Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
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
(00:33):
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
(00:56):
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
(01:18):
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
(01:42):
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
(02:06):
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,
(02:28):
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
(02:50):
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
(03:10):
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,
(03:32):
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
(03:53):
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
(04:14):
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
(04:35):
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
(04:58):
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,
(05:20):
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
(05:43):
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
(06:05):
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
(06:26):
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
(06:49):
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.
(07:11):
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
(07:31):
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
(07:52):
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
(08:12):
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
(08:34):
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
(08:57):
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
(09:18):
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,
(09:42):
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.
(10:05):
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
(10:27):
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.
(10:50):
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
(11:12):
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
(11:32):
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
(11:53):
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,
(12:16):
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
(12:38):
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
(12:59):
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
(13:21):
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
(13:43):
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.
(14:07):
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.
(14:27):
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
(14:47):
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.
(15:11):
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
(15:31):
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
(15:51):
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
(16:13):
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,
(16:35):
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,
(16:56):
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
(17:19):
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
(17:40):
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.
(18:03):
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,
(18:24):
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
(18:44):
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
(19:06):
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
(19:30):
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
(19:51):
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
(20:12):
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
(20:35):
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
(20:56):
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
(21:17):
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
(21:37):
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
(21:57):
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
(22:18):
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
(22:41):
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
(23:12):
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?
(23:32):
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
(23:54):
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
(24:17):
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
(24:38):
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
(25:00):
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,
(25:21):
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.
(25:43):
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,
(26:04):
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.
(26:25):
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
(26:47):
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.
(27:08):
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
(27:31):
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,
(27:51):
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,
(28:13):
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,
(28:33):
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
(28:56):
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
(29:16):
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
(29:38):
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
(29:59):
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
(30:22):
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
(30:46):
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
(31:07):
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
(31:28):
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.
(31:50):
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.
(32:10):
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
(32:39):
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,
(33:00):
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,
(33:21):
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,
(33:44):
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,
(34:06):
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,
(34:28):
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
(34:49):
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
(35:10):
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
(35:32):
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
(35:54):
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
(36:15):
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
(36:36):
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,
(36:56):
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.
(37:19):
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
(37:39):
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
(38:00):
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
(38:21):
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
(38:42):
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,
(39:03):
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
(39:25):
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
(39:48):
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
(40:09):
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
(40:30):
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,
(40:51):
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
(41:14):
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
(41:36):
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,
(41:57):
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
(42:17):
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?
(42:38):
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
(42:59):
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.
(43:19):
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
(43:41):
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.