Speaker 1: Dirk Durham. Here, I'm being your host again for another
Speaker 1: episode of Cutting the Distance. You listen to one of
Speaker 1: our previous episodes. I had my good buddy Tom Schneider,
Speaker 1: and we sat down and we start talking about rifle
Speaker 1: elk hunting post rut, and we got into the weeds
Speaker 1: a little bit on longray shooting. What to do when
Speaker 1: you hear a bull elk bugling in October and you
Speaker 1: got a rifle in your hands. And then after we
Speaker 1: record the podcast, we kind of laughed a little bit
Speaker 1: and said, man, we just didn't get deep enough. So
Speaker 1: this is a bonus episode. This is a second episode,
Speaker 1: and we're going to continue that conversation of what if
Speaker 1: the bulls are not bugling? What now? How do we
Speaker 1: proceed with that? So welcome back, Tom, Thank you, Tom.
Speaker 1: Give one. Give it just another brief description of who
Speaker 1: you are. In case nobody's listened to the first episode.
Speaker 1: Tom operates the Stuck in the Rut YouTube channel and
Speaker 1: social media. Him and his family very accomplished hunters and
Speaker 1: they film their hunts so they put them on YouTube.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, you have to check it out.
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe you've lived under a Rock if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, because they've got a really big following,
Speaker 1: lots of really good viral videos on hunting all species
Speaker 1: of North American game and Tom tell us just a
Speaker 1: tiny bit about yourself and then we're gonna move right
Speaker 1: back into the absolutely.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he covered most of it with me being
Speaker 2: stuck in rut. You know, I think kind of just
Speaker 2: the best, the simplest way to explain my family and
Speaker 2: how we are. But we just we work all year,
Speaker 2: we have our jobs, but we've made hunting a priority
Speaker 2: in our life where every year, if you I mean
Speaker 2: I have, it's myself, oh, the brother Travis, my sister
Speaker 2: Tan and my little brother Trevor. We've all made it
Speaker 2: a priority in our life to to take off hunting
Speaker 2: season every single year to hunt. You know, we don't work,
Speaker 2: We work hard so that we can do that. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of that I kind of go
Speaker 2: back to my dad multiple times because he owned the
Speaker 2: logging company growing up, and you know, he made a
Speaker 2: priority to take off hunting season and the hunt. And
Speaker 2: now do we live the ninety five type job. No,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of times in the week where we
Speaker 2: work fifty to sixty hours a week. But we do
Speaker 2: that so that we can have fun. That really for me,
Speaker 2: that that's my drive, like I you know, that's what
Speaker 2: keeps me working, That's what keeps me making money. Is
Speaker 2: my hobby, you know. And I'm really fortunate where I
Speaker 2: live to where that's just the fact. You know, we
Speaker 2: travel a lot to hunt. We've talked about that. We're
Speaker 2: if you listen to the last podcast, we talked about Alaska.
Speaker 2: Hunt Alaska a lot. My sister brother in law live
Speaker 2: up there, so we have a lot of hunting up
Speaker 2: or tuning up there as well. But living down here
Speaker 2: in Idaho, we do have a lot of opportunity here too.
Speaker 2: We're surrounded by three different mountain ranges and we have
Speaker 2: a lot of different species of animals to hunt. And
Speaker 2: you know, for me as a resident, I can buy
Speaker 2: attack over the counter. I could hunt to shoot. In September,
Speaker 2: I could have it's almost like anything goes right like
Speaker 2: I could in September. I could have an elk tag
Speaker 2: archerie elk tag archie deer tag which is mealy or whitetail.
Speaker 2: I could have a black bear tag and wolf tags. Man,
Speaker 2: I can get quite a bit of those. If you want,
Speaker 2: how many do you want? I told you to pick
Speaker 2: up another one just in case, because usually the tough
Speaker 2: thing about it is when you're wolf hunting, immediately get
Speaker 2: off topics sometimes, but if you call it a wolf pack,
Speaker 2: there's usually more of than one that comes in. When
Speaker 2: Dirt came up here, he's like, yeah, I got one
Speaker 2: wolf tack, Like, we got to run to the store
Speaker 2: to get another one just in case. Because I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how many times I had friends are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: shot a wolf, but then the other wolf was just
Speaker 2: walking around and I couldn't shoot it because I have
Speaker 2: another tag. It's like, yeah, So for me, I've just
Speaker 2: learned to buy more than one wolf tag. And then
Speaker 2: if you get close to that number and then buy more, Yeah,
Speaker 2: as idahope for you, I love this state.
Speaker 1: That's really smart. That was really smart advice. So we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about you know, calling, you know, how
Speaker 1: if you hear a bul bugling in our first episode.
Speaker 1: I'll let you guys, you know, look back to my
Speaker 1: previous episode. It'd probably be a couple episodes ago where
Speaker 1: Tom and I talk about if you hear a bull
Speaker 1: bugling in October and how to approach that. Now let's
Speaker 1: go a little deeper into the post rut. So now
Speaker 1: elk are not talking, and sometimes, you know, especially in
Speaker 1: big timber country, you would almost argue there's no elk
Speaker 1: here at all, especially in an area that has low
Speaker 1: elk densities. How are you locating those elk and then
Speaker 1: how are you like hunting them once you found them.
Speaker 2: That's a great question, and I definitely recommend anyone to
Speaker 2: go back to the other podcast where we are talking about.
Speaker 2: You know, it goes back to understanding the behavior of
Speaker 2: the elk first, because now you know we did talk
Speaker 2: about Okay, if you got a bowl buglin, this is
Speaker 2: how i'd approach it. But the majority of the post
Speaker 2: ra hunt, you're not going to have elk talking. Now,
Speaker 2: it's great if you have glassing opportunity, but if it's
Speaker 2: an area I don't care how open it is, If
Speaker 2: it's an area where it's a public land easy tag
Speaker 2: to get to achieve, These elk figure out hunting pressure
Speaker 2: quick and they will pull into places that you you
Speaker 2: will never know. If you really don't know elk, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to know how to find them.
Speaker 2: So it really goes back to understanding the behavior of
Speaker 2: the elk, you know, going back to the groceries, their
Speaker 2: shelter and their safety, and if there's anything you want
Speaker 2: to add to that, let me know. But that's what
Speaker 2: I always look at with animals. The one thing you
Speaker 2: and I both talked about is that a big bull
Speaker 2: he puts safety a priority over other things. Now, sure,
Speaker 2: there could be one side of the mountain where there's
Speaker 2: a lot of food, right, there could be a lot
Speaker 2: of brows, you can find cows, you can see rag
Speaker 2: bulls there, but it's like, where did that big bull
Speaker 2: go during archery season? He's gone out in order to
Speaker 2: find him that big bowl will put safety as a
Speaker 2: priority over the groceries and the shelter. Now what I
Speaker 2: mean shelter shelter. I'm talking more like weather. You know,
Speaker 2: we need a shelter. We have a home. Now, it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we're safe that we're in a home. It's
Speaker 2: just the fact that you know, this is our shelter.
Speaker 2: You know, it rains, it snows, there's elk behave differently
Speaker 2: on a hot sunny day than they do in the wintertime. Now,
Speaker 2: even the hot sunny days that they need shelter for
Speaker 2: that right, they're going to hang out on a north
Speaker 2: facing slope. They're going to hang out a nice cool draw.
Speaker 2: They're not going to be sbedded down most likely on
Speaker 2: a sell facing slope when it's ninety five degrees they
Speaker 2: need to stake. So that just goes back to understanding
Speaker 2: the behavior of the elk, and now what I like
Speaker 2: to do. And it's again it goes back to me
Speaker 2: growing up. I grew up around elk. I watched elk.
Speaker 2: I watch what elk do in the wintertime in their
Speaker 2: wain and range. I watch them where they drop their antlers,
Speaker 2: watch them whether it's summer, and sometimes in that timber country,
Speaker 2: is like, well, how do you do that? Well? Trail camps,
Speaker 2: you know, finding those areas where these bulls are hanging out.
Speaker 2: Trail camps really important. It could be corridors, it could
Speaker 2: be wallows, anything. It's just setting a lot of trail
Speaker 2: cams out doing your homework. The one thing I've learned
Speaker 2: is that these bulls aren't hanging out where these cows are.
Speaker 2: In the early parts right before September kicks and right,
Speaker 2: we've talked about you, and I mean again, we've had
Speaker 2: this week in the past three days. We've talked a
Speaker 2: lot about this and things that we've learned about Elk.
Speaker 2: We've just been geeking out over Elk week with ELK.
Speaker 2: We've noticed this where like Travis and I had an
Speaker 2: area and it was probably about i'd like to say
Speaker 2: as the crow flies. It is four miles apart. We
Speaker 2: had one area where we had a troil cam in
Speaker 2: the other herea we had another. This one particular spot,
Speaker 2: we had bacher group of bulls. It was probably four
Speaker 2: or five bulls that were hanging out. The other one
Speaker 2: it was cows all summer long. It was one of
Speaker 2: the biggest learning curves I had, because I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how many friends I've had. They're like, I had
Speaker 2: this big, monster velvet bull. As soon as it went
Speaker 2: Hardharning just disappeared. I don't even know where he's at anymore. Well,
Speaker 2: in this particular area, these Bocher bulls also disappeared in
Speaker 2: the month of September, and they all started showing up
Speaker 2: on my trail cameras where the cows were. It almost
Speaker 2: sounds basic, right, It's like, wow, that's pretty obvious. But
Speaker 2: some people it's just sometimes like we forget, like the
Speaker 2: most simple things, and those bulls moved back to where
Speaker 2: the cows are, Yeah, and that's where they'll go and
Speaker 2: to breathe the cows in the fire them. Now, now
Speaker 2: we're going back to the post runt, right, And sometimes
Speaker 2: in the early parts of October, you still catch these
Speaker 2: bulls biaglin, even a big bull. It could sometimes even
Speaker 2: be the first couple of gun shots that will go off.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, you'll see a big bull just disappear.
