Speaker 1: I'm back with another episode of Cutting the Distance today.
Speaker 2: It's just me.
Speaker 1: It may be early June as i'm recording this, but
Speaker 1: I am laser focused. I'm ready for ELK season. It
Speaker 1: seems like all I'm thinking about already every day is
Speaker 1: where I'm gonna go check out on this hunt, where
Speaker 1: i want to go scout on that hunt. It's kind
Speaker 1: of consuming me already, and we're still three months away,
Speaker 1: but it seems like everybody else is getting ready for
Speaker 1: you ROX season as well. A lot of questions starting
Speaker 1: to roll in, So we're gonna jump right into the
Speaker 1: Q and A, which is brought to you by Pendleton Whiskey.
Speaker 2: This portion of the episode is brought to you by
Speaker 2: Pendleton Whiskey Letterbuck. So today's questions.
Speaker 1: I went to ELK Addicts facebook group, got a bunch
Speaker 1: of good questions. So I'm just gonna kind of start
Speaker 1: rolling through these and do my best to answer them
Speaker 1: and it should be a fun little episode here. So
Speaker 1: our first question comes to us today from Justin Stevens
Speaker 1: off of ELK Addicts. What's your opinion on calling methods,
Speaker 1: cold calling methods and high predator or high pressure areas
Speaker 1: where ELK are just staying tight lipped in September. So
Speaker 1: being a Washington resident definitely prepares you for this. As
Speaker 1: far as the high pressured from hunters, you know, we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of hunters out in the woods and
Speaker 1: not as many elk. The densities, you know, fairly low
Speaker 1: if you're in general over the counter areas, and so
Speaker 1: I got a lot of got a lot of familiarity
Speaker 1: with that, and then a lot of the spots I
Speaker 1: hunted in Idaho as I was kind of starting to
Speaker 1: go out of state and get that figured out, as
Speaker 1: well as some of the places I've got to hunt
Speaker 1: in Washington and Oregon. You know, high wolf populations, high
Speaker 1: cougar populations, you know, seeing those on the ground have
Speaker 1: an effect. It does, honestly quiet the elk down a
Speaker 1: little bit. But I also am of the opinion that
Speaker 1: during the rut elk are going to be vocal. They
Speaker 1: may not bugle as much. They may be agle quieter,
Speaker 1: they may be agle less, they may be do more,
Speaker 1: you know, doing more of the bugling at night, but
Speaker 1: they will still bugle. And you have to take advantage
Speaker 1: of those times of day or maybe that one or
Speaker 1: two beagles that they're going to give you the audible
Speaker 1: you know, Marco Polo game. They're they're letting you know
Speaker 1: where they're at. And so what what I like to
Speaker 1: do is I'm more more cautious and conscious of when
Speaker 1: I'm going to bugle. You know, It's like if you
Speaker 1: only had two or three bullets in your gun and
Speaker 1: that's all you could take with you, You're gonna take
Speaker 1: a lot more. It's going to be more calculated when
Speaker 1: you're going to take a shot. The SHOT's got to
Speaker 1: be perfect right where. It's kind of the same way
Speaker 1: if you're in these high pressured areas, either by predator
Speaker 1: or hunting, is I'm I'm not going to bugle as
Speaker 1: much as I normally would if I thought I was
Speaker 1: in an area that you haven't had very many people
Speaker 1: through it, or I could get a response from a bowl.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm more calculated. I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: get to a spot, you know, early in the morning
Speaker 1: when I feel like I've got a better chance of
Speaker 1: getting a response before those elks start to move down
Speaker 1: into the timber, before they move off to their betting.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to take advantage of those situations
Speaker 1: and use my my uh my bugles more sparingly. I
Speaker 1: also feel, you know, we we get accused of very
Speaker 1: aggressive elk hunting systems. And this is another great reason
Speaker 1: why is if you are assuming that these elk are
Speaker 1: tight lipped in an area and you do get an
Speaker 1: answer like the only the only information I've got to
Speaker 1: go on that elk is where he just bugled from.
Speaker 1: And if I don't think I'm going to get another answer,
Speaker 1: I need to be very aggressive. I need the number
Speaker 1: one always make sure the wind's right, but I need
Speaker 1: to close that distance and get to that elk very fast,
Speaker 1: because if he's not going to make another I might
Speaker 1: not know where he's going to be at in ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes or what direction he's going to. So
Speaker 1: I typically aggressive, but I'm even more aggressive in these
Speaker 1: situations because I need to. I need to to get
Speaker 1: in there before the least amount of time has passed.
Speaker 1: Gives me the best chance at getting to that that
Speaker 1: bowl's location. As far as cold calling, though, I'm I don't.
Speaker 1: I do very little cold calling. And when I say
Speaker 1: cold calling, I assume is cold calling. What I consider
Speaker 1: cold calling is not a lot of sign. I'm not
Speaker 1: just gonna pick a spot in the woods. In cold call, Now,
Speaker 1: what I would say what I do is warm calling,
Speaker 1: which I'll maybe assume this is what Justin's asking about.
Speaker 1: Is there are there is some sign, there's some fresh
Speaker 1: you know, scot, there's fresh elk tracks, there's fresh rubs,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. But maybe there's not an elk
Speaker 1: bigling around me. So I would consider that like warm calling.
