Speaker 1: Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: jump into elk hunting tactics techniques. But if you've missed
Speaker 1: part one of this, it's preparing for elk season. That's
Speaker 1: how do you find a tag, how do you figure
Speaker 1: out what unit you want to hunt, how do you
Speaker 1: find elk within that unit? And then things such as
Speaker 1: equipment that matters, you know, getting boots broken, getting in
Speaker 1: shape for these Western hunts, what packs may work, how
Speaker 1: you go about calling biologists and get information that maybe
Speaker 1: others aren't getting, you know, call the property owner, whether
Speaker 1: it's force or a's PLM. That's all in Unit thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to jump into this, well, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about you've now got to spot the hunt.
Speaker 1: We've now got to elk season, We've did our scouting,
Speaker 1: and we're going to jump into how to put the
Speaker 1: odds in your favor this season gets close. We're going
Speaker 1: to start here like we do every episode of Cutting
Speaker 1: the Distance, and we're gonna jump in to listener questions.
Speaker 1: This time, I didn't have any come in as we're
Speaker 1: kind of quickly going through these two parts. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take two questions that I get a lot of
Speaker 1: the live seminars that I do and just kind of
Speaker 1: regurgitate them and kind of rule them into this podcast.
Speaker 1: So I apologize. We didn't pull any questions. I just
Speaker 1: decided to take two questions that we get quite often.
Speaker 1: So as we go through here this episode. A little
Speaker 1: bit later, we're going to talk about specific location bugles
Speaker 1: and one question we always get as I talk about
Speaker 1: it go into more detail on a location bugle. They
Speaker 1: want to make sure that they're doing it right. And so,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and I want to preface this whole
Speaker 1: entire episode with a lot of this comes from my experience,
Speaker 1: my trial and air out in the field, a lot
Speaker 1: of what I've did to find success, and then some things.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I've found some of this working by
Speaker 1: a lot of failures. I've failed more times than I've
Speaker 1: been successful in the Elkwood. So I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: of this through failures. What works the majority of time
Speaker 1: the time, and then we just kind of run our
Speaker 1: same program over and over and so we'll get into
Speaker 1: that in a little bit, but more about location bugles,
Speaker 1: and I forgot to mention if you have questions of
Speaker 1: your own for any future podcasts, whether it's turkey hunting,
Speaker 1: spring bear hunting, elk, whitetail, Dear, Blacktail Dear, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: make sure you email us at CTD at Phelpsgame Calls
Speaker 1: dot com, or it can reach out to us on
Speaker 1: social media, send us a message, get ahold of us anyway,
Speaker 1: and we'll try to get your questions included. So back
Speaker 1: to location bugles. In my opinion, this is the bugle
Speaker 1: I'm going to use the majority of the time. I
Speaker 1: know I've said it over and over. Ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the calls I use are probably location bugles because if
Speaker 1: I haven't spotted elk with my binoculars or have a play,
Speaker 1: I'm typically walking ridgelines, trail systems off trail and I'm
Speaker 1: just letting location bugles trying to get that elk to answer.
Speaker 1: So I use this call, and what I want to
Speaker 1: do is I keep a two to three note high
Speaker 1: pitched bugle. I'm not adding any growl or any voice
Speaker 1: to the beginning. I'm not doing it at the end.
Speaker 1: It's it's two to three note high pitched bugle. And
Speaker 1: when I know I'm doing it right, when I get
Speaker 1: the best responses is typically when I hit a pitch
Speaker 1: or frequency that's high enough that it rings my own
Speaker 1: ears through the bugle tube. So you're you're bugling and
Speaker 1: it rattles my ears. But what I what I do
Speaker 1: to accomplish this is, rather than on a normal bugle,
Speaker 1: you can kind of be somewhat relaxed with your tongue
Speaker 1: as you start, and you can google your voice or
Speaker 1: add some voice inflection, and then you ramp up pressure
Speaker 1: and you ramp up velocity across the latex. But on
Speaker 1: this one, you're gonna have to start with the latex
Speaker 1: kind of pre loaded. You're gonna have and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to apply more air right off the bat, So
Speaker 1: you you want to kind of skip all of those
Speaker 1: lower octaves and what we call it, it's it's fairly seamless.
Speaker 1: But if you can imagine, dude, do do do do
Speaker 1: do do? Do? You know you can walk up that scale.
Speaker 1: I want to really kind of hit that that last
Speaker 1: two or three notes on on the high pitch, and
Speaker 1: that's it, and I want to ring it, and I
Speaker 1: want to send that thing as loud as I can
Speaker 1: and ideally ring my own ears. I just seem to
Speaker 1: get a better response The other thing I like to
Speaker 1: do on a location bugle is not over extended. The
Speaker 1: purpose of a location bugle is to get a response
Speaker 1: or be able to hear a response, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times some of these bulls may just respond with
Speaker 1: a quick moan or a grunt, or they may respond
Speaker 1: in the middle of your call and you missed the
Speaker 1: high pitch and you kind of get the tail end.
Speaker 1: So I try to keep this to a two to
Speaker 1: three second bugle maximum, Like you know, it should be effortless,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't run out of air, and you're sending it
Speaker 1: as loud as possible. And really what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do is just announce your location that I'm gonna kind of,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, let you know know what the elk
Speaker 1: are doing. And what I've seen happen multiple times is
Speaker 1: you're really just trying to say I'm a bowl over here,
Speaker 1: wandering around looking for cows. And what you're asking is
Speaker 1: is the real elk to give you a response. It's basically,
Speaker 1: you know, the elk playing Marco polo, like I'm here,
Speaker 1: you're there, and you know amongst themselves that may keep
Speaker 1: your distance it maybe you know we're over here, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But you're literally just walking along trying to
Speaker 1: get something to respond to your location bugle. And that's
Speaker 1: the purpose of it. And we'll go into a more
Speaker 1: detail once you locate one what you need to do,
Speaker 1: or what your next place should be, or the questions
Speaker 1: you should ask yourself. But that's kind of that location bugle,
Speaker 1: what it's used for. And we're just doing it every
Speaker 1: one hundred, two hundred yards, three hundred yards, forty yards.
Speaker 1: And I'll dive into this a little bit. When should
Speaker 1: you let a location bugle? In my opinion, you should
Speaker 1: bugle anytime you believe a new elk can now hear
Speaker 1: you from a location that you bugled. So if you
Speaker 1: walk around a finger ridge and opens up a new
Speaker 1: little pocket ahead of you, I want to bugle into
Speaker 1: there from from the edge of the pocket, from the
Speaker 1: middle of the pocket, from the back. And what happens
Speaker 1: a lot of times is you will get I would say,
Speaker 1: the majority of your bugles are going to be ahead
Speaker 1: of you new virgin country that hasn't heard your bugle yet.
