Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the Distance. Welcome back everyone. This week,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about one of my favorite elk
Speaker 1: hunting topics, and that is calling elk. Primarily, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about bugling bulls and bugling escalation techniques to
Speaker 1: incite a brawl. I'm gonna give you the secrets to
Speaker 1: getting elk to play ball and a good formula for
Speaker 1: firing up a bull and playing out a bugle sequence
Speaker 1: from the location all the way to drawing that bowl
Speaker 1: into your lap. Calling elk can be one of the
Speaker 1: most exciting and honestly interactive forms of hunting there is.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like a direct challenge vocally to that big
Speaker 1: herd bowl or the elk running around the mountain. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna walk you through a cadence of calling to help
Speaker 1: you build momentum in a calling sequence. But first i
Speaker 1: want to share the story of a bowl that went
Speaker 1: from not wanting to play to getting Piste off and
Speaker 1: in my lap after I called him every name in
Speaker 1: the book. This story takes place in Montana during the
Speaker 1: middle of September. Now, this should be perfect rut time,
Speaker 1: and and it really was. But the trouble this particular week,
Speaker 1: it was really hot and there was a full moon,
Speaker 1: so I really believe that a lot of the elk
Speaker 1: activity was taking place at night. I had a few
Speaker 1: days before I had to start guiding again, and like
Speaker 1: I always do, I'm out there hunting for myself when
Speaker 1: I use it as Hey, I'm out hunting chasing bulls
Speaker 1: and too now i'll know where the bulls are when
Speaker 1: it's time to guide. So killing two birds with one
Speaker 1: stone the day before, I think I had two days
Speaker 1: left before the hunters came in. So I'm out and
Speaker 1: I just I really me personally the way I like
Speaker 1: to hunt. I like the bugle in elk, and I
Speaker 1: just was not getting in a response to those cruising spots,
Speaker 1: checking spots, going to a lot of different places and
Speaker 1: just couldn't really get anything to fire up. But I
Speaker 1: did spot a group of elk the day before in
Speaker 1: this one particular area. It's really timbered, kind of like steep.
Speaker 1: I would say it's almost about three quarters away up
Speaker 1: the mountain below the alpine, just in this like steep
Speaker 1: dark timber basin. But there's one side that had like
Speaker 1: some more openings and sparse and I saw some elk
Speaker 1: moving through that with a nice bull in it. So
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, the next day, I'm gonna go in
Speaker 1: here and see if I can't get them to fire up.
Speaker 1: But instead of going in right at first light, I
Speaker 1: decided I'm gonna go in there like a few hours
Speaker 1: early in the dark and see if I can hear
Speaker 1: anything calling. So I get to the point it's quite
Speaker 1: a while before daylight, but I'm just trying to locate
Speaker 1: where those elk are so I can kind of get
Speaker 1: it myself into position before daylight, or even just have
Speaker 1: an idea of if I'm in the right basin, if
Speaker 1: they're still here. So I throw out a locator bugle,
Speaker 1: just a long bugle and get a good echo so
Speaker 1: I know that I'm in a good spot where they
Speaker 1: might be able to hear it. Don't really hear anything,
Speaker 1: but I'm just sitting there. I've got nothing to do
Speaker 1: but wait. And about thirty minutes after that, bugle. I
Speaker 1: hear a bugle, Okay, cool, those elk or at least here,
Speaker 1: So I wait and I just what I do is
Speaker 1: like I hit my time around my watch and just
Speaker 1: see how long between the bugles they're going and this,
Speaker 1: you know, bugle back, and it's just like nothing I was.
Speaker 1: I was hoping for one of those days where I
Speaker 1: bugle and then the just valley lights up with bugles everywhere,
Speaker 1: and it's just was not was not in the cards
Speaker 1: for me. So I wait waiting in no bugles and
Speaker 1: just kind of wondering, Okay, did they move off? Do
Speaker 1: they hear me? Do they just not give the rats
Speaker 1: what's going on? So we wait a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting a little bit closer to daylight, and
Speaker 1: I hear another bugle again, okay cool. So he's still
Speaker 1: in here, and it sounds like Bull hadn't moved. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to analyze what might be going on. But
Speaker 1: I'm thinking now that bulls in here, he's just I
Speaker 1: don't know if he maybe he can't hear me. Well,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna move out to this point, get a
Speaker 1: little closer now, and maybe start closing some of that distance.
