Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. We
Speaker 1: are in the middle of September, well, not quite the middle,
Speaker 1: it's September tenth. I decided to call up my good
Speaker 1: buddy Dirk and see how his seasons went. I know
Speaker 1: he's got to go out on a hunt with his
Speaker 1: son Austin already. I've been out in the woods until
Speaker 1: the six and we're just gonna kind of jump into it,
Speaker 1: you know, talk about what we're seeing, what we're hearing,
Speaker 1: and then see if we can't, I if some of
Speaker 1: our experiences can't can't translate and help you guys out.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Dirk.
Speaker 2: Oh, hey, how's it going to day?
Speaker 1: Oh it's excellent. It really sucks, though, to be sitting
Speaker 1: in my office on September tenth not hunting. I don't
Speaker 1: like it one bit.
Speaker 2: I know this is the first time that being employed
Speaker 2: at Philip's game calls it. I've actually been home the
Speaker 2: first two weeks of September.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird. I don't want to spoil the story
Speaker 1: that's coming up. There's a reason in your home right now,
Speaker 1: but we'll get we'll get to that. Yeah. Uh no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start off we've we've been doing some episodes,
Speaker 1: I haven't been getting into the our Q and A session,
Speaker 1: But today we're going to get back to you know,
Speaker 1: season opens up me and you've got Instagram, Facebook messages
Speaker 1: kind of rolling in on social media, and so we're
Speaker 1: gonna share some of those with you and we're gonna
Speaker 1: jump into it. But I'm gonna have Dirk bring us
Speaker 1: into the Q and A.
Speaker 2: You mean the the Pendleton Whiskey Q and A. That
Speaker 2: Q and A Letterbuck?
Speaker 1: Is that the leading?
Speaker 2: Is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, all right, thanks Dirk. Yeah, so Pendleton's bringing
Speaker 1: us the Q and A today we we uh, we
Speaker 1: went and cherry picked three pretty decent questions, you know,
Speaker 1: from from our listeners and our followers and our customers.
Speaker 1: So our first one comes from Tanner Bartlin. I hope
Speaker 1: I got that name right. He's an organ he's on
Speaker 1: the coast. He said he's seeing lots of elk but
Speaker 1: just can't get them to respect. Are there any tips
Speaker 1: to get those elk to respond? Give them your best shot? Derek?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a tough one. I feel like we get
Speaker 2: this question quite a bit. In fact, I kind of
Speaker 2: questioned myself quite a bit you'll be out there, you'll
Speaker 2: be seeing elk and they will not talk. And there's
Speaker 2: no amount of like special calling or secret, super secret
Speaker 2: little calls that will make them talk sometimes and it's
Speaker 2: just a game of like they're on the mood to talk.
Speaker 2: I've set there just out of archery range of bulls
Speaker 2: and called to them and they didn't even raise their
Speaker 2: head before. So timing is everything, I guess. So don't
Speaker 2: get discouraged. There's a couple of things you could do.
Speaker 2: You could just sit back, wait by your time. I
Speaker 2: know that elk calling can work like a light switch.
Speaker 2: Like one day it is completely off, there's nothing working
Speaker 2: elk or not. You're seeing elk and they're feeding, they're
Speaker 2: not running, and the very next day it can be mayhem.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just gonna take a cow coming into
Speaker 2: heat or whatever to get them going. And it seems
Speaker 2: like once you start getting some cows coming into heat,
Speaker 2: and even if you don't have one that's in heat
Speaker 2: that particular day, bulls know it's that time. It's like
Speaker 2: they've smelled it. They've they've chased around, they've played around,
Speaker 2: they've might have even courted a lady. So they're more
Speaker 2: callable at that point. But but if it's at a
Speaker 2: maybe earlier in the season and they're just not talking,
Speaker 2: maybe you're better off to kind of lay back and
Speaker 2: bide your time. That's typically what I'll do. I'll kind
Speaker 2: of lay back by my time and either watch those
Speaker 2: elk from Afar or this is what I'll typically do.
Speaker 2: I will I'll change zip codes. I'll just keep moving.
Speaker 2: I will move and change areas until I can find
Speaker 2: one that's that wants to play. It's crazy. You can
Speaker 2: drive ten twenty thirty miles away from one group of
Speaker 2: elk to a different group of elk and they'll be
Speaker 2: acting completely different. So that's typically what I'll do is
Speaker 2: if I can't find out that the bugle in one spot,
Speaker 2: I'm going to switch areas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I when this question gets brought up or we
Speaker 1: get asked, I always go back to that hunt that
Speaker 1: I had in twenty eighteen with Tyson and Idaho. It
Speaker 1: was maddening. I was so frustrated because we would glass
Speaker 1: bowls every morning. You know, you weren't spooking them. They
Speaker 1: had no idea you were there. You were bugling into
Speaker 1: their canyon, and they would literally maybe turn their head
Speaker 1: maybe acknowledge that a bugle came from that way, and
Speaker 1: they go right back to what they're doing. And so
Speaker 1: then now I'm starting to get worried as we go
Speaker 1: by these timber patches that I can't see into, like
Speaker 1: are these elk not responding? And as much as I
Speaker 1: want them to respond, I don't think you necessarily need
Speaker 1: to to be effective at hunting at times if you
Speaker 1: are obviously tanner seeing the elk, you know, you can
Speaker 1: go into you can go into you know, spot in
Speaker 1: stock mode. You know a lot of times if you're
Speaker 1: gonna use just cow calls early in the season, that
Speaker 1: bowl may come in silent anyway, so you can still
Speaker 1: go in and maybe effectively call without you know, getting
Speaker 1: them to bugle on their way in. So there's there's other,
Speaker 1: you know tips as far as like forcing them to call.
Speaker 1: I'm I tend to agree with Dirk, like there's just
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes there's nothing in your in your your your
Speaker 1: toolbox it's gonna get him to work. I will typically
Speaker 1: go from like the high note typical location be agle
Speaker 1: to like a midnote bugle, try to get you know,
Speaker 1: change it up to see if I can get them
Speaker 1: to answer. But at times you're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: sit back, wait it out, you know, hunt them, spot
Speaker 1: in stock and and and make that work. If if
Speaker 1: if the country in the layout, you know, lets you
Speaker 1: hunt that way.
Speaker 2: I will say too, depending on the day of the hunt.
Speaker 2: If this is early season, you've got a lot of
Speaker 2: time to hunt yet in the season, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: get to hunt. This is opening weekend and you got
Speaker 2: every weekend the rest of the season to hunt, or
Speaker 2: maybe you have a lot of time off. I just
Speaker 2: don't push it that hard.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If we're at the bottom of the ninth and it's
Speaker 2: your your time is short into the season, short into
Speaker 2: your time off as short, that's when maybe you know
Speaker 2: you don't have enough time to go relocate some elk.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's the time we dig in and yeah, we
Speaker 2: try to make something happen. Get in get in tight,
Speaker 2: get in close, maybe put the calls away. You know,
Speaker 2: I love calling elkin, but dang it, you know, if
Speaker 2: I got to sept the calls aside and sneak up
Speaker 2: close and shoot one, I will I will do it.
Speaker 2: Definitely do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So our second question comes from Abe Clark.
Speaker 1: Do we call differently in the morning versus the afternoon
Speaker 1: versus the evening.
Speaker 2: I pretty much run the same play all day, whether
Speaker 2: it's the first of September or the later in the month. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say first part of September, when bulls are
Speaker 2: maybe not quite as vocal, maybe they're not getting wound up.
Speaker 2: It's more of a just a kind of a communication
Speaker 2: where they're kind of saying, hey, they're to each other.
Speaker 2: You'll you'll don't You'll know whenever you get those replies
Speaker 2: from bulls, when they're just that kind of that money
Speaker 2: bugle that you know they're not just doing full bugles
Speaker 2: and screams and chuckles and stuff. You can just tell
Speaker 2: by their attitude. Then if the elk are doing those
Speaker 2: mony bugles, I'm going to start doing those mony bugles.