Speaker 1: But what happens a lot of times is you will
Speaker 1: get maybe one or two more bugle locations down and
Speaker 1: a bow will answer back underneath, even closer to where
Speaker 1: you know you had already bugled, And sometimes for one
Speaker 1: reason or another, they don't want to identify themselves when
Speaker 1: you're close. Maybe they couldn't hear because they're down over
Speaker 1: the edge. Whatever it may be. It's I've had it
Speaker 1: happen more times than not. Where I get, you know,
Speaker 1: four or five hundred yards further away, and I'll finally
Speaker 1: get a response with they're either more comfortable, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. So while I'm not a huge proponent of
Speaker 1: just unpurposefullly bugling as you go through the woods, I
Speaker 1: don't feel a location bugle can harm anything either. As
Speaker 1: long as your calls are somewhat decent enough and sound
Speaker 1: like real elk that are in the area, I will
Speaker 1: I will be a goal as I move down a
Speaker 1: trail there there's no real harm. You know, as long
Speaker 1: as nothing wins you after that, you should be fine.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of that that first question location bagles,
Speaker 1: what I like to sound like, and then how I
Speaker 1: use them and what I feel is going on with
Speaker 1: the elk. And the second question we have is how
Speaker 1: do you differentiate between if you're hunting a herd bul
Speaker 1: versus a satellite bowl. And a lot of times this
Speaker 1: question will come later on, you know, in my seminar
Speaker 1: or or whatever, because I've explained different tactics and so
Speaker 1: they're like, well, how do you know whether you're hunting
Speaker 1: a herd bull or a satellite bowl? And how should
Speaker 1: I know what tactics I should go with. So I
Speaker 1: it's it's safer to always bet that you're hunting a
Speaker 1: herd bowl. It will be a more conservative approach. You
Speaker 1: won't do anything that will necessarily, you know, mess mess
Speaker 1: up is your approach or your set up. A herd
Speaker 1: bowl is going to require you to get close. I
Speaker 1: feel like, even if you know you're you're hunting a
Speaker 1: satellite bowl, you should still get close. And you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the pun about cutting the distance in the
Speaker 1: name of the podcast is there's two ways you can hunt.
Speaker 1: You can do it all with your feet. You could
Speaker 1: do it all with your calling. But what I like
Speaker 1: to look at it's a mixed approach. I'd like to
Speaker 1: cover as much ground with my feet and then use
Speaker 1: the calling to really just pull them that last little bit.
Speaker 1: And that's what I refer to as I call. But
Speaker 1: I always assume everything is a herd bowl unless I've
Speaker 1: identified it with my eyes or it's given me very
Speaker 1: good your reason to believe it's a satellite bowl or
Speaker 1: a bowl looking for cows and you know, let's say
Speaker 1: it's a timber so you can't see one thing. I
Speaker 1: like to assume it's a satellite bowl if the bull
Speaker 1: starts to cover ground based on my first call or
Speaker 1: anything that I've did, you know, if it's my locator call,
Speaker 1: or if I've cow called and got a location and
Speaker 1: that bowl is actively coming towards me, I'm going to
Speaker 1: typically assume that that's a a satellite bowl. One way
Speaker 1: to quickly tell if it's a herd bull is if
Speaker 1: you've bugled and you've got a bagle and then you
Speaker 1: have multiple beagles around that, I'm going to assume that
Speaker 1: we now have a herd bowl with multiple satellite bowls
Speaker 1: kind of shadowing the herd. The other thing, which is
Speaker 1: very tough and you've got to have a somewhat trained
Speaker 1: ear and you're still making somewhat of an assumption, is
Speaker 1: the sound, the depth, the grow of the beagle that
Speaker 1: you get in return. You know, a herd bowl will
Speaker 1: typically have that guttural sound deeper, they've got deep chuckles,
Speaker 1: they've got extra rasp, and this is just a generality.
Speaker 1: You know. Some bulls have surprised us, and big bulls
Speaker 1: have called small. But one thing I like to use
Speaker 1: is a small bowl typically more times than not, doesn't
Speaker 1: have the ability to sound like a big bowl. Now,
Speaker 1: a big bull can sound like a small bowl more
Speaker 1: often than vice versus. So we're trying to take all
Speaker 1: of this into account and really use the information that
Speaker 1: you're presented with. You know, is that olk moving, is
Speaker 1: that elk holding? Still? Are there other bulls buggling? And
Speaker 1: try to make an educated guess on what we're dealing
Speaker 1: with as far as a satellite bowl or a herd bull,
Speaker 1: and that will affect kind of our play because a
Speaker 1: lot of times the satellite bull is more willing to
Speaker 1: go to a cow or travel great distances versus a
Speaker 1: herd bull seems to be that one that stays in
Speaker 1: its location. But we'll kind of roll into strategy here
Speaker 1: a little bit later on in this podcast to kind
Speaker 1: of go over when you do know what you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: how I would change my strategy. So once again, you
Speaker 1: have questions for me or my guests make sure to
Speaker 1: email us at CTD at phelpsgameclls dot com, or hit
Speaker 1: us up on social media, send us messages, and we'll
Speaker 1: do our best to get your questions included. As I'm
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, this is part two of a kind of
Speaker 1: an overview of elk hunting. The first part go back
Speaker 1: check out episode thirty seven. If you're looking for finding
Speaker 1: a place to hunt, how to get tags, how to
Speaker 1: kind of physically prepare for your hunt, you know, get
Speaker 1: your boots in line, get a pack figured out, call biologists,
Speaker 1: look at the units and whatnot. Go check out Unit
Speaker 1: thirty seven. Now we're going to assume that you've did
Speaker 1: all of those things. You've got a unit to hunt,
Speaker 1: you've got to tag in your hand, You've you've maybe
Speaker 1: did some scouting. You're going to show up during an
Speaker 1: active hunting season, and we're going to roll into that. So,
Speaker 1: so welcome to part two. I would call this kind
Speaker 1: of in hunting season. Let's go figure this thing out.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to start with maybe you've did some scouting.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, you know, boots on the ground scouting
Speaker 1: not e scouting, you know where there were elk. The
Speaker 1: closer you are to season, the better that data is
Speaker 1: going to be. Of course, you know, if you found
Speaker 1: elk and a certain drainage, you know, alpine feed area,
Speaker 1: clear cut, whatever area may be hunting, and you've located
Speaker 1: elk there and it was a week before season, I'd
Speaker 1: be very confident going back there and getting on elk.
Speaker 1: You know, during season, Mind you what pressures in the area.
Speaker 1: If this is an unpressured area, I'd be one hundred
Speaker 1: percent confident. If this area now has pressure, those elk
Speaker 1: aren't gonna necessarily leave completely, but they may no longer
Speaker 1: be where you found them. So keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: You know you're scouting, no matter what is close to
Speaker 1: season is going to be better. But you add hunting
Speaker 1: pressure and it kind of throws a wild card everything
Speaker 1: that's before you and everything you thought you knew. Where
Speaker 1: do those elk end up? And this is another reason
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I can't reiterate this enough. When you're scouting,
Speaker 1: go find an area that has rubs. That is a
Speaker 1: is a very accurate predictor of if there was similar
Speaker 1: pressure in your past, similar people getting into the same
Speaker 1: elk where they originally wanted to be versus where they
Speaker 1: end up during the rud. Go to those places if
Speaker 1: you were able to find them on your on your
Speaker 1: scouting trips. It's where those elk are comfortable during the rut.