Speaker 1: I'm not, like, you know, I'm not hearing beagles, but
Speaker 1: there's sign that the elk are being there. So I'll
Speaker 1: kind of say that's what he's assuming when he says
Speaker 1: cold calling, I just don't do it a lot. I
Speaker 1: want to know that there's an elk around. I want
Speaker 1: to know that I'm working something that has a high
Speaker 1: likelihood that there's an elk with an earshot. A lot
Speaker 1: of my cold calling methods or warm calling methods, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to refer to it, as as I was
Speaker 1: growing up, I would do this a lot as I
Speaker 1: was trying to learn, and a lot of times what
Speaker 1: would happen is you'd maybe call on a spike that
Speaker 1: you know, a satellite that was way off or betting
Speaker 1: way off from the herd, but you wouldn't get a
Speaker 1: whole lot of responses from the herd bowl. A lot
Speaker 1: of times, I also felt that like the best use
Speaker 1: of my time was to not sit in one location
Speaker 1: and try to try to lure a bowl to that
Speaker 1: I'm better off covering more ground with my feet and
Speaker 1: finding elk that are lukewarm or warm or even hot,
Speaker 1: willing to respond or find warmer sign you know, fresher
Speaker 1: elk cracks, fresher crap, you know, elk scent, you know,
Speaker 1: you can you physically smell that they're around you somewhere.
Speaker 1: I prefer to use use my time to go do that. Now,
Speaker 1: if I was to warm call or cold call, I
Speaker 1: usually start more so it's more of a you know,
Speaker 1: iterative process. I will start with cow calls, like the
Speaker 1: lowest threat level cow calls, Hey, is there anything around?
Speaker 1: I will you know, louder cow calls, maybe louder sequences,
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys will overcall during these. I
Speaker 1: set my watch to every five or ten minutes, like
Speaker 1: a cow call, you know, maybe a louder cow call. Now,
Speaker 1: if I'm not getting any responses or not starting to
Speaker 1: hear anything, I remember think, you know, these bulls will
Speaker 1: come in silent at times, so you're not always banking
Speaker 1: on hearing anything. But if I give it a half
Speaker 1: an hour and I don't have a better plan, I
Speaker 1: will typically you know, start to add bugles in at
Speaker 1: thirty thirty five, forty minutes, see if I get a
Speaker 1: response there. And if I don't see anything by an hour,
Speaker 1: like that's as much patience as I have for a
Speaker 1: warm calling set up. I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go find fresher sign. I'm gonna drop into the timber.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do things that I feel put the advantage
Speaker 1: in my favor more so than sitting in a spot
Speaker 1: calling elk. Now, with that said, I recognize that there
Speaker 1: are people that kill elk every year with warm calling
Speaker 1: you know, setups, or calling over wallows or what we
Speaker 1: would consider you know, calling over spots that elk have
Speaker 1: probability to go to. Me personally, I'm out there trying
Speaker 1: to find a bowl that's willing to be agle. Now
Speaker 1: that's my answer on that one, for what it's what
Speaker 1: it's worth. Justin Stevens also asked a question on gutting
Speaker 1: versus gutless methods, the pros and the cons, and then
Speaker 1: what happens if you're solo hunting, so I will no
Speaker 1: longer gut an elk unless the situation is, you know, perfect.
Speaker 1: Last year, I did kill a bowl near my house,
Speaker 1: which was in a spot where I knew I could
Speaker 1: get a side by side to it. I I elected
Speaker 1: to gut that elk, leave the guts out in the
Speaker 1: field because I was going to take it back to
Speaker 1: our our meat processing shed, our our our freezer are cooler,
Speaker 1: and we're going to take care of it, you know,
Speaker 1: a whole. So on that one, I did gut it,
Speaker 1: But ninety nine percent of the elk I kill nowadays,
Speaker 1: they're all going to be gutless it. I don't have
Speaker 1: to touch the guts. I don't have to deal with that.
Speaker 1: I don't have to deal with, you know, any of
Speaker 1: the insides. I can get to everything on the outside,
Speaker 1: you know, he asks on if you're solo hunting, the
Speaker 1: biggest pro is that you don't have to move the
Speaker 1: entire elk as it as it, you know, as it
Speaker 1: died there. You're able to most of the time, I
Speaker 1: would say, there are a few cases, you know, if
Speaker 1: they get wedged under trees or logs or against something.
Speaker 1: No matter how they're laying, you'll be able to get
Speaker 1: off half of the meat from one side. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot easier for you to move around to
Speaker 1: get to the other side. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest pros. There aren't a lot of cons anymore for
Speaker 1: me on on on, you know, gutting versus not gutting.
Speaker 1: There the gutless is has all the pros and none
Speaker 1: of the cons. By time I gut them, you know,
Speaker 1: people could argue that you let the animal cool down sooner.
Speaker 1: By time I've got the elk, I've already got a
Speaker 1: half off and quartered out, and I'm already onto the
Speaker 1: other side. So the meat is cooling faster. Doing gutless,
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about any you know, enters
Speaker 1: getting on any of the meat. It's cleaner. I don't
Speaker 1: leave any meat behind. I can get to the tenderloins,
Speaker 1: you know, blow the blow the spine and and you know,
Speaker 1: going in from the hip socket and kind of just
Speaker 1: going underneath of that. We get them out very clean,
Speaker 1: get them out whole, no damage.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I just even if you're taking the ribs, if you
Speaker 1: want to take rib meat, you can do a rib roll.
Speaker 2: Why it's on the animal.