Speaker 2: Like use that the old phrase win in Rome right
Speaker 2: when in Rome doing this the Romans. So if those
Speaker 2: those elk are not being super aggressive with their calls,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty pretty non aggressive with them. But but I'll
Speaker 2: do that in the morning at first light, if it's
Speaker 2: the middle of the day, if it's evening, I will
Speaker 2: do I will run the same place. I will run
Speaker 2: location bugles to try to hear bulls bugle back, I
Speaker 2: will use a few cow calls. I will usually typically
Speaker 2: kind of The first bugle will be a pretty light,
Speaker 2: non aggressive bugle, the second one, I'll turn it up
Speaker 2: a notch. My third bugle will be like Max ten
Speaker 2: and with a big, heavy, scream lit ball with lots
Speaker 2: of giant, thunderous bugles, and in between those all cow call.
Speaker 2: But like I said, if it's early season and I
Speaker 2: haven't been hearing any kind of bulls doc like that,
Speaker 2: I'm probably just going to keep them simple to just
Speaker 2: mony type bugles.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, we'll get into our season recap, but I've
Speaker 1: got some points, you know, when we get to there.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been communicating with the cows more and
Speaker 1: I have the bulls it seems like in this early season,
Speaker 1: and so I'm going to piggyback on that. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna save that more for for the current action we've
Speaker 1: had here in Washington. The third question, and I apologize
Speaker 1: I didn't get this guy's name. I just remember answering
Speaker 1: the question. I couldn't find it when I went to
Speaker 1: go go back and look his name up. He asked,
Speaker 1: we had a pretty good hot streak there. I think
Speaker 1: you had you were in the nineties and Idaho I
Speaker 1: was just in the nineties here, you know, the September
Speaker 1: sixth and seventh, during that hot weather, are there times
Speaker 1: where you just go and sit wallows and try to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the heat and what they elk are
Speaker 1: going to do. And then if so, how do you
Speaker 1: use your calls when you're sitting at wallows?
Speaker 2: Yeah, if that's what I'm left to do is sitting
Speaker 2: at wallow. First off, it's going to have to be
Speaker 2: an active wallow because if if you've walked around the
Speaker 2: September woods too very much and you're an area there's
Speaker 2: where there's quite a bit of water, you'll come across
Speaker 2: wallows pretty frequently and they may or may not have
Speaker 2: been used that day, and sometimes they just may happenstance
Speaker 2: just walk by, flop down and roll around and keep
Speaker 2: going onto the you know, to carry about their day.
Speaker 2: If there's lots of water, I mean not set at
Speaker 2: a particular wall wallow and hang out. But if there
Speaker 2: is a wallow with a lot of traffic and there's
Speaker 2: not a lot of water close by, I would definitely
Speaker 2: put some time into it. And how I would how
Speaker 2: I would call there is. I would. I would sit down.
Speaker 2: I'd make a few cow calls. I might even whenever
Speaker 2: I first get there, I might even grab a big
Speaker 2: stick and splash it around. I did this one time.
Speaker 2: I splashed the stick and splashed wallow mud into my
Speaker 2: friend's mouth, so it tasted like lp. And you know,
Speaker 2: be careful with where you're swinging that muddy stick. But
Speaker 2: splash around a bit, do some cow calls, and then
Speaker 2: maybe some bugles. Splashing around, and then just go down wind,
Speaker 2: you know, get down wind of the wallow where you
Speaker 2: could still shoot towards the wallow, and if there's a
Speaker 2: bowl at the wallow, you can still hit them. You're
Speaker 2: within your effective range. But I would sit on the
Speaker 2: down wheel it inside in case they come circle around down.
Speaker 1: Why do you yeah, yeah, We've got to watch quite
Speaker 1: a few out the last couple of days come out
Speaker 1: into water and they do exactly that. They you know,
Speaker 1: even the older mature cows were out there splashing around
Speaker 1: and you could hear it from seventy eight hundred yards away,
Speaker 1: you know, those oak splashing and playing in the water
Speaker 1: when they'd come out of bed. You know, real hot day.
Speaker 1: But I'm with you. I think I don't got the
Speaker 1: patience to sit a wallow for very long, but I
Speaker 1: also know what it sometimes takes to kill. And if
Speaker 1: I think those are my my my best bets, which
Speaker 1: it obviously would have been this last week, you know,
Speaker 1: splash around you natural sounds. And then when when real
Speaker 1: bulls get to a wall they will sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: if that herd's coming out and they're kind of scattered
Speaker 1: or they're kind of single file, kind of sporadically, that
Speaker 1: bowl is still calling when he gets there, So it's
Speaker 1: it's not it's not necessarily you know, you're allowed to call.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to necessarily be quiet, so
Speaker 1: you want to let yourself, you know, let the other
Speaker 1: elk know that there's a bull out the wallow. You know,
Speaker 1: just use natural calls. Now, if I was sitting on
Speaker 1: a wallow like mid day and I think that I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to maybe you know, those bulls will get
Speaker 1: up out of bed and maybe go check a wall,
Speaker 1: or if they're bedding close to the wall, he may
Speaker 1: able get a drink or kind of cool off. I
Speaker 1: may not elect to call as much in that situation,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're you're you're you're allowed to call and uh,
Speaker 1: like I say, get down wind from where I think
Speaker 1: the elk are going to come. You may have to
Speaker 1: give them, you know, ninety degrees a wind to get
Speaker 1: him to come in. But you as long as you're
Speaker 1: you're conservative, and uh, the the wind isn't blowing in
Speaker 1: the direction you think they're coming from. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: on that and make sure I've got good shooting lanes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this this hot weather streak sometimes it's your
Speaker 1: best bet to lay eyes on a bowl.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that movie Predator with Arn Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 1: I'm the worst movie buff ever. Like, I don't watch ar.
Speaker 2: This is an old one. You've probably should have seen
Speaker 2: that on.
Speaker 1: Your Maybe have, but I don't remember it if I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, towards the end of the movie, when he's
Speaker 2: getting ready to kill this Predator guy, you know, he
Speaker 2: gets Arnold gets pretty serious and he covers himself with mud,
Speaker 2: and you know, and well, the only thing that's not
Speaker 2: covered in mud is his eyeballs because he's covering up
Speaker 2: his heat signature. He wants to be cold. He jumps
Speaker 2: in a cold lake and covers himself in mud. That way,
Speaker 2: the predator can't see heat signature and anyway, uh. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, I got the pleasure hunting this this
Speaker 2: big track to private land and I had to hunt
Speaker 2: with a guide and it was really weird. But you know,
Speaker 2: you know, when you get an invite like that, that's
Speaker 2: who's going to turn that down, right. So we're hunting
Speaker 2: and the guy says, hey, I know there's some good
Speaker 2: wallows down here. Let's go down there and we'll do
Speaker 2: some Maybe we'll sit by a wallow and do some calling.
Speaker 2: And it was hot. We get down there and we
Speaker 2: walk up on the wallows and we're just kind of
Speaker 2: you know, we just walk and not really paying too
Speaker 2: close attention. We walk up to this wallow and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, out of the mud erupts this bowl.
Speaker 2: There was a bowl laying sleeping in the wallow, and
Speaker 2: he was covering head to toe and mud. He would
Speaker 2: he looked like mud. He looked like he looked like
Speaker 2: Arnold Arnold on Predator. The only thing that wasn't covered
Speaker 2: was his eyeballs. And it's like we caught him sleep
Speaker 2: and he jumped up like oh, like he was caught there.
Speaker 1: In the headlights.
Speaker 2: And then just booked it bolted out there. So we're like,
Speaker 2: oh man, this is going to be great. So we
Speaker 2: set down, We did a little bit of call and
Speaker 2: did just like I said, splashed around a little bit,
Speaker 2: set down, Me and Dave. Dave framed cameraman Dave. I'm like, Dave,
Speaker 2: you can sit in the shade. I'll sit in the
Speaker 2: sun because you know, I don't want to be a jerk.
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting there in the sun and the flies.
Speaker 2: The flies were so bad and it was like eight
Speaker 2: hundred degrees.
Speaker 1: No. And once again, if you guys have any questions
Speaker 1: for me or Dirk or any of our guests, uh,
Speaker 1: feel free to email them to us at ctdapp phelps
Speaker 1: Game Calls dot com or seems like the way we
Speaker 1: get the majority of these questions just through social media,
Speaker 1: either Dirk or my social media pages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we even have a super secret number. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you'd rather, if you'd rather, just call in and leave
Speaker 2: your message and we'll play your message on the line.
