Ep. 111: Silent Bulls, Part 2

is in full swing. I've actually been out pretty much every day except for a few travel days, and had some really great encounters. Now, depending on where you're hunting, what you might encounter, you're probably going to encounter at some point in your life elk that are being quiet. So last week we covered that set up on calling for silent bulls, which is a very important step. But now we're gonna be taking it a step further and covering the calling aspect of drawing in a island bowl.

So we'll be talking about the calls you want to make, how often you should call, and then when you should move. But before we go there, I want to share the story of Rocky the Annoying Squirrel and the Ninja Bowl Winkle. This hunt took place a little while back. I was actually guiding a client and it was just one of those weeks. It was like pretty hot out early season. I would say probably about this time in September, where

you know, every year is a little bit different. Some years the bulls early September are just spouting off, and it depends on where you're hunting to Like, um, I kind of I ran into it a little bit earlier rut action down south this year, and then you know, sometimes you go further north and it might be the opposite. They might be reading a little bit later. I kind of feel like the rut's gonna be a little bit early this season. That that was kind of my prediction.

But um, in places where it's been hot and dry, you know, they might they might be waiting for some more of that cooler weather, and once that cooler weather comes than things are going to kick off. So this particular hunt, it was like pretty hot. The week before was actually a lot cooler, and we're we'd hear some bulls sounding off, but it was like most of the

bulls had not really started gathering up cows yet. You'd get a little bit of action in the mornings and then you'd hear some bugling in the evening, but the temperature kind of made it a little bit tough, and the elk weren't super vocal. So so this particular week, you know, we we kind of resorted to a few different tactics, but a lot of it was checking feeding areas because what was happening was the cows were coming out and feeding, and then what you would find is

like the cruising bulls. The bulls that are just going and they're still doing their thing, they're checking for cows, would cruise those areas that cows would frequent. So there's a few places we could glass, and then there was just some areas where it's like I spent the day trying to maybe turn up a bedded bull or whatever, and then check feeding areas for new sign and thinking, okay,

I'm gonna pinpoint these elks. So midway through of the hunt, there was a couple of different meadows that we've been hunting and there's this one meadow that you could you just couldn't glass. It was kind of flat, it was opened up in the trees. I actually found it on this particular hunt, and I was like oh, I didn't even know this was here. This was before you could turn on a like a uh you know, like a digital map on your phone and see what the lamb

looked like. You just had to walk somewhere if you wanted to know what it looked like, you know, you have a paper map. And even then I was like paper map whatever. I mean, I just boots on the ground, kind of exploring. So I happened upon this little meadow and it was in this little it was kind of up higher this little saddle, and the saddle came down to this wet spot. There's some water in there, and then it opened up to this like grassy spot and

there's some aspens at the bottom of it. And I'm like, this place, this is when you think elk country. You're like elk country right here. So I got in there that that morning and it was like it was mid morning and I could just smell. It was like there's been a bowl in here last night or this morning, Like you could smell he bedded and we came down to the bottom we could see where he had beded up and then look like a loan bull. And I'm like, all right, this is gonna be our spot. I really

like this. I was thinking, like, I don't know where this bull went, and I don't want to blow this bull out of here, so we could we could go still hunting, maybe try calling. But the winds were a little swirly that day, and I thought, let's wait till the evening. I think this bull is gonna come back. He's gonna be in this zone. And I thought, well, let's just kind of we're gonna plan on being here

this evening. So we get we get set up that evening and my thought is like I'm gonna call, like hay, some cows and maybe even another bull came into the zone and and hopefully draw that bull, and I was hoping to get him fired up. So we get set up and I'm like, waiting untill the shadows is the sun was like the way it hit this meadow, it didn't really get shaded till a little bit later, so it's still kind of warm out, but the thermals are good.

I'm believing that once that's just shade hits with the prevailing wind and the thermals, everything is gonna be right. Like this is a solid setup, right, So I'm like, Okay, I start my cow calling and mew mew, doing a few here and there, and I've got my hunter set up and I'm sitting back and I'm like, all right,

here's my scenario that I'm gonna build out. I'm doing the cow calls and then I'm gonna set it up like there's cows in the meadow and like they're just talking with each other, very spaced out, very mellow, maybe just communicating, and then like a small bull is gonna come in here and maybe disturb things a little bit, like maybe get a little frisky, try to move things around.

