Ep. 84: Dirk and Jason Answer Listener Elk Hunting Questions
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All right, welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and today our podcast studio is located in eastern Kansas. Would you call that eastern? Would we say southeastern Kansas? Central eastern. Central eastern Kansas. We got my good friend and colleague, Jason.

Jason Glenn Phelps as he goes by on the old IG Instagram. Yeah.

in case you guys don't follow him go give him a follow i know i know he's he's in he's in a bad way he can't he can't keep up with me on his followers oh and um you know that's not that's kind of a humble brag on my part but um you know i'm just trying to trying to give him some love and so if you guys are on instagram and and you like like jason phelps give him a give him a follow and uh and you might even send him a dm and just let him know what you think about the podcast i'm

I'm going to thank all three of you that take Dirk's advice and go to Instagram. Don't follow me. Thank you very much. And hopefully they'll have good positive feedback. Hopefully they'll be like, hey, first off, my first complaint, Phelps, is this. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah.

I'm always giving... The good thing is I'm such a good person at taking criticism, constructive criticism. I take it really well. I just kind of rolls and I'm... No, I joke in real life. I don't like constructive criticism. I'm not good at dealing with it. Wait, wait.

all this time I've been criticizing your every word and your every move. And it's sometimes not that constructively and you haven't said a thing. I, I thought you didn't, I thought you liked it. No. Oh, wow. Wow. Man, egg on my face. Should have been more self-aware all this time. Well, anyway, you know,

Phelps and I are on this turkey trip over here, and we hardly ever get time together because I work remote. I'm in the Boise, Idaho area. Metropolitan. Metropolitan, the greater metropolitan area, you know, the beautiful city of Boise, but I don't live in Boise. But Jason lives in PL, and we only get together once.

a few times a year, you know, on a hunting trip or something. So we try to take advantage of those times to record some podcasts. So we're going to knock out a handful of them here while we're together and hopefully you guys enjoy them. And today we're taking, we're talking elk hunting and we've taken some questions, some listener questions from the super secret hotline. And if you guys ever want to call in and leave a message,

You can let me know, you know, any criticisms or instructions for Jason Phelps to, you know, be a better podcaster, maybe just a better human being. Then you can always call in and call in. The super secret hotline number is 208-219-7701.

And leave a message. It can't be longer than three minutes, I think. So you'll have to be mindful of your time. Make your question about hunting, elk hunting, deer hunting, turkey hunting, whatever.

Make a brief question or a comment about, you know, Jason and his lack of hair on his head. Yeah. I have to ask, though, why do you consider it a super secret number? Wouldn't you want people to know the number to call in? And then we give it out on a podcast, which kind of makes it unsuper secret. Well, it's like being in a selective club or an elite club. Oh, gotcha. Our...

dedicated and valued podcast listeners, they get to know that number, but Joe public, he doesn't get that number or Jill, Jill public her too. Either one of them, they don't get to, they don't get to call in. Well, I mean, I wouldn't mind if they did, if you guys share it, but we just don't put that out in the universe. But you know, more questions we, we get, you know, the more of these kinds of episodes we can do, but anyhow, yeah.

Did you have any other criticisms, Jason? No, no. I think this is starting off great. Okay. All right. Well, good. Well, I think we'll just jump right into the questions here. And without further ado, question number one. Hey, Dirk. Yeah, this is Craig Sauer calling from Spokane, Washington. Love your podcast. You and Phelps know how to do it up. So

So yeah, I've definitely got a thirst for elk information, and I think I've got a question for your elk hotline here. So yeah, I'm kind of an old dog learning some new tricks. I'm turning 52 this summer, but hopefully I've got another dozen or so years left in my legs, and yeah.

Yeah, I've done your elk collective and quite a few online modules. And, yeah, I got some questions for you. So to give you some context, yeah, I'm hunting North Idaho, thick terrain, panhandle general tag. So you know what I'm talking about there. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, I think you could do an entire podcast on these questions.

Basically, two questions. The first one has three subparts. So the first one, I'll just fire away here, basically trying to formulate a more robust day hunt plan. And so I think a day hunt plan would generally be kind of like three categories that could be broken down into your morning hunt plan,

The midday madness, as I think you coined, and then the evening strategy. And so just some specific questions on those three categories. Morning strategy, you know, would you prefer to be, you know, high elevation above them in the morning and kind of descend down on them and negotiate the thermals and the wind? Or would you rather kind of start at access point low and come high? Okay.

So that would kind of be my morning question. Midday, I think you could spend a lot of time, and if you kind of break down your strategy for midday, basically the assumption is you know where some elk are at and you've got to get them to talk. Kind of running through that calling, seasonal tendencies, topography,

You know, when to be patient. Do you just hang out for another couple hours? So on and so forth. And then the evening strategy, you know, is that basically kind of just the reverse of the morning strategy. So kind of breaking down your day hunt plan into those three categories. Okay.

Last question, just kind of for a guy like me that's going two hours or so to my site, I can do, you know, would you rather type deal three four-day hunts, or would you rather go all in for a 10-day stint? So those are my questions. Hope you can tackle it. Again, appreciate your podcast. Thanks, sir. All right, Phelps. What do you think? I know that was very specific for North Idaho hunting.

But I will say I kind of, I did kind of use the same tactics just about everywhere I go. Same kind of mindset, if you will. But what, what are your thoughts? I'm going to go ahead and let you ask this question. Yeah. So I'm going to kind of repeat it again. Day hunt plans, kind of what are you going to do in the morning? What do you do in the middle of the day? And then we're going to do for your evening hunt. If you were to break it up into three sections, um,

And I'm pretty similar to you, no matter if I'm in North Idaho and can't see if I'm in, you know, Colorado above tree line. If I'm in Western Washington hunting clear cuts and timber, my morning hunt is always to, to try to let my, my glassing, my, my optics do the work if possible. Um,

Anybody that's listened to me talk elk hunting, I'd always prefer to spot elk without having to bugle, without having to see them, just so I can observe and do some of that. So my morning is always to usually get on a high point. If possible, let my glassing work. Now I'm going to

you know, recognize that we're in North Idaho and that's probably not going to happen. So then what I want to do, if I have to use audible method, um, I'm going to try to get the high ground. I want to be on a ridge top typically. Um, and then just work, work those areas. Um, you know, be high. I want to locate out, you know, whether it's through glassing or audible, um,

get high, locate elk. And then, um, and now some may say, and he talked about it. There are times that if I know elk are going to be in the similar areas day after day, I will start low and just take my chances that I know they're there. I don't need to be high anymore to do that. I'm going to go get the thermals, right? Because I feel my best play is, is to try to take advantage before those thermals switch in the morning. And so it's really just

you know, I, I do a lot of these, you know, being a math nerd, being an engineer, I equate everything to, well, if I stay high spot them and then have to go low, my percentage is 17% chance that I'm going to kill it. But if I go low, can't see them, but they're there. Now my odds are up to 30. You know, that's, it's not necessarily like that, but it's kind of what I'm thinking. Like what gives me the best chance of killing, killing that elk. So in the morning, um,

I need to be able to locate elk. I need to be able to start my day. I need to, you know, find out, get in the game, but,

So that's number one, and then I'll make my adjustments. If I am high, locate a bull, then I'll do everything in my power to get the wind. If I have to be patient, which I'm not good at, I'll sit and kind of shadow it until the thermals switch, whatever it needs to be. But number one, in the morning, I'm always trying to find elk first and foremost, and then I have to deal with the wind that's presented the terrain vegetation from there.

