Ep. 23: The Rut In Review

postmortem of my archery elk season. I've been able to talk to a lot of people that spent a lot of time out in the woods, and I've kind of put my conclusion together, um, you know, on how the elk grew out went and um, we're also gonna highlight some of the greatest lessons I learned this year. So as always, we're gonna start off with some listener questions. If you have questions of your own, please submit them

to C. T. D at Phelps game Calls dot com. Uh, myself or my guests will do the best job we can answering him. So the first question today, and we're starting to get a lot of these uh rifle questions. You know, late season el cunning questions are rolling in and a lot of people ask, what do you mean

by early season late season? So if I had to draw a line between what's considered an early season elk hunt, UM, I would say like post rut, um, you know the ruts over, UM, we're now going into a different zone. And so with that early season, you know a lot of times you're gonna have your archery equipment UM. A lot of times. You know, there's there's extremely early season prior to the rut, which some some states allow you to start hunting, you know, in August, and then that

archery season. Most of your archer season's kind of centralized around the rut, so many states, UM, you'll start to get that pre rut, which you know the end of August, you know, first few days of September, peak rut being kind of mid September, and then that post rut going late September into sometimes middle of October even later UM, a lot of hunting estates well then closer hunting seasons UM. And then switch over to a different weapon, whether it's

muzzloader or rifle. UM. And then we we consider that our late seasons. And then there's in my opinion, there's two different um stages of the late season. There is late season where feet is still available up high. Um, you know one either weather hasn't pushed them down or to their their food hasn't burnt up, or they haven't had to move down. And then there's the extremely late season where these elk will now have to start to migrate because of weather, they have no food left up

high and they tend to push down, which starts at migration. So, um, what we're talking about here today when we talk about late season, in my opinion, is switching over these rifle seasons and you're gonna be hunting, you know, late October through November. You know, maybe not a lot of migration involved. Quite yet, some people have always asked, you know, why

do they put the seasons where they do? And so your rifle season typically are put where those herd bowls and bowls aren't his acceptible um to being you know, forced out into the open by the cows. You know, a lot of time that bull wants to stay with

the cows. Those cows and calves are typically looking for feed and so a lot of times those herd bulls during the rut, well then you know, quote unquote get drug around by the herd or be with the herd, and they're a lot more susceptible um to being harvested, especially if somebody had a rifle. Well, we set these rifle seasons are a lot of these states have set their rifle seasons so that you know, the chance of escatement is a lot higher. These bulls tend to go

off on their own. They tend to go off and feed alone. You know, the larger the bowl typically the more likely they are to be alone or with a bowl of their caliber or their age or maturity UM. A lot of times, once see smaller bulls start to break off, you'll still be able to find them in their you know, smaller bachelor herds UM. But they're typically trying to recoup from the rut. So that's why we

put those rifle seasons where they are. These these bulls are going to go to the deepest, darkest um you know, more secluded places where they feel um safe, and and that's what we're going to find him. So question number one, what is the best strategy for elk in the late season. And so once again we're gonna take these that we're we're going into a typical rifle season, UM, very much like my archery season, you know, my archery tactics. I

love to get up high into glass. UM. Now I want to break my glassing down into the two different um you know types of glassing. You can get up and you can look at a large portion of the unit. And what I'm doing there is trying to figure out what elevation the alcraft. Maybe I I can you know, spot some of these bowls that are off feeding alone, but I'm really just trying to figure out where elk out, where do they want to be? UM. I'm not necessarily

super concerned with finding cows. You know, a lot of times lay October early November, there will still be UM some immature bowls running, you know what the herd, But the majority of time those larger bowls, more mature bulls are going to be broken off. So I'm getting up high early in the morning, trying to glass as much as I can. UM. You know, if the weather is still nice, you may only get you know, half hour to an hour max. These bowls are gonna feed, they're

gonna go back and bed down somewhere. UM. So we're trying to maximize the time let our glass do the walking. UM. I'm up high. I'm glassing you know, for that first hour hour and a half and then um, we're moving. And the second stage of glassing is there's a difference between once you've located some elk or you're starting to really dial in or look for specific animals. You need to get in, in my opinion, get into areas that

