Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics. They'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. You are in the elk woods.
Speaker 1: There's elk around. They're calling, You're calling. Yet when you call,
Speaker 1: that bull just rounded up his cows and went the
Speaker 1: other direction. That ever happened to you probably has. You
Speaker 1: might be thinking yourself, what was I doing wrong? And
Speaker 1: how do I regularly bugle in one of those bulls
Speaker 1: that decides to take his cows away from me? This week,
Speaker 1: I want to cover some advanced bugling trickery. Elk season
Speaker 1: is upon us, and therefore I would divulge the info
Speaker 1: quite reluctantly, because this is one of my best kept
Speaker 1: elk hunting secrets, and I'm not really sure anybody has
Speaker 1: gone into this tactic in this kind of detail. What
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about is dogging a bull. In that
Speaker 1: scenario where the bull runs away, you've actually done nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: In fact, you've done everything right. Now an elk moving
Speaker 1: away might mean something, But I'm gonna tell you what
Speaker 1: that means and the deadliest tactics to employ to what
Speaker 1: I like to call bulldogging that animal. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you a story of a little bull, not even
Speaker 1: a little bull, a bull, a bull that I like
Speaker 1: to call Stubby mcnubbins. Now, this bull has tricked many
Speaker 1: a hunter's. He had a six point antler on one side,
Speaker 1: then a five point on the other, with this big
Speaker 1: old drop time that dropped down past his face. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the antlers that made him Stubby mcnubbans.
Speaker 1: It was the way he walked. He just walked with authority.
Speaker 1: He was the meanest bull in this particular area, and
Speaker 1: I had had many encounters with him over the years. Now,
Speaker 1: while guiding, one year, I was sitting on a area
Speaker 1: glassing and sure enough I turned up Mr Stubby mcnubbs.
Speaker 1: I rarely name elk or anything that I'm hunting, but
Speaker 1: this this one I've had a history with. So I
Speaker 1: make a play. The plan is get down wind and
Speaker 1: the wind happens to be going down is near evening,
Speaker 1: Get in and he has a harem of cows with him.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good size heard, I would say fifty
Speaker 1: plus elk, and Stubby is the ring leader. Like, how
Speaker 1: am I going to get this bull to come in?
Speaker 1: There are other bulls here, but man, nothing compares to
Speaker 1: a little Stubby. So play is get down wind, creep
Speaker 1: in as close as possible to the herd, let out
Speaker 1: a bugle. I'm hoping that I'll be within his cows.
Speaker 1: He'll think, mah dang, I'm the boss. No, not in
Speaker 1: my house. Come in for a fight. Arrow him, sweet done.
Speaker 1: Old Stubby had a different plan. Old Stubby wanted to
Speaker 1: see how well our lungs worked and how athletic we
Speaker 1: could get. Because when I bugled, Stubby bugle back rounded
Speaker 1: up his cows and took them the other direction. I
Speaker 1: looked at my hunter and said, we're gonna go. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think he's probably already tired by this point. But
Speaker 1: when I say we're gonna go, I mean we're going.
Speaker 1: This is this is Stubby we're talking about here. I
Speaker 1: have a history with this bull. Right he starts putting
Speaker 1: his cows up the hill. The cows are making all
Speaker 1: kinds of racket. There's enough of them where it's almost
Speaker 1: seems mass confusion. But he is leading the charge. He's
Speaker 1: pushing these elk up the mountain away from us. We
Speaker 1: are about I would say, two thirds of the way
Speaker 1: from the bottom, and I know for a fact he's
Speaker 1: gonna push him all the way to the top. As
Speaker 1: he starts working the elk, it's nearly impossible to lose
Speaker 1: this herd because you can hear not only him bugling
Speaker 1: pretty much every time I bugle, but the cows just
Speaker 1: going off. He's definitely trying to rain him in and
Speaker 1: push him in the direction he wants. We move as
Speaker 1: fast as we can, chasing after these elks. I'm bugling
Speaker 1: as I'm further away. I'm I'm bugling like a smaller bowl.
