Ep. 48: Dirk and Clay Hays

We’ve often said there are more ways than one to skin a cat when talking about archery elk hunting strategies. This week Dirk Durham sat down with “Alone” Season 8 TV Series winner and long-time traditional bowhunter, Clay Hays, to compare and contrast elk hunting tactics. Being that he is a traditional archer, and Dirk shoots a compound, their approach to bowhunting elk isn't always that different. We cover from pre-rut archery to post-rut traditional flintlock muzzleloader tactics and have a lot of great nuggets to take away to the field this fall. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Cutting
the Distance podcast. This week, we have a very special
guest sitting across from my good buddy, Clay Hayes. I
mean beautiful Boise, Idaho. It's a little different scenery for Clay.
You live in northern north central Idaho.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So Clay Hayes, let me introduce you to him. If
you have been living in a under a rock for
the last few years. Clay, I've been following him for years.
He makes primitive bows, self bows. He's been putting out
all sorts of like videos and content for I don't know,
probably over a decade, easily over a decade. The man
lives off the land. To my dismay, here, a couple

(00:59):
of years ago, I'm watching TV and I see season
eight of Alone coming on, and they're showing the people
on it, and I see Clay on there. I was like,
oh man, these other suckers don't have a chance. So
I was so excited to watch that. So Clay competed
on Alone, the TV series popular TV series Alone, and

(01:21):
end up winning the whole dang thing. So that was
that was crazy. So give us a little more background Clay.
How did you start building bows? What what made you
go building bows and kind of just learn how to
do that, live off the grid type lifestyle and and
you know, bushcraft type stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, for me, it was just always part of my interests.
I think it's part of the same thing that draws
you to hunting draws me to hunting. It's just something
that's in us that you that you can't quite put
your finger on, you know. And I've always been drawn
to archery and all types of hunting and just the

(02:05):
way I differ. And I think a lot of people
are like that when they're young, you know, they they're
they're interested in various things, but then they kind of
grow out of it. I just never grew out of it.
It just got you know, eventually I got to the
point where I could make a living doing it, even
though that wasn't part of the plan to start with.
It just kind of happened. So I kept making bows,

(02:25):
kept doing the survival bushcraft type thing, and eventually find
myself here or I'm that's why I do for a living.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
By some miracle man. I love that It's great. I
feel like it's so euthentic when people follow the things
that they love, you know, Like I remember as a
kid starting now with archer, you know, we build built
bowst out a cedar, limbs and fishing fishing line right,
you know, and and you know, as soon as I

(02:53):
could get my hands on a bow, I wanted one.
And it's awesome to see you like start from from
just the love of archery, and then you just go
compounds and continues throughout your life. And and it you
don't do it for fame or fortune. You did it
because you like it, you love it. It's just who
you are. Yeah. I think that's what I admire most

(03:13):
about about you is it's just you just do it
because that's who you are.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah. And if I had you know, like I said,
this wasn't part of the plan. I didn't really have
a plan. And if if I had had a plan
and I was like my goal was to make a
living doing this stuff, I probably would have never stuck
with it, because you know, I did this stuff for
a long time. I made YouTube videos for a long

(03:38):
time before I ever made any money at all, And
I was just doing it because I like doing it.
You know. I was teaching people how to make bows
through videos on YouTube. That's why I started. But I
like the bow make and I like the making the videos,
like the process of that creative process, and I was
good at it, and so that's why I did it.

(04:01):
And like I said, somehow just ended up making money
and that grew enough to where I could support my family.
And I was a wildlife biologist for Ido Fishing Game
for ten years while I was you know, doing YouTube
videos as well, and ended up taking off from that
in twenty seventeen and we've been doing this ever since. Wow. Yeah,

(04:23):
that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
I remember watching one of your videos. You were when
you were working for the Fishing Game and you were
floating down a remote stream. Oh yeah, and you were
checking some kind of collars, Like I think I was
picking up wolf collars or elk collars, one or the other. Yeah,
I can't remember what kind of colors it was, but
I was familiar with the stream. I was like, man,
that looks awesome. But it wasn't like you were going

(04:45):
down to there during white water season. It was looked
pretty low.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
It was really low. I was scrubbing my fight on
the bottom of the rocks pretty much the whole time.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, that was awesome. Well, you know the reason I
had you come on today is you're a longtime LK hunter.
I'm a long time elk hunter, and I think you know,
after you talk to a lot of folks that are
successful in the field over the years, and a lot
of people do it differently. At face value, you look
at how they hunt and it's like kind of at

(05:15):
face value, it looks different. But you sit down and
have a conversation and you start seeing like these little
little nuances that kind of cross paths, you know, in tactics.
And so today I want to kind of talk about
tactics for September elk season and beyond. We get a

(05:35):
lot of a lot of questions at PHELPS, whether it's
on social media or what and you guys can always
message us. You can send us a message in email
and it's the email is c t D at Phelps
Game Calls dot com. And we'll answer your question here
on the air best we can. And we have this
new thing I'm just starting here, and we have a

(05:59):
super secret phone number that you call into and you
can call in and leave a message. Your message has
to be under three minutes because if it's over three minutes,
it'll cut you off. But the phone number is two
Await two one seven seven zero one and call in,
leave a message with your question, and we'll play it

(06:19):
on the line on the air here and we'll do
our best to answer it. Whether it's me or Jason
or maybe one of our guests. Anyway, we'll get back
into the conversation. So we I've get some questions, and
here's one. This is obviously from someone who hunts Utah,
and the question is what kind of calling tactics would

(06:39):
you use in early season Utah? And I'm not personally,
I'm not real familiar with the exact dates in Utah,
but I know archery ELK opens in most units mid
August and then it runs through mid September, I think
for for archery, and you know, what would your tactics

(07:00):
be on that in that August time frame? Opener. I've
never hunted that season myself, But if you were to say,
all right, I'm going to Utah tomorrow, because here we are,
it's well, it's not even it's like the beginning of
so okay, I'm gonna go to Utah in two weeks.
What kind of tactics do you think you're gonna use
Are you gonna be doing a lot of calling?

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, I've never hunted down there like you. I've never
hunted that, you know, pre September, but I have hunted
pre rut int, you know, in Idaho. And if that,
I probably hunt probably very different than than you guys do.
If they're not talking, I'm not out there trying to

(07:43):
make something bugle, I'm not talking a lot myself. I
do a lot of just sitting on hills, glass and
trying to find where they're at. And then I still
hunt a lot. But like I said, I my objectives
are probably different in years. I hunt with primitive bow
and arrow, and so I don't limit myself to you know,

(08:06):
trophy animals or anything. I'm just trying to kill an
elk because the opportunity I have to get super close
and the opportunities to get that close, you know, have
to take the opportunities that I that I get. And
sometimes that's a cow and I'm if I shoot a cow,
I'm stoked. And so I'll sit on a ridge and
I'll glass the opposite faces. I'll try to find where
they're feeding. I get into like the freshest sign that

(08:29):
I can get into and I just still hunt my
way through those feeding areas when they're actively feeding early morning,
late evening type stuff. And if I'm hunting in an
area where they're hitting up wallows at that time, I'll
be sitting on a wallow, especially midday, early afternoon something