That's the illusion that I'm making. So I started out with cow calls for the first bit that I'm sitting there, and now it's getting to that time where it's like, okay, here's where the action is gonna be. So I figured if he's betted, he might hear what's going on and then come investigate. But I really wanted to know if he's there, so I'm gonna throw out some bugles in a little bit, but I wanted to wait till it was the good time when he's gonna be the most active.

So I'm waiting and it gets like that perfect time and I and I let out a cal call and I hear like behind me, and I'm like, I use my ears as much as my eyes, and my nose right like is edible. And I turned around. I don't see anything, like okay, And then here like calcol again and more noise, and I look back. There's a squirrel back there, and I'm like, okay, whatever, and then I throw out a bugle. I'm like a light bugle, just short,

you know, a little we'll test the water's bugle. And that squirrel like runs to the tree that I'm sitting behind and climbs up it. Maybe I don't know, five ft above me now I probably ten ft about me. And I'm like okay, and just starts barking at me. I'm like, dude, this thing is like prime Time, and I don't like animals can be keyed into noises. And when a squirrel is giving it a learn like an alarm bark, probably not the best for incoming out somebody.

I'm just gonna ignore it. I gotta keep going. So I threw out some more cow calls, and that squirrel just like fires up. He is absolutely annoyed, just like making more ruckis and now he's like throwing pine cones down the tree, and I'm like, and he's just freaking out, like jumping from every branch, barking at me, like just freaking out, and he's like throwing stuff down the tree. I was like, maybe I must there must have been it, like his nest must have been right in that tree

above me. Like this thing is pissing me off. So I'm like trying to shoom away because I was like, I don't want this squirrel to ruin my hunt, but I also don't want to like make too much noise. So I'm like, I cannot get the squirrel out of the tree. And he's like coming down the tree right above me, barking and then going back up and just pitching giant ponderous of pine cones or whatever down the tree towards me. I'm like, this thing is pissing me off.

So I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna there's nothing I can do. We're here, we're set up, so I give us some more calculs. Every time I call, that squirrel just even gets more fired up. So I'm like, all right, what am I gonna get a little rock? And I'm like chucking it towards the squirrel. I'm like he jumps up. Now he's just like making a massive commotion, and I'm like, oh gosh, this thing is I don't

even know. So I've got my forty four pistol on my hip because there's a lot of bears this year and I had a bear tag and I was like, uh, and I'm I've got like this thought. I'm like, I should just shoot the squirrel like it was annoying me that bad. So I cannot get the squirrel out. He ends up. He's like up in there and something. I don't know if he's I'm pretty sure he's intentionally trying

to drop stuff on my head. Like I'm sitting there, I'm like trying to be super quiet listen for ELK, and I can't hear anything because the squirrel is just going ape shit, and so I'm like I had had it, so I just like grab a big rock, take a few steps back, and just chuck it as hard as I can at the squirrel. I actually hit right next to the squirrel, but the branch that was on the squirrel like flies off, gets down, runs away like finally, So I'm like I'm talking to my hunter. I'm like,

that squirrel, it was just driving us both crazy. I was like, the squirrel is making me nuts, no pun intended, just nuts. So I started calling again. I'm like calling and I'm like a few minutes later, like it seems pretty close. The squirrels like ten trees over just going crazy, and I'm like, this freaking squirrel of like, I'm pretty much at this point unclipping the unclipping my piss on. I'm gonna you want squirrel hunt. We're going squirrel hunting this.

This squirrel is driving me nuts. So um, I look out and I'm like, you know, at this point, I've got up through rock like everything's whatever, and I'm like, look over, I'm just gonna walk over there and just

push the squirrel off, like do a squirrel drive. And I look over and I'm like about to get up, and I like something looks weird and I squirrels just going crazy over there, not very far away, it's fairly thick, and I'm looking and all of a sudden, I see like one of the tree kind of things move and it's an in elk lay. I'm like, dude, Garrett, like

here's here's a bull. And now that squirrels above the bull just barking and going crazy at the elk oh like all right, And I'm like, okay, this thing just snuck in, like we couldn't We could hear the squirrel, but we could not hear this bull. It was just like I called it the Ninja bowl. We can keep our calling. So we're calling, and then I start hearing stuff falling out of the tree, and I'm like, you've

got to be kidding. This bull is probably now he's like moved in and he's probably like thirty yards away, but we have no shot. And now like squirrels doing the same thing, Like just stuff is coming out of the tree. Things are hitting around and the bull Like I can see the bull like kind of getting antsy, and I'm like, no, you don't know, you don't come on. So I let out a little bugle in the other direction, and he that bull doesn't be gole back. He's just