can't be seen, um very easily. And so with that said, I'm trying to get you know, two or three miles in. Maybe I've got to walk down uh finger ridge. Maybe i have to go, you know, get up on a cliff or or climb a steep section. UM. I'm using on X, I'm using a lot of our mapping software, you know, aerial photography. UM, trying to put together you know, where the terrain and where the vegetation and how it lays out, and then where I'm gonna be able to

see and to select nooks and crannies. Um. You know a lot of times, like I said, these these bigger bulls want to go into areas where uh, you know, they they can they can feed out in the open, but not necessarily be seen or they don't get bothered near as much. I'm trying to to be able to look into those areas and I'm not looking. I will sacrifice a morning or a night or an entire day in order to to to find the animal, or find the target animal, or find the animal that I want

to go kill. Um, we may sacrifice some morning and night and and just lay eyes into this country knowing that we may be two three miles away, using our spotting scopes, using our binoculars, doing as much glassing of as much country as we can. And then once we find that animal, we will then you know, draw up a plan um to go to go try to kill that animal. But a lot of people I feel they're not willing to give up a morning hunt or a

night hunt. UM. You know, they're always they always want to have their gun on their shoulder, you know, UM with a chance to kill. And and I feel that a lot of times investing in um, you know, a glassing session or whatnot can be very very advantageous. So if the country allows, UM, if it's set up to do a lot of glassing, I'd like to do that. Now. I grew up, uh, you know, in in western Washington where we do get to glass some clear cuts, but

a lot of times. UM. In these riffle seasons, some of these bowls have figured out that they can live in the timber and never come out in the opening. So or or there's a mix between you know, semi open and timbered country. UM, you know, timber lion country,

whatever you may be in. UM. You know, if we're in timbered country or an area where I believe there's a lot if I can look into the timber, or I'm in the timber and can see that there's a lot of food, um, and that the elk won't have to leave that UM, there is a chance you may have to go still hunting it or UM you're gonna be glassing the fringe is very very early, very very late, and then you're gonna have to get into the timber. You know, if if there's a target animal in there.

So you need to be able to adapt um to the country you're hunting, to the vegetation uh um. And then my ideal area is right at timber line. UM. You know, I want to be able to look above timber line if the elk are still up there. If not, UM, I want to be able to find um. You know, small feed areas, whether it's avalanche shoots, whether it's small meadows, whether it's small little side patches where those elk can

feel a little bit more comfortable. Um, you know, bowls specifically when they're feeding by themselves, when they want to be secluded, but they want to get you know, access to that higher quality food. UM. I'm looking for for small little um areas in the timber um and stuff like that to concentrate my glassing. And then once you find those elk, you have to put together a plan on killing them, you know, and and sometimes it's a lot easier, uh said than done. Um. You know, some

some country we hunt is very very big. Some of it's broken up, and you know a lot of times the more broken up countries actually easier because we can get on ridges, we can we can plan our approaches to get a whole lot closer to these elk, which actually sets up a lot better um as far as having a plan to go kill them. If you're in in big, big country where you know the canyons are you know a half mile mile across. You know, you can't shoot from side to side. Um, you can't get

any closer. Um. You know a lot of times moving to their side. UM puts you at a big disadvantage because your visibility is way way low. Um, you've got wind that you're dealing with. You know, even though it's rifle hunting, we're still paying a lot of attention to the wind. UM. You know, as these late season will bring a lot more UM weather and weather systems that will then um do some crazy stuff with the wind.

