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 to the podcast everyone.
Speaker 1: This week we're gonna be talking about those strong and
Speaker 1: silent type of elk. Now, if you know kind of enough,
Speaker 1: you're definitely going to run into this scenario. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: more often than not you get into elk country and
Speaker 1: it's just crickets. The bulls are not firing off, and
Speaker 1: they seem to be underground. The elker there. You see sign,
Speaker 1: maybe even hear a few bugles at night. But what
Speaker 1: do you do? While this kind of activity is not
Speaker 1: what you're dreaming of, it's still definitely possible to call
Speaker 1: in an elk. Silent bulls are probably some of the
Speaker 1: hardest bulls to pinpoint, but can actually be some of
Speaker 1: the easier elk to trick. Just because the woods are quiet,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean the elk won't be receptive to your
Speaker 1: calls or move to your location. Targeting and setting up
Speaker 1: for these hushed mouth animals can be a great option
Speaker 1: for your hunt. So this week I'm going to cover
Speaker 1: all things about set up to calling it silent elk,
Speaker 1: from the why they might be piped down to choosing
Speaker 1: a good calling location based on the time of day
Speaker 1: or where you are. But first, I want to share
Speaker 1: the story of a sneaky bowl that walks softly and
Speaker 1: carried a big rack. This story takes place in the
Speaker 1: mountains of northern New Mexico. I thought would be a
Speaker 1: fairly fitting story because I'm actually on my way there
Speaker 1: here tomorrow for a hunt on my own. But this
Speaker 1: particular week, I was guiding a hunter and it was
Speaker 1: a little bit later in the season. It seemed to
Speaker 1: just be like super hot conditions and one of the
Speaker 1: last hunts of the season for us there before I
Speaker 1: headed back to him on handed to pick up some
Speaker 1: guiding days up there. So we were out and the
Speaker 1: week before was actually pretty good, but it got really
Speaker 1: hot and it seemed like the animals just kind of
Speaker 1: shut down. The running activity was pretty minimal, and it
Speaker 1: was just pretty tough to come by. Blasting was a
Speaker 1: little bit out of the option. Um, it just it
Speaker 1: just wasn't conducive for long range glass. In some of
Speaker 1: the areas we were hunting, it was like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it was flat as mountainous, but it was like
Speaker 1: longer ridges surrounded by some open meadows and some other things.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, well we gotta find some milk
Speaker 1: start out the week and kind of just still hunting
Speaker 1: through some good areas and nothing is I'm doing the calling,
Speaker 1: I'm letting out some location bugles, not really getting anything responsive.
Speaker 1: I think it was actually even a full moon as well,
Speaker 1: so it was just like a really bad cluster of
Speaker 1: things for the week. It was just a slow week.
Speaker 1: You know that happens um. So you know, we're doing
Speaker 1: a little bit still hunting. Actually one day we're going
Speaker 1: through this like oak brush stuff and I stopped. There's
Speaker 1: just this bear staring me down. And I'd recognized this
Speaker 1: bear before because it was the same bear that a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks earlier. It actually tore my four wheeler up,
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, we need to get this bear. Uh.
Speaker 1: The hunter fortunately had a bear text. I was like okay,
Speaker 1: Like I was walking ahead, I'm like, okay, there's a
Speaker 1: bear right here. And the bear went down and he's
Speaker 1: trying to get above the brush to see what we are,
Speaker 1: and so he switched positions. He's maybe twenty yards but
Speaker 1: there's just all this oak brush in the way, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately the hunter couldn't get a shot. Wind shifted bear
Speaker 1: ran off and and that was that. So throughout the
Speaker 1: week we'd seen a few cows, like we'd we'd bumped
Speaker 1: into a couple of elks still hunting, but just no shots.
Speaker 1: So towards the end of the hunt, last day of
Speaker 1: the hunt, and it had been this particular meadow that
Speaker 1: had been following and looking and the day before I
Speaker 1: was checking it out. I'm like, man, there's just fresh
Speaker 1: sign in here. The elk are definitely using this. So
Speaker 1: for the next couple of days, whatever we had left,
Speaker 1: I was like, I kept seeing fresh sign, I kept
Speaker 1: smelling the elk there. I'm like, I know, the elk
Speaker 1: are here, they're using this. We need to set up
Speaker 1: and we're going to kind of focus in on this area.