Speaker 2: Call in at two zero eight two one nine seven
Speaker 2: seven zero one. Leave a message and it can't be
Speaker 2: over three minutes. I think it's three minutes and it'll
Speaker 2: cut you off. So keep it, keep your question short,
Speaker 2: get to the point, and we'll see if we can
Speaker 2: answer it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So we appreciate all of you guys for
Speaker 1: sending your questions in so we can answer them here
Speaker 1: on the podcast. But now we're going to kind of
Speaker 1: jump into what we've seen so far in the you know,
Speaker 1: first first week, accept t plus or minus, and then
Speaker 1: what we're kind of you know, we're we're I feel
Speaker 1: like we're lucky. We get updates on hundreds of guys hunts,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's you know, text or this or
Speaker 1: that or sea bulls before they're ever posted. And and
Speaker 1: so we've got a pretty good idea what's happened the
Speaker 1: last couple of days. So we're going to jump right
Speaker 1: into that. How about you know, your your son, Austin,
Speaker 1: I believe, hadn't killed a bull for eleven thirteen years,
Speaker 1: and you guys had made it a made it a
Speaker 1: point to go out and hunt this year. So give
Speaker 1: us a little recap on early September before I even
Speaker 1: got to go out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Austin hadn't really put any effort or time
Speaker 2: into hunting in the last thirteen years until this year.
Speaker 2: He's like, dang, it. I want to get an elk.
Speaker 2: I want to get some meat. He's married, got a
Speaker 2: baby on the way. I think he's trying to be
Speaker 2: a man. Maybe he's becoming a man. Maybe he just
Speaker 2: wanted to spend some time with the old man. But
Speaker 2: so he shot his bowl all summer and we went
Speaker 2: out hunting, and we I went out early. I put
Speaker 2: out some trail cameras and stuff. I had some some
Speaker 2: elk on trail camp. I'm like, oh, yeah, I got
Speaker 2: a good spot. But the bad part is it was
Speaker 2: fairly close to town. It's pretty close to civilization, and
Speaker 2: I look close to a little mountaintown and sometimes, you know,
Speaker 2: I always figure sometimes there's these little places that are
Speaker 2: overlooked by people. They're like, uh, yeah, there's no elk there.
Speaker 2: They're gonna just drive because they want to get to
Speaker 2: the middle of dang nowhere in the mountains. You know,
Speaker 2: drive it the end of the road and then hike
Speaker 2: another ten miles. But I thought, well, we'll try to
Speaker 2: hunt this opening weekend because it's hot. We want to
Speaker 2: be close to be able to get it out and
Speaker 2: get it to the locker while the meats, you know,
Speaker 2: get it cooled out. So we don't lose any meat.
Speaker 2: So we set up our hunt there our camp and
Speaker 2: opening morning, went out, walked around and the trails were
Speaker 2: just beat down with elk tracks. It looked like it
Speaker 2: looked like cattle trails, but elk tracks and no elk,
Speaker 2: not a peep, not a We didn't spook one that
Speaker 2: we saw. We didn't hear one, but it's pretty quiet.
Speaker 2: And that the night before and that that morning on
Speaker 2: the trail cams the elk had been in there, but
Speaker 2: we just didn't see him. So we go back there
Speaker 2: in the evening and we're getting our way over there.
Speaker 2: We waited till the wind was right. So it's later
Speaker 2: in the evening and look up and there's a dude.
Speaker 2: He's whistling at us, waving. I'm like, ah, dang it,
Speaker 2: there's a guy. Well checked the trail cameras and there
Speaker 2: was no more elk on the trail cameras. Like the
Speaker 2: next day, they're just like they're gone. So it's time
Speaker 2: to branch out. So we drove two hours from camp,
Speaker 2: away from camp into a place we'd never been before.
Speaker 2: I've never driven there. I've never been there in my life.
Speaker 2: We went out there. Phelps had given me a tip.
Speaker 2: He's like, I go out. There's one spot. There's a
Speaker 2: pretty good spot. You and Chuck had got into some
Speaker 2: elk the first time he went to Idaho. By the way,
Speaker 2: we didn't get any into any elk there.
Speaker 1: Oh dang, I was waiting. I was waiting for you
Speaker 1: to tell me it worked out.
Speaker 2: But about another hour past that spot, it was mid
Speaker 2: morning and pretty warm out, and Austin said, hey, we
Speaker 2: should check this place out. So we get out and
Speaker 2: it was kind of a kind of like a high
Speaker 2: alpine meadow, you know, a little bit of scruff timber around,
Speaker 2: and there'd been a fire and stuff. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this looks like a good place you'd find some elk.
Speaker 2: And we pull over and did a little bit of calling,
Speaker 2: and we get a little reply and like, is that
Speaker 2: a moose? It just like, oh, almost like a moose
Speaker 2: would sound. I'm like, and it was kind of moosey,
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of by these little meadow e
Speaker 2: boggy meadows, And so I kept calling a little bit.
Speaker 2: Pretty sooner made another little a little kind of a
Speaker 2: groany noise. I'm like, oh, that sounds like a bowl maybe,
Speaker 2: And then he chuckled a little bit, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that is a bowl. Well it's like ten o'clock and
Speaker 2: the sun's bright overhead, there's no shade and it's brushy,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, ah, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a low percentage move. If we move in on this elk. Now,
Speaker 2: it's gonna we're probably not going to get this bull
Speaker 2: so hard. As hard as it is, we're going to
Speaker 2: back out. So we back out. We go, we'd take
Speaker 2: a nap, we have lunch, we'd lay around, we'd go
Speaker 2: drive around some more and see the country. And man,
Speaker 2: it seems like that time of year when it's hot out.
Speaker 2: The day is ticked by pretty slow. So we get
Speaker 2: back there at six o'clock and hike in, get back
Speaker 2: in there where we heard the bowl, and sure enough
Speaker 2: we get we get an answer. So we push in
Speaker 2: there towards him and I set up start calling and
Speaker 2: I didn't see if Austin said a five point came
Speaker 2: running in right up to me to like thirty yards.
Speaker 2: I never seen it. I never heard it. But he
Speaker 2: was set up looking from a different angle at me.
Speaker 2: He could see the whole thing. And finally it kind
Speaker 2: of disappeared, I guess. But the bowl we were interacting with,
Speaker 2: this five point didn't talk at all. This bull we're
Speaker 2: interacting with then he just not coming to us. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, we got to push up. So
Speaker 2: we pushed up, and all the while he's still doing
Speaker 2: those mony wimpy bugles. So I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing mony wimpy bugles, and these chuckles that are
Speaker 2: just those really weird goofy sounded almost like monkey chuckles,
Speaker 2: sound like a like a teenager that hadn't hit puberty yet,
Speaker 2: and their voice is weird and awkward. This is what
Speaker 2: this elk sounded like. So I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 2: I don't want him to be scared, so I want
Speaker 2: him to stand his ground. So he stood his ground.
Speaker 2: We got up, got up, snuck up, and there's these
Speaker 2: little it's like a whole bunch of little meadows, but
Speaker 2: with little clumps of trees. You know, you have sixty
Speaker 2: yards of trees and then opens up into a meadow
Speaker 2: and then sixty yards of trees. And we got to
Speaker 2: the edge of the trees and I said, okay, Austin,
Speaker 2: you slip out the edge of these trees. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I think that bull is right there. Don't get caught.
Speaker 2: I'm like, just ease out, keep your head on a swevel,
Speaker 2: don't get caught, because I bet that thing stand there looking, watching,
Speaker 2: and he got to the edge of those trees. Sure enough,
Speaker 2: I heard hoofbeats take off running. So I doubled my
Speaker 2: efforts on calling. I start snapping, snapping sticks and twigs
Speaker 2: and started raking, and then started cow calling, and then
Speaker 2: another little wimpy bugle, and within a minute I heard thwining,
Speaker 2: twack or whack whatever. I hear the bow go off
Speaker 2: and the arrow hit and the here a crash off
Speaker 2: and it crashes away and then circles around and comes
Speaker 2: running right over by me. I didn't I couldn't see.
