00:00:11
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. ELK season is right around the corner, and I’d be lying to say that this isn’t my favorite time of the year to record podcasts because I get to talk about ELK. I got to talk about ELK calls, ELK calling, the strategy, the what works most of the time, what works not very often, what can improve your odds of when you go to make that call that that bowl ends up into archery range or muzzle at range or whatever your your your weapon is. And so I love this time year. I love talking podcasts about ELK. So we’re gonna answer I got four listener questions they’ve showed up in my email over the last week. I’ve sweaked them a little bit to be better podcast question. Then we’re going to just jump into the what and why of ELK calls, ELK vocabulary, and how I think about that basic sounds everye hundred needs to know out in the woods, and maybe sounds that don’t really matter, and then going to maybe some more advanced strategies on you know, telling the story, add realism, being able to read the response that you’re getting from ELK out there to become more successful and making sure that your next move is maybe the right move, so to jump. In today’s Pendleton Whiskey’s Question and Answer h question number one, I have an elk showing up on my I have elk showing up on my cameras, but there aren’t very many bowls. What is your play? And so this is this is an interesting topic and something that I got wrong more so early and uh, you know my hunting before I knew what I knew. Now, you’re just fine. Uh, if you’ve got cows, you’ve got you know, calves, maybe maybe a few raghorn bulls. Maybe a few big bulls show up every once in a while, but not very consistently. I wouldn’t worry this time of year July and August leading up to September. These big bulls are typically bachelored up. They are in an area with the best food. Typically these cows and calves are in the best food that they can find that provides the security, the betting, all the things they need to rear those calves. So don’t get too worried about having you too many bulls on your camera. Now. That said, back in the day, I did a lot of both camera and then you know, boots on the ground scouting. I don’t get to do as much of that anymore, but I really liked when I when I had cameras, but then I could go up for a weekend and scout the area out. I can use my binoculars, like are there any bowls in this area? Or are the bulls hanging out in a very very small secluded area. If a bull can get the food that they need, the amount of food, get the water, and then get the security and betting really just to escape from heat this time of year, that bowl isn’t going to travel too far. He’s going to live in a pretty tight, tight area once they’ve yeah, you know, migrated back to where their their summer range fall range is. So you’re not going to get a lot of bowls on cameras if they’re cow and calves. Now, if you’re in a spot with bowls on your camera and not a lot of cows and calves, that’s more concerning to me because I’ve been in this scenario multiple times where I’ve had, you know, the target bowl or the bulls I wanted to kill on camera. And August twentieth to twenty fifth testosterone starts kicking up. These bulls are interested in cows. They will sometimes leave that area by a half mile, a mile, two miles to go find, you know, a herd of cows and do what they’re going to do for the fall. So that’s more concerning to me when I’ve got a bunch of bulls on camera. I found that that if I really needed and wanted to keep track of them, I need to be scouting boots on the ground sometime around the end of August in the early September whenever, you know, or prior to your season starting, so you can be on those bowls. No, it’s direction they’re going, kind of which way they’re they’re heading, and it’s just you know, oversimplify it. But if you lose them from where they’ve been, you kind of go every direction, you know, a mile, you can’t find them there, you go out to two miles, you just slowly start to expand that radius until you can track them back down. Kind of a quick funny story, not real funny for me because I didn’t end up killing the bowl. But back in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine, we had a very very big bowl for the area that we hunted on the ground and he was running with a couple other good bulls. And we had watched this bowl only boots on the ground, no cameras up in this area the entire summer. Didn’t see anybody else, you know, aside from normal hikers, no hunters that were up there, you know, keeping tabs on them, paying attention. And we got there, you know, went in the weekend before, packed in some food, and then came back the following week ready for elk season. We never seen that bowl during season, and he was like clockwork leading up to it, all of July, all of August, I think we spent every weekend up there but one watching him, trying to figure out, all, right, where does he like to go. This was you know, before my understanding of what was really about to happen, and during season we never seen him. Well, we thought he had vanished, had maybe been killed prior to season, you know, either tribal hunting or some something had happened, because he just vanished from where it was the weekend before, like clockwork. Fast forward two years, you know, kind of his