Speaker 2: And I feel like if there was in this is
Speaker 2: I just noticed this in areas, if there was no
Speaker 2: hunting rifle pressure, no rifles shots going off, those big bulls,
Speaker 2: they'll still kind of hanging out around the cows, and
Speaker 2: they'll still bring a cow here and there if she
Speaker 2: goes back in the astress. But as soon as the
Speaker 2: rifles seem kick, it's almost like there's like screwed, Like
Speaker 2: most of the cows have been bred, I've done most
Speaker 2: of my work. They just disappear completely. It could be
Speaker 2: day two in the hunt. They're gone, and now you
Speaker 2: got cows and rag bulls. So most of the time
Speaker 2: during this rifle season, people are after, oh, well, I'm
Speaker 2: just shooting rag bulls. So when we're talking about post
Speaker 2: right out. I'm not going to talk about just regular ragbulls.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to talk about cows. I'm actually going
Speaker 2: to talk about where to be big her bulls go.
Speaker 2: Where do they hang out? And you'll find out they'll
Speaker 2: pull themselves in a hole where they feel safe. In
Speaker 2: some cases, if they don't get snow at least where
Speaker 2: eye hunt at least, they will actually pull back in
Speaker 2: those original basins again, and they'll show up for a
Speaker 2: short period of time. Like I was telling you about
Speaker 2: that game camera, all of sudden, those cows, those bulls
Speaker 2: no longer are there, so they'd move back to that
Speaker 2: other trail camera and then they show up period period
Speaker 2: of time. Now, if the snow starts getting deep, they
Speaker 2: pull out and they're gone. The other thing that was
Speaker 2: really interesting though, is sometimes they'd pull out before the
Speaker 2: snow hit, and that was like, Okay, well, why are
Speaker 2: they doing that? Why are they pulling out of the
Speaker 2: high country when the snow didn't hit. Well, the weather
Speaker 2: got cool and the frost kicked in, and now a
Speaker 2: lot of that food sources disappeared. Right, we're back to
Speaker 2: talking about the groceries. All the leaves on the brush
Speaker 2: that they really like to have, if that's that mountain
Speaker 2: ash or anything like that, Like all those leaves fall
Speaker 2: off the brush. As soon as that happens, they're out
Speaker 2: of the high country. And again it's it's going back
Speaker 2: to like not okay, they do this, So that's where
Speaker 2: I'm going. I'm going to follow them. It's like, why
Speaker 2: did they do that? I'm always asking why. Okay, that's
Speaker 2: why they elk left that high country because we got
Speaker 2: a frost. And then a couple of weeks later, now
Speaker 2: now that the leaves all fell out of the brush,
Speaker 2: if it's all there's mountain ash, that waxy leaves and noses, well,
Speaker 2: they it holds its brush, but it's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: They pull into a different area. They move out to
Speaker 2: where the food source is. And and actually kind of
Speaker 2: sorry and I did breaking up black sea noses that
Speaker 2: Actually it's the opposite we were talking about that where
Speaker 2: it curls up and it actually creates the opposite effect
Speaker 2: where now animals where we're at just they thrive on
Speaker 2: that brush because the sugars go to the ends. And
Speaker 2: so I also understanding what their groceries are and why
Speaker 2: it does what it does for me being and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of it happens where my knowledge comes
Speaker 2: with brush and tree ease is the fact that I
Speaker 2: grew up. We talked a little bit about me working
Speaker 2: in construction, but the majority of my life I've been
Speaker 2: in forest management. From logging the clearing land.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of.
Speaker 2: Different species of trees, shrubs, and so understanding that alone
Speaker 2: can help you understand oak behavior. That really helped me
Speaker 2: out a lot, and and understanding what brush does, what's
Speaker 2: eating on the brush, And so I'll I'll see a
Speaker 2: species of brush and I'll see white tailed meal there
Speaker 2: or elk in the area, but they're not touching that brush. Well,
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that that's not a brush
Speaker 2: they like to feed on. Right, we were talking about
Speaker 2: bear grass, right, remember that, we're like, oh, we're talking
Speaker 2: about like do you notice that, Like animals just don't
Speaker 2: hit bear grass. Will eat that stem out of the center,
Speaker 2: but they won't hardly ever eat bear of grass. Now again,
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's one thing. I don't know why
Speaker 2: they don't like bear grass, Just animals don't like eating it.
Speaker 2: So beargrass doesn't hold an animal in the mountains. It
Speaker 2: doesn't even I talked about my horses meals they take,
Speaker 2: won't buite out of it because I think they're just deceived, like, oh, grass,
Speaker 2: take a bite and they're like, oh, I'll never do
Speaker 2: that again. And a mule will just about eat anything.
Speaker 2: They browse brush just like a moose. Right, So I
Speaker 2: understand that's really important too. Is their food source, so
Speaker 2: so that I'll try to break it down. And is
Speaker 2: there anything you want to add yet on that? No,
Speaker 2: I agree with everything you're saying there, Okay, So now
Speaker 2: I'll try to break it down. So understand the groceries
Speaker 2: right there, understand the brush. You know, I just explained
Speaker 2: a lot about why they elk leave the high country,
Speaker 2: especially when their main food sources, those leaves, those luscious
Speaker 2: leads the higher elevation, sometimes that grass loses it's and
Speaker 2: it that depends on the terrain too, because if I
Speaker 2: go to Wyoming, this grass is like they're actually still
Speaker 2: good even though they turn yellow stuff. The elk will
Speaker 2: still feet on that as long as they can are
Speaker 2: rat especially.
Speaker 1: Once it kind of starts raining. Yeah, that bunch grass
Speaker 1: they I hope really start like they start eating that
Speaker 1: bunch grass once it starts raining.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and so it really depends on the train you're
Speaker 2: at and what they're feeding on in the area. So
Speaker 2: understand that's really important. And then now let's talk We
Speaker 2: talked about shelter right snow when the snow starts kicking
Speaker 2: kicking in. We've talked a lot about snow conditions, and
Speaker 2: that is one thing a lot of people don't understand.
Speaker 2: We talked about the difference between deep snow light snow.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's all that comes in somebody's mind is the
Speaker 2: snow gets deep, the animals pull out. They don't understand
Speaker 2: the difference and how animals behave with powdered snow or
Speaker 2: crusty snow, and the same with meal deer. Crusty snow
Speaker 2: is hard for an animal to get food source, get
Speaker 2: their food source out. And I've seen elk at the
Speaker 2: head end of a basin belly deep of powder. Meali's
Speaker 2: as well, and you're like, why is this bowl not
Speaker 2: pulled down? Why is this big meali buck not pulled down?
Speaker 2: Because they can still dig up their food source. It's
Speaker 2: not that hard to dig through powder. You step in
Speaker 2: that powder, you go right, you go right to your
Speaker 2: belly button. You know what I mean, and you can
Speaker 2: go You'll go right down to the ground. There's no
Speaker 2: base as soon as that bass layer gets kicked in.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that's just as simple as it
Speaker 2: just getting warm in the daytime and then freezing at night.
Speaker 2: You get that warmth that melts the snow, then it
Speaker 2: freezes at night, then you get a crust layer. That
Speaker 2: crust layer, if it's a thick enough crust layer, the
Speaker 2: animals can't dig and get their food source. So what
Speaker 2: do they do. They pull down. Some cows they just
Speaker 2: they've been living in that area so long and against
Speaker 2: It's another topic we discussed before. Some areas elk stay
Speaker 2: up in the high elevation till the snow gets really
Speaker 2: deep and they pulled out, and other areas it's just
Speaker 2: how they've lived and grew up. And it could be
Speaker 2: a lead cow in the herd where it could be
Speaker 2: just a skiff of snow, and they just in in
Speaker 2: their mind since they've been a little calf, they've remembered
Speaker 2: that if they stay up there, when it gets the
Speaker 2: snow gets too deep, they get stuck up there, so
Speaker 2: naturally they just pull down immediately. So I have areas
Speaker 2: like that. Some areas a hunt, it could be a
Speaker 2: skiff of snow and the whole hurdle pull down to
Speaker 2: the base of the mountain, and other areas will stay
Speaker 2: all the way up at the top until they're forced
Speaker 2: down by deep snow. And so it just really depends
Speaker 2: on the herd. And again that's sometimes a lot of
Speaker 2: that's just time in the mountains show cameras figuring that out.
Speaker 2: But a big bull. One thing I've learned with big
Speaker 2: bulls is they move a lot less than a cow does.
Speaker 2: Cows they can move back and forth from a field
Speaker 2: to their bedding area in no time, but they're burning
Speaker 2: a lot of energy, a lot of pointless energy, right,
Speaker 2: But they've also had all year to gain that body fat.
Speaker 2: And again this is just kind of my logic, and
Speaker 2: if there's something I'm saying wrong, stop me on this.
Speaker 2: But I've noticed that these big herd bulls, it's like
Speaker 2: after the rut, they almost just want to relax, like
Speaker 2: they're just like I've had a long rut, Like if
Speaker 2: a predator finds me, I'm screwed. So they need safety
Speaker 2: is really important to a big bowl. Yep, he needs
Speaker 2: a rest. He doesn't like I'm sure a big bull
Speaker 2: would love to come down to the valley floor and
Speaker 2: eat in somebody's agricultural field, you know. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: if you're in areas where there's not a lot of
Speaker 2: hunting pressure or a lot of predation, you'll still see
Speaker 2: big bulls do that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If you go in areas where that's a really hard
Speaker 2: unit to draw, you will see big bulls go to
Speaker 2: the agriculture field. But like an areas where it's public
Speaker 2: land and they easily get shot, the safety is really
Speaker 2: important to a big bowl. The same thing with predation
Speaker 2: as well. We notice the behavior of these big bulls
Speaker 2: with wolves too. There's big bulls that still survive the wolves.
Speaker 2: They just know that they have to live in a
Speaker 2: little bit of a different area for them to prevent that.