kind of like looking and start walking. And then he's like things are falling behind him and he like looking back. I can see him looking back and looking toward us and like trying to look through the bushes and then slowly just turns away and saunters off, and I'm like, I fully believe if that squirrel was not there, we would have had that bull walk right in. But there's so much commotion. A squirrel was just so annoying and annoyed that bull enough to the point where he's like,

something's uneasy here. I'm just gonna leave. And unfortunately we didn't get that Ninja elk the snuck in because of a very very annoying squirrel. When it comes to calling an elk that won't call back, I wouldn't necessarily consider them. I think a lot of people are under the misconception that they're like, call shy elk, Like they aren't calling because um calling doesn't work, or they don't want to

make calls. No, it's just more of a fact of those elk are probably alone and you're calling to loan bulls, and they need to kind of feel the situation out. They're kind of going in there and and trying to see what's going on. So when I'm calling to elk that aren't necessarily bugling back, what I want to do is I want to use calls that make them feel comfortable.

So we're gonna kind of go over a few of the calls that I use in these setups when I'm thinking when just things are quiet and I'm trying to match the tempo of the woods themselves, where I'm not screaming all the time and throwing out a lot of big, bold bugles, because that's not what it really is going on out there. So let's go over the calls. I've got just a diaphragm style Rocky Mountain game call kind of call right here. Um, this one is just a

actually just a cow like made for cow sounds. If you're new to using like diaphragm type calls, I actually suggest starting with a call that's designed for making cow sounds because they're generally easier to blow. You need less pressure and so you can kind of get tones and notes easier. And it's a really good place to start with these type of calls. Now, if you aren't familiar with the diapragm type calls, you you can't really use them that well, or whatever, you're just getting started. Any

kind of cow out call will work. So this is we're gonna start out with cow out calls. And um, the open read ones are really good as well, So I would say, if you're using just like a call the the open read style one where you kind of run your lip or your teeth over it, because you can make multiple different sounds and you can easily obtain

these kind of sounds. If you're like, whoa, this is my first time in the elk woods, I don't really know, then I'm gonna say the next kind of call is like a push button call, and you hear like, guys that maybe your elkin a lot bag on these calls a little bit only because it's like, oh there's another huchi mom. It's like the same new sound. Uh, But there is a time and a place for those calls for people. That's like, you can make the correct elk sound with those, and you can call in elk with them.

It's not impossible, it's not actually even they they do work. So um, if you're using push button calls, I would recommend two different ones, um if they still make them. I haven't seen them in a while, but the Hoochie Mama, which I think is the pre most one, and then the Carlton call. I can't remember what they call it. Maybe it's like I feel like it was called like the budalow or something button like something with the word

button in it. Um. Anyways, it's like a it's more of a horizontal shaped one and it's and it's got a longer drawn out sound. And so I like the combination of these two things like short muse and then what I call like I shouldn't even I shouldn't even share this, but it's like the call that I like is like this long drawn out cow sound. And what it is is I don't know if I was like, I'm not an elk, I don't know what, but it's

it's more of like this more mature cow sound. But it also kind of leans toward a estrus wine, but not as much. So it's just a sound that I you'll like, gets bulls curious, especially when they're by themselves. So I've got this call here, and I'm gonna give you a couple of samples. UM. So the first one is just gonna be these mus and I do this like it's cow's talking amongst amongst themselves. So it's just gonna be a cow going. That's not with my call,

that's just with my voice. But um, to give you an idea, I kind of don't know if it's gonna blow the microphone out or not, so we'll give it a shot. Here. I might take the headset off for a second and then I'll give the calls and then we'll go back to explain him. So here's here's gonna be the sample of cow calls amongst themselves, the soft cow calls that you want to try to make. Just

meu meumu. Now I'll space those cow calls out, just like starting out really light, just going mew mew mew, like one cow talking and then maybe two more responding. One thing that I'll notice that I I even do this, and I find it when I'm like filming myself and calling, and I'm like, sometimes I do too many calls too

close together. So when I'm starting out in an area where it's like, okay, I believe there's a bull here, I've got everything right, I'm trying to call to an elk, and I know that the way the season is going right now, they probably won't google back. So I'm going to start with these cow calls. I'm gonna start like it's just maybe a cow got up and it's walking or doing something, and then it's another cow responded, they're

just kind of talking amongst themselves. So what it's doing is just saying like, hey, we're a group of cows here and nothing else that's going on. We're just kind of talking and we don't really care what's going on. But if there's a bull around, maybe he'll come investigate. Now, the next kind of call that I put into the sequence is more of a little bit of a long drawn out sound. That sound, and what I'm doing is I'm I'll do I'll start with like, I'll do a

couple different sequences. So when I first start down, it's just one or two cow calls, um with whatever, open re kind, whatever kind you got, Give a couple of cow calls, and you're sitting and you're waiting and you're listening. And sometimes now what you really want is you want a bold bugle to that. That's cool, that works really good. Then it's not no longer calling to a silent bull.

