Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Tonight.
Speaker 1: We are in beautiful Big Sky, Montana, Montucky as some
Speaker 1: people call it, and what we're doing here is we
Speaker 1: just completed the World Elk Calling Championships put on by
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and I didn't compete, but
Speaker 1: we have four world champion elk calling callers if you
Speaker 1: will in the house tonight. First off, we've got Jermaine Hodge,
Speaker 1: we got Tony Gilbertson, and we got Eric Berglan. The last,
Speaker 1: but not least, Dirk Durham. May or may not know this.
Speaker 1: I'm a world elk calling champion too. I just don't
Speaker 1: really like to toot my horn about it. I'm I
Speaker 1: like to focus on the hunt, and so do these guys.
Speaker 1: But it's fun to compete. It's fun to get up there,
Speaker 1: show your stuff and see where you stack up against
Speaker 1: the best of the best. And today there was some upsets,
Speaker 1: some stuff that we didn't expect. And I always go
Speaker 1: back to these contests. It's so subjective, it's it's got
Speaker 1: the human element. You have a panel of seven judges,
Speaker 1: they say who they like the best, and if after
Speaker 1: talking to the judges, you find out they're not all
Speaker 1: looking for the same thing. They're not like on this
Speaker 1: this even keel board of things that they're looking for.
Speaker 1: You know, one guy might say, no, I'm really looking
Speaker 1: for really well executed calls, very articulate, no fails. It
Speaker 1: sounds good, sounds sounds realistic like an elk, but it's flawless.
Speaker 1: And another guy says, no, no, no, no, I'm not looking
Speaker 1: for that. I'm looking for natural, authentic elk sounds. So
Speaker 1: in the end, it can be anybody's game. But with
Speaker 1: that being said, you can't win this without putting in
Speaker 1: the work. And these three guys, I have said with
Speaker 1: me right here, I'd argue they're they're they're the best
Speaker 1: of the best. They are, they're world champions. And not
Speaker 1: only are the world champion el colors, they're pretty damn
Speaker 1: good guys and good elk hunters too. So last fall
Speaker 1: we sent these guys on the quest. Now, Jermaine Hodge, Germaine,
Speaker 1: what do you think about North Idaho?
Speaker 2: Well, well, first, first of all, you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: start hunting milk until two thousand and six, and I
Speaker 2: hunted all of Colorado, most of all of Colorado, and
Speaker 2: I will tell you, I had an expectation of thick,
Speaker 2: but not like like I imagine thick, but not as
Speaker 2: thick as it was. And then I didn't. I was
Speaker 2: expecting like the he was to kind of gradually go up. No, No,
Speaker 2: that was some stuff. I think the highest peak where
Speaker 2: we were was like five thousand something feet.
Speaker 1: I mean that mountain range the highest peak seven thousand feet,
Speaker 1: but most of other peaks around are about six thousand sixty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not as high. And uh, you know, Colorado
Speaker 2: Springs in Colorado is like fifty seven My buddy Pats
Speaker 2: is like nine thousand feet, and then my house is
Speaker 2: like forty eight hundred feet. So we're you know, we're
Speaker 2: basically camped out at some of those highest peaks out there,
Speaker 2: and when we go in Colorado, we're based camping at
Speaker 2: like ten to three.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think I took Tony through some of that my
Speaker 2: neck of the woods here a few weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: we're like ten to three and we're hunting eleven a
Speaker 2: eight ten eight eleven eight is where all those But
Speaker 2: but it's not it's a gradual clime, right, but the
Speaker 2: peaks are way higher. It's just gradual clime, North Idaho
Speaker 2: mean bush.
Speaker 3: It was some Avatar stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a jungle.
Speaker 2: It was you know when the Avatar was that commandery
Speaker 2: came out. He's like, Avatar mean bush.
Speaker 3: Idaho mean bush?
Speaker 1: Well Tony. You come from western Oregon, yep, So you're
Speaker 1: kind of accustomed to brush. What do you think?
Speaker 4: So I am accustomed to brush, but it's it's different.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: The brush we got back home is number one. That's thick,
Speaker 4: so similar to North Idaho. There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: that pokia. I mean, we got all kinds of things
Speaker 4: that got thorns on them. So this brush up there
Speaker 4: in North Idaho, I don't know what that That low
Speaker 4: growing shrub you guys up there, that's real woody and
Speaker 4: got these waxy leaves on it.
Speaker 1: Definitely that's it's either all that stuff is real tight
Speaker 1: and scratchy. That's that stuff. Well yeah, that stuff murders.
Speaker 1: It'll rip the clothes right off.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well not only that, but you can't just like there's
Speaker 4: no trails through. I mean they elk go through it.
Speaker 4: But trying to go through there, man, my my hip flexers.
Speaker 4: After going through that stuff up there, we're chasing that
Speaker 4: bigger heard bull that one time, coming back up that
Speaker 4: mountain through that stuff, it was. It was bad. And
Speaker 4: then on top of that, you got that bear grass.
Speaker 4: It's wet, it's even worse. It was. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 4: I can't tell. I can't count the times I ended
Speaker 4: up on my butt on that trip.
Speaker 3: I was on my butt more than I was on
Speaker 3: my feet.
Speaker 5: That was bad.
Speaker 4: It was bad and steep. I mean, we've got some
Speaker 4: steep country back home too, but we don't gain the
Speaker 4: kind of elevation that you guys gained north. That fast
Speaker 4: was steep.
Speaker 1: Well, they say if you were to flatten out Idaho,
Speaker 1: and I don't know who they are, but they say,
Speaker 1: if you flatten out Idaho, you would have a state
Speaker 1: larger than Texas because of the terrain and the topography
Speaker 1: and how deep the valleys are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was steep.
Speaker 2: There's some steep, nasty country.
Speaker 4: Yes, that one, well, we can get to that later.
Speaker 4: But that that I'm never chasing bulls with you again.
Speaker 4: By the way, most of dark No, yes, no, that
Speaker 4: was we almost died.
Speaker 6: It was nip and tu But did you die?
Speaker 1: Well, now, Eric, he hunts us this place every year,
Speaker 1: so you know what you knew what to expect you
Speaker 1: had and you knew kind of where to go. I
Speaker 1: kind of gave you guys some spots to go to
Speaker 1: check out. But what do you think of these these
Speaker 1: these brush country greenhorns?
Speaker 5: It was, uh, it was, it was. It was definitely surprising.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I knew Tony Tony, you know Western Oregon, you know
Speaker 5: coaster range, you know, thick, so I thought he'd have
Speaker 5: some similar feelings towards it. And as far as like
Speaker 5: the elevation, the steepness, you know, I thought, you know, Jermaine,
Speaker 5: you know, I thought we'd do fine, you know, and
Speaker 5: we did do fine.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 5: You know, I know, I know Jermaine and his engine,
Speaker 5: and to see him, you know, humbled by the northern
Speaker 5: Idaho country was I'm like, man, if Jermaine's like, dude,
Speaker 5: this is no joke, but.
Speaker 4: I wanted to break his kneecaps, like and you stay,
Speaker 4: we were there and if our and if our our
Speaker 4: listeners don't know, Jermaine is an elite athlete, you know,
Speaker 4: all American wrestler.
Speaker 1: Right, this guy he's got wheels and he's got lungs
Speaker 1: to go anywhere. He looks, he looks, he looks unstoppable, right,
Speaker 1: But so that makes me feel pretty good that a
Speaker 1: man like that can get humbled by a place like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not for the week of faint of heart.
Speaker 5: It's physically, mentally and emotionally taxing.
Speaker 1: Yes, especially you.
Speaker 5: Know when you're out, when you're out in that country,
Speaker 5: day in and day out for weeks on. In chasing bulls,
Speaker 5: you get close and the wind wind screws you over
Speaker 5: what have you, you know, and you drop twelve hundred
Speaker 5: feet in elevation fifteen hundred sometimes and then you climb
Speaker 5: back out and sometimes, you know, flirting with doing that twice,
Speaker 5: you know, twice in a day.
Speaker 2: We got into some sketchy stuff.
Speaker 5: It's it's humbling man, it'll it'll, it'll smoke your your
Speaker 5: lamborfis real quick a couple of times. Joke.
Speaker 1: So the reason we sent the Phelps team sent these
Speaker 1: guys on this mission. These guys came together and each
Speaker 1: one of them devised their own signature ELK call. They
Speaker 1: wanted to you know, I got a couple of Maverick
Speaker 1: fans here, you know, the best call ever invented, of course,
Speaker 1: which is my call. Eric and Tony love the Maverick Germaine.