Speaker 1: If you want to take the rack of ribs to
Speaker 1: do something, you know, some sort of preparation, you can
Speaker 1: get the ribs out without gutting as well. You know,
Speaker 1: it will kind of gut itself, but I don't have
Speaker 1: to waste time specifically going up inside the cavity getting
Speaker 1: blood up to my armpits, especially if you're in grizzly
Speaker 1: country or something like. I definitely don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to stay as clean as possible there is
Speaker 1: I don't want to allude to how fast I can
Speaker 1: take care of an animal when I'm doing gutless. But
Speaker 1: I've got this thing broke apart, you know, halfway by
Speaker 1: time I could get it. It's it's clean, very easy
Speaker 1: to do. I'm working in manageable pieces. I don't see
Speaker 1: any reason why not to do gutless. And the biggest
Speaker 1: pros if you're solo hunting, you're not moving near as
Speaker 1: much weight by yourself. You're able to at least get
Speaker 1: half of the elk, you know, taking care of before
Speaker 1: you got to try to roll it over. So it's
Speaker 1: usually a lot easier to get that thing in the
Speaker 1: position to do the other half. There as a joke
Speaker 1: on here at the end. Is the Maverick truly the
Speaker 1: best diaphragm call on God's Green Earth? Or is it
Speaker 1: all a George Show's funded conspiracy. So I always have
Speaker 1: to give Dirk a little bit of a guff. This year,
Speaker 1: Dirk is getting just destroyed in the Pink versus the
Speaker 1: Maverick sales. So I do want to point that out.
Speaker 1: I'm not competitive at all, but he's just getting crushed.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know is George Show is What
Speaker 1: I always say is Dirk is able to rally like
Speaker 1: a lot of the junior high girls that they like
Speaker 1: to l hunt and I think he's got an ability
Speaker 1: to market to that group and that segment, and Dirk
Speaker 1: really gets them going. And sometimes you can put some
Speaker 1: pressure on the Pink. But no, the Maverick is yah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's seventh or eighth in the in
Speaker 1: the lineup. You know, everybody should try the Pink and
Speaker 1: they all getting aside. It's a great call. It you know,
Speaker 1: it works, It works great for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I tend to like a little bit lighter latex is
Speaker 1: why I like the Pink. But no the Maverick's great.
Speaker 1: It just really and I don't want to sound like
Speaker 1: a used car salesman where I'm telling people to buy
Speaker 1: lots of different calls. But it really does come down
Speaker 1: to the style of coller you are and what type
Speaker 1: of call you prefer. But no, I would say the
Speaker 1: majority of what we make will fit the majority of
Speaker 1: the callers out there, in one one way or another.
Speaker 1: Next question from the Elk Addicts forum comes in from
Speaker 1: Gordy Doug. When Elk are in close and he says
Speaker 1: in parentheses, in some videos I see hunters talking, it
Speaker 1: seems to me you should be dead quiet. Does this
Speaker 1: affect your stock? So I would say yes and no.
Speaker 1: A lot of times we're trying to communicate with the caller.
Speaker 1: We're trying to communicate with the camera guy what we see.
Speaker 1: I after doing this enough, you know what you can
Speaker 1: get away with.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Movement, I would definitely try to to you know, limit
Speaker 1: your movement. Uh is is that is that's going on?
Speaker 1: You don't want to be picked off by turning your head.
Speaker 1: But if somebody is close by you and you can
Speaker 1: talk without turning your head, and I can let Dirk
Speaker 1: know what's going on, or my camera guy know what's
Speaker 1: going on until that elk gets Unless it's dead quiet
Speaker 1: and that elk is very very close, you can get
Speaker 1: away with quite a bit of talking where these these
Speaker 1: animals are not going to pick you up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Whether it's white tailed deer hunting, We've we've played around
Speaker 1: with that, you know. I've been able to call in
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of elk to very close ranges, and
Speaker 1: you just get comfortable with what you can.
Speaker 2: Get away with.
Speaker 1: I would say very rarely, if at all, in the
Speaker 1: last ten years, I've been picked off by talking. Now movement, yes,
Speaker 1: drawing your boat at the wrong time for sure, but
Speaker 1: the actual vocal talking and relaying information to your team,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's your caller, whether it's your camera guy.
Speaker 1: I just I don't feel that it's it's been that big,
Speaker 1: big of an issue, you know, And and that's that's
Speaker 1: my opinion on that. But everybody I would always say,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm more so. I don't want to add
Speaker 1: turkey hunting in because we're all dead set on elk
Speaker 1: and we're getting excited for elk, But on the turkey
Speaker 1: calling side, I'm way more reserved.
Speaker 2: I won't talk.
Speaker 1: I won't blink, I won't turn, I won't look at
Speaker 1: anybody because it is critical and these dang turkeys will
Speaker 1: pick me off doing stuff that I never thought I
Speaker 1: would get caught with. But they still allow a lot
Speaker 1: of talking. They just don't allow any movement or any
Speaker 1: of that. And so with Elk we found that you
Speaker 1: even get more freedom for some light vocalizations. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: you're not gonna talk over your breath, you're kind of
Speaker 1: talking under your breath. You're you're very subtle quiet sounds,
Speaker 1: and you can get away with a lot. Is the
Speaker 1: bulls coming in Now you put me in a situation
Speaker 1: where it's dead calm, I'm gonna probably tend to be
Speaker 1: more quiet. Are there situations where you won't bugle? Yes,
Speaker 1: there are situations. There aren't seasons or tags that I
Speaker 1: won't if the bulls are rudding or are bugling. My
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three Oregon hunt is a great, you know,
Speaker 1: a great example of where I won't bugle. You know,
Speaker 1: for those that don't know, I had a great tag
Speaker 1: in organ bulls are very vocal, lots of line of
Speaker 1: pressure around. Everything's kind of working. But me and Dirk
Speaker 1: talk multiple times, and we run a very similar system
Speaker 1: that we have so much trust in our system we
Speaker 1: hardly unwaiver from it where we're unwavering. And this has
Speaker 1: worked enough times. If we run this plan enough times
Speaker 1: on enough bulls, it's eventually gonna pay off for us.