But that's not always the case. If you know there's out ground, you know that they're they're gonna be writting, they're gonna be active, but they just aren't making noise. This is a great way to start out. And then I'll start throwing in. So I kind of work. I work my calls up in progression, like building up to something, and then I throw out like a little bit longer cow sound, And often I will do this through my bugle to um. It also just kind of helps that

cow sound travel. If you're in thicker country, you need that sound to travel nobody. I actually just wrote an article for Western Hunter and it's about the way sound travels and and my final thought was, you can't call in a bull that can't hear your call, Like he could be two hundred yards away, but if he doesn't hear it, he can't respond to it, he can't come in. So making something that's loud enough for cow or bulls or whatever, often the distance to hear that sound is

important as well. So I always start out quiet, kind of like your predator calling it on a stand. When your predator calling, you start out quiet calling and maybe anything close, and then I build up the sound and then I dropped that sound back down. So here's another call that I throw out a lot. This is that more wine type call, and here it is through the bugle too. Yea. So what we're doing is we're now

going to set up the scenario. We we've got into our spot and we're just gonna kind of start calling and throwing out cow talking and then maybe a little bit of inflection with those cow calls, and it would be something like this yeah, yea m hm. So once we've got that going, now we're just gonna kind of

sit and wait listen. Maybe I mean now, I told the story about squirrel ruining hunt, but many times you'll hear squirrels going off in the in the woods behind you, and it's they make that noise, those barking sounds, those alarm sounds toward elk as well, So it could be something where you're you're just king in is something coming? Is this whatever? And which way is the wind going? Paying attention and seeing you know, is this working? Now?

As I go and sit now, wait, I don't know, five ten minutes, whatever I feel, and then I will start kind of that sequence again, continuing to broadcast those sounds. As I build up the volume and then the frequency. I might even throw in a few bugles in there, like trying to draw a bowl in so it will be cow sound, cow sound, cow sound, and then throwing out that locator bugle kind of in a different direction

than my cow sounds are coming from. What I'm trying to simulate is cows are in this area where I'm kind of calling, and then maybe there's another bowl that here's a cow sound, and he's bugling, throwing out the locator bugle, like hey ladies, I'm here. Many times that might get another bowl to respond, but there are those bulls that are just going to kind of try to

sneak in and see what's going on. So I keep working those cow sounds and then adding in those bull sounds as well, where it's like it kind of gives him the sense of urgency, like that better go over there and check it out before that guy does. And that's something that's worked for me really really well in the past. Now, one thing that you want to consider

is like, well, how often should you call? The frequency in which I call kind of depends on the area where I'm at, how well I think my sounds traveling, and how likely it is for elk to um kind of be there and be a natural presentation of the sound. So if it's earlier middle of the day, I kind of space them out more like if I'm like I'm just in this area. Maybe it's like I'm near a wall or something where they might travel, and it's it's something that might attract in a bull either way. But

he maybe he's bedded off in the distance. I'm like, okay, I'm moving to a spot. I find a good spot. I'm like, that feels good right here. Nothing else is really going on. Let's just sit and call and see what happens. Um. I might just call every five to probably every fifteen minutes, like a few light calls. Like you can really draw in a bowl with sometimes less calls than more calls, especially if it's like a part of the day where it's like there's probably not gonna

be in the action anyways. Now, yeah, it's not gonna be like you do this and it's it happens and it's really fast paced action. But you're kind of doing these calling to these silent bulls in between other things that are going on during your hunt. So you're set up and I might give it a few minutes here and just spread out one or two calls, wait a little while, five minutes whatever, one or two calls, and that I can also really pique the curiosity of a bull.

Now if I'm in an area where it's like it seems like a feeding area evening time, Um, maybe I can throw out some more calls. It's like, well, that's when ELK would be more active, So I can calcolm more, Calcolm more, and maybe mixing some of those bugles even throughout the day. I'll mix in those bugles in all these setups only because sometimes you'll get a bugle in a response to it and it carries a little bit further.