Speaker 1: He was more of a white amp guy. But they all,
Speaker 1: with these guys knowledge of calling and hunting, we wanted
Speaker 1: to put together an opportunity for these fellas to get
Speaker 1: together hunt together. They'd never hunted together before. Throwing this
Speaker 1: in this pot in North Idaho and I kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, oh, it'll be good, it'll be good,
Speaker 1: and there's it can be really good and it can
Speaker 1: be really bad. So if you're in the wrong drainage,
Speaker 1: there won't be an elk, and there's never haven't been
Speaker 1: an elk there in ten years. But you get in
Speaker 1: the right drainage and there's some elk in there. But
Speaker 1: with Eric's experience and some of the places I knew
Speaker 1: were to send them, they can kind of find some
Speaker 1: of those places elk. So they got on some elk.
Speaker 1: But they wanted to put these calls to the test,
Speaker 1: so each guy devised their own elk call. They have
Speaker 1: a certain thickness of latex, a certain stretch of latex.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Elk calls are so so they're so personal. Each person
Speaker 1: has a preference and a lot of times we get
Speaker 1: people to say, oh, which is the easiest one for
Speaker 1: me to use? It's very that's kind of a loaded
Speaker 1: question because everybody's so different on how their mouth is
Speaker 1: shaped and how they blow the call and everything else,
Speaker 1: so it's very user specific. So these guys wanted to
Speaker 1: build a call that was user specific for them, and
Speaker 1: I in my mind, I thought, great, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: three Mavericks. Three more Mavericks come out, But they were
Speaker 1: anything but Mavericks. So we sent them on this Like
Speaker 1: what was your tony, what was your anticipation, what was
Speaker 1: your what was your thoughts of this hunt? What did
Speaker 1: you think was going to happen when you got there?
Speaker 1: What you had some things that going through your mind?
Speaker 1: What what was this going to be? Like?
Speaker 4: Well, I think you know, for me, I've known Eric
Speaker 4: and I've known Jermaine for a few years now.
Speaker 6: But I've never hunted with them.
Speaker 4: And when you hunt with somebody, you develop a different
Speaker 4: kind of relationship. I mean, you go through a hunting
Speaker 4: season and you really put the effort in you you
Speaker 4: develop a relationship that's unlike most relationship for friendships that
Speaker 4: you have with other people. I mean, you you really
Speaker 4: you have to support each other. Uh, it's a lot
Speaker 4: of teamwork, you know, you don't really know what to expect.
Speaker 4: And I didn't either. I mean, I kne they were
Speaker 4: great guys, but going into this, I was thinking, well, this,
Speaker 4: this could be either really bad or it could be
Speaker 4: really good because you get you get the kind of
Speaker 4: personalities that come together and and they have their own
Speaker 4: hunting styles and if they are the type of people
Speaker 4: that say, you know, I think my style is the best,
Speaker 4: you can have conflict, and we didn't have any of that.
Speaker 4: You know, everybody, I think all three of us have
Speaker 4: the kind of personality that's just like, let's just let's
Speaker 4: just give each.
Speaker 2: Other a chance to open ideas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just just see how things go. So that was
Speaker 4: the first thing. I knew that North Ida was steep.
Speaker 4: I knew it was thick. I didn't really know what
Speaker 4: to expect. I mean, I've seen some videos on YouTube
Speaker 4: and other places about North Idaho and hunting and and
Speaker 4: and it definitely looks just ep and thick, and and
Speaker 4: I was used to the thickness. But like I said,
Speaker 4: it's it's it's it's a different kind of thickness. But
Speaker 4: you know, at the end of the day, when when
Speaker 4: we got there, we set up camp, and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: it just we jelled. We jelled, we we went out
Speaker 4: and found some milk. We've got different styles. We've got
Speaker 4: Jermaine that's got you know, he's just super intense and aggressive.
Speaker 4: We've got Eric that maybe isn't quite that much. And
Speaker 4: then and I think I'm somewhere in between. But you know,
Speaker 4: we just if if Jermaine went after it, we went
Speaker 4: right after it with him, and then if it didn't
Speaker 4: work out, we'd kind of come together and talk about
Speaker 4: it and say maybe maybe we should have done different.
Speaker 4: But you know, overall, it was it was a fun
Speaker 4: experience and and I've I've developed a friendship with these
Speaker 4: guys that I didn't have before. It's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have any expectations going into this, like
Speaker 1: I really want X.
Speaker 5: Out of this trip, Eric, Yeah, you know, I mean obviously,
Speaker 5: you know, we all had we all had tags. You know,
Speaker 5: my expectation was, you know, set the bar high. I
Speaker 5: want us all the punch tags. I want it to
Speaker 5: be a good time. I would like everybody to get
Speaker 5: along and uh, you know, everything just a mess, just
Speaker 5: you know, just to gel. You know, Jermaine was successful.
Speaker 5: You know, we had some close, really close opportunities where
Speaker 5: we almost got shots off, you know, Tony and myself.
Speaker 5: But yeah, my my expectations, I think it I think
Speaker 5: it met met my expectations definitely, Just like Tony was saying,
Speaker 5: you know when when you know we see each other,
Speaker 5: you know, worlds or some of these different events and
Speaker 5: we get a brief amount of time to talk to
Speaker 5: each other, to hang out, to visit. But when you're
Speaker 5: sharing you know, camp to me is pretty personal. And
Speaker 5: even if it's a close friend, like if you just
Speaker 5: ain't working, it's like, sorry, dude, love you, but you
Speaker 5: got you got to go. And so.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: We made it.
Speaker 5: You know, it's it's maybe maybe I'm I'm I am
Speaker 5: very selfish in that aspect when it comes to my
Speaker 5: time in September in the woods and you know with
Speaker 5: the guys and with my buddies that have taken me
Speaker 5: under their wing and have showed me you know how
Speaker 5: you know how to arch you're hunting, got into calling.
Speaker 5: But it definitely met my expectations, says We all got
Speaker 5: along real well. You know, something didn't work, we'd huddle up,
Speaker 5: you know, we try we would try something different, but
Speaker 5: we all we always had each other's backs. You know,
Speaker 5: sometimes it's it's easy to get discouraged when things are
Speaker 5: going tough or not going your way. You know, we
Speaker 5: pick each other up. And it was it was it
Speaker 5: was very it was very you know, refreshing. And I
Speaker 5: remember the last day we were on top of this
Speaker 5: mountain and uh we were we were hiking back down
Speaker 5: to the trucks and I was, you know, standing next
Speaker 5: to Tony and and I'll admit it, I teared up
Speaker 5: a little bit, you know, because that all did you know,
Speaker 5: It's the it's the struggle, it's the grind. It's that
Speaker 5: that limited amount of time you have each year to
Speaker 5: break away from work and go spend that all that
Speaker 5: time that we all cherished so deeply in the woods
Speaker 5: together and just how much of a good time we had,
Speaker 5: all the laughs that we had, the ups and the downs.
Speaker 5: It was just it was definitely experience that I will
Speaker 5: I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: It was. You're exactly right. But I got to tell you, man, you,
Speaker 4: I mean, you and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 4: in the truck together going to and from because we
Speaker 4: kind of split up. You put way too much pressure
Speaker 4: on yourself. I told you that.
Speaker 5: I mean to tell you.
Speaker 4: So because because Eric, he was like I gotta you know,
Speaker 4: he felt additional to get us on bulls and when
Speaker 4: it didn't happen, he was like super bummed. And it
Speaker 4: wasn't you. I mean, that wasn't your job. You know,
Speaker 4: we had a place to go. We've all got experience
Speaker 4: with different levels of experience, different types of experience. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it works out, sometimes it doesn't. I mean, that's that's here.
Speaker 2: They're not they want to play, they don't want to play.
Speaker 2: It's just the way it is. But you did put
Speaker 2: in a lot of pressure. But it's okay because you.
Speaker 5: Just I just I wanted I wanted it to I
Speaker 5: think there's different aspects of successful or to a successful hunt,
Speaker 5: you know, but I just I wanted it to be
Speaker 5: successful for everybody. I want everybody to have a good time,
Speaker 5: try to try to put as much as they could accomplished. Man,
Speaker 5: you had a great time and I did. I did too,
Speaker 5: And I'm kind of my own worst advocate and multiple
Speaker 5: aspects of life and had myself that.
Speaker 2: We know, we all judge ourselves hard than everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we all find ourselves a little guilty
Speaker 1: of that. I'm like my biggest critic and my worst critic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 1: But that's how that's why I think that that that's
Speaker 1: what makes us go. You know. We want to achieve,
Speaker 1: we want to do good things. We don't want to
Speaker 1: do great things. And the people around us, we have
Speaker 1: we set a pretty hard high bar so they can
Speaker 1: have a good experience too. I'm pretty hard on myself.