Phelps game calls becomes more popular, People are sharing more information with me. I get an email from a guy that I now know fairly well with pictures of this bowl, and I asked him, I said, well, if you don’t mind, you know, telling me, like where was this bowl killed? You know, it puts a lot of a lot of knowledge in my bag of tricks, and just so I I understand this, and that bowl was killed three and a half miles down the mountain and across the ridge where you know, my normal Where did we find this bowl? We never found him, and that was on the third day of season they killed him. So I think it was September fourteenth that year. By September eleventh, No, No, September eleventh was an opener. I believe we’d watch that bowl on September seventh, and so within a one week span, that bowl moved three and a half miles across the major drainage and actually down the mountain, which was kind of counter what I typically think, you know, a bowl is going to do. So it was just one of those things. He gets you thinking like these bowls are going to go find the cows that they want to find, and that’s where they’re going to end up. And so yeah, don’t worry if you’ve got cows on your camera. You’re in good shape. You got bowls on your camera. That’s a great thing. But you’re going to have to keep tabs on them to figure out where they end up. Now, we may be over dramatizing this as well, because there are times where that bowl may move an eighth of a mile, or he may stand in that same patch of timber and him and the cows join up there, or as I’m scouting, I see that the bowls and the cows are in the same base, and it’s not that big of a deal. They’re probably just gonna stay there, But more times than not, the bulls are going to move to go find the cows. Question number two, how often should I expect a bowl to come into my calls? So that’s a pretty open question, but I’m gonna I’m gonna cut it down into a few different you know, add a few details, and then and then give you my answer. So back in the day when I was a new elk hunter, of course, it was Pacific northwest Roosevelts. If I got within one hundred yards, the elk didn’t know I was there, and the wind was right. I feel that within those parameters, I was going to be able to get that bowl to come into my calls forty to fifty percent of time, and that’s that’s within bow range. Typically. You know, there there may be some times where they hang up at fifty or sixty if I didn’t get my setup just right and just be able to you know, get a shot. But I would say forty to fifty percent of the time I can get that bowl to break from his herd or a satellite bowl to break from that herd and come into my calls. Now, let’s say you hear a bowl b a goal from five hundred yards away, a thousand yards away, what I would consider a distance that you’re not set up, you’re not ready to try to call that bowl in, but you decide to call to that bowl. Typically, those those call ins are going to be down in the single digits, and I would say it to the bottom end of those. There have been times where we sit down for a quick lunch break. We’re you know, getting our sandwiches out, and somebody decides to sit down and blowing a call and you might get a response, and you know, throughout lunch you keep messing with them. The next thing, you know, the elks right on top of you. That has happened, so I’m not saying it won’t. Now that’s typically going to be a satellite bowl that doesn’t have any cows, doesn’t have a lot to lose, and he’s willing to come into your calls, which is great if you’re just after any legal lulk, which I think most of us are. You know, most hunters are great tactics. But I would say that only works because you planned on sitting there anyways. You have nothing to lose, go ahead and do it. But if I was hunting and wanting to try to kill that bull that answered before I sat down, or if you’re the person that’s like, you know what I can eat later, I’m gonna go after this elk, I would still cut the distance on the elk as long as I could do it with keeping the wind right from where I’m at and moving. With all of that said, a lot of it goes into how you approach. I think, knowing what to say, how close to get. I’ve always felt the closer you can get to any elk, whether it’s a cow, a herd bowl, a satellite bowl, a mature satellite bowl, an immature satellite bowl, a spike. The closer you can get, the more often a bowl is going to come into you. Now, it’s just by odds, right. If you if you’re five hundred yards away from an elk and they go off on any any direction. Let’s just say I’m unpersuaded to go a certain direction, the likelihood that that bull walks by you within shooting range is obviously higher the closer you can get. Now, this has nothing to do with calling, but it’s just a simple fact that you’ve cut the distance down and you’ve literally tightened that bubble up to a point where there’s a higher likelihood that that bowl doesn’t need to move very far to come into your calls. A lot of people will be like, let’s not calling them in. That’s that’s you know, spot in stock with a little bit of calling. Call it whatever you want. I’m there to kill elk. I use ambush, I use set up in calling. I get in front of elk and try to get him to walk by me. I sneak in on elk when I need to. But typically I’m not just calling. I’m using a lot of these tactics together, and a lot of