Speaker 1: As I get closer, bugle and meaner and meaner. The
Speaker 1: sound starts to disappear, and that, I know means that
Speaker 1: they dipped over the top of the ridge. I look
Speaker 1: at my hunter and I'm like, we need to get
Speaker 1: to the top now. We we pretty much gave it
Speaker 1: every thing we had as soon as we got to
Speaker 1: the ridge. We're practically running to the top where they
Speaker 1: went over. When we got to the top, out of breath,
Speaker 1: I set up the cow decoy. I had a montana
Speaker 1: decoy and I had the stakes in it. It was
Speaker 1: all ready to go at this point. I got it
Speaker 1: out as we were moving fast. I get just over
Speaker 1: the rise of the top, dropped down a little bit,
Speaker 1: set up the decoy kind of in the open, let
Speaker 1: out a call. I hear Stubby and then I see
Speaker 1: antler tips he is coming in, and he's coming in hard,
Speaker 1: stomping his way up. Well, my thought is there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of small conifers right behind us, and I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: I whispered to my hunter. When he gets behind these trees,
Speaker 1: you'll draw. He's coming on a straight line. He's gonna
Speaker 1: be right in our laps. The decoys up and we're
Speaker 1: kind of hiding behind the decoy. As Stubby stomping his
Speaker 1: way up here, that decoy falls over. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a stake very good. The ground was hard. The decoy
Speaker 1: just falls forward slowly right onto the ground. But old
Speaker 1: Stubby's so dang fired up. He gives zero fs and
Speaker 1: keeps coming. Yet I think the act of the decoy
Speaker 1: falling over, and now just feeling exposed, I just whispered,
Speaker 1: don't move. My hunter is shaking so hard. I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait till he crossed. There's one little pine. He has
Speaker 1: ten more steps. He's gonna go right behind this little pint.
Speaker 1: He can draw, and he's gonna have a ten yards
Speaker 1: broadside shot. Stubby is ours, the hunter is shaking, and
Speaker 1: just I think, essentially freaks out, does a really big
Speaker 1: motion to draw. Stubby stops, wheels around, starts to run.
Speaker 1: I hit the bugle. He stops at thirty yards. I
Speaker 1: call it thirty yards. Lets the arrow go whack, hits
Speaker 1: the damn tree right behind him. The bull runs off
Speaker 1: a bugle again fifty yards. The hunter draws back, then
Speaker 1: stands up. Stubby season and that's that runs off. The
Speaker 1: key to this entire setup working is first understanding elk behavior,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna kind of define the tactic. So
Speaker 1: here here's the trouble that people have when they bugle
Speaker 1: a bull and then the bull gathers up his cows
Speaker 1: and runs away. They think, oh, I must have done
Speaker 1: something wrong. He didn't like the way I sounded. A
Speaker 1: lot of elk calling is not how well you bugle,
Speaker 1: but how you use the type of call for the scenario,
Speaker 1: because all elks sound different, and I have heard real
Speaker 1: elk that just sound like the worst callers in the world. Heck,
Speaker 1: I believe that I am a better caller than most
Speaker 1: helk out there, and maybe that's the problem sometimes. But
Speaker 1: you gotta look at it like this. As a human,
Speaker 1: when we call, we assume that they think that we
Speaker 1: are humans and we did something wrong. You really have
Speaker 1: to look at it through the elk's eyes. When an
Speaker 1: elk rounds up his cows, it probably means the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of what you're thinking. If the wind is good
Speaker 1: and there's no reason for him to round him up,
Speaker 1: he's actually reacting to you like you are a real elk,
Speaker 1: which is what you want. That's the whole part of calling.
Speaker 1: Deception is a bull thinking that you are a real elk,
Speaker 1: because that's what elk do when they encounter each other.
Speaker 1: A bull like Stubby mcnubbins is a herd. Bull that's
Speaker 1: his herd. He can't just run in and fight every
Speaker 1: single elk that approaches him. A lot of times he
Speaker 1: gets those elk on the move and then hopefully pushes
Speaker 1: those elk away from the elk that's trying to come
Speaker 1: after him. Now, why would he do that. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons he would do that. But the primary
Speaker 1: reason is he just doesn't want to have to deal
Speaker 1: with that bull on those terms. He wants to feel
Speaker 1: that bull out. He wants to win a vocal battle
Speaker 1: before having to exert physical energy, and he can do
Speaker 1: that by just talking with that bull as he's moving
Speaker 1: those cows away and letting those cows know, look, this
Speaker 1: is my herd. That guy doesn't mean anything. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna keep it like this. But there are ways that
Speaker 1: you can call and ways that you can react to
Speaker 1: the way he's pushing those elk away like a real
Speaker 1: elk would, which would incite him to turn around and
Speaker 1: challenge you. I would classify the tactic of bulldogging is this.