Speaker 1: And see if I can start getting him escalated, gett
Speaker 1: him fired up. But he just did not sound like
Speaker 1: a bowl that really wanted any action, wanted to play.
Speaker 1: So I give him another bugle as it's getting closer
Speaker 1: to daylight, and now he's starting to bugle back. This
Speaker 1: was maybe after five minutes. He decides to bugle and normally, okay,
Speaker 1: at least he's still making a sound. It's like, as
Speaker 1: soon as I think maybe he's not going to respond,
Speaker 1: maybe he's gone, he bugles back. Okay, Now we're getting
Speaker 1: pretty close to daylight, so I'm gonna just close in
Speaker 1: on that spot. He hasn't really moved, so I go,
Speaker 1: I get a little bit closer. I throw out a bugle,
Speaker 1: but now I'm down a little bit lower and he's
Speaker 1: up higher and I don't think that he can hear
Speaker 1: it as well, but he bugles back. Now I'm building
Speaker 1: a report with this bull. This bull that I originally
Speaker 1: thought I really didn't care and wasn't going to start anything,
Speaker 1: now is starting to get a little bit fired up.
Speaker 1: He responds, but he's just not that interested in me. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm gonna start building up. I'm gonna see if
Speaker 1: I can get him piste off, because I'm at this
Speaker 1: point fairly piste off, like it's peak rut. There's elk
Speaker 1: in the area, and this bull should be responding to
Speaker 1: these bugles almost immediately. It's like the best time of day.
Speaker 1: There's no better time of day where this can happen.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what the heck is going on? So I
Speaker 1: start to get aggressive, and then the bull kind of
Speaker 1: he still isn't getting aggressive, but he's calling back, so
Speaker 1: I give him a challenge call and he just kind
Speaker 1: of gives me like a we're over here, dude, you know,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. This is not acceptable. So I
Speaker 1: start running in that direction to start closing the distance.
Speaker 1: Every time that bowl bugles. Now I'm just cutting it
Speaker 1: in half, cutting in half, but keeping an eye out
Speaker 1: because I did see quite a few cows in there
Speaker 1: the day before, so I don't want to blow him
Speaker 1: out of there. But I'm also just getting closer and closer.
Speaker 1: And now that bowl is bugl ng, and now I've
Speaker 1: got that bull to a point where i'll bugle hill
Speaker 1: bugle almost immediately right back. So I'm okay, this is good.
Speaker 1: But I'm pacing my bugles out where he's not losing interest,
Speaker 1: but I still got him on the hook. I also
Speaker 1: don't want him to know exactly where I am every time,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to start pushing the cows away.
Speaker 1: So I get to a point where it's no longer
Speaker 1: that sound way across the canyon in the distance, but
Speaker 1: I'm on the same hillside as that bowl. So the
Speaker 1: last bugle I made was a fairly aggressive bugle with
Speaker 1: some chuckles right across the canyon. Now he chuckled back.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, now I marked that spot in my mind.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hustling to get there. I get into position,
Speaker 1: and now it's not me starting the bugle off, but
Speaker 1: it's him. Because it seemed like it was always I
Speaker 1: would call, he would respond, and then it would be dead.