(08:49):
like that. So as far as calling goes, I'm not
doing much of it, unless sometimes I'll I'll do really
like cow calls if I'm still hunting and I can't
avoid making noise. If I have to make noise, I'll
calcohol just to let them know or make them think
that I'm an elk. I'm not trying to call anything

(09:11):
to me at that time of years, in.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Other words, trying to disguise your movements.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Ye. Now, for some of our listeners that may be
new to hunting, can you break down what still hunting
is all about? What? What's how do you still hunt?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah? Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, and
I've been still hunting, you know for a long time.
I started still hunting when I still living in Florida
and in Mississippi. I went to grad school Inssissippi. I
still hunt white tails on the ground with a bow,
And basically what I'm doing is I'm picking out a

(09:46):
likely area where they're going to be feeding around, and
I'm just really slowly slipping my way through there, trying
to see an animal or detect an animal some now
before they know I'm there. And so a lot of
times you're standing still. You know, you're standing still more

(10:08):
than you're walking, but you're you're moving, you know, you're
it's it's and that's how it differs from sitting in
a tree stands your You're mobile. But I'm not just
like walking through the woods. You know, I'm stop and
look and listening, observe and again trying to find that
animal before they find me. And then once I find
that animal, then I'm it moves from still hunting to stalking.

(10:31):
You know, you're trying to figure out how you can
get in position so that animal comes to you, or
maybe if in the case of elk, where you've got
where you can move a little bit more, say versus
white tails, you know, you maybe actively stalking that animal,
like actively trying to get close enough to the animal.
And that's last year and I didn't I didn't kill

(10:53):
one d an archery season last year, but the year before.
That's how I killed the cow that I killed. I
was just still hunting through an a likely spot of
feeding cover and saw her and there was just a
little bit of topography between us, and was able to
just wait till she had her head down feeding and

(11:14):
I would move, wait till she went behind a bush,
I would move, and I would just the whole time,
I'm just cutting the distance, getting a little bit closer,
a little bit closer, ended up getting within twenty five
yards ever, and wait until she turned broadside, was able
to get a good shot on her.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
I in my mind, as you're describing that, I'm picturing you.
But then I keep I picture like a mountain lion.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
It's the same thing. So I'm that's what I'm that's
what I'm targeting, is trying is behaving basically like a
mountain lion.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, So basically, get up high, do
a lot of glass, and try to locate your game first,
you know, try to find your elk first, and then okay,
I see where they're at. They're over on this other hillside.
Then quickly quietly move over there and then slow way
down and then work your way through that area.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
When when you can, when you can glass them and
get there within a reasonable amount of time, that's good.
But oftentimes you can't do that because you know they're
in the mornings, they're they're on their way up to
their bedding area, and so to start over here across
the valley and get over here and get above them
without spooking them, you just you can't do that, at
least in the country that I hunt. And so a

(12:26):
lot of times what I'll do is I'll I'll glass
them up one day, maybe in the evening or something
like that, and then I the next day, I'm there.
I'm where they where I expect them to be, so
I'm trying to be there before they get there. Sometimes work.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Then okay, yeah, yeah, I get it all right. Well,
so I would probably approach that season the same way. Usually,
my my easy answer when people ask me that is like, well,
I just go ahead and wait two weeks and I
don't go. I wouldn't go till probably September first, because
my my olk hunting is typically very calling heavy, like

(13:02):
you talked about. But if I was kind of pushed
into a corner, was like, well, this is your only shot.
You got this the opening week or or you know,
maybe have a long weekend. You know, I would I
would probably do something along those similar lines. I would,
you know, try to glass and try to find them
first and then dial it in from there. I'm still hunting,
you know, growing up in North Idaho, white tail hunting

(13:24):
with a rifle. I've done a ton of still hunting
as a young young guy, and I still do when
I when I can, and and up there, you know,
I'd always try to find a heavy stand of timber,
you know, kind of that fringe area between where they
feed through and then where they go bed down, and
then I would just still hunt through there in the
early morning light. And uh and like you say, you

(13:46):
have to move slow, so you're doing more standing than
than moving. And then and when I move, I don't
move quickly. I move real slow to where I want
to see that deer before he sees me or she
sees me.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
What everything hinges on is And that's why you have
it's so important that you move so slowly because you're
you're much more likely to see those deer, you know,
if you're stationary and they're moving. And that's that's another
reason why it's important to to get into an area
where they're going to be feeding, because when like still

(14:18):
hunting through a betting area where when they're betted is
like almost impossible, right because the only thing that they
have to focus on when they're betted is watching for you,
and they're stationary yep. So but if you can, if
you can get them, if you can find them, whether
they're up feeding or transitioning or something like that, then
it's very doable. Especially with elk.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, yeah, and you know it's not an elk, but
white tail dose they've got ice. They will I don't know,
I don't think I've ever had had anything picked me
off so easily as a white tail dough maybe turkeys.
But they will see you. I was, you know, and
like I was talking about, I kind of get in
that fringe area. But then I won't enter the betting area.
I'll sit down at the edge of it and maybe

(14:59):
I'll do some calling. So this will be like during
the rut, for instance, So I would probably do the
same thing, you know, without calls. I'd get close to it,
like well, I think they might even be betted in here.
Maybe I'll just sit down and make a few quiet
calls just for a little curiosity. Maybe one I'll get
out of the bed and kind of wander over to me.
I've done that with deer a lot. You get to
the edge of that bedding area and do some grunts
or some bleats, and pretty soon there's a buck standing

(15:22):
there looking at you. But I've had dose come walking by,
and I had a pair of boots that had really
bright yellow soles. There were some they were some pack
boots I had, and I'm sitting on my button. I'm
wearing camo, and I'm blending in pretty good, but my
feet are sitting up and then the bottom some of
my my shoe soles are just glowing like beacons. And man,

(15:44):
that white tailed dough walked over there and she immediately
saw those boots and ran off. So that's fun. So
I would say the next part of September to talk
about would be like September one through the tenth or so.
Do your tactics change it all there?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Maybe our seasons like when the rut gets kicked off.
For me, in my experience anyway, has been super variable.
Like I've been down where we're hunting now and i
haven't seen any rutting activity till like the eighth or
ninth of September, like no rubs, no nothing. And then

(16:26):
I've been down there on the first and they're just
going nuts. Uh, And so I just go and I
basically mirror the elks activity. If they're not talking, if
they're not rutting, I'm still hunting. I'm class and I'm
trying to find them. If they're talking, then you know

(16:46):
what I like to do most often, Like I don't
do a lot of location locating bugles. I just wait
for them to give their selves away, and I don't
say anything until I try to cut the distance. I
try to get as close as I can, and then
I might Google at them or something like that. And

(17:08):
so I'm basically just looking at the elks trying to
figure out what they're doing, and I just mirror their
level of activity.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Okay, so you don't really want to let announce your
presence or alert them until you're really close, and then
now they have a reason to come take a look
at what's making those calls.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
I mean, if they're I'm I'll I'll throw out some
location bugles sometimes, especially preed on like in the dark,
just trying to figure out where they're at. But once
I know where they're at, I don't I don't tell them.
I don't talk again until I'm until I figure I'm
pretty dug on close.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Okay, Now, what kind of calls once you get real close?
Are you? Are you ripping bugles? Are you cal calling?
Or you do a little bit of.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Both, mostly bugles bugles, And again I'm just I'm just
mirroring what they're doing. You know, if they're if they're
wanting to get aggressive, I'll get aggressive with them. And
if they're just kind of half hearted bugling, I'll do that.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Okay, Yeah, I like it. That's that's very similar to
kind of what I do to a degree, So I'll
do more. I'll usually if it's September first through the tenth,
I'm covering a lot of country. I may not use
a lot of glass at that point because a lot
of times I don't hunt country where you can really