Speaker 1: It's where they've got everything they need to get through
Speaker 1: the rut. So go check out those areas and see
Speaker 1: if those elk may be moved. Now, let's roll back,
Speaker 1: say you're only able to get boots on the ground
Speaker 1: a month leading up until season, I've got a lot
Speaker 1: higher you know, I'm i'm I'm doubting that those elk
Speaker 1: are going to be in that exact spot more so
Speaker 1: than the week before. So now you're now dealing with
Speaker 1: elk just naturally wanting to move based on you know,
Speaker 1: the feed that's present where they're kind of remigrating to
Speaker 1: maybe even you know, a month ahead, you're now dealing
Speaker 1: with the bulls splitting the herds, the bulls going to
Speaker 1: find the cows and then moving to an area that
Speaker 1: they want to move to the rut. In addition to
Speaker 1: the pressure on top of that, so the further away
Speaker 1: you're scouting is from season, the more you need to
Speaker 1: be willing to move and go go pick up and
Speaker 1: find those elks. So keep that in mind. When you
Speaker 1: show up. So I'm going to start with you. You
Speaker 1: arrive at the trailhead, or you arrive at the road
Speaker 1: system or the area you want to hunt. One thing
Speaker 1: that can greatly help speed up the process of getting
Speaker 1: back on elk so you can you can actively hunt
Speaker 1: them and get it figured out. Is how you break
Speaker 1: down an area. And we can't talk about this enough,
Speaker 1: is the fringes. These elk, just like meal deer, like
Speaker 1: a lot of animals that we hunt, they like to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of their time on the fringe. And
Speaker 1: when I consider a fringe is let's say if you're
Speaker 1: in clearcut country, you have standing timber right next to
Speaker 1: a logged off area, you know, four or five year
Speaker 1: old area, and so you got some green up in
Speaker 1: the clearcut and you've got timber. I would say two
Speaker 1: hundred to three hundred yards into each side of that,
Speaker 1: So three hundred yards into the timber, three hundred yards
Speaker 1: out to the clearcut. The same goes for alpine subalpine breaks,
Speaker 1: avalanche shoots, to timber breaks, whatever it may be. If
Speaker 1: there's vegetation changes as well as terrain changes, and that
Speaker 1: that vegetation is different, I want to be on those
Speaker 1: lines three hundred yards on each. So when I show
Speaker 1: up to an area and I need to figure out
Speaker 1: where these elk rapp very quickly, I reassess the area
Speaker 1: and maybe I didn't get a chance to be there,
Speaker 1: maybe I've only e scouted it. Does it look like
Speaker 1: what I thought it looked like from from Google Earth
Speaker 1: or whatever program on X, whatever you're using. Does it
Speaker 1: look the same. And one thing I like to do
Speaker 1: from on X before I go on a hunt is
Speaker 1: I will go and mark out some fringes that are
Speaker 1: quick to hit from from the trailheader from my jump
Speaker 1: off point, and I'm gonna go hit those first. I
Speaker 1: identify first off, I'll identify passes and major ridge lines
Speaker 1: elk even though they're in great shape, they live in
Speaker 1: the mountains. They take the path of lease resistance. If
Speaker 1: there's a pass or a dip in a ridge line,
Speaker 1: I want to mark that and I want to check
Speaker 1: that out. So when I show up to a trailhead,
Speaker 1: I'm not aimlessly wandering through the woods hoping to stumble
Speaker 1: into elk. I'm going to specific spots, passes and ridges,
Speaker 1: the edges of avalanche shoots. If there's meadows scattered out.
Speaker 1: I want to go check the fringes of the meadows.
Speaker 1: Elk love to be able to feed in there at night,
Speaker 1: get get good high quality feed, and then they bump
Speaker 1: back into the timber for bedding. I'm gonna go check
Speaker 1: if there's isolated water. You know, a creek in the
Speaker 1: bottom isn't necessarily a great fringe area or or something.
Speaker 1: Elk have the ability to get water anywhere out of
Speaker 1: that drainage, so I sometimes that's like I would say,
Speaker 1: of lesser importance meadows, isolated watering ponds, swamps, wallows, ridge lines.
Speaker 1: And then ideally I like to jump on a ridge
Speaker 1: so I can cover in my opinion, that lets me
Speaker 1: cover two sides and double my area. If I'm running
Speaker 1: a ridge, I can check the passes that the low
Speaker 1: points where I'm up there, I can check for for tracks, scat,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And then as we already mentioned,
Speaker 1: I like to go check out rub areas to see
Speaker 1: if elk are in there or or around there. So
Speaker 1: that's how I quickly get to an area, try to
Speaker 1: break it down. You know you're looking once again, tracks, scat, rubs,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Ideally, live elk now to the tunning season.
Speaker 1: When I scout, I don't necessarily need to see live elk.
Speaker 1: I just need some reassurance that they're in the area.
Speaker 1: During season, I'm looking for actual signs of elk and
Speaker 1: so quickly break down an area. Just because elk were
Speaker 1: there a week ago doesn't mean they're going to be
Speaker 1: there now. Just because they were there last year doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're going to be there this year. There are
Speaker 1: things pressure, you know, lead cows, dying off, bulls, taking
Speaker 1: cows of different areas, whatever it may be, There may
Speaker 1: be reasons. So I never assume just because elk we're
Speaker 1: you know, in an area, that they're going to be
Speaker 1: back there, and I my job, in order to be
Speaker 1: successful you're in your is to quickly track these things down,
Speaker 1: figure out where they want to be at that time,
Speaker 1: and find them. So locating elk as far as the
Speaker 1: actual act of locating elk, as much as I love
Speaker 1: to call, as much as I love to hear a
Speaker 1: bull beagle back, I will take visual location of elk
Speaker 1: every day over locating with the bugle and the ways
Speaker 1: I accomplish that early morning, mid day, late evening if
Speaker 1: we don't have anything going we don't have action. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get on a high vantage point and I'm going
Speaker 1: to look for where I think elk are going to
Speaker 1: be feeding or where they're going to be out. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's morning or evening, I'll start to look in
Speaker 1: more wide open areas. If it's middle of the day,
Speaker 1: I might be looking in small, little pinched up avalanche shoots.
Speaker 1: I might be looking into a burn. I might be
Speaker 1: looking into real small pockets where I'm just looking for elk,
Speaker 1: you know, signs of elk to show themselves, where they
Speaker 1: may be getting the last bite of food, where they
Speaker 1: may be getting out of bed, because a lot of
Speaker 1: times you can't glass into their bedding, but you might
Speaker 1: be able to catch elk, you know, around a betting
Speaker 1: area or you know pushed up you know, steep country.
Speaker 1: A lot of times those cows love to bed on
Speaker 1: top of trees. Whatever it may be. I'm just middle
Speaker 1: of the day, I'm glassing different areas than I am
Speaker 1: morning or night. I'm looking more open, high quality, wide
Speaker 1: open feed early morning, late at evening, isolated pockets in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day. One thing I like to do,
Speaker 1: which sometimes overlooked, is plan a little bit where's the
Speaker 1: sun rising, where's the sun setting? Yeah, you do get
Speaker 1: some time before the sun's up and a little bit
Speaker 1: of time after the sun's down. But I try to
Speaker 1: even you know, orientate myself so that I've got the
Speaker 1: sun at my back. I don't want to look into,
Speaker 1: you know, the sun. It messes up glassing, it's hard
Speaker 1: to see, it's hard to differentiate colors whatnot. So even
Speaker 1: on my high vantage points. Yeah, first in the morning,
Speaker 1: you probably got half an hour a good glassing in
Speaker 1: any direction, but then the sun quickly kind of changes that.
Speaker 1: So I even think about things like that, setting myself
Speaker 1: off on ridges looking in certain directions because I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss that morning glass session. So ideally visual
Speaker 1: one great way to locate them locate bugle, which is
Speaker 1: an audible method. I kind of answered that earlier in
Speaker 1: the question. But I'm going to go walk a ridge line,
Speaker 1: I'm going to locate bugle, just trying to get an
Speaker 1: answer back, and then typically all wait a half hour
Speaker 1: forty five minutes after daylight. If I can't spot anything,
Speaker 1: I quickly want to roll into my locating bugle plan.
Speaker 1: That my game because those bulls are more likely to
Speaker 1: answer earlier in the morning. The more you get towards
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, we've all been there, the
Speaker 1: bugling tends to just shut itself down. So the earlier
Speaker 1: I can get my location bugle going, the quicker I
Speaker 1: can cover ground, the higher the likelihood of me getting
Speaker 1: a response back. Another way to locate elk. If I'm
Speaker 1: in an area, I know they're elk there, signed there's
Speaker 1: fresh sign. I can smell them whatever it is throughout
Speaker 1: the day, but for some reason or another, they're not
Speaker 1: locating night locating is something we do. We'll go out
Speaker 1: walk a ridge in the middle of the dark. We'll
Speaker 1: take a nap in the middle of the day. If
Speaker 1: there's some slow time or the wind isn't write whatever
Speaker 1: we may. We may spend an hour or two after
Speaker 1: dark locating elk. If we don't have anything located that night,
Speaker 1: we'll get up two hours early and locate elk in
Speaker 1: the dark. Whatever whatever we need to do to locate ELK.
