Ep. 39: Elk Hunting Part 2 - Locating, Approaching, Setting Up, and Calling
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Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today we're going to jump into elk hunting tactics, techniques. But if you've missed part one of this, it's preparing for elk season. That's how do you find a tag? How do you figure out what unit you want to hunt? How do you find elk within that unit? And then things such as equipment that matters, you know, getting boots broken, getting in shape for these Western hunts, what packs may work, how you go about calling biologists and get information that maybe others aren't getting. You know, call the property owner, whether it's Forest Service, BLM,

That's all in unit 38. Now we're going to jump into this. We're going to talk about you've now got a spot to hunt. We've now got to elk season. We did our scouting. And we're going to jump into how to put the odds in your favor as season gets close.

We're going to start here like we do every episode of Cutting the Distance, and we're going to jump in to listener questions. This time, I didn't have any come in as we're kind of quickly going through these two parts. So I'm going to take two questions that I get a lot of the live seminars that I do and just kind of regurgitate them and kind of roll them into this podcast. So I apologize. We didn't pull any questions. I just decided to take two questions that we get quite often.

Um, so as we go through here, this episode a little bit later, we're going to talk about specific location bugles. Uh, and one question we always get as I talk about it, um, go into more detail on location bugle. Um, they want to make sure that they're doing it right. And so in my opinion, and I want to preface this whole entire, uh, episode with a lot of this comes from my experience, uh,

my trial and error out in the field, a lot of what I did to find success. And then some things, to be honest, I've, I've found some of this working by a lot of failures. I've failed more times than I've been successful in the Oakwood. So, um, I've learned a lot of this through failures, what works the majority of time, the time, and then we just kind of run our same program over and over. And so we'll get into that in a little bit, but more about location bugles. Um,

And I forgot to mention, if you have questions of your own for any future podcasts, whether it's turkey hunting, spring bear hunting, elk, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, whatever it is, make sure you email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com. Or you can reach out to us on social media. Send us a message. Get a hold of us anyway, and we'll try to get your questions included. So back to location bugles.

In my opinion, this is the bugle I'm going to use the majority of the time. I know I've said it over and over. 90% of the calls I use are probably location bugles because if I haven't spotted elk with my binoculars or have a play, I'm typically walking ridgelines, trail systems, off trail, and I'm just letting location bugles trying to get that elk to answer. So I use this call a lot. And what I want to do is I keep a two to three note

high pitched bugle i'm not adding any growl or any voice to the beginning i'm not doing it at the end it's it's two to three no high pitched bugle and when i know i'm doing it right when i get the best responses is typically when i hit a pitch um or frequency that's high enough that it rings my own ears through the bugle tube so you're you're bugling and it rattles my ears but

what I, what I do to accomplish this is rather than on a, on a normal bugle, you can kind of be somewhat relaxed with your tongue as you start. And then you can, you know, giggle your voice, you add some voice inflection, and then you ramp up pressure and you ramp up velocity, uh, across the latex. But on this one, you're going to have to start with the latex kind of preloaded. Uh, you're going to have, and you're going to have to apply more air right off the bat. So you, you want to kind of skip all of those lower octaves and, and, uh,

When we call it, it's fairly seamless. But if you can imagine, you know, you can walk up that scale. I want to really kind of hit that last two or three notes on the high pitch and that's it. And I want to ring it and I want to send that thing as loud as I can and ideally ring my own ears. I just seem to get a better response. The other thing I like to do on a location bugle is not overextend it. The purpose of a location bugle is to...

get a response or be able to hear a response. And a lot of times some of these bulls may just respond with a quick moan or a grunt, or they may respond in the middle of your call and you, you miss the high pitch and you kind of get the tail end. So I try to keep this to a two to three second beagle maximum. Like it should be effortless. You shouldn't run out of air and you're sending it as loud as possible.

And really what we're trying to do is just announce your location. I'm going to kind of, in my opinion, let you know what the elk are doing and what I've seen happen multiple times is you're really just trying to say, I'm a bull over here wandering around looking for cows and

And what you're asking is, is the real elk to give you a response. It's basically, you know, the elk playing Marco Polo, like I'm here, you're there. And, you know, amongst themselves, it may keep your distance. It may be, you know, we're, we're over here, whatever it is, but you're literally just walking along, trying to get something to respond to.

to your location bugle and that's the purpose of it and and we'll go into a more detail once you locate one what you need to do or what your next play should be or the questions you should ask yourself but that's kind of that location bugle what it's used for and we're just doing it every 100 200 yards 300 yards 400 yards and i'll i'll dive into this a little bit when should you let a location be able

In my opinion, you should bugle anytime you believe a new elk can now hear you from a location that you bugled. So if you walk around a finger ridge and it opens up a new little pocket ahead of you, I want to bugle into there from now.

from the edge of the pocket, from the middle of the pocket, from the back. And what happens a lot of times is you will get, I would say the majority of your bugles are going to be ahead of you. New virgin country that hasn't heard your bugle yet. But what happens a lot of times is you will get maybe one or two more bugle locations down and a bull will answer back underneath even closer to where you had already bugled. And sometimes for one reason or another, they don't want to identify themselves when you're close. Maybe the bugle

The they couldn't hear because they're down over the edge, whatever it may be. It's I've had it happen more times and not where I get, you know, four or 500 yards further away and I'll finally get a response where they're either more comfortable, whatever it may be.