people I feel, you know, when I get to listen to stories. People just think they’re going to call an elkin without doing a lot of these other things. Is getting the wind right, getting close, using the train and vegetation to their advantage. So how often she’d expect the bull to come into your calls, it depends on if you’re doing everything else right. I would say that the percentage goes way down on a mature herd bull just by the way they think that mature herd bull has cows. Typically he doesn’t necessarily want to leave those cows to come find the cow or the bull that’s calling to him. The way the world works is if that bowl beagles, if it’s a cow, she should come in and check out, and she’s going to pick whether that’s the bull she wants to breed her or if a bull’s filling saucy enough, you know, filling his oats, that bowl will then come in and try to take that bull’s cow. So by us sitting back trying to call a bowl into us, we’re kind of trying to reverse nature a little bit there, and that’s why it doesn’t work as often as we would like. And that’s my opinion on that I do go in This is just this kind of a little side note. I expect that every out I’m going after is going to come into my calls, So well, why does that matter? I don’t leave, you know, I think people can get lazier, like, oh, this has got a ten percent chance, let’s just go. You know, set up here. It’s not the best setup, but I’m gonna do it. Anyways. I’ve found that no matter what, I expect that ball to come into my call. So I’m getting a good setup, I’m getting a good hide, I’m getting the wind perfect, I’m doing all of these things so that if it does happen, I can capitalize on that chance. So I always expect the ball to come in, but the reality is it typically doesn’t happen that way. And there’s there’s I would be lying to say, there aren’t some units where some bowls are harder to call in. Whether it’s based on terrain, vegetation, herd dynamics, the amount of bulls in the area, the amount of cows in the area, so that kind of gets factored in is a factor as well on how many how often you’re gonna all these bulls in so you’re out. This was a question number three you’re out in the woods, you finally find some success. What is your approach when it comes to breaking down an elk? So I always look at it like I got three different methods. I can gut the elk and skin the elk and get everything off of the animal. You know. Some people like the gut, they say it cools it down. I would argue that in most cases, if the animals in the right right spot, the right area, which is ninety five percent of the time, I can break down and bone out an animal before you know, half the time it took me to gut it, and by you know, by then I’m done. So I don’t feel that there’s a lot of merit in you know, cooling them down quickly by the guts really matters, you know. With with two guys, most of the time, I can have an elk broke down in our backpack within an hour and we’re out of there. So number one, I always look at gutless method. It just saves me an extra step from getting in there. I can still get to the heart, I can still get to the tender loins through the gutless method. For those of you that don’t know, you can go up to the hip socket and then just directly on the back side of the spine. You can make some incisions there and slowly walk kind of the the gut back and you can extract the tender loins there perfectly intact. Don’t ever have to expose them to the gut cavity like you do when you get them. You know, in case there’s a bad hit, we can avoid all of that. We can get the heart out, we can cut the forget looking at them, you know, second, third, fourth ribs out, break you know, break the ribs out if that’s an easier, quicker method, so we can get everything that I want to get out of an elk through through a gutless. Now, the question for me usually is is it bone in or bone out? If we look around, If I look around and I’ve got four guys, four guys, it is kind of that limiting factor. Or if it’s not too long of a hike to get this to a road a trail system, something I do like the bone in structure. I don’t like the bone in weight when I’ve got to pack these things more than a mile a mile and a half, or if I don’t have enough guys and all you know, the majority of that elk is going to be on my back. I will then d bone and I there’s some difference. A lot of guys will still take the quarter out with the bone in and then do it on the ground. I found it’s much quicker, much cleaner, much easier just to take the muscle fibers apart on the bone why it’s on the animal, and then directly turn, you know, put that put the just the meat into a meat bag. So those are my two decisions. I really got to make gutting yes or no. Ninety percent of the time it’s no. Ninety five percent of the time it’s no. So I’m going to gutless. And then I’ve got to decide whether I’m going bone in or bone out, and that typically depends on distance. Now a lot of people ask, well, how do you go about your gutless methods? What’s your plan? So ideally the ground permitting, you can always typically get a line up the back, so from tail to the back of the neck or the base of the horns. I will just take my knife and zip it straight up the back. Now, if I’m on the back quarter, I will start down below the knee joint, and I will typically go up to the line I just drew, you know, straight