Speaker 1: Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. September is finally here.
Speaker 1: The bulls are starting to get fired up, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we're going to cover on today's episode is
Speaker 1: elk hunting during the rut. Our guest today is a
Speaker 1: coworker here at me Eater, and when I first talked
Speaker 1: to him, I could tell that he just gets it.
Speaker 2: He's a great elk hunter.
Speaker 1: He can talk to people that kind of buffalo their
Speaker 1: way through a conversation. But you know, we got chatting
Speaker 1: about elk hunting and things that I did versus things
Speaker 1: that he did, and you could just tell it clicked
Speaker 1: with him. He was born and raised in Montana and
Speaker 1: has spent the last fourteen years guiding elk hunters, one
Speaker 1: in Colorado, thirteen in Montana, and those were both all
Speaker 1: wilderness expeditions as well as private ranches and everywhere in between.
Speaker 1: He's going to be mad that I added this, because
Speaker 1: I know he was joking when he sent this for
Speaker 1: his bio, but he said he has killed more shit
Speaker 1: than the plague was his last line in his bio.
Speaker 1: But today's guest is Corey Caulkins, Gray Hunter, and glad
Speaker 1: to have you on the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's up, Jason, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you had a chance to get in the
Speaker 1: woods yet?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went out. I was opening weekend this last
Speaker 3: weekend here in Montana, and yeah, got out.
Speaker 4: We had some beautiful weather.
Speaker 3: Actually it was a little hot on opening Day and
Speaker 3: then some torrential rain came in the following Sunday and Monday.
Speaker 3: Over the Labor Day weekend, it was pretty quiet elk
Speaker 3: wise in the woods. There were sure a lot of
Speaker 3: people getting after it, some hunters, some just recreational dirt bikers,
Speaker 3: but it was loud in the woods. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of people making a lot of noise for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always loved and hated Labor Day because it's
Speaker 1: the start of elk season, but it's also like the
Speaker 1: last weekend for all the hikers and recreationalists aside from
Speaker 1: US hunters, and it just seems to pack every trailhead,
Speaker 1: every good area. Everybody's hiking everywhere, and it's and the
Speaker 1: elk really aren't cranking. So it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: your we're so just to be out in the woods,
Speaker 1: but yet it's not always like the most productive.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, across the board that I've heard not a
Speaker 3: lot of bugle in action. Elk still in their bachelor
Speaker 3: summer herds summer locations. But man, it's kind of change
Speaker 3: by the day here as we as we speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to get out this weekend a little
Speaker 1: bit easier of a hunt because it was a rough hunt.
Speaker 1: And then the kid had drawn a rifle tag. But
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 2: There were bulls around.
Speaker 1: They would answer beagles just enough so that we keep
Speaker 1: tabs on them, but they you know, if I had
Speaker 1: a bow in my hand, I would be really I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be real confident that I would be able to
Speaker 1: make anything happen. Just how you know, lacks of daisical.
Speaker 1: Their beagles were really wasn't interested. You know, the bull
Speaker 1: didn't the herd bowl didn't even show up in the
Speaker 1: herd until eight thirty in the morning. He was obviously
Speaker 1: out running ridges, looking for other cows and whatnot, and
Speaker 1: then he kind of showed up and rolled into the
Speaker 1: group of about forty cows. But yeah, still real big
Speaker 1: herds and they haven't really got broken down yet and
Speaker 1: bowls still running together. So it seems I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it's late, but it's it's not kicked off
Speaker 1: yet for sure.
Speaker 3: For sure, Yeah, I don't know the way this season,
Speaker 3: at least in the northern half of the Rockies, everything
Speaker 3: seems to be like a week late. I'm a big
Speaker 3: angler to fly fishermen, and a lot of hatches were late,
Speaker 3: rivers were high later than you know, at least still
Speaker 3: compared to the last couple of years. So one's got
Speaker 3: to wonder if things might be just a couple of
Speaker 3: days or a week later in the elkra this year.
Speaker 4: We'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean we can get into this in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But I've always been that one like, no,
Speaker 1: your excuse of the rut's late, or your excuse of
Speaker 1: the moon, or your excuse of you know, they weren't
Speaker 1: bigle in this year. Like I've never bought into it.
Speaker 1: But one thing the last couple of years. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm making my own excuses now, but
Speaker 1: I felt like it's been later. I don't know how
Speaker 1: what I would attribute it to or what, but it
Speaker 1: seems like, man, they were still going a lot better
Speaker 1: into October than they have in the past. But may
Speaker 1: just be me making a weak excuse for myself.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: October is still great month those first two weeks to
Speaker 3: get after bugle and elk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're still pretty fired up.
Speaker 3: A lot of people give up by then, and man,
Speaker 3: it's not a good time to give up yet.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I would like to point out,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not exactly true, but what I've noticed growing
Speaker 1: up hunting Roosevelts versus being able to the last ten
Speaker 1: years hunt a lot of Rocky bowls, is the rut
Speaker 1: truly is over somewhere as soon as October rolls around
Speaker 1: the elk, know, like Roosevelts were done. Where when I've
Speaker 1: got to hunt Rockies, you know, they're still bugling into
Speaker 1: the second third week of October. Still a lot of times.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it has to do with herd
Speaker 1: dynamics or areas, or you know, the health of the
Speaker 1: herd when they can come into estrus or whatnot, But
Speaker 1: that's one that's one major difference I've known is that
Speaker 1: the Rockies seem to rut into October a lot further
Speaker 1: than the Roosevelts.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, our rifle season here in Montana opens, you know,
Speaker 3: around like the twentieth through twenty eighth ish fourth weekend,
Speaker 3: and h October and I called in a bowl for
Speaker 3: a client with the cow call that opening weekend a
Speaker 3: rifle season.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been good.
Speaker 1: Same thing with my wife when she had that tag
Speaker 1: as October twenty eighth and on a rifle tag, and
Speaker 1: he bugled three hundred times at that afternoon, and once
Speaker 1: they got out of bed, bugled this whole way up
Speaker 1: before she was able to get a shot at him.
Speaker 1: It was just, you know, just nuts. I don't know
Speaker 1: if a cow came in late or what, but man,
Speaker 1: it reconstituted the rut there for at least an evening
Speaker 1: and we took advantage of it. So all right, now
Speaker 1: we're gonna, like every show, we're going to jump into
Speaker 1: listener questions. It's funny, you know, as ELK season gets close,
Speaker 1: we get all of these listener questions and I like
Speaker 1: to take those or give them to my guests and
Speaker 1: let them answer them. If you have questions for me
Speaker 1: or my guests here at Cutting the Distance, please email
Speaker 1: them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com,
Speaker 1: or hit us up on social media, send us messages,
Speaker 1: and we'll do our best to get him included. So
Speaker 1: our first question today comes from holding Kuhn. A buddy
Speaker 1: and him are going to go on their first l
Speaker 1: CONTs this year. It's a rifle hunt. They both have tags,
Speaker 1: assuming they're hunting and glossing together, and they spot out,
Speaker 1: how do you decide who shoots first? So me and
Speaker 1: my own buddies, I'll let ego first. We've always had
Speaker 1: our own system. But I'll let you answer, Cory. If
Speaker 1: if your equals and you didn't invite somebody or they
Speaker 1: didn't invite you, Like, how do you guys decide who
Speaker 1: shoots man?
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's equal, like you both haven't shot an
Speaker 3: elk ever before or whatever, I'll usually draw straws or
Speaker 3: draw blade of grass, or flip a coin, like just
Speaker 3: make it the luck of the draw. A lot of
Speaker 3: times like that, the scenario might play out to where
Speaker 3: only one person ends up getting the shot. You kind
Speaker 3: of want to leave it open minded to that, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, flip a coin.
Speaker 1: That's that's how we usually roll, unless it's a hunt
Speaker 1: where maybe I've already got to go on a hunt
Speaker 1: and they don't have as much time or freedom and
Speaker 1: this is their one hundred the year. You know, you
Speaker 1: extend some you know, you extend that offer to them,
Speaker 1: like no, go ahead and start, and then you do
Speaker 1: every other day. We don't like to both carry our
Speaker 1: bows around. It's like you focus on what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do. I'll focus on and the chance of us
Speaker 1: getting a shot at a second bowl there is always
Speaker 1: that chance, but it's never really you know, shown itself.
Speaker 2: So we usually pack one bow. The other guy's.