So, while I'm not a huge proponent of just unpurposely bugling as you go through the woods, I don't feel a location bugle can harm anything either. As long as your calls are somewhat decent enough and sound like real elk that are in the area, I will bugle as I move down a trail. There's no real harm. As long as nothing wins you after that, you should be fine.

So that's kind of that first question. Location beagles, what I like to sound like, and then how I use them and what I feel is going on with the elk. And the second question we have is how do you differentiate between

If you're hunting a herd bull versus a satellite bull, and a lot of times this question will come later on in my seminar or whatever, because I've explained different tactics. And so they're like, well, how do you know whether you're hunting a herd bull or a satellite bull? And how should I know what tactics I should go with? So it's safer to always bet that you're hunting a herd bull. It will be a more conservative approach. You won't do anything that will...

necessarily you know mess mess up is your approach or your setup um a herd bull is going to require you to get close i feel like even if you know you're you're hunting a satellite bull you should still get close and uh you know kind of the

The pun about cutting the distance and the name of the podcast is there's two ways you can hunt. You could do it all with your feet. You could do it all with your calling. But what I like to look at, it's a mixed approach. I'd like to cover as much ground with my feet and then use the calling to really just pull them that last little bit. And that's what I refer to as I call, but I always assume everything is a herd bull. Um, unless I've identified it with my eyes or it's given me very good, um,

your reason to believe it's a satellite bull, uh, or, or a bull looking for cows. And, and, you know, let's say it's a timber. So you can't see one thing. I like to assume it's a satellite bull. If the bull starts to cover ground based on my first call or, um, anything that I did, you know, if it's my locator call, or if I've cow called and got a location and that bull is actively coming towards me, I'm going to typically assume that that's a, a, uh,

a satellite bull one way to quickly tell if it's a herd bull is if you've beagled and you you've got a beagle and then you have multiple beagles around that i'm going to assume that we now have a herd bull with multiple satellite bulls kind of shadowing the herd the other thing which is very tough and you've got to have a somewhat trained ear and you're still making somewhat of an assumption is the sound the depth the growl of the beagle that you you get in return you know a

A herd bull will typically have that guttural sound deeper. They've got deep chuckles. They've got extra rasp. And this is just a generality. You know, some bulls have surprised us and big bulls have called small, but,

one saying I like to use is a small bull typically more times than not doesn't have the ability to sound like a big bull. Now a big bull can sound like a small bull more often than vice versa. So we're trying to take all of this into account and really use the information that you're presented with. You know, is that elk moving? Is that elk

holding still? Um, are there other bulls bugling and try to make an educated guess on what we're dealing with as far as a satellite bull or a herd bull. And, uh, that will affect kind of our play because a lot of times the satellite bull is more willing to go to a cow or travel great distances versus a herd bull seems to be that one that stays in its location, but we'll kind of roll into strategy here a little bit later on in this podcast. Uh,

to kind of go over when you do know what you're dealing with, how I would change my strategy. So once again, you have questions for me or my guests, make sure to email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or hit us up on social media, send us messages, and we'll do our best to get your questions included.

as i mentioned earlier this is part two of a a kind of an overview of of elk hunting the first part go back check out episode 37 if you're looking for finding a place to hunt how to get tags how to kind of physically prepare

for your hunt. Get your boots in line. Get a pack figured out. Call biologists. Look at the units and whatnot. Go check out unit 37. Now we're going to assume that you did all of those things. You've got a unit to hunt. You've got a tag in your hand. You maybe did some scouting. You're going to show up during an active hunting season and we're going to roll into that. So welcome to part two. I would call this kind of in hunting season. Let's go figure this thing out. So I'm

I'm going to start with, maybe you've did some scouting. Maybe, you know, you know, boots on the ground, scouting, not East scouting, you know, where there were elk, um, the closer you are to season, the better that data is going to be. Of course, you know, if you found elk in a certain drainage, you know, Alpine feed area, clear cut, whatever area may be hunting and you've located elk there. And it was a week before season. I'd be very confident going back there and getting on elk, um, you know, during season, mind you,

what pressure's in the area. If this is an unpressured area, I'd be 100% confident. If this area now has pressure, those elk aren't going to necessarily leave completely, but they may no longer be where you found them. So keep that in mind. You know, your scouting, no matter what is close to season is going to be better, but you add hunting pressure and it kind of throws a wild card, everything that's before you and everything you thought you knew.

Where do those elk end up? And this is another reason I can't reiterate this enough when you're scouting. Go find an area that has rubs.

That is a very accurate predictor of if there was similar pressure in years past, similar people getting into the same elk where they originally wanted to be versus where they end up during the rut. Go to those places if you were able to find them on your scouting trips. It's where those elk are comfortable during the rut. It's where they've got everything they need to get through the rut. So go check out those areas and see if those elk may be moved.

Now let's roll back. Say you're only able to get boots on the ground a month leading up until season. I've got a lot higher. I'm doubting that those elk are going to be in that exact spot more so than the week before. So now you're now dealing with elk just naturally wanting to move based on the feed that's present.

where they're kind of remigrating to maybe even a month ahead. You're now dealing with the bull splitting the herds, the bulls going to find the cows and then moving to an area that they want to move to the rut in addition to the pressure on top of that. So the further away your scouting is from season, the more you need to be willing to move and go pick up and find those elk. So keep that in mind when you show up.