(18:27):
glass and elcup. You may be surrounded by a whole
sea or a whole drainage full of conifers and there's
no opening, so you could never.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, I mean that's so heavily dependent. Like when I
used to hunt North Idaho and it's like what you're
talking about, it's all a conifer. You can't unless they're
standing out in a clear cut, you can't see them, right.
And so in that instance, I'm looking, I'm just visiting
likely areas trying to find good sign. Once I find
that good sign, like smoking hot sign, then I'll start

(18:59):
still hunt through that. If they're not talking for.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Them, okay, yeah, I'll move through the area and I'll
do some some bugling for location, and I'll bugle, and

(19:23):
I'll also add some cow calls. But I found like
that first of the tenth I get let And this
is kind of countertuitive to what a lot of people
may may think is I don't use I don't have
a lot of responses to cow calls compared to bugles.
I feel like the bulls aren't that. It's like they know,

(19:46):
like if there's there's not a lot of bugling going
on anyway, they know that there's no hot cows. It
it seems like that bulls kind of know when the
cows start. I think that that sweet smell goes all
over the mountains. They can start here, they can start smelling,
they can start bugling. But I will say, just like
you said it could be September first and it's there's
bulls chasing cows and it's a retfest. And sometimes it's

(20:08):
September fifteenth and there's none of that going on. I've
seen I've seen five point bowls with velvet on September
first before in full velvet. So I think every year
just it's so different. I think there's a lot of
variables there.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, do you have any tactics for Like, I remember
one of the first years we hunted where we hunt now,
it's like it's like September eighth or something. I'm still
seeing bachelor groups of bulls. I mean like four or
five bulls hanging out together and there's not a cow
in SIGHTE Like, what do you do in that type

(20:44):
of situation?

Speaker 1 (20:45):
That makes it super tough? One thing I will say,
I feel like that early season when bulls are still
bachelored up, or maybe they've broke off a little bit,
but they're still not too far away. Let's say that
you've got a hillside and every little finger dge has
a bull that's like, I bet he's betting on each
little ridge. There might be four bowls in this in
this big large ridge system. After they separate, they kind

(21:09):
of separate a little bit and then kind of space out.
But I feel like they're pretty territorial still. So what
I want to do is I want to get very
close to where their betting area is, and that may
be eleven twelve o'clock in the middle of the day.
Once i've if I could hear them bugle or if
I could see them, then I'm gonna get close and

(21:29):
then try to strike around midday that once those those
winds get good and stable, you know, I have to watch.
I have to watch the very first stable wind. It's like, okay,
now we got a good uphill win. Now the thermals
will changed. Let's go. But sometimes you got to wait
another thirty minutes because it can be kind of fickle.
But once they get stable for thirty minutes or so,

(21:51):
then I'm going to make a move. I'm going to
go try to get close to where I think they're betting,
and then I'm gonna start doing some bugling and some raking.
And I've had a pretty good success with that. And
the bulls don't get super mad, like you don't hear
that real emotionally charged bugle like you do September thirtieth
or September twentieth. It's more of a he's just more

(22:13):
of a just an average bugle, yeah, per se. And
as they come in, you never hear them like get
really mad. I think they're coming in at a curiosity,
like who the heck is that guy? We I know
all the guys in my little bachelor group here. I
know we've done some pecking order. Maybe they've separated from
their bachelor group, but they have their pecking order. They're
still like stationed on those little fingers. I don't recognize

(22:35):
that guy over there. Let's I'm gonna go check him out.
And and a lot of times here they come. They
don't seem to be mad, but they're just real curious.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
And you find that they're bugling coming in.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of times there bugling. I have
had them come in quiet, especially the younger bulls, like
let's say that just like a young raghorn or something
like a two and a half year old bull. Those
ones don't Sometimes those will just be quiet and they'll
just kind of come in like, yeah, here you my dad.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
And when you're so so, you have a good idea
where a likely betting area. For these bulls are on
these ridges. How close are you trying to get into those?
Before you start calling?

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I don't want to get I don't want to stay
too far away, but I don't want to get too close.
So what I like to do. I like to look
on my on X maps and I will look at first,
I'll look at the topo map and I'll look and
find the most north facing slope where I think they
could be betting. And I find that most north facing
feature on the on that finger ridge that we talked about, Okay,

(23:38):
And then I turn on the satellite imagery and I
look for the densest or the darkest timber or or
vegetation on that north face, and I'll make a mark there.
And I typically I want to go toward to that
spot and get no more than I don't want to
get any closer than one hundred yards before I start

(23:58):
doing any calling, because a lot of times, depending on
the forest, they may be able to pick you off
from one hundred yards unless it's real thick. Now, if
it's real thick, you might be able to get closer
than that. But I kind of after hunting a lot
of years, you kind of get that little feeling inside
you kind of start trusting your gut, and I start
getting pretty close to the spot, and I start getting

(24:21):
this little feeling like, man, if I go any closer,
I'm going to blow them out of here. So I'll
usually listen to my gut and then I'll stop. I'll
look for somewhere to set up good. So is the
wind good? Do I have a couple good a couple
good shooting lanes. I don't want twelve shooting lanes. I
don't want five good shooting lines. I want maybe one

(24:41):
really good one that maybe I can shoot thirty yards,
and a couple crappy ones I can shoot like five yards.
Because when I set up like that, the elcast to
come really close to see my calls. If you have
lots of shooting lanes and they can stand out there
sixty yards seventy yards from you will typically stand out
there sixty seventy yards looking for that elk that's making

(25:04):
that noise. So but I'll get real close and I'll
start doing some calls, and I will introduce some cow calls,
but it'll be mostly bugles, and I won't be super aggressive.
And I liked what you said earlier. You kind of
do what the elk are doing. If they're calling aggressive,
you call aggressive, they're calling meek and mild. That's to
do the same thing. I like to mirror a copycat

(25:26):
what they're doing if they're a lot of times I'll
have I'll start playing with a bowl and he'll kind
of just kind of sound like really whimpy and weird,
like kind of like he's going for puberty or something.
And I'll start messing with him, but I keep pecking
at him for a while, you know, and I'm not
escalating never, and then finally he'll escalate. He'll give a

(25:47):
real full bugle, like and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's
good that we're making progress. We've we're starting starting to
crack the coat. It is kind of like when you're
a kid, you know, I know you are what am I?
Or I know you are what am I? I know you
are what am I? Kind of doing that back and forth,
You're just trying to get somebody's goat right, And I
feel like by doing that, just pecking at them, and
then finally you hear them escalate and get that full bugle.