Speaker 1: I want my friends or hunting partners to have a
Speaker 1: good experience too, and it bugs me if we didn't,
Speaker 1: because I know how much I love it, Yeah much,
Speaker 1: I enjoy it, and I want to share that same
Speaker 1: special thing with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but your great time might be bugle and milk everywhere.
Speaker 2: We're getting in the mad bulls. Maybe we didn't kill them,
Speaker 2: but their spears might be down here to bring them
Speaker 2: up to the high points. So your experience might be
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna put them on all kinds of bulls
Speaker 2: and it don't happen and it only hurt hurt two bules,
Speaker 2: and they're like, heicke it, yen is the best experience ever?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, which, like picking out hunting partners, is super
Speaker 1: important to have these conversations long before you get to
Speaker 1: the woods. And I don't know if you guys did
Speaker 1: any of that, but like vet your hunting partners and
Speaker 1: ask them, what are your expectations? What are you looking
Speaker 1: to do? Man? Are we are you wanting to kill
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty inch bulls or are you wanting
Speaker 1: to just have a good time, have some encounters, because
Speaker 1: a successful hunt to one person, that is a bomber
Speaker 1: hunt to somebody else, like, oh man, we failed, but
Speaker 1: somebody that's new to elk hunting might say, I just
Speaker 1: want to hear an elk bugle this year.
Speaker 3: That's why we kind of did there.
Speaker 2: We we we were on like weekly or bi weekly
Speaker 2: conversations for a while, so we had everything and we
Speaker 2: went double dipping on stuff. So we made sure what
Speaker 2: we were caring together, and then we talked about expectations.
Speaker 2: And dude, I think that's really I wouldn't say that's
Speaker 2: the only reason, by no means, the reason why we
Speaker 2: jailed is because first you can laugh, have a joke
Speaker 2: and not not be offended, rag somebody's butt because you
Speaker 2: laging a little bit and not be offended and take
Speaker 2: it like yo, they're trying to pick me up kind
Speaker 2: of thing. And then it was a bunch of different combinations.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you this, the whole crew there pretty
Speaker 2: much was was jeling. We were all on the same page.
Speaker 2: We came together every freaking day day, every day, and
Speaker 2: everybody shared the whole workload. And that's the most important thing,
Speaker 2: because if you if you got partners that ain't gonna
Speaker 2: share some of the workload and you do it, you'll
Speaker 2: carry that burden. It'd be way worse than what you're
Speaker 2: talking about. Because I've been.
Speaker 4: There well like, and it creates friction.
Speaker 2: It creates friction, It creates friction, and that was never
Speaker 2: there in that camp, and I'm so glad it wasn't
Speaker 2: because I don't even think I don't think this whole
Speaker 2: group would even allow that to happen, honestly, because we
Speaker 2: all chipped in. You know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: we lick our wounds. We might have a beer too,
Speaker 2: and drink some water and pass the heck out and
Speaker 2: rent and repeat. My point is is that the group
Speaker 2: was yelling, and I think you was. Your point being
Speaker 2: is that vetting your partners. It wasn't the point that
Speaker 2: we had been together before. There's a point that we
Speaker 2: already had been We hung out many times, but then
Speaker 2: we were vetting each other over the phone and getting
Speaker 2: all right, Tony's like this, Eric's like this, boom, all right,
Speaker 2: let's jail this together. And it worked out. I think it,
Speaker 2: you know, I honestly, if we had to go back
Speaker 2: and do it again, it might be some different changes,
Speaker 2: but you might get in this question.
Speaker 3: We learned a lot though, I mean we learned a lot.
Speaker 4: We learned a ton and regardless it was a successful hunt,
Speaker 4: I mean we had we had a good time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we chased bulls. We chased a lot of bulls, a
Speaker 4: lot of bulls. You killed a bull. I know a
Speaker 4: lot of guys that don't have that kind of success
Speaker 4: on a huh yeah.
Speaker 5: Especially in a new area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a new area. Uh. You talk about like expectations,
Speaker 2: like you know, when I was actually coming into the hunt,
Speaker 2: I said, you already kind of said it. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been competing for a number of years and I
Speaker 2: don't take losing very well. And I internalize it, right,
Speaker 2: I bottled it up. But it hurts. It hurts eat
Speaker 2: and so my expectations out of three tags ten days,
Speaker 2: I was thinking two two is like that's like nine,
Speaker 2: that's like right there at the top right, that's outrageous.
Speaker 2: But reality is is that you got ten days, three tags.
Speaker 2: We'll be lucky to get one of these tags. Field.
Speaker 2: That is reality.
Speaker 6: When you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Elcome a lot of different places.
Speaker 2: In different places that we're not even used to with
Speaker 2: deception of one and and uh. But for me, I
Speaker 2: gotta say, I gotta set the bar up high. Hey,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be two. And I was looking for two
Speaker 2: and it it possibly could have happened almost almost.
Speaker 5: Set up that set up with with me and you
Speaker 5: two were calling behind.
Speaker 2: Me many times.
Speaker 5: I couldn't. I had to keep I was watching that
Speaker 5: ball and I kept pausing, like, man, those two guys
Speaker 5: sound so good back there, like you know, this is great,
Speaker 5: you know. And that bull came down, he did, and
Speaker 5: the only open lane which I thought he was eventually
Speaker 5: going to come into, he just happened to go to
Speaker 5: my left, and that wind was blowing to my ten
Speaker 5: o'clock yep, And he came right down through all that
Speaker 5: thick stuff and stop, got a whiffs, turn around trying
Speaker 5: to back out.
Speaker 4: Speaking to the wind. What is with the wind in
Speaker 4: that country?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: I mean it's I mean we' be at the top
Speaker 4: of the ridge and you're thinking, Okay, it's that time
Speaker 4: of day. Thermals are coming up in our face. We've
Speaker 4: got bulls down here, bugling. We're set up, we're having
Speaker 4: a cow party. We're throwing on a few beagles here
Speaker 4: and then and pretty soon you hear crunch, crunch, crunch.
Speaker 4: You hear bulls coming from multiple different directions, thermals, like
Speaker 4: I said, right directly in our face, and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden at the back of your neck.
Speaker 6: Oh hard all the time, hard.
Speaker 4: And the woods would just erupt and those.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm at that country so broken like that
Speaker 1: just has such unpredictable thermals.
Speaker 2: You know, do you think do you think it's because
Speaker 2: the timber cut that they do.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I feel like if you
Speaker 1: look at the grand scheme of things, you look at
Speaker 1: the main ridge line the watershed divide, and then you
Speaker 1: watch the fingers and the ridges that come off the
Speaker 1: watershed divide, and then you see how it breaks up.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a convolution. I mean, you picture
Speaker 1: the air going up it or going down it, and
Speaker 1: every one of those little ridges and fingers create disturbance
Speaker 1: and turbulence, and so you're gonna get these weird winds.
Speaker 1: And then if you get some days where you have
Speaker 1: those big clouds that go over cool and cool the ground, well,
Speaker 1: then as soon as those clouds go over and you
Speaker 1: get like a little thermal cool right there, right where
Speaker 1: you're standing, but you know, three hundred yards away, it's
Speaker 1: still bright, hot sun that just screws the wind all
Speaker 1: up again. So man, it's tough in some of that country.
Speaker 2: And it's so thick too, so someone that that tree
Speaker 2: growth is blocking that sun and then you get like
Speaker 2: a little swirl going on.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well it's like yeah, we you know, we dropped.
Speaker 5: You know, we dropped multiple times. You know, in the afternoon,
Speaker 5: you know, wind's coming up and we maybe dropped down
Speaker 5: into a bowl. And a lot of times, even if
Speaker 5: that wind's coming up, as soon as you hit those
Speaker 5: trees where you get close to the water, that wind
Speaker 5: will start pulling down like a funnel through that bowl
Speaker 5: and suck down through the bottom, you know. And so
Speaker 5: it's like there was a couple of times when we
Speaker 5: would we would drop down with the wind coming up,
Speaker 5: and then you know, we get it start to get
Speaker 5: into the trees, and we would try to make up,
Speaker 5: you know, locate the elk and try to make a
Speaker 5: big loop around and try to get you know, below them,
Speaker 5: thinking that the wind's going to pull down that bowl
Speaker 5: like a you know, like a funnel kind of. And
Speaker 5: then you get into a patch of trees of this
Speaker 5: open sunlight and now all of a sudden boom thermal
Speaker 5: switch and it's coming back up and it's it's really unpredictable.