Speaker 1: So last year in Oregon, I'm nine or ten days in,
Speaker 1: had lots of opportunity, lots of things going our way,
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't make anything work. I would get
Speaker 1: the wind right, move into one hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 1: do everything like I was supposed to.
Speaker 2: Bugle. They would take.
Speaker 1: Off, like, well, that's not how this is supposed to work.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to get close, bugle and have that bull
Speaker 1: come challenge you. So you did it again, same results,
Speaker 1: did it again. So then in my mind, I'm lowering
Speaker 1: the threat level. All right, I'm gonna now stop doing
Speaker 1: what I've seen work for the last twenty years very consistently.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go move in and I'm in a cow call.
Speaker 1: Same similar results, Like maybe you would get a bowl
Speaker 1: to pull your way a little bit and then take off,
Speaker 1: or maybe you would get a bowl to pull in,
Speaker 1: you know, or some cows to come your way, but
Speaker 1: just wasn't working out in my favor.
Speaker 2: And so finally, on I.
Speaker 1: Don't remember if it was day nine or ten or
Speaker 1: when we finally killed I told you know, I was.
Speaker 1: I was hunting solo on that with just a camera guy.
Speaker 1: And I told David Frame, like, all right, today we're
Speaker 1: chasing every bugle and we're not going to talk. So
Speaker 1: we started this program. We're diving a thousand feet off
Speaker 1: the road to chase a bugle, and just I found
Speaker 1: myself returning to our system. I didn't want a bugle,
Speaker 1: but then in my head, I thought, well, that's our
Speaker 1: best our best option right now, bugle runaway. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're still chasing every bugle. So we're just
Speaker 1: grinding it out on the day that I ultimately kill MYLK.
Speaker 1: We're chasing beagles, we're dropping here, we're hunting hard, we're dropping,
Speaker 1: you know, tons of elevation, we're climbing tons of elevation.
Speaker 1: And finally I looked at Dave. I said, hey, this
Speaker 1: whole plan of us chasing every bugle and not calling
Speaker 1: isn't working out. Like I just I don't seem to
Speaker 1: jive with that plan very well. I always somehow talk
Speaker 1: myself into calling or and it's just not working. Like
Speaker 1: at this point where we're dead tired, it's getting late
Speaker 1: in the evening. We stop at a spot, and so
Speaker 1: when I say won't bugle, I'm talking about like getting
Speaker 1: the bull to commit to with an archery range. I
Speaker 1: will still always bugle to try to locate a bull,
Speaker 1: because what happens is, even though they may not come
Speaker 1: into the call, when you do get close, a lot
Speaker 1: of times they will answer a distant location beugle.
Speaker 2: To let you know that they're in the area.
Speaker 1: So we stop at a spot with about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half a day light left and a bol response.
Speaker 1: And I didn't think we had a super high probabibility,
Speaker 1: but I can't talk a super high probability of calling
Speaker 1: that bowl. And we hurried around and we leave our
Speaker 1: pack in our truck. We leave, you know, all of
Speaker 1: our lights. We just we grab nothing but our bow
Speaker 1: and camera. I have my bow and you know, my
Speaker 1: five erro was my quiver, and my camera guy's got
Speaker 1: his camera. We literally leave everything else. So there's no
Speaker 1: way that I'm gonna try to bugle. I don't have
Speaker 1: a bugle, toube I don't even I didn't even bring
Speaker 1: a diaphragm unless I think there was maybe some on
Speaker 1: my my bino harness, but I wasn't even thinking about
Speaker 1: using him. And we just let this bowl talk on
Speaker 1: his own. We we work up in there. We had,
Speaker 1: you know, at times I wanted to try to make
Speaker 1: a bugle to get that thing to answer, but he
Speaker 1: was biggling on his own enough times that we had
Speaker 1: kind of pinpointed his location. And then as we moved in,
Speaker 1: we could spot some cows up ahead, and finally we
Speaker 1: were able to kind of spot his horns. He was
Speaker 1: bedded down at the edge of a meadow. And then
Speaker 1: from then we just we gotten a single file line.
Speaker 1: We put the biggest tree in between us and him
Speaker 1: that we thought would get to a shot distance, and
Speaker 1: we literally just walk in a single file line with
Speaker 1: his head behind this tree for us.
Speaker 2: And we we we just we wait. We walk in.
Speaker 1: I arranged the tree that he's behind at thirty eight yards.
Speaker 1: He's a couple of yards behind it, so I figured
Speaker 1: we're forty. I get down on you know, we get
Speaker 1: ready for the shot. We get on our knees. We're
Speaker 1: kind of in some pines and so that was one
Speaker 1: chance where I knew they were alk around. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of balls biggling, but they just did not
Speaker 1: seem to want to be bothered with bugling. And as
Speaker 1: an elk hunter, that is more concerned, like, my ultimate
Speaker 1: priority is finding success, no matter if it is, you know,
Speaker 1: calling in a bigling bowl, or if it is being quiet,
Speaker 1: or if it is lucking into one as you're walking
Speaker 1: down the trail, like whatever it is, I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to stack those odds in my favor. And enough time
Speaker 1: had went by on this hunt and enough situations that
Speaker 1: really had me leaning towards don't bugle. It is going
Speaker 1: to be your best success. And so there are times
Speaker 1: when I've ran the system enough times, the wind is
Speaker 1: swirlly enough that I don't want an elk to start
Speaker 1: to commit to my location. All of those things, there
Speaker 1: are situations where we won't bugle, and that was that
Speaker 1: was a good example of one that And as the
Speaker 1: first ball I've ever killed with my bow that I
Speaker 1: didn't call into archery range. How often do you bugle
Speaker 1: on a hunt? So for those of us that maybe
Speaker 1: watch some of the videos we put together, it seems
Speaker 1: like we're bugling all the time, and we probably get
Speaker 1: a bit, you know, a bad rap that all we
Speaker 1: do is bugle. We're overcalling, We're we're educating the elk,
Speaker 1: And so I do want to I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit. Similar to the first question.