(26:08):
Then it's time for me to escalate and do my
full bugle, and and usually when they do that, they're
gonna be on their way pretty soon now. And they
may come in quick, they may come in slow. You
just never know.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
And how much how much effort or are you putting
into like making noise other than your call, so like
thudding on the ground and breaking branches and stuff, like,
how much of that are you throwing in or are you.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, I make quite a bit of effort, you know.
I'll thump around, I'll pick up a rock and tumble
it down the hill, and I'll grab brush brush and
swish it around or snap some branches and I'll make
some noise. I wanted to have that realism, like there's
actually because elk are noisy when they're not when they're undisturbed,
they're they're pretty noisy.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
We had killed a bull in twenty fifteen that we
actually had a bull come in bed within forty yards
of us and he was sitting. He was stayed there
for fifteen minutes. Somehow the wind stayed good the whole time. Wow,

(27:14):
But he was bugling from his bed and we were
calling and and you know, trying to get this other
bull that had cows down. He was just over the
lip had cows down there and they were bugling back
and forth. But that bull down there with the cows
wouldn't come up until this other bull got up and
he started walking towards the bull with the cows, and

(27:38):
I was going to shoot him, but he got behind
some brush. He was only like ten yards, but I
couldn't get a shot at him. He ended up getting
our wind and spooking, and when he spooked, he you know,
made the hoof foot thuds and broke some branches. And
when he did that, this other bull came up, at
which I was able to shoot, but it wasn't until
you know, that bull made all the rack just you know,

(28:02):
didn't have anything to do with bugel. It's just him
running around. That's what got that other bull to come up.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's a very good point. That just adds that realism,
because what do predators do. They sneak their quiet. A
lot of humans are that way. They sneak they're quiet.
But when you're trying to call one in, we're not
doing the still hunting approach. Now we're making noise, we're
banging around, we're beating up on stuff. When I'm calling
for someone else always it's funny because I'll I always

(28:28):
think like, man, I hope somebody doesn't isn't like looking
at me from afar like glass empagrim across the county,
because especially if they didn't know about elk hunting, right,
if they seen me, they'd be like, look at that
guy's he's a crazy man. He's running around in circles
and he's jumping up and down, and he's throwing trees,
throwing rocks. What is going on? So it's just to
add in that realism. And I like to kind of say,

(28:50):
I whenever I'm trying to call bulls, I almost try
to turn my my I turn off my human brain
and I turn on my elk brain, and I do
like kind of role play, right, what would an elk do?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
What?

Speaker 1 (29:00):
How would an elk behave? I want to try to
mimic those those actions and sounds, whether you know, non
vocal ones especially.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And that that's something that took me a long time
to realize, coming from strictly hunting white tails in the
South to hunting elk out west. When I first started
hunting elk, you know, I had looking back at the
opportunities I had, I was like man, I should have
killed elk every year, you know, with a with a

(29:28):
wooden bow, And I could if I was put into
those situations now. But I was just so timid, you
know when I first started hunting elk, because you don't
you don't do that stuff with white tails. You know,
you're like, you do everything that you can to not
be obtrusive in the woods, but with elk, I was
just not being aggressive enough.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's a very good point. And a lot of our
listeners and and folks who want to come out West
every year, you know, they're very accomplished whitetail hunters and
they come out and they struggled. They're like, man, I
just can't figure this out. And because it's such a
different process for for elk, verst calling elk versus hunting
whitetails very very different. So let's let's move into the

(30:11):
next week. So we're looking at the tenth through the twentieth.
What are you? What are we doing there? Are we
Are we changing tactics at all? Are we looking at
things differently?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
So that's a that's an interesting time period for me
because that's usually encompasses the period where people show up.
You start getting more people in the woods, and then
you have to start taking into account. Like I'm usually
a pretty cautious elk hunter, Like if I find elk

(30:44):
in a base, and I put a lot of time
into trying to get away from people and find elk
that are undisturbed, and because it's so important for me
to get so close. If I find elk in a
basin that are where I think they're not likely to
be bumped by people, and the situation isn't right, I'll

(31:07):
just I'll just watch them and I'll come back another day.
But when you get to that September fifteenth, seventeenth, twentieth,
it's like you can't I can't really afford to do that.
Becau's very very likely somebody else is going to go
in there and find those elk and bump them, and
then I have to find them again anyway, right, you know.

(31:29):
So that's the I think that's the major way that
my tactics shift in there, is I moved from being
a very cautious hunter to be much more aggressive because
I know somebody else is gonna mess those elk up
and push them out of the drainage where I know
they're at. But that's the that's the time when they

(31:51):
really when they start bugle and start running, I start
seeing rubs, start seeing bulls with cows. That's when I
will get up souper for early, try to get up
midway in the slope and start throwing out location bugles
and try to figure out what they're doing, where they're going.
And then I try to cut them off and get

(32:11):
in super close to them, and I'll be a lot
more aggressive with my bugling. But like I said, I
don't my My whole game is I'll try to I'll
try to be as quiet and stealthy as I can
until I get like as just as close as I
think I can get to them. And I'm trying. I mean,
sometimes I'll be getting within fifty yards of them before

(32:33):
I ever let them know I'm there. If I can
do that, if I can get within fifty yards of
a bullets got cows, there's a real good chance that
I'm going to get that get him to come to me.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. It feels I feel
like a lot of folks where they kind of have
a problem as maybe they they aren't aggressive enough for
at the right time, you know, maybe they're they're cautious,
but then you have to be agressive at the right times, like, Okay,
it's time for me to get close instead of, you know,
watch from across the hillside, you know, from across the draw, like, well,

(33:06):
they're way out of range, and I'm afraid to make
a move. I don't want to spook them. But it's like,
once the elk get into a position to where you
can close that distance, you should act right get in there, close,
make sure the wind's good, and then do some calling.
And I found that that works for me too. But
I found that a lot of times if I were
to like not just dive right in and get a

(33:29):
little bit aggressive at the right times, my opportunity slipped
me by the elk. Maybe I had maybe I did
have them talking, you know, I would probably normally I'll
have them talking from a little bit of a distance.
But if I was to just kind of hang back,
you don't want to be a wallflower. You want to
you want to be the person that walks over and
asks for the for the dance, right. You want to
go get involved with that elk when they're opportunity is right.

(33:53):
When is that That's when the wind is right, and
that's when the elk are in a position they're not
going to see it coming from a uh from a
great distance from across to draw you know, maybe use
some topography to hide and to mask your movements and
then get close and then make your move.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
So I should I should mention, like when I'm talking
about getting super close to these elks, like a lot
most of your audience is probably shooting compounds. Just like, well,
if you're within fifty yard when you just shoot it
right right, well, you gotta understand the weapons I'm hunting with,
and I have to get much closer than that. Like
if I'm standing on the three D range at my house,
you know, I can make a fifty yard shot fairly regularly,

(34:29):
but I'm not going to shoot an elk at that
distance I need to get for elk, I need to
get within thirty yards and preferably you know, within twenty.
So take that into consideration when you listen to what
I'm what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely, I have some some aspirations to elk
count with a trad bow someday, and I've got a
free curve at home and I'll shoot if that elk
is at twenty yards or less, they're in deep trouble.
But if they're at twenty five yards, they're not as
big a trouble. And if they're at thirty yards, they're
pretty safe. You know, Well, it's bad. SHOT's got to

(35:05):
be close.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, that's and I think that depends on on who's
you know, who's who the shooter is sure, you know,
I'm not going to shoot at a white tail at
thirty yards just because there's a much much smaller target
and they're so flipping quick, you know, with an elk
the size of an elk. I feel very confident at
thirty yards my bow. But I haven't always been that way,