Speaker 4: It's a tough cutry it. It does remind me of
Speaker 4: a little bit back home in that respect too, because
Speaker 4: like you said, Dirk, we we've got the same I
Speaker 4: mean again, not not as big a country in most places,
Speaker 4: but you talk about finger ridges, they're like everywhere. Man,
Speaker 4: when you're hunting roosevelts on the coast, you got a
Speaker 4: bugle like every few hundred yards.
Speaker 2: Because because when ridge can block that whole sound.
Speaker 4: The ridge, the trees, forge all the brush, it just
Speaker 4: deadens that sound. But but the but the wind, we
Speaker 4: have the same problem. It's just unpredictable. You can't you
Speaker 4: can't really depend on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't have that problem in Colorado. We do
Speaker 2: have a lot of wind, Don't get me wrong. But
Speaker 2: but it's but it's it's more consistent. It's more consistent.
Speaker 2: You always get those swirly winds, but it's just a
Speaker 2: little bit more consistent, I believe, versus Idaho where we were,
Speaker 2: and uh yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Might be right.
Speaker 2: There's just those fingers and it just it could whip
Speaker 2: in and through that stuff. It's really weird.
Speaker 1: Just doesn't run straight lines. Now, if you can get
Speaker 1: a big high ridge with not a lot of fingers,
Speaker 1: it's a big you know, you got a thousand foot
Speaker 1: elevation change, but it's a big, clean ridge, almost like
Speaker 1: a hog back ridge. Man. You can get some pretty
Speaker 1: consistent wins a lot of times on those kind of places.
Speaker 1: But I found those places that are broken with fingerage
Speaker 1: after fingeradge after fingerage, the finger again to split again
Speaker 1: as they go. Man, it is it's super tough. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times I've been fouled on
Speaker 1: really giant bulls, like as they're coming in, like they
Speaker 1: need to just show themselves. There's like almost showing themselves,
Speaker 1: and then the wind switches and it's a game over.
Speaker 2: You know, you say, you say that dirt, but but
Speaker 2: you and everybody else knows that probably the biggest reason
Speaker 2: why some of those bulls that there is food, water,
Speaker 2: and hey man, they can pay attention to their back.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they ain't gonta worry about things because they could
Speaker 2: smell it on a quick.
Speaker 5: That's why they're in there. Yeah, exactly. Either they don't know.
Speaker 4: But those calls worked, they did, they worked.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, they were.
Speaker 2: Awesome in the field, tested and improved.
Speaker 6: So I have a question.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is going to be one that might ruffle feathers.
Speaker 1: Who in the group would you say was the pickiest
Speaker 1: guy on the call? Development who spent the most time
Speaker 1: being a butt picker? And like, no, can we change this? No, no,
Speaker 1: any quite, can we can we change this?
Speaker 6: I know who it is, but I want to see
Speaker 6: I want to see who.
Speaker 5: I'll admit it. I think I was pretty I mean
Speaker 5: I think I was. I was pretty picky.
Speaker 6: I don't think it was because there was always because.
Speaker 5: I felt bad because we were like, okay, you know,
Speaker 5: you guys happier with everything, Yep, yep, we're good, and
Speaker 5: then Jason's like okay, and then you know, a month
Speaker 5: or two later, it was like, okay, you got sure
Speaker 5: you're happy, you know, because we're about to make these
Speaker 5: things finals Like, well, I'll be that jerk. I'm like, actually,
Speaker 5: can I can we do this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Tell me was Jason's house? Yeah, he was picky.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, dude. I couldn't. I couldn't help it. My
Speaker 4: O c D. I when I put a call in
Speaker 4: my mouth and it doesn't sound just right, like like
Speaker 4: I got an ear for this stuff, and if it
Speaker 4: doesn't sound just right. But the thing is is I
Speaker 4: get some I put one in my mouth and I
Speaker 4: blow it for the first few times, sounds so good,
Speaker 4: and I blow on it a little bit longer, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, that top ends cutting out on me.
Speaker 4: So what I found was what I had hoped to
Speaker 4: get out of these calls. No, I love the Maverick
Speaker 4: and I can make Here's the thing I won. I
Speaker 4: won the men's division with the Maverick. I'd hunted with
Speaker 4: it for years and years and years. That call I
Speaker 4: had to I had to kind of back off on
Speaker 4: my style of calling to get it.
Speaker 1: To work, because you blow hard.
Speaker 4: I blow hard. Now I can make any of them work,
Speaker 4: But when I'm hunting or if I'm competing, I don't
Speaker 4: want to think about it. I don't want to have
Speaker 4: to think about toning down the amount of air pressure
Speaker 4: volume that I usually to make that call work when
Speaker 4: I'm on the stage especially, but when I'm in the woods,
Speaker 4: you know, I want to when the time comes when
Speaker 4: you need to challenge that bull, I need a call
Speaker 4: that's going to hold up to as much air pressure
Speaker 4: and volume that I can put against that call to
Speaker 4: absolutely challenge that bull and just punch him right in
Speaker 4: the face. And that's and I'd get that point. I
Speaker 4: think i'd get it. And I'm like, and then again,
Speaker 4: it would it would loosen up on me. I need
Speaker 4: a call that's going to stand up, not only duration wise,
Speaker 4: for you know, maybe a week I was going through calls.
Speaker 4: I go through a call a day. If I got
Speaker 4: into a good, good batch of bulls, and I was
Speaker 4: doing a lot of calling, and I did almost all
Speaker 4: the calling and over the years with my partners, so
Speaker 4: I go through a lot of calls. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: would get it to where I was thinking, would think
Speaker 4: it was right and and I and I was like, God, Jason, Gosh,
Speaker 4: I got to call this guy. I gotta call Jason again.
Speaker 1: He's going to be pissed. This is there's no way
Speaker 1: that you were pickier than me.
Speaker 4: That's what he said.
Speaker 6: That's exactly what And that's what I told you, guys.
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, I'm the pickiest guy on planet Earth.
Speaker 1: So please pick these things apart, make sure you love them.
Speaker 1: They're everything you want for you period. Well, be selfish,
Speaker 1: build up for exactly what you want.
Speaker 2: Well, all of our styles are so different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and you were used to that white am right.
Speaker 4: I mean, and that that that call worked for you.
Speaker 4: I mean, you made that call work according to your
Speaker 4: style really well.
Speaker 2: Right, But I was getting to the point where for me,
Speaker 2: I was in between. I don't even want to toot
Speaker 2: your horn right now. I was in between my horn. No,
Speaker 2: I gotta say it, I gotta say it. I don't
Speaker 2: even want to say it matter, but you just look
Speaker 2: at it. Well, I was in between, like like, I
Speaker 2: called in a number of bulls, shoot. I think twenty
Speaker 2: one was like thirty two bulls with this white amp.
Speaker 2: But I was blowing it out way more, not because
Speaker 2: because of my style of blowing, blow hard aggressive. I'm
Speaker 2: on it all the time, and I was blowing them out.
Speaker 2: And then I grabbed the maverick because I was good
Speaker 2: at the Maverick anyways, not to his horn or anything,
Speaker 2: but I was. I was good at that.
Speaker 4: Are you gonna do it? Are seriously gonna do that?
Speaker 4: Right now?
Speaker 3: I was just waiting for.
Speaker 2: Him to put his fingers on my lip and I
Speaker 2: was gonna bite it. So so anyways, no, I was
Speaker 2: right in there between it, but his was lasting longer
Speaker 2: for me. So once I threw a couple of Bibles
Speaker 2: through the Maverick, I was like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: And then I wanted something that was just like that,
Speaker 2: but right there in between the like two of them.
Speaker 2: So if I actually blew the white amp and the Maverick,
Speaker 2: I feel like it's really close. I think the white
Speaker 2: amp is gonna break break in a little bit faster
Speaker 2: than that Maverick. That Maverick might take me a few
Speaker 2: few more bugles to get it to sound right, especially
Speaker 2: for my cow sounds, and then boom. As soon as
Speaker 2: you did that with the Maverick, it was like through
Speaker 2: that thing is money. But that white amp was right there.
Speaker 2: But I was just blowing out the white amp. So
Speaker 2: I wanted something in between the two for myself.
Speaker 1: Basically, if the white amp and the Maverick had a
Speaker 1: baby the hot.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the Hodge. It fits right there, I believe
Speaker 2: if it's right there in between, because I can blow
Speaker 2: the Maverick right now and then blow my call and
Speaker 2: it's it's It's a difference, definitely a difference. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't so dramatic that it wasn't like overkill.
Speaker 1: It was the baby. Yeah, and Jermaine will say he's
Speaker 1: coming after the king, right. Everyone knows the Mavericks is
Speaker 1: the king of diaphragms. And I don't make this up.