Speaker 1: I need to be or I want to be on
Speaker 1: an elk every morning and every evening like that's my
Speaker 1: goal is to at least get a play and and
Speaker 1: and I don't want to sacrifice that prime time in
Speaker 1: order to to to make that happen. So I'm willing
Speaker 1: to stay up late. I'm willing to get up extra
Speaker 1: early to make sure we're always in elk. The last
Speaker 1: way to locate elk is still hunting. I would reserve
Speaker 1: this to very good you know, a very good uh
Speaker 1: you know, understanding of where those elk are at, and
Speaker 1: only go in and still hunt if I know they're
Speaker 1: bedded up in an area, maybe the elk hunt. It's
Speaker 1: getting late in the game, and this one still you
Speaker 1: may screwed it up for other people, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of like your last ditch effort, which I think everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna you know, do. You're not necessarily saving those elk
Speaker 1: for anybody else, But still hunting is a high risk,
Speaker 1: high reward to get in tight. You can pretend she
Speaker 1: pushed those elk out of their bedding, but you can
Speaker 1: still hunt and work your way in close. Especially we've
Speaker 1: resorted to this at times when there's just not a
Speaker 1: lot of biggling early in the season. Seems to be
Speaker 1: a way we can we can kind of sneak in
Speaker 1: and locate out. So, now that you've located elk, what's
Speaker 1: your next move? Going to be And that's kind of
Speaker 1: the question we need to ask ourselves. We need to
Speaker 1: be educated hunters, make good decisions and feel like we've
Speaker 1: kind of walked ourselves through everything that's going to affect
Speaker 1: our next move. So the first thing I like to
Speaker 1: ask myself for what are the elk doing and what
Speaker 1: are their plans? If I wasn't to intervene, are are
Speaker 1: they going from feed to betting? Are they just milling around?
Speaker 1: And does is there a herd bowl with multiple satellites
Speaker 1: or is there a lopsided balance? Is there like a
Speaker 1: great herd buwl with satellites that are smaller or is
Speaker 1: there a herd bowl that's maybe barely you know, that
Speaker 1: much bigger or better or stronger than the satellite bowls
Speaker 1: around him like that. Some of that stuff's going to
Speaker 1: lead lead to it because the competition is different and
Speaker 1: you know, are are they got running activity? We're looking
Speaker 1: at all of that before we even consider our approach.
Speaker 1: The other thing I do like to and you know,
Speaker 1: hunting public land for elk, you always have to answer
Speaker 1: this question to figure out how quick you need to
Speaker 1: make these decisions and move is what's the pressure like
Speaker 1: in the area are these elk going to sit here
Speaker 1: and do what they want to do without being bothered
Speaker 1: by somebody else before I get there? Or do I
Speaker 1: need to move quicker? Or sometimes we may spot elk
Speaker 1: in areas where the effort or the ability to get
Speaker 1: there is so great and it's going to take us
Speaker 1: a long time. We know there's a lot easier ways
Speaker 1: to get in there from a different road, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, we may elect to leave those alone because
Speaker 1: our chances of becoming successful or so low. So you're
Speaker 1: asking these questions to yourself. What's the wind doing at
Speaker 1: this time? Let's say at seven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: we can almost guarantee the wind's going to be going downhill,
Speaker 1: But how long is it going to take me to
Speaker 1: get there? If it's two hours and you're going to
Speaker 1: be over there at nine and you know the sun's
Speaker 1: hitting that slope all right now as I approach, the
Speaker 1: wind's going to be potentially going uphill, how does that
Speaker 1: change my approach? Do I need to walk a finger
Speaker 1: ridge over or whatever it may be. You got to
Speaker 1: ask yourself these questions. The other thing, if it's a
Speaker 1: long stalk and you can't just run there and be
Speaker 1: there in fifteen minutes. Where are those elk ultimately going
Speaker 1: to be by time I can get there? Do you
Speaker 1: got to get enough read on the direction they're going
Speaker 1: or can you foresee which patch of timber they're going
Speaker 1: to go bed in or the flat? So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure all this out without really knowing the answer.
Speaker 1: Unless it's elk that you've got patterned or elk that
Speaker 1: you've got a good idea, there's only certain spots they
Speaker 1: can get to. You're trying to figure all it out
Speaker 1: before you take off, and then ultimately I'm already trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a general vicinity of where I'm going
Speaker 1: to set up when I get there. It's very tough
Speaker 1: to do. It's taken a lot of time. But if
Speaker 1: I see an elk, you know, across the way, I
Speaker 1: know it's going to be an hour to get down
Speaker 1: and across by that time, I think the elk should
Speaker 1: be here my plan and a lot of times I'll
Speaker 1: just put a waypoint on on X. Of course we
Speaker 1: may need to make changes, but this is where I
Speaker 1: intend to interact with the elk, you know, my ideal spot,
Speaker 1: and then I will change from there, and that's one
Speaker 1: thing in this A lot of times when we if
Speaker 1: we have to make a stock, that's our approach is
Speaker 1: you know, seven hundred one thousand yards away or two
Speaker 1: thousand yards away. It's a long, long track. A lot
Speaker 1: of times things change when you get over there, and
Speaker 1: you might get a little confused on what finger ridge
Speaker 1: you're on. Put an on x pin where the elk
Speaker 1: are at, where you think they're going, and then that
Speaker 1: can help you kind of just plan your route and
Speaker 1: you don't have to second guess if you're in the
Speaker 1: right spot or where they're going. And then ultimately we
Speaker 1: make small little changes as we approach, and my goal
Speaker 1: is to get as close to that bowl or his
Speaker 1: cows as I can without getting busted. Ideally, you know
Speaker 1: we talk. We coined the term shock and awe. We
Speaker 1: use that strategy. Once we approach, I try not to
Speaker 1: make a sound until I'm within one hundred yards. That's ideal. Now,
Speaker 1: what helps us out and accomplishing that is if that
Speaker 1: bull continues to bugle on his own as we approach,
Speaker 1: that gives us the confidence of reassurance we can track
Speaker 1: his movement versus if you're if you're making that approach
Speaker 1: and you don't get a whole lot out of that elk.
Speaker 1: You're really just having to guess on the speed that
Speaker 1: they were in the direction they were heading and try
Speaker 1: to make all that work. Ninety five percent of the
Speaker 1: herd bulls will not come into calls from more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty hundred and fifty yards out, And
Speaker 1: I'll explain that a little bit. But in my opinion,
Speaker 1: needs to represent a threat to that bowl. These bulls
Speaker 1: are out there to you know, breed, recreate, reproduce, and
Speaker 1: they don't want to potentially lose their opportunity to breed
Speaker 1: these cows. And so why would they willfully walk away
Speaker 1: from cows when there are other satellite bowls around to
Speaker 1: come look for this bull or cow that's calling to him.