And a lot of these midday is going to depend on how my morning went. So sometimes, especially in New Mexico, we seem to get like stuck in the cat and mouse game. And we'll do that in a lot of other places, but more so on. So you may follow out to bed and then sit there and like figure out the winds and thermals. You're like, oh, these things are pretty dang smart critters. They bedded in a spot that I can't get to.

So we start to think like, well, if we sit on these all day, is there a bull in there I want to go after? Do I want to go find something else? So sometimes we'll just sit on elk all afternoon. As frustrating as it is, you take a nap, you're in a safe spot, you can observe, you can hear them do their midday bugles. Now, if these elk decide to go to bed and you're waiting, you're

for a thermal switch or it's going to you're going to have to methodically and slowly get in there with the wind you can go after those elk at times midday so let's say they're in an area you're not very confident in sit and listen sit and wait for thermals to change if i'm presented with that i love hunting elk in the middle of the day if i feel i've got an advantage or the wind isn't an issue and visibility is low and there's no threat of me bumping those things out

I'll make my play and move in very, very slow. If you got the wind right, hopefully you'll smell them before you get too close. And if that bull continues to bugle from his bed or bugle occasionally throughout the midday, you'll have a very good low, you know, a pin on his location. One thing I'd like to caution people with though, a lot of times as you approach elk,

especially if it's a herd bull bedded with cows, you know, maybe not so much on satellites as the satellites, if they are there or around typically will be on that downwind side almost is, is lookouts or, you know, scouts for these things. So,

I would say the majority of the time on bigger herds that I know herd bulls and satellites are together, you will somewhere along the way bump or potentially run into those satellites on your way to that herd bull that may be bugling. So keep that in mind as well. So midday, let's say we didn't get on something right away. Midday is going to turn into an elk finding mission, right? If I'm not on elk, I'm always trying to find elk. So

And I'm looking at the train and my running ridges. Am I looking at like low passes where elk may have went through that morning? Um, I'm also going to continue to bugle into areas with, with some, uh, you know, just to see if I can get a response from that bull in his, in his bed. Uh, I'm just looking to find elk that once again, either I can go after right away or to save for the night hunt. So now as we're rolling through on the evening, um,

I'm once again, if I don't have elk found still from the morning or the afternoon, um, I'm going, I'm going back to finding elk, um, one, either to hunt them that night or two to find them in which a lot of time, especially if you can use glass, which you can't North Idaho specific to this question, you can save them for the morning. If the thermals aren't right, or, um, you know, let's say you're high on a ridge. Again, you get bowls to be able to down in the basin, unless the thermals, uh,

you know, or the thermals won't allow you to make a play unless you can get way below them or whatnot. So we'll typically leave, you know, those things alone and come back in the morning where we've got a different plan. But yeah, I don't want to oversimplify this question, but I also don't want to take up the whole podcast on it. If you oversimplify this, it's find elk,

and hunt elk or you find out to wait on elk to hunt the elk later. And it's, it kind of goes through those three, you know, morning, uh, midday, uh, afternoon. Uh, like I said, I'm pretty, pretty vanilla on this, uh, get high locate or locate either glassing or audible find out and go hunt them. Yeah. And then what about, what about your, uh, choice of a, like a four day hunts versus 10 day hunts?

Man, it's really sixes on this one. You know, it's like half a dozen to one. There are times where I think a four-day or three four-day hunts would be better, especially if you're unsure of rut timing or pressure. I could see where those work, but I would say the majority of the time I lean towards those longer hunts. It lets me

kind of start to figure things out, um, make a plan, know where pressure's at right then versus if you're going in and out, you don't know what's happening during the week. You don't know what happened on the weekends. Um, I prefer that, that 10 day hunt just because of my mind, I feel like I've, I know a little more about what's going on and maybe I have a little more control over the situation versus if I keep showing up and leaving. Um, yeah, you may hit the rut better or the timing may be better versus pressure versus not pressure. Um,

Yeah. I, it's, I would prefer that longer trip, I think. Yeah. Um, I've, I've kind of done, but like back when I used to, used to have to weekend warrior it for the most part, you know, maybe have a long weekend, like a three day weekend. And I used to work with guys that would have like a, they would use, spend their, their vacation time just like that. They'd take off Mondays and Tuesdays. So they'd hunt Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, um,

which allowed them to hunt the woods on Mondays and Tuesdays. But a lot of times there's less people, you know, people have gone home. Um, there's less of those weekend warriors out there. Um,

But anytime I've had those smaller, like long weekends I've hunted, it seemed like about the time I got into elk really good and had them nailed down and perfect. Like, okay, I got them going and then I have to go to work the next day. So I would always kind of like, it would always just kind of like shorten the

Or just like, I'd have to just leave bugling elk when I should be staying longer. So I always kind of felt like, man, if I could have those 10-day hunts to put it all together, find and put it all together, and then actually hunt those elk that I'd found, it seems to work better. So I kind of agree with you, Jason. But I know some people, you know, just scheduling and maybe...

it's really hard to get 10 consecutive days off, you know, with work schedules and stuff. I can, I can understand that. So, you know, I'd take advantage of any time off you can, but, um,

Or maybe, you know, it's an area you haven't really hunted before and you don't want to commit to a 10 day hunt, but this, you know, four day hunts work better for you, you know, you know, three, four day hunts or whatever. That might just, that way you can hunt every, every, you know, stage of that September rut and be like, okay, well, these are rut during this week better than they do these other weeks. And maybe next year I'll take my, my 10 day, 10 days off during this specific week, but

that you found that they seem to be rutting better or maybe there's less hunting pressure depending on how you want to hunt it, whether you're calling elk or spotting stock. But since it's North Idaho, you're probably going to be wanting to call them rather than spotting stock. There's just not a lot of spotting stock opportunities. I mean, there's a lot of country that's private timber company ground, also state lands.

that are logged off and man, some of these clear cuts are getting savagely large. So you could potentially, you know, glass them up and, and make moves off that kind of like what Jason alluded to. There's some big country where you can glass, you know, a mile or two away at elk and not disturb them and start making plans. Oh, they're, they're feeding out in this big block of stuff that's cut. And then there's a, there's a big block of timber over there. They're going in there into their,

every morning. So you can then maybe shift your, your midday plan to go hunt those elk once you've got them located first thing in the morning. But, uh, my, my go-to morning plan for, for North Idaho or wherever is cover country, right? You know, I'm going to, I'm going to check as soon as I get out of the truck, I'm going to, I'm going to check for bugles, you know, some it's crazy. I've

There's a lot of people who will get out of their truck, they'll throw their pack on there, they'll throw their bow on their pack, and they'll just start hiking a trail. You know, if you're parked at a trailhead and there's 15 pickups parked there and it doesn't look like there's going to be any elk around close by, you know, it would make sense to probably do that. But sometimes...

by checking, like if you're the only one there, I would definitely check your, as soon as you get out of the truck and bugle. Cause sometime, you know, elk are not too far away from the road. Um, and then once you, you try to check that low hanging fruit, um,

I'm going to hike out, whether it's a trail, maybe it's a ridge, maybe it's down off into some steep hell hole. I'm going to hike down in there. And I typically, the key thing is hike down or whatever. I'm going to stay high, but looking for elk, they're probably going to be below me. So I'm going to hike around.

