Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I have a special guest. We're in an Airbnb in
Speaker 1: the middle of beautiful Montana. This person is known for
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Of course, he's known for his
Speaker 1: elk calling prowess. But I can guarantee you he is
Speaker 1: the only person in history to kill a bull elk
Speaker 1: wearing a hell Cogan costume. This was in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so you have to go. You'll have to scroll back
Speaker 1: a few years through all the videos and find this video.
Speaker 1: But I have none other than the amazing Jason Glenn Phelps,
Speaker 1: as you Instagrammers might know, I know. Welcome, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Jason, Thanks for the intro. I really appreciate being here.
Speaker 2: I think you should have that approved for you laid
Speaker 2: it out there.
Speaker 1: No, I like to make you uncomfortable, I know.
Speaker 3: And I needed to edit that out. That's the That
Speaker 3: was good. That was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and uh and hey, let's just kind of
Speaker 1: a side note. This is off topic today, but Jason
Speaker 1: has an Instagram account. You may not know this if
Speaker 1: you fell follow the Phelps Game Calls Instagram page. Jason,
Speaker 1: in the last few months has started his own Instagram page.
Speaker 1: He puts a lot of half navid naked selfies on there.
Speaker 1: He shows progress from like working out, like dieting and
Speaker 1: bikini shots. No, just kidding, no, but I have way
Speaker 1: more followers than Jason, and I'd like to keep it
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is, do not follow, do not
Speaker 3: follow me.
Speaker 1: Do not follow Jason. So it's Jason Glenn Phelps. Look
Speaker 1: it up on Instagram. We got to get him some followers.
Speaker 1: And while you follow him, give me a follow to.
Speaker 1: It's the Bugler, Dirk Durham, the Bugler, just the Bugler.
Speaker 1: One word. Give me a follow if you like our content,
Speaker 1: and give Jason a follow too. He's in a bad way.
Speaker 1: He needs that traction.
Speaker 2: You know what my full name, Jason gel Like, that's
Speaker 2: what my mom would yell at me as I was
Speaker 2: getting like chased around the house of the Woodspoon. That's
Speaker 2: what that's the memory my full name brings back.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, well, I think I've yelled at a
Speaker 1: couple of times. We've been deer running when you really
Speaker 1: need to get there's an oulk over here, there's a
Speaker 1: deer over here. I think I yelled at you today
Speaker 1: but anyway, today, and I'm gonna have to apologize to
Speaker 1: our listeners. I gave you the guys the super secret
Speaker 1: number to call in to ask a question so we
Speaker 1: can answer it online. Here are on the podcast. And
Speaker 1: the problem, here's the biggest problem. So when I did that,
Speaker 1: I recorded a whole bunch of podcasts because I've been
Speaker 1: gone for the whole month of September, the month of October,
Speaker 1: and here we November. I'm still hunting and Jason he's
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of the same, so a lot
Speaker 1: of the podcast episodes you've been enjoying haven't been real time.
Speaker 1: So I was unable to get your question answered online
Speaker 1: in a timely fashion, which kind of sucks because there's
Speaker 1: some folks that had some hunting intended for this fall.
Speaker 1: But I think it's still relevant for the show. And
Speaker 1: I think you know we're not leading into ELK season.
Speaker 1: I mean, ELK season September is kind of a distant memory,
Speaker 1: and we want to kind of kind of touch base, refresh,
Speaker 1: think about those kind of things because Phelps and I've
Speaker 1: been talking about twenty twenty four already. We're making plans
Speaker 1: for ELK season, and we want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we have everything dialed in, and so I think this
Speaker 1: is a great time to kind of answer some of
Speaker 1: those questions. That way, for folks who are planning ahead
Speaker 1: for next year, they can kind of think about it,
Speaker 1: listen to what we say, digest it, agree, disagree, to
Speaker 1: formulate their own system, and kind of move forward. For elks,
Speaker 1: he's in twenty twenty four. So anyway, Phelps, do you
Speaker 1: have anything to say before we get started on this?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm like ready to start answering questions.
Speaker 1: I know Jason always says this on his podcast when
Speaker 1: he's when he's the host, he always says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any questions, email us at CTD at
Speaker 1: why what.
Speaker 2: CTD at Phelpsgame Calls dot Com? Right, But you were
Speaker 2: just trying to talk in my voice, and I felt
Speaker 2: like you had to make me sound like a nerd.
Speaker 1: What no, I was?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like when he always says, when you
Speaker 2: talked in a funny voice, that made me sound like
Speaker 2: a nerd.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm I like to mimic people.
Speaker 2: We have an email set up at CTD cutting the
Speaker 2: Distance CTD at Phelpsgamecalls dot com. Yeah, send this message
Speaker 2: or emails there or messages on social and we'll do
Speaker 2: our best to kind of grab those all those questions
Speaker 2: and kind of compile them and try to have our
Speaker 2: guests answer them.
Speaker 1: Right, and if you want me to answer them, don't
Speaker 1: send them to that because I never s those questions
Speaker 1: every down. Then he's like, He's like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell these people, Dirk, can you tell them? No?
Speaker 3: Just kidding.
Speaker 2: They're like, Jason, I don't want you to answer. I
Speaker 2: want Dirk to answer, and so they gotta pass one
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: All right, So question number one, I'm gonna turn this
Speaker 1: up and uh, let's see if we can get this answered.
Speaker 4: Hey, Dirk, my name is Garrett Harmon. I'm calling from Beufort,
Speaker 4: South Carolina. My question is is how you would go
Speaker 4: about hunting a once in a lifetime tag. I Drew
Speaker 4: want to arguably the best second season archery ELK tags
Speaker 4: in New Mexico this year, and I was wondering, I'm
Speaker 4: feeling a lot of pressure and putting a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure on myself, and I'm just wondering how you go
Speaker 4: about tack lining the tag like this. Any advice would
Speaker 4: be great. Thank you for everything you do.
Speaker 1: But well, first off, I want to apologize because we
Speaker 1: should have answered this in real time because he's got
Speaker 1: a tag of a lifetime in New Mexico. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but we do have some advice. I'm like, Jason, go first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we struggle.
Speaker 2: We've got some good tags, right, and it's one of
Speaker 2: it's a blessing and a curse. It's it's awesome that
Speaker 2: you got the opportunity. But just like you, I feel
Speaker 2: extreme pressure when I draw these tags, whether it's a
Speaker 2: great archery tag, great rifle tag, and one thing I
Speaker 2: have to like, it's very important for me leading into
Speaker 2: the hunt is just to remember that I love to
Speaker 2: hunt and why I'm out there hunting. It's it's It
Speaker 2: might seem a little cliche to go back and kind
Speaker 2: of boil it down to that, but when you got
Speaker 2: good tags, there's I think everybody feels a little more pressure.
Speaker 3: You have to perform.
Speaker 2: It's your it may be your opportunity for that you know,
Speaker 2: trophy of a lifetime or the animal that you're after,
Speaker 2: or maybe you know somebody hasn't experienced success and they're
Speaker 2: looking at this once in a lifetime tag is just
Speaker 2: their first stepping stone you know in successes. So so
Speaker 2: first of all, like I feel it's important to go
Speaker 2: back and boil it down to why you're out there
Speaker 2: and kind of from that point, remember that you're out
Speaker 2: there to have fun, Like this isn't once in a
Speaker 2: lifetime potentially or or one of those like upper upper
Speaker 2: tiered hunts, and you just need to remember to have
Speaker 2: a lot of fun, you know, going into that. Now,
Speaker 2: that's that's more of a mindset. Now there are things
Speaker 2: you can do on the technical, tactical, physical, mental side, right.
Speaker 2: I feel like I go into my uh my better
Speaker 2: tags a little more focused, a little more like ready,
Speaker 2: whether I've trained a little bit harder. It gives me motivation.