Speaker 1: So what I did was pretty long meadow, I mean
Speaker 1: say maybe like over a thousand feet, you know, like
Speaker 1: it opened it would be small, like there'll be some
Speaker 1: openings and then so you just never knew where they
Speaker 1: were going to pop out. But what I was doing
Speaker 1: was kind of traveling the edge and then seeing like, okay,
Speaker 1: signs here, signs here, the elk are definitely coming out.
Speaker 1: We just it's too big to cover the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and we need the elk to come to our location.
Speaker 1: So my decision was, we're gonna set up and we're
Speaker 1: gonna call. As I told that, I was like, look,
Speaker 1: this bull will come in at some point, but I
Speaker 1: just don't think he's gonna make noise. So we need
Speaker 1: to get the wind good. We need to kind of
Speaker 1: be patient, we need to do a good setup and
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll find some success. So we set up in
Speaker 1: the morning a couple of different spots and uh doing
Speaker 1: some calling sequences, and what I was doing just like
Speaker 1: broadcasting out some cow calls, doing a couple of little
Speaker 1: bugles into the timber, like okay, we're a group of cows,
Speaker 1: and now bulls come in. Maybe got a little fired
Speaker 1: up and now moving off into the timber. Did that
Speaker 1: a little bit, and then moved kept kind of throughout
Speaker 1: the day, moving down and picking different spots. Now is
Speaker 1: evening time, and I figured, all right, I'm gonna kind
Speaker 1: of go out there's a little patch of trees out
Speaker 1: in the middle. I'm gonna leave the hunter where I'm
Speaker 1: at where we were. We're like, okay, we're gonna go here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call in there, and then I'm gonna move
Speaker 1: to our location just in case. Like the wind was
Speaker 1: blowing across the meadow in our face. But um, I
Speaker 1: was hoping that maybe the elk we're down in the
Speaker 1: timber on the other side. So I called into the timber,
Speaker 1: backed up, called from the patch, you know it maybe
Speaker 1: probably fifteen minutes in between, and then went and we
Speaker 1: kind of got set up in a spot made a
Speaker 1: little high and like, all right, we're gonna sit here,
Speaker 1: so doing some calling, just letting out a few cow
Speaker 1: calls and just being patients. Like if the bull is
Speaker 1: going to come in, he's not going to make a noise,
Speaker 1: and he's probably gonna try to circle us, try to
Speaker 1: get the wind right, so we're gonna be looking every
Speaker 1: direction and just keep calling. So we're sitting there, not moving.
Speaker 1: I'm calling you, you know, setting up my watch timers
Speaker 1: because I get a little impatient, just making sure I
Speaker 1: don't overcall. Throughout a couple of bugles, but nothing crazy,
Speaker 1: just pretty soft, like I was trying to match what
Speaker 1: was going on in the woods, which is not a
Speaker 1: lot of action. So calling and sitting there and I'm
Speaker 1: looking around. I'm thinking, man, you know, the winds good,
Speaker 1: but a bull, like if they're behind us, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a bummer, Like if they're coming in from this side.
Speaker 1: I didn't know which side they're they're coming in from,
Speaker 1: so I was hoping, hoping obviously, like you catch them
Speaker 1: in the meadow, calmed your your position. So calling, and
Speaker 1: I look over and I just see like I had,
Speaker 1: we had all this brush around us, just kind of
Speaker 1: conceal us. And I see the corner of my eye
Speaker 1: just something moving and I'm thinking, God, that's really close
Speaker 1: to not hear an elk And I look and I'm
Speaker 1: like then my eyes focused and I realized that is
Speaker 1: a tine of an antler coming through there. So like
Speaker 1: I don't call, like, okay, I do not want this
Speaker 1: bull to now hook up wind Like he's he's off
Speaker 1: to our left, maybe I don't even know, pretty damn close,
Speaker 1: but he's really thick off to the left. So the
Speaker 1: bull slowly like he walks out and hits the opening
Speaker 1: and then starts walking downhill and like just waiting, waiting, waiting,
Speaker 1: and I can barely see him in there, but I
Speaker 1: can see he's got a really good rack on him,
Speaker 1: like he's a big six by six. I'm like, okay, sweet.
Speaker 1: And then the bull like kind of like you can
Speaker 1: see him nosing into the field, like getting the wind,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of like nosing up pretty much toward
Speaker 1: the other side. So he starts getting into the opening
Speaker 1: it and now it's like, Okay, the bull was here,
Speaker 1: he heard the calls. Now he's just looking for the elks.