Speaker 1: When in nature, that bowl beagles lets the cows know
Speaker 1: that that bowl's in the area and the cow should
Speaker 1: walk to them. So in order to we're kind of
Speaker 1: reversing this a little bit and creating a threat to
Speaker 1: that bowl that I'm within his area, I'm within a
Speaker 1: certain distance of his cows. I'm now a threat to him,
Speaker 1: and he needs to come and protect you know what,
Speaker 1: He's got his cows, his hair, and whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: So now that we're close, let's say we've did all
Speaker 1: this successful, We've got the wind in our face, we're
Speaker 1: doing things right. You need to figure out where to
Speaker 1: set up, and there's there's a lot of opinions like
Speaker 1: what's the most important, like any one piece of this.
Speaker 1: If you can't locate a bull, then it's the most
Speaker 1: important because you don't ever get to the stage. If
Speaker 1: you can't approach and get in the right spot to
Speaker 1: set up, then you're never going to be in the action.
Speaker 1: But talking to enough people it shows, and listening to
Speaker 1: hunting stories and scenarios, I feel that setting up is
Speaker 1: maybe one of the biggest reasons of non success or
Speaker 1: people coming up a little bit short. Then maybe anything
Speaker 1: else that we talk about when it comes to calling
Speaker 1: an elk. So how do I set up when I
Speaker 1: get to an area? Well, another thing that I like
Speaker 1: to gauge. If we've did everything right and we've got
Speaker 1: the wind in our face and the elker or upwind
Speaker 1: of us, we should be able to smell elk right
Speaker 1: elkorist thinking creator. Most of the time, as I approach,
Speaker 1: I almost use their stink. Their stench is like a
Speaker 1: indicator that I'm close enough or I'm getting close enough,
Speaker 1: especially if they're not talking. So that's when I start
Speaker 1: to look for spots to set up. The very first
Speaker 1: thing I look for is these fringes. We talked about
Speaker 1: fringes earlier, but now we're looking at it on more
Speaker 1: of a micro you know, kind of in the micro
Speaker 1: scale of the micro lens. We want to look for.
Speaker 1: You know, it might just be groups of trees that
Speaker 1: are sixty or seventy yards ahead of us. And if
Speaker 1: that elk gets to that, like, are they willing to
Speaker 1: stop because they should be able to see the cow
Speaker 1: or the bowl also known as ourselves doing the calling.
Speaker 1: Can they see that elk from that location and expect
Speaker 1: for that cower bowl to come to them? Or how
Speaker 1: do we prevent that? We set ourselves up next to
Speaker 1: that break. We set ourselves up next to that terrain break,
Speaker 1: that vegetation break, so that when that elk does get
Speaker 1: to that hold up spot within shooting distance and we
Speaker 1: don't run into that situation scenario where and this is
Speaker 1: what I see A lot, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people like to show me their phone on a you know,
Speaker 1: somebody had a cell phone running when they were calling
Speaker 1: an elk, and those elk holed up at sixty or
Speaker 1: seventy yards and they they bugle a little bit, or
Speaker 1: they hang out, maybe pace a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: they leave. Well, I always ask those guys, like, what
Speaker 1: do you think happened there? And in my opinion, a
Speaker 1: lot of times that bull gets to a location where
Speaker 1: he could see very clearly the cow, the bull that
Speaker 1: should be calling to him, and doesn't see what he likes,
Speaker 1: and we'll turn around and go back to his cows.
Speaker 1: Or even satellite bulls will do this. They don't see
Speaker 1: what you know, they're they're not going to walk right
Speaker 1: in to an elk that doesn't exist. They will get
Speaker 1: to a spot where they can see well, they should
Speaker 1: be able to see the cow or the bull, and
Speaker 1: they'll turn away. So I'm looking at terrain and cover,
Speaker 1: and let's try to paint a picture here through words.
Speaker 1: Let's say you have a hillside that's forty five degrees up,
Speaker 1: fairly steeped the whole way up, and there's there's one
Speaker 1: little bench in the middle of it. Let's say you're
Speaker 1: calling the bowl uphill and he's coming up the hill,
Speaker 1: but that bench is a hundred yards wide, and you
Speaker 1: are a little hesitant because you don't want to be
Speaker 1: right at the edge, But so you set up way
Speaker 1: at the back edge of it, so you're now one
Speaker 1: hundred yards from where that elk will be. Because you
Speaker 1: like the spot and you got good shooting lanes or something.
Speaker 1: But I'm here to tell you when that bowl gets
Speaker 1: to that break where it goes flat to forty five
Speaker 1: degrees and steps up there, a lot of times you
Speaker 1: only get a view of his head or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe half of his body link because he can now
Speaker 1: see that entire flat or most of that flat. You're
Speaker 1: now one hundred yards away, right, Why wouldn't we have
Speaker 1: set up twenty to thirty yards away. He's going to
Speaker 1: hang up with that same spot, whether you're calling from
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty yards away from the edge or if
Speaker 1: you're calling from eighty to one hundred yards away from
Speaker 1: that edge. So we need to think about things like
Speaker 1: that as well as how the vegetation. The ideal set
Speaker 1: up is when you can kind of combine that vegetation
Speaker 1: break with terrain brakes, but either one of these will
Speaker 1: work kind of individually on their own. Terrain breaks like
Speaker 1: I love nothing more than setting up. I've got good
Speaker 1: shooting lanes. Let's say twenty to thirty yards in the clean,
Speaker 1: But that bull's coming out of a giant brush pile.
Speaker 1: He can't see. He can't really be visible. You know,
Speaker 1: there's bits and pieces. I can see the elk coming,
Speaker 1: but he can never truly see out of the brush
Speaker 1: or the timber or whatever it may be. He's got
Speaker 1: to get to that edge in order to identify the
Speaker 1: elk or the bowl or the cow, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: whatever calling style you use, he needs to get to
Speaker 1: there in order to see. And then ideally, if I've
Speaker 1: set up right, I've now got a very good shot
Speaker 1: when he gets there. The next thing I'm looking at,
Speaker 1: let's say we've picked an ideal spot. Where is that
Speaker 1: bowl most likely to come in. We're looking at trail systems,
Speaker 1: openings in trees. You know they I don't want to
Speaker 1: sound like Captain Obvia's here, but the bowl can't walk
Speaker 1: through trees. He doesn't really want to walk right through
Speaker 1: the limbs of those trees. You know. If there's small
Speaker 1: gaps and openings, they're going to walk typically like we do.
Speaker 1: They're going to try to find the path of least
Speaker 1: resistance to get there. So I'm now looking where's that
Speaker 1: bowl going to approach? Which direction Willy come in from?
Speaker 1: As a right handed shooter, Once I've identified those, I
Speaker 1: will typically put my left shoulder towards where I think
Speaker 1: he's going to come from. And if I need to
Speaker 1: give myself a little bit of margin of air, I
Speaker 1: you know, as a right handed shooter, I can swing
Speaker 1: you know, ninety one hundred and twenty degrees to my left.
Speaker 1: If I try to draw my bow and swing much
Speaker 1: to the right, I'm limited by maybe fifteen to twenty
Speaker 1: degrees before my you know, my my shot and my
Speaker 1: form falls apart. So I'm looking for that. I'm putting
Speaker 1: my left shoulder towards it. And one thing, there are times,
Speaker 1: so I want to point this out where i will
Speaker 1: set up on my knees if I've got lots of
Speaker 1: If I'm in an area where trees allow shots to
Speaker 1: happen underneath of their bottom branches, or if they're dead,
Speaker 1: or you know, things if branches and trees, if my
Speaker 1: shot dictates lower, shooting to be a lot more probable
Speaker 1: than getting a shot if I'm standing up. But I ideally,
Speaker 1: if I don't believe it changes my shot opportunity. I
Speaker 1: will typically stand up. It gives me more freedom to move.