Speaker 2: It's too thick, but it died like forty yards for me.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it turns out and all the while after
Speaker 2: the shot, that other that bowl was still bugling. Well,
Speaker 2: this was a different bull. So there was a bachelor
Speaker 2: group of young bulls. I think the one that was
Speaker 2: bugling was a young bull too. He just sounded like
Speaker 2: it could be wrong. But the one Austin Shaw was
Speaker 2: a little four point probably should have been a spike
Speaker 2: but had four points, and he said he kind of
Speaker 2: felt bad because he's like yeah, and it kind of
Speaker 2: ran off and then it kind of stopped and looked
Speaker 2: and turned around him, come running back and had its
Speaker 2: head kind of bob inside to side, and it kind
Speaker 2: of kicked up its little heels a little bit, like
Speaker 2: kind of like kind of frolicking along. It come right
Speaker 2: up to him like twenty yards and he whacked it.
Speaker 1: So you ended up calling the bull back in that
Speaker 1: he bumped when seen him. Yep, yeap, gotcha.
Speaker 2: So and the moral of the story with that is, well,
Speaker 2: there's two Like, like I said earlier, when in Rome,
Speaker 2: do as the Romans, you do the same kind of calling.
Speaker 2: So you're not gonna if they're not being aggressive, just
Speaker 2: talk to him. And then if you spook one, just
Speaker 2: keep up your calling. Because elk don't trust their eyes.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it'll be like, oh, I thought that was something else.
Speaker 2: I guess it's an elk I heard, because then you
Speaker 2: make a bunch of noise and you sound like an elk,
Speaker 2: and they'll a lot of times they'll come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as long as they don't win you, usually
Speaker 1: you're all right. You know, they can hear something they
Speaker 1: don't like. They can maybe see something they don't like.
Speaker 1: But as long as your your wind's been good, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would at least. I mean, I always go to it.
Speaker 1: You try to call when something's books and if they stopped, great,
Speaker 1: and if not, they keep running. But I don't know
Speaker 1: at that point. You know, I always wonder like, are
Speaker 1: you going to educate them? But then I don't like
Speaker 1: you said, as long as they don't smell you, I
Speaker 1: think you're still still all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think we're early enough season two. It's
Speaker 2: those elk hadn't been messed with. They're still in their
Speaker 2: summer pattern. They had, you know, no human interactions all summer.
Speaker 2: They're pretty pretty collable. Just from the curiosity standpoint. I think.
Speaker 1: I've I've been. I was out last went out the
Speaker 1: Friday before, which would have been I believe August thirtieth,
Speaker 1: so thirtieth thirty first, and then our opener was on
Speaker 1: the first, so we've talked about it before. I do
Speaker 1: a special tag that basically goes from September first to
Speaker 1: December thirty first, and if I could rewind time, you know,
Speaker 1: two months ago, I was thinking like I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: out there the first week of September. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a big bowl located, We're going to sit on him,
Speaker 1: and we're going to kill him in that first week
Speaker 1: before all the archer hunters get a crack at him.
Speaker 1: I found out over the last six or the first
Speaker 1: six day of September that that was an absolute crazy
Speaker 1: plan and it was never going to happen this year
Speaker 1: because there are no mature bulls anywhere near these cows yet.
Speaker 1: So Washington, one of the best units in western Washington,
Speaker 1: seem to be trailing just from what I've seen around
Speaker 1: my house and areas. They're just the mature bulls weren't.
Speaker 1: With the herds. We were seeing one hundred to one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty elk a day, plus or minus, not
Speaker 1: counting evening and morning. You know, you add all those together,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are the same elk. We
Speaker 1: would see groups of thirty forty elk with a spike
Speaker 1: or two in the group. You know, everything's got velvet
Speaker 1: on it, and there's not a hard horn bowl in
Speaker 1: the herd, which which was concerning to me because I
Speaker 1: feel like we all have seen the stage where the
Speaker 1: raghorns run the herd for a little bit. We weren't
Speaker 1: even there yet. We were I'm like, oh, boy, like
Speaker 1: farther away than I think. But but what I think happened
Speaker 1: is that that scenario of the poor little raghorns, the
Speaker 1: two and a half and three and a half year
Speaker 1: old bulls didn't get very long because they're Towards Thursday Friday,
Speaker 1: which was the fifth and the sixth, some more mature
Speaker 1: bowls started showing up. And I'm getting reports back now
Speaker 1: from guys that are up there that there are you know,
Speaker 1: decent six point herd bowls kind of running the herds now.
Speaker 1: But it was a it was an extremely slow start
Speaker 1: here in Washington and very frustrating as an elk hunter
Speaker 1: because what I found myself doing is I was kind
Speaker 1: of my head was out of the game, Like I
Speaker 1: just assumed every herd we ran into is just gonna
Speaker 1: have spikes in it, because we were seeing it, you know,
Speaker 1: over and over. We would we would get up high,
Speaker 1: work our tails off, and go spot three or four
Speaker 1: different herds first thing in the morning from a high
Speaker 1: point and not see a single you know, herd bowl.
Speaker 1: And so what we tried to do was just cover
Speaker 1: lots and lots of ground. Like similar to what you
Speaker 1: said earlier, you're gonna just keep hunting and go trying
Speaker 1: to find the one. We were just trying to find
Speaker 1: the one, you know, the one herd that maybe had
Speaker 1: picked up a big bowl early or or had you know,
Speaker 1: the first hot cow, because you know, I've did some
Speaker 1: podcasts with some biologists and they always talk about the
Speaker 1: health of the cows is what gets them to come
Speaker 1: in early, and kind of kicks that off, and like, well,
Speaker 1: we're in a we're in a great unit. You know,
Speaker 1: it's western Washington, not a not a huge snowload. These
Speaker 1: things should be coming in really good shape. So I
Speaker 1: was kind of baffled, but we just we just put
Speaker 1: on tons and tons of miles. But by time, you know,
Speaker 1: my my sixth day hunt was over, we did have
Speaker 1: a decent six point kind of join a herd, not
Speaker 1: quite what we're looking for yet, and so it was
Speaker 1: trying to get turned. And then I've been watching my
Speaker 1: cameras pretty regularly, but they're either you know, the elk
Speaker 1: are on a pretty a pretty big pattern too, and
Speaker 1: so they're just not existing on my cams right now.
Speaker 1: But it seems like they're two or three days off,
Speaker 1: two or three days on, they'll kind of rolling in,
Speaker 1: really hang in that base. And so a real slow
Speaker 1: start here in Washington. I've said it a lot on here,
Speaker 1: back in the day, I would argue with anybody, like
Speaker 1: the rut's gonna happen from you know, it's gonna you know,
Speaker 1: the bulls are gonna be in the herd August twenty
Speaker 1: fifth to October fifth around home, you know, in Roosevelt Country,
Speaker 1: and it's you're gonna see your peak from nine ten
Speaker 1: to nine to twenty five. And man, I'm almost from
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing, I feel like it's getting later and
Speaker 1: later every year. But it could just be you know,
Speaker 1: happenstance or coincidence. But this this rut this year seems like,
Speaker 1: at the rate it's at, it's either all gonna happen
Speaker 1: very intensely in the middle of September or it's just
Speaker 1: going to drag out a little.
Speaker 2: Bit longer in that particular place.
Speaker 1: In that particular place. But all of you know, all
Speaker 1: the reports we're seeing at least here seemed to be
Speaker 1: that it was it was a pretty slow start. But
Speaker 1: we uh, you know, with us falling along on social media,
Speaker 1: getting lots of uh, you know, post sent to us
Speaker 1: and and people tagging us in posts. It seems like
Speaker 1: the last two or three days things have really kind
Speaker 1: of turned the corner, you know, on the elk elk rut,
Speaker 1: and the success is starting to kind of kind of
Speaker 1: be where we expect it to be for this time
Speaker 1: of year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like anytime you get to around
Speaker 2: the tenth from the tenth on, it usually starts picking
Speaker 2: up pretty good on up to the fifteenth and then
Speaker 2: depend on where you're at. I mean, sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: later in the month's good, sometimes earlier in the month's good,
Speaker 2: but usually by the tenth it's good. Just you're starting
Speaker 2: to pick up those bugles just about anywhere to go.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. I'm hoping we're gonna go down to New
Speaker 1: Mexico for an archery l hunt and then I'll be
Speaker 1: able to come back and jump in on that unit
Speaker 1: and it should be cranking by that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fingers crossed Buddy, Corey Miller, he's he's hunting. He
Speaker 2: went hunting with a friend. He don't have a tag there,
Speaker 2: but he went hunting with a friend in that unit.