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of always hate motivation when it
Speaker 2: because it is triggered by things. You know, if you're
Speaker 2: disciplined enough, you'll But but I go into those things
Speaker 2: a little better shape, you know. I've I've did a
Speaker 2: little more e scouting going into those I've called the biologists,
Speaker 2: a little bit more of the normal life, talked to
Speaker 2: outfitters in the area. But it really hopefully when he
Speaker 2: runs into a tag like this, you've had the ability
Speaker 2: to have some honey under your belt. And I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go a little bit astray. This is why
Speaker 2: I'm a big, you know, proponent of getting a lot
Speaker 2: of experience, right go out there and enjoy spike tags.
Speaker 2: Go out there and enjoy these other tags. Get experience
Speaker 2: calling Elkin, whatever it may be, so that when this
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime opportunity finally comes, it's not your
Speaker 2: first experience with a bull at twenty yards thirty yards.
Speaker 3: You need to be.
Speaker 2: Prepared, which is not a great answer because you've already
Speaker 2: drawn the tag and your chance to figure that out
Speaker 2: may not be there. But for everybody else before you
Speaker 2: draw this once in lifetime, take get out there experience,
Speaker 2: you know, calling an elk, experience, you know, having elk
Speaker 2: at at very close range. Experience those emotions, you know,
Speaker 2: those mental breakdowns, whatever may come, and figure out how
Speaker 2: to push through that, figure out the mechanisms you need
Speaker 2: to have to push through that, and then you know,
Speaker 2: kind of get through it. But there's not aside from
Speaker 2: maybe being a little more prepared, I still put more
Speaker 2: stress on myself on these tags. You just you just
Speaker 2: need to go out and enjoy it and hopefully that
Speaker 2: experience kind of kind of plays itself out because you
Speaker 2: do have a good tag, and don't don't put too
Speaker 2: much pressure on yourself because it will take the fun
Speaker 2: out of the hunt.
Speaker 3: I've been on both sides, and that's the best advice
Speaker 3: I can give. Man.
Speaker 1: I really love that. A really good friend of mine
Speaker 1: here drew probably arguably the best Elk tag in Idaho
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. And he's he's my age. He's
Speaker 1: he's forty eight years old while I'm forty nine.
Speaker 3: He's so really old.
Speaker 1: Ancient, so he's a little bit younger than me. But
Speaker 1: we talked about it and he said, you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that I drew this tag in my
Speaker 1: late forties. He's like, because if I had drew drawn
Speaker 1: that in my twenties and my thirties, He's like, I
Speaker 1: would have worked. I would have. I would have hunted
Speaker 1: like it was a job, Like I would have I
Speaker 1: will probably would have. It wouldn't have been fun, and
Speaker 1: I would have put way too much stress on my
Speaker 1: And he's like, honestly, I'm my only goal for this tag.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't have a goal of inches. I
Speaker 1: have a goal of having the hunt of a lifetime,
Speaker 1: just the best time, enjoy savor every moment, the ups,
Speaker 1: the downs, all of it. I just want to enjoy
Speaker 1: that hunt and remember the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and that's yeah. You know in the question
Speaker 2: he talks about like the stress, and it's just if
Speaker 2: you boil it down, like that's not that shouldn't be
Speaker 2: part of the hunt. Like stress and not to I'm
Speaker 2: not a psychologist or anything, but like stress from what
Speaker 2: like we this is like self imposed reasons, right, Like
Speaker 2: are you are we concerned that people are I'm gonna
Speaker 2: throw myself in here because I'm in the same boat,
Speaker 2: Like are we concerned people are gonna judge us that
Speaker 2: we weren't successful with the great tag? Like the heck
Speaker 2: with all of that, Like just go have fun hunt,
Speaker 2: make it a hunt of a lifetime, like you just said,
Speaker 2: and like put all the other stuff aside. Just just
Speaker 2: go enjoy the experience, enjoy being in a great unit,
Speaker 2: which typically being in a great unit, you're gonna hear bugles,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have more action. It's like take all that
Speaker 2: in and and throw away the extra stress. And because
Speaker 2: it comes from a bad place anyways, I feel like
Speaker 2: it's it's you wanting to you know, find success, or
Speaker 2: you not wanting to maybe let people down to know
Speaker 2: you have the tag. Whatever it may be. Like, all
Speaker 2: that is just you know, it's not worth it. Just
Speaker 2: go have fun, enjoy it, and you're gonna have a
Speaker 2: better experience and you know, probably have better success by
Speaker 2: by going into it with that mindset.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And one the my my thoughts on the subject
Speaker 1: to kind of a little different note is I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes people here, I mean I think I found
Speaker 1: myself guilty this before, like oh they drew this tag, Well,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be easy. It's it's it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: as hard as public land hunting. I think sometimes these
Speaker 1: draw tags, especially really good ones, are they're harder. They're
Speaker 1: like harder than a normal over the counter public land
Speaker 1: hunt these because I mean, there's there's definitely gonna be
Speaker 1: a more target rich environment, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: way more game, there's gonna be more way more animals
Speaker 1: to play with. But you can't like like let your
Speaker 1: guard down and think, oh, well I don't have to
Speaker 1: try as hard. I can just show up and kind
Speaker 1: of half asset and get an ELK. I feel like
Speaker 1: you have to show up and work just as hard
Speaker 1: as you would on a normal over the countertag, if
Speaker 1: not harder, and just maximize that time. So this this
Speaker 1: is back, like, don't stress yourself out with this, but
Speaker 1: you have to. Like, you know what, We're not gonna
Speaker 1: sleep in. We're not gonna spend the milk. We're not
Speaker 1: gonna spend our mid days in camp eating rabbis. We're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna work really hard. We're gonna get up
Speaker 1: at three am if that's what we need to do.
Speaker 1: We're gonna work. We're gonna hunt all day from dark
Speaker 1: to dark, and we're gonna leave nothing on the table.
Speaker 1: That way, when we when we're done, whether we're whether
Speaker 1: we take an elk or deer, whatever it is you're after,
Speaker 1: wherever you take. At the end, you can say I
Speaker 1: left nothing on the table.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: I gave everything I had for that time I had
Speaker 1: was having and it was the haunt of a lifetime.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Great question number two.
Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Pattie Zobot.
Speaker 6: I'm a new archery hunter and I have not spent
Speaker 6: a lot of time.
Speaker 7: Getting set up for a shot of forty yards or less.
Speaker 7: When you are looking for a spot?
Speaker 6: What are you looking for in the brush?
Speaker 7: Or sorry? Was how do you determine what a good
Speaker 7: location is and what is your strategy for.
Speaker 2: Getting set up for the best shot you can Once
Speaker 2: you located in an alp and that.
Speaker 7: Elk is coming in on you, thanks so much?
Speaker 1: Fine?
Speaker 2: Okay, So she doesn't have a lot of experience setting
Speaker 2: up or animals being inside of forty yards? And how
Speaker 2: do we determine where we're going to set up if
Speaker 2: that bull's coming in or the bowl to come in?
Speaker 3: Did I get that right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there there's there's I'm gonna answer this in
Speaker 2: a couple of different ways. There's what you're given on
Speaker 2: the ground. A lot of times we find ourselves in
Speaker 2: less than ideal setup. So you just can't make an
Speaker 2: ideal set up on the ground. You know, you may
Speaker 2: be in a brush hole, you may be in a
Speaker 2: wide open timber stand where there is no terrain break,
Speaker 2: no vegetation break, and you're just kind of forced to
Speaker 2: set up where you need to set up, whether it's
Speaker 2: you know, get the wind right, try to be you know,
Speaker 2: for me personally, like on on the level or slightly
Speaker 2: downhill from the bowl if I can. Those things all
Speaker 2: kind of are just rules of thumb. But I say
Speaker 2: this because it's easy to say it while you're talking.
Speaker 2: But the real situation out the in the in the
Speaker 2: woods is you set up where you can, where you know,
Speaker 2: when you can, where you can. You've got time running
Speaker 2: against you. You've got a bowl coming in or potentially
Speaker 2: coming in, or sometimes you may have time to set
Speaker 2: up with a little bit better set up. You've got
Speaker 2: to make the best. You know, there was times this
Speaker 2: year where I set it where I'm like, well, it's
Speaker 2: not ideal, but I have a twenty yard window here.