Speaker 2: So you'll see a big bowl even sometimes not even
Speaker 2: batcher group up anymore. They're like a big bowl. Actually
Speaker 2: stay out alone by himself and just find a bench
Speaker 2: and bed down, and he just wants left alone. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it could be just as simple as he scouting to
Speaker 2: figure out where this big bulls hanging out. It's just
Speaker 2: you and I when we are looking at wolf packs
Speaker 2: and trying to figure out what these wolves are doing.
Speaker 2: You and I were looking at maps and we're like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: this is a very popular road system people take. This
Speaker 2: is also very popular road system people take. Sure the
Speaker 2: wolves may run that at night. So I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 2: getting off top of been talking about wolves, but this
Speaker 2: will make sense to you. But there's these areas where
Speaker 2: there's no road systems, people don't hang out at much.
Speaker 2: That's where they hang out during the day. And so
Speaker 2: that's the same thing with a big bull and especially
Speaker 2: after the first couple of days of season, so rifle
Speaker 2: season kicks in, right, you see bulls chasing cows still.
Speaker 2: It could be October tenth, it could be October to fifteenth,
Speaker 2: depending on the region you're hunting. Yeah, bulls, big bulls
Speaker 2: still with the cows. The gun shots start going off.
Speaker 2: After a couple of days, you start seeing less elk
Speaker 2: and it's not that they're getting shot up, it's just
Speaker 2: that they're okay. The openings are no longer safe, these
Speaker 2: brush fields are no longer safe. It's time to hide,
Speaker 2: and the big bulls are going to be smarter at
Speaker 2: it than a rag bull. So now you got to
Speaker 2: look at these maps and it's like Okay, where where
Speaker 2: these points where these bulls feel safe. Where is the
Speaker 2: least amount of predation? You know, that's again it's back
Speaker 2: being observant. If you're an area you got show cameras,
Speaker 2: you know where the mountain lions typically cross. Mountainines are
Speaker 2: actually patnerable too. People don't know this, but mountain lions.
Speaker 2: I've seen mountain lions cross the same spot multiple times.
Speaker 2: Wolves are the same way. Elk figure this out too,
Speaker 2: and so they find out, Okay, well it seems that
Speaker 2: this is a spy. Don't hardly ever see wolves cross through.
Speaker 2: And now you're looking at the trail systems. You're looking
Speaker 2: at the road systems. It's like, okay, there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of road systems and not a lot of trail
Speaker 2: systems in there. These big bulls pull in these really
Speaker 2: dark timber holes at least where we're at and on
Speaker 2: these benches. So now it's like, okay, these are the
Speaker 2: areas where we're going to find this bowl. And you're
Speaker 2: going a lot based on faith here because you don't
Speaker 2: hear a bowl bugling, right, and but means that maybe
Speaker 2: you got show camp photo of a big bowl in
Speaker 2: the area. It's like Okay, well he's on this mountain somewhere,
Speaker 2: but where is he going to be? And so I'll
Speaker 2: pick a spot like that on a bench. And we
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about the Elmer Thudd technique. I've
Speaker 2: covered a lot of country at first, I'm covering a
Speaker 2: lot of ground. But if you have a big herd
Speaker 2: bowl and he's done rutt and he's only going to
Speaker 2: cover just a couple of acres as long as he's
Speaker 2: not getting any pressure whatsoever. And he found a very
Speaker 2: safe spot. He's got a bench just covering in his scent,
Speaker 2: covering in his tracks. And so this is and this
Speaker 2: is if you don't have snow, you got to find
Speaker 2: a bench like that. And as soon as I know,
Speaker 2: I'll run these benches on foot. As soon as I
Speaker 2: cut one of these benches, where I catch a whiff
Speaker 2: of elk, I slow the freak down, and it's time
Speaker 2: to really start picking apart the timber. And then you
Speaker 2: get to the art of timber pounding, something that our
Speaker 2: family grew up doing a lot, because eighty percent of
Speaker 2: our country is in timber fifty yard shooting ranges under
Speaker 2: So then you're walking really slow and you're really you're
Speaker 2: trying to keep your eyes up, but you're also looking
Speaker 2: down to a lot. You're trying to check what tracks are.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well there's a big bowl track in here.
Speaker 2: I can smell, and he's been living in here. And
Speaker 2: now you're just slowly walking on that little bench. It
Speaker 2: could be a two acre, it could be a five
Speaker 2: acre bench on the side of a mountain, just sidehill,
Speaker 2: really slow, and you're just taking a couple steps, and
Speaker 2: you're peeling apart the timber, and you're not looking for
Speaker 2: a big body dolk. I think that's what a lot
Speaker 2: of people a looking at sidess like you're hiking, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's an elk, Like no, you're looking for It could
Speaker 2: be a piece of hair, it could be an eyeball,
Speaker 2: an ear, part of a rack. You take a couple
Speaker 2: of steps and you're peeling the mount also taking consideration,
Speaker 2: and I have this sounds weird and it sounds unrealistic,
Speaker 2: but I have smelt an elk down I've I've cut.
Speaker 2: This actually happened in New Mexico. I was in New
Speaker 2: Mexico timber pounding in the junipers, and I smelt elk
Speaker 2: and trapped it too and I was like, whach way
Speaker 2: is the wind blowing? And we saw the direction of
Speaker 2: the wind blown. So we started falling the wind and
Speaker 2: we cut and we found the bowl. So an elk
Speaker 2: are smelling animals. Yeah, I'm not saying that I have
Speaker 2: an incredible sense of smell like a dog. I don't.
Speaker 2: It's just the fact that elk smell.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so if you got like a wind and it's
Speaker 2: not beened. I've done this twice. Actually, that worked on
Speaker 2: me twice. Right, I smelt an elk, I saw where
Speaker 2: the wind was blown, and I followed the wind, and
Speaker 2: so I used the wind to my advantage, you know,
Speaker 2: as an elk wood to his. And again you're following
Speaker 2: that scent and you're looking in the timber and you're
Speaker 2: just you're taking a couple of steps and you're just
Speaker 2: peeling apart with a pair of binos. Now again we
Speaker 2: go back to saying, well, why do my scopes just fine?
Speaker 2: Why don't I just use my hunting scope. The reason
Speaker 2: why I like a pair of binos is you've got
Speaker 2: two eyes in the scope. It's a big while, it's
Speaker 2: a big view. You're look it's almost like looking through
Speaker 2: a TV, right, well.
Speaker 1: What I like too is as you're looking with your buyos,
Speaker 1: as you focus at different points through the timber, some
Speaker 1: of those branches just disappear as your focus changes, yeah,
Speaker 1: blur out, and then the sub Let's say, if you're
Speaker 1: focusing on something fifty sixty yards, anything in front in
Speaker 1: the foreground just kind of blurs out. So you can
Speaker 1: kind of look through those little brushy pockets and kind
Speaker 1: of see an elk there exactly.
Speaker 2: And you brought up really could point there in the
Speaker 2: sense that because sometimes I remember that. We're like I'll
Speaker 2: be looking at brush close by and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you zoom out, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you see eyes staring at you. The other thing we
Speaker 2: talked about is I've had a bowl where I would fall.
Speaker 2: I would walk in the timber, and I could I
Speaker 2: know I'm getting close to a bowl. I can smell them,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't mean I'm falling their wind, but I
Speaker 2: just like, I know they're on the bench somewhere. So
Speaker 2: I'm just walking really so looking all around me, and
Speaker 2: in a cool morning where it's like thirty five forty degrees,
Speaker 2: I'll see steam like I see steam right there and
Speaker 2: I'll look at my bios and I saw there was
Speaker 2: a steam coming out of an elk's nose as he
Speaker 2: was breathing. And so you're looking for very small detail.
Speaker 2: You're not looking for this big bodied elk. The one
Speaker 2: time where I really failed that timber pounding alas with Travis,
Speaker 2: I remember this. It was actually really funny where all
Speaker 2: was walking this bench in the and all the leaves
Speaker 2: if that area were yellow. Yeah, and we were walking
Speaker 2: really slow, as slow as I possibly could go, and
Speaker 2: I should have pulled up my biomes on it to
Speaker 2: not I looked to my left and I see yellow
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, that's brush. And I look to
Speaker 2: my right. Travis grabs my head and he oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: I hope they didn't make any noise doing that. He
Speaker 2: turned my head to the left and he's like, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just saw that yellow brush. And that yellow bush
Speaker 2: gets up in a six point bowl takes off front
Speaker 2: of him. Oh man, it was thirty five yards. Oh man,
Speaker 2: that just to me it was so broken up to
Speaker 2: where it looked like just a little bush. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I failed there. If I would have pulled up my
Speaker 2: binos and look, I would have seen hair, I would
Speaker 2: have known that was a bowl. So utilize those binos
Speaker 2: are really important. Always have that in the timber. Most
Speaker 2: people that I know hunt the timber don't even care
Speaker 2: bear binos because, like, I don't need it. I'm not
Speaker 2: seeing long grange. I'm only seeing fifty seventy five yards.
Speaker 2: You're missing a lot of important detail. If you're bumping
Speaker 2: the animals, you're moving too fast too. That's the other thing.
Speaker 2: It's the same with meal deer. If I'm bumping meal
Speaker 2: there multiple times, I'm like, the goal is you want
Speaker 2: to spot the animal before it takes off running. If
Speaker 2: you're spotting multiple animals moving the timber before they take
Speaker 2: off front and you had a chance to shoot them,
Speaker 2: you're moving the right pace. Right, you can't move faster
Speaker 2: than your eyes.
Speaker 1: You could.
Speaker 2: It's easy to out hike your eyes.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's a very good point. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: find because I sometimes I'll get in a hurry and
Speaker 1: I'll find myself doing exactly that, and I'll like, hey,
Speaker 1: slow down, like I'm out I'm I've never put it
Speaker 1: in those kind of terms before, but out hiking my
Speaker 1: eyes or out walking my eyes, like you have to
Speaker 1: have your eyes like cover the canvas, the whole area
Speaker 1: before you take your next steps exactly.