Speaker 1: It's where you persist on a bull to the point
Speaker 1: where he has no other option but to turn around
Speaker 1: and fight. And that's what you want. So how do
Speaker 1: you get to that point? It's in the technique and
Speaker 1: the tactics of calling. It takes two things. It takes
Speaker 1: the right set up and would say the most important
Speaker 1: some physical stamina. The reason that I would stay in
Speaker 1: shape for elk hunting is because of this tactic, because
Speaker 1: it is so successful that if you can pull it off,
Speaker 1: you pull it off regularly. So let's set up the scenario.
Speaker 1: The end game where most bulls turn around and fight
Speaker 1: is what you're reaching for. That happens as you gain
Speaker 1: the dominant position over that bowl, which sees himself as
Speaker 1: a dominant bull. Where does that happen when you actually
Speaker 1: gain elevation over the elk? So what I like to
Speaker 1: do is I like to push the elk uphill and
Speaker 1: I would say seven out of ten times I can
Speaker 1: get that bowl. If if I've kept up, it's probably
Speaker 1: more like nine out of ten times I can get
Speaker 1: that bowl to turn around and come in. Once he's
Speaker 1: crested the top and I am above him within two yards.
Speaker 1: Now you think, well, I could never catch up to elk,
Speaker 1: But it isn't that he's moving that whole herd of elk.
Speaker 1: Those cows don't don't really give a rat's ass. They
Speaker 1: don't want to be pushed around. Half those cows are
Speaker 1: gonna be feeding, they're gonna be stopping. I've even seen
Speaker 1: cows get over the top and lay down because he's
Speaker 1: just maintaining that herd and trying to assert his dominance
Speaker 1: in a group of elk that is mostly matriarchal except
Speaker 1: for during the rut, like he's running the roost right now,
Speaker 1: But those cows really know that they run the ship
Speaker 1: the year. So even though he's pushing him away, a
Speaker 1: lot of those cows are dawdling, they're doing their thing.
Speaker 1: He's not really trying to make them run away from you.
Speaker 1: He's just trying to say, look, I'm in charge right now.
Speaker 1: And so it gives you the opportunity to get into
Speaker 1: that bull's head through the calling, and also gives you
Speaker 1: the opportunity, with the right amount of physical exertion to
Speaker 1: catch up and give yourself that scenario where he drops
Speaker 1: over the ridge and you're now on the top, which
Speaker 1: is where he's probably going to turn around and chasing.
Speaker 1: So in order for the setup to work, you need
Speaker 1: a downhill wind and you want to start calling below
Speaker 1: the bull. A lot of times you'll find that if
Speaker 1: you're below and elk calling and he is a dominant elk,
Speaker 1: he will actually call a lot back to you, but
Speaker 1: he won't actually come into you most of the time.
Speaker 1: There was the occasional time they do. But when you
Speaker 1: get that dominant bull on the move and then get
Speaker 1: above him, it pisces him off. So I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: through the calling techniques to get that bull to that
Speaker 1: piste off point. So it's gonna work when you get
Speaker 1: to the top. You put in all that energy hiking
Speaker 1: chasing after him. You want to make sure you do
Speaker 1: the right sequence to get him to turn around more
Speaker 1: often than not. So it starts out like this. Let's
Speaker 1: say the scenario is you call, he calls, You call,
Speaker 1: he calls. You're below him, the winds going downhill. You've
Speaker 1: got the right setup. You're gonna want him to push
Speaker 1: those elk uphill, those cows uphill because they don't really
Speaker 1: like to go uphill. It's physically exhausting. He's going to
Speaker 1: be running around a lot, and he knows that's what's
Speaker 1: gonna put him in a bad mental state when you
Speaker 1: get to the top. When I start out at a
Speaker 1: further distance, I like to sound small from a distance
Speaker 1: and sound big as I get closer. There's a reason
Speaker 1: for that. It's a mental game in his head. As
Speaker 1: he's pushing those elk, you want him to constantly scream back,
Speaker 1: I'm the boss. I'm the boss. But as you get closer,
Speaker 1: you want him to doubt what's happening. You want to
Speaker 1: now tell the elk the cows around him that you're
Speaker 1: the boss. You're the boss, So you want him to
Speaker 1: get brazen from a distance and then be bold as
Speaker 1: you get closer. So let's say it like this, the
Speaker 1: elks start moving call, I'm doing more simple, drawn out bugles,
Speaker 1: not a lot of emphasis into it. To start. I'll
Speaker 1: let him build up. My first aggressive bugle is going
Speaker 1: to be as he's clearly moving in the direction I want,
Speaker 1: I'll start the chuckling sequence. Your hope is, and it
Speaker 1: will probably happen, is that bull starts chuckling back. Now,
Speaker 1: this scenario works when the elker kind of in a frenzy,
Speaker 1: you'll hear a lot of cow calling. You hear that
Speaker 1: bull bugling, and that's how you're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: stay on these elk and follow him. As I get closer,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start throwing cow calls in the bulls distance
Speaker 1: through my bugle tube and bugles away from the bull.