Speaker 2: I have an archery tag for and opening weekend, and
Speaker 2: he said there were bulls bugle and all over the place,
Speaker 2: saw tons of ol heard bulls bugling. He said they
Speaker 2: weren't aggressive, they weren't just screaming their brains out. He said,
Speaker 2: they were just talking.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, yeah, I got. I got a good report for
Speaker 1: my buddy Jerry with for Love of the Hunt Loh
Speaker 1: Outfitters in New Mexico. He said on September first and second,
Speaker 1: their first season opener. He's never seen it that good
Speaker 1: ever down in New Mexico, but it was kind of
Speaker 1: a weird. I talked to him again today. They had
Speaker 1: like a crazy September first second, you know, two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty plus bugles a morning, both those mornings, and
Speaker 1: it kind of like tailed off. They got some hot weather,
Speaker 1: they had some weather move in and things kind of
Speaker 1: killed it off. So you know, we always argue whether
Speaker 1: the weather affects it or this. You know, moon affects it,
Speaker 1: weather affects it, but it may not affect it completely.
Speaker 1: But I think it's definitely one of those like factors
Speaker 1: that plays in to the action you're getting. Because he said,
Speaker 1: there's no reason for it to just die like that. Besides,
Speaker 1: the temperature jumped fifteen to twenty degrees all on one day,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, it was cranking down there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I I think it's gonna be It's gonna
Speaker 1: be about right here, you know, nine to fifteen, middle
Speaker 1: of September. Things should be going, you know, really really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't wait to get out. I'm gonna head
Speaker 2: out tomorrow and go pack in for a couple of days,
Speaker 2: basically a scouting trip for my rifle tag in Idaho.
Speaker 2: This I got it, picked up a second rifle tag
Speaker 2: tag for Idaho and and scout for next September too.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping to you know, see some here, some bugles,
Speaker 2: and see some action. Maybe I'll get an archery tag
Speaker 2: for there next year. But I'm going to pack my
Speaker 2: rifle for mister Bear. I'm hoping to hoping to find
Speaker 2: a bear, maybe a huckleberry patch with a bear in it,
Speaker 2: and that'd be awesome, but I probably won't be so lucky.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. I uh well yeah, New Mexico. And then
Speaker 1: you're going to be in Idaho with you know, Bradley
Speaker 1: and Cody are good buddies, so that'll be you know,
Speaker 1: fun to to kind of check in with you guys
Speaker 1: when you get back from that one and see how
Speaker 1: everything goes. I found myself this tag that I've got
Speaker 1: pretty unique. I'll have two days the rifle Hut when
Speaker 1: I get back, but I'm frantically getting my mussloaders set
Speaker 1: up this week because one of the conditions in my
Speaker 1: tag is I can hunt from September first to thirty first,
Speaker 1: but uh, I have to use the weapon if if
Speaker 1: there's a season in that unit at that time, I
Speaker 1: have to use that weapon. So I didn't plan on
Speaker 1: using my mussloader. I didn't realize that the muzzleloader hunt
Speaker 1: in this unit starts a week earlier, and so oh,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm strapping on uh, you know the one X
Speaker 1: scope that's now allowed in in Washington, and made some
Speaker 1: changes to my ultimate, my seven hundred ultimate musloader, put
Speaker 1: a new breech plug in there, so I can, you know,
Speaker 1: extend my rains a little bit from what a typical
Speaker 1: muzzloader should be able to do.
Speaker 2: Typical muzzleloader, I think you can run out there about
Speaker 2: one hundred yards with the catcher's met and pick up
Speaker 2: that that round ball coming at you can't.
Speaker 1: Talk yeah, or catch that the you know, is it
Speaker 1: Sabbath or some sabo I kind of sends in.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's kind of how you comb your hair.
Speaker 2: Since you don't have any any hair at all, maybe
Speaker 2: you could say Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So some of these guys, you know, you get
Speaker 1: out there one hundred and fifty yards, you just catch
Speaker 1: it tumbling because the thing's done spinning. It's like, I
Speaker 1: give up on this. I'm a short, fat little bullet
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna start tumbling. But no, that's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: I haven't you know, I got the muzzled hunt last year,
Speaker 1: but prior to that, I hadn't really muzzled or hunted
Speaker 1: you in the last ten years. So I love always
Speaker 1: picking that up. But I'm not gonna lie. I really
Speaker 1: hope I can get it done with the rifle in
Speaker 1: those first two days and not have to pick a
Speaker 1: muzzleloader up. But I'm going to be prepared for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you you intended on hunting with Grandpa's old rifle.
Speaker 2: I did, and that kind of fell through, didn't it.
Speaker 2: Dang it?
Speaker 1: Oh it was. It's kind of hard. I don't you
Speaker 1: want to talk about it? I'm still a little emotional
Speaker 1: about it, Derek, No, not not really, but I I
Speaker 1: Grandpa had a gun that it always kind of came
Speaker 1: out prior to hunting season. You know, my dad's family
Speaker 1: very tight knit and close, and we'd always go side
Speaker 1: our guns in together, so as everybody grabs your hunt rifle,
Speaker 1: we all go out to the range and meal shoot
Speaker 1: our guns. Well that time every year, this beautiful gun
Speaker 1: would get pulled out of the you know, out of
Speaker 1: the gun cabinet at Grandpa's and nobody ever got to
Speaker 1: hunt with it. Grandpa just trusted as old thirty odd
Speaker 1: six and the old seven mag would get put back.
Speaker 1: So I always remember this gun being around, and happened
Speaker 1: to be on a family vacation and my uncle that
Speaker 1: has the gun was there and I'm like, you think
Speaker 1: Grandpa would want me to kill an elk with that gun?
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't see why not, and which was
Speaker 1: a surprising answer. I was expecting him to say, no,
Speaker 1: it's not meant to be hunted with, or it's not
Speaker 1: going to be hunted with. And my dad and uncles
Speaker 1: all kind of agreed, and Grandma kind of agreed, and
Speaker 1: so I got it all set up. But I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: this thing's got a ten pound trig you know, it's
Speaker 1: an old Mauser action. My grandpa's cousin, Chet built a stalk,
Speaker 1: which is like the most beautiful piece of quilted maple ever.
Speaker 1: It's just it was a beautiful gun. So I get
Speaker 1: it all set up and I'm like, or get it
Speaker 1: from him, and I'm like, this triggers ten pounds. This
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work. And then I'm like, it's got like
Speaker 1: a nineteen forties Bushnell on a I don't know when,
Speaker 1: but it's older than the Hills, and that's not going
Speaker 1: to work. So I get a loophole, you know, just
Speaker 1: a three and a half to ten. I don't want
Speaker 1: any long. I just want it to be more like
Speaker 1: what it was, almost identical scope to the Bushnell like size,
Speaker 1: and everything gets a trigger put on. Take it to
Speaker 1: the gunsmith. And now we know nowadays, like this, the
Speaker 1: swivel stud was actually bolted into the barrel, you know,
Speaker 1: so now everything that we know, like you bet the
Speaker 1: action and that barrel should float from the No, this
Speaker 1: thing was bolted in. So my gunsmith mills it out
Speaker 1: and puts a nut in there and gets gets it
Speaker 1: all set up so we're not touching the barrel and
Speaker 1: get everything set up. It's got a two pound trigger
Speaker 1: on the nose, and so I will go and grab
Speaker 1: a box of bullets and I grab a couple of
Speaker 1: my reloads that I used to shoot, you know that
Speaker 1: I used to shoot on my old seven mag and
Speaker 1: take it to the range. And I first took it
Speaker 1: up to my magneto speed, so I wanted to get
Speaker 1: some speed testing out. And this gun is spitting the
Speaker 1: bullets like estimated spread at ten right. This thing's very
Speaker 1: very tight. Speeds are all very consistent out of this gun.