(35:27):
you know. Several years ago I would have been just
I would have said, all right, twenty yards, you know,
and I wouldn't have shot on anything, probably over that.
But it just depends on what you're where you're at
in your shooting.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, and the country you hunt a lot of times
these days is a lot more open country, so it's
hard to get those tight close shots compared to maybe
up northern part of the country where it's a lot thicker.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Would you say that, Yeah, yeah, I think it was.
I probably on average, was getting closer to elk in
North Idaho where it is so thick, because like you're
just talking about earlier, you don't want to set up
where they can see you from where you can where
they can see your calling location from eighty yards away,

(36:19):
because that's what's exactly what they're gonna do. They're gonna
walk up until they can see where you're sitting, and
they're going to look, they don't see an elk, and
then they're going to turn around and walk away. And
so in North Idaho or areas that are thick like that,
they just physically can't you know, they can't see you
from those distances, and so they have to cut the distance.
There are places like that where I hunt now that

(36:41):
are thicker where they have to come. Just last year,
I called a bull in and he was, you know,
within fifteen yards of me and like face on, like
had me pinned down. I couldn't do anything. And the
felt of that that I had with me was he'd

(37:03):
never been el hunting before. He was behind me running
the camera and he you know, didn't quite make the
right moves. It was just what caused the bull to
lock up and the he would have walked right over
the top of us if I'd been by myself, but
he had to come that close, you know, to be
able to see me.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, I think I watched that film. Yeah, Yeah, that
was awesome.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
But that worked out good. I mean, like I got
to hunt the whole I think we hunted like twenty
one days or something like that. Had some good encounters,
but it was a tough sea for me. Anyway. It
was a tough season last year. I just wouldn't see
in the number of elk, but then was able to
because I didn't notch my tag. Or in the archery season,
was able to do that late muzzloor or hunt, which
was freaking epic. That was awesome. I had to talk

(37:44):
about that later.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah, I watched that video too. It was good. Was
it one on the same video or is it like
a series. I can't remember that.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Those two different, but like the archery season was one
and then I did a later muzzloader cow hunt in
a different video.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Right, And what what's your YouTube channel? Uh?

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Just Clay Hayes. Hayes got on Google or YouTube find it.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, I highly recommend it. I mean there's so many
videos like up, so many videos of them, and it's
just interesting and to watch you and your craft and
then your family too. I mean, there's there's a film
about you and your family, and I just love it.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
So appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Now. One thing I just picked up about what you
said I really wanted our listeners to kind of key
in on, is like you said, fifty yards at home, yeah,
you can consistently hit the target, you know, pretty well.
But in the woods you scale that back to thirty
yards and less.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, well, I don't want to. I don't want to
put a distance on it, right, Like I mean, I'm
sure you've had situations like this before, like you'll and
I think of one situation in particular. I had a
bull at like eight yards and I just didn't there
was no shot, you know. And then that bull that

(39:16):
I was talking about earlier in twenty fifteen actually shot
that bull at thirty five. And so it's like, I
don't I don't put a distance limitation on myself. I'll
shoot if I am confident in my ability to make
the shot, right if I'm not, and that and like
I said that that distance maybe you know, only a

(39:36):
few yards. If I don't think I can squeeze an
arrow through that brush or find a hole or something
like that. I'm not going to try to punch an
arrow through it. But if I see an animal and
I feel like, all right, I can do this, I'll shoot,
you know. And like I said, I can make those
fifty yard shots on the three D target at the house.
I've just never found that type of situation in the

(39:57):
woods where I felt confident that I make that shot
on an animal.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Right, Yeah, that's a that's a great point. I think
a lot of us, you know, especially compound shooters. It's popular,
you know today with moveable sites, you know you can
you can hit accurately out to one hundred yards. Do
I want to shoot an elk at one hundred yard yards?
Absolutely not. Do I want to shoot an elk at
fifty yards. I typically keep my shots like it's just

(40:24):
it's a lot like what you said, you know, I
want to, you know, if I fill one hundred percent,
like my ability is like, the shot is good, the
animal is unaware, you know, everything is right. I'm gonna
take that shot. Maybe at forty five fifty yards probably
not though, And and most of my shots are under
forty Most of my I think most of my shots
have been under thirty with a compound thirty and less.

(40:47):
And why do I why do I like to do that?
I just like high percentage shots. I don't want to miss.
I don't want to wound him. You know, I have
so much respect for the animal. I don't want to
wound the thing. I want to just take a I
want to make sure whenever I do finally get my shot,
that I get to take that bull home or bull
home with me. I don't want to have that non
at my on my my mind for the next year,

(41:07):
that man, I shouldn't have took that shot. I went
in that bull, I never found him. Did he die,
did he suffer? Did he did he not die? I
just hate that feeling so and even taking really good shots,
you know, they can go awry sometimes. So yeah, I
just I like, I always recommend folks to you know,
just because you're awesome in your backyard just pounding targets.

(41:30):
It's a complete different game in the woods.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, yeah, talking about good shots, Connor Rye reminds me
I had this was I don't know, several years back,
I had a I was still hunting a late whitetail
season up in North Idaho and ended up having a
just a perfect situation. I was on the ground. I
was on a road cut and had had the lip

(41:54):
of the road. There was a big, huge white tail
dow down below me. She was close, she was like
five yards wow. And she came and I saw her.
She was walking to my left, went out of sight.
I knew exactly where she was going to pop out,
came back to full draw. She came out, and I
tracked her and made what felt like a perfect shot,

(42:15):
and my arrows like skewed her through the hams and
I was like, oh wow, the hell just happened. It's
like that shot felt perfect. Luckily, I hit the femoral
artery and she bled out in like a few seconds. Sure,
but there was a I had a camera guy with me.
He was behind me, and I looked back at the
footage and there was a piece of a rose limb

(42:36):
that I hit, didn't I mean, I was so zoned
in on the deer never even saw it. Lucky, luckily,
everything turned out right, but that that limb deflected my
shot by like eighteen inches.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Oh wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
So that's that's one of those situations where like, yeah,
everything's perfect, that you got a good shot, you execute
the shot well, and just something that's out of your control,
that's it up.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, I want one time I had a perfect broadshot,
broadside shot and a spike bull elk and I make
the shot and he runs off. I'm like all right,
and I do know. I wait the amount of time
and I start falling blood and it's like the blood's okay,
but you know he should be dead, like right up here,
and he's just not dead. I'm still falling tracks and
the blood's getting really spotty. Now I'm like, what the heck?

(43:27):
I made a perfect shot on this bull and I
follow a fall off Hall have to get out lights
and lanterns. It gets dark. I'm crawling on my hands
and knees. I'm like, man, oh, here's a speck of
blood and here's a speck of blud. I was just
I was just overwhelmed with you know, guilt, like, man,
what happened? Like I knew it took a good shot,
and I don't know if I want a bow hunt anymore.