So as you're as you're making your plan, you know, ideally for me, my my my ideal plan is to pattern um these late season ELK A lot of times they will continue to do the same thing morning and evening. They've got their you know, preferred food source. They've got their food or a preferred betting area, and they're just gonna keep doing. You know, they're gonna go in the morning, they're gonna from feed to bed. At nighttime they're gonna

come from bed to feed. UM. And so I'm gonna ideally get myself within shooting range whatever my comfortable shooting range is of where I expect those um, you know, that bowl to present itself. And like I said, a lot of times, it's it's easier you know, said than done. But you need to look at everything you know wind um, where you plan on them coming out, what's gonna give

you the best view of the area. Um. All of that will come into you know, finding the elk, but then the plan to killing them, you need to put some thought into that. And uh, you know, if it's in the timbered area, you're gonna have to figure out, you know, how to get the wind right. Um. You know, use elk trails, use um. You know, be as quiet as possible, um, and try to make your your play on on how to kill those. The next question late

season calling. Um. You know, a typical question I get is, hey, I've got a rifle tag um for such and such unit. It runs November one to the tenth. What calls do I need? And what calls am I gonna make while I'm out there? And as much as I would like to tell everybody like, oh yeah, I go buy a bugle tube, go buy some diaphragms, you know, by by one of everything. UM. In my opinion, from what I've seen, UM, we don't use calls near as much as we do during the rut. UM. And I'll give some of my

reasoning for that one. You're drawing extra attention to yourself. Um, if if you're out there cow calling or getting let's say you have spotted or heard it, you know, a thousand yards away, you close the distance to a couple hundred yards. Um, we need to remember we've got typically you know, some sort of a long range weapon in our hand, you know, something that's capable of two to

three yards shots very comfortably. If we're gonna go get within two hundred yards and try to communicate with those elk through calls. Whether it's a cow call, um, you know, I would say bigling is completely off the table. But if you were a bugle, all you're doing, in my opinion, is is letting those elk now know of your location, and then you're putting a whole bunch of extra eyeballs

on yourself. Um, you could have got to that same pause edition silently, had zero eyes on you, and then been able to have a lot more time to make your decision and maybe find the bowl. You know, all of these things that happen when we finally get in close, like where am I going to set up to shoot? But by making a call, you've now alerted them to your location, and a lot of times that gets a

lot of eyeballs on you. Um, let's say it's a late season you know timbered rifle or you know, late season archery, whatever it may be, you get in tight a lot of times that not only does it put eyeballs in your direction and now alerts them, you know elk, And in my opinion, no of other elk that are around, they don't. You know, there is a chance a new elk just showed up and it won't put them on alert.

But a lot of times in my experience, making a call out of a blue, they kind of know like something's up, or if it's not a great call, um, you know, they all kind of perk up, They all kind of look around, they all lift their heads up from feeding. They're all looking in your direction. So number one eyes in your direction and it puts them a

little bit on edge and on alert. Where I will use alls in late season, um number one, if I'm still hunting, as I mentioned a lot of times growing up in you know, the Pacific Coast rainforest, you know we're hunting. Um, still hunting. We're we're literally walking through timber as quiet as we can, trying to spot elk before they spot us. Um, you know if we have to wind right. A lot of times you could smell

them beforehands and whatnot. But if we were happen to bump an elk, um, but they didn't necessarily smell us, they may be seen or maybe heard us. We can then use a cow call. A lot of times, I'll still hunt with a diaphragm in my mouth. I'll make a couple of cal calls just to settle them down. Maybe that will be enough to get them to settle down and I can, you know, get get to the next ridge and maybe make a shot from ridge to

ridge or or whatever. UM. We have used some aggressive um tactics in late season when I've hunt them with some buddies. We've actually broke up herds, like specifically went in to bump them and then use some lost cow calling, UM, some long drawn out cal calls to call them back to the location. We've had a little bit of success with that. But for typical late season elk calling, where I love to use calls the most is in an

area where I need to stop an elk for a shot. UM, if I'm shooting three, four or five yards across the canyon, whatever it may be, say it's brushy, and I've only got certain spots that are gonna work for a shot. I don't typically want to yell across the canyon, you know the man. I don't want to yell hey, I don't want to get you know, do any of these things. Allowed external cal caoll is a great way to stop

that elk. And the thing I like about using that cal call is typically as long as he's not scared, he's just you know, feeding or moving like they normally would, you can typically get them to stop for longer than just a second or two. Um if you yell, if you make the you know, the fake man, a lot of times they'll stop, but then they'll get nervous, like they kind of figure out what that sound was, versus

using a natural sound like allowed cow call. I typically like to you know, call on it as loud as I can one time get them to stop, and then they are going to have eyes on you. So I, you know, usually don't like to be moving by that time. Hopefully the shooters down ready UM tracking the elk. So we will use um cow calls, uh you know in that in that instance to get them to stop for a shot. UM I guess do what the elk are doing.