up the leg all the way and I might end up a foot away from the tail, you know, kind of I’m kind of aiming for that hip bone. And then I will also take a line down the belly. This gives me two flaps that I can open up and kind of open the leg up perfectly, keeps the hair off of the meat, gives me leverage from when I’m pulling on the underside of the hide. I can get some leverages i’m skinning, which makes skinning faster, and it just keeps the meat really really clean, and it gives me full access to that hind order the same thing on the front. You go up the front leg, you tie in up above the shoulder, and then you you since I’ve already made my line over and kind of half the bowl, the front quarter guy typically gets to take that that the other flap of skin and drape it off the belly. We will then remove both front quarters half of the neck meat that’s exposed, and then we will take the backstrap and the tenderloin off of that side. It’s very very simple. Through a podcast, I can’t necessarily talk about cutting out all the different you know, roasts or state groups. You can you’re gonna to figure that one on your own, or you know, watch YouTube videos or if you need to. You can bone these things out, keep the bone on and and separate the muscle groups later. But I just like to make sure when it comes off of the bone, it goes right into a bag and I’m i’m can take care of it at the meat shop or whatnot. We then use we will roll the olk uh you know, to the other side, do the same method and get out of there. You know, bone in a little quicker. We we take it off at the hip socket. We always like to pop the joints out there. You got to clean. You know, you don’t have a leg hanging over your head. It makes a tidier kneat your pack. You’ll have the four quarters, you’ll have your backstraps, tender loins, and neck. Meat will typically go in a you know, multiple other bags or one other kind of loose meat bag, and it’s really a quick and effective way. I will there have been times where I’ve had to leave an elk overnight. It was in extremely difficult terrain. You know, I needed somebody else there to help me. In that case, you will try. I will gut the elk. If I’m going to leave it overnight. I will typically find a stick that’s eighteen twenty inches long, you know, whatever it needs to be, depending on the elk’s land to keep that cavity completely open. I want as much air to get in there and be able to you know, get in there and cool that elk down from the inside. Now what I will do, depending on how the elk’s laying, I will try to skin as much of that elk as I can from the outside. So I’ve now got it gutted, and I’ll try to, you know, especially open up the backstraps, you know, the neck area. The neck will hold the most heat for the longest. You try to get that neck opened. If it’s in a spot where I can get the esophagus out, I will try to get that out that night, knowing that I’m not gonna be able to get back and take care of the rest of the meat until a later time. And then I will typically, if I can leverage the thing, I will try to get a log or two under the downside, just to get air flowing through there, so it’s not you know, warm elk against the ground kind of insulating that thing. But that’s typically the one time I will lean towards gutting. Yeah, you could, and if I can get a quarter off, I’ll take that quarter out on that first trip. But the rest of the meat, I’m trying to get the tenderloins, backstraps, the majority of that elk cool down in time to make sure that all the elk, the elk meat is perfect when I show up the next morning with help or for my second load. And the fourth and final question here on the Pendleton Whiskey question and answer, where should I start looking to find elk in Unit XYZ. Some units there are elk everywhere, from top to bottom, from left to right, west, east, north to south, top of the ridge, bottom of the ridge, everywhere. There are some units that are difficult when we go to New Mexico, and the elk are dependent on the water sources that are there. Obviously, you’re going to go to the water in the morning or in the evening, try to figure out what elk are there. Are they showing themselves in the daylight, or can I be on a vehicle and chase them back? But rather than just specific spots like that. I like to get up as high as I can. One of the things I do when i’m pre scouting in area is just like, all right, if I’m I’m on this peak and I’m looking at Google you know, Maps, and I’m in Google Google Earth and three D or whatever software you use, you know, on X maps three D? What can I see from here? What openings? What area can I see early in the morning where they’re going to be feeding? Can I see where elk might be? It might not be the most prime looking area, but if I can see with either my binoculars or my spotting scope from there, I’m willing to give up a day a morning to just figure the unit out. So I’m going to a high point. I’m going to use my glass to cover as much areas as I can. And now let’s say you’re sitting on this knob and to the west, so you’re looking at You’re looking to the west, but everything’s in east aspect. All the elk were on that aspect, and not necessarily when I look to the east and you know, looking at west aspects, I’m going to start to figure out why are all the elk over here, or is it just the side of the mountain if I moved