Speaker 1: Somehow he didn't win us. He must have come in
Speaker 1: from below us, maybe like done a little jot just
Speaker 1: fifteen yards away. And I mean, we couldn't even hear
Speaker 1: this elk that close away, didn't It was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how. That was pretty thick too, Like he
Speaker 1: had a big rack and he was just the sneakiest
Speaker 1: bull I've ever seen. I didn't even break a stick
Speaker 1: that we could tell until I caught a little bit
Speaker 1: of his antler in the brush. So he walks out
Speaker 1: into the opening. I gave it a few cow calls
Speaker 1: and just I'm like, I'm gonna slow play this bull
Speaker 1: and he kind of like. I'm like, okay, is he's
Speaker 1: super cautious and he starts walking our way like sweet, okay,
Speaker 1: and just wait now he's looking around. He goes to
Speaker 1: the trees in the middle, and I'm like okay, and
Speaker 1: and then he walks off the other direction. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it didn't work, Like we just missed their opportunity or
Speaker 1: we didn't really have an opportunity to that. So so
Speaker 1: I just stayed patient, kept timing, like okay, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna keep doing the same thing. He got a little
Speaker 1: bit later in the evening we had I'm I'm like
Speaker 1: watch me, and like, okay, do we just go after him?
Speaker 1: But I'm like, man, we don't know. He wasn't fired up,
Speaker 1: like we'd just be walking in their blind and we've
Speaker 1: got about thirty minutes left of the last last day.
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna keep with the plan.
Speaker 1: Like he liked it. He didn't wind us that I
Speaker 1: know of. We just gotta keep with it. So I call.
Speaker 1: We're just like sitting there, Call, Call, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, across the meadow, I see a rack
Speaker 1: facing us, and I'm like, here, it is head down.
Speaker 1: Bull just starts coming straight in like on a string.
Speaker 1: Call him right into range. I stopped calling, and he's
Speaker 1: looking around like definitely trying to peer into the trees
Speaker 1: for us. Turned sideways. Hunter shoots bull down. Called in
Speaker 1: a really good, big, mature bull that never made a
Speaker 1: single peep. When you talk about calling silent bulls, you
Speaker 1: might have heard that term like, oh, he came in silent,
Speaker 1: or these bulls are just quiet. They're coming in silent. Well,
Speaker 1: it obviously means the bulls aren't making any sound, they
Speaker 1: aren't calling back, they aren't responding to your calls. There
Speaker 1: they're doing elk things without making elk noises. And I
Speaker 1: think that understanding why they might be silent it's just
Speaker 1: as important in understanding, like understanding that behavior. So you
Speaker 1: know how to pick your setup, because when it comes
Speaker 1: to calling in silent bulls regularly, you can get lucky,
Speaker 1: but you can also set up in a way that
Speaker 1: really increases your odds or chances of finding an elk
Speaker 1: and intersecting an elk and getting that elk to come in.
Speaker 1: There's many times where I'll be out hunting, whether it's
Speaker 1: myself or with a client and I'm like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to call in a silent elk here, and they're like,
Speaker 1: how do you know we're going to call in an
Speaker 1: elk that's not going to make a noise, And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: because everything's right. I understand what's going on and why
Speaker 1: they're being it and what they're doing this time of year,
Speaker 1: and I just know that these elk right now are
Speaker 1: not going to make a noise because you've got to
Speaker 1: understand why they're being silent. So generally, a silent bowl
Speaker 1: that comes in, there's there's two kinds here. So the
Speaker 1: first one will be a lone bull or a bowl
Speaker 1: that might be around a herd but is not the
Speaker 1: dominant bowl, like uh, not necessarily saying it's a rag horn,
Speaker 1: but it's not the herd bowl. So the first part
Speaker 1: is going to be one of the probably most instances
Speaker 1: when you call in a bowl that comes in silent,
Speaker 1: and it's probably gonna be many different factors. You've got
Speaker 1: one reason, and I would say this is probably the
Speaker 1: most common reason, is it's early in the rut or
Speaker 1: even late in the rut. What's going on is the
Speaker 1: bulls are not necessarily with the cows what they're doing
Speaker 1: is there. It's the same as like Dear Do pre rut.