And try to find those elk from a high point. And the reason is, for me, in the country I hunt, if you're down low, a lot of times you're at the bottom of the mountain, a lot of times you're in the bottom of a creek drainage. And there's a lot of noise from the water, first off. It's really hard to bugle up into these places without contending with the noise from a creek running. Which makes it really difficult to hear distant bugles. And also...

If you're trying to cover the same amount of country, let's say you're trying to cover a certain drainage. And if you're trying to do it from the bottom side, especially North Idaho, you're going to have way more nooks and crannies. You'll cover more miles walking from the bottom.

traveling the bottom end of a drainage versus running ridgetops. There's just way more contours at the bottom, you know, ins and outs and gullies and stuff that you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to, to walk through. And then also the, the correct bottoms are always full of blowdowns are always thicker. There's more vegetation just because there's more water there and it can be super difficult to navigate. So, um,

I like to stay on top and a lot of the North Idaho roads, um, lend themselves to that kind of hunting. Most of the road, a lot of the roads are on top, you know, um, there are roads in the bottoms and stuff, but a lot of the roads are on ridge tops. Um, it seems like, so that's what I would do for my morning.

And then I'm just going to hunt, you know, I'm going to cover country until I can hear a bugle. And then I'll get the wind right. I'll dive in and try to drop down to their level and try to get the wind right. And then, you know, set up for my calling scenario. And then as far as midday goes, there again, kind of like what Jason said, whatever intel I've got from that morning,

will kind of dictate how I hunt that afternoon. So maybe I didn't hear anything. Maybe I walked out there where I thought I was going to hear stuff and I didn't hear a dang thing. So

I'll use that afternoon time to just cover country. You know, I'm just walking. I'm walking, I'm bugling, and I'm just checking every little pocket, every little drainage, every little... Let's say I'm on a great big ridge system. I may walk back and forth across the top of the ridge and bugle from one drainage and down into another drainage, just kind of leaving every stone unturned. Now, let's say I've found elk in the morning, and this happens a lot. Let's say you hear distant bugles, and they're...

It's massively hard country to hunt. Very steep, big, deep canyon, and lots of blowdowns and thick trees and brush. It just takes a long time to get there. So sometimes you locate them in the morning, and then you kind of figure out where they kind of slow down and bed down. You hear their last bugles, and their bugles kind of get lazy sounding. It's like, okay, those elk are going to bed up on that hill.

in that saddle or on that little bench or whatever. So a lot of times I'll use that midday to navigate to that spot. It may take half the day to hike into some of those places just because, you know, as the crow flies or, you know, distance wise, it's not that far, but I always say North Idaho, like three to five miles is like 10, hiking 10 miles in Wyoming or Colorado. It's just, it's so thick and so difficult to traverse. Yeah.

So sometimes you spend most of your, your midday just closing that gap in some of those kinds of places. Or if, or if you, the elk are on your side of the mountain, it's like, okay, I've, I've located the elk in the morning. I've, uh,

because of wind or whatever, I just didn't want to, or maybe how fast they were moving. I just didn't want to make a move and try to set up on them as they were moving that morning. Then I'll, I'll use, still use that time to get close in the midday and wait till those midday winds stabilize. And it, it,

you have to kind of sit because you can get kind of fooled. What I do with my rule is like, once the winds kind of stabilize, what I do is I get as close as I can where I can be safe from the, the winds fouling it up and I'll sit down and I'll kind of watch my, my clock for about 30 minutes. And if the winds remain stable for about 30 minutes, then at that point, it's like, okay, I think, I think we're good to make a move and try to get in there. And so then,

strategically, I'm going to be very calculated and make sure I move in when the winds are right. If the winds never do get right, some days are just like that. You got winds swirling every which way because you got big puffy clouds overhead or whatever. Then some days I'll just spend sitting there waiting until evening time to make my move. And then the evening time, it's the same way. If I've committed to a big day hike where I'm a long ways from the truck,

you know, I'll continue to hunt.

till dark and then that's in the dark is when I start hiking out and you know it may take a while but usually I'm trying to hit my a trail or a way to get back to the truck easily in the dark because sometimes at North Idaho it just it's so brushy it's hard to navigate in the in the dark with a headlamp um a lot of trips and falls and stuff there so but uh there again I'm continuing to search for bugles all the way to dark and then I head back to the truck

and head back to camp. I will, most of the time, I won't see camp in the daytime. I leave before the first light and I get back at nine, 10 o'clock at night, eat something, go to bed, do it all again the next day. So that's, that's how I do it.

You have anything else to add, Jason? No, I think we covered that one. That one, like you said, it could have made its own podcast probably. I mean, we could really dive deep more into those things if you want to get real specific, but that was kind of the broad brush answer there. All right. Jason keeps getting notified. I don't know if his TikTok is going viral or what, but he's getting notifications. I am. I apologize. Hopefully you guys can't hear that, but I'm trying to figure out how to silence this thing.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. Hey Dirk, David Mercado out of Wyoming here. Got a question for you elk hunt related. Um,

So in my system or part of my strategy, trying to kill a big herd bull is I like to try and hunt them herd bulls

before they get herded up and establish their harem with cows. And I don't hear a lot of guys talk about that, about, you know, trying to find that bull in that small little window when he's by himself kind of roaming around. You know, you don't have to deal with all the cows. Sometimes they come in. You can actually call those bulls in. But,

But what I keep constantly finding myself, I've done it before, but it seems like it's just such a small percentage of strategy and more of luck. And I'm kind of wondering what your thought is about that and if you have a strategy in the way you do that. Or is it something also that a lot of these bowls, are they going from bachelor group

straight into a herd of cows? Do they not even go solo? You know, because it seems like it seems like such a small window. You maybe have like a day or two, but it seems like with me,

I swear, sometimes I'm like, I think I'm out early enough and I find them big bulls and they're already herded up. I'm like, man, I didn't think they were herded up already. Them big bulls have already got cows and it's September 9th, you know. So another one of my questions is, what dates do you think are the best to find herd bulls solo before they got cows? If you could just kind of, you know,

go over that a little bit, talk about it a little bit. Um, what your experience with that is, uh, I really appreciate it. All right, man. Keep doing your thing, man. Okay. So strategy on early season bowls. I'm going to, I know what I know, what I cut my teeth on and what I've spent the most time watching elk, um, is in my back door, you know, so this is Roosevelt's, but I'm going to, I I've talked to a lot of people and there are some similarities. So he,

He had mentioned maybe being surprised September 9th that they were already herded up, which doesn't surprise me. Like around home, you'll watch by about August 25th-ish, you'll start to have bulls bugling. You'll start to have bulls with the herd. But what typically happens is these smaller, more immature bulls,

we'll round up the herd and run with them. And then they will get replaced by the, the more, the more mature bulls. And then ultimately it's like the pecking order from the bottom up, you'll have small bulls with the herd being Lynn, pretend like they're the thing. And then they'll get,

maybe a semi-mature bull and then you'll ultimately get the big bull that comes in at the end that will ultimately ends up being the herd bull throughout throughout season will end up being that herd bull so it's almost like a reverse pecking order um august 25th you'll start to hear these bulls beagle they'll start to split up and not be friends anywhere from august 15th to 25th you'll start to get these bulls that are are uh

you know, splitting off there. They're no longer buddies. They went from being best friends for the last, you know, all summer long since they've bachelored up after last year's rep, potentially, you know, a lot of the big, big bowls will go solo for a while and then they'll join back up, you know, as they start to put velvet on and, and you know, April, May they'll become buddies and they'll be buddies all summer. And then they become, you know, their, their rivals from, from about August 15th on, they'll start to establish that pecking order and,

So we, I honestly don't have a lot of, um, hunting experience hunting them in that timeframe where they're not with the herd or at least thinking about being with the herd. Um,

You know, most of the seasons, Utah has a very early opener. I think Nevada has a couple early openers. I don't even know when they can start hunting in Wyoming. Isn't that typically September 1st? I think so, yeah. Which you may, like the very first five days of September, may be able to find that big bull off the herd. And typically what he will do is he'll come in and check during the, you know, at night,

check on the cows, and he'll typically leave in the morning. So he may not hang with that herd until some of these cows start coming into estrus, and then he'll start to hang with that herd full time. But I do know when it comes to...