So I'm going to start with you. You arrive at the trailhead or you arrive at the road system or the area you want to hunt. One thing that can greatly help speed up the process of getting back on elk so you can actively hunt them and get it figured out is how you break down an area. And we can't talk about this enough is the fringes. These elk, just like mule deer, like a lot of animals that we hunt,

They like to spend a lot of their time on the fringe. And when I consider a fringe is let's say if you're in clear cut country, you have standing timber right next to a logged off area, you know, four or five year old area. And you, so you got some green up in the clear cut and you've got timber, I would say 200 to 300 yards into each side of that. So 300 yards into the timber, 300 yards out to the clear cut. The same goes for Alpine sub Alpine breaks, uh,

um, avalanche shoots to timber breaks, whatever it may be. If there's vegetation changes as well as terrain changes and that, that vegetation is different. I want to be on those lines, 300 yards on each. So, so when I show up to an area, um, and I need to figure out where these elk are at very quickly, uh, I reassess the area and maybe I didn't get a chance to be there. Maybe I've only e-scouted it. Does it look like what I thought it looked like? Um,

from from google earth or whatever whatever program on x whatever you're using doesn't look the same and one thing i like to do from on x before i go on a hunt is i will go and mark out some fringes that are quick to hit from from the trailhead or from my jump off point um and i'm gonna go hit those first i identify first off i'll i'll identify passes and major ridgelines um elk

Even though they're in great shape, they live in the mountains. They take the path of least resistance. If there's a pass or a dip in a ridgeline, I want to mark that and I want to go check that out. So when I show up to a trailhead, I'm not aimlessly wandering through the woods, hoping to stumble into elk. I'm going to specific spots, passes and ridges.

The edges of avalanche shoots, if there's meadows scattered out, I want to go check the fringes of the meadows. Elk love to be able to feed in there at night, get good high quality feed, and then they bump back into the timber for bedding. I'm going to go check if there's isolated water. A creek in the bottom isn't necessarily a great fringe area or something. Elk have the ability to get water anywhere out of that drainage, so I sometimes, that's like

I would say of lesser importance, meadows, isolated watering ponds, swamps, wallows, ridge lines. And then ideally, I like to jump on a ridge so I can cover, in my opinion, it lets me cover two sides and double my area. If I'm running a ridge, I can check the passes, the low points while I'm up there. I can check for tracks, scat, whatever it may be. And then as we already mentioned, I like to go check out rub areas to see if elk

are in there or or uh around there um so that's how i i quickly get to an area um try to break it down um you know you're looking once again tracks scat rubs etc um ideally live elk now that it's hunting season when i scout i don't necessarily need to see live elk i just need some some um reassurance that they're in the area during season i'm looking for actual signs of elk

Um, and so quickly break down an area just because elk were there a week ago, doesn't mean they're going to be there now just because they were there last year. Doesn't mean they're going to be there this year. There are things pressure, um, you know, lead cows dying off bulls, taking cows to different areas, whatever it may be, there may be reasons. So I never assume just because elk were, you know, in an area that they're going to be back there. And I, my job in order to be successful year in and year out is to quickly, um,

track these things down figure out where they want to be at that time and find them so locating elk as far as the actual act of locating elk as much as i love to call as much as i love to hear a bull beagle back i will take visual location of elk uh all every day over locating with the bugle and and the ways i accomplish that early morning midday um

late evening, if we don't have anything going, we don't have action, I'm going to get on a high vantage point and I'm going to look for where I think elk are going to be feeding or where they're going to be out. You know, if it's morning or evening, I'll start to look in more wide open areas. If it's middle of the day, I might be looking in small little areas

pinched up avalanche shoots. I might be looking into a burn. I might be looking into real small pockets where I'm just looking for elk, signs of elk to show themselves, where they may be getting the last bite of food, where they may be getting out of bed. Because a lot of times you can't glass into their bedding areas, but you might be able to catch elk around a bedding area or pushed up steep country. A lot of times those cows love to bed on top of trees, whatever it may be. I'm just...

middle of the day, I'm glassing different areas than I am morning or night. I'm looking more open, um, high quality, wide open feed early morning, late evening, um, isolated pockets in the middle of the day. Um, one thing I like to do, which sometimes overlooked is plan a little bit. Where's the sun rising? Where's the sun setting? Yeah, you do get some time before the sun's up and a little bit of time after the sun's down. But I try to even, uh, you know, orientate myself, uh,

So that I've got the sun at my back. I don't want to look into, um, you know, the sun, it messes up glassing. It's hard to see. It's hard to differentiate colors, whatnot. So even on my high vantage points, yeah. First thing in the morning, you probably got half an hour, a good glassing in any direction, but then the sun quickly kind of changes that. So I even think about things like that, setting myself up on ridges, looking in certain directions, um, because I don't want to miss that, that morning glass session. Um,

So ideally visual one great way to locate them, uh, locate bugle, which is an audible method. I kind of answered that earlier in the, in the question, but I'm going to go walk a ridgeline. I'm going to locate bugle, just trying to get an answer back. And then typically I'll wait a half hour, 45 minutes after daylight. If I can't spot anything, I quickly want to roll into my locating bugle, um,

plan that my game because those bulls are more likely to answer earlier in the morning the the more you get towards the middle of the day um we've all been there the the bugling tends to just shut itself down so the earlier i can get my location bugle going the quicker i can cover ground um the the higher the likelihood of me getting a response back another way to locate elk if i'm in an area