Speaker 2: You know, It's like that's all that's gonna work. But
Speaker 2: I had I couldn't foresee anything better. I couldn't move forward.
Speaker 2: And so you've got to make the best of it,
Speaker 2: you know, best, the best with what you're given now
Speaker 2: an ideal setup, if you have the ability. Anybody that's
Speaker 2: hunted Archerie, hunted Elk long enough has dealt with hang ups.
Speaker 2: I think dirt can attest to this. I can like
Speaker 2: every year you're going to have bulls hang up no
Speaker 2: matter how well you pick your setup. But you want
Speaker 2: to try to prevent that if you can. And in
Speaker 2: my opinion, I could be wrong, but what I've seen
Speaker 2: from my you know, experience of elk doing this or
Speaker 2: not doing this, is when an elk gets to a
Speaker 2: spot where they can see visually, see, not hear anymore,
Speaker 2: not smell, none of that. I think it's their sense
Speaker 2: of sight when they get to a point where they
Speaker 2: should be able to see the elk that's calling to them,
Speaker 2: being us with the call in our mouth however we're
Speaker 2: doing it, or the collar behind us, they expect to
Speaker 2: be able to see that elk there. Now a little
Speaker 2: more nervous, they're a little more on edge, like, hey,
Speaker 2: I've put in the work to get to this point,
Speaker 2: like and a lot of times they'll get to this
Speaker 2: hang up spot and they will call or they'll do something,
Speaker 2: you know, whether they posture, whether they call, whether they
Speaker 2: they expect the caller to do the rest of the work. Now,
Speaker 2: if this is, if this is truly a visual thing,
Speaker 2: we need to set up either on a terrain break,
Speaker 2: meaning that the terrain goes from flat to steep, steep
Speaker 2: to flat side hill, a finger ridge, you know, something
Speaker 2: that will block the visibility of you and that bowl
Speaker 2: but when they do get to the point where where
Speaker 2: they can visually see that that that elk calling to them,
Speaker 2: whether you're bugling a bowl elk or whether you're a
Speaker 2: cow calling, you know that cow elk that should be
Speaker 2: in this location, you need to be able to shoot.
Speaker 2: And with that said, I like to be within forty
Speaker 2: yards like you you mentioned in the question to that
Speaker 2: terrain break or vegetation break. You know, a lot of
Speaker 2: times if there's clean timber that gets to a brush,
Speaker 2: they will need to break through that brush. If they're
Speaker 2: in brush and they're breaking out into clean timber where
Speaker 2: you're at, they will get to that edge of the
Speaker 2: brush or some them we're in there where there they've
Speaker 2: got good sight. And this is one of the reasons
Speaker 2: I don't get to hunt with a lot of two
Speaker 2: person calling setups. But this is where having a caller
Speaker 2: potentially thirty you know, I don't like to be too
Speaker 2: far back, but twenty or thirty yards back, because now
Speaker 2: the perceived elk that they should be able to see
Speaker 2: is now twenty or thirty yards behind you. If you
Speaker 2: do this right, or you put them in a location
Speaker 2: where there's another visual break, and that elk can't see them,
Speaker 2: but you're now thirty yards ahead of them. It will
Speaker 2: potentially pull that bowl past the hang up spot for
Speaker 2: you is the shooter and bring them in for an
Speaker 2: archery shot. So when I set up i'm looking, I
Speaker 2: like to look at it as basically a ninety degree
Speaker 2: window where the bull's coming in or something like that.
Speaker 2: Like I want, you know, if I look forty five
Speaker 2: degrees to my left, forty five degrees a my right,
Speaker 2: ideally I have multiple shooting lanes from zero to forty
Speaker 2: or fifty sixty yards right. So if that bull crosses
Speaker 2: to my left trying to get wind, I've got a
Speaker 2: shooting lane here. You know, if he crosses, you know
Speaker 2: I'm point Nobody can see me pointing here, obviously, but
Speaker 2: you know, if they cross in these different values, I'd
Speaker 2: like to have a couple of different whips. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: hit my mic there. I'd like to have a couple
Speaker 2: of different shooting lanes where if that bowl, depending on
Speaker 2: where it comes in, I will get a shot from
Speaker 2: zero to sixty. Now, a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a balance of you want some cover, but you
Speaker 2: want some shooting lanes. You want you want to have
Speaker 2: enough opportunities in there. So uh yeah, I like to
Speaker 2: set up where I can hopefully prevent that bowl from
Speaker 2: hanging up. And then when I do set up, I
Speaker 2: like to have my shooting lanes. And I've talked about
Speaker 2: this a lot. Set yourself up in front of obstacles
Speaker 2: and brush and material like let the let your camo
Speaker 2: or let your solids whatever. I'm not going to get
Speaker 2: into argument what you need to have, but let your
Speaker 2: silhouette be broken up by brush or a tree something
Speaker 2: behind you, and then you stand in front of it.
Speaker 2: That way, you're you're free to move in any direction.
Speaker 2: You know, if the bowl comes in a different direction,
Speaker 2: you can move. And that's kind of my best advice
Speaker 2: for a setup. The hanging up, in my opinion, comes
Speaker 2: from letting that bowl be able to see too far
Speaker 2: your location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great advice. I in fact, when I when
Speaker 1: I set up, I even kind of take it like
Speaker 1: one step further on my shooting lanes. I I don't
Speaker 1: like to have very many shooting lanes. I like to
Speaker 1: have just a couple, okay shooting lanes. I want to
Speaker 1: be able. I want that bull to have to come
Speaker 1: into like thirty forty yards, maybe preferably thirty yards before
Speaker 1: he could ever see where those calls are coming from. Right. So,
Speaker 1: and this is typically for a solo setup. Like Jason said,
Speaker 1: if I have a collar behind me, I want them
Speaker 1: to behind me, but I don't want them too far
Speaker 1: to where I can't see them. I want to keep
Speaker 1: eye contact. That way we can signal each other. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to move up or hey, collar, move back,
Speaker 1: or move up or down the hill, whatever, because sometimes
Speaker 1: as the caller, when you're back there, you don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on up up and up for the shooter.
Speaker 1: The shooter standing sometimes you can't hear those little nuanced
Speaker 1: sounds as like well that bull's moving this way, it's
Speaker 1: mo in that way. So if we can signal each other,
Speaker 1: we simply we tend to have a a better result
Speaker 1: in the end. But it all kind of depends too,
Speaker 1: you know, on your on your maximum effective yardage. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're really good out past sixty yards, and maybe
Speaker 1: you want to set up like that. But I feel
Speaker 1: like if anytime I set up to where it's a
Speaker 1: little further distance to where they can come in and
Speaker 1: eyeball me, sometimes they hang up and I may not
Speaker 1: get a shot, but if they have to come in
Speaker 1: really close and I don't, I like to. I like
Speaker 1: to shoot close. I like to be that thirty yards
Speaker 1: or less, maybe forty if I'm pushing it, because like
Speaker 1: personal for my maximum effective distance, I like to keep
Speaker 1: it forty or less, just because I know that if
Speaker 1: I have that shot, I'll one hundred percent make it.
Speaker 1: But everyone's different. Now as far as as I'm traveling,
Speaker 1: as I'm moving towards the bowl, and I'm doing a
Speaker 1: few things, I'm looking at as every step of the way,
Speaker 1: as I'm going to the words that bowl, as i
Speaker 1: feel like I'm getting closer to that elk. Let's say
Speaker 1: I've I've traveled three hundred yards across the ravine or
Speaker 1: something to get close to this bowl. I've traveled quietly.