Speaker 1: The statistics, you know, speak for themselves. Phelps wishes his
Speaker 1: pink diaphragm col could live up to the Maverick. But
Speaker 1: it's still the king on top of the heat. But
Speaker 1: Hodge is always said, I'm coming for the Maverick, I'm
Speaker 1: coming from the King.
Speaker 2: Well I can't even say that now. The king is
Speaker 2: sitting to my left right here.
Speaker 6: Tony.
Speaker 3: Tony's the king right now, especially on the world stage.
Speaker 1: He is the reigning world champion professional elk caller. Hey,
Speaker 1: can we he got crowned today?
Speaker 2: Can we can we eat him around easier to see?
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, dude.
Speaker 4: I was, I'm still really I'm having a hard time
Speaker 4: like wrapping my head around it, because the caliber of
Speaker 4: the callers that that I had to go up against.
Speaker 1: You had a perfect day. Man. I watched the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You called against the best of the best and eliminated
Speaker 1: each one of them. And for the end you had
Speaker 1: to eliminate. Didn't you have to bugle against both twice? No?
Speaker 1: Just once? But you beat them all. You beat the
Speaker 1: best of the best unless of your routine. And every
Speaker 1: time it was just like money, It was money, It
Speaker 1: was money. And how do you do that practice? Like?
Speaker 1: How many how much practice do you put in a week? Oh?
Speaker 4: Man, I wish my wife was here. She could tell
Speaker 4: you better than not kid.
Speaker 2: Well, I could say, I can tell you right now.
Speaker 2: You priory practice way more than me and Eric. I
Speaker 2: know I've backed off a little bit myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So people ask me that a lot. How do
Speaker 4: you get how do you get to the point where
Speaker 4: you can make the sounds that you make and call
Speaker 4: as well as you do? And I'll tell you. I
Speaker 4: so I've got about a forty forty five minute commute
Speaker 4: every morning, and I grabbed my I'd grab my bugle
Speaker 4: tube and the whole time between the time I leave
Speaker 4: my house and time I get to work, I've got
Speaker 4: a diaphragmut of my mouth. And then when I get
Speaker 4: home in the evenings, I'm out in the garage. We're
Speaker 4: out in the backyard this time of year, come leading
Speaker 4: up to the contest, especially, I can't countless hours, Dirk.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was I gotta say, I don't know
Speaker 4: that the year that I won the men's division, I
Speaker 4: practiced way more than I did this year. I mean,
Speaker 4: but that was the first year that I had started
Speaker 4: competing again after a long time and didn't really know
Speaker 4: what to expect. But every day, every day, for even
Speaker 4: if it was fifteen to twenty minutes, I'd go through
Speaker 4: my routine. And that's what it takes. I mean, if
Speaker 4: if you want to if you want to be competitive
Speaker 4: on that stage against those kind of callers, you have to.
Speaker 2: It's the field is so deep.
Speaker 4: Compared to what it used to be. I mean, Derek,
Speaker 4: you and I competed against each other way back, you know,
Speaker 4: in the early two thousands. Compared to compared to what
Speaker 4: I remember those contests to be compared to what they
Speaker 4: are now, it's crazy. It is crazy. But the skill,
Speaker 4: the talent that these people.
Speaker 2: I mean it almost starts at a younger age too,
Speaker 2: because you see you see you see the pee wee,
Speaker 2: you see the youth like all.
Speaker 1: These you are coming up and they're coming after us.
Speaker 2: Please take my spot. I'll go kill the elk you
Speaker 2: just called them in kind of things and that those
Speaker 2: those kids are amazing well, and I would say this,
Speaker 2: it's primarily because of you know, someone like Birk and us,
Speaker 2: you know, sharing photos and videos of stuff that we
Speaker 2: do that encourages those kids and they want to get
Speaker 2: on one of the big stage too, and they're they're
Speaker 2: just as good.
Speaker 4: H You know the other thing, Dirk, I got to say.
Speaker 4: I was talking to one of the judges after the
Speaker 4: contest today and uh, they're wanting to know, you know,
Speaker 4: how I how I could be as consistent as I
Speaker 4: was and and the cow cals that I were making
Speaker 4: if it if it hadn't been for me being as
Speaker 4: picky as I was through this process of developing these calls,
Speaker 4: I don't think I could have done what I did
Speaker 4: today because I didn't. I left nothing on the table.
Speaker 4: I mean, I went through my routine that I've been
Speaker 4: practicing for months now, and I put as much air
Speaker 4: pressure involving behind that call as that call would take
Speaker 4: and it it didn't break on me.
Speaker 5: No, it was no and it.
Speaker 2: Was freaking perfect. You know.
Speaker 5: Another another kudos that I would like to give to
Speaker 5: you too, Tony, is you know we're all preparing for
Speaker 5: you know, the world's or any coming competition for that.
Speaker 5: You know, matter of fact, you know, we're going through
Speaker 5: a daily last we're going to you know, we're going
Speaker 5: to work in the morning. I also have about a
Speaker 5: forty forty minute commute to work, you know, so I'll
Speaker 5: practice a little bit in the morning and then on
Speaker 5: my way home usually hit it, you know, the whole way,
Speaker 5: hit it hard. And for you we're listening to ourselves
Speaker 5: day in and day out. We don't have anybody else
Speaker 5: to critique us on our routine or the cow calls
Speaker 5: that we're making, or the different types of bugles that
Speaker 5: we're making. I mean, we're we're going off you know,
Speaker 5: YouTube videos or hunts or you know elk being recorded
Speaker 5: in the field, us trying to mimic them, you know,
Speaker 5: us practice practicing our own calls and hoping they're authentic enough.
Speaker 5: The quality is there so to be able to do
Speaker 5: what you did today with you being your own you know,
Speaker 5: your own critic in a sense, is that's amazing to
Speaker 5: me because when you get on stage and you may
Speaker 5: have a different panel of judges, or the judges might
Speaker 5: be the same and then maybe one or two different,
Speaker 5: you don't know exactly what they're looking for. So you
Speaker 5: come into these competitions hoping with the routine or the
Speaker 5: calls or whatever that you put together, that that that
Speaker 5: that's gonna that that's going to contend, that's going to
Speaker 5: be you know, good enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you don't know no idea.
Speaker 5: It's not like they come out before the contest and say, okay, contestants,
Speaker 5: we're looking on authenticity, consistency, something that Oxford socks off,
Speaker 5: you know, and whatever else.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we all prepare and you just hope they're buying
Speaker 1: what we're selling exactly. And I said, I've said it
Speaker 1: one hundred times because I've competed in this thing. I
Speaker 1: didn't compete today, haven't competed for a while, but I've
Speaker 1: competed a lot over the years, and it is anybody's game, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because it don't matter how good you sound to you
Speaker 1: or good how good you sound to your buddies or
Speaker 1: how good do you sound to the people in the room.
Speaker 1: If the judges don't like it, they're going to pick
Speaker 1: somebody else. But if they do like it, they're going.
Speaker 3: To pick it, which makes it tough.
Speaker 1: It makes it tough.
Speaker 6: It's hard to start.
Speaker 1: It's almost like studying for exam, and then they change
Speaker 1: the questions at the end.
Speaker 4: Right, you just don't know, Well, you said it earlier, Derek,
Speaker 4: that you know it is. It's it's subjective, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean you you don't know the experience of each
Speaker 4: one of those judges have have had, you know, throughout
Speaker 4: their careers. And I made this analogy today, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, how many people do you know that think
Speaker 4: they're a really good singer but they're not?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. I mean it's kind of like that.
Speaker 4: I I they experienced that, and and you just don't
Speaker 4: ever know. I would hate to be a judge. I mean,
Speaker 4: those guys have got to That's a tough job of
Speaker 4: any of us sitting back there all day long, listening
Speaker 4: to all of us two on our horns, and then
Speaker 4: trying to pick the best out of out of the
Speaker 4: two that went.
Speaker 2: I would say this, it's very hard when you get
Speaker 2: to like the top eight, top eight in men's division,
Speaker 2: women's division, if women, if women had eight this year,
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, hypothet cool reasons if all of them
Speaker 2: had top eight. Once you get to like the top eight,
Speaker 2: it's tough.
Speaker 1: Man, and then you narrow you narrow it down to
Speaker 1: the last four, You narrow it down to the last two.
Speaker 1: Like they're talking to some of the judgement, they all
Speaker 1: take notes right as as you go through your performance,
Speaker 1: and they taking notes. And if you if you're read
Speaker 1: breaks just a little bit, they're gonna write that down.