Speaker 1: Responsible for the calls and the raking and the brushing,
Speaker 1: and then that way we can just kind of avoid
Speaker 1: you know, two people trying to get shots or you know,
Speaker 1: not doing any of that. And just like you, we
Speaker 1: usually either do like one full day that way we
Speaker 1: don't have to get back to camp, or if it's
Speaker 1: like a rifle hunt, we'll do like a night in
Speaker 1: the morning. But usually once you flip the coin and
Speaker 1: get going or however you want to do it, just
Speaker 1: come up with a system and you know your hunter
Speaker 1: one day and then your color the next, and you
Speaker 1: just switch throughout the hunt and rifle Mildiary. Of course
Speaker 1: we're not in a Milier podcast, Like if it's rifle Mildier,
Speaker 1: we'll just play whoever spots it shoots it the entire time,
Speaker 1: you know, so it keeps everybody on the glass all
Speaker 1: the time, versus a guy thinking he's going to take
Speaker 1: a nap or whatnot, which is another good incentive. You know,
Speaker 1: if you spot it or locate it or find it,
Speaker 1: then you're up. It just incentivizes a you know, staying
Speaker 1: getting after it and staying after it throughout the whole hunt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it makes you work a little harder.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a question which I've got
Speaker 1: to get answer for what I'll see how you answer.
Speaker 1: His second question, also from holding Kun, he wants to
Speaker 1: be a better caller, but feels he lacks the lung
Speaker 1: capacity or the ability to call either long or loud enough.
Speaker 1: Is there a way to improve that?
Speaker 3: Well, to get louder, he should get the Phelps metal
Speaker 3: bugle tube. Can't get much louder than that. My ears
Speaker 3: ring every time I blow that thing personally. Yea, man,
Speaker 3: I don't know. There's probably some lung exercises you could do.
Speaker 3: You know, I know a lot of folks struggle, say
Speaker 3: they're coming from lower elevation, they go into higher elevation,
Speaker 3: it can take them a few days to just get
Speaker 3: their lungs back up and running, especially if they're hiking
Speaker 3: the hills and working really hard. It could be hard
Speaker 3: for anybody to blow a bugle when you're when your
Speaker 3: blood's pumping like that. But man, there's probably some long
Speaker 3: exercises you can do. Take some just you know, leading
Speaker 3: up to a hunt. Do some lung stretches. Not only
Speaker 3: are to be mentally and physically prepared, but also preparing
Speaker 3: those lungs for for what have you. And then just
Speaker 3: all in all, practice bugling and cal calling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that's what's gonna be my two part answers.
Speaker 1: As we do design calls. The easy bugler attached to
Speaker 1: an aluminum our metal bugle to very very loud and
Speaker 1: it requires less error than being able to run a diaphragm.
Speaker 1: So there are calls that will get you the ability
Speaker 1: to be a better caller or to be louder if
Speaker 1: that's what you're after. And then one thing you may
Speaker 1: never let me, let me back up just by running
Speaker 1: calls a lot, like we've been able to be at
Speaker 1: lots of sportsman shows. We've been around guys that seem
Speaker 1: to start to show as like a mediocre caller and
Speaker 1: then just being in the booth for a week half
Speaker 1: into bugle, half into bugle. It's just like anything, the
Speaker 1: more you do it, the more your lungs are gonna
Speaker 1: become adapted. They're gonna they're gonna be more comfortable, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to bugle, louder, cleaner, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And we've you know, we've noticed it at the shows
Speaker 1: where a guy comes in it's like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we want him begling on a call, you know,
Speaker 1: or or blowing on a call, because it's not really
Speaker 1: good for sales, but just being around good callers and
Speaker 1: doing it over and over and by the end, you're like,
Speaker 1: that guy got a lot better, you know. And then
Speaker 1: the last thing I wanted to touch base on lung
Speaker 1: capacity is one thing and I'm going to nerd out
Speaker 1: on people here for a little bit, is it's fairly tied.
Speaker 1: There is a very high correlation with your age and
Speaker 1: your height, not your weight, not anything else. So like
Speaker 1: a lot of the air capacity lung capacity charts that
Speaker 1: that I look at when I'm modeling a Beagle tube
Speaker 1: will have the age. I don't remember how all the
Speaker 1: accesses are laid out, but basically age and your height
Speaker 1: will then dictate like your max capacity, like output from
Speaker 1: your lung So it's one thing that you get older,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have less. If you're short, you're already at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage just based on the core relation. And but
Speaker 1: one thing I found is maybe that doesn't necessarily add
Speaker 1: up because we've got small guys that can crank. So
Speaker 1: maybe it's a different, you know, a different capacity that
Speaker 1: your lungs have. But I would say to stop bssing
Speaker 1: about this long drawn out answer is just practice a lot.
Speaker 1: The more you're in a call, the better you're gonna
Speaker 1: get it running a call, the more control you're going
Speaker 1: to have over that call.
Speaker 2: And and that'll kind of fix it for you.
Speaker 3: Well man fitness getting ready for an l hunt, you know,
Speaker 3: is going to help your lungs, Stretch them out, get
Speaker 3: them stronger, get that fire out of them. The first
Speaker 3: couple of hikes up a steep hill with a heavy backpack,
Speaker 3: I don't see how that would would hurt your lungs.
Speaker 3: To be able to call a little bit longer and louder.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and allows you to call without taking a
Speaker 1: minute break, so you can, finally, after you get done
Speaker 1: with it, actually still blow on the tube when you're
Speaker 1: when you're grinding it out is also another thing, like
Speaker 1: you know I've ran into like I need ten seconds
Speaker 1: before I can blow on their twenty or thirty, you know,
Speaker 1: and the better shape you're in that, the better you're
Speaker 1: going to be.
Speaker 5: So our second question comes from Nick in Utah, which
Speaker 5: obviously listens to the show because he starts out, I
Speaker 5: know you don't use a decoy very much, if ever,
Speaker 5: but I was wondering if you've ever tried using a
Speaker 5: decoy for elk hunting in the low country of Juniper's
Speaker 5: opinions before.
Speaker 1: If not, how could or would you use this strategy
Speaker 1: and what would it look like in your eyes? If
Speaker 1: this was used, would it be effective? And then is
Speaker 1: there a strategy where you wouldn't use this tactic? So
Speaker 1: go ahead and answer that. Have you ever decoyed Corey?
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 4: I have not, but man, I really want to.
Speaker 3: There's been many scenarios where I wish I had a
Speaker 3: decoy because I think it would have lured him in
Speaker 3: just that much further, because you know, they're pretty keen
Speaker 3: on coming into the sound of a cowora bowle coming
Speaker 3: in and curious. But a lot of times if they
Speaker 3: don't see anything, that just triggers their nervousness to not
Speaker 3: come in any closer. And man, it's happened way too
Speaker 3: many times where they get hung up at that sixty
Speaker 3: seventy eighty yard mark. And I believe if the decoy
Speaker 3: was behind me or behind the shooter, then that would
Speaker 3: bring him in, you know, that extra twenty yards needed.
Speaker 4: So no I have ever used one actually in the field.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't want to carry one around because
Speaker 3: climbing twelve to fifteen miles a day.
Speaker 1: Yep, I'm in the same boat. I've we've tried to
Speaker 1: take them and we've lost her before. We've ever got
Speaker 1: to use it, both on two different hunts. So somewhere
Speaker 1: out there there are there's an elk decoy out there.
Speaker 1: But I, you know, just thinking about it, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to use it in wide open country where you know,
Speaker 1: things can can can look out of place. I think
Speaker 1: the situation they're talking about that Nick's talking about, like
Speaker 1: low country Juniper's pinions. As long as it's tight enough
Speaker 1: and not wide opening can be seen from hundreds yards away,
Speaker 1: it would work.
Speaker 2: And then it works even.
Speaker 1: Better and maybe tight timber where if they can get
Speaker 1: a glimpse, you know, when they're at seventy or eighty
Speaker 1: yards or one hundred yards, but real tight, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, roll roll into why. I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of times those bowls will hold up where
Speaker 1: they expect to see that cow or where that cow
Speaker 1: can then see them, and they expect that cow to
Speaker 1: go to them, right because they don't want to leave
Speaker 1: their herd. And so if you're giving the bowl the
Speaker 1: ability or whatever you're trying to call the ability to
Speaker 1: see this cow from two hundred or three hundred yards away,
Speaker 1: he's going to sit out there. Most likely, not not always,
Speaker 1: but he, in my opinion's going to set out there
Speaker 1: and beegle and then just not come in so within
Speaker 1: shooting range. Versus if there is no visual and that
Speaker 1: bowl can't lay eyes on that cow decoy, you may
Speaker 1: have better options. So I think it really depends on
Speaker 1: how tight the vegetation is when that bowl will finally
Speaker 1: be able to see that decoy and then you know,
Speaker 1: but like I said, I'm just guessed guessing at what
Speaker 1: would happen. You could have a bowl that has no
Speaker 1: cows and he's always looking for a cow. He may
Speaker 1: run right into that setup versus a herd bull may
Speaker 1: not be willing to come any closer, you know, and
Speaker 1: leave his cows for just a lone cow that's out
Speaker 1: there calling to him. He expects her to come to him.