Speaker 1: I can grab sticks and beat trees, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: We'll get into tactics here in a little bit. I
Speaker 1: prefer to stand up. Knees limits me. A lot of
Speaker 1: times my feet go dead, my feet go to you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it might beat, my legs go numb, go to sleep,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And it's a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable, and I'm a lot more comfortable when I
Speaker 1: can stand. Can I move in this position without making
Speaker 1: noise or moving brush? Avoid if possible, setting up in
Speaker 1: the middle of a brush pile. A lot of times
Speaker 1: people don't think about having, you know, twenty inches of arrow,
Speaker 1: twenty five inches of arrow hanging out in front of
Speaker 1: their bow or their stabilizer, or if a bowl doesn't
Speaker 1: come in exactly where they want. It's it's very tough
Speaker 1: to make movements. So I typically will set up in
Speaker 1: front of a large tree, in front of a pile
Speaker 1: of brush, and let let that break up my outline,
Speaker 1: and and you know, don't don't set up in the
Speaker 1: middle of a brush pile. I made some airs very
Speaker 1: early on and I've had great success just trying to
Speaker 1: blend in on the side of a tree, in front
Speaker 1: of a tree, in front of brush. So the last
Speaker 1: thing setting up you've got there the wind should be correct.
Speaker 1: One thing I do want to mention is I prefer
Speaker 1: to call bowls on on contour or slightly downhill. I
Speaker 1: believe elk like to feel like they've got gravity on
Speaker 1: their side. A bowl that may be getting into confrontation
Speaker 1: would rather come downhill if not on contour, which also
Speaker 1: gives you the ability to deal with some maybe some
Speaker 1: swirling winds. It's a little bit of a conservative play.
Speaker 1: And then the last way, but sometimes situations don't allow
Speaker 1: anything different, is to call a bowl uphill. But if
Speaker 1: I have my preference, that's where I like to set up,
Speaker 1: to call a bowl slightly downhill or on contour. Now
Speaker 1: we're dealing with the wind. If you set up with
Speaker 1: the wind perfect, so let's say the wind's hitting you
Speaker 1: directly in the nose, that's ideally a perfect wind setup
Speaker 1: that gives you the most the highest factor of being conservative.
Speaker 1: That bowl can now approach. You know, swing way to
Speaker 1: the left, swing way to the right, and you've still
Speaker 1: got good wind in your favor. But what I've found,
Speaker 1: especially doing a lot of solo calling or even calling
Speaker 1: for buddies, is if that bowl comes straight on, you're
Speaker 1: left with the frontel shot, or you're left with that
Speaker 1: bowl becoming a little bit nervous and turning broadside. He
Speaker 1: doesn't typically turn broadside on his own when you've got
Speaker 1: the wind too perfect. So let's use that wind to
Speaker 1: our advantage and use it kind of as a steering wheel,
Speaker 1: kind of a half moon wind approach. So if I
Speaker 1: can now get that wind not being on my nose,
Speaker 1: but let's say that wind's hitting my right cheek at
Speaker 1: a forty five even up to a ninety degree angle
Speaker 1: forty five, hit my right cheet, creeve my right ear,
Speaker 1: so that winds hitting me in on the right side,
Speaker 1: I can almost with very good probability now dictate or
Speaker 1: guess that that bowl is now going to swing to
Speaker 1: my left or the left of the caller's position. So
Speaker 1: you can see how we can start to use that
Speaker 1: to our own advantage where we call and maybe move
Speaker 1: up to our left if we're not going to make
Speaker 1: any more calling, or if we're calling for a buddy
Speaker 1: or hunting partner. I would want to be down to
Speaker 1: the right so that when that bowl does start to
Speaker 1: half circle me and start to try to get the
Speaker 1: wind on me, I pull him right into the shooter.
Speaker 1: So this allows us to use the wind almost as
Speaker 1: a steering wheel and put some unknowns into a bucket
Speaker 1: of nones as we're as we're calling this bowl in,
Speaker 1: and so as you set up, start to think about that,
Speaker 1: if that bowl does start to circle my position a
Speaker 1: lot of times from sixty seventy one hundred yards out,
Speaker 1: what does this new approach now look like? Do I
Speaker 1: have shooting lanes as he comes in on my left
Speaker 1: or vice? Or so if if the wind's opposite coming
Speaker 1: in on my right, think about that. Be an educated
Speaker 1: hunter and use that to your advantage as you go
Speaker 1: to set up. So earlier we talked about if we're
Speaker 1: dealing with a herd bull versus a satellite bowl. Now
Speaker 1: that we're set up, what's our what are we gonna call? Uh?
Speaker 1: What's our what's our first call gonna be? And one
Speaker 1: thing that I want to I want to start with
Speaker 1: right out and even preface this whole conversation. This is
Speaker 1: where we get into like individual tactics and techniques, and
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of ways to do it. You've
Speaker 1: got guys out there that believe they understand elk language,
Speaker 1: do a t and they can communicate with elk like
Speaker 1: they're having a conversation. Some of those guys kill out
Speaker 1: pretty routinely. There are guys like myself that call more
Speaker 1: on a prescriptive, more of an attitude based calling, and
Speaker 1: I find it to be very successful and a high
Speaker 1: percentage of elk that we get to run the system
Speaker 1: on we routinely call. And there's other guys out there.
Speaker 1: You know, my buddy Brian Barney, Ryan Lamper. Some of
Speaker 1: these guys that don't they do call well, Ryan calls,
Speaker 1: Brian doesn't. But guys that don't call as much but
Speaker 1: maybe use raking of trees and brush in in combination
Speaker 1: with maybe a little bit less calling, they're also notching tag.
Speaker 1: So I want to preface this, this is the way
Speaker 1: I love to do it, and I want to I
Speaker 1: want to give a little bit of why. So when
Speaker 1: you and I'm not saying it's not as accomplished as
Speaker 1: maybe even more accomplished, but when you kill an elk
Speaker 1: that you've snuck in on. You didn't get to play
Speaker 1: that chess match of me calling and interacting with the elk. Now,
Speaker 1: it might be cool in its own sense that you,
Speaker 1: you know, were able to get that close without being heard, smell, seen,
Speaker 1: and still make a perfect shot. I'm out there. The
Speaker 1: main reason is to interact with these elk. I love
Speaker 1: nothing more than getting a bowl. You know, super pissed off,
Speaker 1: eyes rolled back in his head, slobign you know, pi
Speaker 1: and all over himself, just so pissed off at me.
Speaker 1: And when he kind of turns that corner or push
Speaker 1: us through some brush, his eyes rolled back in his
Speaker 1: head and he hits me with that bigle from thirty
Speaker 1: or forty yards away. That is the exact reason, all
Speaker 1: bottled up into about ten seconds, that I'm out there
Speaker 1: and why I love to archery elk hunt in the
Speaker 1: rut so much. I'm out there for that experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could do it a bunch of different ways, but
Speaker 1: that's what I want and that's why we're out there.
Speaker 1: So we call and we play off of their temperament.