I'm still going to describe strategy when, when those bulls are solo or staging off is it comes down to just the pattern. You have to pattern those elk. Um, you can use cow calls. You can use, um, you know, calling deer advantage in that late August timeframe. But, uh, you know, talking with Ryan Carter and some of the guys that, you know, I've got to, got to know and, and talk about, um, you know, these, this early season elk hunting almost, um,

pre-rut even sooner than that um is you got to pattern these these big bulls when i used to go out in washington and just scout you could almost you know some of these bulls you could set your watch to them where they were going to be what clear cut they were going to feed in what patch of timber they were going to go bed in so you know what i've seen what i've heard of people to actually get to hunt them is you need to kill them early you need to kill them while they're patternable and you need to kill them before pressure from these hunting seasons starts to move them so um that's the best answer i got uh

I would say unless you're able to hunt somewhere from August 25th to about that September 2nd or 3rd range, you're probably not going to catch these big bulls that you're talking about by themselves for too long. At some point after that, as soon as that first cow comes into estrus, he's going to now join the herd and hang out. So that's what I got for you on those early season tactics prior to those bulls herding up.

So for me, every year the rut seems to be a little different. So year to year can sometimes be not very consistent on what I'm finding. So one year on the season opener in Idaho, let's say it's August 30th, and I may not have bulls with cows until the 10th.

Other years on August 30th, there'll be a herd bull running cows on the 30th. You know, it's just, it's weird. I think there's, you know, rut cycles are different every year. Some years are tens and some years are twos, at least in my experience. So with that in mind, some of the things I've noticed, like, I feel like once those bulls kind of separate their bachelor groups, they, they,

They shed their velvet. They kind of move away from each other. Then they go to these little places. I kind of like to call them a little, like a little, a bowl bedroom or a little hidey hole or something. They'll kind of go be by themselves and they'll kind of space out from each other. And they may, they'll probably, sometimes they'll stay in the same drainage. Sometimes they just completely move out of the country, just depending on where those cows are living. So yeah,

if you can kind of identify where those cows are living, then those bulls are probably going to stage up pretty close, but maybe not with them. So they'll be close enough to where when things start happening, they'll start smelling the smells, but they're not actively living day to day with the cows. They're still in those little bull bedrooms and you'll find those places. They'll, you'll have like, like,

a drainage with all these little finger ridges in them and like almost every if there's a lot of elk there almost every little finger ridge will have a bowl on that on that ridge

And he'll have a little, like a little flat spot or a little bench or somewhere where he can feel safe. And you'll find a little bedding area there typically be on like a North face where, and you'll find them where they've been, they've been rubbing their horns in there. You'll see rubs that from mid to late August, all the way up until like the first week of September there. And then,

Once those cows start coming in, they'll disappear from those places and go be with the cows. But if you can find that, if you can find those elk, you know, I would hunt the opener through the very, you know, opener season. Did he say he was from Wyoming? I can't remember. Yeah, Wyoming. Yeah, so I'd hunt the Wyoming opener. I'd take that first 10 days and, you know, year to year may be different on what you're going to find as far as behavior and where the elk are at and how they behave.

are receptive to calling, but early I found, and I've hunted Wyoming early several times. And if bulls will bugle, sometimes bugles, sometimes you can't hardly get a bull to bugle on that early first part of the season. Sometimes they, they can, but if you can get them to bugle and you can get in their little, on their little, their little hidey hole there, if you can kind of get in there, bulls a lot of times will come and they'll be defensive of that spot. And

Some of the bugling I'll hear in that period of time won't be super aggressive bugles. They'll be more, they'll bugle, but you won't hear them give you that really nasty mean bugle like you'd get later in the month when they have cows like, I'm going to come kill you type of bugle. I don't think they bugle as much like that, though it is a possibility. I mean, you never say never when you're calling elk. But a lot of times they'll come out of curiosity like, who the heck is this guy trying to come into my spot here?

This is my spot. I want you to leave and they'll want to come push you out of that. So that's worked really well for me, but I find in those places is pretty critical and how to do that. You just got to, it's covering tons of country, right? And like, you know, where the, maybe the cows are. So probably the, the ridges, the, and the mountains above them or very close by are probably going to be where those bulls are at. And I've found that,

And this, like I said, this isn't always the case, but I found more often than not, bowls in that early season, that opening season,

opening week are more receptive to bugles than to cow calls. I'm testing both, right? I'm going to put out cow calls. I'm going to put out bugles, but a lot of times the replies I'm getting are to the bugles. So once I kind of find that they're only replying to bugles, I kind of cut the cow calls way back. I might still throw out one or two here and there, but I'm going to keep giving him what he really likes.

And I think it's still, I think you're in that tail end of that pecking order period where they're still, you know, like, hey, you know, I don't want you in my spot or I'm the toughest guy around or whatever. I think they're still, you know, assuring or continuing that who's the most dominant bull around. So if you can get close into those little areas and get them fooled into coming in, you know, get them worked up. I don't typically...

go at them hard. I don't typically just start cutting them off and stuff. I just let things kind of build slowly. When I start bugling to a bull in those situations, I, I kind of matches intensity, uh,

And then I kind of let him escalate little by little. And then pretty soon he gets wound up enough to where here he comes, but you gotta be close to, you can't, you typically can't get them to bugle and come in clear across the Canyon in those situations. It's, it's like, you have to be right on his little Ridge, right on his little, little Heidi hole, you know, within a hundred or 200 yards of him, um, because he wants to be defensive of that space.

So that that's my, my recommendations. I'd go early the first week of season and some years it'll be like, wow, this was great. It worked like a charm. And the next year you're like, ah, these elk aren't here. They've, they've already moved off and they've, they've got cows. Um, and then you're just going to have to hunt them like that too. And, and

Herd bulls, again, if they got cows, I'm going to try to call them out of their bedding area. That's usually the best time. They're done running for the day. They got those cows in a safe place. Now they're going to be very defensive of that spot. And you get close and start calling to them, start challenging them. They're going to want to come out of there and push you out to keep you from taking their cows. So that's my take on it. All right, question number three.