Speaker 1: I bugle when i feel like I've got a good
Speaker 1: chance or good probability of uh uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: good chance of getting a response. So I really limit
Speaker 1: limit my calling to where it's going to be good.
Speaker 1: But with that said, if I'm in in good elk
Speaker 1: sign and if I'm in a good area where I'm
Speaker 1: calling every two to three hundred yards. Now, to go
Speaker 1: back to the video, A lot of times, what are
Speaker 1: you on a hunt? When we're going to edit it,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot you know, people don't want to
Speaker 1: just see you walking down a trail all the time,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of what you get is us
Speaker 1: bugling because there's some action involved or maybe a response involved.
Speaker 1: But in reality, you get to see a glimpse in
Speaker 1: about one percent of the time we're on the ground,
Speaker 1: and it just looks or it appears that we're always bugling.
Speaker 1: So on a hunt, I liked I liked the beagle
Speaker 1: as much as I feel gives me an advantage, and
Speaker 1: that's hard to figure out. But anytime I get to
Speaker 1: a new finger ridge, anytime I get to an.
Speaker 2: Area, I will bugle to.
Speaker 1: See if I can get a response in that area
Speaker 1: that I don't think have they either not heard my
Speaker 1: bugle's up to this point not had a chance to respond,
Speaker 1: And by keeping us a pretty set cadence or a
Speaker 1: set distance, a lot of times it will happen is
Speaker 1: I will pass an area beagle from there and then
Speaker 1: get a bull that will be agle back where I
Speaker 1: just was, or closer to a location I just buggled
Speaker 1: from for no rhyme or reason. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're feeding, or if they were around and didn't hear
Speaker 1: your bugle or just didn't want to respond. From there,
Speaker 1: we can get a bowl to respond in a different location.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times I stick to a
Speaker 1: somewhat normal cadence too, three four hundred yards on a
Speaker 1: ridge line or in an area that an elk, because
Speaker 1: we have seen it enough on the ground that a
Speaker 1: bowl will finally respond. So yeah, there are instances where
Speaker 1: if I've got really fresh signed on the ground, I
Speaker 1: may start with just allowed calcol and see if they
Speaker 1: bugle to that, if I'm not always ripping a bugle.
Speaker 1: It seems like that when you when you see some
Speaker 1: of our hunts and the way that we we teach
Speaker 1: some of this stuff. But in reality, we're just bugling
Speaker 1: enough to give us an advantage or to get the
Speaker 1: game started by by getting another bowl to respond. So
Speaker 1: that's that's my answer on that one. So Kevin Hopman
Speaker 1: is the next question, is it better to sound like
Speaker 1: Doug Flutie than it is to sound lifelike? And so
Speaker 1: I have to explain Doug Flutie. It was a term
Speaker 1: that we dirt kind of coined a few years ago, where, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Doug Fluteie is somebody that you can very
Speaker 1: easily tell is as a person blowing on an elk call.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's one of the old school tubes
Speaker 1: that would you know, click up, click through the tones.
Speaker 2: Do Lulu, do lulu? You know the flute sound.
Speaker 1: Or so are you saying is there a time we're
Speaker 1: sounding that way is better than to sound lifelike. The
Speaker 1: way that Kevin sees this is if I sound fluty,
Speaker 1: other hunters may stay away from me and the bowl
Speaker 1: that they're pursuing. But if I sound too real, they
Speaker 1: may hunt me and the bowl, so I can't. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I can win.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: I'm always for sounding as lifelike as possible, but I
Speaker 1: also acknowledge that some of the worst sounding elk I've
Speaker 1: ever heard are real elk. You know, We've talked about
Speaker 1: this multiple times. So I don't I I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: whatever is the most likely to call that bowl into
Speaker 1: my location. If that means I have to sound like
Speaker 1: like a Doug Flutie and you know, do the ups
Speaker 1: and downs and you know, roll through the notes, I
Speaker 1: will do it. But I also feel there are times
Speaker 1: where I want to sound as lifelike as possible. I
Speaker 1: want to sound like the real thing. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if woodsmanship is the right word, but I want
Speaker 1: to be is as realistic sounding as possible.
Speaker 2: Why I'm out in the woods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you may get other people chasing you in those instances.
Speaker 1: You know, in a few spots I've hunted in Colorado,
Speaker 1: you can hear two or three bugles from the same
Speaker 1: location and you're trying. I'm trying to be very quiet
Speaker 1: and just chase real bowl.
Speaker 2: Bugles.
Speaker 1: But at times I needed to make a call when
Speaker 1: I was in there, and I would just call quieter
Speaker 1: enough that that bowl can hear me. I would switch
Speaker 1: to groans and moans, which if you're not a skilled caller,
Speaker 1: can sometimes not sound right. I'll do light little We'll
Speaker 1: do light little chuckles that are just just like under
Speaker 1: the breath type chuckles that are gonna work if I
Speaker 1: feel that making a bowl call is going to be
Speaker 1: the best. But I'm not saying the way I do
Speaker 1: it's right. I just like to, you know, for reasons
Speaker 1: and pride reasons, call as good as I can all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, as often as possible, and try
Speaker 1: to mimic the real thing. Sean Johnstone maybe talk about
Speaker 1: how barometric pressure plays a big part in Coasta Roosevelt hunting.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say, I pay attention now. I
Speaker 1: will say, you know, barometric pressure. You know, high pressure
Speaker 1: is good.