Speaker 1: And if and if if you make something that's just
Speaker 1: that they don't like, they write it down. And if
Speaker 1: it's that so close, well they look at the notes like,
Speaker 1: well tip for tat, this guy had fewer marks by
Speaker 1: their name, so I'm gonna pick them.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean yeah, I mean for example, like I
Speaker 2: knew when I broke over on that lip ball, I
Speaker 2: was like, it's done. I said, I'm listening. This dude's
Speaker 2: just as good as me. I said, I said, I'm
Speaker 2: doing And it was a four to three match. That
Speaker 2: does an example, Well, I got hey, man, his lip
Speaker 2: ball broke over, and.
Speaker 1: When you do that, you're like, man, I hope they
Speaker 1: didn't catch that, man?
Speaker 6: Were they sleeping?
Speaker 1: So I don't know if our listeners know what actually
Speaker 1: goes into building a call, a custom call, or a
Speaker 1: signature call. So whenever I did it, and you guys
Speaker 1: probably had a similar experience, Jason Phelips built I don't
Speaker 1: know how many twenty thirty calls he made mine with
Speaker 1: all these different latexes because he knew I kind of
Speaker 1: knew what I wanted, but I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: I wanted. So he built like thin late text, he
Speaker 1: built thick light text, he built medium light text. Then
Speaker 1: he did put different colors of those same thickness as
Speaker 1: of late text. Then he had different stretches of the
Speaker 1: different stretches within each of those categories.
Speaker 3: You might have been worse than Tonys might have been
Speaker 3: the same as yours, Dick.
Speaker 1: It was. It was hard, and I would I just
Speaker 1: sat out at the table. I pick one up and
Speaker 1: I blow it, and I had a yes pile and
Speaker 1: a no pile, Yep, nope, yep nope, and I go
Speaker 1: back through it and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: all the way through all the yeses, and when I
Speaker 1: get through the yes is to where I can whittle
Speaker 1: it down. Now I have some very specific things I
Speaker 1: have to get out of this call. There's there's a
Speaker 1: few little different nuanced bugles I like, and it has
Speaker 1: to have to It has to make the right sound
Speaker 1: at the right time during the bugle, whether it's the
Speaker 1: drop off, like you hit that high note and then
Speaker 1: you drop off back to the low. Some of those
Speaker 1: they'll cut out or buzz on you or you know so.
Speaker 1: And then some latexes, different colors of latex and the
Speaker 1: same thickness would would not be as articulate as others,
Speaker 1: and some would be too articulate. I'm like, that's way
Speaker 1: too much, too much articulation. I want the one that's
Speaker 1: just just right, like you said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to think about it. I want to put this
Speaker 1: in here and blow it like I blow it, and
Speaker 1: it's going to do everything. And after I don't know,
Speaker 1: I went through that first round and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: this is kind of what I like. So then you
Speaker 1: had to send me a whole bunch more of those
Speaker 1: similar until we landed on the map.
Speaker 5: It's not it's not just you know, oh it's just
Speaker 5: latex and aluminum powlet plate. It's like, no, it's way
Speaker 5: more than that.
Speaker 4: Well, in the in the thing that I learned through
Speaker 4: this process because I was so picky, you can get
Speaker 4: a batch of latex that's at a certain thickness supposedly,
Speaker 4: and it can vary in that batch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be pleasure minded exactly.
Speaker 4: So I think that's where you know, the yes and
Speaker 4: nopile come comes from. Is that you. And there's also
Speaker 4: the human element, right, I mean you've got to you've
Speaker 4: got a device that will measure you know, the stretch,
Speaker 4: the side stretch. But you know, each of us, I think,
Speaker 4: have a little bit of you know, different nuances or
Speaker 4: or backtension that we like based on our style, and
Speaker 4: you can't measure that. So it's it's like all by
Speaker 4: feel or by sight, and it's hard to replicate that
Speaker 4: perfectly every time, right, you know, So it there was
Speaker 4: I mean I learned a lot through this process. I'm
Speaker 4: still learning, uh as a result of it. But you
Speaker 4: know it's uh, you're right. I mean it really does
Speaker 4: take a lot of effort and time to go through
Speaker 4: all those calls and find the one that is just
Speaker 4: it's perfect for you and and and Derek, I mean
Speaker 4: the Maverick. Nobody blows a Maverick like you do, and
Speaker 4: and it and there's a reason for that.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. I've heard a couple of guys
Speaker 1: in this.
Speaker 2: Well I will say this. I would say this is
Speaker 2: this is you know, you get a group of like
Speaker 2: minded people, like like I said, that love to hunt elk.
Speaker 2: We love to hunt elk more than we'd love to
Speaker 2: be on stage. I mean, that's my personal opinion, but
Speaker 2: I think you know I would share that with the
Speaker 2: rest of the group here. But what I will say
Speaker 2: is this is, Uh, when we build these calls, we
Speaker 2: build these calls to perform, not on stage really, you know,
Speaker 2: my my, that's like the back end, that's the fun
Speaker 2: and part of it. During the summertime, when we're kind
Speaker 2: of getting ready for a hunting season, we build these
Speaker 2: calls to call an elk and perform when you need
Speaker 2: to perform. And I know that's what Dirk did when
Speaker 2: he was building the Maverick. But I will say this
Speaker 2: is that they would never longer call him king because
Speaker 2: when I built mine, I built mine a little bit
Speaker 2: better than Dirk's.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Well, well, you know what, you know what, but hey,
Speaker 2: all jokes to the side though, is he's got way
Speaker 2: more buys and kills and stuff with his So I
Speaker 2: really shouldn't, I should dive down a little bit. But
Speaker 2: I do think if you're looking for a new change,
Speaker 2: All American series is right in the house house, because
Speaker 2: you might be one of us that fits in between
Speaker 2: the original signature series, because Phelps is a great call,
Speaker 2: Derek's is a great call, and Charlie's is a great call,
Speaker 2: and I think we kind of I think us three
Speaker 2: are like even between some of all those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I think you know, I've blown uh probably
Speaker 4: every call that's been on the market and and even
Speaker 4: some currently. The thing that that steered me towards the
Speaker 4: ELPs calls was the consistency that was getting out of
Speaker 4: those calls. And and so I think anybody that picks
Speaker 4: up these calls, whether it's a Maverick or one of
Speaker 4: these new All American series, when they find the call
Speaker 4: that fits their style of calling, they can be pretty
Speaker 4: sure that that they're going to get a call every time.
Speaker 5: And the life and the life that you'll get out
Speaker 5: of the read, you know, when I first did. I
Speaker 5: I'm newer to the newer to the archery scene, you know,
Speaker 5: I've been doing it my fifth season, and you know,
Speaker 5: calling for about you know, four or five years or so,
Speaker 5: started using you know, the Phelps reads at the beginning,
Speaker 5: you know, and I tried some I tried some other calls,
Speaker 5: and I blow them out, I mean real, real quick.
Speaker 5: But with the consistency and the life that I got,
Speaker 5: and how easy the reads were for me as a
Speaker 5: newer caller to use. I mean, have I haven't gone
Speaker 5: any you know, with any other calls, you know, since
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what that's what made you know, made
Speaker 5: me step upon love those calls so much.
Speaker 4: Well, and even even the design that's gone into the tubes,
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't I cannot put my diaphragm on
Speaker 4: my mouth and use another tube and make the same
Speaker 4: sounds that I get out of out of the Phelps tubes.
Speaker 4: I'm still talking a lot about the diaphragms, but that's
Speaker 4: just one that's just one tool that you need. And
Speaker 4: those tubes, I mean, the back person you get out
Speaker 4: of them. I can articulate these calls with with those tubes.
Speaker 4: So much better than I can any other tube that
Speaker 4: I've ever tried.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, I totally agree. You know, we we sit here,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the consistency of of our our calls
Speaker 2: and you know how you guys did today, And honestly,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's all development and it comes from
Speaker 2: like mine, people working together to develop some of these calls,
Speaker 2: right to come up with some of these calls, because well,
Speaker 2: we're ultimately and you know, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: at the very end of the day, you gotta tag
Speaker 2: in your pocket. You're trying to fill your tag. And
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do is cut that, cut that
Speaker 2: learning curve down for you guys. We're sitting here blowing
Speaker 2: that World Championships, Tony successful, Pat Latrell successful, his so
Speaker 2: of the Hunter is successful. But what was consistent today
Speaker 2: on stage was I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like minded.
Speaker 2: People that that hunt, that hunt and get out there
Speaker 2: and hear these animals and that could make these same
Speaker 2: sounds with these same calls. And uh yeah, it takes practice,
Speaker 2: no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: It takes practice.
Speaker 2: You you have to hammer it down and you have
Speaker 2: to practice. And uh with Consistent practice comes consistent results.
Speaker 4: If you're going to arch your hunt, you're gonna it's
Speaker 4: gonna take whether you're shooting your bow, whether you're calling.
Speaker 4: It takes practice and you got to put the time in.