Speaker 1: So by the time I get now to where I
Speaker 1: thought he was, he bugles back. He rips out, now
Speaker 1: a meaner bugle. I cut him off, start chuckling, give
Speaker 1: him a challenge, and that was enough to send him
Speaker 1: running my direction. At this point, I'm actually trying to
Speaker 1: film myself, so I've got the camera set up. I
Speaker 1: see the antler tips of this bull and a really
Speaker 1: good like mature heavy, five by five, probably the herd
Speaker 1: bull in the area, just like a solid, solid bull,
Speaker 1: and I just it's like super thick. It's not really
Speaker 1: like fern thick. But it's the wet side of the hill,
Speaker 1: so there's just all this growth, all this crap, and
Speaker 1: I've got this one lane. I'm half through the dead
Speaker 1: full I've got my camera set up, and I just
Speaker 1: see the antler tips coming down. Sweet drawback. The bull
Speaker 1: steps out in the open. I give him and he
Speaker 1: stops and looks my direction and I look at my
Speaker 1: camera and I see that he just walked out of
Speaker 1: the frame and I'm full draw. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know what my problem is. I'm I'm like, man, you
Speaker 1: should just shoot this bull. But now I'm trying to,
Speaker 1: like at full draw, slightly move the camera over with
Speaker 1: my elbow, and as I do that, the camera just
Speaker 1: starts to like tip over, like oh no, So I
Speaker 1: catch it then with my elbow, I'm trying to just
Speaker 1: get him in the frame while at full draw because
Speaker 1: he's standing there twenty yards and I finally somehow, I
Speaker 1: don't even know how I did it. I'm like finangling
Speaker 1: the camera with my elbow at full draw the bulls
Speaker 1: standing there looking in my direction. I'm like, perfect, I
Speaker 1: think I get it close, and I'm like, screw it
Speaker 1: at this point settle in, and then the bowl just
Speaker 1: like walks through the opening, and I'm thinking damn. So
Speaker 1: I let down and I keep calling. The bull calls back,
Speaker 1: and he's just right there now, and all I have
Speaker 1: is bushes. He didn't run off yet, he didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: He's just right there now bugling. I'm bugling like he's
Speaker 1: twenty yards away, and I have no shop. My one
Speaker 1: opportunity he walked off, So we're just bugling back and forth.
Speaker 1: I start raking a tree, thinking maybe I could get
Speaker 1: him to come back in this direction. I know I
Speaker 1: can't move because I'm stuck between all this dead full
Speaker 1: and then I hear some cows up on the ridge
Speaker 1: where he came from, and he just turns around and
Speaker 1: goes off to the cows, and that was the last
Speaker 1: I saw him. So then I keep following him, and
Speaker 1: he ended up pushing the cows up and over, and
Speaker 1: then it just went quiet, got hot for the day,
Speaker 1: and I figured they just went down to bed or
Speaker 1: whatever and never got a response. But I thought to myself. Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is my last day to hunt for myself.
Speaker 1: I'll come right back in here tomorrow with a hunter
Speaker 1: and we'll see if we can't do the same thing.
Speaker 1: So the next morning, I essentially started out doing the
Speaker 1: exact same thing, but I started a little bit later
Speaker 1: because I thought there was a long period of time
Speaker 1: I was just sitting there in the dark with nothing,
Speaker 1: no noise, nothing, and just see if he ends up
Speaker 1: being kind of doing a similar pattern to what he
Speaker 1: did that day. So the hunter comes in, I kind
Speaker 1: of told him, yeah, we got some bulls located, let's
Speaker 1: go see if we can get one. So the next
Speaker 1: day we go in there. Sure enough, kind of like
Speaker 1: the same deal. I fire off bull like sponds. A
Speaker 1: while later. It's just kind of like that point where
Speaker 1: you call and he calls back in that just as
Speaker 1: when you think there's nothing there and then he decides
Speaker 1: to call back. So I start cutting the time in
Speaker 1: half where I keep calling and then I get those responses.
Speaker 1: He starts building up. Now we've got that bull. But
Speaker 1: unfortunately this next day I started where I was. He
Speaker 1: was down below me. The day before. He was a
Speaker 1: lot higher than next day. So we're hiking and hustling
Speaker 1: up hill, and like this bull is gonna shut up
Speaker 1: pretty quick, so we gotta get in there. We've got
Speaker 1: a very small window of opportunity. Now I pretty much
Speaker 1: do the same thing I did the day before. It
Speaker 1: was like hard to get him fired up. But then
Speaker 1: we did the same exact thing across the canyon. Then
Speaker 1: I cut off his bigle. I pretty much did the
Speaker 1: same way of talking to him. I was just like
Speaker 1: by that point I'd call him every name in the book.