Speaker 1: They're checking on groups of cows, but that bowl might
Speaker 1: kind of be a little timid of like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to expend all my energy fighting. I just want
Speaker 1: to see what's going on here. It's more of a
Speaker 1: curiosity thing. It's a lone bull. He's cruising and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where are the cows out? Where am
Speaker 1: I going to expend my energy? What's my competition? Look like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go in. I'm gonna check things out.
Speaker 1: If it's an easy take. Hey man, I might sniff around,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a cow that's going to come into heat,
Speaker 1: but I don't have to fight for it. I don't
Speaker 1: have to do anything. But I also don't want to
Speaker 1: give my location away because I found the cool spot
Speaker 1: where all the ladies are hanging out, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to tell everyone else I know where it is.
Speaker 1: If I think I know, like the in the bull's mind,
Speaker 1: if I think I know where the girls are and
Speaker 1: I don't have to work for it, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go in there see if I can get in the
Speaker 1: friend zone, check things out. And that's what the bulls
Speaker 1: are doing. It's they're coming in quiet because they're just
Speaker 1: trying to check things out. They aren't necessarily fired up
Speaker 1: enough to want to rut, and that can happen because
Speaker 1: it's either early they aren't running, or maybe you've run
Speaker 1: into some hot weather and that hot weather kind of
Speaker 1: has that cycle of the cows broken down, like they
Speaker 1: aren't in full chase mode yet, so during daylight hour,
Speaker 1: they're just kind of feeling things out. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons that elk might come in silent.
Speaker 1: So it's going to either be a bull by itself,
Speaker 1: and then the other one would be like an insecure bowl.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's a bowl that's um, it could be
Speaker 1: a really big bull, but maybe it's a bull that
Speaker 1: has been beat up recently, like kicked out from the
Speaker 1: Herd Bowl position last year. Uh. One of the largest
Speaker 1: bulls I've I've had the opportunity to chase in a
Speaker 1: general unit was the Herd Bowl. Another bowl came in
Speaker 1: which wasn't as big as him, beat him up, and
Speaker 1: that big bull just walked off on his own. You know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't looking for a fight anymore. He'd just been
Speaker 1: beat tomorrow, he probably would have taken the herd back,
Speaker 1: But that's just something that that bulls do. So sometimes
Speaker 1: an insecure bowl or bull that's just been beat might
Speaker 1: be a good candidate for coming in quiet, like I
Speaker 1: just expanded all my energy. But hey, if there's some
Speaker 1: free cows over here, I'm a pretty dominant bull, I'll
Speaker 1: go round him up. Or maybe there's a herd bull
Speaker 1: that's really aggressive running other bulls off and you can
Speaker 1: get your offen a calling scenario where the other elk
Speaker 1: around are going to come check out the action, and
Speaker 1: they might not be making a noise. They're probably gonna
Speaker 1: be younger bulls, maybe more like raghorns, but they'll move
Speaker 1: in and and kind of slip into your calling scenario
Speaker 1: without making a sound. When it comes to understanding where
Speaker 1: to set up for calling in a silent bull, the
Speaker 1: setup is the key. So we're gonna think about the
Speaker 1: time of year that we're hunting and why elk might
Speaker 1: not be making noise first. So if you're out in
Speaker 1: the field, let's say you're out this the first week
Speaker 1: of the season, second week of the season, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a warm weather still, maybe it's it's smokey you know,
Speaker 1: these are probably things that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: going to run into. Maybe you know, they just aren't
Speaker 1: seeming fired up like you're seeing sign. So the key
Speaker 1: is you need to know that there's elk there, so
Speaker 1: you've got to be seeing sign. Maybe you're hearing a
Speaker 1: few bugles at night, like not all out crazy rud
Speaker 1: action at night, but there's bulls and cows in the area.
Speaker 1: It's just once it cools down in the evening, that's
Speaker 1: when they decide to kind of fire off. It's like
Speaker 1: after shooting hours or before shooting hours. Um, you know
Speaker 1: that they're kind of in the area. Maybe you're hiking around,
Speaker 1: you smell like, okay, there's been elk here there. You
Speaker 1: can smell where they've wallowed. Um, you can smell where
Speaker 1: they've been betting you see fresh sign in a meadow.