I know they're elk, they're sign, there's fresh sign. I can smell them, whatever it is throughout the day. But for some reason or another, they're not locating. Night locating is something we do. We'll go out, walk a ridge in the middle of the dark. We'll take a nap in the middle of the day if there's some slow time or the wind isn't right, whatever. We may spend an hour or two after dark locating elk. If we don't have anything located that night, we'll get up two hours early and locate elk in the dark. Whatever we need to do to locate elk, I need to be or I want to be on an elk

Every morning and every evening. Like that's my goal is to at least get a play in and I don't want to sacrifice, uh, that prime time in order to, to, to make that happen. So I'm willing to stay up late. Uh, I'm willing to get up extra early to make sure we're always an elk. The last way to locate elk is still hunting. I would reserve this to very good, you know, a very good, uh,

you know, understanding of where those elk are at and only go in and still hunt. If I know they're bedded up in an area, maybe the elk hunt, it's getting late in the game. And this one still, you may screw it up for other people, but it's kind of like your last ditch effort, which I think everybody's going to, you know, do. You're not necessarily saving those elk for anybody else, but still hunting is a high risk, high reward to get in tight. You could potentially push those elk out of their bedding. Um, but you can still hunt, uh, and work your way in close, especially, uh,

Um, we've resorted to this at times when there's just not a lot of bugling early in the season. Um, seems to be a way we can, we can kind of sneak in and locate elk. So now that you've located elk, what's your next move going to be? And that's kind of the question we need to ask ourselves. We need to be educated hunters, make good decisions and feel like we've kind of walked ourselves through everything that's going to affect, um, our next move.

So the first thing I like to ask myself are what are the elk doing and what are their plans if I wasn't to intervene? Are they going from feed to bedding? Are they just milling around and is there a herd bull with multiple satellites or is there a...

a lopsided balance. Is there like a, a great herd bull with satellites that are a lot smaller or is there a herd bull that's maybe barely, you know, that much bigger or better or stronger than the satellite bulls, uh, around him like that. Some of that stuff's going to lead, lead to it because the competition's different. And, um,

You know, are they got rutting activity? We're looking at all of that before we even consider our approach. The other thing I do like to, you know, hunting public land for elk, you always have to answer this question to figure out how quick you need to make these decisions and move is what's the pressure like in the area.

Are these elk going to sit here and do what they want to do without being bothered by somebody else before I get there? Or do I need to move quicker? Or sometimes we may spot elk in areas where the effort or the ability to get there is so great and it's going to take us a long time. We know there's a lot easier ways to get in there from a different road, whatever it may be. We may elect to leave those alone because our chances of becoming successful are so low.

So you're asking these questions to yourself, what's the wind doing at this time? Let's say it's seven o'clock in the morning. We can almost guarantee the wind's going to be going downhill. How long is it going to take me to get there? If it's two hours and you're going to be over there at nine and you know the sun's hitting that slope,

All right, now as I approach, the wind's going to be potentially going uphill. How does that change my approach? Do I need to walk a finger ridge over or whatever it may be? You got to ask yourself these questions. The other thing, if it's a long stock and you can't just run there and be there in 15 minutes,

Where are those elk ultimately going to be by the time I can get there? Do you got a good enough read on the direction they're going? Or can you foresee which patch of timber they're going to go bed in or the flat? So I'm trying to figure all of this out without really knowing the answer, unless it's elk that you've got patterned or elk that you've got a good idea. There's only certain spots they can get to. You're trying to figure all that out before you take off.

And then ultimately I'm already trying to figure out a general vicinity of where I'm going to set up when I get there. Um, it's very tough to do. It's taken a lot of time, but if I see an elk, you know, across the way, I know I, it's going to be an hour to get down and across by that time. I think the elk should be here. My plan. And a lot of times I'll just put a way point on on X. Of course we may need to make changes, but this is where I intend to interact with the elk, you know, my ideal spot. Um, and then I will change from there. And that's one thing, um,

um in this a lot of times when we if we have to make a stock that's you know our approach is you know 700 a thousand yards away or 2 000 yards away it's a long a long trek a lot of times things change when you get over there and you might get a little confused on what finger ridge you're on um put an onyx pin where the elk are at where you think they're going and then that can help you kind of just plan your route you don't have to second guess if you're in the

And then ultimately we make small little changes as we approach. And my goal is to get as close to that bull or his cows as I can without getting busted. Ideally, you know, we, we talk, we, we coined the term shock and awe. We use that strategy. Once we approach, I try not to make a sound until I'm within a hundred yards. That's ideal. Now,

What helps us out in accomplishing that is if that bull continues to bugle on his own, as we approach, that gives us the confidence, the reassurance we can track his movement versus if you're, if you're making that approach and you don't get a whole lot out of that elk, you're really just having to guess on the speed that they were in the direction they were heading and try to make all that work. Um,

95% of the herd bulls will not come into calls from more than 120, 150 yards out. And I'll explain that in a little bit, but in my opinion, you need to represent a threat to that bull. These bulls are out there to breed, recreate, reproduce, and they don't want

to potentially lose their opportunity to breed these cows. And so why would they willfully walk away from cows when there are other satellite bulls around to come look for this bull or cow that's calling them when in nature that bull Bugles lets the cows know that

that that bull's in the area and the cow should walk to them. So in order to, we're kind of reversing this a little bit and creating a threat to that bull that I'm within his area. I'm within a certain distance of his cows. I'm now a threat to him and he needs to come protect, you know, what, what he's got, his cows, his harem, whatever it may be. So now that we're close, let's say we've did all this successful. We've got the wind in our face. We're doing things right. You need to figure out where to set up and, and,

There's a lot of opinions like what's the most important, like any one piece of this. If you can't locate a bull, then it's the most important because you don't ever get to the stage. If you can't approach and get in the right spot to set up, then you're never going to be in the action. But talking to enough people, it shows and listening to hunting stories and scenarios. I feel that setting up is maybe one of the biggest things.