Speaker 2: And so that's how I would hunt a timber pound
Speaker 2: a big bowl like that. And I don't, like I said,
Speaker 2: I don't care if if that country your hunt is
Speaker 2: ninety percent openings, there's gonna be a hole that big
Speaker 2: bull knows where to hide, and you got to find them,
Speaker 2: especially on a general tag. Now again, some people, well no,
Speaker 2: I've seen them hit agriculture. Feel I've seen them. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well how's your predation, Well how's the hunting pressure. I
Speaker 2: can tell you for a fact that like oh yeah,
Speaker 2: like yeah, we don't have oh yeah, we don't have
Speaker 2: I mean it's they only give out fifty tags in
Speaker 2: that unit. So sure you're going to see elk, you're
Speaker 2: going to see big bulls running the unit, running the
Speaker 2: openings because they've their safety is different. They're not they
Speaker 2: don't feel like they have to go in those places. Right,
Speaker 2: But like when we're in an area like us where
Speaker 2: I mean you can attest to we're in a very
Speaker 2: predator infested area. Oh yeah, And it's also a general
Speaker 2: tag for residents. Any residents can pick up a tag
Speaker 2: and that's most of Ida home, most of the state
Speaker 2: of idahome in Montana as well, and also other states.
Speaker 2: So these elk are going to pull themselves into place
Speaker 2: where they feel safe. You've got to realize, you kill
Speaker 2: an elk that's eight years old, he's had to survive
Speaker 2: eight years of predation and hunting pressure. He's got it
Speaker 2: figured it out by now, and so you got to
Speaker 2: figure him out and you got to beat him at
Speaker 2: his own game. Right. But I feel like that's pretty
Speaker 2: good at covering a post reup bowl. But I want
Speaker 2: to talk about snow conditions too. Do you have anything
Speaker 2: else to add to that?
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask a question before we
Speaker 1: move on to that, which we'll I think will segue
Speaker 1: nice into snow conditions. Have a listener question. Okay, the
Speaker 1: listener says, when hunting those late season bowls, where do
Speaker 1: I locate the bowl on a cold day versus a
Speaker 1: warmer day? Do bulls bed in the on the sunny
Speaker 1: slopes when it's really cold versus when it's warmer? Do
Speaker 1: they bed in cooler slopes?
Speaker 2: That's great questions. So studies show that a bull is
Speaker 2: actually has a better chance in staying warm than he
Speaker 2: has a chance to staying cold. It takes less energy
Speaker 2: to stay warm in the when it's hot out, and
Speaker 2: elk actually struggles more than in cold conditions. The only
Speaker 2: reason why we see an elk in the springtime look
Speaker 2: like he's a skeleton. It's just the fact there's just
Speaker 2: a lack of food source. But if he had the
Speaker 2: food in the wintertime, he'd be fine. Right, winter's great
Speaker 2: like and they grow the thur out. So but yeah,
Speaker 2: so if we're to compare the difference on a hot,
Speaker 2: sunny day, let's say we're on a warm October. Right,
Speaker 2: it's a warm October, which, by the way, really sucks.
Speaker 2: They're not going to be feeding much during the day,
Speaker 2: or if they do feed, it's going to be in
Speaker 2: that heavy, thick timber. Think of where the sun is.
Speaker 2: Find a hole where the sun doesn't hit much. It
Speaker 2: could be a north slope, or it could just be
Speaker 2: a really steep draw where just the sun doesn't get it.
Speaker 2: Elk wants to still cool, I said, he'll find a
Speaker 2: spot that he feels if he feels really good and
Speaker 2: safe and he's not getting bumped around a lot, he
Speaker 2: will stand less on a one acre piece of ground
Speaker 2: and just stay there the rest of the season. That's
Speaker 2: why it's so hard to find him. It could also
Speaker 2: be cliffier. It could just be an area where it's
Speaker 2: just hard to access and they could still be hitting
Speaker 2: those open those openings to feed, but beings that nobody's
Speaker 2: able to get back there, he's feeling pretty safe. So
Speaker 2: that's one thing to think about. Now. Also think about
Speaker 2: this rain. Now rain there's a combination of like, does
Speaker 2: rain bed and animal down to as a storm? It does,
Speaker 2: But let's say you have two weeks of rain. Most
Speaker 2: of my October timber pounding experience is full on reindeer
Speaker 2: and I'm pounding the timber and elk are getting up
Speaker 2: and feeding and bedding down throughout the day. They're staying
Speaker 2: nice and cool. That rain's great. It's like imagine an
Speaker 2: elk just sitting in water. He's just getting rained on
Speaker 2: all day long. So they're moving throughout the day. But
Speaker 2: it's a great thing too. With rain. It's actually one
Speaker 2: of the best times of timber pound because it covers
Speaker 2: your sound and it covers your scent. We have really
Speaker 2: heavy rain, I just move right in on elk. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sitting there focusing on my wind as much
Speaker 2: because that rain is just kno going to write down,
Speaker 2: so you can sneak right on an elk. Also, the
Speaker 2: old leaves on the ground, the pine needles, it just
Speaker 2: all soaks up and it just it's almost like walking
Speaker 2: on a pillow. And in the sense that it's not
Speaker 2: making any sounds. You can walk through that dry stuff
Speaker 2: and you're not getting the cracks. You can sneak right
Speaker 2: up on elk. Now what happens if you're really close
Speaker 2: to an alcohol sudden you feel like he's right there,
Speaker 2: It's okay to it's okay to. We talked about this
Speaker 2: earlier too, with a buglin bowl and you're sneaking in
Speaker 2: on them. It's okay to do a couch up here
Speaker 2: and there. But the mistake that I've made in the
Speaker 2: past is given out your location. Sometimes you're better off
Speaker 2: not giving out your location if you feel like, if
Speaker 2: you know exactly where that bowl is, like, don't need
Speaker 2: to give out your location. Although I've done this too
Speaker 2: where I'm like, I feel like an elk is right here,
Speaker 2: He's right here somewhere, I just can't see him. Sometimes
Speaker 2: as simple as a cow call can just get him
Speaker 2: to like show himself because he could be hiding in
Speaker 2: a brush patch you don't even know it. Also, in
Speaker 2: you cow call and he gets up out of his
Speaker 2: bed to look at you. It's just enough to like
Speaker 2: give you a shot. Now, are you going to hear
Speaker 2: a bugle? No, you're not going to hear a bugle.
Speaker 2: It's you're just expecting. What you're trying to do is
Speaker 2: you're gonna You're trying to bring curiosity and I you're
Speaker 2: trying to get him the step out and see you.
Speaker 2: I do that same technique with mule deer and grunt tubes,
Speaker 2: but rain.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Now, now let's talk about cold conditions. What I love
Speaker 2: about really really cold weather is it does keep him
Speaker 2: feeding more, keep him feeding later. And so if there's
Speaker 2: a bolt like a big bowl and he's like I said,
Speaker 2: he's in a thick timber patch and he's bedded down,
Speaker 2: and let's say there's a clear cut nearby and with
Speaker 2: a lot of feed, you know, I may notice that bowl,
Speaker 2: you know, like he goes. I've seen the tracks all
Speaker 2: over the clear cut where it could be a clear
Speaker 2: cut or burn or the habitat is just perfect. Have
Speaker 2: you have all everything they need to feed? Out there,
Speaker 2: but you're seeing their tracks, but they're not there. Well,
Speaker 2: he's obviously feeding at night. It's nice with a really
Speaker 2: cold the cold weather snap is that it makes them
Speaker 2: feed a little bit longer. Maybe they don't get their
Speaker 2: winter coat in all the way yet, right, so they're
Speaker 2: got it. They're moving more, they're moving more, they're feeding more.
Speaker 2: I mean, you got to really compare it to people too, right,
Speaker 2: I stay pretty dang warm when I move, Like I
Speaker 2: could be pretty it could be pretty cold weather. And
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a thin skinned guy. I don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of body fat on me, so like I have
Speaker 2: to move a lot to keep myself warm. If I stop,
Speaker 2: I get cold and I have to throw layers on.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like an elk. It's like, okay, he
Speaker 2: still has his he still has his coat on, you know,
Speaker 2: like is it really fall coat? And you get a
Speaker 2: crazy winter storm that kicks in, you know in October,
Speaker 2: Well he's they're gonna be feeding quite a bit. And
Speaker 2: you definitely see a difference with that when you get
Speaker 2: those cold snow snap or that cold that cold snap,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be a snow it's just
Speaker 2: as cold cold keeps them feeding longer in the day.
Speaker 2: But again, most of the time when I'm killing these bulls,
Speaker 2: I'm killing them in their bedding area. If you're one
Speaker 2: hundred percent relying only on their food source and where
Speaker 2: they're feeding during the day or at night, you're limiting
Speaker 2: your you're limiting what you're doing. So learning to hunt
Speaker 2: their feeding and their betting grounds, it kind of utilizes
Speaker 2: more techniques and how to hunt them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found that in the past when I just
Speaker 1: focused on their feeding areas. So I'm going to go
Speaker 1: sit and watch this hillside, whether it's just a brushy
Speaker 1: hillside or maybe a clear cut whatever. You can sit
Speaker 1: there for several days and not see a thing. Conditions
Speaker 1: would have to be just right for to catch one
Speaker 1: of them bowls in daylight hours on one of those spots,
Speaker 1: especially if it's easily accessible. So I love that point
Speaker 1: you brought up. You're like, that's just a portion of
Speaker 1: the portion of the day you would focus on that.
Speaker 1: But then you move into their betting areas. Where are
Speaker 1: they going to spend most of their day.
Speaker 2: In their betting area, you can, yeah, the feeding grounds,
Speaker 2: you can catch them at first light or maybe in
Speaker 2: the evenings, utilizing prime time, get your butt out of bed,
Speaker 2: being there at first light so you can catch them
Speaker 2: they're feeding ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you may just catch a fleeting glance it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: they are here, where are they going watching bed down? Now?