Speaker 1: Figuring out where that there's actually elk around is the
Speaker 1: first step, because you can call to silent elk that
Speaker 1: are there, or you could call to silent woods that
Speaker 1: don't have elk. You really need to be able to
Speaker 1: first decipher are the elk where I'm at? And that's
Speaker 1: obviously the key and sounds like yeah, no brainer, But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that are like, the elk
Speaker 1: weren't making any noise, but they can't really decipher whether
Speaker 1: the elk weren't making noise or they just weren't elk
Speaker 1: where they are. So you need to make sure that
Speaker 1: there are elk where you are, and that's by moving
Speaker 1: around covering country, finding sign and possibly even hearing them
Speaker 1: at night. That's uh, that's step one. So once we understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: there are elk in this location, there elk around. Now,
Speaker 1: I just got to figure out how I'm going to
Speaker 1: set up for these calling scenarios. So when I'm calling
Speaker 1: to Silent Bulls, what I do is I first kind
Speaker 1: of like I get into position and I and I
Speaker 1: play this patience game where I get into the places
Speaker 1: where I believe elk will be moving to or near.
Speaker 1: And then I set up and I start broadcasting calls.
Speaker 1: And what I like to do is I like to
Speaker 1: kind of match the tempo of what's going on out there.
Speaker 1: So if it's not really like you aren't hearing much,
Speaker 1: you aren't hearing anything, you probably aren't gonna want to
Speaker 1: make like a big Like last year, I did a
Speaker 1: podcast cow Party where it's just like everything's going off
Speaker 1: the parties over here, calling to the silent elk is
Speaker 1: gonna be a little bit different. What you're doing is
Speaker 1: you're just saying, like we're elk over here. It's like
Speaker 1: this mellow tone. It's like we're just here, We're doing
Speaker 1: our thing. We are super interested in anything else going on.
Speaker 1: But what it's gonna do is gonna pique the curiosity
Speaker 1: of that bowl to kind of come in and check
Speaker 1: things out. So what we're gonna be doing is like
Speaker 1: setting up and doing a few calls, a few calcolls
Speaker 1: me and MEU, meu, and then waiting. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like it's a little bit like stand hunting, still hunting,
Speaker 1: but you're kind of using this roving tactic of selecting
Speaker 1: your spots where you're calling based on the time of
Speaker 1: day and where you're seeing this sign. So let's get
Speaker 1: into picking up, picking the set up in locations. So
Speaker 1: during different times a day, I actually go and I
Speaker 1: do my call stands, Like think about it, like predator
Speaker 1: calling kyotes. Where you go and you make a stand,
Speaker 1: you wait a little while, nothing happens, then you move
Speaker 1: to another location. A few of the places that I
Speaker 1: like to make silent call. Stands are places that elk
Speaker 1: are going to frequent those times. So one of the
Speaker 1: places that I like to pick is near wallow. Um.
Speaker 1: They might not be wallowing a lot if the ruts
Speaker 1: not full on, but they might be using those areas
Speaker 1: to get water. Those can probably be used any time
Speaker 1: of day. Mornings and evenings seem to be um pretty
Speaker 1: good unless it's near a betting area than the middle
Speaker 1: of the day. Near a wallow can be good because
Speaker 1: what happens is the cows will actually if there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of water in a lot of places, if
Speaker 1: it's like narrowing down the places, you can kind of
Speaker 1: sit near the wallow and maybe catch an elk that's
Speaker 1: going to drink. But you can also throw out those
Speaker 1: calls and maybe catch the ears of elk that are
Speaker 1: going to go to a wallow a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: yards away that you can't see that's in the timber.
Speaker 1: So I've had a lot of luck calling in bulls
Speaker 1: silent near wallows or other areas where it's like, okay
Speaker 1: and smell them. They're in here. They're using this, but
Speaker 1: it might be a way to draw them to your
Speaker 1: location a little bit sooner rather than later. And the
Speaker 1: second one is in a hunt. Let's say I start
Speaker 1: the hunt out, I'm gonna start in the morning, and
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do my calling
Speaker 1: sequences in series near where I expect elk to be
Speaker 1: in the mornings, and then I'm going to move throughout
Speaker 1: the day. So in the morning, I'm gonna expect elk
Speaker 1: to be feeding, especially if they aren't being super active,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be probably before daylight, feeding in open areas
Speaker 1: if there's open areas nearby. So if there's a small meadow,
Speaker 1: if there's a good grassy ridge, if there's something like that,
Speaker 1: that's probably where the elk are gonna be focused in
Speaker 1: in the morning. Or maybe they'll be down in the bottom, uh,
Speaker 1: near some water and some grass, but in a feeding area.