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in our face and the elk are upwind of us, we should be able to smell elk, right? Elk are a stinky critter. Most of the time as I approach, I almost use their stink, their stench is like a indicator that I'm close enough or I'm getting close enough, especially if they're not talking. So that's when I start to look for spots to set up. The very first thing I look for is these fringes. We talked about fringes earlier, but now we're looking at it on more of a micro-

uh, you know, kind of in the micro scale or the micro lens, we want to look for, you know, it might just be groups of trees that are 60 or 70 yards ahead of us. And if that gets to that, like, are they willing to stop because they should be able to see the cow or the bull also known as ourselves doing the calling. Can they see that elk from that location and expect for that, that cow or bull to come to them?

Or how do we prevent that? We set ourselves up next to that break. We set ourselves up next to that terrain break, that vegetation break, so that when that elk does get to that hold-up spot, we're within shooting distance and we don't

run into that situation scenario where and this is what I see a lot you know a lot of people like to show me their phone on a you know somebody had a cell phone running when they were calling an elk and those elk hold up at six or seventy yards and they they you know bugle a little bit or they hang out maybe pace a little bit and then they leave

Why I always ask those guys, like, what do you think happened there? And in my opinion, a lot of times that bull gets to a location where he could see very clearly the cow, the bull that should be calling to him, uh,

and doesn't see what he likes and will turn around and go back to his cows. Or even satellite bulls will do this. They don't see, you know, they're not going to walk right in to an elk that doesn't exist. They will get to a spot where they can see well. They should be able to see the cow or the bull and they'll turn away. So I'm looking at terrain and cover.

And, um, let's try to paint a picture here through words. Let's say you have a, uh, a hillside that's 45 degrees up, fairly steep the whole way up. And there's, there's one little bench in the middle of it. Well, let's say you're calling the bull uphill and he's coming up the hill, but you, that bench is a hundred, a hundred yards wide. And you are a little hesitant because you don't want to be right at the edge. But so you set up way at the back edge of it. So you're now a hundred yards from where that elk will be because you like the spot and you got good shooting lanes or something. Um,

But I'm here to tell you when that bull gets to that break where it goes flat to 45 degrees and steps up there, a lot of times you only get a view of his head or maybe half of his body length because he can now see that entire flat or most of that flat. You're now 100 yards away, right?

why wouldn't we have set up 20 to 30 yards away? He's going to hang up at that same spot, whether you're calling from 20 to 30 yards away from the edge, or if you're calling from 80 to a hundred yards away from that edge. So we need to think about things like that as well as how the vegetation, um, the, the ideal setup is when you can kind of combine that vegetation break with terrain breaks, but either one of these will work kind of individually on their own, um, terrain breaks. Like I, I love nothing more than setting up

I've got good shooting lanes, let's say 20 to 30 yards in the clean, but that bull's coming out of a giant brush pile. He can't see, he can't really be visible. You know, there's bits and pieces. I can see the elk coming, but he can never truly see out of the brush or the timber or whatever it may be. He's got to get to that edge in order to identify the elk or the bull or the cow, whatever it may be, whatever calling style you use, he needs to get to there in order to see. And then ideally, if I've set up right, I've now got a very good shot when he, when he gets there.

The next thing I'm looking at, let's say we've picked an ideal spot. Where is that bull most likely to come in? We're looking at trail systems, openings in trees. You know, they...

I don't want to sound like Captain Obvious here, but the bull can't walk through trees. He doesn't really want to walk right through the limbs of those trees. You know, if there's small gaps and openings, they're going to walk typically like we do. They're going to try to find the path of least resistance to get there. So I'm now looking on where is that bull going to approach? Which direction will he come in from? As a right-handed shooter, once I've identified those, I will typically put my left shoulder forward.

towards where I think he's going to come from. And if I need to give myself a little bit of margin of error, um, I, you know, as a right-handed shooter, I can swing, you know, 90, 120 degrees to my left. If I try to draw my bow and swing much to the right, I'm limited by maybe 15 to 20 degrees before my, you know, my, my shot and my form falls apart. Um,

so i'm looking for that i'm putting my left shoulder towards it and one thing you know there are times so i want to point this out where i will set up on my knees if i've got lots of if i'm in an area where trees allow shots to happen underneath of their bottom branches or if they're dead or you know things if branches and trees

If my shot dictates lower shooting to be a lot more probable than getting a shot if I'm standing up. But I ideally, if I don't believe it changes my shot opportunity, I will typically stand up. It gives me more freedom to move. I can grab sticks and beat trees, whatever it may be. We'll get into tactics here in a little bit. I prefer to stand up.