Speaker 1: We get onto the same hillside of the bull. We
Speaker 1: hear him up above us, get in a position, set
Speaker 1: my hunter up, cut him off. He beagles. I cut
Speaker 1: him off. I start raking a tree. I can hear
Speaker 1: him raking a tree. I'm chuckling, he's chuckling. I'm glucking.
Speaker 1: And then the bull starts I hear, and the bull
Speaker 1: starts walking down. All I see is the hunter at
Speaker 1: full draw, and that bull walked within six ft of him.
Speaker 1: He releases the arrow, the bull runs off and tips
Speaker 1: over dead. And it's just one of those hunts where
Speaker 1: I remember it was very hard to get any bugles,
Speaker 1: but just by building an escalation of a bull that
Speaker 1: seemed like he didn't want to interact with me, building
Speaker 1: up an escalation in a way that got him going
Speaker 1: from I'm not really interested to fire it up and
Speaker 1: in our laps within the first half hour hour of daylight.
Speaker 1: I firmly believe that if you took some of the
Speaker 1: more successful elk callers every year, they'd be people that
Speaker 1: are very proficient with bugling. And I really believe that's
Speaker 1: because bugl ing is what really incites the bulls to
Speaker 1: talk to one another as well as creates reactions between
Speaker 1: bulls to get them to come together and and fight
Speaker 1: for a harem. And so if you're able to mimic that,
Speaker 1: if you're able to copy that and insert yourself as
Speaker 1: a hunter into that where the elk thinks you're another bull,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be a lot more likely to get that
Speaker 1: bull to come to you. Of course, cow calling can
Speaker 1: be successful, and there's times that you should use cow calling,
Speaker 1: but in my experience, bugling is actually what gets the
Speaker 1: bulls to commit and to come in. And the better
Speaker 1: you are with a bugle, the more successful you'll be
Speaker 1: during that rep period at calling elk. Now, you might
Speaker 1: be the type of person that maybe you've hunted elk
Speaker 1: a lot, and don't bugle a lot because you don't
Speaker 1: really understand. Maybe you think you don't know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: or you're new to elk hunting and the bugle ing
Speaker 1: is intimidating where you don't know what sounds to make,
Speaker 1: and that's a fair assumption. But I think that one
Speaker 1: thing you will learn is when you're out, if you
Speaker 1: don't know what sound to make, just make the sound
Speaker 1: that that elks making At that point. It's a copycat
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Really helps build up and create or
Speaker 1: give you at least an idea of what sounds to make.
Speaker 1: When now I think more so or at least more
Speaker 1: important in many ways than the sounds, is just this
Speaker 1: building or an escalation, the timing of when to call
Speaker 1: and the type of call that you might want to make.
Speaker 1: When I think of it like this, over the years
Speaker 1: of elk calling, I always have this idea in my
Speaker 1: head or I paint this visual picture of the escalation
Speaker 1: between two bulls fighting. So it's two bowls that there's
Speaker 1: no hunter involved, they're just in the woods do and
Speaker 1: elk things. What's going to cause those two elk to
Speaker 1: come together to clash? Antlers or to take that one
Speaker 1: bull and bring him to another one, contrary to common belief.