Speaker 1: Where am I going to hunt them the rest of
Speaker 1: the day in their bedding area?
Speaker 2: Exactly good point there, but that's pretty much in the
Speaker 2: sense of just hunting them there. But you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: if you get really far back country where there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of people, you can catch them a lot
Speaker 2: more in these brush fields where they are just feeding
Speaker 2: middle day. And again, if it's hot the bet on
Speaker 2: a Norse lop, it could be in the opening, but
Speaker 2: if it's on norselop, it's not getting a lot of
Speaker 2: sun go bed down mid day in the middle of
Speaker 2: an opening.
Speaker 1: I've seen that during like during a really cold period, Yeah,
Speaker 1: really cold would probably they would maybe go in bed
Speaker 1: where they get a little more sunshine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can happen too, so exactly so it just
Speaker 2: really depends on the on the on the time of
Speaker 2: the year and and that and I and I've watched
Speaker 2: bulls bed down in clear cuts in cold weather. Sure,
Speaker 2: just like as before, if it was like twenty degrees warmer,
Speaker 2: they had move right to the timber.
Speaker 1: Right now, what about deep snow? So you talked about
Speaker 1: you know, bulls with the snow conditions are right, they'll
Speaker 1: stay in the deep snow up to their belly. I'm like,
Speaker 1: sometimes that would be a pretty hard hard to locate
Speaker 1: if you can't see them from a distance. How are
Speaker 1: how are you going to get on bulls like that?
Speaker 1: That's that's where you have to kind of dig deep
Speaker 1: and pull up your bootstraps and really trudge through some
Speaker 1: snow to find these bulls. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: One thing I love about snow. I'll give you the
Speaker 2: pros and the cons, so that I'll start off with
Speaker 2: the con hiking his snow sucks sometimes. Now I'll start
Speaker 2: with Now, that's it. That's really the only ConA snow.
Speaker 2: You know what. My favorite time to hunt any animal
Speaker 2: with a rifle is snow. I can see him better
Speaker 2: in the snow, I can I got tracks now. Now,
Speaker 2: Now the question is how do we find a big
Speaker 2: bulls tracks? And I think that's where it starts first.
Speaker 2: And yeah, some of these bulls are still pulled up
Speaker 2: in the high elevation. You get enough snow, they finally
Speaker 2: like it's time to go. It's time to pull down,
Speaker 2: you know. Unlike a cow and a rag bull, they're
Speaker 2: just like, oh, skiff a snow, time to pull down.
Speaker 2: A big bull, he's just he's tired. He wants left alone.
Speaker 2: He just like I've watched him, just like, it almost
Speaker 2: looks like they're dead. Sometimes if you have a chance
Speaker 2: to glasp up a bowl after the rut, it almost
Speaker 2: looks like they're dead. They just lay down and they
Speaker 2: just sleep, just like we do. Eyes down and they'll
Speaker 2: just sleep for hours. They're just so exhausted after the rut.
Speaker 2: And those cows and those you know, they got all
Speaker 2: the energy in the world. They'll run down to the Oh,
Speaker 2: snow came in, and we're running down the valley floor
Speaker 2: and we're we're you know, eating food in a different location.
Speaker 2: Those big bulls, it's just like, I'm not going. I
Speaker 2: really don't want to get down here until I have to,
Speaker 2: you know, especially if they know they're safe up there.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So it's like, how do you find an elk like that? Well,
Speaker 2: even in the thickest timber country, you can still find tracks.
Speaker 2: Imagine having a snow background inside the timber, you can
Speaker 2: still glass timber. Like if you're on a steep hill
Speaker 2: side and you're glassing across on another steep hill side
Speaker 2: with timber, putting your eyes in there and glassy. Now,
Speaker 2: are you planning to find elk? That'd be great, But
Speaker 2: a lot of times I'm not even looking for elk.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for tracks, and I utilize a fresh snow.
Speaker 2: If I get a fresh no, I'm like, I want
Speaker 2: to be in the mountain all day because I need
Speaker 2: to find the tracks. You're on the snow, and then
Speaker 2: you get up on the other side of the ridge
Speaker 2: where and I'm glassing across, I'm first trying to figure
Speaker 2: out where they are at, so I'm not even f
Speaker 2: Sometimes i feel like I'm wasting time just hiking him
Speaker 2: out namelessly trying to find elk. Come like, I got snow, now,
Speaker 2: let me get teler side glass across. It could be
Speaker 2: a spotter or pair of binos, But I'm looking for
Speaker 2: a trail of tracks running through that deep snow. And
Speaker 2: I've just done enough to where I know the difference
Speaker 2: between a deer and elk track. From a distance, you
Speaker 2: can see the big enough strider like, yeah, that's pretty big.
Speaker 2: Most likely that's a bowl, you know, pulling out of
Speaker 2: the high country. And then after you do that, if
Speaker 2: you have time, either A get over there on those tracks,
Speaker 2: or B go up there the next day and then
Speaker 2: try to and try to pursue that bowl. It goes
Speaker 2: back to thinking, oh, well, I'm a day behind on
Speaker 2: that bowl. What doesn't matter. That bowl is still tired
Speaker 2: and exhausted after a long rut. He's just pulling down
Speaker 2: in some lower elevation, or maybe he's just maybe he's
Speaker 2: just moving. Now you just see where he's moving back
Speaker 2: and forth to where he feeds in beds. But regardless,
Speaker 2: now you know where his tracks are. Climb up on
Speaker 2: the other side of the ridge. I get on his tracks,
Speaker 2: and then I stay on it. So now I want
Speaker 2: to talk about how do you track a bull elk?
Speaker 2: This is the tough thing, and I do the best
Speaker 2: I can with this. But one of the best things
Speaker 2: you can do is not be actually on the track.
Speaker 2: If you have a chance, stay track it, be standing
Speaker 2: above it. If you can do ten to twenty yards
Speaker 2: above the track and follow it. Okay, sometimes those bulls,
Speaker 2: the predators are following their tracks all the time, so
Speaker 2: when they bed down, they're bend down facing their tracks.
Speaker 2: It's great. If you could catch a bull feeding, then
Speaker 2: that's a different story. You can track a bull in
Speaker 2: the timber and he's you caught him feeding, then sweet,
Speaker 2: you can get him. But let's say let's say that
Speaker 2: bull's bed and he's facing right at you, so you're
Speaker 2: sneaking in that snow, you're charging through. Well, he's got
Speaker 2: you spotted most likely. To me, it's like whoever's moving
Speaker 2: is the easiest one in the spot right right, He's
Speaker 2: still he's going to be hard for me the spot.
Speaker 2: So so if you're right on his track, he can
Speaker 2: spy and he'll bump out. So kind of like the
Speaker 2: best thing to do is you want to try to
Speaker 2: get above him, above those tracks, and try to follow
Speaker 2: him if you can. If you can stay like twenty yards,
Speaker 2: that's like ideal, and you want to be above. It
Speaker 2: seems with elk and deer they always expect predation to
Speaker 2: come from below. So if you try to stay below
Speaker 2: the tracks and follow him, I feel like also he's
Speaker 2: going to have a better chance to spot in you.
Speaker 2: You always want to be above the tracks, gotcha, But
Speaker 2: then the other thing. So it's like and then again
Speaker 2: it goes back to like you're moving. Remember this bowl,
Speaker 2: he's not planning on moving a lot. He has no
Speaker 2: reason to. He's just trying to feed him bed down,
Speaker 2: and so move slow. If you get into a new
Speaker 2: spot where you're you're peeking over a ridge and you're
Speaker 2: in the timber, like you're really scanning that timber as
Speaker 2: hard as you can and trying to find a bull bedded,
Speaker 2: and then what typically happens if things don't go right,
Speaker 2: that bowl will start to move. He feels that he's
Speaker 2: being followed. He starts to move, and sometimes he's not running,
Speaker 2: he just feels like, I feel like something's following me.
Speaker 2: So you'll notice that bull get out of his bending
Speaker 2: els and he starts to move. And then you'll notice
Speaker 2: a different this I've seen almost every herd bull do
Speaker 2: or every big bull do. This is they'll climb up.
Speaker 2: They'll do a loop where they'll walk in a straight line.
Speaker 2: It could be one hundred two hundred yards, it could
Speaker 2: even be five hundred yards. You do a loop and
Speaker 2: get right above and he'll bed down and he looks
Speaker 2: down on his tracks, watching his back work in his
Speaker 2: back trail, and I man, I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: many times I felt stupid rob follow his tracks and
Speaker 2: I'm like, and then I do literally feel like the
Speaker 2: old Elmer thud, you know, just like no dah no, no,
Speaker 2: you know, And I do the little stupid walk and
Speaker 2: and then I follow tracks. I see that back track.
Speaker 2: I fall back up and I realized all that bowllll
Speaker 2: betted right above his track, staring down he had me.
Speaker 2: And then he'd back moving again, and he'd do it
Speaker 2: over and over again. So you want to again. It
Speaker 2: goes back to trying to stay above the track, and
Speaker 2: it's it's challenging. But the best scenario in this, and
Speaker 2: my dad's done this is he's been above the track
Speaker 2: and he's watched and when he caught up to that bowl,
Speaker 2: it'd be staring down at his own tracks, waiting for him.
Speaker 1: In fact, he might even hear I wonder if he
Speaker 1: the bull would even hear your dad or you or
Speaker 1: your dad or you hear the noise, a little bit
Speaker 1: of noise coming, and then they still focus on that track.
Speaker 1: It's like I hear something, but I think it's probably
Speaker 1: following me. Well, if you have powder, they can't hear me.