Speaker 1: And so I don't have a great answer for that either,
Speaker 1: but I think you wouldn't want to use it in
Speaker 1: wide open country. Want it to be at least relatively
Speaker 1: tight enough that bowl would have to be somewhat close
Speaker 1: to see it.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah, engage's curiosity just enough to bring him
Speaker 3: in that much closer for sure, yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then our last question I believe come from Corey Bonen.
Speaker 1: He was wondering if we've ever covered the topic on
Speaker 1: post rut. He lives in Alberta, Canada, hunts elk in
Speaker 1: the foothills of the Rockies, and he says it seems
Speaker 1: to be the actually starts to taper off by the
Speaker 1: third week of September, and their rifle season up there
Speaker 1: starts on September seventeenth, and he says by the time
Speaker 1: they get the October they're hard pressed to get any bugles.
Speaker 1: What are the best tactics for kind of that post
Speaker 1: rep for you know, kind of going back to what
Speaker 1: we've already talked about. You know, still pretty decent bugling
Speaker 1: into October. But let's say you had a tag for
Speaker 1: middle October and still wanted to run calls or use
Speaker 1: that to your advantage. Like, what would be your strategy?
Speaker 3: Man, There's there has to be a fired up bowl somewhere,
Speaker 3: but yeah, having to hunt in an area where few
Speaker 3: rifle shots have already gone off, that'll shut some elk
Speaker 3: up for sure. You and I Jason to both hunted
Speaker 3: in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where we can hunt with
Speaker 3: rifles September fifteenth, and those first few days are fire.
Speaker 3: But then when they hear a couple of rifle shots
Speaker 3: go off there, they're a little less apt to scream
Speaker 3: at the top of their lungs. You can still find
Speaker 3: them out there, you just might have to dig a
Speaker 3: little deeper and get a little further back, maybe where
Speaker 3: people haven't been.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's worth giving up on just the
Speaker 3: same tactics hunting ridges, bugle in looking for that one
Speaker 3: that might still be fired up in there, because that's
Speaker 3: still early enough. Obviously it varies by regions north to
Speaker 3: south especially, but man, there's got to be one fired
Speaker 3: up somewhere. I don't think it's worth giving up on
Speaker 3: the calling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I mean elk ridges they've got that
Speaker 1: built in safety feature right where they do hear those
Speaker 1: gun shots? Are the are you and maybe I mean
Speaker 1: we can't have a conversation with Corey Corey Bona not you.
Speaker 1: It's like, are are these elk just non existent? Or
Speaker 1: are you still seeing them? They're just not bugling? That
Speaker 1: would be nice to know. But my guess is these
Speaker 1: elk are going back to some Heidi holes, right, They're
Speaker 1: trying to get away from pressure. They still maybe you know,
Speaker 1: you may need to go find those. It's tough to
Speaker 1: figure that out. But as far as strategy, I would
Speaker 1: still I use I use my bugle fairly religiously. You know,
Speaker 1: into the middle of October, if I was hunting rockies,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I will probably get a response
Speaker 1: if there are cows in the area that are still
Speaker 1: coming into estrus or even if even if not, like
Speaker 1: he's still may be willing to try to find that
Speaker 1: last cow, he may answer you. And then as far
Speaker 1: as calling a bowl into range. You know, we're we're
Speaker 1: pretty heavy buglers. But I would maybe switch a little
Speaker 1: more to cow calls at that point, especially if you've
Speaker 1: got a rifle in your hand. You know, I just
Speaker 1: got off of a rifle rut hunt, and it's tough
Speaker 1: to like remove myself from my archery tactics. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we got a gun. You know, we're hunting with a gun.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't need to call this bowl in the range.
Speaker 1: I don't need the risk getting winded. I don't need
Speaker 1: to get tight like. I just need to know where
Speaker 1: he's at and then we'll find him.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: That's why I would say, if you're rifle hunting by
Speaker 1: September seventeenth already, I would bugle and locate and then
Speaker 1: turn it into a you know, a spot spot the
Speaker 1: bowl and try to get in a position to shoot it,
Speaker 1: not necessarily call that thing all the way in now.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I don't know where they're at. They
Speaker 1: might be in heavy timber, and I might be saying
Speaker 1: stuff that's just not useful to them. But that would
Speaker 1: be my go to is you know, hunt them like
Speaker 1: you've got a rifle, and maybe some of this stuff
Speaker 1: we always talk about getting him into archy range.
Speaker 2: It's just too much risk at that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's a good good point.
Speaker 3: Maybe to sum that up, just spot, maybe shifting more
Speaker 3: towards spot and stock, but to be able to spot
Speaker 3: him with either your glass or if you can just
Speaker 3: locate them, get one to screw up by Yeah, bugle
Speaker 3: in her cow call and then stock in from there,
Speaker 3: get a few hundred yards away.
Speaker 4: Got a high advantage with that high powered rifle.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So well, thanks, thanks everybody for your your questions. If you,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, if you have questions for us,
Speaker 1: our guests myself, email us at ct D at phelps
Speaker 1: game Calls dot com, or send us social media messages.
Speaker 1: We're on all the platforms there. Make sure to get
Speaker 1: him over and we'll try to get him included here
Speaker 1: in our show. So now we're gonna jump into my
Speaker 1: discussion with you, Corey. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: where you where you guided, kind of how long you
Speaker 1: been doing, how you got it into it, a little
Speaker 1: background on yourself, and then we'll roll into some questions
Speaker 1: on your clientele and and the elk that you got
Speaker 1: to hunt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's see, uh, fresh out of high school.
Speaker 3: I started guiding nell hunters. My first year was down
Speaker 3: in Colorado, which, as everybody knows, has an extremely high
Speaker 3: elk population versus the other Western states out here, and
Speaker 3: it's true there's a lot of elk down there. We
Speaker 3: went sixty four for sixty four in the archery and
Speaker 3: rifle seasons that I went down. They're not all bowls.
Speaker 3: We never shot one over three hundred and twenty inches
Speaker 3: that year, but man, there's just a lot of elk
Speaker 3: roam in those mountains.
Speaker 4: Very impressive.
Speaker 3: Was signed up to go back down that next year
Speaker 3: when I was going to be nineteen, but ended up
Speaker 3: landing a job in the Bob Marshall Wilderness much closer
Speaker 3: where I was born and raised in northwest Montana, and
Speaker 3: couldn't pass up the opportunity. It started out as guiding
Speaker 3: fishermen in the Bob and then we have an early
Speaker 3: rifle season back there, opened September fifteenth with a rifle
Speaker 3: and it was kind of always a dream to go
Speaker 3: back in there to hunt.
Speaker 4: Personally.
Speaker 3: My folks had lived in Montana since the seventies and
Speaker 3: went back in there on some DIY hunts on their
Speaker 3: own and just hearing those, always wanted to put my
Speaker 3: boots in the wilderness, and this was a good chance
Speaker 3: to do it and get paid to do it. So
Speaker 3: I guided deep in the wilderness for seven years, learned
Speaker 3: a lot about elk hunting I was young, that was
Speaker 3: my early twenties, and then just kind of through the
Speaker 3: grapevine of working in the industry, was able to land
Speaker 3: a pretty fantastic guiding job just north of Bozeman here
Speaker 3: where I live now, on a couple different private ranches
Speaker 3: that honestly are the total opposite spectrum of elk hunting.
Speaker 3: Going from deep in the wilderness having to earn just
Speaker 3: getting back there mandatory nine to ten miles on a
Speaker 3: horse just to enter the wilderness unit versus shooting elk
Speaker 3: off the hood of a truck, not literally, of course,
Speaker 3: but pretty close, and then loading them in hole with
Speaker 3: a wench electric wench in the back of the truck.
Speaker 3: Pretty mind blowing spectrum to go from one to the other.
Speaker 3: That first year guiding on those. One of the private
Speaker 3: ranches up here had to send video of the first
Speaker 3: bowl I harvest was a three hundred and fifty one
Speaker 3: inch bowl that.