over a couple of miles, or all those elks still on the east side in the morning, What’s what’s causing them to be there? Or is it just there more elk on that side of the unit. Is there maybe some private down there, is there something that they like or is it up in? You know, why are they there? And then you start to hone in on like where’s your highest density, where are the most of your elk? And then you start to move in. You start to make your game plans around that rather than than you know, the old day is where I would put an X on the map, like this is where I think I’m gonna kill an elk. Never quite panned out, like starting fresh, almost going in blind, figuring out where the elk are at that day and then making my plan from there. So I’d rather spend time on on on X Google Earth, figuring out just a general area and a high point and then going from there, rather than figuring out, oh this this drainage has good food, you know, good betting, good water. I’m gonna go there. So that’s how I approach that. Now you do want to keep track of good food sources. You can change satellite dates on on X. I want to make sure I’m not in a heavy populated area because there may be elk there, but I don’t want to deal with the hunters. I’m checking food sources like are they turning brown above above a certain line. I’m checking rain data like was it a super dry year? Was it this a normal year? And the food burns up? Like what’s the food looking like? Where these elk gonna end up. I’m always looking for wallows that are full, or water ponds, little ponds, seeps, lakes that run you know, into the end of September, and if not, I’m trying to find main creeks that those elk can go to and get their water because elk are gonna need that water during September. And so I’m just paying attention to like these things that I know the elk are gonna need. But I think one of the biggest mistakes is putting all of your eggs into a basket from the computer, or putting all your eggs into your basket from when you went scouting three weeks ago where you saw a bowl and you haven’t seen him since. Be flexible, be willing to move, and I think you’re going to find more success. So that’s going to wrap it up for the Pendleton Whiskey Q and A. Now I’m going to jump into some of the conversations. Some of these are are a little polarizing. You know, people, we haven’t really hit on these. I’m always wanted to admit there’s a lot of ways to do this, and some of the people that do it their way have success. I just I’ve been doing this long enough to know and to you know, not one to call myself a nerd, but I am a nerd. When I was learning the Elk hunt, I would spend forty five to sixty days out in the woods just listening to elk, watching elk from early early pre era all the way to post rat. When I was in high school college, just spent a lot lot of time taking notes, building a notebook, trying to figure this thing out. So when it comes to elk vocabulary, I’m a guy. I’m in the business of selling elk calls. I’m not in the business of having to create a system where this vocabulary, this unknown language. I’m not a linguist, and there’s no you know, dictionary, thesaurus decoder on what Elker’s saying and why they’re saying it. Now, let me give you some information when a couple certain herds shoot. I would have been a senior in high school, freshman in college, so way back in two thousand and one, two thousand and two, I just went out every single night. It was a forty five minute drive up the river. I’d get on my bike, ride about forty five minutes, and there were some larger caliber bowls that would just multiple would hit a similar clearcut. This area didn’t have very many clearcuts back then. A lot of good elk and I would just watch. And this is where I’m maybe a little bit of a naysayer on on well, when an elk says this, that means that, and when an elk chuckles, that means this. And when you know an elk lipballs and screams, it means this. You know, some of my good buddies, Joel Turner, you know he talks about you know, bulls calling cows or you know, there’s all these different sounds. But I literally watched there were two herd bowls and probably four or five satellite bowls. I just sat and watched them, and there was no rhyme or reason to the sound that they were making. Those bulls. One bowl they’d be feeding, he’d pick his head up do a nice clean note bugle, and the other one would be over there lipballing and chuckling, but doing the same thing. The next day you’d go out there, you’d watch them in your spotter. Obviously, it’s one of those things where you could see them biggling before the sound would get to you, and you’re like, oh, this should be him, and he would sound completely different. Now he was doing a lip ball with a chuckle, and he wasn’t rounding his cows up, he wasn’t doing anything besides feeding along with them. You know, some of them would like when they would get a little closer, they would scream, and I’m like, all right, well, I’m starting to think that this vocabulary has more to do with emotion. That other bowl went from feeding in the middle of the pack to the front. As we got closer to that other group of elk, that other herd of elk, he’s getting a little more ticked off. Well, then the other bowl would bogle back a little more aggressively. So just by observing this group and then observing a lot more group