Speaker 1: It's more of a I do this, he reacts this way.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to do this, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn the temperature up on him, and it worked very,
Speaker 1: very well. One other thing I want to talk about
Speaker 1: before we get into actual calling tactics is don't get
Speaker 1: hung up on being the absolute best caller. Yes, it
Speaker 1: can help you gain volume, it can help you sound
Speaker 1: more realistic, it can help you mimic elk, but all
Speaker 1: oaks sound different. And there's been a few times where
Speaker 1: real elk if really kind of got me or confused
Speaker 1: me a little bit. I was ready to balance out
Speaker 1: of a situation because I didn't want to feel like
Speaker 1: I was being called in by somebody or give them
Speaker 1: any of my energy, your effort. And you know, sure
Speaker 1: as heck, those elk came right in what I thought
Speaker 1: was a human. So so you don't have to be
Speaker 1: the best elk caller ever. So let's say we know
Speaker 1: we're on a herd bowl. We've confirmed it. We can
Speaker 1: see cows, we can see herd bulls. He's he's doing
Speaker 1: herd bowl things. Rounding up. What I like to do
Speaker 1: is get close. We mentioned earlier, I want to be
Speaker 1: within one hundred yards. I always make sure before I call,
Speaker 1: especially in these close close quarters, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure you've got your Aaron ocht and you've got your
Speaker 1: release either on your bow or hooked up before you
Speaker 1: start making calls. Sometimes this has happened very fast, where
Speaker 1: elk for one reason or another come in very quickly,
Speaker 1: very aggressively, and or happened very often that at the
Speaker 1: time you set up, you couldn't see the bowl, but
Speaker 1: maybe they're heading your direction, and within a second or
Speaker 1: two he's now got a wide open he's got you pegged,
Speaker 1: he knows where you're at, and his eyeballs are on
Speaker 1: you or other cows are on you eyeball, so you
Speaker 1: may not be able to get a chance to move
Speaker 1: after that, So always be ready to shoot. So I
Speaker 1: like to paint the scene that this bowl and he's
Speaker 1: got a lot of work, right, He's got a lot
Speaker 1: of times multiple cows, you know, smaller herds, I'd say
Speaker 1: three four five, you know some of the bigger herds.
Speaker 1: Some of these bulls are trying to run thirty forty
Speaker 1: cows at once, and it becomes a full time job,
Speaker 1: especially when you've got satellite bulls harassing them or kind
Speaker 1: of pestering him. He's got a lot of work surrounding
Speaker 1: his cows. So to paint this scene I want to
Speaker 1: basically be a cow on the edge of his herd,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use some estrasty calls, some more wines,
Speaker 1: you know, so your your typical cow call, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: a mew an estrass wine is more up and down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying to let him do right off
Speaker 1: the bat is that there's a cow on the edge
Speaker 1: of your herd that you no longer have in your eyesight,
Speaker 1: you have control over. And then very quickly after that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to let a challenge bogle. Basically, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you have a cow on the edge of your herd
Speaker 1: that needs some attention, but there's this new bowl that's
Speaker 1: now right there on top of her. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times why they're trying to we've set up this
Speaker 1: you know, fight or flight type mentality during the run.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you can take advantage of that
Speaker 1: because that bold doesn't want to leave the opportunity to
Speaker 1: breed that cow, pro create and whatnot. And I like
Speaker 1: to use the analogy of what we're doing is is
Speaker 1: let's say I'm I'm in a restaurant. Me and my
Speaker 1: wife are eating in the back booth of a restaurant.
Speaker 1: And why we get so close. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: this shock and awe approach. If a guy walks in
Speaker 1: the front door of the restaurant and yells my name
Speaker 1: and some profanities or whatever he's gonna yell at and
Speaker 1: basically say, I'm gonna take your wife, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: you tick me off, whatever it may be, I've got
Speaker 1: the opportunity, when you're that far away to just walk
Speaker 1: out the back door, maybe maybe deflect, maybe get away
Speaker 1: from the situation. So this is a lot of times
Speaker 1: the biggest air hunters make is they call their way
Speaker 1: into a setup, and that bull is not interested in
Speaker 1: losing his cows. As a bull approaches, so we want
Speaker 1: to be very very quiet, and so by painting this scene,
Speaker 1: he's got a cow that's in need, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this bull hammers. He's made is he's been
Speaker 1: able to approach silently and all of a sudden he's there.
Speaker 1: A lot of times this is enough to turn that
Speaker 1: bull's temperature up very very quickly, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times that's been the only two calls I've had to make.
Speaker 1: You can start to hear brush break, you can start
Speaker 1: to hear approaches and a lot of times that's all
Speaker 1: we need if we've got close enough. There are times
Speaker 1: where you get in a little bit of a battle
Speaker 1: where you need to pull that bowl off of the herd,
Speaker 1: or you may need to follow him. And so if
Speaker 1: we get into too much calling, I ideally want that
Speaker 1: bull to make the next call after I've made those two.
Speaker 1: If he does, I mimic him, or I walk right
Speaker 1: on top of his bugle. So I typically have my
Speaker 1: bugle handy. As soon as he bugles, I'm right back
Speaker 1: on top of him, and I don't let him ever quote,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of finish his his what he wants
Speaker 1: to say. I'm always walking on top of him. I'm
Speaker 1: always mimicking what he has to say, and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to turn that temperature dial up, you know, turn his
Speaker 1: dermos that make it higher and higher. So he's getting frustrated,
Speaker 1: more angry, and and ideally he will continue to call,
Speaker 1: and I will walk on top of him. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to control the conversation by me, by me talking,
Speaker 1: but if I need to, if forty five seconds to
Speaker 1: a minute, minute and a half's gone by and I
Speaker 1: haven't heard Elk moving, I haven't heard other beagles. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard other cow sillens. I will kind of see
Speaker 1: what we need to do, and during this if this
Speaker 1: is where mimicry comes in. If if this bowl's screaming,
Speaker 1: I will scream back out of him. If he's got
Speaker 1: a guttural grunt with some chuckles, I will do the
Speaker 1: same thing. And I'll try to and I'll kind of
Speaker 1: roll with that through the next uh, through the next
Speaker 1: call and the next call, and try to amplify that
Speaker 1: and really just get him more upset and more upset.
Speaker 1: And one thing. We a lot of times there are
Speaker 1: multiple setups in order to get a bowl to turn,
Speaker 1: you know. So sometimes it works on the first try.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we need to move sixty seventy yards closer, or
Speaker 1: that bowl will semi round up his cows and take
Speaker 1: them in the opposite direction. As long as we've got
Speaker 1: the wind right, we will move sixty seventy yards vegetation
Speaker 1: and train allowing and reset up. So really we're just
Speaker 1: trying to gauge him. And if if I get that
Speaker 1: little bit of time between the estrous cow call and
Speaker 1: let's say the bugle, the challenge bugle, that I'm kind
Speaker 1: of throwing the whole kitchen sink at him. If that
Speaker 1: bull hammers my cal call, I may just stay with
Speaker 1: that and this and this is herd bowl tactics. Only
Speaker 1: is being very aggressive with the bugle. Will now kind
Speaker 1: of go into the satellite bowl. I know I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with the satellite bowl. I will go to lots of
Speaker 1: heavy sexy cow calling. There's no need to necessarily use
Speaker 1: a bugle in this situation. If he's bonding the cow calls,
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay with him. If I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm losing him, I may throw in like a little
Speaker 1: moan bugle to let him know like an immature bull's
Speaker 1: got some cows down in here, but never really just
Speaker 1: blast them with the herd bulls sound. Because these bulls
Speaker 1: have established a pecking order, they kind of know based
Speaker 1: on bugle what's what. And so we'll typically throw lots
Speaker 1: of sexy cow calling at them. And we've been able
Speaker 1: to call elkin and burns where we've been able to
Speaker 1: watch as we throw more cow calls at him, the
Speaker 1: faster that bull will move through. So we've got enough.