Speaker 1: I'm all right, we're going to be good. But those
Speaker 1: bayonets affect your accuracy. So I go take that off
Speaker 1: and start to shoot for a group, and I am
Speaker 1: just fighting this thing all over the board. At one
Speaker 1: hundred yards, it's it's everywhere here left, right, up, down,
Speaker 1: and so I just I'm like, I'm not touching the
Speaker 1: scope anymore. I'm just gonna shoot three groups, three three
Speaker 1: shot groups, let the gun cool down five to ten
Speaker 1: minutes between each group, and I the best one of
Speaker 1: those three was like a four inch group at one
Speaker 1: hundred and I'm like, Man, you know, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: hunt that we should be able to call elk in.
Speaker 1: Do I need to be able to shoot any better
Speaker 1: than that? But that's like ideal conditions off of a bench,
Speaker 1: and if you have to shoot two hundred yards, I
Speaker 1: just it's it's I'll get this gun fixed up and
Speaker 1: hunt with it eventually, but I owe it to the
Speaker 1: animals not to go out there with the gun that
Speaker 1: I have that much confidence in. So Grandpa's gun is
Speaker 1: going to be saved for a different day. But it's
Speaker 1: an absolutely beautiful you know, ninety eight fn Mauser action.
Speaker 1: It's got like the half lock safety, it's it's done
Speaker 1: up really nice. But Grandma gave me permission the other
Speaker 1: night to to send it off to a gunsmith if
Speaker 1: we need to and get it kind of dialed in
Speaker 1: and work up a load. So at some point we're
Speaker 1: gonna hunt with this thing, just not on this hunt.
Speaker 2: Oh man. Yeah, So I was bummed for you. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, that's a beautiful gun, beautiful story. And
Speaker 2: then but to be continued, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well we'll find a western Washington elk with it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it needs to be a Western Washington Bolks.
Speaker 1: That's really where you know, Grandpa did all of his hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't do all the traveling that I
Speaker 1: do now, and everything was kind of done around home.
Speaker 1: So we'll we'll figure it out. We'll find something to
Speaker 1: hunt around here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, it'll happen. It'll happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, it's a yeah, it's just cool that
Speaker 1: the family kind of like decided that that, you know,
Speaker 1: guns are meant to be hunted with and you know,
Speaker 1: put meat in the cooler. So yeah, well we'll want
Speaker 1: with it here one of these one of these days.
Speaker 1: But well, and then what do you have after So
Speaker 1: you're going to have a late archery hunt in Idaho
Speaker 1: as well, or you just have a rifle hunt.
Speaker 2: So the fifteenth through the thirtieth in Idaho September for
Speaker 2: my archery and then rifle in Idaho here in October.
Speaker 2: So that's what I was going to scout for here
Speaker 2: for a few days before ago on my archery hunt,
Speaker 2: and then of course Oregon that's coming up in November,
Speaker 2: first week in November basically, so yeah, more more rifle
Speaker 2: heavy this year. You know, dang it, I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: dying that I'm not out chasing Elk right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you and Austin are just too good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just too good. You know, we made plans to
Speaker 2: take up a lot of time at this first part
Speaker 2: of the season, and then you know that all fell through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's good. I know. One I want to
Speaker 1: note that you you promote the Maverick, but I believe
Speaker 1: your son Austin, who killed the Elk, is a big
Speaker 1: user of the pink. So I don't care what calls
Speaker 1: were used. I do want to point out that's nice
Speaker 1: seen the video one time that you're.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden up. I was set up. He
Speaker 2: put that in his in his in his uh in
Speaker 2: his call pouch to uh to full with me and
Speaker 2: fouled me up. I almost disown him for it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's it's been good so far. We've uh,
Speaker 1: we've got to do some I don't know if we
Speaker 1: should even talk about. We got some exciting stuff coming
Speaker 1: out for next year on the olcohol category. It's it's
Speaker 1: always fun because in Elk season we get to go
Speaker 1: out and test new stuff, right or ideas that we
Speaker 1: had to see if it's worth a crap. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes things pen salt good on paper or in the office,
Speaker 1: you're like, I think this thing's got some legs. We
Speaker 1: should go out and test it, and then we get
Speaker 1: to go out and actually put it. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people I don't know whether
Speaker 1: they do or not, but we're always testing stuff prior
Speaker 1: to ever releasing it. You know, I don't think we've
Speaker 1: ever really released a product that we haven't got a
Speaker 1: year on to fine tune, tweak, make changes. And so
Speaker 1: we're out there testing new stuff. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of our other guys out there testing new stuff, and
Speaker 1: and that's all to provide better calls. And and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go on a little bit of a tangent here, Dirk,
Speaker 1: you grab me and bring me back down the center
Speaker 1: if we need to call there. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: this competition calling side, which we support. We've got great
Speaker 1: callers that use our stuff. But everything that me and
Speaker 1: Dirk do is for hunting. Like I feel like hunting
Speaker 1: calls ELK calls are meant to fill the freezer. They're
Speaker 1: a tool to help a good hunter be able to
Speaker 1: fill the freezer. And so that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 1: We're not looking for the absolute best stage call. We're
Speaker 1: not looking you know, even though sometimes he's sings correlate
Speaker 1: and overlap. We're looking for does this new call just
Speaker 1: absolutely rattle the canyon? Does this new call allow people
Speaker 1: to run this call and sound right with it? You know?
Speaker 1: You know, we can build the best diaphragms in the world,
Speaker 1: but if somebody can't use a diaphragm, they need the
Speaker 1: easy sucker or the next best thing, which is what
Speaker 1: we're out there. We're out there, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: test these hunting calls, and we give some samples the
Speaker 1: not very good callers, like, hey, can you use is
Speaker 1: did it give you the confidence to call? And so
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think that boy you called
Speaker 1: in for Austin you had everything you used was something
Speaker 1: new that we don't even have in the lineup currently.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh it. The bowl was called in by this combination,
Speaker 2: the first bull elk ever called in in the history
Speaker 2: of humankind with this specific kind of bugle tube and
Speaker 2: this kind of diaphragm too. Now, I will say now,
Speaker 2: the diaphragm part of it was new, but the latex
Speaker 2: was good old Maverick latex. I mean, let's see, he
Speaker 2: got I mean, and that's you built me that call
Speaker 2: at Turkey Camp back in April May, and I've been
Speaker 2: horning on that thing since then and it's still ripping.
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty excited to see, uh, these diaphragms come out.
Speaker 2: And then also that tube. The cool factor of the tube,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I feel, I feel like lately
Speaker 2: bougie tubes have become a thing. I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: it's they've they've they've kind of some people have taken
Speaker 2: things up a notch with with bougie tubes. Now are
Speaker 2: they better? Who knows? But I think you can go like,
Speaker 2: like we've said before, you can call in Elk with
Speaker 2: the radiator hose if you had to. But the cool
Speaker 2: factor of this tube that I used, it's pretty damn
Speaker 2: cool and I can't wait to show everybody that. But
Speaker 2: this this was your brain child. And then we have
Speaker 2: another tube we have coming out that's super cool too,
Speaker 2: And I haven't I haven't taken into the field yet,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna take it here later in September and
Speaker 2: run it through the paces and and I hope, I
Speaker 2: hope that well, it's gonna do great. It sounds sounds great.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I can't play with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then our process as we go out, you know,
Speaker 1: dur say, hey, I didn't like this or this about
Speaker 1: this tube, and I'll go out and like, I really
Speaker 1: like this or this about this tube, and we'll come
Speaker 1: up with the pros and the cons list of every product, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this this diaphragm sounds great but doesn't last as long,
Speaker 1: or this diaphragm lasts forever but doesn't sound great. And
Speaker 1: so we'll tell you we'll kind of look at all
Speaker 1: of the feedback we get from all of our users,
Speaker 1: all of our pro staffs, all of our testers, and
Speaker 1: we'll see if we can like accomplish or or get
Speaker 1: all the cons removed without affecting all the pros, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we'll take a look at this and try
Speaker 1: to dial this up. And then we've got to make
Speaker 1: some quick changes to get these out for the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five production. So that's that's part of the process
Speaker 1: that I absolutely love that, you know, I nerd out
Speaker 1: on is, you know, and Dirk helps me a lot
Speaker 1: on this is Hey, we don't want to give this
Speaker 1: or this up, but we do need to tweak this.