Speaker 1: I haven't been bugling, but most of the way I
Speaker 1: don't make a lot of I don't pop, I pop,
Speaker 1: I pop as much brush as I want until I
Speaker 1: get into that zone. It's like, I think that elk
Speaker 1: is probably gonna be a couple hundred yards away now,
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred yards away. I'm gonna get really quiet
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be very calculated at point, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna and what I do is I look ahead to
Speaker 1: where if if I could see an elk standing there
Speaker 1: and he could see me, what's that distance? Is that
Speaker 1: eighty yards? Is that sixty yards? Is at one hundred yards?
Speaker 1: If it's if I only have visibility to thirty yards,
Speaker 1: I start thinking, Okay, I'm getting in a good place
Speaker 1: to maybe call this bowl into. But let's say I
Speaker 1: get over there and I can see one hundred yards
Speaker 1: through big open timber. I'm probably gonna pause for a
Speaker 1: minute and kind of reassess. I'm gonna number one. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna want to start calling until I get to
Speaker 1: a point where I think he's pretty close to here.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to start making a bunch of
Speaker 1: calls right now to where he could, like all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, appear one hundred yards away and look and
Speaker 1: see my location, because he's gonna be expecting to see
Speaker 1: an elk, and then he's gonna stop, and he's gonna
Speaker 1: look a little bit, and then he's gonna leave. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna probably be a little calculated before I show
Speaker 1: my hand, my cart, my hand of cards. Per se.
Speaker 1: If I get to that one hundred yards, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't like this spot. I'm gonna but I think he's close.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna creep forward slowly, and I'm probably gonna use
Speaker 1: my binoculars a little bit. I'm gonna have my eyes
Speaker 1: just fixated on picking apart every little bit of brush,
Speaker 1: looking for movement, whether I see an antler time, whether
Speaker 1: I see an ear moving, whether I whether I see
Speaker 1: a black nose or a black mane. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: looking for that bowl and then I'm gonna get through
Speaker 1: that section. And usually you'll get a one hundred yards
Speaker 1: or so, and then the timber will grow a little denser.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll have some younger trees and it'll get a
Speaker 1: little thicker, and it's like, Okay, now I'm starting to
Speaker 1: get to a place where it's a little bit I
Speaker 1: can't see as far. Now I'm gonna start picking apart. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to have a couple pretty good, pretty good
Speaker 1: shooting lanes. You mentioned forty yards maximum forty yards. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, I shoot forty yards there or maybe
Speaker 1: twenty yards, so maybe one pretty decent one and maybe
Speaker 1: one so so one. And I found when I do
Speaker 1: this bulls come in a lot closer, and they don't
Speaker 1: just stand out there and just look at me. All right.
Speaker 5: Next question, Hey guys and Dan up here in North Ido,
Speaker 5: I had a question for you being here up here
Speaker 5: in Ido in a thick brush country. Often I have
Speaker 5: rely heavily on our calling. Of course, since you it's
Speaker 5: hard to blast them and whatnot, But often I have
Speaker 5: a we'll have an interaction with the bowl calling back
Speaker 5: and forth, and I know that they that bowl will
Speaker 5: still be in the area. My question, I was wondering,
Speaker 5: if you can confirm that that bowl or whatever is
Speaker 5: still in the same area and you want to go
Speaker 5: back and try them another day, do you go back
Speaker 5: in there with different calls, different mouth calls, different bugle
Speaker 5: tubes or do you think they have a memory for
Speaker 5: that kind of stuff. It's just curious. Thanks for the show.
Speaker 2: DOCU so bulls in their memory and calls. And then
Speaker 2: I have a different opinion now than when I started.
Speaker 2: I felt like, uh, if I if I was calling
Speaker 2: to bowl and wasn't able to call them in, I
Speaker 2: needed to switch my diaphragm up. I needed to go
Speaker 2: from an external you know, a cow call or whatever
Speaker 2: it may be, in my opinion, I not the elk
Speaker 2: aren't smart animals, but I don't feel they've got the
Speaker 2: ability to associate like ELK calls with with the next elk. Now,
Speaker 2: individual individual Now with not saying this only affects people
Speaker 2: aren't good callers. But if you sound like a elk
Speaker 2: or close enough to a real elk and they believe
Speaker 2: that at that time, then you're probably okay. Now, if
Speaker 2: there are suspects sounds, I think elk could potentially and
Speaker 2: you make the suspect sounds the first time in the
Speaker 2: second time, like I'm not I'm not going to vouch
Speaker 2: for you that they're not going to pick that out
Speaker 2: multiple times or every time you do it. Let's let's
Speaker 2: assume you call good enough. You know it sounds like
Speaker 2: you rely on your calls a lot in North Idaho, Brushy.
Speaker 2: If you're a good enough caller, I don't feel if
Speaker 2: you sound like an elk, you can really mess things
Speaker 2: up up or they attribute to memory.
Speaker 3: I do get a little concerned.
Speaker 2: Number one, if I ever get winded why I'm calling now,
Speaker 2: I don't know I'm saying I get concerned now. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that has just educated them for the season,
Speaker 2: if it's educated them for two days, three days a week.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we went back in there a lot of times
Speaker 2: I'll give them a day or two just because in
Speaker 2: my head it's like, man, they I winded them, I
Speaker 2: busted them, Like, I'm not going to put pressure on
Speaker 2: them again. I want to let that memory subside. Now
Speaker 2: I'm speculating here a lot getting winded while calling is
Speaker 2: concerning being seen. Why calling? I think it has got
Speaker 2: to trigger something like why is there a predator or
Speaker 2: you know, a human looking at me that sounds just
Speaker 2: like us I and I'm I'm just I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: this like a human, Like I can't say what an
Speaker 2: elk actually understand. So with that said that to to
Speaker 2: not circle around this question, if not to sound over
Speaker 2: confident or pretentious or anything, I feel like I sound
Speaker 2: enough like an elk with through my calling that I
Speaker 2: can go back in there and not switch diaphragms, not
Speaker 2: switch my style, as long as I know I didn't
Speaker 2: get winded, and I don't feel that an elk's memory.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I've got enough, you know,
Speaker 2: boots on the ground, real world experience to tell, you know,
Speaker 2: be very confident that it doesn't matter. I've called to
Speaker 2: a bowl one day, didn't work out, come back in
Speaker 2: the next day and kill them with the same exact
Speaker 2: sequence and the same exact diaphragm in my mouth. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't feel you can really mess up by or
Speaker 2: or by using the same calls, or that you have
Speaker 2: to go through the process of switching your calls up,
Speaker 2: or going from a diaphragm one day to an external
Speaker 2: cow call the next day to a you know, a
Speaker 2: squeeze call the next whatever you're using. I don't think
Speaker 2: you have to go to those extents. Either the bulls
Speaker 2: you're gonna it's gonna be right or it's going to
Speaker 2: be wrong, regardless of what calls in your mouth. My opinion,
Speaker 2: I do play a little bit of defense there if
Speaker 2: if they've got winded when I come back in or whatnot.
Speaker 2: But I don't feel if you sound like an elk,
Speaker 2: you can really screw up too bad.
Speaker 1: My opinion is pretty similar to yours. I feel like,
Speaker 1: if you haven't busted that bowl, if you haven't spooked
Speaker 1: him out of there, yeah, you could definitely go back
Speaker 1: in with you know, the next day, or maybe you
Speaker 1: want to let him set for a couple of days
Speaker 1: before you go back in whatever. I don't think you
Speaker 1: need to switch up your calls. But I will say
Speaker 1: from my anecdotal experience where there was a time several
Speaker 1: years ago I called in a bowl and I missed him.
Speaker 1: I hit a branch and I missed him, and he
Speaker 1: spooped off and ran off, but he kept bugling, so
Speaker 1: I pushed up on and pressured him, and he came
Speaker 1: in a couple more times. But I had pressure him
Speaker 1: really hard that day, and one time he caught me
Speaker 1: in the open and he I don't know that he
Speaker 1: saw me, but I had the lad completely flat on
Speaker 1: the ground because he caught me in an open trail
Speaker 1: and I had a lay down so he wouldn't see
Speaker 1: me when he came back. But then he finally eventually
Speaker 1: kind of spookeed off. But I went back the next day, thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this guy was hot. I'm gonna get him the next day.