Speaker 4: I helped harvest.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, guided, and I wench the whole thing in
Speaker 3: the back of a truck, was able to drive right
Speaker 3: to it and had to record the video send that
Speaker 3: to all my buddies who were still grinding and out
Speaker 3: in the wilderness, and they all, I'm pretty sure puked
Speaker 3: on their phones when they saw that. But so I
Speaker 3: was pretty spoiled from there, but definitely earned earned my stripes,
Speaker 3: I would say, to get to that point. And yeah,
Speaker 3: two very different spectrums of guiding, and I spent eight
Speaker 3: years guiding on these ranches that I'm speaking of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've got a real It sounds like you
Speaker 1: got a real contrast from doing it maybe as hard
Speaker 1: and as far away from the truck as he can
Speaker 1: versus doing it as close and maybe I don't want
Speaker 1: to say easy, but definitely, definitely the odds are stacked
Speaker 1: in your favorite more on that private land you know
Speaker 1: it's managed to be that versus you know, the unmanaged wilderness,
Speaker 1: semi unmanaged wilderness.
Speaker 2: Did you just kind of.
Speaker 1: Get what you get and the train gets thrown at
Speaker 1: you and whatnot?
Speaker 4: And exactly so quick.
Speaker 2: Story about me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I tried to be a guide
Speaker 1: an elk hunting guide right out of high school, and uh,
Speaker 1: my parents gave me the the ultimatum of like this
Speaker 1: is where we break your plate. Like if you go
Speaker 1: to college and and go do all of that, you
Speaker 1: get to you know, you can stay here and finish
Speaker 1: out your college or if you go do that, like
Speaker 1: you're kind of on your own.
Speaker 2: I'm like, gosh, dang it.
Speaker 1: But uh no, long story, so I wouldn't trade it
Speaker 1: for the world, like the path I got, you know,
Speaker 1: to being able to sit here and have the conversation
Speaker 1: with you. You know, we're both in similar spots. But uh,
Speaker 1: that was my that was my goal out of high school.
Speaker 1: I didn't wasn't interested in getting what I would call
Speaker 1: a normal job or doing the normal I didn't want
Speaker 1: to go to college. But uh yeah, that was my goal,
Speaker 1: is to do that guiding right out of high school.
Speaker 1: But never never got to it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I never knew that about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So, uh you got to hunt with a
Speaker 1: lot of different elk hunters and and these when I
Speaker 1: say elk hunters, guys that guys in get that were
Speaker 1: maybe coming in for different experiences. Right when we booked
Speaker 1: the ball, we booked it with the full understanding that
Speaker 1: if we didn't kill anything, we'd get to see some
Speaker 1: amazing country right and see, but there was still decent
Speaker 1: elk and deer to be had in there. And then
Speaker 1: you've got to see people that book on these ranches
Speaker 1: with the intention of they probably just want to kill
Speaker 1: the biggest bull they can as easy as they can
Speaker 1: do it. Be back in the lawge drinking a whiskey
Speaker 1: at night, you know, so you've got to see the
Speaker 1: entire spectrum of elk hunters. Is there like a parallel
Speaker 1: you can make regardless of whether they're in the wilderness
Speaker 1: or whether they were down at the ranches that like
Speaker 1: made a good elk hunter or made a good client,
Speaker 1: or you know, is there any parallels you can make there?
Speaker 1: Or maybe the major contrasts.
Speaker 3: You know, just trusting your guide it would have been
Speaker 3: a major I guess it's kind of switches up your
Speaker 3: question a little bit, but kind of a great parallel
Speaker 3: between the two types of clients. That just made a
Speaker 3: guide's job or my life so much easier, was just
Speaker 3: to listen and trust your guide because they're doing it,
Speaker 3: they've been doing it, and you know they're gonna ask
Speaker 3: you for pointers or your opinion on a certain scenario.
Speaker 3: But just follow the leader, whether you're on a horseback
Speaker 3: or in the side of a pickup truck, just trust
Speaker 3: your guide that he's taking you the right spot and
Speaker 3: trying to get you the you know, most successful outcome
Speaker 3: that you're paying for.
Speaker 4: Whether it's you.
Speaker 3: Know, four thousand dollars for a nine day horseback hunter,
Speaker 3: twelve thousand dollars for five day drive around and spot
Speaker 3: one hundred elka day hunt, they're very different. But yeah,
Speaker 3: does that answer your question?
Speaker 4: I feel like I pivoting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, For the most part, it's a tough
Speaker 1: question to answer. So I'm gonna kind of twist it
Speaker 1: up a little bit as I present it here. Is
Speaker 1: so let's let's take away the ranch and let's just
Speaker 1: focus on the public land, grinded out, a little bit
Speaker 1: more physical, a little bit less guaranteed by by far
Speaker 1: when you were up in the in and the bob, Like,
Speaker 1: what do those hunters, let's say you're coming from out
Speaker 1: east you've never experienced the West, or like, what do
Speaker 1: these people need to be prepared for? Like what would
Speaker 1: be your best guidance, you know, for them to hit
Speaker 1: the ground running and maybe be successful.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent physical stamina, Like start preparing physically early
Speaker 3: on That country we were in is very hard on people.
Speaker 3: I guided people who had the sheep grand slam on
Speaker 3: their walls that that elk hunt kicked their butt. It's
Speaker 3: pretty rugged terrain. And any elk terrain, whether you're leaving
Speaker 3: a leaving the pick up every morning or going deep
Speaker 3: in on horseback or whatever, elk living really rugged terrain.
Speaker 3: So just physically being fit, having your stamina as high
Speaker 3: as you think you got, you can handle it. You know,
Speaker 3: you owe the respect to the animal to say you
Speaker 3: shoot something and doesn't drop right away, You owe that
Speaker 3: animal a lot to be able to cantinue to grind
Speaker 3: and try and recover that thing. Don't give up on it.
Speaker 3: Also a mental stamina as well, not only physical but mental.
Speaker 4: If you got whether it's.
Speaker 3: Five days or ten days designated and something happens early,
Speaker 3: or it's just the hunts not going your way, luck's
Speaker 3: not having it, just stay in the game and yeah,
Speaker 3: stay at it. Mental and physical stamina is so important
Speaker 3: for l cunning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one thing, I mean, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: a little side approach, but even the physical side that
Speaker 1: we rode there was a fire of the year I
Speaker 1: went in there and we had to come in a
Speaker 1: different direction. So we were on the horses for or
Speaker 1: mules for thirty plus miles. There were a few of
Speaker 1: us that had been working out fairly heavily, and we
Speaker 1: were okay because we walked about eight miles and walked
Speaker 1: our horses for another twenty two or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: plus or minus a few miles.
Speaker 2: It was along.
Speaker 1: It was before you know, dark to after dark sort
Speaker 1: of a ride. There were some of the guys in
Speaker 1: our crew that couldn't walk the next stage just because
Speaker 1: of the horse ride, and you know, guys that aren't
Speaker 1: horse guys or meal guys, and the guys that were
Speaker 1: in better shape and have been working out, we were sore,
Speaker 1: but we were able to go, you know. And so
Speaker 1: it's like it all tied in like something I never
Speaker 1: would have thought preparing for a for a hunt, because
Speaker 1: I'm not a horse guy. I'm not a meal guy,
Speaker 1: but you need that to be able to access that country,
Speaker 1: like the physical win as far as that, and then
Speaker 1: these guys that maybe needed some breaks, like the very
Speaker 1: next day we didn't need to recoup from our base camp.
Speaker 1: Then we spiked out an additional five miles because that's
Speaker 1: where we thought, and these other guys were like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we'll do it later in the hunt, and we went.
Speaker 1: You know, we were there to go be successful, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of our our mindset. And that's where
Speaker 1: you know, we always look at physical and mental as different.
Speaker 1: But I would always argue that a lot of your
Speaker 1: mental will come from physically challenging yourself, because that's usually
Speaker 1: where you start to question your Your mental starts to
Speaker 1: come into play, as your sore or your feet hurt,
Speaker 1: you're tired, you know, you're hungry or that, and so
Speaker 1: you let that physical ability like start to affect your
Speaker 1: mental you know, like, well, I'm gonna just hunt around
Speaker 1: camp today, not saying it's not it's better than not
Speaker 1: hunting at all, but it's also not as good as
Speaker 1: climbing back up to the top of the mountain, you know,
Speaker 1: where you think the critters might be or whatnot. And
Speaker 1: so my advice is always getting as good a physical
Speaker 1: shape as you can, and it's gonna limit either your
Speaker 1: exposure to that like mental you know, breakdown or your
Speaker 1: ability to talk yourself out of something. And then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna add one more piece onto that, like good hunting partners.