Speaker 1: We've had enough guys say, you know, this is bad
Speaker 1: about it, and we'll try to make the tweaks and
Speaker 1: if not, we'll throw it back on the design rack
Speaker 1: for a year and try to test it again in
Speaker 1: the future. But if it's small enough tweaks that we
Speaker 1: can live with, we'll we'll go to production.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I let you know what I
Speaker 2: love about this process the most is because I'm not
Speaker 2: like a yes man. If anything, I'm like I can
Speaker 2: if Jason says it's white, I say black immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a thief of joy in this process for me,
Speaker 1: I am and I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: say a pain or a thorn, but it's something in
Speaker 1: my ass the whole. You're a giant thorn or a pain.
Speaker 1: But it's good. It's good because if Dirk just said
Speaker 1: yes to everything, it would just you know, when we'd
Speaker 1: push it through. Versus if he's got some you know, feedback,
Speaker 1: then it forces me to kind of can we make
Speaker 1: a change, And then you know, how's it affect the costs,
Speaker 1: How's it affect the tooling, How's it affect all of
Speaker 1: these things? And so we work pretty well together on this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you are a giant pain in my ass,
Speaker 1: but I'll hand you back over the mic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the finish. Well, the reason is is because I'm
Speaker 2: just advocate for the for the hunter, the for the
Speaker 2: the caller who who may not be you know, well
Speaker 2: versed in calls and maybe they're new or or maybe
Speaker 2: they don't get it or whatever. Like I've I spent
Speaker 2: eighteen years work in retail, interfacing with customers every day
Speaker 2: in the tire business that didn't understand tires or vehicles
Speaker 2: a lot of times. And man, you you just assume
Speaker 2: people know something about something, but you don't wanna you
Speaker 2: don't want to. I don't want to assume people know
Speaker 2: anything about the calls or but I don't want to,
Speaker 2: you know, talk down to him either. So I just
Speaker 2: try to advocate for the consumer. Like, we have to
Speaker 2: make these as user friendly as possible. They have to
Speaker 2: be they have to have some cool factor, they have
Speaker 2: to be usable, they have to sound right. There's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of things they have to that that that
Speaker 2: check off the list. And yeah, and and and and
Speaker 2: sometimes I'm like, God, Phelp's gonna hate me for this.
Speaker 2: And I'm like that thing stupid, that's dumb. I don't
Speaker 2: like that idea, And I'll just say it and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I here we go. And I know he's thinking, oh god,
Speaker 2: here we go. There we get and I know he
Speaker 2: don't like it because sometimes he'll hold these projects pretty
Speaker 2: tight to his He'll like he'll he'll hold that little
Speaker 2: baby bird egg all the way to the end, and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh yeah, where guy? Is everybody too late
Speaker 2: for any changes? And like that's the trick, Helps, that's
Speaker 2: a trick. You just wait till like you're under the
Speaker 2: gun and there's no extra float in the time and
Speaker 2: the schedule. You're like, hey, Derek, it's unfortunately I'd love to,
Speaker 2: you know, to look at that, but we've got to
Speaker 2: push the button now. I'm just kidding. There are times
Speaker 2: where we're under the gun, but you like the labrador
Speaker 2: like sniffing, sniffing pockets for treats. What are you working on, Phelps?
Speaker 1: You know? And then it's been challenging because there there
Speaker 1: are things. You know, we're good at running a diaphragm, right,
Speaker 1: So most callers that are good running the diaphragm find
Speaker 1: a tube with the right back pressure and sound and
Speaker 1: you're almost ninety nine percent of the way done. But
Speaker 1: we've been challenged over the last three years, which we
Speaker 1: get the chance we're one of the few guys. Well
Speaker 1: I guess not, but we're one of the guys. We
Speaker 1: get to sit in our own booth, right and we
Speaker 1: get to hear hundreds and hundreds of guys walk through
Speaker 1: our booth until say, yeah, I just man, I wish
Speaker 1: i'd call like you guys, but we just can't use
Speaker 1: a diaphragm, or I don't like the beagle, but I
Speaker 1: like the cal call. So we've actually been we tasked
Speaker 1: ourselves and challenge ourselves to design the easy bugler, which
Speaker 1: we're not going to probably use. It's it's got a
Speaker 1: case we design, you know. We challenge ourselves to design
Speaker 1: the easy sucker, which we're probably not going to use
Speaker 1: because we're good enough with a diaphragm. We we've got
Speaker 1: something new coming out next year which we probably won't
Speaker 1: use a whole lot. But but it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: fun to go backwards and like, let's pretend we don't
Speaker 1: know how to make an out call. Can we make
Speaker 1: these things so simple, stupid easy to run that guys
Speaker 1: that have you know, issues with their mouth, you know,
Speaker 1: or they're just the inability to call can then also
Speaker 1: still find the same success or the ability to call
Speaker 1: in the woods. And so that's been kind of a
Speaker 1: fun undertaking where I think, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: other companies are just designing those mainstream diaphragms, beagle tubes,
Speaker 1: external cal calls. I feel like we've really kind of
Speaker 1: went after it from a hey, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: reinvent the wheel or a new process, right, and so
Speaker 1: it's challenged us to like figure out new ways to
Speaker 1: make that happen, and that's been well received.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we're you know, fixing real,
Speaker 2: real solutions for real world problems. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's a movie line or something.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, well if not, you should probably trademark that.
Speaker 2: Write that down, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, write it down. But no, you know that's you know,
Speaker 1: we've got something new which I think is going to
Speaker 1: be amazing for next year.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And you challenged me a lot on that. You didn't
Speaker 1: like the sound, and so I would sit in my
Speaker 1: my nerd lab here and cut something up or you know,
Speaker 1: run out and build some new voices. And I think
Speaker 1: I think we're all going to be excited where that landed.
Speaker 1: So I know we're talking in a lot of hidden bs,
Speaker 1: but I think you guys, you know, any elk hunter
Speaker 1: that uses our calls or any calls is going to
Speaker 1: be able to benefit from what we've got coming out
Speaker 1: in twenty five on the on the elk side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Phelps, he hadn't even sent me one of those yet.
Speaker 2: And I had to get up in front of our
Speaker 2: corporate full our whole company, at a corporate meeting, go
Speaker 2: to market meeting for twenty twenty five and present you
Speaker 2: know these new cool calls, and I'm like, wait, now,
Speaker 2: what what are these? Like? Phelps, I haven't even tried
Speaker 2: this thing yet. And the first time I blow and
Speaker 2: I'm like this saying sucks, and I send him in it.
Speaker 2: I send him a scathing text message in a video
Speaker 2: like this saying sucks. But Corey, thank goodness, Corey, our
Speaker 2: business manager's he was pretty good with it. And I
Speaker 2: don't know, I feel like the process that they made
Speaker 2: the manufacturer there was a three D printed or something
Speaker 2: that I don't think mine was the same as his,
Speaker 2: because I just couldn't get it to work. But since
Speaker 2: then we've we've sat down and spent a few hours
Speaker 2: on the phone back and forth. I think we got
Speaker 2: it dialed.
Speaker 1: And that's what's nice. You've got a press at your house.
Speaker 1: I've got to press at our house. So I say, hey,
Speaker 1: build one of these. You build one, you go a
Speaker 1: little bit different. You tell me to build one of those,
Speaker 1: and we're able to like hone in on these things,
Speaker 1: you know, really really quick. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna knock out of the park. I'm excited
Speaker 1: for the next couple of weeks. You know, you get
Speaker 1: to go test the new stuff. We gotta go test
Speaker 1: some new stuff and kind of just see how they
Speaker 1: perform in the field and then it should all translate
Speaker 1: to better OLT calls for everybody. And just continuing to
Speaker 1: push the envelope on the ELK call side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's it's kind of a bread and butter.