Speaker 5: That's like I say that, it's like everybody you knows, like, hey,
Speaker 5: I have you shot your boat? I have you shot
Speaker 5: your bow today? You know what I've been saying, You
Speaker 5: got your call today?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: You called today.
Speaker 2: I'm shooting.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm shooting a bow pretty good?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: You can't call?
Speaker 5: Are you got fifty that done? You know you're missing
Speaker 5: a huge element to it, right.
Speaker 2: I mean you don't have.
Speaker 5: To be the best caller, but it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: get some basic you know, some basic calls, you know,
Speaker 5: some location location big or whatever, some cow calls. You know,
Speaker 5: just get those under your belt and I don't make
Speaker 5: a huge, huge world of difference, but it does take
Speaker 5: some call on and not just shooting narrow.
Speaker 2: You're right you right now.
Speaker 1: Earlier I asked a question, and who is the pickiest?
Speaker 1: And it's funny because Eric pointed himself and you felt
Speaker 1: like you're pretty picky on your call? Now your call
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised. It was different, way different. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit lighter late text than a Maverick and
Speaker 1: a little tight, little tight stretch. But man, you blow
Speaker 1: that thing. Great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's a great it's
Speaker 5: a great call. I wanted a call that would be
Speaker 5: as universal as possible for anybody who would pick it
Speaker 5: up and use it along with myself. You know, I
Speaker 5: want to be able to put a diaphragm in it
Speaker 5: and almost have it be effortless in a sense, you know,
Speaker 5: because sometimes you know, you can have ten different calls,
Speaker 5: or you know, before I had my own call, you
Speaker 5: maybe you know, grab ten calls to a season or whatever,
Speaker 5: you know, and you you try the different calls or whatever,
Speaker 5: and you know you had add the human element into it,
Speaker 5: but you might have four or five. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: that's a good one. I thought, that's a that's another
Speaker 5: good one. You start stacking them, you know, in your holder,
Speaker 5: like one, two, three, four, five, you know. And so
Speaker 5: I wanted something that was going to be as effortless
Speaker 5: as possible and easy to use, not just for myself
Speaker 5: but anybody who were to pick it up and use
Speaker 5: it as well. But no, it turned out great. I
Speaker 5: am huge fan of the Maverick, so I you know,
Speaker 5: I wanted something very you know, similar, similar to the Maverick,
Speaker 5: but just with a little bit of a tighter stretch
Speaker 5: on it, because you know, I moved quite a bit
Speaker 5: of air, you know, across you know, across the diaphragm too,
Speaker 5: So I thought that would be a good combination for.
Speaker 2: As hard as you blow after blowing your your read
Speaker 2: as hard as you blow, I'm like, how does he
Speaker 2: not correct that over? Like?
Speaker 4: It fits your style of cone like, it's just perfect
Speaker 4: for him, It's perfect for because if I blew as
Speaker 4: hard as I think you blow.
Speaker 3: Over that call, it'd break.
Speaker 2: Over for me.
Speaker 4: Well, I think, I think, uh, part of what makes
Speaker 4: that that call break over sometimes too, in addition to
Speaker 4: the amount of air that you put across that call,
Speaker 4: is where you've got that die from in your mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, because for me, I probably run my call
Speaker 4: back further than most people do, and you know, if
Speaker 4: I had that call further forward, it wouldn't work for me.
Speaker 4: So again, it's just everybody's so different. Their palettes are different,
Speaker 4: their style of calling is different. You have to find
Speaker 4: that one call and Eric, you did that? Man? You
Speaker 4: make that call sound really good.
Speaker 2: Shoot, I thought they called my mouth and I sound
Speaker 2: almost sound like a note too.
Speaker 1: Well, when Phelps asked me, He's like, what are we
Speaker 1: going to call these calls? And I'm like, Team America,
Speaker 1: f yeah, you know, well we can't go down that route.
Speaker 1: America like how about the all American? Three pack? All American?
Speaker 1: Because you look at look look at these three men.
Speaker 1: I'm pleasure to spend some time with and this weekend,
Speaker 1: you guys are you guys? They're epitome of America. You know,
Speaker 1: we got Eric. If you guys haven't seen Eric, how
Speaker 1: tall are you?
Speaker 5: Six six sixty six.
Speaker 1: He's a large American played football at University University of Washington.
Speaker 1: He works for the Army Corps of Engineers at a
Speaker 1: damn he you know, America, we got Tony Gilbertson. Tony
Speaker 1: has worked for public Works getting the water to us
Speaker 1: right water and sewage that's.
Speaker 4: Right for a long time.
Speaker 5: How long? Over thirty years?
Speaker 1: Thirty years. This man's been getting clean water and getting
Speaker 1: rid of our sewage for thirty years, doing things right.
Speaker 1: He got Hodge. He's been coaching Olympic wrestlers in the
Speaker 1: army for how long? Twenty one twenty one years. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just looked at you guys. I'm like, you guys
Speaker 1: are just They're just all American guys. So if you
Speaker 1: look at the packaging, you're gonna see the packaging it
Speaker 1: completely looks nothing like the rest of our Felps packaging
Speaker 1: other than you'll see our Filps logo on it, but
Speaker 1: you see stars and stripes. Each diaphragm has stars and
Speaker 1: stripes on it. Well, I kind of be prouder of
Speaker 1: the calls you guys built. And I've been I've been
Speaker 1: editing this video, working on it. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: working on for a while. I've been working my tail
Speaker 1: off putting this thing together and trying to build this
Speaker 1: story out and to best express what you guys did.
Speaker 1: And you guys talked a little bit about how you
Speaker 1: guys connected and you gelled and you worked together and
Speaker 1: you as I'm calling through this, all this content, we've
Speaker 1: got like sixteen or seventeen days and two cameras, and
Speaker 1: I got so much content I'm calming through. But all
Speaker 1: of it is like you guys respectfully listening to each other,
Speaker 1: making game plans, like, what do you think? What do
Speaker 1: you think? Yeah, yeah, you know, making these these game
Speaker 1: plans as a team. It was really it was really
Speaker 1: cool to see. You don't always see that. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: Like I've always said, you can spend ten days in
Speaker 1: the mountains with somebody you considered a friend and you
Speaker 1: may hate them at the end of that ten days.
Speaker 1: It will expose personalities, it will expose desires, it will
Speaker 1: expose expectations, it will expose the truth. It will drag
Speaker 1: that truth out of people, good or bad. And you
Speaker 1: guys were out there for more than like more than that.
Speaker 1: You guys were out there for a while. And at
Speaker 1: the end, how do you feel about it? Do you guys?
Speaker 1: Are you guys like I don't know Jermlane he's okay.
Speaker 1: And Er he's all right, But I don't know. I
Speaker 1: fun hunting with him? Again, tell me coming out of this,
Speaker 1: what do you guys think?
Speaker 5: No, it was, it was, It was good. I definitely,
Speaker 5: I definitely enjoyed my time with these guys. I really
Speaker 5: really enjoyed it because, like I said, I got to
Speaker 5: spend quality time with them out in the woods, you know,
Speaker 5: not just at the different events or you know, competitions,
Speaker 5: but you know, got to share a campfire with these guys,
Speaker 5: you know, got up at four am in the morning,
Speaker 5: you know with these guys, made breakfast, you know, dropped
Speaker 5: you know, in and out of canyons you know with
Speaker 5: these guys, and uh, we learned. We learned a lot,
Speaker 5: you know, a lot of new country that I had
Speaker 5: never seen or never hunted. So there was a lot
Speaker 5: of good lessons taken away of maybe some things that
Speaker 5: we would change and do differently, but I mean, overall,
Speaker 5: it was a fantastic experience. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I agree percent. I would definitely hunt with
Speaker 4: with either one of you guys again, hopefully both yea,
Speaker 4: either one or both. Absolutely, it's uh, you know you
Speaker 4: said it, Derek, when you when you when you said that,
Speaker 4: you know you can you can be friends, but you
Speaker 4: go out and spend ten days or more or whatever,
Speaker 4: even a week in the woods with people, and if
Speaker 4: you if you can't come together and agree on things
Speaker 4: and and give each other cut, cut each other some slack,
Speaker 4: give each you know, give it, give each other some
Speaker 4: grace and just say, you know what, I know, this
Speaker 4: is how I'm used to hunting. But I'm gonna hunt
Speaker 4: the way Jermaine wants to hunt today, where I'm gonna
Speaker 4: haveht the way that Eric wants to not today. And
Speaker 4: you know, I'm I'm the kind of guy that I
Speaker 4: just love being out there. I don't you know, I
Speaker 4: enjoy I enjoy being in the elk woods. I enjoy
Speaker 4: hearing elk bugles. I enjoy the camaraderie. Yes, I enjoy
Speaker 4: it when we're successful. But I'll tell you, you know
Speaker 4: a lot of people put way too much weight on
Speaker 4: notch in that tag to consider the hunt to be successful.