of groups of elk. You know, later, I’ve decided that I’m not necessarily going to call based on if your feed alongside of a cow do this, or when you know, some other hunter rode up on him and they bugled and ran off. There was no rounding up, There was none of this. They they they didn’t beagle until they were two minutes into the timber, and then he was trying to, you know, bigle maybe let his cows know where it was. Those elk are always going to be able to let the cows know, like, hey, I’m over here. So I’m not saying there isn’t something to the vocabulary, just from my experience, my observation, my understanding. When it comes to vocabulary, I think it’s just like people and voices, like I can shout at you. We can all shout at you. You know, you can have you can have somebody that sounds like they’ve inhaled, you know, pound of helium yell at you. Regardless of what their voice sounds like. We understand that it’s a yell. There’s some frustration in there. When I yell at you, it’s the same as when you know, John Doe yells at you there, So there’s emotion there. Now if I’m talking sweet to you and somebody yet, like what I’m getting at is, we all have different voices, but the emotion still comes out the same. If I yell at you, I yell at you. If I’m you know, if I’m frightened, I’m frightened. If I’m you know, talking excited, I’m excited. There’s and I feel that there’s no reason why that doesn’t translate into into elk. You know, vocabulary that sounds Everybody sounds different, everybody has a different voice. I’ve hunted enough elk to watch these things in different scenarios where it was truly a vocabulary and a certain soundment and an eggs thing. It hasn’t happened very very often. It The elk aren’t often right, and the cows often don’t respond the way that some of these guys say I don’t. I’m not trying to sell you a system or of a vocabulary. I’m trying to sell you an ELK call and then you can decide how you’re gonna call. So that’s where I think I get a little bit of ability to get away from a vocabulary. I’m not trying to sell this system, this this uh, this language that you got to try to decode. I’m not selling you an ELK language decoder. I’m selling you an ELK call to sound like an ELK to then match their emotions. So that’s kind of where I stand on vocabulary. Never got too much into it. If you can figure it out and it helps you and makes you a more confident caller. Great, And this is going to sound really pretentious and higher than now, but I’ve I know what success I’ve had, I know what success these others have had. They’ve had some, but there’s no denying that. But by playing on emotions, you’re going to be just as successful every year. And I think you’re going to make the right call more times than not than trying to figure out, well that ELK said this, that’s what he’s doing. Now I need to respond with this. I think you play on emotions, you’re going to be better off. The what and why of ELK calls, let’s jump into that briefly, explain the cow sounds I think you need to know in order to be successful out there, ones you maybe don’t need to know, and then how to use them, what’s a purpose of them. So we have just the simplest cawmew, really really easy call to make, one that I feel like everybody in their elk calling journey should start with. It’s just a cow mew, super easy. Just it’s cow to cow communication. We’ve heard a cow do this, a cow answer back, or a cow just makes it. Nothing else responds. It’s just the typical sound that a cow will make. Now a calf call a little higher pitched, typically a more frantic sound. Calf’s talk a lot we’ve we’ve you know, back in the day, we used calf calls or a calf call to alert us that there’s a herd around. Real short, high pitch, high pitch. They typically call more often. Next up is a location bugle. This is what we call a location bugle. It’s a two to three high note bugle. Two to three note high note bugle. We typically try to keep it fairly short. And this is kind of that Marco polo. This is the Marco side of that game. I’m just trying to get a simple high note bugle that travels well, cuts the wind, is relatively short, so then I can listen just to get a response to get the game started. So this is what my typical location bugle sounds like. I pitch simple, short, thump it off at the end, try to get it to reach as many elk as possible. Now we’re gonna go on to a challenge bigle, and this is where I think that the terminology gets real loose. This is what I make my challenge beagle. So this is the bugle. I’ve moved in close. I think I’m within one hundred yards of a herd bowl. Ideally I’m closer, But this is the bugle I’m gonna start with to challenge him for his cows. I’m gonnadd some voice in a little bit of growl in the middle, and I’m typically gonna grunt off of the end of it. That’s the bugle I do challenge him. Hopefully, if I’ve did all my work right, I’ve got close enough, got the wind right, That’ll be the last sound I need to make prior to that bowl coming in. You know, from one hundred yards away, that bowl is gonna have you pinpoint and know exactly what tree you’re standing under and be able to track you down. Now, yeah, that’s kind of it. I kind of added the grunts and you know, and there’s chuckles on the end. But that’s the that’s really all you need to know to be a successful hunter. Now, there are times and