(43:47):
And then I kind of kind of set back on
my because I was on my hands and knees. I
kind of sat back on my haunches and I looked
up that bull's laying.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Dead right there.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
And what happened was is I hit him right right
in the middle of the lawungs. But my arrow hit
a rib and glanced and it took a hard rite,
so it got one part of one lung and it
glanced back through part of the liver and then the guts,
so it wasn't a great blood trail. And he went
I don't know, probably three hundred yards, but it was

(44:16):
tough tracking. So I don't know what made my arrow
do that weird JFK magic bullet travel pattern. But it
glanced off off of a rib. It was a three
three blade broadhead. It's a fixed blade, yeah, fixed blade
lit old thunderhead back in the old days, and it
it I don't know if one of the blades caught

(44:36):
just right and acted like a ramp like it would
deflect on a branch. It deflected. And I will say also,
back in those days, people didn't really super tune their
bows right like we do. Know. We didn't shoot them
through paper. We just kind of eyeballed them. You get
the center shot. It's like you shoot it, and it's like,
you know, there was a little bit of method, like
oh it's fishtailing or it's wabblewinger. You do a little

(44:58):
corrective stuff, but we weren't and our bows through paper
back then, and maybe people did, and I just was
too dumb to know. It a little small town and
I had a little town of wip. You know, I
didn't know anything about tune in Bo's, but the pro
shops set it up and I thought, you know, it's
probably good. I didn't know you should, so it could
have my bone could have been out of tune, which
probably could compound that kind of a movement. But anyway,

(45:23):
it was you can take a perfect shot, as you say,
everything looks good, and they can still go awry.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
You just got to try to focus on taking it
as higher percent of shots as you can.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yep, absolutely, I agree with that one hundred percent. As
far as my call on during that period, I'm probably
gonna have more cow calls than earlier. I'm gonna start
doing a lot more cow calls, So it's almost fifty
to fifty bugles to cow calls. And but I'm I'm experimenting,
you know whatever. The elk are doing. Whatever they're reacting

(45:57):
to is what I'm going to give them. So if
the bulls react well to cow calls, I'm probably going
to be a little more cow call heavy, which is
great because I really like the bulls to answer my
cow calls because I will. It's almost like I want
him to have a conversation with the cows and then

(46:18):
me playing the bull as well. I'm going to say, hey,
you shut up, don't talk to my girls. I'll get
aggressive with my bugles, and a lot of times that
really works to get those bulls to come in. They're like,
oh man, that guy's defensive over there. He must have
some really nice ladies. There's probably one that's, you know,
ready to be bred. I get over there and fight
and steal those cows away. You know, this is what

(46:38):
I'm thinking in my head, and there's probably a biologist
out there it'll say you got it all wrong, but
this is kind of what goes through my head and
it seems to work during that period. So now let's
go to the tail end of September, so the twentieth
to thirtieth. Is there anything different you're doing during that time?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, I just I don't call it all because things.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Are you hearing lots of bugles or is it like
kind of getting quiet again?

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I think for me, where I hunt, the pressure just
shuts them down. I mean for and like I don't
really I'm not as call heavy as you like, not
even nearly. Like I don't. I don't really rely on
calling all that much at all. I still hunt a lot.
But for me, where I hunt seems like once they

(47:27):
once the people start showing up, you've got maybe a
five day window where the hunting is still fairly good.
But after that, man, you throw out a calcol or
a bugle, and they shut up and run the other way.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
They get pretty savvy to it.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
They get super call shy where I hunt anyway, And
so I just totally do away with the call in
and I'll wait for them to bugle, and I try
to slip in and try to get get in close
to them and cut them off. At that time, I
could probably I know that I could do things very differently,

(48:00):
So I'd be interested to hear in that type of situation.
And I've literally like seen them see like gotten close
to a bowl called to them. And I don't think
my collie sucks that bad like they literally run away. Yeah,
but I think it's because there's just they hear it
all the time and they start to associate it with people.

(48:22):
I mean, you've got people walking down ridges, skyline bugling,
and all the elk's got to do is look up
and see that it's a person.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
What do you do in that situation?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
I try not to hunt those same elk. I'm pretty mobile,
and I don't know how mobile you are in your
in your setup. I like to have like a base camp,
But one day I might hunt like pretty close to camp.
The next day I might go ten, fifteen, twenty miles,
So yeah, across the unit into a different area. So
I bounce around a lot, and I I try not
to over hunt one spot because I understand, like I

(48:59):
get that they get that they start associating calls with humans.
And you know, just because you were calling and you
didn't ever see the elk that morning when you walk
out and leave, that doesn't mean those elk that they
don't come up and sniff around. I think they probably
do a lot more than we give them credit for.
They come up there as like, hey there's a guy
I've been up here in Pete right here. I don't

(49:21):
know if elk are that smart, but I feel like
they come around and they smell the presence of humans
and like it kind of makes them like, I don't
know if I trust those calls anymore. Yeah, So I
try try to bounce around, just try to get away
from people the best I can. Now, let's say there
is a lot of people. Now let's say you were
there opening week and the elk were in this basin

(49:44):
and now everybody showed up. Do you find your elk
kind of disappear? Do they kind of move off into
a different place, or do they just kind of still
stay there and just get really cagy.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
They will bounce around. Like the scale of the base
and that I think matters a lot. Like like where
I hunt, there's a lot of little pockets where they
get and so you know, if somebody goes up with drainage,
they'll and really it's let's say they're in the bottom
of the drainage and working their way up when the
thermal switches and their their wind gets blown up into

(50:16):
their bed area, Well, those elk are going to go
over the ridge into the next next little finger, you know,
creek or whatever. And maybe hang out there. They might
go too, but they just they don't like leave the area.
They just kind of rotate around and kind of get
pushed around like that.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Right now, I found like I've experienced the same thing
you've you're describing, especially about the when the people show up.
A lot of times I just try to find places
to hunt where people are not. So there's a new
area that I was hunting, and I'm like, oh, well, once,
you know, once people start showing up, I'll probably just

(50:53):
gonna park on a trailhead and just get way back in.
But what I found was is most of the people
were parking on the trailhead and get way back in.
So I had to change tactics. So I tried to
get away from any kind of like official trails right
just bushwhack. It's like, well, if I were an elk,
where would I go when there's a lot of people.

(51:14):
It's a real nice basin. Look, there was a bunch
of elk in there. There's a good access, good trails
in them. Now, if the elk were run out of
that over into the next side, while there's no trails
in there, it's steep, it's rocky, it's brushy. I think
I'll go try in there, and that's typically what I'll
try to do, is And it seems like if if
those elk can kind of get away from those people

(51:35):
for a few days, they kind of calmed down a
little bit and they're more more conducive to calls. But
we talked about last night when we were visiting about
the presence of sheep, the presence of hunters, and then
the same area I'm talking about, even once they kind
of relocated a little bit, they were still a little

(51:57):
bit edgy, because man, those things have been messed with
a lot. You know, uh you five hundred sheep blown
up through a drainage with the the I don't know
if they're Peruvian cowboys on their horses, and they got
the big white dogs and you know they're the cowboys
are hip hip h and you know, hollering and the
and the dogs are barking all night long, and and man,

(52:17):
those elk were a little bit edgy. Even once they
got kind of pushed to another places, they weren't They
weren't as callable, I'd say as even some of the
elk up in North Idaho where there's a lot of wolves.
I feel like once you kind of get them to
flip their switch. In North Idaho, they're very callable, but
trying to get them talk sometimes is very tough. But

(52:38):
down there they would talk a bit, but they're very suspicious.
So I would just in those situations, I just kind
of keep bouncing around, like, Okay, play with these Elk today,
and if I don't have any luck, we're pulling out.
We'll go somewhere else. We'll come back in a couple
of days and and try it again.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Yeah, We're We're I'm not nearly that mobile because when
we go to Elk camp, it's like we set up
at my whole fan goes and we just basically moved
to the mountains for month of September, and so I'm
basically hunting from our big camp and just whatever I
can cover walk into because I hate, like my I
hate driving my truck down there because the roads are

(53:15):
so rough and I drive that breaking ninety one comings
it's like the suspensions, like you know, so it'll beat
the fire out of you. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, mostly
just what I can walk to.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yeah, And then I felt like con we talked earlier,
like the Elk, the rut like the activity is different
from place to place. I've been in places that last
week of September, and it's it's sometimes just tough to
get an up to bugle, like either they've been harassed
a lot and or they're just no cows and heat anymore.