Speaker 2: I like.
Speaker 1: But what I don't like when I'm hunting deer l
Speaker 1: because I don't like to be on the change. I
Speaker 1: don't want to go from low too high, or from
Speaker 1: high to low. I just assume not hunt. And you
Speaker 1: know I shouldn't say that I'm always going to be hunting,
Speaker 1: But I found that hunting is better either on a
Speaker 1: steady low or a steady high, with the transitions being
Speaker 1: the worst. But then if I had to pick a
Speaker 1: low pressure or a high pressure, I will almost always
Speaker 1: take that clear high pressure zone sitting over the area.
Speaker 1: So I like it to be cold and crisp. I
Speaker 1: like to have clear days. Don't get me wrong. I've
Speaker 1: had some amazing rosevelt A hunting when it's just pouring
Speaker 1: down rain. You know, low pressure systems moved in, but
Speaker 1: it's typically, like I said, on that second or third
Speaker 1: day of it. They don't like to be in that
Speaker 1: transition and change. So for what that's worth, I like
Speaker 1: to be on you know, day two or three into
Speaker 1: high pressure if I can. If not, I'd like to
Speaker 1: be day two or three into a low pressure. And
Speaker 1: ideally the hunting has never been as good during the switches,
Speaker 1: but it also is we're limited by days and time,
Speaker 1: so I'm still out there hunting and we've still managed
Speaker 1: to find success during those times.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is, you know you can you
Speaker 2: can predict the moon.
Speaker 1: The moon pha is long enough in advance to to
Speaker 1: schedule your vacation. You can figure all these things out,
Speaker 1: but you'll never be able to like understand unless you've
Speaker 1: got the liberty or the freedom to take certain days off.
Speaker 1: You're basically gonna have to plan your vacation or your
Speaker 1: time and just go hunt with what you're given. So
Speaker 1: you really can't plan around it unless you do have
Speaker 1: the ability to take a day off. And then I
Speaker 1: would say high pressure after a couple of days of
Speaker 1: you know, consistent high pressure is going to be your
Speaker 1: best bet for elk in activity. So Zach gil is
Speaker 1: asking when hunting thicker timber, which growing up in southwest
Speaker 1: Washington really close to the coast is what I'm used
Speaker 1: to hunting thick timber with only a few parks and
Speaker 1: meadows the glass, how many miles do you hike hike
Speaker 1: in with no calls or random bugles do you go
Speaker 1: before you're looking to move on? So it's a great question, Zach.
Speaker 1: A lot of these times, and not only pairs with audible.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gathering as much information as I can so
Speaker 1: I will go look. My favorite place to look on
Speaker 1: these areas is is there a trail that seems to
Speaker 1: intersect a lot of these thick timber patches, or can
Speaker 1: I build a trail that goes through these thick timber patches.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking like, is there an area where like
Speaker 1: sign's better or worse? Was it closer to the truck
Speaker 1: or is it better? The further I get in here,
Speaker 1: I will go to these fringes where the thick timber
Speaker 1: meets the parks and meadows. A lot of these fringe
Speaker 1: areas holds the majority of the elk or that's where
Speaker 1: they like to be. Is there sign there?
Speaker 2: How many?
Speaker 1: And then he kind of asked how many miles we
Speaker 1: hike in with no calls aroundom I'm always calling. Now
Speaker 1: if I'm in a flat or I'm in an area
Speaker 1: that's like a solid continuous slope, I may not call
Speaker 1: as much with no real spot to to to have
Speaker 1: an advantage area. You know, if I'm if I'm running
Speaker 1: into the terrain brakes or if I'm wrapping around a ridge,
Speaker 1: I will call as I move around that. But I
Speaker 1: will call occasionally, or if I run into some warm
Speaker 1: sign or some some hot sign, I will call to
Speaker 1: make sure that I'm not going to move forward and
Speaker 1: kind of run into or bump elk dirt or in
Speaker 1: front of me. So yeah, I'm I'm kind of always
Speaker 1: calling and letting out random location bugles before I look
Speaker 1: to move on. Now, as far as how long or
Speaker 1: how far do I hike in before I decide to
Speaker 1: move on, it really depends on how the terrain and
Speaker 1: the area lays out. Is there easier ways to get
Speaker 1: to the areas that are coming up? Are there ways
Speaker 1: that you know, is there an easier way to get here? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to overwork myself getting into an area
Speaker 1: if it's easier for somebody to come from the other way.
Speaker 1: There are times now if I'm spiking out or I'm
Speaker 1: already in there and committed, then the extra work. I
Speaker 1: will tend to gravitate that way, especially if the elk
Speaker 1: you know, have me going that way. But there's you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're looking for how many miles
Speaker 1: to hike in, some of my day hunts will be
Speaker 1: you know, maximum of seven to ten miles in and
Speaker 1: seven to ten miles out. We've did We've did a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, twelve to twenty mile days where
Speaker 1: it's a lot of you know, go in this way.
Speaker 1: I don't like to backtrack if possible. So I try
Speaker 1: to plan roots where I can go out this ridge.
Speaker 1: Maybe I have to drop across the canyon and come
Speaker 1: back a different ridge system. It lets me cover more
Speaker 1: ground and in less time. As I'm as I'm trying
Speaker 1: to find elk, So I don't really have a minror
Speaker 1: of Max.