Speaker 1: And I could see him. It was in kind of
Speaker 1: some kind of cutover timber, so I could see him
Speaker 1: at a distance, and I got out of my truck,
Speaker 1: hiked up the hill, got to the spot called I bugled,
Speaker 1: and soon and he was feeding at the time as
Speaker 1: soon as I bugled, he threw his head up and
Speaker 1: he ran like, I'm the opposite director, the complete opposite direction.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that that pressure that i'd put
Speaker 1: on him the day before probably fouled that up. And
Speaker 1: what we don't know is like once that, once that
Speaker 1: scenario plays itself out, and you're like, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: get him, I'm gonna go back home or whatever, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave. Who's to say that bowl doesn't come back
Speaker 1: and sniff around like our scent can be left on
Speaker 1: the ground for quite a while. You know, I probably
Speaker 1: took a leak afterwards, because I'd probably been holding it
Speaker 1: for a while. But those things come back around and
Speaker 1: sniff around the area a little later on in the day,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I don't know, like I don't
Speaker 1: like what happened earlier. I don't know if they're that smart,
Speaker 1: But I feel like, if you've bumped them, if they've
Speaker 1: seen you, if you've spooke them pretty hard, you might
Speaker 1: want to give them a couple of days to kind
Speaker 1: of forget, or the next time when you go back in,
Speaker 1: maybe you want to take your different bugle tube and
Speaker 1: a different diaphragm. And kind of mix up your the
Speaker 1: sounds you make and try.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hurt.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, I can take different It
Speaker 2: seems like if I take different bugle tubes of different diaphragms,
Speaker 2: I end up sounding the same because I'm trying to
Speaker 2: force myself to sound like a certain sound.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree, you can.
Speaker 2: You can change things up a little bit, just if
Speaker 2: nothing else to give you the confidence that you're doing
Speaker 2: something different, a little bit of a placebo effect, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm of the opinion that it's either it's either right
Speaker 2: or it's wrong. You know, the time's right or it's wrong.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if it really matters what's in
Speaker 2: your mouth for a call. You know, you're either going
Speaker 2: to sound like a cow and he wants to come
Speaker 2: in and find a new cow, or you're going to
Speaker 2: sound like a bull and he wants to come in
Speaker 2: and run you off, regardless of maybe what you sound
Speaker 2: like is my opinion, not saying it's fact. But I'm
Speaker 2: more of the opinion though, that it's either right or
Speaker 2: it's wrong at the time that you're using that call,
Speaker 2: And it doesn't this sly matter what you sound like.
Speaker 1: You love it. I have to agree with a lot
Speaker 1: of that. All right, next question.
Speaker 8: Hey, Derek, I appreciate this. I just got done with
Speaker 8: my second archery. I'll hunt and bulls are pretty vocal
Speaker 8: down in New Mexico and Nihila, bulls are pretty vocal.
Speaker 8: But quickly I was kind of realizing that when we
Speaker 8: were vocal using cow calls and stuff, they would be
Speaker 8: vocal and kind of stop and we'd cut the distance.
Speaker 8: But the second we'd introduce a bowl, they create distance
Speaker 8: from us and we would never be able to We
Speaker 8: were never able to get on them. So my question
Speaker 8: is do you think that elk came to cipher between
Speaker 8: human and hunter? And do you think that they do that?
Speaker 8: Do you think that they stay in order to keep
Speaker 8: tabs on us to stay away from us? Thank you.
Speaker 2: Man, that's a deep one. I'm trying to process it
Speaker 2: all here. I'm gonna try to restate the question. Make
Speaker 2: sure I got it. I'll let Dirt correct me. So
Speaker 2: it sounds like they were in the Hila had elk
Speaker 2: biglan being vocal and when they would calcol the elk
Speaker 2: would sometimes cut the distance or move in, but when
Speaker 2: they would bogle, they elk would shut up or maintain
Speaker 2: their distance or get further away. I think that's it
Speaker 2: for the most part, and without having any any further detail,
Speaker 2: I think the distance or the the timing of your
Speaker 2: bugles is maybe more important than just saying.
Speaker 3: And I've got to speculate here.
Speaker 2: I've talked about this a lot on even it maybe
Speaker 2: ranks up as my number one mistake. Why calling elk
Speaker 2: is did you bogle when you thought you were one
Speaker 2: hundred yards away or knew you were a hundred yards away,
Speaker 2: or did you biegle when you thought you were three
Speaker 2: hundred or four hundred yards away and expected that to work?
Speaker 2: From my experience, and I learned the hard way many
Speaker 2: many times of wanting to get a bull to beagle.
Speaker 2: As I came in, I would, you know, be agle locate?
Speaker 2: I would bugle a little bit down the hill or up,
Speaker 2: you know. As I approach, I'd bugle again, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: this elk is staying the same distance no matter what
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: You'd call your way to the bull?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, I because whether I wanted the confidence,
Speaker 2: I wasn't confident where he was at, so I wanted
Speaker 2: to hear him again to make sure I was going
Speaker 2: the right spot, so you call you bigle again, you
Speaker 2: get an answer, But you can only do that so
Speaker 2: many times until you get to a spot where he's
Speaker 2: gonna now pull his cows away and just leave right.
Speaker 2: He's gonna avoid any confrontation if he can. For the
Speaker 2: most part, with that said, I buggled myselves into betting
Speaker 2: areas where that bowl wasn't going to move an inch,
Speaker 2: and it worked out. But for the most part, especially
Speaker 2: in the morning before they've actually betted down, I try
Speaker 2: to make sure that I don't bugle until I'm very
Speaker 2: very close. I feel that buggling your way into a
Speaker 2: bowl from the time you locate until the time here
Speaker 2: within the red zone or the bubble is the potential
Speaker 2: greatest cause for that bull leaving or getting out of
Speaker 2: the area with his cows. Of course, we're talking about
Speaker 2: herd bulls here, which it sounds like I'm gonna speculate
Speaker 2: that that's what you're you're hunting. But with that said,
Speaker 2: timing of the bugle, I'd be very curious, and I
Speaker 2: know we can't have a dialogue, but i'd be curious
Speaker 2: to know if you were bugling at three hundred yards
Speaker 2: or a hundred or five hundred like how that worked
Speaker 2: and kind of if the bull completely disappeared and stop bugling,
Speaker 2: or if the bull would just kind of stay in
Speaker 2: equidistance apart the entire time. In those situations, I would like,
Speaker 2: I said, you got to just you got to get
Speaker 2: closer to bagle. You have to be quiet, you have
Speaker 2: to make some assumptions. You have to be confident that
Speaker 2: those those elk are going to be in that location.
Speaker 1: And what once you locate them, Yes, once you locate them,
Speaker 1: then what you've.
Speaker 2: Got to almost assume where they're at at that point. Now,
Speaker 2: some people might be like, well, I know right where
Speaker 2: they're at when they be agle. For me, a lot
Speaker 2: of times, whether it's mountain country or broken country, I'm like,
Speaker 2: there's a bowl down in that canyon. I don't know
Speaker 2: exactly where he's at, but there's something in that canyon,
Speaker 2: and you know, whether it's a long distance bugle, whatever
Speaker 2: it may be. So a lot of times you pull
Speaker 2: out your mapping software. For us, it's on X, You're like,
Speaker 2: all right, he's down that canyon. You put your little
Speaker 2: you hit the I don't even know what the button
Speaker 2: is on the bottom right of on X. You hit
Speaker 2: the button, and it tells you exactly what's direction you're
Speaker 2: pointing your phone. You kind of pointed to the bugle.