Speaker 1: I think, at least when I was growing up, I
Speaker 1: would watch elk hunting videos and a guy, it just
Speaker 1: seemed like the way that it was edited, and I'll
Speaker 1: put together, you blow a bugle and an elk comes
Speaker 1: running in, and at least where I've hunted, that's not
Speaker 1: my experience in any way, shape or form. It's very difficult,
Speaker 1: or can be very difficult to get the elk to
Speaker 1: commit to your setup. I mean, you might bugle and
Speaker 1: you hear another bugle and then that's it, and it's like,
Speaker 1: well where does it go from there? But over the years,
Speaker 1: I've kind of developed this idea of creating an escalation
Speaker 1: where you're continually talking with his elk, but you're building
Speaker 1: up the momentum and the intensity where it creates almost
Speaker 1: a frenzy where the elk has to react in some
Speaker 1: way and you're hoping that you incite a reaction of
Speaker 1: the two of you coming together to fight. Now you're
Speaker 1: bringing a bow and he's bringing his antlers, so it
Speaker 1: hopefully works out good for you. But if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about those two elk that are just calling the first
Speaker 1: bull is not just gonna go right, you mean, bugle
Speaker 1: and the other bull is just gonna go meet and
Speaker 1: bugle back, let's fight, and then they just run in
Speaker 1: and fight. I mean, maybe that happens sometimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen done enough where you can be surprised at things,
Speaker 1: but rarely is that the case. So it normally starts
Speaker 1: off some kind of escalation of where the elk at,
Speaker 1: I'm calling for cows, and then the other bulls like,
Speaker 1: I've got cows over here, and he's they're kind of
Speaker 1: more or less talking to the cows where you kind
Speaker 1: of think they're talking to each other at first, So
Speaker 1: you're an elket or that other elkt's by itself calling out, hey,
Speaker 1: any cows over here. That other bull hears it, and
Speaker 1: he's telling the cows, no, I'm over here. These aren't
Speaker 1: your cows. These are my cows. And other bulls like
Speaker 1: you sure, ladies, you don't want to hang out with
Speaker 1: me where you at? And that other bulls like, come on, ladies,
Speaker 1: stay with me, And at some point then that becomes
Speaker 1: the bull and with that herd saying leave me alone.
Speaker 1: I've got the dominance, and he's kind of more displaying
Speaker 1: for the cows than that other bull, and then that
Speaker 1: other bulls like, no, I'm more dominant, and then at
Speaker 1: some point it becomes the challenging bull saying you're a
Speaker 1: pos and then starts escalating into a fight where it
Speaker 1: starts out he's just hollering at some ladies. He's just
Speaker 1: hollering at some ladies, and then at some point he's
Speaker 1: now saying, Okay, you know what, these ladies aren't listening.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna beat you up and take your women.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of like the full escalation picture
Speaker 1: of what too elk are doing while they're bugling and
Speaker 1: understanding that kind of helps you build the cadence in
Speaker 1: your calling of when to call and how to create
Speaker 1: that escalation from hey ladies, Hey ladies too, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: beat you up, and if you don't come over here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come steal your ladies. Let's see, let's throw down.
Speaker 1: And that's what you want. You want to get that
Speaker 1: bowl to come throw down with you. So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go through let's say a standard morning or a
Speaker 1: standard escalation of calling and what I like to do.
Speaker 1: I started doing this a long time ago. I mean
Speaker 1: as a teenager where I would bugle, and when I
Speaker 1: would bugle in an area, I would either like look
Speaker 1: at my clock, or I used to have like a
Speaker 1: watch that i'd wear a lot and just start a
Speaker 1: timer and see how long it took a bowl to
Speaker 1: bugle back, because I felt like the timing was really
Speaker 1: important in building that escalation. If I bugled and I
Speaker 1: had a great area where I could project a lot
Speaker 1: of sound and knew that something was going to hear
Speaker 1: that sound, and then it took a half hour or
Speaker 1: an hour for a bowl to bugle back, maybe or
Speaker 1: ten minutes whatever, however long it was, it gave me
Speaker 1: an idea of how interested that bull is or maybe
Speaker 1: the threat that that bull saw me, as as well
Speaker 1: as maybe how willing that bowl was going to be
Speaker 1: to build up into that go from talking to fighting mode.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times what I do is I'll
Speaker 1: throw out a location call and that I've got actually
Speaker 1: some calls right here, So I used this location call,
Speaker 1: and it's more it's not really an aggressive tone. It's
Speaker 1: normally just a one note tone. You could do it
Speaker 1: one note, two notes, three notes, but something long where
Speaker 1: you're just trying to carry the sound. So if it's
Speaker 1: a canyon where it's close quarters and I just try
Speaker 1: to throw that long sound out where I try to
Speaker 1: get it to echo and try travel in the area
Speaker 1: that I'm at, and I want that sound to just
Speaker 1: travel and hopefully entice the ears of whatever is around.