there are hunts. You know, the old Hule Cogan hunt in Wyoming. I got in a stand off with a bowl for over two minutes, and he kind of knew something wasn’t right. He maybe heard us, you know, the grass moving as we were getting the position, and he barked at me. And so a bark is I will agree that there. I’ve had this happen enough that a bark an elk will typically bark when they’ve seen or heard something that they don’t expect to be there. And it’s kind of a come show yourself type of a call. Like some it’s not right, I can’t smell you, but I seen or heard something I don’t like. And in this case, I was able to bark back at this bowl to get him to come out in the open. I basically said no, you come show yourself, and he walked out and I was able to make a great shot on that bowl. But a bark is just kind of a blast of air. We add some voice then, so both bowls and cows will bark at you, and you I feel like you need to be able to do that back. Now there are lipball bugles where you sputter your lips. Those can be used. I like to use mimicry a lot, which I’m gonna get into here in a little bit. I like to use mimicry to call. So whatever that bowl I’m trying to call on this doing, I’m gonna do it right back. And so if he’s you know, lipball and he’s got that sputter going, I like to be able to match that. And and uh so you know lipballs, estross buzzes, you know, an estross buzz, a lipball bugle. These things are calls that we use on the stage but can have their purpose out in the field. And by being a good caller, it gives you those tools. So we generate the the estress buzz by by you know, kind of vibrating in your throat. You know, you got some get get your vocal cords going. And then on the lip ball, we’re sput on our lips really really tight as we begle through the tube. There’s all these other calls that you can you know, lost cow, you know, a screen bugles, all these other things. They can be effective, and by being a good caller you can match those out in the woods. But I think having a cou mew, a calf call, location bogle, and the challenge bugle, you’re going to be ninety nine percent of the way there this fall. So get practicing. We got a month and those are really the only calls I need to use, you know, every fall. How do I change my calling strategies based at where we are at in the rut. So being a guy that goes out and likes the target herd bulls, I feel early in the rut, you know, August twenty fifth to September second or third, I may be more heavy on the cow calls. Those herd bulls, they’re checking on cows, kind of seeing what’s around. They let the satellite bulls actually put the herds together and for the most part, and so you start to see a progression of size of bowls with that herd. You might go through a phase where there’s what we would call a raghorn and then all of a sudden, the satellite bowl shows up, you know, mature satellite bowl, and then the herd bowl will finally show up and take over that herd. So these bulls during that pre rut time are running around checking on cows, trying to figure out if any of them are ready to come into estrus. So in that time, I feel like bugling isn’t necessarily going to be as effective. Now. It can work, and it has worked, but I rely a little bit more heavily on my cow calling. You know, if I’ve got a tag that starts early, same thing with late. If I’m August first to August fifth, excuse me, October first to October fifteenth, kind of the tail end of the rut, and a lot of areas I will can go back to a little bit more cal calling. Now, I will locate more with a bugle in the post raft than I will in the preret because those bowls are still a little more active. They’ll they’ll typically give you a response. And then in the middle, you know, September fifth through the September thirtieth, like everything’s on the table. I feel at that point cow calls bugles. Whatever system I need to run, I’m able to. Now here’s where we get into the vocabulary. We talk about telling the story, which we all can agree you can’t tell a story with out of vocabulary, but telling a story with your calls. This is where you play a temperature and I will create scenarios, my herd bowl scenario. If I can get with one hundred yards, I’ll typically do a couple of cawmeos or a little bit longer drawn out cameos, and then I’ll challenge biegle right on top. So I’m painting the picture that one of your cows got a little bit far away when she was feeding, or she bedded a little bit far away, and there’s a bull a herd bowl right on top of her, ready to take care of her. That is what I feel by painting that picture. Uh, you know the the bob ross of elk calling. I’ve painted a picture that says, hey, you’re gonna lose your cow or I’m gonna breed her over here, And so I’m trying to elicit that response from him. You know, if I’m calling I And this is where people may think I’m crazy, Like I I get pretty into it, like what if I’m an elk making this elk call right here? Like what am I doing? Why am I right here? So if I’m a hot cow ready to be bred, whether it’s a satellite bowl coming in, That’s what I’m trying to do. Like why would it would a cow come to him? Would a cow be comfortable here? Like do I’ve got the ability to move, you know, one hundred yards towards him, which I may want to use up during this call in? Like what would a hot cow ready to be bred sound like? Would