just hitting puberty that has
Speaker 1: a little bit of a weird kind of voice. They
Speaker 1: all sound a little different and at different times. The
Speaker 1: same bowl may bugle differently. You know, if he's betted,
Speaker 1: he may just kind of groan it. If he's if
Speaker 1: he's chasing cows and getting feeling frustrated and trying to
Speaker 1: keep the East counts the line, he's gonna scream and
Speaker 1: rip these huge bugles. So you just never know. That's
Speaker 1: why it's so important to learn that variance to these calls.
Speaker 1: So back back to making this bugle. So start out
Speaker 1: on that low end of your bugle, barely touching your diaphragm,
Speaker 1: getting that first note, add some add some throat clearing sounds,
Speaker 1: and then climb up the octave. Yeah, that's what the tube. See.
Speaker 1: Sounds so much better with the tube. So I encourage
Speaker 1: you if you can practice with the tube right off
Speaker 1: the bat. Now, one huge important thing while using a
Speaker 1: tube is I see uh veteran callers do this. I
Speaker 1: see new callers do this, but they don't see all
Speaker 1: their lips around the tube. Right. We have to make
Speaker 1: an air tight seal on that tube with your lips.
Speaker 1: We don't want any of the air escaping out the
Speaker 1: side of your lips and the cracks, right, So we
Speaker 1: want to form our lips to the tube in its
Speaker 1: kind of a round fashion. That way we make a
Speaker 1: good air tight seal connection. That way, all the air's
Speaker 1: going into the tube. It will help you articulate those notes.
Speaker 1: Now some advance calling. There are times I do break
Speaker 1: that seal, like on a like on a like a
Speaker 1: challenge bugle scream or something. I may hit that high
Speaker 1: note and have a little bit of air air seepage
Speaker 1: on the on the sides of my lips. Just a
Speaker 1: little little little bit air come out of there, just
Speaker 1: so I can scream a lot easier. And then and
Speaker 1: then I'll tighten up as I come down. It'll sound
Speaker 1: something like this. But for most interstensive purposes, you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to seal your lips off on that tube. So
Speaker 1: back to gaining good control and smooth transitions. The best
Speaker 1: thing to do is spend that ten fifteen minutes a
Speaker 1: day practicing that. On your commute with your tube. People
Speaker 1: are gonna look at you like, what is that guy
Speaker 1: doing or gal doing? And some people might think you're
Speaker 1: drinking a bottle of wine. If you have at one
Speaker 1: of these tubes that looks like a baseball bat. I've
Speaker 1: it almost looks like a bottle of wine. Some of
Speaker 1: them do, so you might get some funny looks from people.
Speaker 1: I know a guy that told me he got pulled
Speaker 1: over by a cop one time, and he said he
Speaker 1: was turned in by somebody said he was drinking a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine and the cop pulled over. He's like,
Speaker 1: I had a report you were drinking and driving. And
Speaker 1: he's like, no, I'm practicing my help. He looked over
Speaker 1: in the seat and showed him the tube and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. Yep, all right, I have a good day.
Speaker 1: So be careful on that. You know, people, especially if
Speaker 1: you live in the city, people kind of give you
Speaker 1: some funny looks. But maybe that's part of the fun anyway. Right.
Speaker 1: We want to practice that full bugle, so to get
Speaker 1: that control, we want to bugle over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, kind of like our siren routine.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna do this, yeah, yeah, just over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. That just that same routine over.
Speaker 1: You know, you go from the low to the high,
Speaker 1: drop off, low to the high to drop off. Feel
Speaker 1: free to take a breath in between, especially if you're
Speaker 1: driving because you don't want to blackout, run out of air.
Speaker 1: But that that exercise, that right there, will create so
Speaker 1: much consistency on how good your bugles turn out. Because
Speaker 1: if you do an over and over again, Let's say
Speaker 1: you did a hundred of them, right, that built such
Speaker 1: great muscle memory to where there's no doubt you're doing
Speaker 1: a hundred of them a day. There's no doubt every
Speaker 1: time you put your die from your mouth you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to make the bugle that you want to hear.
Speaker 1: And then once you master that, play with it. You
Speaker 1: know you don't have to hit that highest note. Maybe
Speaker 1: you just want to do a lazy, lazy bugle to
Speaker 1: where you don't hardly climb off that very first note.