Speaker 1: I'd be lying to say that I'm always like at
Speaker 1: the very top physically or at the very top mentally.
Speaker 1: There are times where you need a hunting partner that's
Speaker 1: just as dedicated to the cause as you, or somebody
Speaker 1: you can you know, pitch ideas off of and and
Speaker 1: at times when maybe I'm not feeling it, they'll pick
Speaker 1: you up. And when they're filing down or out or
Speaker 1: don't want to give it the extra effort, you're like, no,
Speaker 1: we need.
Speaker 2: To go up there.
Speaker 1: And at least the group that I run with, like,
Speaker 1: we push each other so hard that you never want
Speaker 1: to let the other guy down. And so it's nice
Speaker 1: to be able to like, now we're going up there,
Speaker 1: and you're going with me, whether you want to or not.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, absolutely. Yeah, picking great partners for that is key.
Speaker 3: And if you're ever going on a guided hunt, usually
Speaker 3: typically not always, but your guide, you know, that guy
Speaker 3: who's waking you up in the morning, getting you going
Speaker 3: in the afternoons, keeping you keeping your head up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I didn't realize, and I feel for the
Speaker 1: I understand why we took the two hour naps because
Speaker 1: they need I needed it anyways. But those guys are
Speaker 1: out wrangling hobbled horses and mules at like three in
Speaker 1: the morning, where we're still sleep and then they get
Speaker 1: you up at four thirty and it's by time they're
Speaker 1: done taking care of the horses. Like you guys deserve
Speaker 1: a bigger tip than than I get. That I gave,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was my good buddy, But I'm like, gosh, dang,
Speaker 1: you know, these these cooks are up at three in
Speaker 1: the morning starting your meals or lunches or whatever, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's it's not not for the
Speaker 1: faint of heart. You better not light, you better not
Speaker 1: need sleep to be able to survive.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's a lot of hard work for sure, late nights,
Speaker 4: long days.
Speaker 3: I mean you'd sneak in a little nap mid day
Speaker 3: kind of you know, you want cool, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of overcast weather, you know, consistent weather, but you
Speaker 3: also kind of hope for really hot weather, so you
Speaker 3: can sneak in that two or three hour nap while
Speaker 3: the elker yeah, down mid day, whatever it takes.
Speaker 4: But it's a lot of hard work.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's it's you don't see too many older
Speaker 3: like especially wilderness hunting guides. It's a young man's sport career,
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Those are
Speaker 3: the Those were the times back then.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So let's diverge a little bit from
Speaker 1: the clients, and I'm more interested in the elk. The
Speaker 1: differences that maybe lived, you know, thirty miles from anywhere,
Speaker 1: you know, elk that never seen a person compared to
Speaker 1: these elk that live on a place that was pretty
Speaker 1: much designed for their uh, you know, for them, for
Speaker 1: them to for them to flourish, get as big as possible,
Speaker 1: carry the absolute highest carrying capacity you can, versus the
Speaker 1: opposite of just you know, being being in the middle
Speaker 1: of the bob or some remote color out of wildernes
Speaker 1: where they're just given with what's on the ground. Are
Speaker 1: there any major differences when you'd go to hunt those
Speaker 1: elk as far as the elk are concerned, or are
Speaker 1: they different creatures as far as being able to call them,
Speaker 1: pattern them whatnot?
Speaker 3: You know, it's hard to say. My original answer just
Speaker 3: now is going to be that elk on some of
Speaker 3: the private land obviously don't have the pressure as much
Speaker 3: as public land, say, whether it's deep in the wilderness
Speaker 3: or just your typical national forest trailhead.
Speaker 4: But elk on.
Speaker 3: Private land don't seem to run away as far now
Speaker 3: they're elk, they're skittish. You bump them once, that's probably
Speaker 3: your only opportunity. But a lot of times they know
Speaker 3: where the border that private and public land is and
Speaker 3: they don't want to go to public because last time
Speaker 3: they did that, they just got bumped right back on
Speaker 3: to private. Even if those ranches are being hunted and
Speaker 3: hunted hard, you know, with multiple clients every week, they
Speaker 3: still know where the border is and they don't necessarily
Speaker 3: want to leave. Now. It's what makes me backtrack that
Speaker 3: answer a little bit. Is in the vast open public
Speaker 3: land wilderness, what have you You bump an elk and
Speaker 3: you're looking at such crazy massive country that you're not
Speaker 3: going to ever be able to catch up to that.
Speaker 3: Where on a big private ranch, yeah you can, you know,
Speaker 3: give it a half a day and then drive your
Speaker 3: truck over there and be to the other end of
Speaker 3: the ranch where that elk headed, you know, within an
Speaker 3: hour or so. So I think just the it's the terrain,
Speaker 3: whether it's private or public. If if an elk runs
Speaker 3: away from he or it goes over a ridge that
Speaker 3: just doesn't look passable to your stamina or your whereabouts,
Speaker 3: whether you're on foot, horse or vehicle. That's probably the
Speaker 3: biggest difference is just the the terrain for the elk
Speaker 3: and for the hunter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one thing that you know, being able to hunt.
Speaker 1: I haven't got the hunt. I have hunteds of private land,
Speaker 1: but like the ability to pattern those elk, right, because
Speaker 1: those elk one like, we know they're probably gonna go
Speaker 1: bed here, They're probably gonna come out and feed here,
Speaker 1: versus sometimes up in the mountains, you know, if.
Speaker 2: A cougar or a wolf runs through there.
Speaker 1: I mean it could happen on public or the private
Speaker 1: chunk as well, but it seems like, you know, the
Speaker 1: private stuff there may be a little more patternable, a
Speaker 1: little more predictable, versus up in the mountains. It's like
Speaker 1: they may feed in this section one day and then
Speaker 1: for some reason, the lead cow takes them to a
Speaker 1: different spot the next day to feed, or they're in
Speaker 1: like you know, three or four day rotation, you know,
Speaker 1: versus And one thing that I've heard and maybe you
Speaker 1: can you can you know, solidify this answer. It's like
Speaker 1: a lot of times on these ranches, they won't let
Speaker 1: you go hunt them in bed right, because they do
Speaker 1: not want you to disturb them. They don't they want
Speaker 1: that pattern to be the same. You get your one
Speaker 1: shot in the morning, why the wind's right, the bull
Speaker 1: goes in there, you're taking the afternoon off.
Speaker 2: Versus in the.
Speaker 1: Mountains, it's like, you know, everybody on the mountain that
Speaker 1: spotted any olk going into a bedding area are gonna
Speaker 1: get bumped or killed one or the other. It's like
Speaker 1: for the majority of guys, right, they're gonna go in
Speaker 1: there and keep an elk until they either bump them
Speaker 1: or kill them. And so that's one nice thing where
Speaker 1: it's managed a little bit better. And I never fought
Speaker 1: anybody for going a little bit harder on public ground
Speaker 1: or mountainous ground, because that's your opportunity, right, But that
Speaker 1: is one thing where I think that private land ranch stuff,
Speaker 1: whereas if you've got rules in place that make sure
Speaker 1: that those elk don't necessarily get ran out of there
Speaker 1: is a pretty good system that their pattern stays the
Speaker 1: same for quite a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I guide it on two different ranches here
Speaker 3: in central Montana. Yeah, the latter one that I've guided on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you weren't back for breakfast by eleven am, like
Speaker 3: if you didn't have an elk on the ground, the
Speaker 3: outfitter started getting a little suspicious that you were maybe
Speaker 3: hunting a betting zone or something. That was definitely rule
Speaker 3: number one was don't hit hunt the betting zones. You
Speaker 3: bump an elk out of his bed, he's not coming
Speaker 3: back for a while. And that was the last thing
Speaker 3: we wanted. We wanted those elk to stay there, to
Speaker 3: feel somewhat comfortable in your opportunity. And the more in
Speaker 3: the evening was so great, whether we were sitting tree stands,
Speaker 3: sitting by wallows, or spot in stock trying to get
Speaker 3: be in the right place at the right time. It
Speaker 3: was very open country, and of course the elk are
Speaker 3: going to come out to those openings in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night. And then where they would go in
Speaker 3: was the limited betting areas, and those were just yeah,
Speaker 3: do not enter or limits. Didn't want to be invited back,
Speaker 3: and you wanted to be invited back as a client
Speaker 3: or a guide.
Speaker 4: It was a cool place to con and I.