Speaker 1: So I just start out like this, You're just like
Speaker 1: a one note or maybe a couple of notes, and
Speaker 1: just a long, drawn out sound that's just meant to travel.
Speaker 1: You can't really mess that up. Just a long note loud,
Speaker 1: loud enough to catch the ears of an elk in
Speaker 1: the area, and I'll set my timer and say, okay,
Speaker 1: am I gonna hear anything here? Listen. Maybe it's an
Speaker 1: area that I didn't get like a really good travel
Speaker 1: of the sound, so I might not wait as long there.
Speaker 1: But if scenario where the sound travels aways or it's
Speaker 1: before daylight, I'll sit and listen and see how long
Speaker 1: it takes to get a bull to make noise. And generally,
Speaker 1: as I'm hunting, I'm I'm throwing out these location bugles
Speaker 1: sometimes just to get anything to respond back so I
Speaker 1: know where the elk or at, especially if I'm in
Speaker 1: a new area and don't know where they're at, so
Speaker 1: I do that time and now if it took a
Speaker 1: little bit longer for that bl to reply, instead of
Speaker 1: just bugling right back immediately, I try to kind of
Speaker 1: mirror what that elk is doing, and so use the
Speaker 1: elk to understand how you're going to start calling, but
Speaker 1: also try to build that time frame closer and closer together.
Speaker 1: So what I'll do if it took fifteen minutes for
Speaker 1: that first bugle to go off, I'm just now going
Speaker 1: to reset my timer once I hear that bull, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to call back in about half the time.
Speaker 1: If it took him fifteen minutes, I'm gonna go about
Speaker 1: seven minutes. We'll call it. That's a little less than
Speaker 1: half seven and a half minutes, and bugle back, same
Speaker 1: locator called. Just throwing that out there, not really escalating
Speaker 1: at this point, and just seeing if I can get
Speaker 1: him on the hook, just seeing if I can get
Speaker 1: a conversation going, seeing if I can maybe understand what
Speaker 1: that bull has going on where he is. Maybe that
Speaker 1: bowl is just another loan bull by himself, and he
Speaker 1: thought that I was talking cows that I have, or
Speaker 1: maybe that bull has a bunch of cows. I don't
Speaker 1: know at this point, So I'm just trying to build
Speaker 1: up and escalate the time frame that I get this
Speaker 1: bull to go back, especially those ones that don't really
Speaker 1: necessarily have a need to start calling or to start fighting.
Speaker 1: Probably a bull that's got a bunch of cows and
Speaker 1: maybe there's not really a lot of other bulls around,
Speaker 1: he's not really going to be that interested in screaming
Speaker 1: back and starting to fight if he doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna set my timer and cut it in
Speaker 1: half half the time, and then I'm gonna reset it
Speaker 1: and see how long it takes him to come back again,
Speaker 1: if it takes him the same amount of time, or
Speaker 1: if it takes him a closer time. What I'm looking
Speaker 1: for is building up that time where he calls back,
Speaker 1: and then I cut that time in half and I
Speaker 1: call back, And what I'm trying to do is keep
Speaker 1: it going where it's just long enough that he's interested,
Speaker 1: and slowly trying to shorten that time to where I
Speaker 1: can get it where I call and then he almost
Speaker 1: calls back within a minute or two. Better yet, trying
Speaker 1: to get him to that point where I call and
Speaker 1: he calls back almost immediately, because as that happens, it's
Speaker 1: it's building intensity, it's getting him more fired up, and
Speaker 1: it's creating a situation where I now have this bull
Speaker 1: on the hook, where I know that this bull is
Speaker 1: a potential bull that I can call in, and I
Speaker 1: have got his location, and now we're communicating back and forth.