If I showed up to an area on October, let's say, for a rifle hunt, and there are bulls beagle in their head off, and I feel that by bugling back and locating bulls is gonna give me an advantage. I'll always have my bugle tube around or in the track or a diaphragm available. Um, you know, quick story my wife's first bull back in two thousand seventeen October twenty nine,

we hiked into an area. Um, she had a tag and we we started to hear bull bagle down blow us in October twenty nine and I could kind of, you know, listen by the type of bugle that it was. That bowl was still running, he still had cows and heat, whether they came in on a second or a third cycle. And we got to listen to that bowl bugle probably three times that evening as he pushed his herd of cows up past us, and she was able to make

a show. So I didn't have my beagle tube in that instance, and I probably still wouldn't have called because I could hear um that they were ultimately going, you know, moving from down below us to up above us. Um, and we were just gonna let them go by anyways, we had the wind good in their face. But now instance, you know, if if we wouldn't have killed that bowl at night, I wouldn't have hesitated to go back in there the next day with the beagle tube, knowing I

could probably get that bowl to respond. So, you know, do what they you know, do what the elk are telling you to do. Um. You don't want to be out there if the woods are completely silent, you around elk and you're the only one out there hammering vehicles. Um, you don't want to be the only cow in the woods just you know, screaming on estrus wines. So do what they're doing and you're gonna be safe. UM. Don't

try to force the issue. Don't overcall, because in my opinion, sometimes you can do more harm than good by one alerting them and getting a whole lot of eyes looking in your direction. UM. The last user question, what time of the day should I be hunting in the late season? You know, so where we typically are tree hunt all day, but we always know that you know, morning and nights are going to be best with the most action because you get that you know, it's it's hotter um in

the midday, the days are longer. So when it comes to rifle hunting, UM Number one, it's it's a little bit of a mindset change for me. Is I've got a gun in my hand, I'm now more lethal. You know, it just takes out one that one elk to show itself in the wrong spot or the right spot for me, Um, wrong spot for the elk, and and I can be successful in these late season hunts. We've now got cooler weather which will let those bulls and and cows, those

elk will be on their feet a lot more. Um. Is they're using more calories to stay warm, um, and to survive. They're gonna be on their feet more. They're gonna need to put down more calories. On top of that. Bowls specifically, it puts a toll on them getting through the rut. You know, you kill a bowl late August, early September, you go to you look at them and they're just loaded up with layers of fat. You kill a bowl post route and that thing is war down

to nothing, you know, nothing but meat and bones. Um. Those bowls are trying to to recoup very very quickly because they just went from the rut. They've got a very short feed window and then they're gonna have to survive the winter. Um, so those things will be on their feet a lot more so with the cooler weather. And then we also have shorter days, right. Um. You know, it's crazy to start with an archery season where it seems like you're getting up at four thirty and you're

going to bed at nine. By time a rifle season comes around, you're getting up at you know, seven, six thirty and you're you know, it's dark by six or five thirty. It's it's pretty drastic. But that also you know, in my opinion, Um, with shorter days, I'm out there more so during late season if I were, if I have a tag in my hand, I'm hunting all day from morning until dark. And don't give up on those

mid days. Yes, you may not see as many elk out in the wide open, but during that midday, concentrate on brushier um more of those fringy fringe areas. And when I say fringey, it's like you're not out in the wide open meadows. You're not way out away from the timber. You know above timber line. UM, but you're looking at where let's say timber meets the meadow or maybe a brushy avalanche draw or maybe just a brushy

area in the area. A lot of times those you know bulls will feed in there um all day and feel like they're secluded and they're hidden from any danger. So UM, midday, switch your focus from wide open feed areas to kind of that secondary feed um where where they're a little more comfortable, and you can a lot of times create plays midday that you can go capitalize on that evening or before the day gets you know,