Speaker 2: We just we've that's kind of how how we got
Speaker 2: it known as the ELK Call Company, and we've branched
Speaker 2: into other stuff, of course, but we still we still
Speaker 2: love our ELK calls and still keep pushing that envelope.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. So anything else you want to talk about
Speaker 1: on today's episode, Derek, Anything else. That's it's it's September.
Speaker 1: Anything else that you've thought of that we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about all year?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I feel like you're just setting me up here,
Speaker 2: and maybe you've you've thought of something. I feel like
Speaker 2: we should have a contest or something to to the
Speaker 2: loser has to dress up like a I don't know
Speaker 2: what you know, but.
Speaker 1: Last time we did that, it didn't work out good
Speaker 1: in my favor.
Speaker 2: I know, and that's why I want to do it,
Speaker 2: because my motivation to win. I know that even with
Speaker 2: that really humongous order that we got for the pink
Speaker 2: the pink diaphragms, in case anybody needs to needs a
Speaker 2: pink diaphram and they like them, you might want to
Speaker 2: go pick them up at a certain retailer because I
Speaker 2: feel like they fat fingered their order. They ordered a
Speaker 2: whole bunch. And that's the only reason Jason got ahead
Speaker 2: of me. This summer on on call sales, the Pink
Speaker 2: ones sold more than the Maverick. But here in the
Speaker 2: last you know, as always, you know my people, the
Speaker 2: Maverick folks are just coming in. They're just bringing the heat.
Speaker 1: It's just raining what you're saying.
Speaker 2: There are people like me. They're the procrastinators and they're
Speaker 2: just like making it rain on those things like I
Speaker 2: don't know that you're not around. You go around here
Speaker 2: in the Treasure Valley, try to buy a Maverick. I'll
Speaker 2: challenge it. You probably can't even buy one, so they'll
Speaker 2: sold out.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, you segued into that, I do want
Speaker 1: to make it like, I want to put it on
Speaker 1: record that I don't think there's any way that Maverick
Speaker 1: can catch up this year unless there's like a big
Speaker 1: Black Friday movement or something. It's got to be huge.
Speaker 1: Thank to Maverick is now number two.
Speaker 2: No, it's caught up. I think it's caught up and
Speaker 2: pulling ahead, like if it's like the old dark horse Man.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, on the next podcast, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get some official numbers from Corey and we're gonna report
Speaker 1: what are those when they corrected? On the next episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do one of those and we'll yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: give you like a correction to the record.
Speaker 2: You'll make me eat some humble pie.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, no, No, it's it's all good. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a healthy little battle, and it seems like we
Speaker 1: definitely have our camps and both are good calls, so
Speaker 1: it's always fun to create a arrival rivalry within the
Speaker 1: same brand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people like both
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's all good. So well, thanks for jumping on, Derek.
Speaker 1: I know we're busy. It's the middle of September, even
Speaker 1: though we're both stuck at home unfortunately for a little bit.
Speaker 1: But we'll both be back out chasing bowls here within
Speaker 1: with the week. And uh yeah, any advice you got one?
Speaker 1: One last little piece of advice for for people out
Speaker 1: el cunting the September.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've only got so many ilk and so many
Speaker 2: Septembers in your lifetime. You made plans you're gonna go hunt,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's just a weekend or a couple
Speaker 2: of days, or maybe you have the rest of the
Speaker 2: month to hunt. Don't waste it. Go dig in. Try
Speaker 2: hard every day. If it's day one, try hard as
Speaker 2: as it was if it was day ten. Because when
Speaker 2: about on a ten day hunt, when it's about day eight,
Speaker 2: you're like, dang it, I should have been shouldn't have
Speaker 2: been on autopilot the first part of the hunt. I
Speaker 2: should have been hunting harder. It seems like it's easy
Speaker 2: to fall on that rut and then you know, give
Speaker 2: it you're all, don't go home early. Just if it's
Speaker 2: if you're if you're having some struggles hunting, you know,
Speaker 2: too hot, not enough help, bugles, too many people, whatever,
Speaker 2: just don't give up. Just stick it out, see it through,
Speaker 2: because it can change in an instant. Even on Austin's hunt,
Speaker 2: I think it was day three actually when he killed.
Speaker 2: But but man, it was miserable. It was hot as
Speaker 2: all get out is in the nineties every day and
Speaker 2: there's no ELK activity. You know. I'm just like, man,
Speaker 2: what are we doing up here? There's people everywhere. Maybe
Speaker 2: we should just go home and try again later on.
Speaker 2: But his time was very limited, so I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: we're gonna just keep sticking it out, and uh guess
Speaker 2: what it just it can turn around that fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's That's really similar to my best advice I've
Speaker 1: got is, you know, go where other people won't go.
Speaker 1: Find ELK that aren't being messed with. Go, you know,
Speaker 1: if it go the extra you know mile, so to speak,
Speaker 1: if you need to get into a basin where nobody
Speaker 1: else is touching if you need if you think the
Speaker 1: alkor in that you know, mess a timber or that
Speaker 1: old growth piece. And nobody's going in there because they'd
Speaker 1: rather sit up above tree line in glass like go
Speaker 1: into that patch of timber, like do what others aren't
Speaker 1: willing to do. To go find success, you know, go
Speaker 1: make success. It's not just gonna, you know, very rarely
Speaker 1: is it just gonna fall into your lap and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get lucky. You got to create that luck. And
Speaker 1: so you know, walk a little rather, hike a little higher,
Speaker 1: get up a little earlier, you know, stay out a
Speaker 1: little later. Whatever it is. Those little things that give
Speaker 1: you an advantage are going to add up, you know,
Speaker 1: in the end. And and uh we joke about all
Speaker 1: the time, and we got a new film coming out
Speaker 1: here pretty soon. But it just takes one It just
Speaker 1: takes one elk to do the right things or to
Speaker 1: be in that right area, or to read the script
Speaker 1: and to find success. And that hunt's going to flip
Speaker 1: on a uh, you know, a one eighty real quickly.
Speaker 1: So just do everything you need to. You're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: If you get back to camp a half hour later,
Speaker 1: if you've got to turn your head lamp on and
Speaker 1: hike the camp later. If you've got to hike in
Speaker 1: the dark in the morning, get in position to do
Speaker 1: everything you need to be successful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you if you kill an elk and you get
Speaker 2: back to camp at two am and a bear has
Speaker 2: got into your camp and wrecked it like we had
Speaker 2: happened this year, Yeah, just for all the crap of
Speaker 2: the back of your truck and get the heck out
Speaker 2: of there. See, I'd heard from Jason Phelps twice now
Speaker 2: when he's had a bearon camp with meat and then
Speaker 2: things are ruthless. They'll climb in the back of your
Speaker 2: truck and scratch it and everything. And so I'm just like,
Speaker 2: well it's two am, I am dead tired, but let's go.
Speaker 2: So we cleaned up the mess the bear made and
Speaker 2: throw our tent and oliver supplies in the back of
Speaker 2: the truck and we headed back home and got home
Speaker 2: at like seven am the next morning, pulling all nighter.
Speaker 2: Guess what that sucked? Guess what? Ah, it's all a
Speaker 2: vague memory. Now, that bad part is like, oh yeah, whatever,
Speaker 2: you kind of laugh it off. You know, you can
Speaker 2: sleep when you're dead.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yep. Now I'm finally on a truck right now
Speaker 1: that doesn't have bear scratches all over, like a bear
Speaker 1: entry and a bear exit out of the back of
Speaker 1: my truck. So I'm pretty stoked about that right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not putting anything back like it was just remnants
Speaker 1: of the hight and the meat being back there. They
Speaker 1: would jump up in there. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: you prevent it, but I'm just it can't happen again,
Speaker 1: right if it happens again, and I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for thanks for joining Derek, have a great rest
Speaker 1: of your September. I'm sure everybody else can follow you
Speaker 1: on social and kind of see how your adventures go.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking forward to getting down in New Mexico
Speaker 1: and should be a real fun hunt. And we'll report
Speaker 1: back on the back side of those trips, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you're done in Idaho, we'll have to, you know,
Speaker 1: get back together and you know, do a recap on
Speaker 1: on the end of September.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good.