Speaker 1: Depending on how far that bugle is and the type
Speaker 1: of train and everything, I might now decide once I've
Speaker 1: got him to a point where he's bugling back fairly readily,
Speaker 1: or even before that point where if I if I
Speaker 1: can see that escalation building, that's when I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: off and start cutting the distance to him. Most of
Speaker 1: the time, this will happen like these location bugles, will
Speaker 1: happen at probably a distance because it's not really going
Speaker 1: to escalate into that fight over those long distances. But
Speaker 1: I'm also going to key into the type of bugles
Speaker 1: he's making now as I get closer, as I move
Speaker 1: in in between the calls, I'm just gonna start closing
Speaker 1: the distance every time between my calls, and at some
Speaker 1: point it's gonna build an escalation of the type of call,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna turn to what I would call it
Speaker 1: display call where he's just saying giving a good mean
Speaker 1: bugle to kind of assert his dominance whether he has cows.
Speaker 1: If you hear that right away from a bull, it
Speaker 1: probably means that that bull has cows and he's telling
Speaker 1: those cows like, I'm dominant. I'm dominant. Don't listen to
Speaker 1: that guy over there. I'm dominant, but I will try
Speaker 1: to match that, or if he's not doing that, I'll
Speaker 1: do that and see if he starts to match that,
Speaker 1: because you'll notice that bulls will start to talk back
Speaker 1: and forth in the same tones. So if I'm just
Speaker 1: throwing out like a more of a long note bugle,
Speaker 1: you might get the a lot of those in response.
Speaker 1: If you start hearing that more dominant style bugle, that
Speaker 1: that more aggressive bugle, that's what you're looking forward to.
Speaker 1: Say that bull probably has cows, but he's talking to
Speaker 1: those cows and saying that he's in charge. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: then start escalating from a timing thing to more of
Speaker 1: a type of call thing where I'm matching his intensity
Speaker 1: and his passion. One thing without calling, I think be
Speaker 1: a good olt call. You really have to feel that call.
Speaker 1: You have to feel like you got to get into
Speaker 1: the mindset of that bull and understand what is he saying.
Speaker 1: Is he pissed? If you get a bugle back, ors like,
Speaker 1: oh that feels strong, you want to reply in kind,
Speaker 1: you want to give him strong. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of misconception with people that here a strong bugle
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I'm just gonna bugle week because
Speaker 1: I don't want to scare him away. If you have
Speaker 1: that mindset, I mean, that's that's fine. You know, different
Speaker 1: strokes for different blokes. I just would rather be a
Speaker 1: bull that's like worth of damn worth of fight, where
Speaker 1: I'm the bull that's saying to those cows, No, that guy,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve that guy, you deserve me. I'm coming
Speaker 1: over there to kick his ass. Because if a bull
Speaker 1: rounds up his cows and moves away, it's probably that
Speaker 1: you're doing something right, not doing something wrong, and you
Speaker 1: can actually play off of that. So I start out meek.
Speaker 1: But if that bull starts to escalate or I want
Speaker 1: to start escalating to a fight now, I'm going to
Speaker 1: switch that cadence to a more aggressive sound, and hopefully
Speaker 1: that bull will start that more aggressive sound. I'll start
Speaker 1: throwing in a little bit more chuckling. That's the you know,
Speaker 1: the like the and I'm gonna start building that chuckling,
Speaker 1: and you should start hearing that bull doing the same.
Speaker 1: So we've gone from a cadence of throwing out a
Speaker 1: location bugle and maybe not getting a response right away
Speaker 1: to then cutting the time in half and getting that
Speaker 1: bull to start responding more regularly. Now we're gonna start
Speaker 1: asserting more dominance, and we're gonna hope that that bull
Speaker 1: starts doing the same. Now if that bull doesn't, so
Speaker 1: you throw out a more dominant sound where you're just
Speaker 1: talking to the cows and asserting your your presence, and
Speaker 1: that bowl just kind of keeps a more. He doesn't
Speaker 1: kind of escalate to that level. You may find that
Speaker 1: it could just be a satellite bowl thinking out by
Speaker 1: himself looking for a cow, and he'll probably at that
Speaker 1: point be coming in quiet. So if you kind of
Speaker 1: go to that and you give it a show, a
Speaker 1: display show, and the other bowl doesn't respond that way,
Speaker 1: you may actually find that if you do that and
Speaker 1: the bull shuts up, keep calling. Now, start throwing out
Speaker 1: cow calls and other things, because that bowl may actually
Speaker 1: be coming your way, and he may be more of
Speaker 1: a satellite bowl that's just going to come in quiet
Speaker 1: and investigate and see what's going on, so you can
Speaker 1: kind of build the escalation and then understand what that
Speaker 1: elk might be doing or what that elk might be thinking.