Speaker 1: Think that lesson can maybe translate into public right right,
Speaker 1: I mean we do. We talk about hunting betting areas,
Speaker 1: and we talk about like midday magic. You know that
Speaker 1: you can get into, but there is something to be
Speaker 1: taken away, like if you want those elk to continue
Speaker 1: their patterns and do what they've did the day before
Speaker 1: and where you found them, going into their betting area
Speaker 1: could could potentially change their patterns if you bump them
Speaker 1: or blow them out of where they think a safe,
Speaker 1: secure spot is. So I always, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a great way to reiterate, like, go in very cautiously,
Speaker 1: whether you're on public, because you know that the guides
Speaker 1: and the ranches are running the system for a reason
Speaker 1: to make sure those oak continue to do what they've did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's smart, it's a smart system. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So if you got time and you watch one go
Speaker 3: into a betting zone, yeah maybe if you don't, you know,
Speaker 3: if it's dry and crunchy, leave them be. But if
Speaker 3: it's wet, drizzling and you might be able to sneak
Speaker 3: in take your boots off, maybe it's worth going in there,
Speaker 3: especially if you're limited on time.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you gotta that tough decision.
Speaker 1: So this this will be a good segue. I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you and then we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the hard You know, it's sometimes hard to
Speaker 1: talk about elk cutting, right because you've been we've been
Speaker 1: doing it for so long. Some of it's just kind
Speaker 1: of ingrained into into our thought process. But is there
Speaker 1: can you define what makes a good uh time.
Speaker 2: To go into a betting area?
Speaker 1: Is there is there like a few things you check
Speaker 1: off a checklist where you will go into a betting area,
Speaker 1: or how does that decision come about? Or there's just
Speaker 1: so many factors we can't hardly talk about them.
Speaker 3: I don't know a few of the main factors. I'd say,
Speaker 3: how many eyeballs just went in there? You know, if
Speaker 3: it's a bowl and I don't know more than four
Speaker 3: cows that went in there, that's a lot of eyeballs
Speaker 3: you're trying to sneak in on unless you can. I
Speaker 3: think that your ultimate scenario would be if you're like, say,
Speaker 3: across a ravine, and you can see how they're bedded,
Speaker 3: exactly where they're at, find yourself a little ambush route.
Speaker 3: You know, you're fairly confident in which way the wind's
Speaker 3: blowing in there, then you're set. But man, yeah, the
Speaker 3: number of eyeballs, and then also how loud it is,
Speaker 3: how crunchy the leaves and the and the pine meals
Speaker 3: are going to be, you can always I've taken my
Speaker 3: boots off a hundred times trying to sneak in on
Speaker 3: an elk, and it's worked a couple of times. I
Speaker 3: even took my my breeches off once just so I
Speaker 3: didn't have my legs up swiping back and forth.
Speaker 4: That time it did not work.
Speaker 3: I was caught in the middle of a herd of elk,
Speaker 3: running away with my pants down.
Speaker 2: Literally.
Speaker 3: But man, yeah, eyeballs and the how dry it is. Man,
Speaker 3: if you can get in somewhere where you know where
Speaker 3: he's at or where your target is at, and if
Speaker 3: it's like drizzling rain, your sense not you know, pushing
Speaker 3: around as much, you got a pretty good chance of
Speaker 3: getting close anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I like it. We've tried to approach a lot,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times we get turned away like
Speaker 1: brush on the entry. We're gonna have to be noisy
Speaker 1: to get in, Like if I've got good elk trails going,
Speaker 1: and like you said, there weren't any satellite bulls.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that I almost.
Speaker 1: Always abandoned the mission if there's a satellite bul because inevitably,
Speaker 1: and it makes total sense when you think about it,
Speaker 1: that satellite bowl doesn't get to bed with the herd, right,
Speaker 1: that herd bowl will, and that satellite bowl almost always
Speaker 1: gets kicked downwind of that. And so when we're approaching
Speaker 1: to be good elk hunters, we're gonna come in with
Speaker 1: the wind in our face. So tho'se olk can't smells.
Speaker 1: But guess what elk you run into about one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards out, you run into that damn satellite bowl.
Speaker 1: Almost every time we've tried to approach that way. And
Speaker 1: so if we know there are a bunch of satellite
Speaker 1: bowls around, it's it's proced at your own risk. Like
Speaker 1: how late in the hunt is it? How quick you
Speaker 1: need to try to make something happen if you've got
Speaker 1: a lot of time left, we usually just leave it alone.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a great segue into what we
Speaker 1: We kind of talked about this a little bit before
Speaker 1: we started recording. We talk about elk hunting, and all
Speaker 1: of these are like very cookie cutter examples, Right, we
Speaker 1: say the winds doing this, or the elk are doing this,
Speaker 1: But a lot of times like what's the moon doing?
Speaker 1: Has it rained for the last week? Are the elk running?
Speaker 1: Are there cows and heat? How big are the herds?
Speaker 1: How many satellite bowls? Like all of these things boil
Speaker 1: in to our answers, and it makes it talking about
Speaker 1: archery elk hunting. It makes it difficult. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why we we a lot of times just talk
Speaker 1: about our system. Right, It's easier for me to talk
Speaker 1: about the system, But then all of these variables still
Speaker 1: come into play. And one thing I got I got
Speaker 1: a question the other to day, is is what makes
Speaker 1: a good elk hunter? Or in your opinion? We were
Speaker 1: talking about it around a campfire on the elk hunt
Speaker 1: that I was just on and I kind of came
Speaker 1: up with this is is I think most successful elk
Speaker 1: hunters have a system that they use, they stick to
Speaker 1: it for most part of the hunt. But the one
Speaker 1: thing I've found out is if you look at all
Speaker 1: the successful elk hunters, their systems aren't necessarily always similar.
Speaker 1: And so I was trying to boil that down, like
Speaker 1: how does all that work, and so what I've really
Speaker 1: kind of said is is rather than try to play
Speaker 1: every variable all the time, like just stick with a
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a if you're a caller, call
Speaker 1: if you're a spot in stocker spot, if you're what
Speaker 1: have you found corey? As far as like what makes
Speaker 1: somebody successful year in and year out?
Speaker 2: You know you you are.
Speaker 1: Typically always able to kill your elk or help buddies
Speaker 1: kill their elk fill their tags in your opinion, like
Speaker 1: what makes a good elk hunter and consistent?
Speaker 3: Well, I brought it up earlier. I think just the
Speaker 3: both is a g mental stamina. Odds are it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen right away or even where your plan
Speaker 3: A or even B spots are going to be. So
Speaker 3: being able to stay with it mentally and physically obviously
Speaker 3: and grind it out, don't just stopping your plan A
Speaker 3: or B spot, say some other folks are there. There's
Speaker 3: just not elk happening. It feels like the rut hasn't started,
Speaker 3: or it feels like it could be a little late.
Speaker 3: Maybe switch it up, be a little bit more open
Speaker 3: to try a new area, whether that means driving somewhere
Speaker 3: or having a hike, move camp. I think just kind
Speaker 3: of keeping it open minded, you know, not sticking, not
Speaker 3: having the tunnel vision for one plan. You know, having
Speaker 3: a great plan A, plan B is important, but man
Speaker 3: have a X, Y and Z plan too. Hopefully you
Speaker 3: give you give yourself more than just a weekend. Obviously
Speaker 3: you can get out every weekend of the season, that's great,
Speaker 3: but give yourself five to ten days for an area
Speaker 3: and don't assume that it's all going to happen right
Speaker 3: then and there. So I think just being open minded
Speaker 3: and then having that mental and physical stamina to last
Speaker 3: you're you know, allotted hunt window is really important and
Speaker 3: that's something that I've noticed I've been able to do.
Speaker 3: Was younger, it was frustrating not having Plan A or BG, right,
Speaker 3: but just being you know, knowing that you can't control
Speaker 3: mother nature and having a plan X and Y in
Speaker 3: your back pocket is super important and eventually it's going
Speaker 3: to work out for you. Maybe not with meating the freezer,
Speaker 3: but at least have a heck of a hunt yep.
Speaker 1: And that's one thing we learned as we started. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up industrial timberlands, hunting around home. You packed
Speaker 1: your lunch for the days I started to venture out
Speaker 1: and hunt what I'd consider more mountainous, more adventurous type
Speaker 1: elk hunting. You know, we would go in like, well,
Speaker 1: how are we going to carry all of our food?