Um, knees limits me. Um, a lot of times my feet go dead, my feet go to, you know, whatever it might be. My legs go numb, go to sleep, whatever it may be. And it's a lot of times it's uncomfortable and, and I'm a lot more comfortable when I can stand. Um, can I move in this position without making noise or moving brush? Um,

avoid if possible setting up in the middle of a brush pile. A lot of times people don't think about having, you know, 20 inches of arrow, 25 inches of arrow hanging out in front of their bow or their stabilizer. Um, or if a bull doesn't come in exactly where they, they want, it's, it's very tough to, to make movements. Um, so I typically will set up in front of a large tree in front of a pile of brush and let, let that break up my outline. Um, and, and, uh, you know,

don't don't set up in the middle of a brush pile i made some errors very early on and and i've had great success just trying to blend in on the side of a tree in front of a tree in front of brush so the last thing setting up you've got there the wind should be correct um oh one thing i do want to mention is i prefer to call bowls on on contour or slightly downhill i believe elk

like to feel like they've got gravity on their side a bull that may be getting in a confrontation would rather come downhill if not on contour which also gives you the ability to to deal with some maybe some swirling winds it's a little bit of a conservative play and then um i the the last way but sometimes situations don't allow anything different is to call a bull uphill but um if i have my preference that's where i like to set up um to call a bull slightly downhill or on contour

Now we, now we're dealing with the wind. Um, if you set up with the wind, perfect. So let's say the wind's hitting you directly in the nose. That's ideally a perfect wind setup that gives you the most, the highest factor of being conservative. That bull can now approach, you know, swing way to the left, swing way to the right. And you've still got good wind, um, in your favor. But what I found, especially doing a lot of solo calling or even calling for buddies is, is,

If that bull comes straight on, you're left with the frontal shot or you're left with that bull becoming a little bit nervous and turning broadside. He doesn't typically turn broadside on his own when you've got the wind too perfect. So let's use that wind to our advantage and use it kind of as a steering wheel. Um,

Kind of a half moon wind approach. So if I can now get that wind not being on my nose, but let's say that winds hitting my right cheek at a 45, even up to a 90 degree angle, 45 hit my right cheek or even my right ear. So that winds hitting me in on the right side. I can almost with very good probability now dictate or guess that that bull is now going to swing to my left or the left of the colors position.

So you can see how we can start to use that to our own advantage where we call and maybe move up to our left. If we're not going to make any more calling or if we're calling for a buddy or hunting partner, I would want to be down to the right so that when that bull does start to half circle me and start to try to get the wind on me, I pull him right into the shooter.

So this allows us to use the wind almost as a steering wheel and put some unknowns into a bucket of knowns as we're calling this bull in. And so as you set up, start to think about that. If that bull does start to circle my position a lot of times from 60, 70, 100 yards out, what does this new approach now look like? Do I have shooting lanes as he comes in on my left?

or vice versa if the wind's opposite coming in on my right. Think about that, be an educated hunter and use that to your advantage as you go to set up. So earlier we talked about if we're dealing with a herd bull versus a satellite bull, now that we're set up,

What are we going to call? What's our first call going to be? And one thing that I want to start with right out and even preface this whole conversation, this is where we get into individual tactics and techniques, and there's a lot of ways to do it. You've got guys out there that believe they understand elk language, do a T, and they can communicate with elk like they're having a conversation. Some of those guys kill elk pretty routinely.

There are guys like myself that call more on a prescriptive, more of an attitude based calling. And I, I find it to be very successful and a high percentage of, of elk that we get to run the system on. We routinely call. And there's other guys out there, you know, my buddy, Brian Barney, um, Ryan Lamper, some of these guys that don't, they do call. Well, Ryan calls Brian doesn't, but guys that don't call as much, but maybe use raking of trees and brush, uh,

in combination with maybe a little bit less culling, they're also notching tags. So I want to preface this. This is the way I love to do it. And I want to give a little bit of why. So when you, and I'm not saying it's not as accomplished as maybe even more accomplished, but when you kill an elk that you've snuck in on

You didn't get to play that chess match of me calling and interacting with the elk. Now, it might be cool in its own sense that you were able to get that close without being heard, smell, seen, and still make a perfect shot. I'm out there. The main reason is to interact with these elk. I love nothing more than getting a bull super pissed off.

Eyes rolled back in his head, slobbering, you know, peeing all over himself, just so pissed off at me. And when he kind of turns that corner or pushes through some brush, his eyes rolled back in his head and he hits me with that beagle from 30 or 40 yards away. That is the exact reason all bottled up into about 10 seconds that I'm out there and why I love to archery elk hunt in the rut so much. I'm out there for that experience. Yeah, I could do it a bunch of different ways, but that's what I want. And that's why we're out there.

Um, so we call and we play off of their temperament. It's more of a, I do this, he reacts this way. Now I'm going to do this and I'm going to turn the temperature up on them. And it, and it, it, it worked very, very well. Um, one other thing I want to talk about before we get into actual calling tactics is don't get hung up on being the absolute best caller. Yes, it can help you gain volume. It can help you sound more realistic. It can help you mimic elk, but all elk sound different. And there's been a few times where real elk have really kind of

um, got me or, or confused me a little bit. I was ready to bounce out of a situation because I didn't want to feel like I was being called in by somebody or giving them any of my energy or effort. And, um, you know, sure as heck those elk came right in what I thought was a human. Um, so, so you don't have to be the best elk caller ever. So let's say we know we're on a herd bull. We've confirmed it. We can see cows. We can see herd bulls. He's, he's doing herd bull things, rounding up,

What I like to do is get close. We mentioned earlier, I want to be within 100 yards. I always make sure before I call, especially in these close quarters, you want to make sure you've got your arrow knocked and you've got your release either on your bow or hooked up before you start making calls.