Speaker 1: If you do that call, though you're more dominant, you
Speaker 1: throw out a call where you're just asserting that dominance
Speaker 1: the cows, and you keep getting that call in return.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to start closing in that distance to
Speaker 1: that herd because I'm probably assuming that he probably has
Speaker 1: some cows or whatever, and I'm gonna start making that
Speaker 1: sound and now I'm going to get in there and
Speaker 1: before I start to challenge him. Now, challenge calls more
Speaker 1: like a call where it's just a I pitch and
Speaker 1: then real fast, real aggressive chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, or you'll
Speaker 1: start hearing some growls and some other things. But that's
Speaker 1: when you really know, Okay, that bull wants to fight.
Speaker 1: That bull is probably gonna come in and I'll throw
Speaker 1: those calls out myself to see if I can incite
Speaker 1: that in whatever elk I'm calling to. Once I've escalated
Speaker 1: the calling, so I've gone, I've started cutting down the
Speaker 1: time the bulls starting to react. Now, while all that's
Speaker 1: going on, I'm closing in. I'm closing in. I'm closing
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to close that gap between me and
Speaker 1: that elk. I'm never gonna assume that that elk is
Speaker 1: just gonna come straight to me. What I want to
Speaker 1: do is I want to get up in his business,
Speaker 1: and then when I get close enough, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a point where I really want to piss that bull off.
Speaker 1: And I find one of the best ways is as
Speaker 1: that bull starts bugling. Once he now is kind of
Speaker 1: initiating an angry bugle and challenging me or getting aggressive,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw my call out there, maybe start chuckling
Speaker 1: at him and cut his bugle off. That's a surefire
Speaker 1: way to really piss off a more dominant bull. And
Speaker 1: in the mixt of that, I might be breaking a
Speaker 1: tree or whatever, because he's probably fired up and now
Speaker 1: I'm fired up and I'm trying to match that fire level.
Speaker 1: But also sometimes when I get in close cutting him
Speaker 1: off and saying, oh, you're gonna talk, No, I'm gonna talk.
Speaker 1: You can't talk to those cows. I'm gonna talk to
Speaker 1: those cows, and that is a really good way to
Speaker 1: try to get that bull to commit that last bit
Speaker 1: of distance. Now that you've got a little bit better
Speaker 1: idea of bugling and building the timing and the escalation
Speaker 1: to go from locating that elk to hopefully getting him
Speaker 1: fired up and wanting to challenge you. Next week, we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump into what I like to call building an
Speaker 1: elk party. So it's adding in those cows sounds and
Speaker 1: creating this illusion that you are where the parties at.
Speaker 1: You're the bull, you're bugling, You've got all the cows,
Speaker 1: You've got the hot cows. So we're gonna throw in
Speaker 1: some cow calls and just help build out an allusion
Speaker 1: to a full calling setup of not just the bugles,
Speaker 1: but creating a party that all the other elk want
Speaker 1: to join in on. If you're like me, I hope
Speaker 1: that you've got an elk tag this season, and these
Speaker 1: tips will help you come September. So it's plenty of
Speaker 1: time bust out your bugles start doing some of these practices.
Speaker 1: If you listen to this podcast while you're in the car,
Speaker 1: that's actually when I do most of my bugling practice
Speaker 1: or calling practice. Grab some calls, grab some bugles, keep
Speaker 1: them in your truck. Generally when you're by yourself and
Speaker 1: you can cruise down the road making cow sounds, elk sounds,
Speaker 1: bull sounds, whatever, and be ready for September to go
Speaker 1: to roll off and challenge that elk. So until next time,
Speaker 1: keep escalating the challenge. We will Bugle Actulator