Speaker 1: You know, we hadn't had it dialed in, so we
Speaker 1: would pack ten days of food into one camp six
Speaker 1: miles in. Well, guess what that did? That locked me
Speaker 1: into an area for the entire time. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: then you were based seeing your stay based on what
Speaker 1: your food's already all in here, or you know, this
Speaker 1: is what we had planned on doing for ten days
Speaker 1: versus where I'm at now, where I packed maybe a
Speaker 1: half a day's food, I can live off of it
Speaker 1: for two days, and if there aren't elk there in
Speaker 1: that half a day, I know I'm gonna be back
Speaker 1: at the truck, going to a different trailhead or a
Speaker 1: different area.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And it sounds so cliche, and we say it over
Speaker 1: and over, but you need to be able to like
Speaker 1: pull the plug and not be married to an area
Speaker 1: or a spot because it looks good on on X,
Speaker 1: it looks good on Google Earth, it looks good wherever.
Speaker 1: If there aren't elk there on that year. So if
Speaker 1: I can't go into a spot and find very fresh rubs,
Speaker 1: very fresh signed elk scat you know whatever, like, I'm out.
Speaker 1: And especially if you can't add a live elk to
Speaker 1: those tracks, you know, a bugle or spot them with
Speaker 1: your glasses, I'm out of there. And one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I think people overlook is like, well it looks kind
Speaker 1: of fresh, like well that once that elk crap or track,
Speaker 1: you know, if it hasn't rained or whatnot and washed
Speaker 1: it out, Like those elk could have been there two
Speaker 1: weeks ago and in the month of September.
Speaker 2: Those things are moving.
Speaker 1: If they got bump out of there, they might have
Speaker 1: won a drainage over and never came back. Like you
Speaker 1: just might be in the wrong spot. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel that being willing to move, get out of a spot,
Speaker 1: go try plans, you know, be through Z or whatever
Speaker 1: it needs to be, like, have the ability to open
Speaker 1: up on X or whatever mapping software you use. Say, oh,
Speaker 1: I think this spot might be good. It's going to
Speaker 1: take me, you know, an hour and a half hike
Speaker 1: in this three miles is where I want to be in.
Speaker 1: Go try it out that night. You know, one thing
Speaker 1: we talk about is if you need to if you
Speaker 1: need the third part of the day, like go locate
Speaker 1: at night time, like do whatever you gotta do. But
Speaker 1: you need to find some elk and just keep moving zones.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yeah, even if it means changing mountain ranges.
Speaker 3: You know, at least where elk tend to live in
Speaker 3: the Rocky Mountain West. You got a lot of options
Speaker 3: and any you know, unless you have a trophy unit
Speaker 3: tag where you're restricted to a certain zone, you're just
Speaker 3: carrying a general elk tag in your pocket. Man, you
Speaker 3: got a lot of country to explore, so go check
Speaker 3: something new out. You might have had a great spot
Speaker 3: that was great last year, was great the year before,
Speaker 3: historically a great zone. They're not there this year. Switch
Speaker 3: it up or or also stick to it. You know,
Speaker 3: if it's been a good spot, they might just not
Speaker 3: be in there yet.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's I've been amazed by the number of times where
Speaker 3: I've given up on a spot. Well, not one hundred
Speaker 3: percent given up, but like, man, tomorrow, I'm leaving if
Speaker 3: I don't see anything in the morning, and sure enough
Speaker 3: a huge hurd al moved in overnight and there they are.
Speaker 3: So it's tough what to say, you know, flip a
Speaker 3: coin to make a decision, because it's it's a lot
Speaker 3: of skill, but man, there's a lot of luck involved.
Speaker 4: Don't forget that for sure.
Speaker 1: So we're recording this on September fifth. We both just
Speaker 1: came off of you know, you got the hunt a
Speaker 1: little bit over Labor Day weekend. I just came off
Speaker 1: of a hunt Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2: And one or.
Speaker 1: Actually two of the things we were dealing with on
Speaker 1: for both of us is the moon.
Speaker 2: We're coming up.
Speaker 1: We were out a full moon the on Thursday, I believe,
Speaker 1: which was August thirty first, and.
Speaker 2: Then we rolled in.
Speaker 1: We got a bunch of weather Thursday, Friday, and then
Speaker 1: coming from Washington, it hit you guys, what Saturday, Sunday?
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, Monday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys got the weather after us. So
Speaker 1: next thing I want to talk about is your opinion
Speaker 1: on does the moon matter and how that affects it versus.
Speaker 1: And then we'll jump into the rain in that system
Speaker 1: that rolled through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't hunt during a full moon. Stay home,
Speaker 3: elk aren't even out out in the woods.
Speaker 4: I don't know where they go.
Speaker 3: But no, I'm totally kidding. I'm sure it affects them.
Speaker 3: And I've always had this theory that whenever like the second, third,
Speaker 3: fourth week of September lines up with a full moon,
Speaker 3: that's going to be kind of towards the peak rut,
Speaker 3: the elk get to do their dance during the evening
Speaker 3: twilight hours while they can see a little bit better,
Speaker 3: they get to roam a little bit more. I don't
Speaker 3: know if that theory is true, has any any truth
Speaker 3: to it or not, but man, when elk are fired up,
Speaker 3: they're fired up. And if it's the third week September wherever,
Speaker 3: you know kind of the peak time might be for
Speaker 3: your region, whether it's a full moon or a new moon,
Speaker 3: I don't think it matters. Honestly, I haven't noticed anything.
Speaker 3: I've killed elk on a full moon and I've killed
Speaker 3: elk on a new moon.
Speaker 4: It's hard to tell what it is.
Speaker 3: I know it's easier to sleep with a new moon
Speaker 3: because it kind of keeps you up at night with
Speaker 3: it's full blasting in your eyeballs.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Fourteen years a guide, in twenty plus years of just
Speaker 3: hunting myself, I haven't noticed. Yeah, at least in September
Speaker 3: a difference with the moon.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm right there with you, And I just kind
Speaker 1: of sum it all up is there's only so many
Speaker 1: days in September. I'm going to be out there as
Speaker 1: much as possible. One the one thing that throws a
Speaker 1: little bit of a of a wrench in my system
Speaker 1: is maybe somebody contacts me with I only got one
Speaker 1: week to hunt? And then do you put them around
Speaker 1: the moon? I usually don't. I still say what do
Speaker 1: you after? Like do you want post? Like do you
Speaker 1: want peak of the rut? Then you have to be
Speaker 1: there on this week, regardless of whether the moon's are
Speaker 1: or not. That's when you're going to get your most action,
Speaker 1: you're most bugling. And so yeah, I don't pay a
Speaker 1: whole lot of attention to the moon. And this is
Speaker 1: going to everybody, how big of a nerd I am.
Speaker 1: I had went back, I'd looked at a bunch of
Speaker 1: trail cameras and then like timed it with what the
Speaker 1: moon was on that and what time they were showing
Speaker 1: up at a specific wallow, And it didn't really matter
Speaker 1: when the full moon was there, they showed up a
Speaker 1: little bit later, they didn't They weren't coming in the daylight,
Speaker 1: and they left a little bit earlier, but it really
Speaker 1: didn't affect things through the end of August into like
Speaker 1: the middle of September, I think, is when we ran
Speaker 1: that cam and then I had just looked at like
Speaker 1: there for a stretch of like the ten bulls I
Speaker 1: had killed that was like from I don't even remember
Speaker 1: two thousand and five to twenty fifteen, and I had
Speaker 1: looked at all the bulls that I had killed, and
Speaker 1: almost all of them were within four or five days
Speaker 1: of a full moon. It's just how it landed, how
Speaker 1: it had added up, and you know, someone were on
Speaker 1: the front side. Some people, you know, the moon. The
Speaker 1: guys that claimed the moon really matters always say that
Speaker 1: you want to be on the back side of the
Speaker 1: full moon, you know, tailing off. But it was five
Speaker 1: days before or five days after. It didn't really seem
Speaker 1: to matter. There was no correlation with with when I
Speaker 1: killed and what the moon was doing.
Speaker 3: Interesting, well, I know you brought it up that this
Speaker 3: was going to be our next topic, so this is
Speaker 3: kind of segues. But I certainly think weather has more
Speaker 3: drastic involvement with elk Habits versus the moon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what's your opinion on like a rain system
Speaker 1: or a snow system that moves in. Let's say, you
Speaker 1: know it's it's been decent weather, rain moves in in
Speaker 1: your opinion or what have you seen that do to
Speaker 1: the elk or the rut Man.