Speaker 1: You almost can't cal call enough. You stop cal calling,
Speaker 1: he'll slow down. You pick it up and that bowl
Speaker 1: will approach faster. But with this said, I basically said,
Speaker 1: there's these prescriptive, cookie cutter approaches, but I know as
Speaker 1: soon as I go out in the field, I'm never
Speaker 1: just doing these. These are kind of the standard that
Speaker 1: we build off of. Let's say I'm walking along a
Speaker 1: trail and I get a whiff of elk coming up
Speaker 1: the hill and there's a nice little pocket or a
Speaker 1: bench down there, I may elect to just cow call
Speaker 1: a mune, not even an estress wine, nothing, just to yeah,
Speaker 1: if I get a bowl to answer that, and I move,
Speaker 1: Let's say I can't move far, but I go eighty
Speaker 1: yards for the down the hill, and the bowl answers
Speaker 1: that I don't even need to know if it's a
Speaker 1: herd bull or a satellite bowl at that. If he's
Speaker 1: being responsive and seems like he's approaching to a calcol,
Speaker 1: I would be you know, it would be kind of
Speaker 1: a stupid play for me to change to one of
Speaker 1: my scenes or one of my prescriptions that I typically
Speaker 1: call in. I'm gonna go ahead and stick with that
Speaker 1: calmw until it doesn't work or until that bowl doesn't
Speaker 1: get there, and then maybe, you know, escalate it to
Speaker 1: a estress, wine or whatever it may be, but use
Speaker 1: what works out there. People get too hung up on
Speaker 1: doing things a specific or a certain way, or hey
Speaker 1: I read this on the internet that I need to
Speaker 1: do this, or it worked that one time. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes you a good l
Speaker 1: hunter or somebody that finds success more times than not
Speaker 1: is the ability to quickly reduce what the situation is
Speaker 1: and what you need to do as far as sounds
Speaker 1: you need to make. There are certain situations where I'm
Speaker 1: just like this thing, elk doesn't care what I say
Speaker 1: to him. He's only beagling every five or ten minutes
Speaker 1: on his own. If that's the case, like I need
Speaker 1: to shut up, I need to be more aggressive, I
Speaker 1: need to use more spot in stock techniques. I need
Speaker 1: to get in close and then maybe call when I
Speaker 1: get closer, and then if it doesn't work, then then
Speaker 1: you may need to finish it off with spot in stock.
Speaker 1: So it's just being an educated hunter that kind of
Speaker 1: knows what to do. And so I've kind of got
Speaker 1: like the you know, the steal a cow scene where
Speaker 1: there's that cow on the edge of the herd, a
Speaker 1: new bowl shows up. He's there to take care care
Speaker 1: of and you know, breed that cow and then satellite
Speaker 1: bowl lots of sexy cow. But really just do what's working.
Speaker 1: The other thing I like to take into account is
Speaker 1: what's going on out in the elk woods without us intervening.
Speaker 1: Are these elk super talkative? Does this bowl have a
Speaker 1: lot of satellites around like those herd dynamics of the
Speaker 1: area and the time, and the percent of cows that
Speaker 1: are currently in estress. All of that plays into you
Speaker 1: how talkative the elk are going to be. What my
Speaker 1: response should be, And so I like to just let
Speaker 1: the situation, the information I know, kind of call my
Speaker 1: next move, even though we're pretty prescriptive and I need
Speaker 1: to be able to adjust to what's happening in front
Speaker 1: of me right now. And a lot of times we
Speaker 1: get asked Solover's partner strategy. I mentioned you we use
Speaker 1: the wind a little bit different. A lot of times
Speaker 1: we can throw throw those callers up in front. But
Speaker 1: this isn't like some of the old truth videos I
Speaker 1: got to watch grown up. You know, public land elk,
Speaker 1: you can't typically set that caller one hundred yards back
Speaker 1: because you've now just disrupted that that threat bubble, or
Speaker 1: that that elk's ability to walk away from his cows,
Speaker 1: that his for sure thing to come find this new
Speaker 1: cow that showed up, that that's not coming his direction.
Speaker 1: So when we when we do partner strategies, our partners
Speaker 1: typically in our hip pocket. And the other reason I
Speaker 1: like to do that is a lot of times the
Speaker 1: shooter's got a better you know, he's got better optics
Speaker 1: of this situation and how it's playing out and what
Speaker 1: the bull is doing, and we can relay. We can
Speaker 1: give hand signs back to our caller. Hey, maybe you
Speaker 1: do need to fade back because he's now hung up
Speaker 1: at seventy yards, like we didn't make a good enough
Speaker 1: decision on his hang up point, or like, man, this
Speaker 1: thing is just tearing up brush. Every time you hit
Speaker 1: a bugle like beagle a little bit more or more
Speaker 1: frequently versus stay away from cal calls, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: we can at least communicate. And one other thing I
Speaker 1: like to add to the calling natural sounds is brush breaking.
Speaker 1: I always always set up with a tree branch it's
Speaker 1: you know, two two and a half three inches in
Speaker 1: diameter next to me, and ideally, if the if the
Speaker 1: spot allows I want to be next to a tree
Speaker 1: with with dry bark or broken you know, dried out
Speaker 1: limbs that I can just beat the heck out of
Speaker 1: and create that that imitation, because a lot of bulls,
Speaker 1: as we call them in especially on what I would say,
Speaker 1: your your longer call ins that that take a little
Speaker 1: more time to develop. That bull will typically find a
Speaker 1: tree somewhere between you and him the rake and kind
Speaker 1: of show off his dominance and get his horn, you know,
Speaker 1: put his scent down on that tree, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: establishing his area. We like to mimic that, and if
Speaker 1: you can beat the heck out of a tree, it
Speaker 1: just adds to the realism of the situation that yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a bull bugling, but he's also raking, and it
Speaker 1: kind of puts all that together. So that's really I mean,
Speaker 1: as much as I would like to say calling is
Speaker 1: a it is very important to my success and getting
Speaker 1: the game started. As far as how you call, elkin,
Speaker 1: I feel your setup, in your approach or so much more,
Speaker 1: so much more important to the outcome and your success
Speaker 1: than the actual calling. And it's really just taking their temperature.
Speaker 1: Does this call work? Yes or no? And I guess
Speaker 1: I should say in certain situations, there's level of threats, right,
Speaker 1: like a big challenge beagle like right in the bulls
Speaker 1: is probably the highest level of threat you can throw
Speaker 1: at them right out of the gate, versus a kafir calmew,
Speaker 1: very non threatening, very just elk communicating to each other
Speaker 1: versus like, hey, let's maybe do a spike squeal or
Speaker 1: an immature bowl bugle and then you may be a
Speaker 1: squeal and then maybe some moans and maybe some chuckles.
Speaker 1: Like there are ways to build up to the full blown,
Speaker 1: you know, challenge bugle that you're gonna throw at them.
Speaker 1: And so there are times where if the rout doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be just going crazy and maybe the challenge
Speaker 1: bugle isn't the right thing, I might I might just
Speaker 1: start at a lower threat level and then slowly build.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of my strategy. I highly recommend to everybody, like,
Speaker 1: go find a strategy, a system that you like, and
Speaker 1: put it to use. But that that's going to kind
Speaker 1: of wrap it up on part two of the elk
Speaker 1: hunting this is a little bit different. This is kind
Speaker 1: of what I go through during my seminars a little
Speaker 1: bit semi you know, We've reduced it a little bit
Speaker 1: so it can it can fit in the confines of
Speaker 1: a podcast. But that is really my strategy. It's really
Speaker 1: really simple. Like people want to overcomplicate it, they want
Speaker 1: to make it so you have to read books and
Speaker 1: books on how to do this, and I honestly keep
Speaker 1: it very, very simple. We run the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over the progressions, and I think you go out
Speaker 1: there and put some of this to use and be
Speaker 1: confident in your approach, be confident in your calling. You're
Speaker 1: gonna find some success this year. So thanks a lot
Speaker 1: listening to part two of el Hunting. Good luck to
Speaker 1: everybody out there, and once again you have questions for us,
Speaker 1: feel free to email us at ctdapp colbsgamecalls dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for listening.