Hey, Dirk, this is Andy Reimer out of South Dakota. I got hunt plans in Montana this September, and I'm going middle of September, but kind of at a conflict because the middle of the hunt that I have planned, there's a full moon in the dead center of the hunt I have planned. So I don't know how much do you take into effect with that

And also, on calling for yourself, how much, if you're bugling back and forth with a bull, is it a good idea to stay put or should you move a little bit once the bull moves in a little bit closer and tries a pinion on your location? That should be it. Appreciate it. Thanks. Full moon?

how much i i don't put much much uh thought into that full moon um it's it does it does have an effect i will say um when you're on those hunts that full moon um will will affect the hunt maybe affect what what looks like the intensity of the rut they will do more of that rutting you know late at night uh early in the morning but um as far as planning your hunt like

I would pick a hunt with a full moon in the peak of the rut so I can experience that or be involved in that. Then, you know, similar to question number two would be,

way early in the season or way late in the season without a full moon. Now, if I had my preference, I would try to pick peak of the rut on the backside of a new moon, but you can't pick and choose. There's only so many days in September. I've got the fortune to be out there the majority of September, but I wouldn't put too much

too much uh weight in in the moon i i actually went back this is everybody's gonna think i'm a huge nerd i'd went back i think it was 2017 or 18 i had tallied up like all the bulls i had killed her and went back and found all my tags and looked at it and i'm like dang you've killed like i think it was like 75 of my bulls like within three days of the full moon on the front side of it

Um, so it's like, well, either it's a coincidence, you got really, really lucky or it just doesn't matter. And so, um, I had went and looked at that. We also had did it. My buddy Trevor that, um, you know, I used to hunt with the 10, 12 years ago, like in the early angry, angry mountain days or the prime time outdoors days. Um, he actually did it on trail cameras. Um, and there wasn't even that huge of a difference. We did it on three or four trail cameras, put it in a big Excel spreadsheet and tried to like look at, uh,

Are they showing earlier or later? I think we did see that there was a little bit of a shift later in the day on full moon, but for the most part, during the rut and pre-rut, the full moon didn't really seem to affect anything that much. So that's always been my take on the full moon. Yes, it will have an effect. Yes, the rut may seem to be a little less intense. Everything else considered, but that's my take on that.

And do you have any advice on hunting by yourself and how you would approach calling there? So, you know, listeners of the podcast or anybody that's heard me talk, I think the first bull I've ever had anybody call in for me and killed was 2021. We were in New Mexico. Was it 21? 20. That was 2020. 2020. Dirk called a bull in for me in New Mexico. And that was my first bull to date. Prior to that, I did everything solo. I call just like,

I do, whether it's a guy with me. Now, there's a guy with me. I will set back 10 to 15 yards just to kind of keep eyes maybe off of that location. But as we get things worked up, as we're calling elk, I just...

Run as the caller. One thing I do like about being a solo caller is we talk about getting close and being a threat. And when we talk about who the caller is, if you have a buddy that's 20 yards back, he's not as much a threat as I am being 20 yards forward. But you also have to give up your location a little bit more by making audible noises from it. But I've always found get tight, aggressive is the terrain and vegetation will allow me. And I just call just like I would whether I was calling for somebody else or...

And then one thing that I like to do, we talk about using the wind as a steering wheel.

to make sure I get a decent shot. You know, everybody wants to set up with the wind perfectly on their nose. And I would rather the wind hit me a little bit, you know, even up to 90 degrees on the cheek. You know, if it's hitting me in my right ear or off my right cheek, that gives me a little predictability that I will have a shot somewhere to my left of that area that the bull's coming into because bulls that we call in will typically start to circle to get wind on the elk that's calling them to them, especially if they can't make a visual confirmation or see the elk's position.

So I will, um, as a solo caller, I want to give them the wind a little bit. When I say give them the wind, like very, very conservative, they're not actually going to get the wind, but I'm going to give them, you know, 90 degrees of wind or 45 degrees of wind somewhere in there. And that will give me a little more predictability on where my shot lanes are most likely going to be, um, based on the direction the bowl is currently coming in from. So, um, yeah, I don't, I don't change anything on my calling, um,

you know, there's a little bit more to do. You got a bugle tube to deal with. If you are bugling, you know, you have to do something with that bugle tube, you know, stick between your legs, set it down, um, the movement it may take. But, uh, aside from that, um, being able to run a diaphragm really well, um, if you can't may make, uh, being a solo caller a little more difficult as you have to go back and forth with calls in your hand. Or, you know, if you're using something like the easy sucker would give you the ability to be hands-free and, and have the ability to make calls. But, um, no, I don't,

I don't know if I answered the question correctly, but as far as like guidance on calling, you know, kind of the same system we always run. You take the temperature of the bull, try to work them up. If you can't, you try to use like the what I would say, like the least aggressive route. You know, so we start with cow calls, start with, you know, and then, you know, escalate to bugles and let that bull kind of tell us how we're going to call. But solo is no different than than a partner there. Yeah, I agree.

I kind of subscribe to the same concept. Um, I do a lot of trickery when I'm, when I'm hunting solo, um, as in I'll bugle. And as soon as I bugle, I move up 20, 30 yards, 40 yards, whatever makes sense. Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm constantly like moving that way.

If a bull hears me, they'll pinpoint. It's like they have on X maps in their ears and their brain, right? And they can locate like right where you're standing, kind of like a turkey. They can really pinpoint within feet of where you're standing. So if I can, if the bull hasn't come in all the way, if he's not committed to coming in yet, if he's still on his way, then I'll bugle and then I'll move up.

30, 40, 50 yards. And then I'll be quiet for a little bit and kind of see, assess where he's at. Sometimes I'll take my bugle tube and I'll point it directly behind me or off to my right or left, whichever way I want that bull maybe to come. Like if I want him to come past me on my left or right a little bit, I might point it behind me and then up to their left or right. Just, I'm trying to throw my voice. It's almost like, it's almost like a little bit of trickery.

And it, and it does work. I've had that happen several times where, where you, you bugle the opposite direction and kind of project your, your calls over in a different area. And the sound will kind of bounce off trees, vegetation, rocks, whatever. And it'll be a little harder to pinpoint your exact location. Although, so sometimes I'll even, I'll even cover my bugle tube with my hand.

especially if I have a glove on, I'll cover the end of my tube with my hand and I'll allow enough air to escape so I can make a bugle, but it's going to be very muffled. And you can make a full bugle. You just have to change your air pressure a little bit. You'll have to practice this in the off season. So you kind of know how hard to blow.

but you can do a full bugle grunts, everything you, anything you want to do, um, into that bugle. And I'll, I'll point it away from me and I'll do it with, with the tube covered a little bit. And it'll give the illusion that I'm further away. They may think I'm another a hundred yards behind me. And I've had that workout really well before too. Um,

Um, also sometimes I'll even, um, same thing. I'll, if I have, especially if I have a glove, cause a glove allows a little bit of airflow to keep going through your hand. It's not such a sealed off sound. So I can cow call into my hand very quietly and I'll muffle it with the, with the glove a little bit. So it'll, it'll just give the illusion. I'm 50, 60, 80 yards behind where I'm actually standing. And that'll just get that bull to come in that, that last little bit for that, for

for that shot, you know, sometimes they'll hang up. And if you start calling, like you've walked away, then they'll, they'll have the confidence to come forward and maybe sniff where they, they thought you were standing before. It's like, who is this, this guy? Or maybe I heard that cow up there. I'm going to go check and see if she was in heat and they come forward and then you'll have your shot opportunity. Um, as far as

Full moons go, ah, man, I used to geek out a lot about this. I would fret. I would look at the moon calendar and I would fret over it. Like, okay, I have my one week I can take off. Am I going to, I really don't want to beat on a full moon. Because I've had full moon times that have been really tough hunting. I've had other full moon times that didn't really seem to matter. But all accumulated, you know, in the moment when you're having a tough hunt on a full moon, you know,

You're looking whatever you can to blame, you know, the bull's not bugling well. It's like, well, it's got to be the full moon. But what I've kind of found over the years is sometimes you just don't have the luxury of taking the time off that you want during the perfect moon or the perfect moon doesn't fall right in the middle of the peak rut like Jason was talking about. So you just kind of have to play the cards you're dealt. And I've found over the years, like, it hasn't really –

changed my success. It hasn't hurt my success at all. But what I've found is the, the, the times, the active periods during the day, which I'm calling elk have changed. So it's,

Rather than having more calling action, you know, the first two or three hours of light, you know, in the morning before they get bed down and be quiet. I found that I have found more success in the middle of the day and then early afternoon. So you have to think some of those times when, especially when it's pretty warm and dry, those elk will go to bed. They'll be in bed at first light sometimes. I've had that happen or within the first hour or two of the day.