But I'm I'm sitting there and thinking kind of timing things based on the scenario, the time of day, and how close or far away I think ELK might be. Now, if I'm thinking I'm in an area where hey, maybe I'll catch a cruising ELK, I want to be calling more often and maybe uh for like longer periods per set because that sound might not be traveling as well, and I want to make sure that I catch something while it's there, while they're moving. So in the evenings

and mornings, I might be calling more often. Maybe in the middle of the day when I'm in a good spot, I might wait for a little bit longer and call less in between those calls. Now, the idea when should you move. I think that's a really great question, because do I get in here and set up and just sit all day in one spot call Like, is that going to be effective? No, that's not. I mean it can be, but I don't really think that's a super

effective way to hunt elk. Now, if you've got like let's say you're in an area awhere you don't maybe you're hunting a piece of private, or maybe a piece of public that's around a lot of private, or you don't have a lot area to go, then yeah, find a spot and do these cal calls, and you're gonna have to try to draw the elk to you. If you're in a big public land unit where you can cruise, you know, I like to stay mobiles, stay moving, and

then doing these setups. Like when I talk about calling to a silent bull, I'm not talking about essentially like ice fishing, where you drill your one hole and you're sitting there waiting. I'm talking about the elk themselves might not be making a lot of noise, but you still got to move around and hunt the elk. So what I'll do, But you also have to give them enough time to come into you. If they're going to come

in quiet. So like last episode was all about set up and knowing where these elk might be, and then you're calling to an elk that you're kind of expecting to come in or be an earshot of your call. How long it takes that bull depends on the time of day and how confident you are that something is going to be able to hear you. If you're just kind of cold calling, broadcasting into an area where it's like,

I don't even know if there's anything here. Um, you know, you might not want to spend a lot of time now if it's like I feel like there's going to be a bull here, then I'm gonna I'm gonna sit up, and I'm gonna sit now. Like in the story, I was like I went there probably like four pm and was playing on sitting in that meadow until dark because I knew that that was an attracting area and I

didn't have a lot of better options. Um, there's other times where I'm still trying to find the elk and I might just sit for thirty minutes, fifteen minutes and then call and move on or um, you know, I

play it like that. So it's not something where I'm like, I'm gonna sit here and call the silent elk in this one spot all day long, unless I believe that elk are using that spot a lot, and then I'll move different places based on the time of day, Like Okay, once it's betting time, then I move into the timber, and then as it gets more closer to feeding time,

I move more toward openings and feeding areas. So I'm I'm timing these things based on where elk are and trying to do other things while I'm doing this, maybe doing some glad asking in combination, and maybe I'll see a bull by himself. Okay, there's a bull and I throw out a located bugle. That bull doesn't bogle back. Then I go, all right, that bull is probably gonna come in silent, So now I know I gotta go

get into position. I'm gonna start calling. And if I'm calling towards that bull, that I know is they're I'm just gonna I'm gonna sit there until that bull comes in. Um. But if it's not like that, then I might, you know, call and move, call and move. So you play it based on the activity you're seeing, how well you think the setup is, and then the time and day as well. It's always a lot more fun when bulls are screaming

and bugling back and really fired up. But I think that understanding how to call to elk that might be coming in silent can be a really effective way to fill tags no matter the time of season or no matter how active those elk are, because they're still gonna be doing their thing, and there is a lot of bulls that will come in silent on you. Even when other bulls are screaming, You're gonna have silent bulls coming in,

so it's something you'd be prepared for. Next week, I actually to share the story of the best bull I've taken to date and some of the tactics that I used. I I just recently last week took my biggest elk with a bow and actually bigger than the biggest one

I've taken with a rifle. Definitely my pr my personal record on elk, and a lot of the tactics that I use are some of these things that I'm talking about with the silent alk calling, but also another tactic of hunting elk mid day and striking up bugles and calling elk in that maybe they've got cows, maybe they don't, maybe they're betted off by themselves. But mid day hunting bulls like a really good way to effectively hunt that.

After they're super active and before the evening when they feed that that big chunk of time during narchery season, when what are they doing. They're bedded up. So hunting bedded bulls and how to call to bedded bulls is going to be next week, so you won't want to miss that. And if you if you haven't checked it out, go on my Instagram. You can see the bull that I'm gonna be talking about. It's a it's a heck of a bull. It's a giant seven by seven. Um, I didn't know he was even that big, And when

he came in, I knew it was big. But when I walked up and I didn't know he's the seven by seven, it was pretty cool, pretty cool experience. I got the story there, and we'll talk about that next week. So until next week, everyone keep calling to the silent ones. Somebody's got to speak up for him. Catch you guys later,