Speaker 1: You just and then you put a little bit more
Speaker 1: of that throat clearing noise or that voice into it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna sound something like this. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: less air pressure you can do. You can do that
Speaker 1: kind of a variance. You could give it a little
Speaker 1: bit more on the back end instead of just dropping
Speaker 1: off the backside of bugle real abruptly. Then we can
Speaker 1: come off longer. You can play with it, you can
Speaker 1: add it, you can add whatever you want to it,
Speaker 1: but the most important thing is that it sounds like
Speaker 1: a real ELK. Now it's fun to watch your favorite
Speaker 1: YouTubers and trying to emulate and trying to reproduce the
Speaker 1: same exact sounds they are. But honestly, the best course
Speaker 1: of action, the best practice you can get, is listening
Speaker 1: to real elk and outside of the rut, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to do that. So I recommend getting on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Send your significance other or your family to the water park,
Speaker 1: or send your significant other to the spa for the day,
Speaker 1: whatever that way you have some time alone in the
Speaker 1: house unless maybe they want to be part of it.
Speaker 1: You know, some families love to call together we see
Speaker 1: you know, little kids, you know, they love it. They
Speaker 1: want to be like dad or mom calling ELK. So
Speaker 1: whatever the case is in your household, you know, make it,
Speaker 1: make it good and fun for everybody. But I would
Speaker 1: say turn on something on YouTube. There's a ton of videos.
Speaker 1: You can do some search like just elk bugling or
Speaker 1: elk elk. You can just get creative with your searches
Speaker 1: and there's tons and tons of videos of rutting elk
Speaker 1: in like national parks and places like that, or people
Speaker 1: who just go out and record elk on the public
Speaker 1: land even. But what we're looking for is just hearing
Speaker 1: all those elk vocalizations, you know, all the cow calls,
Speaker 1: all those bugles, and what you'll find is like, as
Speaker 1: you're listening to all these different elk, man, that one
Speaker 1: sounds really good, like the typical elk call that we
Speaker 1: all have grown to love. But man, that other one
Speaker 1: sounds sick, he doesn't even sound like an elk. Or
Speaker 1: that things sounds terrible. So the moral of the story is,
Speaker 1: you don't have to sound like that perfect cookie cutter
Speaker 1: three note bugle or some world champion ouk call. You
Speaker 1: don't have to You don't have to listen to that
Speaker 1: and be like, I have to really sound like that person.
Speaker 1: What you have to sound like is a real elk. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, whenever I say you have to sound good,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you don't have to like, sound like
Speaker 1: a real elk. I've I had an accounter here a
Speaker 1: couple of falls ago when I was calling a bowl
Speaker 1: and I called in another hunter. He come and tried
Speaker 1: to move in on me and the bowl. He thought
Speaker 1: we were real elk, and he was making these noises
Speaker 1: that sounded like a like a puz be that was
Speaker 1: getting hurt or something. It was so odd and weird
Speaker 1: that I don't know why anyone would even try to
Speaker 1: attempt to make those kind of noises because it didn't
Speaker 1: sound anything like Elk. It didn't represent an elk whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and it kind of was like, it sounded so weird.
Speaker 1: I can't even reproduce the sound, but it was something
Speaker 1: kind of like that. So you don't have to sound
Speaker 1: like a world championhip caller, absolutely not, but you do
Speaker 1: have to have Elk like sounds and that kind of
Speaker 1: a sound, that kind of a call is absolutely not
Speaker 1: an ELK sound, and that'll just scare them away. So
Speaker 1: if you can't make Elk sounds and you've practiced and practice,
Speaker 1: maybe you just have to put the calls away. But
Speaker 1: if you can, you know, maybe it's not that perfect
Speaker 1: cookie cut or bugle. But man, you were watching some
Speaker 1: of these ELK videos and some of those sick sound
Speaker 1: and bowls, Yeah, I kind of sound like that. That'll work.
Speaker 1: That will call Elk in. It doesn't have to sound perfect,
Speaker 1: but it does have to sound like an elk. Now,
Speaker 1: another tip for practicing is video taping yourself. So videotape, man,
Speaker 1: I just dated myself. We don't have videotapes these days.
Speaker 1: That's all digital. So take your phone. We all have
Speaker 1: a smartphone. Take your phone, put it somewhere pretty close
Speaker 1: to it to your face or didn't see yourself from
Speaker 1: your waist up or whatever, and then practice, hit your
Speaker 1: record button on the video and practice and go through
Speaker 1: your practice routine and stuff. And trust me, I think
Speaker 1: we're all guilty of being our own worst critic. So watch.