And they lay there cooped up for a long time. And by noon or even four o'clock in the afternoon, they're ready to do something. Now they may not get up and move to their, their nighttime feeding area, but they'll get up in their bedding area and like browse around, move around. Maybe the bull slip off to a close by, um, wallow or something and wallow around. But I found it by, by positioning myself close to those bedding areas again, um,

And be able to take advantage of that when they get up and start moving around in those late afternoons. It's worked out great. I went from calling in bulls and killing bulls mostly in the mornings.

because I avoided that, that full moon. But once I had to start kind of hunting that full moon, just because of scheduling and stuff, I found I started killing bulls in that afternoon period, anywhere from middle of the day and a lot of them in that 4 to 6 p.m. timeframe. So, and I feel like they're more active in that 4 to 6 p.m. timeframe on a full moon. So yeah, if that's, if that's what you're really looking for, you know, you know, you really want a certain week

to hunt, then I wouldn't let that deter you, but you're probably going to have to modify your tactics. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day, I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. All right. We got time for one more question. All right.

Hey Dirk, Dave Mercado here, Wyoming resident elk hunter. Got a scenario for you. I was wondering if you might be able to give some tips and tactics for you or for me. I'm wondering how you go about, this happens to me every year, how to go about hunting a bugle party or a rut frenzy. Say you got a hillside every morning, you know, you run into, you go down in there and there's a big herd of elk in there, but there's like

Nine, 10, 11 bulls just going crazy, going nuts. You hear bulls, just multiple bulls, bugling their balls off. And you know there's a good herd bull in there. There's multiple big bulls in there. So it's not just one herd bull and a bunch of satellites. There's multiple big bulls in there, bunch of satellites, bunch of cows.

You go in on them every morning where they're feeding, but every morning they slowly feed off away from you. And...

For me, they're always heading on the private, so it's a race to catch up with them every morning. And it seems like every step you take, they're 10 steps ahead. And it's always hard because you don't want to get spotted by the cows. You don't know. There's trees. There's trees involved, so, you know, you can't see all the bulls. You can't tell exactly which one's the herd bull.

You know, every time I try and go after the biggest bull, but, you know, I'm always trying a different tactic, you know, and then sometimes it's like, should I have gone after that herd bull or should I have gone after a satellite bull? Every time it seems like the elk are beating me. So, you know, my main question is, I'm sure you ran into that instant before where, you know, you're trying to kill, you only got one tag,

but there's, you know, 9, 10, 11 bulls going crazy in there with cows. They're feeding away from you, and it doesn't even necessarily have to be them feeding away from you. Mainly my main question is just how do you hunt something like that where I wouldn't say it's necessarily super thick timber, but there is timber in there, and there is, you know,

And there is, you know, just different valleys in there where the elk can hide in and everything. So how would you go about hunting that? And I'm talking archery, of course. So any tips and tactics you can give on that, I'd super appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Man, I think first step would be to give us an invite out there so we could help them with this problem of too many bulls going too many different directions so we can really get a good idea. Right. At least give us some on X waypoint. Yeah, yeah. And then we can evaluate it better. We can hunt it and then tell you how to hunt it.

No, there's a lot of things that went through my mind here. And without, I mean, it's tough to figure out, you know, from the question. But all joking aside, I'm sure you can't get permission on the private, but that'd be step number one. Can I hunt there? No, probably not. So check that one off. Is there room for you to get between

the private and where these elk are going um with thermals with everything involved could you get there could you beat them to where they're going if if it sounds like this is a fairly routine patternable movement that they feed out in the public beat you to private or you don't know which bull to chase um to to there's a lot of things to tackle here like only you can decide whether you should go after the herd bull or the or the right you know the the satellite bulls um

Do you care which one that you kill or hunt? Like that's completely up to you. I will say that typically satellite bulls are going to be easier to call in most of the time. Um, there have been some herd bulls with all the, if all the stars align, you get close enough to his herd and do all this. Like I would say that some herd bulls, you know, it could be just as easy as a satellite bull. Um, so number one, can you get there, um, undetected by noise, visual smell, um, prior to the morning starting? Um, if so, um,

Work that system. Try to be in front of them. I've always said it's way easier to call elk into or kill elk that you are just in their natural path without anything else going on. Number two, which we didn't get enough, do these elk stay on the private until after dark? Or almost piggybacking on what Dirk just said on the moon question with the evening sometimes being better, can you...

are these elk going to be back on that public with good enough wind to be able to hunt them on the night or the return? Is that an option? So that would be two things I would look at. Can I get in there, which I don't know the answer to. Can I hunt them at night? And then if not, number three, which is tough to do, like I said, unless you're after a certain bull or you're just after any bull. I've been in areas like this where there's great elk hunting, but I just ran enough different

programs, you know, I am going to get there early. Well, that doesn't work out and it didn't work out the second or the third time. I'm going to try to hunt them at night. That didn't work out the second or the third time. At some point, you almost have to just like pull up the anchor and go to a new spot at times. So that's my three options. Get down there before dark, before daylight and see if that'll work. If the wind and everything allows you to do it, try to hunt them at night. If that doesn't work, sometimes you might just have to look for other options.

Yeah, I love all that, Jason. That's exactly how I would have answered it. Sometimes, the last one you said, sometimes you may just kind of find other elk, you know, and other places to hunt. You know, sometimes they're just almost unkillable. But another option you can bring up is, you know, I don't know what kind of country it is. Is there a way you can backpack in, stay the night?

where you're going to be out of the, the elk's travel pattern and scent trail as they come through and through in the night, you know, maybe you're on the other side of a drainage, you know, you're, you're in an area where they're, the elk are just not going to smell you, but you'll be able to get up and not have to fight your way through them to, you know, maybe cut them off at the pass per se, before they go back onto that private. I feel like

These are the situations you have to, man, you just kind of got to like look at some really out of the box solutions and

and, you know, try some off the wall tactics to try to get it done. And it may just work or you may not, you know, I know there's a lot of folks that hunt elk like that or, you know, they got elk traveling from public to private a lot. And if you can, if when the biggest problem is wind, if you can beat the wind on those elk that are going on to private and back and forth and

A lot of times you can capitalize. It's just getting the wind in your favor and having the timing be right. But that always seems like for me is always easier said than done. Okay, I've got two more questions. I really want to get these on this podcast. I said that was the last one, but we're going to go just a little bit longer on this one than we normally do. But I want to make sure we answer everybody's questions. So question number five.

Hey, this is Matt from Southern Idaho. Anyways, I was just curious, while you're out and about during the fall hunting, there are ways that you can find or ways that you seem to notice that you are in a spring calving area. Just looking to do some more spring bear hunting and like to focus on calving areas. So I didn't know if you guys had ways while you were running around in the fall to identify spring calving. So appreciate everything you guys do. Love the podcast. Bye.