Speaker 1: The reason is is I want him to believe that
Speaker 1: there are cows. Like let's say we're getting towards the
Speaker 1: top third of the hill. I want him to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's still cows back there, and the bulls behind. I
Speaker 1: want him to believe that the bulls further away than
Speaker 1: I actually am, because what that's gonna do is that's
Speaker 1: going to slow him down. He's gonna try to keep
Speaker 1: a certain distance from me. But if he thinks the
Speaker 1: bulls further away, that allows me time to catch up. Also,
Speaker 1: if he thinks there's cows where I matt, that might
Speaker 1: give him the idea of okay, I still have things
Speaker 1: to round up. Now, the play really comes in when
Speaker 1: you get to the top. Once you get over the top,
Speaker 1: he's lost whatever elk might have been behind. This is
Speaker 1: the point where right now throw out cow calls at
Speaker 1: the top, but switch the roles. I throw the cow
Speaker 1: calls back behind me, so he thinks the cows are
Speaker 1: further away. My first bugle over the top is going
Speaker 1: to be the meanest, hardest bugle I can do. I'm
Speaker 1: talking a type of bugle. And when you both through
Speaker 1: the bugle tube, it's like someone kicked you in the nuts.
Speaker 1: If you don't have nuts, it's like you're kicking someone
Speaker 1: else in the nuts. The reason is is because you
Speaker 1: want him to believe that now this bowl is between
Speaker 1: him and his cows, he has the upper hand by
Speaker 1: being above him, and he is piste and claiming that
Speaker 1: herd any bowl in his right mind that doesn't want
Speaker 1: to lose his cows is now going to turn around
Speaker 1: and try to push you off or fight this other
Speaker 1: intruder off. You're at the top of the hill and
Speaker 1: you're just gonna go. It doesn't even matter what really
Speaker 1: the call sounds like at the top, as long as
Speaker 1: it sounds piste like elk. Feel that feeling. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna throw the cow calls back behind me, and then
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let out just something, throwing some voice
Speaker 1: inflections and just sound angry. I mean by this point
Speaker 1: that the real bulls throat might be cracking. He's gonna
Speaker 1: sound weird. It's okay, it doesn't matter. Just sound angry.
Speaker 1: At that point that bull below you should not like that,
Speaker 1: and you'll know he'll turn around and he'll either comes
Speaker 1: straight in or he'll let out a similar bugle, start
Speaker 1: raking and then come in. That is your that up
Speaker 1: where you're gonna get that bull. If you've made it
Speaker 1: to that point, congratulations, my friend. You just dog that
Speaker 1: elk now buglin chasing elk? That right, there's what it
Speaker 1: gets a blood pumping that is the epitome of September
Speaker 1: elk hunting, but doesn't always go down like that. So
Speaker 1: next week I want to talk about those times where
Speaker 1: those elk are not making a peat. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you the secret to calling in a bull that doesn't
Speaker 1: want to respond on those weeks where it sounds like
Speaker 1: nothing's in the woods and nothing's happening. As always, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, I appreciate it. Feel free to give us
Speaker 1: a good rating if you like it, they'll keep us going.
Speaker 1: Drop a good comment. Also, you can always reach out
Speaker 1: via social media Instagram, what have You or email me
Speaker 1: here Remy at the meat eater dot com. I love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Hopefully I hear some awesome success
Speaker 1: stories of things that went right for you this phone.
Speaker 1: So next week catch you then. M