Speaker 1: So the first place I'm going to target in the
Speaker 1: morning is going to be these feeding areas, especially if
Speaker 1: I find sign like on the edge of a meadow
Speaker 1: or something like that. Some mornings I'm gonna be targeting
Speaker 1: near feeding area, just off in the timber or just
Speaker 1: you know where it's like they can look across the meadow,
Speaker 1: but they kind of have to come in and explore
Speaker 1: a little bit closer. Is to catch those bulls that
Speaker 1: maybe you're out um looking for cows cruising. What they're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing is those bulls are doing the same
Speaker 1: thing we're doing. They're they're hitting the high high percentage
Speaker 1: areas for running into cow elk that we would think
Speaker 1: of hypercentage areas running into any elk. So they're doing
Speaker 1: the same thing we are. They're looking for cows. We're
Speaker 1: going to be the cows that that bowl is gonna find,
Speaker 1: especially Loan bowl. If action is not crazy, they might
Speaker 1: be out feeding or whatever. And then in the morning
Speaker 1: we want them to hear those cow sounds and think
Speaker 1: instead of going over that way to bed I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go over and check out what's happening over here. So
Speaker 1: now as the day progresses and I think, well, what
Speaker 1: are the elk doing, well, they're probably moving to bedding.
Speaker 1: So as the day progresses, I moved from that feeding
Speaker 1: area and doing my like call stands to moving to
Speaker 1: toward those betting areas. So I'm going to head toward
Speaker 1: a good timbered ridge um. And what I'd like to
Speaker 1: do is when I move into a betting area for
Speaker 1: the day. I like to approach it from the top down.
Speaker 1: Generally you're gonna be getting those thermals because if they're
Speaker 1: being quiet, it's probably hot, and those thermals are probably
Speaker 1: gonna be going up the mountains. So what I like
Speaker 1: to do is I like to start at the top
Speaker 1: of these ridges. I'll I'll hike around, I'll get to
Speaker 1: the top, and then I'll work my way down and start,
Speaker 1: you know, like make a stand call, because what I
Speaker 1: want is to be calling to elk below me and
Speaker 1: have them come up and investigate, as opposed to being
Speaker 1: below them walking up the mountain, having my wind blew
Speaker 1: up the mountain and calling to those animals might be
Speaker 1: bedded on those little benches and dips in the ridge.
Speaker 1: So I mean starting at the top, working my way down,
Speaker 1: doing my call stands, and hoping to call in a
Speaker 1: bowl below me, and it's either bedded or moving to bedding.
Speaker 1: They might come check out the cows. And this is
Speaker 1: where you know, all slow play it. I'll use the
Speaker 1: day to kind of move and pick new spots and
Speaker 1: and just try to be patient, and then it'll go
Speaker 1: back to the evening again. When um I'll move back
Speaker 1: to that feeding area and do the same thing setting
Speaker 1: up in that feeding area, and then during the middle
Speaker 1: of the day mornings are eating. Sometimes if you've got
Speaker 1: a good wallow, it's a good strategy in time to
Speaker 1: like you can kind of simultaneously hunt the wallow, sit
Speaker 1: and hunt the wallow, stand hunt the wallow, and throw
Speaker 1: out some of these calls because most of the time
Speaker 1: those elk will be coming in silent. Now. Another setup
Speaker 1: or location that I like to pick is one where
Speaker 1: I consider it like a doubling up, where I can
Speaker 1: double up on glassing and calling. So in the morning,
Speaker 1: if I can find a knob that's near maybe some
Speaker 1: food source, but I also have a good view, it's
Speaker 1: a lot better for me to kind of use utilize
Speaker 1: my time. Where if I'm just sitting there calling to
Speaker 1: silent elk, I feel like I'm not really doing anything,
Speaker 1: Like it's like, man, maybe they aren't right here right now.