Speaker 2: That's really what do I have to do to.
Speaker 1: Find the elk that are within the area? And uh,
Speaker 1: like I say, I'm I'm calling. I'm calling as I'm
Speaker 1: as I'm walking, you know, or as I'm walking to
Speaker 1: spots that hey, I can now bugle over this side
Speaker 1: of the ridge, or I can bogle down into this drainage,
Speaker 1: or there's a little pocket basin, or there's a hanging meadow,
Speaker 1: or there's a you know, whatever it may be. I
Speaker 1: will bugle in all of those because if I don't
Speaker 1: find elk, I'm not coming back anyways. So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: kind of pulling out all the stops as I go
Speaker 1: through here, and you know, before I move on to
Speaker 1: a different spot within the unit. Next question comes from
Speaker 1: Ross Sharp. He's here in Washington. He's asking a little
Speaker 1: a question. I know what he wants the answer to be,
Speaker 1: how do you tag your animal. So I he runs
Speaker 1: ELK crazy company. He's got a tag wallet that that
Speaker 1: you can put your tag in kind of zip it
Speaker 1: up and then attach it to the animal. Make sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't doesn't fall off. For me, the major I think,
Speaker 1: aside from Washington now and and maybe Idaho, every state
Speaker 1: that I hunt now has like E tagging, So a
Speaker 1: lot of my tags And maybe I'm a dummy for
Speaker 1: for electing into that system, but I do like, you know,
Speaker 1: some of these systems. It's gonna it's ultimately gonna help
Speaker 1: poaching and whatnot. You have to document where your animal
Speaker 1: is killed, you know all that. I don't like it
Speaker 1: for for sharing information if that's what the fishing wail
Speaker 1: life departments end up using it for. But I honestly
Speaker 1: I end up E tagging the majority of these states
Speaker 1: I've hunted, and then you know, tagging the animal. You know,
Speaker 1: so far, I've just I've been using just uh you know,
Speaker 1: the old school electrical tape. Still I haven't haven't lost anything.
Speaker 1: But you know, Ross Russ has a good little company there.
Speaker 1: You know, it gives back conservation. It's called a tag wallet.
Speaker 1: If you still have physical tags, go check that out. Uh,
Speaker 1: next question comes from Warren Warren Joiner thick Idaho timber,
Speaker 1: also known as brushy rocky sholes, walking miles to find Elk.
Speaker 1: Are you calling the whole time as you're walking with
Speaker 1: cal calls and bugles are alternating and just sounding like ELK?
Speaker 1: Or are you trying to sneak up on them to
Speaker 1: surprise them with the bugle? So I would say my
Speaker 1: answer to that, Warren is a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: So I would say one of the reasons I don't hunt,
Speaker 1: you know, the North Idaho timber anymore, is because I
Speaker 1: came from an area that's very, very similar. You know,
Speaker 1: big canyons, lots of timber. We log probably a little
Speaker 1: more active now than they did in North Idaho. But
Speaker 1: I just I don't I don't like not knowing what's ahead,
Speaker 1: and it seems like never ending timbers. So, as I
Speaker 1: just mentioned a lot of times, if you've got parks,
Speaker 1: you've got meadows, you've got spots you can get to.
Speaker 1: But if everything looks the same for for a long
Speaker 1: ways out, I feel the best way for me to
Speaker 1: locate Elk is to continue calling as I move through
Speaker 1: the woods. I want to know that that bull's there.
Speaker 1: Before I just the chances of me walking and sneaking
Speaker 1: up on elk seems to be very very low. A
Speaker 1: lot of times they will pick up sound, they'll be
Speaker 1: looking your way. Now if I know they're there, I
Speaker 1: can definitely, like you know, move in on them. So
Speaker 1: if you if they're if they're locating or biggling on
Speaker 1: their own. A lot of times I will go in
Speaker 1: there and sneak in because I may not want to
Speaker 1: make a peep prior to but if I get to
Speaker 1: an area of vegetation or terrain that just does not
Speaker 1: allow me to move any closer, I'm typically gonna call
Speaker 1: because I don't want to risk sneaking up on them
Speaker 1: or getting getting picked off. So I'm typically calling the
Speaker 1: whole time as I'm walking. I will just you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm walking through or at a faster pace, I'll
Speaker 1: let a cow call out every here and you know,
Speaker 1: every now and then see if I get an answer,
Speaker 1: it would maybe calm down, you know, elk that may
Speaker 1: be suspect, you know, up ahead of you. But I
Speaker 1: do like to bugle because I like to know if
Speaker 1: I continue in this direction that there's elk around me,
Speaker 1: and the way I like to look at. It is
Speaker 1: if if you imagine yourself, you know, on the topo map,
Speaker 1: and what you can see from your little circle, you're
Speaker 1: able to cover. Let's say, let's just say for conversation's sake,
Speaker 1: you can see one hundred yards around you. But if
Speaker 1: I bugle, I've now just touched hopefully every elk that's
Speaker 1: five hundred yards around me for an answer. So I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the listeners are probably starting to
Speaker 1: figure out that we don't We don't put our eggs
Speaker 1: in a basket. Like I don't plan on coming back
Speaker 1: to a spot unless it's got action, it's got elk
Speaker 1: that are ready to play the game, it's got something
Speaker 1: that makes me want to come back. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times now I will hunt a spot and then
Speaker 1: come back maybe seven or eight days later, if I
Speaker 1: seen something that I like or it's like historically held
Speaker 1: elk and I think that maybe they move back in there,
Speaker 1: or maybe some hunting pressure later in the season has
Speaker 1: brought them back. But a lot of times I will
Speaker 1: write a spot off because there's so many other good
Speaker 1: spots or good looking spots that I want to go
Speaker 1: check out within the unit. So I'm bugling I don't
Speaker 1: feel it can do any harm I've got, you know.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is if you're assuming you can
Speaker 1: only see a hundred yards versus it you know, the area,
Speaker 1: the amount of area you're able to hunt, quote unquote
Speaker 1: is a whole lot bigger as you're bugling walking around
Speaker 1: than it is if you're just walking and using your
Speaker 1: your visual There are.