(53:55):
They got the job done earlier, and it's almost like
bolts are kind of like withdrawing and kind of licking
their wounds and they'll talk a little bit, but they're
not interested in the fight, and that makes a really
tough situation where I think getting back into those still
hunting tactics would be very valuable and maybe maybe use
your calls to locate a little bit and then just

(54:16):
get try to get in on them and kind of
still hunt your way through those areas that the bulls
are feeding and trying to recuperate. Other areas where I hunt,
I may not hear any bugling at all until like
the twenty fourth of September, and then it's like go
time for two or three days and then it's done.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
That just sometimes you'll go and go and go, and
it's like they'll just aren't even there. You know, you're
seeing some but then all of a sudden, this switch
just flips and then you get out there the next
morning it's just like crazy, Yeah, went everywhere.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Yeah, and then the next day it's dead silent, like
I don't know if they run it too hard that
day before, like, man, the girls out, Yeah, we got
to rest for a day. It's crazy. Now, let's say
September comes and goes and you've you've had You've had
your fun, but dang it, you didn't get to notch
a tag. You talked earlier about muzzle loading that later season.

(55:12):
Is that a November type hunt?

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Yeah, so, Idaho. A lot of the times you have
opportunity if you get the A tag, which is kind
of the archery focus tag, you'll have your archery season
and then a lot of times you'll have those late
muzzloader seasons and they usually cow hunts, but that can
be an absolute blast. It's a totally different type of hunting.

(55:34):
You know, the elker transitioning to their winter range or
on their winter range, and there's can be huge herds,
like you know, you might see a herd with eighty
or one hundred animals in it. There's a lot of
glass and finding them and then figuring out how to
get to them and get by all those eyeballs, and

(55:56):
so a lot of times they'll bet up on those
big hope and faces, and so it can be you know,
even though it's not usually too difficult to find the elk,
like actually getting within range of them can be a
bit of a challenge, but it's fun.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
How far are you shooting with your muzzle? Are you
using like a flint lock? Correct?

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah, yeah, with a flint lock one hundred yards and less. Okay, yeah,
and preferably you know, seventy or eight year and less,
you know, but if I need to, I can put
I can push it out to one.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Hundred Are you using it like a round ball and
a patch or I have.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
I've killed multiple elk with a patched ball, But I
like the little they're called Maxi balls. It's just a
little conical bullet, yep, because my uh, they're super super
simple to get tight groups Like I can shoot on
a bench. I can shoot a three inch group at
one hundred yards consistently with a Maxi ball, and I

(56:53):
can't do that with a patch round ball. Now there's
other guys that can, like they you know, they're paying
super close attention to the thickness of their patches and
the amount of lube that they're putting on there, and
the size of the ball and you know, like really
measuring out their powder charges and all that stuff. And
I don't know, I didn't want to put that much
effort into getting good groups out of patch balls because

(57:15):
those Maxi balls are just super simple.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Yeah, And what do you think performance wise? You think
the bullet performance as far as damage it does, is
better on a Maxi ball than a round ball.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
They're certainly heavier, like way heavier. I don't remember what
the I think they're like two hundred and eighty grains
or something like that for a Maxi ball and a
round balls maybe one eighty if I could be wrong
on that, but I think that's right. But you know,
a round ball will will mushroom out and flatten out.
And I've I've, like I said, I've killed multiple elk.

(57:47):
I think two or three elk with a patch round
ball and a couple with the Maxi balls or the
Buffalo bullets. I used to shoot those, but they're like
super They're like almost four hundred grains, like you're holdover
at one hundred yards is pretty significant. But they all,
they all work really well.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Nice, Nice, I think we've got time for one more question.
Let's take a look here. Tips for a solo hunter
where the bull hangs up just out of range, out
of range and sight, and you don't have the luxury
of having someone called behind you calling, so the bulls
hung up, you don't have a caller behind you. What

(58:28):
what would you typically do.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Well in that situation. The first thing I'd say is
an ounce of prevention is worth more than a sound
of cure. And so really paying attention to how you
set up and where you set and you can't all
you know, you can't always do that. You don't always
have the luxury of picking exactly where you want to be.
But if you do, you know, if you have the

(58:54):
time and the luxury to do that. Look at those
site windows. If you're if you're sitting in an air
and you can and there's a lane that goes one
hundred yards towards in the direction somewhat in the direction
of that bull, Well he's going to walk to that
lane and look at you from one hundred yards away.
And like you said earlier, she's not going to come

(59:16):
closer if there's no reason for him to come closer.
If he can't see an elk butt sticking out in
that lane or something, he's not going to come to closer.
And so doing everything you can to set yourself up
in a position where he has to come to within
range to see that you're calling location, that would be ideal.

(59:38):
You know, in a situation where you just can't do
that and you're getting like he's seeing your calling location
from out of range, what I would do is just
let him walk away and try to try to come
back into him from another angle, same way I would
with a turkey or a gobb where that's hung up.
You know, I wouldn't walk to him. I wouldn't walk

(01:00:00):
straight to him and from that same direction and try
to pull him straight back that way. It seems like
that doesn't work for me. But if you come at
him from a different direction, it seems like that would work.
That works a little bit better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Okay, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
What do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I think? That's I like that what a lot of
times what I'll do is, you know, I don't have
I feel like you're a pretty patient person. I may
not have those kind of patients, but I agree hundred
percent like that you know your setups everything, but it's
not always ideal. It just sometimes it just happens quick,
a lot quicker than you anticipate or not where you

(01:00:38):
hope to have it happen. And the bull comes in
and he hangs up, and like you said, like if
you have that little stalemate for long enough, that bull
will finally kind of turn around a walk off. I
like to try to do something, make something happen before
he does that, because just like you said, once he

(01:00:58):
kind of walks off and you go straight at him again.
A lot of times he's just like, you're a coward.
I've this ain't happening. I'm done, I'm done with you.
I feel like that they make up their mind the decision,
and then there's no amount of like effort that you're
going to get them to once they turn and leave
to get them to come back. So coming at him

(01:01:19):
a different angle, I've never tried that. I'll have to
add that to my list of stuff I've always you know,
tried to go out of. But what a you typically
do before they leaves. I feel like as things start
kind of slowing down, let's say he was just hot
to trot and he came on pretty quick, but now
he's hung up. He don't want to come and he
now he's bugling less frequently. He's been there for ten minutes.