Speaker 2: They can't hear that. Powder is the best time the
Speaker 2: track just it muffles down. You can sneak right up
Speaker 2: on animals with powder. Snow another time of the day
Speaker 2: that's really nice to track and it really gets red
Speaker 2: as scent is. Let's say you get a good snow
Speaker 2: and then it warms up and all that you've have
Speaker 2: you been in this situation where all that snow's falling
Speaker 2: out of the trees, just noisy and dripping. It's noisy
Speaker 2: and dripping, and I've walked right up to mule deer,
Speaker 2: I've walked right up to elk on days like that,
Speaker 2: those days are awesome. Yeah, you're sting. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if the windsbone right at them. That scent it just
Speaker 2: it just goes right to the ground.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of movement in the forest too,
Speaker 1: because you have like these limbs that have some snow
Speaker 1: and then the snow melts and then the it'll make
Speaker 1: a whoosh and then that limb will wiggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great time the track. If you're
Speaker 2: on a bull track, just stay on it and and
Speaker 2: you can move pretty fast on them at that point
Speaker 2: because there's just so much movement in the trees. Like
Speaker 2: I said, the branches are moving. That was actually maybe
Speaker 2: you've seen that video where that mule deer sniff Travis's pants. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a buck chasing a dough and they just
Speaker 2: weren't a at the trap sniffed this pants. Everybody's like,
Speaker 2: what snutwalk?
Speaker 1: Did you use? What type of set control do you use?
Speaker 2: Nothing? It was just that was the conditions. It was
Speaker 2: just perfect where all is scent and we were moving
Speaker 2: and everything and they didn't see us. It's the same
Speaker 2: thing like, that's a really good day to kill a
Speaker 2: bull elk in the snow. So really utilizing the snow
Speaker 2: is really good. Like I said, Montana has a November rut,
Speaker 2: which you're guaranteed to get snow. Now where I hunt,
Speaker 2: our season pretty much ends before November, so you're just
Speaker 2: kind of hoping that you get an early snow for that. Again,
Speaker 2: I've made the mistake of just walking too fast, falling
Speaker 2: tracks and thinking they're on the move, and then I
Speaker 2: bump them and it's like when you do that, you're
Speaker 2: moving too fast. You gotta slow down. Are they always
Speaker 2: looking at their backtrack? Not always? If they feel safe
Speaker 2: in their area and they've been not been chased around
Speaker 2: for a while. You'll you can catch them just laying
Speaker 2: down right, look in a different direction. But you just
Speaker 2: always have to expect that like a bull, you get
Speaker 2: an old bull, he's he's reason why he's alive. And
Speaker 2: every all elk are stinky, So you gotta imagine this
Speaker 2: bowl has with as stinky as he is. He's survived wolves,
Speaker 2: he's mountain lions. Don't think that a big bull doesn't
Speaker 2: get killed by mountain lion, you know. So, I know
Speaker 2: some of you may not see this, but behind you
Speaker 2: there's a really big bowl that's it's a skull, and
Speaker 2: it's actually a mountain lion killed. Young female lion killed
Speaker 2: that bowl, and it's like, wow, a mountain lion can
Speaker 2: kill a big bowl pretty easy. Doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: a big lion. So so mountains are still considered a
Speaker 2: pretty big party or to elk, wolves are obviously the worst.
Speaker 1: I've got a question, Yeah, so as you're tracking this elk,
Speaker 1: how do you know if he's walking with purpose or
Speaker 1: if he's feeding along the way, And how do you
Speaker 1: know is there any indicator if he's going to bed down?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Usually if they're meandering. When I say meandering, you'll
Speaker 2: see him like they might walk to the left, they're feeding.
Speaker 2: They walk to the right they feed. It could be
Speaker 2: on moss, on a tree, it could be brush. You
Speaker 2: can see him kicking it up. That's a good indication.
Speaker 2: He's not walking a straight line, but it's a purpose.
Speaker 2: He's walking a straight lion. When it's a real purpose,
Speaker 2: you start those You see those strikes get a little
Speaker 2: bit wider, longer. He's starting to know he's follow You
Speaker 2: see those strikes get even longer. You're like, oh, I
Speaker 2: think he's I think he knows I'm onto him, you know, right,
Speaker 2: see those strides. But the best thing to notice is
Speaker 2: like you'll see him he And I think I told
Speaker 2: you this yesterday. There was a time and we wish
Speaker 2: we were like, oh my gosh, this would be so cool.
Speaker 2: We just I think was Travis. I was with him
Speaker 2: in Montana. He just filled his elk tag like a
Speaker 2: week prior, and so we're out hunting meal deer and
Speaker 2: the deep snow and it's elk season two. But like
Speaker 2: I said, he doesn't have an elk tag anymore. There
Speaker 2: was a big bull track, big bull track, and he
Speaker 2: and we just like kind of curiosity. We're just like,
Speaker 2: we're just following the bull truck for just a little
Speaker 2: ways and we saw in bed like twelve times he
Speaker 2: just hued feed bed down, feed be down. Like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I wish we had the tag, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's you know, he was pretty obvious. He's just
Speaker 2: but he just the high country just pulled them out.
Speaker 2: They've got a deep snow in the high elevation. He's
Speaker 2: just was pulling through and moving down. He's kind of
Speaker 2: forced out of there. Although the ragballs and cows already
Speaker 2: pulled down, he was still a little bit higher. At
Speaker 2: that time. I was actually really supplised that bowl was
Speaker 2: still up there. I'm like, wow, that that bowl's been
Speaker 2: I mean, he's been in deep snow for a while.
Speaker 2: But then also too comes back to where there's a
Speaker 2: lot of country. The higher elevation, the less timber there
Speaker 2: is too, right, so you get up higher, there's these
Speaker 2: trees are more sparse. Some well, those zlk do feel
Speaker 2: safe up high, and a lot of the predators an't
Speaker 2: running up high anymore. They're falling the majority of the
Speaker 2: game at the base of the mountain, and so you
Speaker 2: do catch big bulls in an open country like in
Speaker 2: the openings in knee deep snow or plus you can
Speaker 2: catch him up there too. That was my I mean,
Speaker 2: how awesome would that be, you know, to do that,
Speaker 2: to find a bowl like that, and so that is
Speaker 2: also a possibility too. There's a lot of options in
Speaker 2: how to hile that time of the year.
Speaker 1: Now here's one of my biggest peeves or big biggest
Speaker 1: nemesiss mesis hunting elk in snow, is finding the right
Speaker 1: snow conditions. It feels like the day that if I'd
Speaker 1: have been there a couple of days earlier, I'd have
Speaker 1: had that beautiful powder. But now I get there and
Speaker 1: it's like melted and froze and melted and FROs and
Speaker 1: that's pretty crusty, it's pretty noise.
Speaker 2: You're you know, this is just the fact you're not
Speaker 2: going to fall an elk on that. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: better off trying to glass, trying to find them in
Speaker 2: a spot where maybe catch them the opening. You're you're
Speaker 2: just gonna bump ups, gonna bump elk, and you're better
Speaker 2: off waiting for a good, better snow conditions.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: I really watched the weather closely, Like I'm looking for
Speaker 2: a window too, And I think it's just my older age.
Speaker 2: Like I think just when we're older, we also are
Speaker 2: like a big bowl right where we don't want to
Speaker 2: waste our energy on bad days. Right Like if I
Speaker 2: have a week old, crusty snow, I don't even And
Speaker 2: if I know that I have more hunting season, if
Speaker 2: I have a couple of days left, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: have no choice at this point, i just have to
Speaker 2: go out in the woods. But if I have like
Speaker 2: another week or two of hunting season and I know
Speaker 2: that we're going to get some more snow front, like
Speaker 2: some weather fronts, we're just going to wait for another
Speaker 2: weatherfront to come through. Again. Like I said, it's just
Speaker 2: like you're trying to find a window. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's my window. Time to get up there, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to burn myself out before it gets good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you could sit there for a week on
Speaker 1: bad snow conditions and you just spending your wheels.
Speaker 2: You're just wasting time. That was And again I don't
Speaker 2: mean to jump back to Mule Deer too, but with
Speaker 2: Mewlee's like last year, I was, it's you know it's
Speaker 2: a month long hunting season in mont Dana, but I
Speaker 2: was fogged in. There was a lot like there was
Speaker 2: probably about ten days of straight up fog, and I
Speaker 2: just knew that I was going to be wasting my time.
Speaker 2: So I like, Okay, well i'll catch up with work.
Speaker 2: And then when I see that we're getting a we've
Speaker 2: got a window, and I'm I'm fine with hunting snow
Speaker 2: or rain, whatever. It's just you can't see in fog.
Speaker 2: It's just if you have thick fogs.
Speaker 1: You're screwed.
Speaker 2: You're not going to see anything. And so now I
Speaker 2: have time to move in. I found my window. And
Speaker 2: but what's good? What's good with old snow? So here
Speaker 2: here I'll give a So I just talked about the
Speaker 2: cons about heart like old snow. Here's the here's the pro.
Speaker 2: We talked about glassing. You know, if you have the
Speaker 2: chance getting on the other side of ridge and glass
Speaker 2: in that open timber, if it's sparse enough, you see
Speaker 2: you kind of see patterns with the olk. Right, maybe
Speaker 2: a bull is living in the air. You'll know is
Speaker 2: he passing through, is asy passing through? Or b is
Speaker 2: there an olk living in there? You'll see a pocket
Speaker 2: of just a whole bunch of tracks. It may look
Speaker 2: like there's a herd of elk in there, but it's
Speaker 2: maybe just one bowl just going around and just feeding
Speaker 2: around every day.