Speaker 2: Times, I guess if.
Speaker 1: We've all been there, you're you're on a trail, you're
Speaker 1: on a ridge system, and you cut very very fresh
Speaker 1: elk tracks. You know, not a needle in the track.
Speaker 1: You know, something that doesn't allude to you know, them
Speaker 1: being old, like they're very fresh. You maybe smell elk,
Speaker 1: you know, fresh turned up dirt sitting on top of
Speaker 1: the ferns and the salal or the grass like nothing's
Speaker 1: moved that yet, and you take those as very fresh elk.
Speaker 1: I may figure out which way the elk are going,
Speaker 1: try to make a plan, you know, either through on
Speaker 1: X or just by looking at at the terrain that's
Speaker 1: in front of me, and I may make a decision.
Speaker 1: I think these elk for this time of day are
Speaker 1: probably bedded down in there. They were here within the
Speaker 1: last twelve fourteen hours, you know, or whatever. It may
Speaker 1: be twenty four at the worst, I may elect to
Speaker 1: go try to track these things as far as I
Speaker 1: can or getting close, and that has worked out. So
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, anywhere, not just necessarily you know, steep, timber, rocky,
Speaker 1: you know, hell holes, but anywhere that I cross fresh
Speaker 1: elk sign, I may elect to be quiet, you know,
Speaker 1: especially if the elk aren't biggling on their own, I'll
Speaker 1: just I'll be quiet, get on the tracks and go
Speaker 1: try to tract those down. And I'm always assuming for
Speaker 1: the month of September even into the middle of October,
Speaker 1: that if I cross elk tracks, whether I can see
Speaker 1: a bull track or not, I'm assuming that there's always
Speaker 1: a bowl, you know, with those with with the elk tracks,
Speaker 1: until I prove otherwise. So that's uh, that's my opinion
Speaker 1: on that. I'm always calling a little bit. I may
Speaker 1: call more sparingly in the Timber, but it just it
Speaker 1: increases my odds as I'm hunting to get an answer
Speaker 1: or to get the game started, versus relying on sneaking
Speaker 1: in on them if they're talking or if they're betted
Speaker 1: down or not talking. Uh. The last question I've got
Speaker 1: for you guys today, which is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a joke from one of my hunting partners, Tyson Drevnock,
Speaker 1: about my buddy Charlie Smith. Will Charlie Smith ever killing
Speaker 1: elk again? I really hope so. Uh, I was joking
Speaker 1: with Charlie the other day the last elkie killed. I
Speaker 1: think he's on a seven year dry spell. The last
Speaker 1: elk we killed, we have a hunter together forever was
Speaker 1: a bowl I called in form in Idaho, which he
Speaker 1: actually it was his wife's turn to hunt, and somehow
Speaker 1: Charlie ended up being the shooter but called a nice
Speaker 1: little six point into him and.
Speaker 2: Uh he was able to to shoot that.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm really hoping he uh he uh man,
Speaker 1: he can he can get off of this bad luck
Speaker 1: streak that he's on. You know, it's it's it's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: He just he's just struggling. But I have to laugh
Speaker 1: because my buddies are they're ruthless, and they they wanted
Speaker 1: to always, you know, give each other a little bit
Speaker 1: of guff on on who's gonna who's gonna kill first?
Speaker 1: And what and so uh, I think Tyson for making
Speaker 1: me laugh a little bit on where it will. Charlie Smith,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he'll kill an elk again. He might just
Speaker 1: have to draw another special tag or have me go
Speaker 1: call for him again. But Charlie will eventually kill an elk.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but uh no. We really appreciate all these
Speaker 1: questions coming in from the Elk addicts. Once again, you
Speaker 1: have questions for me or my guests or Dirking his guests,
Speaker 1: feel free to email them to us at c T
Speaker 1: D at phelpsgame Calls dot com, or hit us up
Speaker 1: on social media. Send us a message and we'll do
Speaker 1: our best to get him included here. Elk seasons right
Speaker 1: around the corner. We're we're practicing our calling. We're starting
Speaker 1: to get our bows set up, figuring out our arrow
Speaker 1: set up, our broad heads. Like everything is in in
Speaker 1: in full swing, and before you know it, you know,
Speaker 1: we're only two months, two and a half months out
Speaker 1: from everything needed to be dialed. It's time to start
Speaker 1: thinking about elk uh. It's it's it's by far my
Speaker 1: favorite type of hunting. You're you're out there with a like,
Speaker 1: i say, an eight hundred pound you know, screaming giant.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of fun. Nothing quite gets your
Speaker 1: adrenaline up like archery el cunting, and I'm I'm so
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. But yeah, I keep sending your
Speaker 1: all cutting questions in I'm sure you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: healthy dose over the next two and a half months
Speaker 1: elk centric before you know, the white tail and mildeary
Speaker 1: season gets here. We'll kind of switch gears there, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a whole heavy You're gonna get a
Speaker 1: heavy dose of elk hunting here for the next little bit.
Speaker 2: So appreciate all you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into cutting the distance, and until next time,
Speaker 1: take care. Non