Speaker 2: You're like, I think he's about five hundred yards. Well,
Speaker 2: he's about in here, right. So now I've got a
Speaker 2: point in my head or on the map, and I've
Speaker 2: got to assume that he's going to be there. Now,
Speaker 2: if it's going to take you an hour to get there,
Speaker 2: he might not be there right, And and so you've
Speaker 2: got to you've got to add all this in. But
Speaker 2: you've just got to get really really close to olt
Speaker 2: when you're gonna bugle. You know, we we maybe talk
Speaker 2: about it too much that we you know, we're bugle
Speaker 2: bugle heavy collars, but we're we're always trying to get
Speaker 2: very very tight. You know, we locate from a distance,
Speaker 2: you get a response basically like a game of Marco polo,
Speaker 2: but you don't you don't say it again until you
Speaker 2: get within tight tight dis And some of them because
Speaker 2: I feel your your chances of calling him in or
Speaker 2: are very very difficult. And you know, in those instances
Speaker 2: if you're gonna call them longer distances and a lot
Speaker 2: of times you're not gonna call this herd bowl in.
Speaker 2: If you do this but sticking to the cow calls,
Speaker 2: like you said, you're most likely going to call in
Speaker 2: some of those satellite bowls and they may be great bulls.
Speaker 2: And if you're just after any legal elk and you're
Speaker 2: not after any legal bowl and you're not after that
Speaker 2: herd bowl, it may be a great tactic.
Speaker 3: But that's just my opinion.
Speaker 2: I can't ask you, you know, the exact you know, situation,
Speaker 2: but my speculation is you were maybe buggling a little
Speaker 2: too far out, which would allow that bowl time to
Speaker 2: run his cows up and get away from you.
Speaker 1: That's a great answer. One thing I'd like to bring
Speaker 1: up to is he said he was second time, second
Speaker 1: year l hunting.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, and I don't want to assume that you're not
Speaker 1: a good caller, but sometimes as new callers, we don't
Speaker 1: sound like an elk very good. You know, Sometimes we
Speaker 1: make some bugles that are a little suspect, like maybe
Speaker 1: your cow calls sound really good, maybe your bugles sound
Speaker 1: not so good, And especially if you're hunting in an
Speaker 1: area that's had some pressure or whatever, or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard some elk calls before in the woods. Guys,
Speaker 1: running calls and it sounded nothing like an ELK, and
Speaker 1: they were selling it hard like it was an ELK
Speaker 1: and it was not an ELK sound at all. So
Speaker 1: you have to, like, you know, to look at the
Speaker 1: man in the mirror a little bit and like, do Mike,
Speaker 1: are my ELK calls authentic? Now? You don't have to
Speaker 1: sound like some world champion ELK caller, your favorite YouTube celebrity, whatever.
Speaker 1: What you have to sound is like an ELK, and
Speaker 1: ELK make all sorts of weird vocalizations and some of
Speaker 1: them sound really terrible. But what they do have is
Speaker 1: they do have that realism. There's some there's a there's
Speaker 1: a level of realism to the call. It may not
Speaker 1: be a perfect call, but it does still have some
Speaker 1: realism to them. But if your your calls are you know, subpar,
Speaker 1: and they're just not sound like a real ELK, then
Speaker 1: right now here we are it's November. Pick up a
Speaker 1: call and wear out a few between now and next September.
Speaker 1: You know, practice, practice, practice. It's a five to ten
Speaker 1: minute thing a day. It's not a five hour thing
Speaker 1: a day. You do not have to do this for
Speaker 1: an hour a day unless you want to. But even
Speaker 1: five ten minutes a day is definitely gonna move the needle.
Speaker 1: So by the time next fall comes, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: very familiar with your call. The call you want to
Speaker 1: make is going to come out of your bugle, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna sound pretty authentic. That would be my first thing. Now,
Speaker 1: New Mexico. We've hunted New Mexico a few times, and
Speaker 1: I know we got a lot of advice from people
Speaker 1: who've hunted New Mexico before. One one piece of advice
Speaker 1: I was given was don't ever call No, don't ever
Speaker 1: bugle to bowls. In New Mexico. They don't bugle to bugles.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, what should we do? Well, be
Speaker 1: very very heavy on cow calls. Okay, great day one,
Speaker 1: New Mexico. Lots of cow calls. I'm doing lots of
Speaker 1: cow calls, hardly no bugles. I'm just not getting any reaction.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting any replies from these elk I'm not
Speaker 1: getting you know, nothing is good, nothing's bad. I start bugling,
Speaker 1: like I start running my normal program where I do.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty bugle heavy, but I do use a lot
Speaker 1: of caw calls too. Now I'm starting to get reactions
Speaker 1: from these elk. So you can't always take all of
Speaker 1: the advice as gospel. There's good advice, you know, in
Speaker 1: every in you know, there's there's there's there's shades of
Speaker 1: truth to everyone's advice. But you have to take that
Speaker 1: that advice for what it's worth and for the day
Speaker 1: and the situation that you're in. So if if Lake
Speaker 1: mightst say, one day, you're doing some cow calls, but
Speaker 1: you're just not calling anything in, try some bugles and
Speaker 1: if those bugles are working, great, stick with them. Or
Speaker 1: if the bugles are not working, let's say your calls
Speaker 1: sound good like you in your bugling, but they elk
Speaker 1: keep moving away. Maybe you should lay off the bugles.
Speaker 1: Maybe let's let's just go to cow calls. Maybe try
Speaker 1: to locate them really good and try to figure picking
Speaker 1: down exactly where that bull is and then get there quietly,
Speaker 1: get as close up close and personal that bull as
Speaker 1: you can, and maybe at that time it'd be time
Speaker 1: to dif some cow calls. But whatever's working, keep doing it.
Speaker 1: Whatever's not working, don't do it. I'm a big believer
Speaker 1: in that. And then one thing was really crazy for
Speaker 1: me in New Mexico was we thought, like, we've been
Speaker 1: hunting out for a long time, and you have kind
Speaker 1: of a distance gauge. Every time you hear a bugle,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's this far away. Well, New Mexico
Speaker 1: really screwed with my head because the bulls would sound like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just right over here, you know, they're like three
Speaker 1: hundred yards away, two hundred yar away. They could be
Speaker 1: almost a mile away because of the din because of
Speaker 1: the how dense the timber is or the cover there.
Speaker 1: It's not as they don't have big tall trees like
Speaker 1: we have up in the Northwest. It's more open, so
Speaker 1: the sound travels so much further and it's so much louder. You.
Speaker 1: I felt like there were several days I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I would set up I think I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: bully in and he was still a quarter of a
Speaker 1: mile away. I was not even in the realm of
Speaker 1: calling this bullet. So you have to really factor that
Speaker 1: in to your calling setups too, especially in New Mexico.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a different sound travel pattern there. So
Speaker 1: all right, next question.
Speaker 6: Hey, Derek, this is a Dimitri just calling. I just
Speaker 6: got back Montana archery hunt. I had a bull come
Speaker 6: in to forty yards that I had just previously arranged.
Speaker 6: I was standing in front of some brush in a
Speaker 6: tree and the ilk came in so fast I didn't
Speaker 6: have time to draw. He faced straight at me and
Speaker 6: was sniffing around looking for the cow that that I
Speaker 6: just called. And I feel like five minutes I was frozen,
Speaker 6: couldn't move. He finally turned quartered a little bit and
Speaker 6: suck three steps in front of right behind two trees.
Speaker 6: And so my question is, should I have tried to
Speaker 6: tend that needle between those trees? Should I have tried
Speaker 6: to take that funnel shot?
Speaker 9: When he did quarter two and got his head yet
Speaker 9: behind one of the trees. I did draw back, but
Speaker 9: he never seems to give me really my shot that
Speaker 9: I was kind of looking for.
Speaker 4: I was hoping that he would take a couple.
Speaker 6: Of steps, but he never did, and he.
Speaker 4: Just kind of shot it off after.
Speaker 6: I try to call Calum back. But yeah, just one
Speaker 6: of those cify Ghanny tips for me on that, Thanks yer.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: So I've been a big fan of Frontals for a
Speaker 2: long time. Anybody it's heard me talk or talk about
Speaker 2: Frontels knows that I'm a big fan. Now forty yards.