should be more urgent? Would she be more frantic? You know, I don’t call like a small bull of because I feel like even the smallest bulls out there once they can, you know, muster up a bugle aside from a spike, Like I’m never calling as big as some of these smaller bowls, but you know, you could be a small bowl challenging a bigger one. You know, are you am I going in there like, hey, this is a big satellite bowl, you know? Or’s this a big satellite bowl that has maybe just a couple of cows. I might go in like a little bowl, just like, hey, I’m just trying to check things out. You know, it can not elicit a response, and then in that telling the story we need to add realism. So I I am a huge proponent you know I sell calls. I don’t sell sticks, so but you need to use a stick while you’re out there all cutting create natural sounds. You’re breaking branches, you’re raking trees. If I’m by water, I might splash water. You know, we’ve all we’ve all seen the elk run out into a wallow or a pond and splash around or when they when they get to it, like just create natural, realistic sounds. So we’re telling the story and we’re adding realism to these calls. And also in adding realism, I take it is what the woods are doing at that point is real per cliche, easy to say, you know, Captain obvious, whatever you want to call me. But let’s say there’s a herd across the canyon and the cows are all mewing, and the bull’s bugle and following them. In that case, adding realism, I can also start to throw in a lot of different cal calls, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can just throw all these different cal calls because that’s what’s happening on a landscape. And then a bull can bugle. Now you may not be in a spot to call him in right there, but let’s say it takes you ten to fifteen minutes to move I wouldn’t hesitate to then still be that hurt of elk. When I move in, You’re just adding realism, and you may buying yourself time to get a little bit closer to that bowl. But in the meantime you can have a buddy stay back and add that realism. So I just don’t want to be the odd one out on the landscape in my elk calling, Like why is there a elk you know, quote unquote, Why am I up at the top of this ridge hammering out bugles when none of these other ridges around me have the same thing going on. Now I may go up there and beigle wants see if I get a response, no response, move on, try a different tactic, but be realistic and fit into the landscape with with your calls is huge, And then I’m gonna close this whole thing up with you know, kind of piggybacks on vocabulary, kind of piggybacks on how I call. I then need to read the response, and this is where I think the magic happens in elk calling. You need to pay attention to how the bull’s answering, where the bull’s moving as you’re trying to call to him, where do they want to go? If you can read the responses to how they respond, where they’re responding from the intensity and how they respond, Are there any other elk in the group responding, You’re gonna be way better off, you know? Is he bugling back immediately after my call? Is he waiting a minute? Does he really seem to need five minutes between beagles? Can I turn the temperature up on him? Or is he cutting me off? Like? Then, now I know I’m dealing with the bull that’s very aggressive. I’m very frustrated to even hear my bugle. This is what’s going to establish that mood and help you decide your next move and and reading, like reading the response, how I should respond. If I’m moving in to get set up on a bowl and he’s hammered off bugles the entire time, I’m going to assume that ball is pretty active and I can go right to it. Now, let’s say I’ve heard a bowl bugle once or twice, I think I know where they’re at, and I’m moving in and he doesn’t bugle the whole entire time. I always kind of feel like I’ve got a bull that’s not really fired up. I may go in and use you know, cow calls and start does he answer that? And then I might have to turn the intensity up to to you know, some chuckles, and then I may end up having to rake a tree. And then I may go to a challenge bugle like what does it take to get this bull to go? And I’m reading those responses every time, I’m trying to read the response like is he moving farther away? So by by doing all of that, by reading a response, I think is the magic in that. And you’re trying to read that demeanor of that bowl he responds, how he reacts, and you’re making your best judgment on how to continue. But no, elks is right around the corner. I’m excited. It’s my favorite time of the year. You know, bulls are gonna start biggling here. We’re we’re shoot, we’re probably twenty days away. We’ll start hearing bulls. Biegeler around here and falls quickly approaching. But don’t get so hung up on being the best caller. Don’t get hung up on half of to know what the elks say, know the what and why of elk calls, know how to add realism, tell a story with your calls, be able to read the response and then be confident enough in those four or five sounds like helm you the calf, call, the location bugle, the challenge bugle, and I think you’re gonna be real. You know you’re gonna be real well off out there in the fall this year. Kat, thank you all enough, thanks for tuning into cutting the distance, and good luck to all yelk hunters out there this fall.
Read the full article here