Speaker 4: And I mean, like I said, I knew you guys
Speaker 4: for a couple of years, and that couple of years
Speaker 4: was just meeting each other at the at the World's
Speaker 4: you know, it's been in a couple of days with
Speaker 4: you guys. Ah. You know, you you learn more about
Speaker 4: people when you're out in the woods and you're working
Speaker 4: together as a team to accomplish a goal. And and
Speaker 4: you know, we did that and we did it well.
Speaker 4: And yes, there's probably some things that looking back on it,
Speaker 4: we'd probably do different, but that's you know, it's hunting.
Speaker 6: That's how you grow, right, absolutely absolutely, what do.
Speaker 2: You think your man, Well, these guys, these guys were
Speaker 2: you don't really know. You don't know until you go.
Speaker 2: I always keep this model, is it ill cool to hire? Well,
Speaker 2: you ain't gonna know unless you go, and you gotta
Speaker 2: try it out right, And it's like any food right
Speaker 2: that don't look that good and then taste it and
Speaker 2: you like that was amazing. My point is is that
Speaker 2: is I already knew these guys for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: My philosophy was is I'm not gonna enforce them to
Speaker 2: hunt like me. Let's work together, let's kind of figure
Speaker 2: this all out. And it started yelling right away. I
Speaker 2: was like, let's go here, let's go here, let's split up,
Speaker 2: let's do this. And we had counts of encounters, some
Speaker 2: of the best, some of the worst. Who cares. But
Speaker 2: at the same time you're learning, you're learning each other,
Speaker 2: and dude, it was it was eye opener because my styles,
Speaker 2: you guys, both of y'all got know now my styles
Speaker 2: super progressive, superrogressive, go down I don't care. But then
Speaker 2: when you get up there north of the whole country,
Speaker 2: and like Tony told me one day, when the man,
Speaker 2: I ain't going down there and they would be with
Speaker 2: me down there, and I was like, I ain't going
Speaker 2: down there either.
Speaker 6: Well it was because you learn.
Speaker 4: It was because it was getting on into the evening.
Speaker 4: It's back in their ways. And what happened. We start
Speaker 4: chasing bugles. I'm thinking, okay, we'll do it. Jermaine wants
Speaker 4: to go off these bulls. We'll do it. We get
Speaker 4: down this mountain, the trail on ONEX disappears.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: We continue down and pretty soon we're looking down over
Speaker 4: this cliff over after we slid down our on our
Speaker 4: butts for I don't know how many Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: it was that was the sketchy part that was talking about.
Speaker 5: There was no hiking. It was sliding and grabbing and
Speaker 5: it's like, okay, I'm gonna slide on my butt another
Speaker 5: twenty yards this next tree up. I catch it and
Speaker 5: then is like, I'm gonna go He said, you guys
Speaker 5: hang out here. We're like, okay, I'm gonna go down
Speaker 5: and check and see, you know, see what we got,
Speaker 5: because you know, you can kind of tell it cliff out.
Speaker 6: Down there, he goes.
Speaker 5: He goes, I'm I'm gonna go down there. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: see see what it looks like. Okay, we'll hang out here.
Speaker 5: And you see Jermaine looking over like this, you know,
Speaker 5: left right, and you hear him turn his head. He goes,
Speaker 5: don't go left. I go okay, copy that, don't go left,
Speaker 5: go right, push right. So you know, we pushed right,
Speaker 5: and we got down to where we were cliffed out,
Speaker 5: and so I told the you know, hang out here.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna see I'm gonna see if we can get
Speaker 5: down you know, right here. And so I I went
Speaker 5: down to the right and I'd found kind of I
Speaker 5: mean a path, I mean the easiest way down, but
Speaker 5: we basically slid on our butts. But rest of the
Speaker 5: way down to the creek that it was sketchy. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And going up the other side, oh man, Yeah, that
Speaker 4: was yds of life, digging your toes into the into
Speaker 4: the hillside and grabbing onbing on branches just to pull
Speaker 4: yourself up.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 5: It was not pulling each other back onto the trail.
Speaker 4: Got back to the trail right at about dark.
Speaker 5: Yep, you sure did wolves howling in the background.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: Now, I will say after you guys got back and
Speaker 1: kind of the dust had settled and maybe some of
Speaker 1: the pain had gone away. Germaine text music. Hey listen,
Speaker 1: next time, I'll pick the state and the area.
Speaker 5: I believe it.
Speaker 4: I believe it.
Speaker 1: You like the spot I picked out for you?
Speaker 3: Hey? Yeah, I take it exactly that. Hey, how about
Speaker 3: I picked the station.
Speaker 4: You know how many people said to me when they
Speaker 4: asked where I went hunting in Idaho? Up in North Idoo?
Speaker 4: You know what the answer was? Another response, why did
Speaker 4: you do that?
Speaker 1: Well? Those are the only tags available.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to tell you this. I left there.
Speaker 2: We got done with our hunt. Me and Tony had
Speaker 2: gassed up at the last the gas station, and we
Speaker 2: kind of went down maybe four or five hours, and
Speaker 2: them kind of splip parts you was going down to
Speaker 2: the heroes a Lifetime with Elk one one and stuff
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 5: So so I was like, all.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm thinking the whole way home, I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: let'sh what went wrong? What went right? Kind of thing?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, man, really, nothing really went wrong. We
Speaker 2: probably could have stayed up in a higher country after
Speaker 2: some of those other bulls that we were after, and
Speaker 2: that might have been like like the icing on the cake.
Speaker 2: But to be honestly, like you really don't know, you
Speaker 2: really don't know. It's like calling, right, and and going
Speaker 2: back on some of the stuff that that we're kind
Speaker 2: of talking about earlier, is yeah, you don't have to
Speaker 2: be a Tony or Eric or Jermaine had or Dirt
Speaker 2: Durham to calling bulls because it's in many stories where
Speaker 2: you can sit down and talk with me. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you stories that I had bulls. I called it that
Speaker 2: didn't sound like bulls. And just because you know, we
Speaker 2: we been through the trials and tributes of you know,
Speaker 2: our our first hunt together, not the last, our first
Speaker 2: hunt together. It's it's it's growing pains and you really
Speaker 2: have to you know, hash out some of this with
Speaker 2: you your hunting partners. But what I will tell you
Speaker 2: is this cal call. Can you at least cal call?
Speaker 2: So if you got a partner that helps you cal
Speaker 2: call or something to contribute your successful it goes way
Speaker 2: up way. It's dramatic, that's right.
Speaker 5: There's a difference between calling, you know, calling and competitions. Yeah,
Speaker 5: trying to figure out what the judge is like, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's been I messed up bugles and I've had bulls
Speaker 5: eat that up. Like, oh man, who is this guy.
Speaker 5: I like that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a couple of conversations today about the
Speaker 2: same stuff. I'm like, he was telling me it's doing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, you was huthing by yourself, won't you.
Speaker 2: This is what you did kind of wrong. So you know, honestly,
Speaker 2: we went through this hunt in Idaho and it was fantastic. Honestly.
Speaker 2: The only thing that I would probably do different is
Speaker 2: I probably have a e bike, which I got. What's
Speaker 2: I got now, But I didn't have the end. I
Speaker 2: might have had a dirt bike with me because them joggers, man,
Speaker 2: they they traveled from you know, you got a highk
Speaker 2: in three miles or something like that. So stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Well, guys, I can't tell you how much I appreciate
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast tonight. Had a great time catching
Speaker 1: up this weekend. I can't wait to release this film
Speaker 1: and share it with everybody. I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: going to call it. We're gonna call it America. We're
Speaker 1: gonna call it all American film, like super super Friends.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm thinking about like maybe you guys
Speaker 1: could like put on some like superhero outfits. We'll get
Speaker 1: some do some photography done, maybe at least photoshop it. Like,
Speaker 1: you've got to figure out who what superhero you want
Speaker 1: to be? Germane could be the Flash, Uh, Eric could
Speaker 1: be the Hull. What would you want to be?
Speaker 4: Captain America?
Speaker 1: Captain America, Captain America. Yeah, anyway, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the I don't know what the thumbnail is going to be.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the title is going to be.
Speaker 1: But I can't wait to share it with you guys.
Speaker 1: And I can't wait to share these calls with you guys.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna like them. I think they're going
Speaker 1: to be a big hit and uh yeah, who knows.
Speaker 1: But thanks, thanks a lot for coming on tonight.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, Derek, thanks for having us.
Speaker 2: Thanksgi