(01:01:39):
The wind's been good. You know, he'd bugle and rake.
I bugle and rake, but he's just not breaking loose.
A lot of times I will I will give a
big nasty bugle or chuckle or typically, especially if he's
barked a lot of times they'll get there and they'll
kind of bark. They haven't smell anything, they haven't seen

(01:02:01):
anything that make him spook there. I think it's the
bark is more of a like like, hey, man, show yourself.
Like I've come all this way, it's your turn to,
you know, show your cards. And a lot of times
I'll bark and scream. If he's been screaming the whole time,
or if he's been chuckling the whole time, then I'll
bark and chuckle at him. Just kind of depends on
what he's been doing. I'll bark and then do X

(01:02:22):
whatever he's been doing. And then I'll move up real
fast and I'll break a whole bunch of brush. I'll
try to step on every broke dead stick, I can
towards him, so I'll make sure that there's you know,
this only works is if I can't see him and
he can't see me, there's a you know, a real
thick for a tree or whatever between him and him
and I, and I'll move up. Let's say he's fifty yards,
I'll move twenty five, and then at the last second,

(01:02:44):
I'll veer off to the left or right to wherever
I think whichever direction I think he's going to maybe
want to pop out on. But I want to quite
expose myself. As soon as I get there, I'll pull
an arrow out and knock it. I typically won't run
up there with my arrow knocked because I'm just clumsy
and I'm afraid I'm gonna skew her myself.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
And that's a great point I was. I was thinking
I was coming at it more from the angle of
like you can see the bull. Okay, he can see you,
and he'll try to make that happen. You know, he can.
He'll make that happen. Now, if they're if they're hung up,
you know, like you were talking about eighty yards away
or whatever, and he's just I can't see him, then
I'll like I'll bugle and run at him and just

(01:03:26):
try to make try to make him, try to threaten him,
make him think that that, oh shit, this bull's coming.
And I've had that work.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Yeah, yeah, me too, that that's the same thing I'm
talking about here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
And a lot of times they'll come out broadside or
just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
I think they I think they do that to like
show how big they are.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Absolutely, that's that's what I think too. I think they
want to be like, all right, well look at me,
I'm big. You know if you watch like all these
films of Elk and Yellowstone in these parks where before
they fight, they'll sit there and they'll they'll walk up
beside each other and kind of show off and tilt
their racks and puff up and make themselves look big.
And I don't know that they want to fight all
the time. I think they try to give each other

(01:04:09):
out if they can, but then they'll fight if they
need to. And I think that's kind of what this
is they're going to do here. And more times than
not it's been a broadside shot. And then sometimes I
do that and the bull will just take off. But
I feel like if it's like a young bull, like
a two and a half three and a half year
old bull, they may not hold their ground as good

(01:04:32):
as like a big bull, like a big mature like
you know, big six point or whatever. That he kind
of knows he's a badass, right, He's like, I know
my place in the pecking order. I don't know you
you know, they'll probably hold their ground a little bit better,
at least for me. It's been that kind of a situation.
And that's kind of a non. It's a non. It's
a tactic. Not everybody uses a lot. They're kind of

(01:04:54):
I think a lot of hell get used to those
people that are the wallflower type. They'll kind of bugle
them a little bit and they'll kind of linger back.
And but you're acting like an elk when you did,
and when you act like an elk, I think you
have a better chance of maybe calling him in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah. A had a situation just last year where I
had a really nice bull that was had a bunch
of cows. They were right down on a little bench
down below us, and they were like pretty close. He
was within fifty yards and I could not get him
to do anything, like he wouldn't even acknowledge that I existed,

(01:05:28):
even though his cows were kind of milling around and
getting fairly close to me, and I was bugling like
you didn't care. Yeah, And this was this was during
that time when it's starting to get into that where
he's heard some bugles from people. He's probably starting to
transition into that like figuring things out. But I I

(01:05:48):
sat there, and I sat there, and I sat there,
and I watched him, and you know, if I'd had
a if i'd had a compound, I could have killed him.
But I'm I'm you know, I'm hunting with my my
stick bone, and I'm so I'm sitting there watching them,
and eventually, you know, I'd probably sit there for fifteen minutes,
have great wind. I'm trying to get him to make
that move, and he just never does. And eventually he

(01:06:09):
gets his cows up and they wander off, and I'm
thinking about it later, you know, and I'm like, I
could have just bugled, like really aggressive bugle and probably
just ran right at him and stood there in the
open and had a couple two three seconds to get

(01:06:32):
to shoot him. I almost guarantee that I could have
done that. It's just you're in that moment, you don't
think about those things until later, right, You're like, dang it,
I should have tried that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Well, here's a crazy tactic I used one time. And
it was really an early dawn light, like you couldn't
even see to shoot yet. But I got pinned down
on this old skid road and there was a bull.
I start calling too early, you know, rookie mistake, start
bugling at him, and it's not light enough to shoot, Like,
never do that because usually they'll come in and it's
you can't shoot it's too dark. But this bull, I
could kind of see his body and he could probably

(01:07:03):
see my body especially. Well, what I did is I
had to get He had me pinned down, so I
had pretty dark camo on. I put my bow up
over my head and I just kind of moved out
of the middle of the skid trail over into the
pocket and he didn't spook. It's like, yeah, maybe it
was anecdotal, but maybe he just saw that. It's like

(01:07:25):
seeing that outline in that silhouette, like okay, yeah that's
a bowl. Maybe not, but he never spoked, and we
bugled around there and I never did shoot him, but
we had a lot of fun that morning after that
first initial encounter. But yeah, that's that's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Yeah. I just think that bowl like he was bedded
a lot of times. I think I think I could
have rushed him and probably his cows would have scattered,
but he would have if I'd have bugled at him,
he would have braced himself for another bull. Yeah, And
I mean a lot of times takes him a few
seconds to figure out what's.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Going on, right, Yeah, the cows are going everywhere, and
he's like, wait, what's going on? And then he hears
your bugle and he's red and then he's like, oh wait,
too late.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
But that's one of those things you're like a.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Man, it's like do we try it? Do I try it?
I don't try it. He'll marry right last day of season, Okay,
I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
But I mean, hindsight, it's always it's always clear what
you should have done. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
Yeah, well, man, I want to thank you a lot
for coming on today and and talking el hunting. I think,
like I kind of talked alluded to in the beginning
of the conversation, I feel like we we hunt quite
a bit different. But there's little places that tactics cross over.
So and I always tell people, you know, don't just
don't just load your quiver with one person's tactics. Listen

(01:08:51):
to everybody. There's something to learn from everyone, and something
to learn every elk season out there. And take those
take all those things to learn and kind of put
them together in your in your quiver. And and when
you go out hunting, you'll have you'll have more ideas
of what to do when things don't go as planned,
which is most of the time. Right And and as always,

(01:09:13):
if you guys have any questions for the podcast, just
call in, leave your name on that, or leave your
name and number on the super Secret hotline number three
minutes or less. Give us your question. We'll answer it
on the line here on air, or send it into
CTD at Phelpsgame Calls dot com. One more thing, Where
can people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
YouTube? Just search Clays or on Instagram plays Hunter. Have
a Facebook page as well, but I avoid that place
like the plague, mostly Instagram and Facebook or Instagram and YouTube.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Okay, yeah, and you got a website too, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
It's Twistedstay dot com. I've got some books up there
and some like b Building Resources and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Awesome. All right, well thanks again for coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Yeah, absolutely, have a good time. M