Um, sometimes this has happened very fast where elk for one reason or another come in very quickly, very aggressively. And, um, or happened to very often that at the time you set up, you couldn't see the bull, but maybe they're heading your direction. And within a second or two, he's now got a wide open. He's got you pegged. He knows where you're at and his eyeballs are on you or other cows are on you. Eyeball. So you may not be able to get a chance to move after that. So, um, always be ready to shoot.

So I like to paint the scene that this bull, and he's got a lot of work, right? He's got a lot of times, multiple cows, you know, smaller herds, I'd say three, four, five, you know, some of the bigger herds, some of these bulls are trying to run 30, 40 cows at once. And it becomes a full-time job, especially when you've got satellite bulls harassing them or, um,

kind of pestering him. He's got a lot of work surrounding his cows. So to paint this scene, I want to basically be a cow on the edge of his herd, and I'm going to use some estrus he calls, some more wines. So your typical cow call, just a mew. An estrus wine is more up and down. Yeah.

So what I'm trying to let him do right off the bat is that there's a cow on the edge of your herd that you no longer have in your eyesight. You have control over. And then very quickly after that, I'm going to let a challenge be goal. Basically, I'm saying you have a cow on the edge of your herd that needs some attention, but there's this new bull that's now right there on top of her.

Um, and a lot of times where they're trying to, we, we've set up this, you know, fight or flight type mentality during the rut. A lot of times you can take advantage of that because that bull doesn't want to leave the opportunity to breed that cow, uh, procreate and whatnot. And I like to use the analogy of what we're doing is, is let's say I'm in, I'm in a restaurant, me and my wife are eating in the back booth of a, of a restaurant and, and why we get so close. And it's kind of this shock and awe approach.

If a guy walks in the front door of the restaurant and yells my name and some profanities or whatever he's going to yell at and basically say, I'm going to take your wife, you know, whatever you take me off, whatever it may be. I've got the opportunity when you're that far away to just walk out the back door, maybe, maybe deflect, maybe get away from the situation. This is a lot of times the biggest error hunters make is they call their way into a setup and that bull is not interested in losing his cows as a bull approaches.

So we want to be very, very quiet. And so by painting this scene, he's got a cow that's in need. And all of a sudden this bull hammers, he's made his, he's, you know, been able to approach silently. And all of a sudden he's there. A lot of times this is enough to turn that bull's temperature up very, very quickly. And a lot of times that's been the only two calls I've had to make. You can start to hear brush break. You can start to hear approaches, um,

And a lot of times that's all we need if we've got close enough. There are times where you get in a little bit of a battle where you need to pull that bull off of the herd or you may need to follow them. And so if we get into too much calling, I ideally want that bull to

to make the next call after I've made those two. If he does, I mimic him or I walk right on top of his bugle. So I typically have my bugle handy. As soon as he bugles, I'm right back on top of him and I don't let him ever quote on, you know, kind of finish his, his, what he wants to say. I'm always walking on top of him. I'm always mimicking what he has to say. And I'm trying to turn that temperature dial up, you know, turn his thermostat, make it higher and higher. So he's getting frustrated, more angry, uh,

um and and um ideally he will continue to call and i will walk on top of him i don't necessarily want to control the conversation by me by me talking but if i need to if 45 seconds to a minute minute and a half has gone by and i haven't heard elk moving i haven't heard other beagles i haven't heard other cow sounds i will kind of see what what we need to do and during this if you

this is where mimicry comes in. If, if this bull's screaming, I will scream back out of him. If he's got a guttural grunt with some chuckles, I will do the same thing and I'll try to, and I'll kind of roll with that through the next, uh, through the next call and the next call and, and try to amplify that and really just get him, um, more upset, more upset. And one thing, um,

We, a lot of times there are multiple setups in order to get a bull to turn, you know, so sometimes it works on the first try. Sometimes we need to move 60, 70 yards closer or that bull will semi round up his cows and take them in the opposite direction. As long as we've got the wind, right, we will move 60, 70 yards, um, vegetation and terrain allowing and reset up.

Um, so really we're, we're just trying to, to gauge him. And if, if I get that little bit of time between the estrous cow call and let's say the, the, the bugle, uh, the challenge bugle that I'm kind of throwing the whole kitchen sink at him. If that bull hammers my cow call, I may just stay with that. Um, and this, and this is herd bull tactics only is, is being very aggressive with the bugle will now kind of go into the satellite bull. I know I'm dealing with the satellite bull.

I will go to lots of heavy, sexy cow calling. There's no need to necessarily use a bugle in this situation. If he's responding to cow calls, I'm going to stay with him. If I feel like I'm losing him, I may throw in like a little moan bugle to let him know like an immature bull's got some cows down here.

Um, but never really just blast them with a herd bull sound because these bulls have established a pecking order. They kind of know based on bugle, what's what. And so we'll typically throw lots of sexy cow calling Adam. And we've been able to call Elkin and Burns where we've been able to watch as we throw more cow calls at them, the faster that bull will move through. So we've got enough. You almost can't cow call enough. Um, you stop cow calling, he'll slow down, you pick it up and that bull will approach, um, faster. But,

With this said, I basically said there's these prescriptive cookie cutter approaches, but I know as soon as I go out in the field, I'm never just doing these. These are kind of the standard that we build off of. Let's say I'm walking along a trail and I get a whiff of elk coming up the hill and there's a nice little pocket or a bench down there. I may elect to just cow call a mew, not even an estrous wine, nothing, just a mew.