Speaker 3: What I've seen consistent, whether whether it's rain or dry
Speaker 3: is key. So you know, having a week of rain,
Speaker 3: they're still going to do their thing. But having a
Speaker 3: week of dry and then all of a sudden a
Speaker 3: rainstorm comes in. I've certainly noticed it. It's shut down,
Speaker 3: or at least it feels like it shuts down. I
Speaker 3: always assume that estrous smell of cows breeding, that scent
Speaker 3: in the air just kind of gets locked down with
Speaker 3: that moisture in the air, is what I've always assumed.
Speaker 3: But man, I've chased elk that have bugled all day
Speaker 3: long and a the rain that turned to snowstorm. Two
Speaker 3: bowls dueling it out for about thirty or forty cows
Speaker 3: all day. Never been able to get close enough to
Speaker 3: the bulls. Could have shot a few of the cows
Speaker 3: many times, but that didn't affect them one bit. And
Speaker 3: it was a snow rainstorm that came in after some
Speaker 3: eighty degree heat and then it was the next day.
Speaker 4: So I've kind of seen it all.
Speaker 3: But it does seem like the rain that kind of
Speaker 3: comes out of nowhere and breaks up a dry week
Speaker 3: at least in September. You know, we're still dealing with
Speaker 3: some warmer tempts right now versus say later October November.
Speaker 3: That it does affect them, whether they just don't dance
Speaker 3: in the rain or the scent or something. But it's
Speaker 3: still worth going out, no doubt, yep.
Speaker 1: And I've my my experience is almost mirrored years that
Speaker 1: it's not so much the consistent rain or the consistent sun,
Speaker 1: but it's a change, and within like three days of
Speaker 1: that change, you know, it's on the.
Speaker 2: Tail tail end of it.
Speaker 1: So for instance, we haven't had rain for ninety plus
Speaker 1: days or something like that. We were getting ready to
Speaker 1: go hunting, and Thursday we get that downpour before we leave,
Speaker 1: and it really quieted things down to compared to what
Speaker 1: everybody said that the elk were doing that unit, and
Speaker 1: they slowly started picking back up as the weather was
Speaker 1: getting nice again. And the same thing I think if
Speaker 1: it's been raining for you know, five six, seven days,
Speaker 1: the elk are getting used to it, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you get a high pressure moveing and it
Speaker 1: gets nice. It's like, all right, it takes a couple
Speaker 1: more days for things to like get back in the
Speaker 1: in the normal. And you know, so we've had, you know,
Speaker 1: up in the high country, we've got snow a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't it seems to be more of like
Speaker 1: middle ground. It doesn't seem to for some reason snap
Speaker 1: them in or out as much as rain versus sun.
Speaker 1: But that just maybe my limited experience in the high country,
Speaker 1: but it seems like the rut just kind of continues on,
Speaker 1: at least in the snow. I don't know why or
Speaker 1: how come, but just from my experience, the snow didn't
Speaker 1: seem to affect them as much as the rain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I know.
Speaker 3: And you can't pick the dates necessarily, Excuse me. You
Speaker 3: can't pick the weather of a hunt that you've had
Speaker 3: planned for weeks, months, or years even. But you know,
Speaker 3: an ideal weather condition would be just like consistent sixty
Speaker 3: or seventies, maybe a little chance of rain here or there.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you're if you're crossing your fingers
Speaker 3: for weather, just hope for consistency for sure.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, I like that overcast with a little you know,
Speaker 1: fifty percent cloud cover good, you know, mid mid tamp's
Speaker 1: cool in the morning, crisp in the morning, and then
Speaker 1: you know, maybe heat up to six or seventy in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. Like that's that's my favorite. The other thing
Speaker 1: I hate systems coming in and out is because it
Speaker 1: screws with your wind on both ends of it, right
Speaker 1: is you get these pushes. Now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're not just dealing with the local thermals. Uh, You're
Speaker 1: now dealing with these crazy swirlling winds. It's just a
Speaker 1: headache to deal with.
Speaker 3: And that's possible. You got to wonder if that affects
Speaker 3: the elk, you know, their their habits. They get a
Speaker 3: little nervous when they're so used to that southwest wind,
Speaker 3: at least here in Montana prevailing winds southwest, and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden it's out of the northeast. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I got to you know, change my location where I'm
Speaker 3: going to feel comfortable during.
Speaker 4: The day, not going to talk as much.
Speaker 3: It must affect them as well, So yeah, you definitely
Speaker 3: got to change up your tactics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, not that we need to think like
Speaker 1: an elk, but we've all watched them in the morning.
Speaker 1: They go from their feed to their bed, and then
Speaker 1: they bed down, and then they go from their bed
Speaker 1: to their feed. Well, one thing that I didn't think
Speaker 1: about a whole lot is a lot of times they
Speaker 1: let that wind switch and they're feeding with whatever predator
Speaker 1: would be in front of them. They're feeding out into
Speaker 1: that wind, right, and they're doing it. They're not dumb.
Speaker 1: They're they're always smelling what's ahead of them, whether their
Speaker 1: eyes can pick it up or not. But they typically
Speaker 1: will will feed with the wind in their face. That
Speaker 1: way they can smell any danger that they're walking into. Well,
Speaker 1: like you had just mentioned, you switch the wind on
Speaker 1: them one hundred and eighty degrees. Well, now that betting
Speaker 1: and feeding area connection is like broken up, right, But
Speaker 1: they can't do that. They've got to go to a
Speaker 1: different feeding betting area combo or connection, and so it
Speaker 1: really and maybe that's why, maybe that's why it really
Speaker 1: kind of throws their pattern off. But yeah, I've noticed
Speaker 1: that you know, wind switches, or you've hunted an area
Speaker 1: for two or three days, you've about got it figured out,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, some weather moves in and
Speaker 1: your plan that you'd been building is completely thrown out
Speaker 1: the window. You can't do it anymore because the winds
Speaker 1: goofy and they're uncomfortable and they've changed your pattern.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, it's question as old as time.
Speaker 3: Every elk that I try and ask, or at least
Speaker 3: that I try and get close enough to ask the question,
Speaker 3: they seem to be dead on the ground, so I
Speaker 3: never get the chance to ask them. But one of
Speaker 3: these days, maybe I'll get to whisper in an elk's
Speaker 3: here and ask them what's up with their habits?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I could figure all that out.
Speaker 1: I'd be a lot better elk hunter, I think, than
Speaker 1: just taking a guess at all this stuff or what's
Speaker 1: worked one time but then it doesn't work the next
Speaker 1: twenty times. That's the only thing that's like a given
Speaker 1: when it comes to elk hunting is that it's never
Speaker 1: going to be the same from time to time, scenario
Speaker 1: to scenario. I feel like you can have all the
Speaker 1: factors exactly the same on scenario a versus being the
Speaker 1: results will be different just because of that elk's personality
Speaker 1: or or something that that elk just isn't going to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. And that's I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: claim to know, but I feel that there's some of
Speaker 1: that that goes on where one bowl might be full
Speaker 1: of piss and vinegar that you're trying to hunt, and
Speaker 1: one bowl might just want to avoid any confrontation. And
Speaker 1: one thing us as elk hunters need to figure out
Speaker 1: is how do you deal with each one based on
Speaker 1: the way they be agle, the way they react to calling,
Speaker 1: the way they react by just watching them through binos.
Speaker 1: And that's some more of this stuff we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: which I kind of stumbled through on how to describe it,
Speaker 1: is that all of these little tips and tactics get
Speaker 1: like brought into the decisions, like that bull's super hesitant,
Speaker 1: or you see a bowl over there, like trying to
Speaker 1: rip a satellite's head off. Anytime it gets within a
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards, you're like, well that's a bowl I
Speaker 1: can challenge, you know, or get close to. It just
Speaker 1: seems pissed versus you know, one that doesn't really care
Speaker 1: for satellites. I don't know, all that stuff matters and
Speaker 1: should affect like your next move.
Speaker 4: When you're out there, el cutting keeps you on your
Speaker 4: toes for sure.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So well, I really appreciate having you on here, Corey.
Speaker 1: I know you're you're getting ready to take off for
Speaker 1: for the month of September and I've got a got
Speaker 1: a hunt coming up. So uh, the best of luck,
Speaker 1: And like I said, really appreciate you coming on here
Speaker 1: and talking oak cunning here.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited, man, We'll be
Speaker 3: in touch. Best luck to you. I know you got
Speaker 3: some fun trips planned or one big epic trick plan
Speaker 3: for sure. I can't wait to hear how it goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll take care. We'll catch up to
Speaker 1: you on the backside of hunting season.
Speaker 4: Sounds good, Jason. Thanks again.
Speaker 3: H