Speaker 1: They're just doing a little different round.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a little yeah. And so that's a great
Speaker 2: thing with old snow as being all do that now
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you should climb over there and then try
Speaker 2: to bump them out. Maybe it's not the greatest or
Speaker 2: maybe you got a long range opportunity. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well he's living in there. Maybe I just need to
Speaker 2: sit here all day like I'm hunting. I want to
Speaker 2: utilize my time wisely. Maybe you just need to wait
Speaker 2: there until you see him come through. I have long
Speaker 2: ranged elk and deer in in open timber. But I
Speaker 2: mean open timber. I mean it could be thick, even
Speaker 2: thick with brush. But when all that those leaves fall
Speaker 2: out of the it could be an alder field. It
Speaker 2: could be a combination of trees and alders. When the
Speaker 2: leaves are out of the alders, you can see right
Speaker 2: through it. Yeah, I've long range our family. I mean,
Speaker 2: I I want to say I have, but I have
Speaker 2: my little brother. He's he's long ranged elk. You know,
Speaker 2: I've long ranged mules in alders. They feel safe. They think,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'm hidden it. You know, the brush is
Speaker 2: head hot overhead high, right. They feel safe. But then
Speaker 2: when you're looking across on a hillside you see them
Speaker 2: and they're just like, dude, you're you're sitting duck like
Speaker 2: you don't realize it. And it's the same with big
Speaker 2: bulls too. Sometimes you're like, I'm hidden in this brush.
Speaker 2: No they're not. And you know, I'd rather do I
Speaker 2: would not want to pound those alders, So I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna wait for them to step out for
Speaker 2: a shot. Even have to sit here all day. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of different ways in doing it. And
Speaker 2: like I said, I do really like having snow conditions.
Speaker 2: It's it does help tracking. You have tracks, you can
Speaker 2: see what's going on as much versus you don't have snow.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can still find tracks, but you're there's
Speaker 2: a lot you have to pay attention to a lot
Speaker 2: more detail, and you just don't have that snow background
Speaker 2: to spot an animal. It's just so easy to spawn
Speaker 2: an elk or a meal deal with a snow background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's there. They blend in
Speaker 1: so good when there's no snow, like you could just
Speaker 1: if you're not like really good with with your glass
Speaker 1: and good at spotting animals. They can be really tough
Speaker 1: and they can't snow. But with snow man, they really
Speaker 1: pop out. It makes the job spot in a lot easier.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: And they can still hide in snow, but definitely like
Speaker 2: it's like if they're moving, you're like, oh, yeah, there
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah. Well I got a question off Instagram here,
Speaker 1: and the question is what calls are you using to
Speaker 1: call in elk in late season.
Speaker 2: I'm not using any calls. I'm not even being one.
Speaker 2: I'll run a col call to a stop and elk.
Speaker 2: Sometimes if I'm just pulling up, then maybe maybe he's behind.
Speaker 2: Like let's say I got an elk spot in the timber.
Speaker 2: He's fifty seventy five yards and I just need him
Speaker 2: to like step out for a shot, Like he can't
Speaker 2: see me. I can't see him. Oh cal call see
Speaker 2: if I ca get him step out or it could
Speaker 2: be a stop and elk. Right, elk takes off front
Speaker 2: ew you you bull stops. That' so sound. He recognizes
Speaker 2: like I remember that sound, turns around broadside boom, you know,
Speaker 2: get a shot. Another thing, long range shooting. Sometimes it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: this bulls I got it, I'm set up, I'm prone.
Speaker 2: This bull is about ready to walk out in the open.
Speaker 2: I can see him in the timverybody's gonna walk out.
Speaker 2: I got a good window to shoot him. Well walks out.
Speaker 2: It could be you could throw a bugle. Stop with
Speaker 2: a bugle. You're just the only time I'm using calls
Speaker 2: post rut. If they're not talking, is this stop them
Speaker 2: or just control them in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: But I'm not calling them in.
Speaker 1: I love that. A lot of new hunters I think
Speaker 1: that just don't know, you know, about the timing of
Speaker 1: the rut or how how Elk vocalized throughout the year.
Speaker 1: I get this that same question a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: what kind of bugles should I be doing, you know,
Speaker 1: during late season? But but yeah, I agree you we're
Speaker 1: not trying to call in Elk, and especially in the
Speaker 1: late season, we're probably not even gonna hear. Let try
Speaker 1: to locate Elk with a bugle. That time has passed. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean Elk won't be bugling on their own
Speaker 1: sometimes in that later season, and when they do, that's
Speaker 1: a great time to capitalize. But again, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to call them in. We're trying to close the gap.
Speaker 1: You let them give away their location and then move
Speaker 1: in on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, follow those steps you'll be you
Speaker 2: be successful every time.
Speaker 1: And I think the one of the biggest things too,
Speaker 1: is like that you haven't touched touched on is like
Speaker 1: not giving up. So it's super easy in that post
Speaker 1: post raut season to give up. Like, man, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've been walking forever. Man, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just haven't found any ELK sign. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: turn back. But like you said, though, here's something to kean.
Speaker 1: Those bowls will live on a one in a one
Speaker 1: acre spot. You know, they have some water, they got
Speaker 1: some food, and they got some some safety right there.
Speaker 1: They're not moving, They're gonna They're gonna try to sit there.
Speaker 1: They're gonna try to gain back some fat before the
Speaker 1: winter snows start coming. They're not gonna move, they're tired.
Speaker 1: They're just signing to heal up from the rut. It's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of boot leather and a
Speaker 1: lot of glassing depend on the kind of country you're in.
Speaker 1: But just trying to locate those elk, trying to find
Speaker 1: that elk to hunt so and then, like you talked
Speaker 1: about on the snow part, walking in snow sucks. It's difficult,
Speaker 1: it's hard. I think what I found for myself walking
Speaker 1: in snow is if I try to get in a
Speaker 1: hurry and overdo it, then I swept myself out and
Speaker 1: I overdo it, and then I'm exhausted. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: all right, I just kind of kind of a flash
Speaker 1: in the pan. I just did two way too much
Speaker 1: too early. It's more of a like an endurance thing,
Speaker 1: like take it easy, take your time, move move to
Speaker 1: at a pace that you don't oversweat, over exert, and
Speaker 1: don't go move too quickly, too quickly where you're gonna
Speaker 1: bump those elk. Yes, exactly, because you have to stay
Speaker 1: in the woods, right, You got to stay in the
Speaker 1: game if you want to kill them. And if you
Speaker 1: get discouraged and give up and go home, well you
Speaker 1: just ate your elk tag exactly.
Speaker 2: And then of course I was joking about like it
Speaker 2: works every time, you know, right, Yeah, percent time works every.
Speaker 1: Time, it works every time, right, right, And then these
Speaker 1: are these are great great tips and tactics, and you
Speaker 1: know they can be modified. You know, there's not always
Speaker 1: there's not always the perfect rule. You know, there's always
Speaker 1: you know, an exception to every rule. But but this
Speaker 1: is a very excellent baseline. I love the detail and
Speaker 1: how you laid it all out, and I appreciate that that.
Speaker 1: I hope that helped for our listeners a lot. I
Speaker 1: know it's helped me a lot, because sometimes I find myself,
Speaker 1: you know, spun out and like, you know, when you
Speaker 1: talked about snow conditions and like crunchy, crusty snow versus
Speaker 1: powder snow, and where elk may want to feed or
Speaker 1: deer want to feed, you know that that was like
Speaker 1: a big aha moment for me because I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we even talked about this, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the deer in my spots, you know, one year,
Speaker 1: they'll be up in that really deep snow. In the
Speaker 1: next year and you're like, oh, it could be the
Speaker 1: snow conditions. And if I think back, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they moved out because it was really crunchy and they're
Speaker 1: having a hard time finding food, where as the powder snow,
Speaker 1: it's easy to do. I have time to share a story, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we got we got a little bit of time. Okay.
Speaker 2: So and this is this is probably be a really
Speaker 2: good narrow down. This was not snowed conditions, by the way,
Speaker 2: So this was actually in Wyoming, and it was an
Speaker 2: area with a lot of hunting pressure, you know. So
Speaker 2: right out the get go, I was trying to be selected.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I do this tag. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to go into Wyoming. But as a residence, a lot
Speaker 2: easier to get the tag Wyoming. So anyways, first couple
Speaker 2: of days you couldn't even and I'd say sixty or
Speaker 2: seventy percent of this unit was open, and there was
Speaker 2: just a lot of timber. But it was just like
Speaker 2: at first, like the day before season kicked in, there
Speaker 2: was we were seeing elcohol over these open country. We
Speaker 2: stopped by day two, we stopped seeing elk in openings
Speaker 2: morning and night. They were just no longer going out
Speaker 2: in the openings of feet in the day, right, And
Speaker 2: so Travis and I said, well, let's go back to
Speaker 2: our roots and timber pound. And so we really had
Speaker 2: to pick apart the map right, there's still like a
Speaker 2: lot of timbers. So it's like, okay, well, not every
Speaker 2: timber patch has elk in it, So where do we
Speaker 2: find where our odds are best to find elk? Well,
Speaker 2: just scouring the unit and learning about everything, there was
Speaker 2: this spot that was quite interesting where we saw that
Speaker 2: at the base of the mountain, people come up the
Speaker 2: hunt elk. We saw a road system on top of
Speaker 2: the mountain. We saw people hunting the top of the
Speaker 2: other there's road systems in there. Right in the center
Speaker 2: at this particular elevation, there was not one road system
Speaker 2: going through. There's a lot of roads on this mountain
Speaker 2: all time. Like this was like it almost seemed like
Speaker 2: everywhere you drive there was you can get to it
Speaker 2: by a pickup or a four where there right, But
Speaker 2: we saw this one section of the mountain where it's
Speaker 2: just like there's this timber seam that ran all the
Speaker 2: across the mountain. There's a road. This is a place
Speaker 2: I've never hunted before. So this is not like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've watched the oak for all these years. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: but I'm utilizing my exact techniques that I talked about,
Speaker 2: so trous and are like Okay, Well, obviously hunters have that,
Speaker 2: like they hike a little bit, they put them their
Speaker 2: hunt pressure and they get out. Well, now the elks,
Speaker 2: in our opinion, we're like, okay, I bet you those
Speaker 2: elk are just stacked in there right from from the
Speaker 2: time pressure blow and belove. It just kind of puts
Speaker 2: them right in the center. So Trous saying, Okay, all
Speaker 2: day long, we're just going to timber pound, just like
Speaker 2: what we do in our timber country. We did that
Speaker 2: and we were jumping. We were bumping elk all day long,
Speaker 2: and I ended up killing a nice bowl out of there,
Speaker 2: just like I just like we'd go in the timber
Speaker 2: it's like, oh there's a bull, Nope, not the one
Speaker 2: we're after. Oh oh there's a bull. No, not the
Speaker 2: one we're after. Finally, for probably about two o'clock in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, I saw the bull I wanted and I
Speaker 2: killed it. And then talking you know to other people,
Speaker 2: like I haven't seen an elk in a week or two.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's just they didn't know how
Speaker 2: to hunt it. Right now. This is this goes to
Speaker 2: the same concept to a meal deer killed in Colorado
Speaker 2: where there was a lot of hunting pressure. I stayed
Speaker 2: in contact with a bunch of people. You know where
Speaker 2: I killed a nice Meali Buck. Other people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: like stuck and run, I love your videos. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to. I'm curious because this is the first
Speaker 2: time ever hunted this unit. I want to stay in
Speaker 2: contact with you and see how your success was. And again,
Speaker 2: it's one of those units where there's a lot of
Speaker 2: timber and there's a lot of openings. So they afterwards
Speaker 2: I contacted them and they're like, I was like, how
Speaker 2: did you go? Oh, I just couldn't find meal. There's
Speaker 2: like every day there was less and less meal deer.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't find them in the openings anymore. And
Speaker 2: this is a place with a lot of hunt pressure, right,
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, did you think of hitting the timber? Like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm sure that would you know? They just thought like
Speaker 2: if they were there, they would have seen them feed, right,
Speaker 2: But all of a sudden, the meal is although I said,
Speaker 2: like meal deer do like naturally, meal deer feel safe
Speaker 2: in open country. As soon as those gunshots go out,
Speaker 2: they know that they feel safer in the timber. The
Speaker 2: height from those unshot. Right, it goes and it goes
Speaker 2: back to that too, you know, it goes back to
Speaker 2: your techniques and timber pounding because people limit themselves on
Speaker 2: just I'm only going to glass if I can't see
Speaker 2: it from the pickup, I'm not going to go after it.