If I get a bull to answer that and I move, let's say I can't move far, but I go 80 yards further down the hill and the bull answers that, I don't even need to know if it's a herd bull or a satellite bull that if he's being responsive and seems like he's approaching to a cow call, I would be, you know, it would be...

kind of a stupid play for me to change to one of my scenes or one of my, my prescriptions that I typically call in. I'll, I'm going to go ahead and stick with that cow mew until it doesn't work or until that bowl doesn't get there. And then maybe, you know, escalate it to a, a estrous wine or whatever it may be, but use what works out there. People get too hung up on doing things a specific or a certain way, or, Hey, I read this on the internet that I need to do this, or it worked that one time and

I think one of the things that makes you a good elk hunter

or somebody that finds success more times than not is the ability to quickly reduce what the situation is and what you need to do as far as sounds you need to make. There are certain situations where I'm just like, this dang elk doesn't care what I say to him. He's only bugling every five or 10 minutes on his own. If that's the case, like I need to shut up. I need to be more aggressive. I need to use more spot and stock techniques. I need to get in close, then maybe call when I get closer. And then if it doesn't work then, then you may need to finish it off with spot and stock. So it's just being aggressive

an educated hunter that kind of knows what to do. And so I've kind of got like the, you know, the steal a cow scene where there's a, that cow on the edge of the herd, a new bull shows up, he's there to take care, care of, and, you know, breed that cow and then a satellite bull, lots of sexy cow, but really just do what's working. The other thing I like to take into account

is what's going on out in the elk woods without us intervening. Are these elk super talkative? Does this bull have a lot of satellites around like those herd dynamics of the area and the time and, and the percent of cows that are currently in estrus, all of that plays into how talkative the elk are going to be, what my responses should be. And so I like to just let the situation, the information I know kind of call my next move. Um,

though we're pretty prescriptive and I need to be able to adjust to what's happening in front of me right now. And a lot of times we get asked solo versus partner strategy. I mentioned we use the wind a little bit different. A lot of times we can throw those colors up in front, but this isn't like some of the old truth videos I got to watch growing up. Public land elk, you

you can't typically set that collar a hundred yards back because you've now just disrupted that, that threat bubble or that, that elk's ability to walk away from his cows that are his for sure thing to come find this, uh, new cow that showed up that that's not coming his direction. So, um, when we, when we do partner strategies, our partners typically in our hip pocket. And the other reason I like to do that is a lot of times a shooter's got a better, you

you know, he's got better optics of the situation and how it's playing out and what the bowl is doing. And we can relay, we can give hand signs back to our caller. Hey, maybe you do need to fade back because he's now hung up at 70 yards. Like we didn't make a good enough decision on his hangup point or like, man, this thing's just tearing up brush. Every time you hit a bugle, like bugle a little bit more or more frequently versus stay away from cow calls, whatever it may be, we can at least communicate. Yeah.

And one other thing I like to add to the calling natural sounds is brush breaking. I always, always set up with a tree branch that's two, two and a half, three inches in diameter next to me. And ideally, if the spot allows it, I want to be next to a tree with dry bark or broken, dried out limbs that I can just beat the heck out of and create that

Because a lot of bulls, as we call them in, especially on what I would say your longer call-ins that take a little more time to develop, that bull will typically find a tree somewhere between you and him to rake and kind of show off his dominance and get his horn, put his scent down on that tree, whatever it may be establishing his area.

Um, we like to mimic that. And, uh, if you can beat the heck out of a tree, it just adds to the realism of the situation that, yeah, there's a bull bugling, but he's also raking and it kind of, um, puts all that together. Um, so that's really, I mean, as much as I would like to say calling is a, it is very important to my success and getting the game started. As far as how you call Elkin, I feel your setup and your approach are so much more, um,

so much more important to the outcome and your success than the actual calling. And it's really just taking their temperature. Does this call work? Yes or no. And I guess I should say, in certain situations, there's level of threats, right? Like a big challenge beagle, like right in the bull's face is probably the highest level of threat you can throw at him right out of the gate versus a calf or a cow mule, very non-threatening, very just

out communicating to each other versus like, Hey, let's maybe do a spike squeal or an immature bull bugle. And then you may be a squeal and then maybe some moans and maybe some chuckles. Like there are ways to build up to the full blown, um, you know, challenge bugle that you're going to throw at them. And so there are times where if the rut doesn't seem to be just going crazy and maybe the challenge bugle isn't the right thing, I might, I might just start at a lower threat level and then slowly build, um,

Um, so that's kind of my strategy. Um, I highly recommend to everybody, like go find a, a strategy, a system that you like and put it to use, but that that's going to kind of wrap it up on part two of the elk hunting. This is a little bit different. This is kind of what I go through during my seminars a little bit, uh, semi, you know, we've reduced it a little bit so it can, it can fit in the confines of a podcast, but

That is really my strategy. It's really, really simple. Like I, people want to overcomplicate it. They want to make it. So you have to read books and books on how to do this. And, and I honestly keep it very, very simple. We run the same thing over and over the progressions. And, uh,

I think you go out there, put some of this to use and be confident in your approach. Be confident in your calling. You're going to find some success this year. So thanks a lot. Listen to part two of elk hunting. Good luck to everybody out there. And once again, you have questions for us, feel free to email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com. Thank you very much for listening.

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