Speaker 1: When you watch it back, then you'll probably discover a
Speaker 1: lot of different things, like how you maybe thought or
Speaker 1: perceived how it sounded versus what it sounds like. When
Speaker 1: you play it back, sometimes you'll spot that you're doing
Speaker 1: something odd or weird with your mouth or something that
Speaker 1: you're not intending to do. And if you can't see
Speaker 1: yourself do, it's kind of hard to spot. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember back in middle school in gym
Speaker 1: class and we're learning how to do cartwheels right, and
Speaker 1: I was I was not like the athletic kid in
Speaker 1: when junior high school at all. So we did them
Speaker 1: and I'm like I did it, and they're like, you
Speaker 1: didn't do it like, yes I did, dude, your feet
Speaker 1: didn't come two feet off the ground, right, And until
Speaker 1: you see yourself do it, sometimes it's really hard to
Speaker 1: understand that feedback from someone else. So as you record yourself,
Speaker 1: you will discover yourself. Maybe maybe you are letting some
Speaker 1: air escape around your lips when you're bugling, maybe you're
Speaker 1: doing something with your jaw, or maybe you're tightening up
Speaker 1: like maybe you're tucking your chin in, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: maybe you're doing weird body movements. Like people really get
Speaker 1: into this, Like I try to like not move my
Speaker 1: body a lot. Now if you watch me chuckle and drunt,
Speaker 1: you'll see my belly kind of bounce of bit because
Speaker 1: I'm really working using that my core and my diaphragm
Speaker 1: to get those chuckles out. That's okay, But we don't
Speaker 1: we're not trying to like be too animated with their
Speaker 1: calls because of course in the elk woods, we don't
Speaker 1: want to move around that much. So by recording ourselves,
Speaker 1: we can kind of see some things that may be
Speaker 1: hampering or hindering good elk quality sounds. If you're kind
Speaker 1: of hunched over and kind of tight in the in
Speaker 1: the chest, or whatever. You may not be able to
Speaker 1: hit all those high notes. Maybe you're not get enough
Speaker 1: air going through your calls. Maybe if you stand up
Speaker 1: straight and take deep breaths and really kind of open
Speaker 1: yourself up, that's that's a better way to get a
Speaker 1: little bit more air across the calls. But video yourself.
Speaker 1: It's surprising. I can video myself even right today, and
Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, I look funny. You're it's almost
Speaker 1: like you're in yourself talked right. You listen to yourself
Speaker 1: play back and anytime I've heard the podcast played back
Speaker 1: and like, man, my voice sounds weird. It sound like
Speaker 1: a nerd. So we don't always like the feedback we
Speaker 1: get from recording ourselves, but it's good if you're really
Speaker 1: trying to increase how realistic your alk calls sound. Well,
Speaker 1: that's going to be a wrap for today. Our next
Speaker 1: episode that I'm going to cover on calling ELK is
Speaker 1: going to be chuckles, grunts, and barks. So that's going
Speaker 1: to take you to the next level. Those are harder,
Speaker 1: definitely harder, take a lot more effort. A lot of
Speaker 1: folks message me on Instagram, Facebook or talk to me
Speaker 1: in person, talk about man, I just really struggle with
Speaker 1: my grunts and my chuckles. How can what am I
Speaker 1: doing wrong? So I'll kind of go over those things
Speaker 1: on my next episode and see if we can get
Speaker 1: you guys chuckle and grunting. And if you want to
Speaker 1: see this all, you know, if you want to see
Speaker 1: me making these calls, then I have an ELK calling
Speaker 1: series on my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is called
Speaker 1: the Bugler. It's just spelled out one word, the Bugler.
Speaker 1: And if you go to my YouTube channel and select playlists,
Speaker 1: and you'll go down through the list and you'll see
Speaker 1: learn to call Out and it'll start from the basics
Speaker 1: of picking out a diaphragm all the way through the
Speaker 1: most advanced calls. So if you need a little tune up,
Speaker 1: you want to see visual on how I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: which is really helpful sometimes to see somebody do something
Speaker 1: instead of just hear them tell you over a podcast,
Speaker 1: then you might give it, give it a look. See
Speaker 1: there's also some good el hunting videos on there in
Speaker 1: case you get bored and want to get amped up
Speaker 1: for ELK season. So anyway, thanks for following along today.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it man. Thirty one days thirty one days till September.
Speaker 1: I can't wait, and I hope you guys and galas
Speaker 1: are making the right preparations to have successful successful hunts.
Speaker 1: So we'll see you next time.