Speaker 2: You're you're not using all the techniques that you could
Speaker 2: possibly do. You can make I don't want to say
Speaker 2: that every row has a big monster bowl elk, but
Speaker 2: there's a lot of units that people neglect and don't
Speaker 2: think they're there, right, It's because they don't see them.
Speaker 2: And you and I both know you. I both hunt
Speaker 2: country where there is big bulls still around. There's few
Speaker 2: and far between, and you just have to know how
Speaker 2: to hunt them.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And so I just thought i'd share that story because
Speaker 2: I felt like that was a really good prime example
Speaker 2: of like most people wouldn't know what to do in
Speaker 2: that situation, and we just being knowing that our tactics
Speaker 2: it worked for us, This scenario never hunted before.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. I love it. I
Speaker 1: think I think that for me, the take away this
Speaker 1: is learn elk habits behavior, understand what they eat, and
Speaker 1: understand how they react. To hunting pressure and you'll you'll
Speaker 1: be able to find them during the rifle season. And
Speaker 1: this is some really great knowledge. Now it's time you
Speaker 1: know this fall. You know, I helpe our listeners get
Speaker 1: a chance to go out and put this into practice.
Speaker 1: Listen to it again if you need a refresher, but
Speaker 1: don't give up, and you're going to find success. And
Speaker 1: it may take you a couple of years. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been hunting since for how many years?
Speaker 2: Cash, I mean since I was allowed to so age twelve,
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, like you know, you got
Speaker 2: to be twelve to hunt. Yeah, and so, and now
Speaker 2: I'm thirty four, so if I actually I think I
Speaker 2: did so. I did count the other day and I
Speaker 2: just longly. I was able to count how many elk
Speaker 2: I have killed, as I just have a pile of
Speaker 2: bugle teeth and I've counted twenty two pairs, So I've
Speaker 2: killed twenty two bul elk in that time. And some
Speaker 2: years I've killed three elk, and some years i've I
Speaker 2: was hunting Alaska and I didn't kill elk at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so for me, I'm still I considered myself
Speaker 2: pretty young, still thirty four years old, but killed twenty
Speaker 2: two bulls. Travis killed twenty four. I talked to him.
Speaker 2: I just asked him, you know, just like what's your number.
Speaker 2: But again, I'm not the type of person who notches
Speaker 2: my belt. But I'm just kind of saying like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've I've hunted a lot of bulls, and I'm not
Speaker 2: always a shooter either. So although I've killed twenty two bulls,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that i haven't seen more elk die either.
Speaker 2: I'm helping my brother, helping my little brother, vice versa.
Speaker 2: Travis's helped me kill big bulls. We've helped my little
Speaker 2: brother killed. But you know what I mean, We're just
Speaker 2: our family's really close together, and I've we've watched a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys have been successful for a lot of years,
Speaker 1: and I think it took a few years to develop
Speaker 1: this system of understanding and finding the elk and knowing
Speaker 1: how to huh them. So for our listeners, don't get
Speaker 1: discouraged if the first first year you try to apply
Speaker 1: these tactics, you go out there and it's it's like,
Speaker 1: well I got I did better, but maybe I didn't.
Speaker 1: Not a tag. It's going to take a little while
Speaker 1: to develop that system and get that gut feeling and
Speaker 1: understand where those elk are going to be and where
Speaker 1: you can shoot them.
Speaker 2: So and then could I mention Yeah, so our camps
Speaker 2: that we do it also, okay please, And so we've
Speaker 2: had a lot of people ask us about, you know,
Speaker 2: how to hit elk and sometimes it's really tough to
Speaker 2: teach people online. So we've actually just started this year
Speaker 2: doing an elk camp where people can come out there
Speaker 2: is we just we made it really simple. The name
Speaker 2: is Stuck and Rode Elk Camp, and we've had people
Speaker 2: come out. We teach them how to elk hunt and
Speaker 2: teach them several different tactics, teach them about long range shooting,
Speaker 2: teach them about archery talk. You know, we did the
Speaker 2: whole teaching people how to use the calls and and
Speaker 2: so that is an option for you guys if if
Speaker 2: you want to do that now. I don't have the
Speaker 2: next one announced for next year, but staying caught like that,
Speaker 2: follow Stuck and Rod on Instagram and we will announce
Speaker 2: it here shortly when we for the next camp, So
Speaker 2: stay tuned for that. I just wanted to mention that metcha,
Speaker 2: So it's great. If you guys really want to learn
Speaker 2: our goals, we want to cut that learning curve. And
Speaker 2: the reasonhy I was saying that is you said I
Speaker 2: was there where I was scratching my head, and I
Speaker 2: was like, and is especially when we lost our numbers,
Speaker 2: our elk numbers. It's like, Okay, well now I have
Speaker 2: to really learn how to hunt elk because just pounding
Speaker 2: the mountain and just putting the time alone was no
Speaker 2: longer helping me. So I actually had to learn. I
Speaker 2: had to put in not just the time, but I
Speaker 2: also had to learn and understand what I'm hunting and
Speaker 2: the behavior of the yelk. And so we can teach
Speaker 2: you there and we can cut that learning curve. It's
Speaker 2: an investment. Like if what you learn there is going
Speaker 2: to cut, you cut your learning curve in half, if
Speaker 2: not more. And you know you I've had people and
Speaker 2: you've probably heard people say this to you too. I've
Speaker 2: hunted elk for five to six years and I've I've
Speaker 2: not killing elks.
Speaker 1: Folks tell me twenty years. They've hunted elk for twenty
Speaker 1: years and they still have a Nashia tag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so if you guys are in that position.
Speaker 2: It's it's and it's not saying you suck at hunting.
Speaker 2: It's just maybe you're just missing a couple of things.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there's just some fine tuning that we have to do.
Speaker 1: Looking for that aha moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I was there, like I said, I
Speaker 2: was there. I was there was a time where I
Speaker 2: had to learn there's a time where I didn't notch
Speaker 2: my tag. I've ate plenty of tags. So but now
Speaker 2: I feel like we're really consistent with it. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's really funny is that my quality, although we have
Speaker 2: less elk, my quality and my success has got better.
Speaker 2: So how interesting is that that when we had more elk,
Speaker 2: I was killing less elk? Right, And so it's just
Speaker 2: it's just the fact that we've learned how to do
Speaker 2: it better.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah. And Phelps is a proud supporter of those
Speaker 1: ELK camps and you're camp and.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys for everything you've done with that.
Speaker 2: That's been really helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, happy to help anyway we can. So we like
Speaker 1: to support people that we believe in, So.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Well, thanks a lot for coming on. I would
Speaker 1: like to remind our listeners. If you guys have questions
Speaker 1: for the podcast, whether it's for the host or for
Speaker 1: maybe one of our subject matter experts, please email us
Speaker 1: at CTD at Phelpsgamecalls dot com, or you can call
Speaker 1: our super secret number and you can leave a message
Speaker 1: and let us know you can leave a message. Keep
Speaker 1: your message at three minutes are under because if it's
Speaker 1: over three minutes, the recorder will cut you off. But
Speaker 1: record your message your question, ask your question, and we
Speaker 1: will play your question on the air and answer it
Speaker 1: to the best of our abilities. So thanks again, Tom,
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. I've had an incredible week up here,
Speaker 1: or incredible three days up here looking for wolves and
Speaker 1: trying to try to notch a wolf tag with you
Speaker 1: and Man I hope, I hope we can connect again
Speaker 1: soon and maybe on some kind of another adventure.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate
Speaker 2: it and had a lot of fun. We had a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. I mean, obviously we always want to
Speaker 2: notch a wolf tag. We know how challenging it is.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, it's it's it's not easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 2: It's it's the same thing with el cutting though. It's
Speaker 2: like you put in your time, you're gonna it's not
Speaker 2: if it's when you're gonna get a wolf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's one hundred percent. Yep. All right, thank you.
Speaker 1: M m m m hm.
Speaker 2: Hm hm
Speaker 1: Hm hmm