Trying to identify spring calving to take advantage during spring bear season? Yeah, but while you're out in the fall. That's going to depend heavily on whether you're in a migration type unit. Is that a desert unit? Do the elk migrate? Do they live there year round? Like where I live in Southwest Washington, our elk are in the same place all year long.

They calve in the same area they rut and they live there pretty much within a small home range. Now, some of these areas where we hunt, you know, in the mountains or whether it's Colorado or Idaho or Montana, obviously those elk have to come down and to, you know, a winter migration, they're going to winter until that snow allows them to go back up. From my experience,

These elk most of the time want to be as high as the snow will let them. Now, I'm going to put an asterisk there. There are elk that absolutely love living on private land. They want to be there year-round. So I'm saying these elk that would prefer to be in the mountains, they come down. I'm assuming that's the question you're asking because otherwise we would just be able to answer it like, oh, the elk that are always on private land probably don't leave. So if we're looking at migratory elk, spring calving,

It's really going to be different based on snow levels and where those elk are at. They will have their preferred calving grounds. They may revisit those, but...

I don't got a good answer like where they're going to drop calves every year. Dirk may have more on this. It's obviously going to be somewhere between where they winter and where they're going to summer, you know, somewhere along that line. And I would say wherever that snow hits during that calving season for that area, you know, some areas in Utah have late calving due to their cows coming in later.

Um, you know, if, if they calve early, it's going to be lower. So wherever that snow line is, um, during the, and if you have an idea where that migration is going to be, um,

Um, so, you know, the, the information you're gonna get in the fall is where are those elk? Can you draw a line from where you think those elk winter, or do you know where those elk winter? So, you know, they're out in the fall, you know, where they're out in the winter, and then it's going to be somewhere along that line where the snow level is at or slightly below. Um, like I said, I'm just, I'm speculating a little bit here because I haven't actually like went through, um, that, that effort and, and looked at it and confirmed it, but maybe Dirk will have a better answer than I do.

I don't really, as far as like, as you're scouting in the fall, if you're trying to identify this in the fall, um, just like you said, and there's some areas, you know, even in Idaho where there's,

the elk don't migrate far. I mean, they'll migrate a little ways, but it's not like Wyoming where they're going 200 miles or a hundred miles, you know, they may go five or six miles. They may go from a higher elevation and they'll drop 3000 feet down to a lower elevation. And, and that's where they're going to be. But, um, so you may have to, if you're wanting to, you know, optimize your bear hunting time, you may just have to dedicate some time into, um,

finding those areas, finding those elk herds. And the good thing about it in the springtime is elk are way more visible than bears typically. You know, large groups of cows,

will be way more visible than, you know, single bears here and there. So I would, I would find the, find the elk in the springtime and then, and then start hunting close by to that. Um, and you know, typically around Memorial day weekend, you'll start seeing calves hit the ground. So there in the first week of June, um, you'll start seeing a lot of calves hit the ground and that'd be a great time to go, you know, capitalize and start, start looking though. I will say, um,

Once those cows start dropping calves, they become a little less visible because they kind of go off by themselves. So if you can get there a little early, and I don't know if you're an Idaho resident or not, I guess you did say South Idaho. If you live close to where you want to go bear hunting, I would just put in the time, the weeks leading up to that Memorial Day weekend, just clock on the elk. Where are they at? Where are they at now? And then...

as they kind of start disappearing, but you're still seeing some elk, you know, here and there singles, you'll know that there's, that's probably where they're going to have their calves and you could probably target those areas for bears. And then I would, I wouldn't be afraid of doing some calling, you know, with calf and distress calls. Yep. And even normal predator calls to work good in those same areas. But yeah,

Um, and then if you're, if you're just don't have that luxury of having the time of getting out there and looking, you're just like, maybe you just have a limited amount of time. Um, I would contact your local biologist, you know, from the Idaho fishing game and

And, or, you know, maybe even better yet, because some biologists, they don't leave the office. They're just, they're data crunchers, right? They're not a field biologist. They're inside the doors of the office. Maybe talk to your local game warden in the area and say, hey, this is what I'm trying to do. Where should I look for those calving areas and focus on bears? Because I think everybody, you know, is going to try to help you out, you know,

notch a tag on a predator. So I feel like that kind of information would be easily accessed from the, from like, you know, game wardens and state officials that way. So. Last year I was just, before you mentioned game wardens and biologists, I actually worked with some biologists that were out in the field capturing calves. We, I went and helped with that Blue Mountain,

And I was there June 5th and 6th and 7th. And a lot of those, you know, one to three day old calves were being dropped there. They had started dropping, you know, May 25th, 26th. So if you can coordinate like snow lines with that time. And then these cows were different. They would drop down in the, you know, for those that don't know the blues area, these elk would stay low and they would drop into these like calving groups, right?

You know, the cows would obviously drop low some, some small bulls, but they would drop and they would drop off into the breaks and drop their typically dropped their calves down on the very steep breaks where they could keep them. So they were more looking for the cover they needed to, to get that calf through the first,

you know, five to 10 days and then they would come up. So it was a little bit different than what the general, um, you know, habitat and vegetation was around. They were dropping off, going solo. Um, once they got that calf to five to 10 days, they would come back and kind of join up with the bigger herd again. So, but they go on that little solo mission for five to 10 days, which was typically a mile or two away from the rest of the elk that were in a bigger group.

Right. And as, as the month goes by, you know, those calves are still vulnerable, you know, so maybe as you see them starting to regroup again, you can still, you know, look for bears in those areas. So yeah. Great. Hey, and not, I'm going to add some, another tidbit. I know we're trying to get through this real quick. Um, bears don't eat as many calves as you think they do. Um, lions don't

uh, do the majority of the damage. Now bears will take advantage of a free meal, but, um, I was going to just add that little tidbit. I'm when I interviewed Paul there on that capture, I think over 80% of the calves are killed by cougars, but bears do occasionally, um,

you know, get, get one. But after about two to three days, bears can't catch a calf anymore. You have to rely on the cats and the wolves at that point. And that's in the blue mountains. Yeah. But I think anywhere, once that calf gets to about three days, three to five days, there's a bear can't track it down anymore. Interesting. All right. One last question. And then we're going to wrap things up. Hey Dirk and cutting the distance. Uh, thanks for what you guys do. Um,

Ben from North Dakota here. Can you give me a generalized time frame of when the mountain thermals have a tendency to switch kind of late morning, like what time frame are you kind of looking at in general? And then same thing in the evening. Obviously, you're always going to be checking your wind checker, but just looking for a generalized time frame about when to start expecting those thermals to be changing late morning and then early evening. Thanks, guys.

I'll, I'll start on this one, Jason. Um, cause I, I watched this a lot and I'm sure you do too, but, um, it kind of depends on where you're hunting as far as like the, the position of the ridge system you're hunting. For instance, um, if you're hunting on a North facing slope, um,

or an east-facing slope or a west-facing slope or a south-facing slope, you have to kind of factor those kind of things in. So the time to say, okay, at 817, the winds are going to switch, it's going to be dependent on the light from the sun hitting the hillside. So for instance, if you're hunting an east-facing slope,

Um, soon as the sun starts coming up and depends on how big, deep the ridges are. Um, if, if it's fairly flat country, as soon as the sun comes up, you're going to have winds changing pretty early in the morning. You know, it could be within an hour or less after the first light. Now, if you're in really steep and deep canyon country, as that, as that sun sun comes over the horizon and starts hitting on the ridge that you're standing on,

On that eastern ridge, you know, it's going to slowly come, you know, the sunlight's going to slowly creep down towards the bottom.