Speaker 2: I'm not a big fan, right, so I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: not telling you what to do, like this is the
Speaker 2: decision everybody's got to make. But for me, forty yard
Speaker 2: frontal is not gonna happen, no matter how excited I am,
Speaker 2: no matter how much I want to kill a ball.
Speaker 2: I know my limits usually going into season, and I've
Speaker 2: never been comfortable to a point where a forty yard
Speaker 2: frontel was like on the table, I've got to hit
Speaker 2: a four inch wide slot, and if I can't guarantee
Speaker 2: that arrow is going to hit inside of that four
Speaker 2: inch wide by about twelve inches tall pocket, you know,
Speaker 2: ten inch tall I pocket, I'm I'm not shooting, so
Speaker 2: I would say frontels off off the table, you know,
Speaker 2: shooting between two trees, I've got to guess a little
Speaker 2: bit here, right, we didn't We don't get all the information.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna assume you had vitals between those two trees.
Speaker 2: At that point, there's no harm, right, You're either gonna
Speaker 2: hit him where you need to hit him. If if
Speaker 2: it's the vitals, are you gonna stick a tree? I
Speaker 2: do way more comfortable with a shot between two sound
Speaker 2: like maybe there's an opening between these two trees, I'm
Speaker 2: way more confident there as long as I can tell
Speaker 2: where the anatomy of this elk lays out in between
Speaker 2: those two trees. You know, not everybody knows elk or
Speaker 2: big yellow tan critters. You can get real confused, real quick,
Speaker 2: especially if that gap between those two trees is tight.
Speaker 2: You might not know if you're hitting guts, back, haunch,
Speaker 2: shoulder blade right, if you can't make out definition and
Speaker 2: so shooting between these two trees could be risky. But
Speaker 2: if you're confident, if you can maybe see his head
Speaker 2: sticking out one side, his hind end sticking out the
Speaker 2: other end, can gauge where you're at. I'm very confident
Speaker 2: shooting between two trees because I feel like I'm either
Speaker 2: going to hit him where he needs to be hit,
Speaker 2: assuming he's at forty yards, or I'm gonna hit a
Speaker 2: tree and worst thing is I lose a broadhead to
Speaker 2: a tree. To back up a little bit, you know, yeah, elk,
Speaker 2: we still get surprised all the time on on elk
Speaker 2: coming in silent.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's.
Speaker 2: Crazy how how quiet an eight hundred pound plus or
Speaker 2: minus critter can be.
Speaker 3: But uh, I've.
Speaker 2: Learned that a lot of my success hinges on this
Speaker 2: that very short window of hearing, seeing, knowing a bulls there,
Speaker 2: and getting your bow drawn in a in a timely
Speaker 2: fashion that one you don't have to hold it forever,
Speaker 2: but two you've got it drawn before he can see
Speaker 2: you draw, you know, learning that it's almost more of
Speaker 2: a of an art than it is than it is
Speaker 2: anything else. Is just knowing when and what you can
Speaker 2: get away with and getting drawn back. But yeah, aside
Speaker 2: from that, I don't have a lot of other advice,
Speaker 2: Like you got to be very confident, you know, is
Speaker 2: as Dirk had mentioned, he knows he's he's a hundred
Speaker 2: percent confident if it's inside one hundred or inside forty yards,
Speaker 2: he's gonna he's gonna make the shot. You know, same
Speaker 2: thing here if that bowls inside forty yards, I'm very
Speaker 2: comfortable and and and if I'm gonna make that shot,
Speaker 2: I want to be one hundred percent confident that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna kill it. And so I don't like a forty
Speaker 2: yard frontel, and I like the shot between the tree.
Speaker 2: But you know, having your bow drawn back soon enough
Speaker 2: that you don't have to try to decide when to draw,
Speaker 2: and if they're gonna draw, why they're you know, if
Speaker 2: you're gonna get away with drawing, why they're looking at you?
Speaker 2: You try to prevent all that from being drawn before
Speaker 2: they their eyes are out in the open.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to agree with all that. That's a
Speaker 1: great that's spot on. And I will say this too,
Speaker 1: as far as alert elk in a frontal position, a
Speaker 1: bull that's alert and looking like has stopped and is
Speaker 1: looking for that other bull or cow they're they're they're
Speaker 1: on high alert at that point. So at forty yards,
Speaker 1: when your bow goes off, it seems like you're both
Speaker 1: shooting fast, but there's a there's enough time for between
Speaker 1: the time your bow goes off and that arrow reaches
Speaker 1: that elk for that that bowl to be facing the
Speaker 1: complete opposite direction. They can spin on a dime very quickly.
Speaker 1: So I don't really recommend a frontal shot on an
Speaker 1: alert elk, whether it's at ten yards or at forty yards.
Speaker 1: I've been around, I've taken a frontal shot a couple
Speaker 1: of them. I've I've been around other folks who have
Speaker 1: taken frontal shots. And the bulls that are that are
Speaker 1: coming in like on full alert. When that SHOT's taken.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe the pen everything is in the perfect spot.
Speaker 1: But at the very split second that that bow goes
Speaker 1: off and the arrow reaches the elk, they can move
Speaker 1: and now it's not hitting in that same slot that
Speaker 1: Jason was talking about. And now it's now it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a track job that you may or may not
Speaker 1: yield a bull elk. So it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: a tricky situation. And especially at forty yards. I don't
Speaker 1: recommend a frontal shot at forty yards whatsoever period. They
Speaker 1: need to be closer twenty yards or less. There's so
Speaker 1: many things to consider, like the angle of the elk.
Speaker 1: Is he quartering this way, is according that way? Is
Speaker 1: he above you? Is he below you? All the angles
Speaker 1: have to be good to thread that that arrow right
Speaker 1: down the pipe right, So consider extreme angles, whether it's
Speaker 1: upper high or low, and angles of quartering. And then
Speaker 1: the alert factor. If that bowl is not super alert, yeah,
Speaker 1: he may not know what hit him and he's gonna
Speaker 1: tip over dead in forty yards on a perfect shot.
Speaker 1: So that's my advice. All right, we have time for
Speaker 1: one more question, Dirk.
Speaker 7: My name's Preston dressler. I live in southwest Oregon. I
Speaker 7: hope to harvest my first Roosevelt elk in the next
Speaker 7: few years. I've been after them for eight years plus.
Speaker 7: I'm hunting at over six thousand feet, so obviously a
Speaker 7: very different train for Roosevelts. However, I understand that they
Speaker 7: live here year round and have had several close encounters,
Speaker 7: just not what put one in the freezer yet. I'd
Speaker 7: love to hear some information on hunting Roosevelt's.
Speaker 4: In the mountains.
Speaker 7: I'm a rifle hunter. My season isn't until a round Thanksgiving. Obviously,
Speaker 7: this is after the rut. Snows normally on the ground,
Speaker 7: but the elk are being quiet. It's a you know,
Speaker 7: a bowl only tag. So unfortunately cows aren't an option
Speaker 7: for me. With relatively low success, I'd love to hear
Speaker 7: some tips on how to find the elk come November.
Speaker 7: I'm in contact with my wildlife experts in the area. Unfortunately,
Speaker 7: this is a deer unit, so they don't have a
Speaker 7: lot of information for me.
Speaker 4: Please let me know.
Speaker 7: What I should be doing, what I'm doing right, what
Speaker 7: I'm doing wrong. Love the podcast, hope to hear more soon.
Speaker 3: Bye bye, all right, so.