Speaker 1: But if I've got a place where I can be
Speaker 1: calling to a bowl and also glass in a large area,
Speaker 1: those are ideal. Um there's a few places that I
Speaker 1: hunt where it's like, Okay, I'm walking around, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for animals. I might see sign but I also want
Speaker 1: to glass this area in the mornings and the evenings,
Speaker 1: like feeding areas out in the open where they might
Speaker 1: be maybe it's a burn, maybe it's a clear cut,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a whatever it is. But also from where
Speaker 1: I'm glassing from, I can kind of utilize that time
Speaker 1: to maybe see if there's any bowls near me that
Speaker 1: might get drawn in quiet, because it's a good way
Speaker 1: to utilize that time and not get bored and frustrated,
Speaker 1: frustrated and move on too soon where I can be
Speaker 1: glassing something far away but set up and calling where
Speaker 1: I am at that time. There's been so many times
Speaker 1: where I've been doing this where I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna glass and and try to pick out a bowl,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm spotting or whatever. But I'm also while
Speaker 1: I'm doing that, throwing out calls and then you know,
Speaker 1: every periodically looking around. I've had many elk come into
Speaker 1: my setup and location where it's like, okay, the hunts
Speaker 1: on now right here where I am while I'm glassing,
Speaker 1: so doubling up on something like that's great. I've even
Speaker 1: done that near like a water source where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I found this spring off the side of the mountain.
Speaker 1: I'll be sitting there a glass from that spring, I'll
Speaker 1: throw out those calls. So I'm kind of capitalizing on
Speaker 1: kind of intersecting elk in as many places at once
Speaker 1: as possible. So I've got the spring for maybe an
Speaker 1: elk that's coming into water. I'm throwing out some calls
Speaker 1: to try to draw in a silent bowl that's not
Speaker 1: planning on going in water. And then I'm glassing some
Speaker 1: stuff off in the distance while I'm doing all this.
Speaker 1: So now when you do set up, you do want
Speaker 1: to definitely pay attention because, like I said that that
Speaker 1: story of that bowl coming in quiet, there's so many
Speaker 1: times where I'm calling to a silent bowling when you
Speaker 1: see them, when they're like they're it's ready, it's go time.
Speaker 1: While I'm set up, when i'm calling like this, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I've got my arrow already, I've got my bow in
Speaker 1: a position that i can grab it and don't have
Speaker 1: to make a lot of movements, and I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of sitting still looking around. I'll even use my binoculars
Speaker 1: to scan through the trees to try to pick things
Speaker 1: up sooner and really just paying attention. Um it becomes
Speaker 1: a kind of a form of ambush hunting like you
Speaker 1: would like white tail hunters do, but it's it's more active,
Speaker 1: it's more roaming. I don't really set up in my
Speaker 1: call locations for too long unless I really feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's an elk, or maybe it's like I'm calling to
Speaker 1: elk that I believe her bedded below me and I'm
Speaker 1: just waiting for that bowl to kind of get up
Speaker 1: for the day and come and investigate. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, being successful calling in silent elk is really
Speaker 1: all about the setup and picking the right locations to
Speaker 1: do these calls from, then paying attention and being ready
Speaker 1: when they do come in. The first step to calling
Speaker 1: a silent bowl is going to be understanding why they're
Speaker 1: quiet and picking a good calling location, and it's also
Speaker 1: gonna be a thing of moving to the right locations
Speaker 1: at the right time of day. But the next step
Speaker 1: is going to be what calls you make, how often
Speaker 1: you call, and then when you should move. So next
Speaker 1: week we're going to cover all the actual calling aspects
Speaker 1: of calling in a silent bowl, So make sure you
Speaker 1: bring your calls, get your calls ready, warm up those reads,
Speaker 1: warm up those diaphragm calls whatever, bust out the hoochie, mama,
Speaker 1: I don't care, because we're gonna be ready to call
Speaker 1: in and and make noise to those silent ks. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you all the things that I do, and
Speaker 1: that's gonna be next week. Remember you can always reach
Speaker 1: out to me at Remy Warren on social media, on Instagram, um,
Speaker 1: pretty much all social channels, YouTube, whatever, feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out. I love hearing you guys success stories. Hopefully
Speaker 1: I've I mean, I've already got a few, so hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll get some more in eyes that have found some
Speaker 1: ELK use some of these tactics. I love hearing when
Speaker 1: you've used the tactic and it's been successful, send me
Speaker 1: a picture, or even maybe it wasn't successful, but you
Speaker 1: had a great encounter. Um. I love hearing from you
Speaker 1: guys about that kind of stuff. So check all that
Speaker 1: stuff out next week, and yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: In between when you hear this and the next podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that I will have arrowed bull elk myself
Speaker 1: so well. I will keep you guys posted. But until then,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's talk softly. Let's whisper an Elkin, all right,
Speaker 1: good luck guys,