And then, you know, by, by eight 30, you know, the sun may, may have hit that hillside and warmed it enough to where the wind's going to, all the winds are going to start going up. Now they may even might even get swirly as the time goes by. So you get all the, you got the side of the hillside that's getting really warmed and then you're down in the shadow line. Still things are going to be a little bit going downhill and you get some swirly stuff going on there too. But if you're on the backside of that same Ridge, if you're on the, on the West side of that Ridge, um,

You may not see a change in thermals until 10, 11 o'clock until that sun, depending on the shape of the mountains and stuff, of course, but until that sun comes all the way up, crosses, you know, the center line of the ridge and starts casting sunlight down on the next, on that east, on that west facing slope, you may not see that till a little later on the day. And then north and south facing slopes, north is going to keep, keep,

keep the sun, you know, off of it as long as longer than anywhere else. Whereas the, the South, it's going to become exposed fairly soon too. So you just have to kind of watch, watch the hillside for that particular area. And as you start seeing, you know, sun hitting the hillside, you're like, okay, man, well, it looks like we got about another 30 minutes before this, this stuff is going to change in our current position.

Yeah. And, you know, not to break it all the way down or insult what you already know, but, you know, thermals are just a cooling and heating of air, right? When there's colder air in the valley, it's pulling the draft down. And as that air, the air temperature within that valley now exceeds, right?

you know, it's warmer, it will now flow up. So it's just that I'm not a weather guy at all, but it's basically just a science of cold air and hot air. And the more consistent day-to-day, so let's say you've got the same weather for five days in a row, you could start to, you know, I'll start to note like I'm on a south slope,

I'm hunting the same area like yesterday. The wind was switched about eight 30, you know, so that may affect whether I'm going to approach an elk or whether I'm going to wait it out. But, but as Dirk mentioned, um, you know, South, North, West, East aspects, all going to be different. Um, if you, I don't know if you've ever experienced it, Dirk, like inversions, right? You, it's a really hot day. And all of a sudden a bunch of cloud cover comes in at night, but doesn't bring a bunch of cool with it. You'll wake up in the morning. You're like,

What the heck? The wind's already blowing like hard uphill because the warm air got trapped and now there's colder air up. And so it's basically pushing out, you know, so I've been there before too. You're like, what in the heck is going on? Um, the other thing I like to keep in mind, some of this stuff back to the blues or some of the stuff I've put in Idaho, Colorado, very steep box Canyon type country, very steep with water, cold water in the bottom. You get down about a third of the way down that drainage and

And that cool water and some of the shade from big timber at times, it will never lift, right? So there's an inversion in the upper slopes. There's an inversion on the ridges and the main ridge. But sometimes that creek bottom and that tight drainage will never –

lift, that air will always go down the creek. And we've used that to help our approaches, right? You're like, well, I got to get in the creek so I can do this. Or if I get low enough on this finger ridge down in this basin, it's going to suck. And you're using that in order to make your approach. So keep that in mind. Just because

you know the thermals have switched it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to climb down in a canyon and it's going to be up the whole day you might get down and that's where you get some swirling where you're kind of on that that area of you know cooling creek or shade versus a heated up um face so keep all that in mind but yeah you you really can't um you know set your watch to it and you got to just kind of play it case by case day by day um you know slope by slope

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that part up about the little creek draws and stuff. I believe they call that an ecothermal corridor. That's what I've been told. I mean, it's basically science. But another thing to consider is like,

Are you dead center? Are you square dead center in the middle of the Bitterroot mountains? Are you in, are you on the edge? You got it. Like, let's say you're in Nevada and you've got miles of desert and then you're right on the front range there. The, you know, the, the, um,

Dang it, Phelps. What do you call those? The consistent winds that blow from one direction? Oh, prevailing winds. Yeah. Prevailing winds can really affect that too. If you're on the edge of those kind of places, you have a whole bunch of flat area and then you're right on that front range somewhere. The prevailing winds are going to perhaps change all of that as well. And keep in mind, the steeper, typically the more consistent. You start to flatten and bowl things out kind of with your prevailing winds. Yeah.

messes with everything, storm systems moving in, high pressure, low pressure from a more global standpoint. You back out to 30,000 feet and you've got a front moving in, maybe west to east or north to south, whether your weather comes in. That gets really, really... You add those moving storm systems in with your thermals, in with flatter terrain, and that's where some of these elk love to live because they're just like, now we got you. You can't approach, you can't predict it, or as soon as you think you got a way in, you're going to get...

you know, swirled up. So, um, all of that stuff will add to, um, wind as well as thermal. I have this place in Idaho that every time, every time I've hunted it, there's always bulls, they bugle, and it's kind of that, that rolling type country. And you got high mountains around you, but it's kind of this, kind of this lower, not really a basin, but kinda, but this lower country, this real rolling, um, lots of little draws and crick draws and stuff. Um,

And you can have that when you can sit there and be like, all right, I've sat here for 30 minutes and okay. The wind is in my favor. I got a bull screaming up here. I'll climb up that hillside, 150 yards. And that bulk starts coming in and wouldn't, you know, it, the wind changes and the,

Those rolling type areas, man, they're just really unpredictable, really swirly. I got to the point where I almost won't even go there. I know I'm not here in Oak Bugle, but those things are as safe as they can be. Yeah, it's just the time suck. They trick you into thinking you have a chance, and the wind disappoints you every time. Every time. So, yeah. But, well, anyway, I guess that's going to wrap things up, guys and gals.

If you have any other questions, if you want to send them in as an email to ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com, or again, you can send those to the super secret, the not-so-super-secret hotline, as Jason says. Give us a call at 208-219-7701. Yeah. No, thanks for having me on. Yeah. I love these questions. They're good. Like I said, I think a lot of times we can go a lot deeper on

on them so yeah keep sending them in um or hit us up on social media we're also going to start doing i'm going to start posting um guests ahead of time so we can really you know we're getting some really good questions out of that so look for you know social posts um

for, for questions that we want to throw at specific guests. Hey, and I was going to say, if you guys like hunting stories, if you love hunting stories, let us know, you know, I'm kind of thinking about maybe just spinning some yarns and tell you to tell you about some different hunting stories that I've experienced in my life and less, maybe there'll be some little takeaways and stuff. But in another thing, if you like hunting stories, check out the bear grease podcast and listen to Brent Reeves on this country life.

Brent is a natural storyteller, and he will tell you stories that will make you chuckle a little bit. But anyway, in case you guys aren't listening to that podcast, check it out. Brent Reeves does a great job on This Country Life. Awesome guy. Great storyteller. I wish I had a little bit of that. What are we going to call it? A southern charm or southern storytelling? Yeah, he's got that southern drawl, and he's in –

He's got so much little wit built into his stories. It's like, man, I'm jealous. I wish I had that. I sound more like a used car salesman when I start trying to get, you know,

and storytelling. I might have, I can do a pretty good Southern accent. Maybe I'll switch it up for that. Yeah. My story is like, there I was. And there he was. The end. The end. That's how I get a storytelling. But I recognize that that's important knowing that I'm not a good storyteller. Well, that's good. That's self-awareness. Some of us don't have that. All right. Thanks everybody.

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