Speaker 2: High it sounds like high mountain Roosevelt hunting. You know,
Speaker 2: cascade roosevelts. I've got a lot of experience. I've i
Speaker 2: hunt cascade roosevelts growing up, still do occasionally, but I've
Speaker 2: never had the experience hunting them in rifle season. You know,
Speaker 2: you add snow in, There's there's a lot of There's
Speaker 2: a lot of components to this question. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: to kind of go back through them post rut. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna boil it down to just what I know
Speaker 2: post rut, and Elk's job now is to fatten up
Speaker 2: and eat as much as he can. He's gonna typically
Speaker 2: the big bulls are gonna go into solitude. Smaller bulls
Speaker 2: may bachelor back up, some small bulls may stay with
Speaker 2: the herd. So it really depends on what your goal
Speaker 2: is going into the hunt. Some of the times I've
Speaker 2: hunted late, I'm looking for where is that bowl gonna
Speaker 2: find solitude and the feed that he needs to to
Speaker 2: basically put on as much fat, as much weight, and
Speaker 2: regain as much of that health as he can to
Speaker 2: get through that winter. If there's snow on the ground,
Speaker 2: I use that snow to my advantage. Whether it's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, you mentioned being high in the mountains. I
Speaker 2: don't know if there's a road system leading in or
Speaker 2: a trail system. Cutting tracks can can tell you more
Speaker 2: than than anything else can where the elk have been recently,
Speaker 2: where they've been for the last couple of days, weeks,
Speaker 2: whatever it may be. I don't know if you can
Speaker 2: glass in this area. If you can glass, I love
Speaker 2: to get up and look into openings early where they
Speaker 2: may be feeding, or where I can maybe look into
Speaker 2: some some some spots and you may some people may
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about, but they're these spots that
Speaker 2: aren't like you're glassing a clear cut or an alpine
Speaker 2: above the tree area, but it's there are these spots
Speaker 2: that may have avalanche shoots, or they may have little
Speaker 2: teeny pockets in the timber you can look in. Those
Speaker 2: are the spots in those later elk seasons. I like
Speaker 2: to look because these elk want to be, you know,
Speaker 2: where there's food, which will be these small little micro openings,
Speaker 2: but they want to be secure and have that security
Speaker 2: and kind of that solitude. So I'm looking in areas
Speaker 2: like that. One thing I like to do. I like
Speaker 2: to I do two things. I want to be able
Speaker 2: to find elk obviously, so you can glass, you know,
Speaker 2: miles across canyons or miles from ridge to ridge.
Speaker 3: But I also like to be in the hunt.
Speaker 2: I like to look at canyons where if there is
Speaker 2: an elk there and the wind's gonna be right, I
Speaker 2: can shoot across that canyon.
Speaker 3: I'm in the hunt.
Speaker 2: Versus there are times where I consider I'm hunting, but
Speaker 2: I'm out of the hunt, right I'm glassing at something
Speaker 2: two thousand and three thousand yards away, hoping to find
Speaker 2: something that I can then play on, but I'm never
Speaker 2: in the hunt at that moment. And so I I
Speaker 2: tend to like that, to be in the hunt when
Speaker 2: I can, or or when I'm looking at spots. But
Speaker 2: cutting sign obviously going to be your best bet.
Speaker 3: Calling.
Speaker 2: There's there's no denying. It's it's off the table, cutting tracks,
Speaker 2: glassing in spots where other people aren't going to a
Speaker 2: lot of times, these bulls are gonna want to be
Speaker 2: away from pressure, away from people. If it's if it's
Speaker 2: a cow tag, you know, if you're allowed to. I
Speaker 2: think he did say bulls, right, you know, so so
Speaker 2: scratch that but you will find if you're looking for
Speaker 2: any bowl. A lot of times those those younger bulls
Speaker 2: will stay with the herd, especially as roosevelts tend to do.
Speaker 2: So if you find a large herd, I would definitely
Speaker 2: concentrate on that as well. Those bigger bulls will typically
Speaker 2: as soon as the rut uh kind of winds down,
Speaker 2: they're going to be off on their own, away from
Speaker 2: from all the cows. But not a great answer. We
Speaker 2: we still kill cascade roosevelts, uh, you know above the
Speaker 2: tree line, or I say we or people that I
Speaker 2: know every year up high until the snow basically forces
Speaker 2: them down so you can go high, which it sounds
Speaker 2: like where you're at, and you know it can work.
Speaker 2: So not a great answer, but that that's really all
Speaker 2: you can do is find tracks, concentrate on those micro openings.
Speaker 2: A lot of times those bulls aren't gonna want to
Speaker 2: be out in the wide open where where you may
Speaker 2: have found them in September October, And uh, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's the best I can can give on that one.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't really add much at all of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was exactly how I would approach it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't really speak to Roosevelts, but elk
Speaker 1: or elk, right, they need they don't need all the
Speaker 1: same things I ROCKI needs all the same things a
Speaker 1: Roosevelt needs. You know, they need, they need food, they
Speaker 1: need security, they need to be you know, they need
Speaker 1: to recoup from the rut. Right. So just to recap,
Speaker 1: if you're just having a hard time finding elk, like
Speaker 1: start start cast a wide in the beginning, drive the
Speaker 1: road system, look for elk. They're gonna try. If they're
Speaker 1: gonna cross roads. Maybe it's a trail system. Hike the trails.
Speaker 1: A lot of times elk cutting with a rifle is
Speaker 1: all about boot, leather and glass.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So if if you need to hike a lot and
Speaker 1: just find elk, if you can't, if it's not an
Speaker 1: area you can glass up, maybe you just got to
Speaker 1: cover tons of country in a day just to just
Speaker 1: hike a lot until you find sign and then slow
Speaker 1: down and hunt from there. Like Jason said, you know,
Speaker 1: bigger areas, you know, you may be able to glass
Speaker 1: into some clare cuts or whatever and find some elk.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times you're gonna find the
Speaker 1: cows and maybe younger bulls, more mature bowls. A lot
Speaker 1: of times will like you just said, well, we'll separate
Speaker 1: themselves looking for those micro habitats, those those little those
Speaker 1: avalanche shoots, those smaller openings in the timber, just those
Speaker 1: micro places where they don't have to travel far. If
Speaker 1: they can bed one hundred yards away, if they can
Speaker 1: go over there, they can either belly full, maybe there's
Speaker 1: somewhere to get some water, or maybe they don't need
Speaker 1: any water at that point because there's enough snow on
Speaker 1: the ground, whatever, whatever the case may be, to locate
Speaker 1: them that way, and then and then dig in, whether
Speaker 1: you need to can shoot long range across the canyon,
Speaker 1: you know, within within range, within reason, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: like okay, i've i've i've spotted that bowl, I've I've
Speaker 1: used my on X to to pinpoint that little location.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't have to get over there and and
Speaker 1: dig in and hike that that timber pocket to find
Speaker 1: that bowl. But that's that's how I would approach it
Speaker 1: to So anyway, thanks, Jason, appreciate I appreciate all these answers.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of these days we're gonna find some
Speaker 1: stuff we don't agree on and we're going to have
Speaker 1: a debate.
Speaker 3: White tails versus meal ears. We've had that a few times.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, we've had that a lot. You know, people
Speaker 1: may not know this. Jason has a lot of hobbies.
Speaker 1: But but I call it arguing, but debate health help.
Speaker 1: He says, Hey, healthy debate. So like, I think healthy
Speaker 1: debate is one of his favorite hobbies. So I'm always
Speaker 1: challenging him on because I know how much he'll enjoys it.
Speaker 1: And I sure do too. But one of these days
Speaker 1: we're going to have a debate on here, We're gonna
Speaker 1: take opposite sides on something, and like, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we could go out night about my tails and mule deer,
Speaker 1: but you know that's for another another conversation. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But hey, you know we can do this again sometime.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to call in to the Super
Speaker 1: Secret hotline, it's two zero eight two one nine seven
Speaker 1: seven zero one. Leave a message. It can't be over
Speaker 1: three minutes long. I think that's what it is. Three
Speaker 1: minutes long, or it'll can just cut you off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and don't no more than three minute because you
Speaker 2: won't remember the question. You're gonna have to like, play
Speaker 2: it back three or four times so you can put
Speaker 2: it all again.
Speaker 1: We're simple minded people like, but our memories are not
Speaker 1: that long. I'll have to play it two or three times.
Speaker 1: Wait what do they say? So anyway, call in with
Speaker 1: your questions and we'll get either Jason or myself or
Speaker 1: maybe one of the guests on here to answer the question.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for listening, and we'll catch you on
Speaker 1: the next and