um too dark to to be able to hunt. So my opinion, all day in the late season, especially if you have a gun in your hand, UM, you never know when you can find success. So that kind of wraps it up for for some of the Q and A. Once again, if you have your own questions, email us at ct D at phelps game calls dot Com or hit us up on social and we will make sure to do our best job put an answer to it. All. Right, now, we're gonna jump into the final field report for the

el crep um. The engineering me really wants to break this down based on components um, and some of those things. When I look at the rut, I look at kind of where was the timing, um, how did the timing lineup compared to what I typically think of the rut. What was the intensity of the rut? Was it on fire? Did it seemed to be lacks of daysical? What was the weather that we experienced? And each of our stops UM herd behavior which also kind of ties back into intensity,

like were there sub dominant bowls trying to challenge? Were they pestering their herds? UM. I'm gonna pull out the call ability uh component. You know, it's a it's a piece of us being archery hunters, Like how callable were the bulls and what did we see on that, you know, as far as trying to call these elkin and house accepted they were to calling UM. And one thing that's hard because we're never in the same spot, on the same herd, you know, at the same time. And so

I do my best here. I'm gonna kind of preface this with I'm gonna do my best to kind of um over arch and overreach my my opinion here on years past and being in similar areas and um, you know, similar Elk. And the other thing is I've got a chance to talk with you know, thirty forty other guys. You know, I get back, We all, me and my buddies all get on the phone, get you know, some of our pro staff, some of the guys that use our calls, whatever it may be, and we just kind

of bs about hunting. You know, what worked, what didn't work, What was your big takeaways? Um, you know, and so on and so forth. And so I'll try to do my best to kind of roll all of this um together. So time me of the rut, UM, I would say, I'll give my my overall opinion and I'll kind of break it down. So timing of the rut, in my opinion, seemed to be later than you know passed. And by past, I don't mean a year or two ago. But the typical rut timing seems to be late. And I don't

just mean late by a couple of days. I'm thinking, you know, seven to ten days off um a typical RUT cycle. You know. I I got to hunt New Mexico with Ryan Callahan this year. Um we were a few days ahead of when UM Steve or Ella myself got to hunt the same unit last year, and so we've got a very very good location, same elk um just a few days off and the end of me and Cal's hunt kind of overlapped the beginning of me and Steve's hunt, and what we saw was very very

different elk behaviors between the two different years. So one um, Steve and I started hunting on September five. Cal and I started hunting on the first, but we did get four days of overlap. The larger herd bulls this year were still by themselves on September four and September five,

which seemed very strange to me. And when I say larger herd bulls, um, we were covering ten to twelve miles um a day, We were you know, locating a lot of elk, We were getting to lay eyes on on herds, and the bulls that were running the cows weren't quite in the same category as some of these

bulls that were off still bachelored up. So number one leads me to believe a lot of times we see, you know, those smaller bulls running herds in the late August, but by time September rolls around, we can almost always guarantee that those larger bulls will then take over the herd and court the cows um, you know, for the rest of September or until even an even larger bulls shows up. So I was a little um concerned seeing that the two largest bulls we've seen on the entire

trip were solo by themselves. We also made a move on the largest of of all of these bulls, got within a hundred twenty five yards, thinking he's by himself, we got down next to him when was really good. We cow called um hundred fifty yards away, and the bull never made a peep um a lot of times. You know, if he's ready, or even if he's not ready, by September five, he's going to be accepted. You know, he's going to be accepting cows make responses, make a movement.

So we didn't know that bowls there. We made some caw calls and continued moving, and then ultimately, you know, you're a little concerned, like well, as a last ditch effort, we don't think anything's here, I'm gonna bugle before we walk out of the canyon. We just crawled into training to get this guy. I let a bugle out and and that bowl takes off, ripping you know, right out of the draw, right down below us. I could have thrown a rock and landed on its head. That bowl

takes off, and so you have that scenario September. You fast forward to September five with me and Steve. We call in three or four different bowls on the first evening and you have what I would consider dominant bowls bigger than this bowl that me and Cal tried to call in. All of them bouncing around from group of cow groups of cows, trying to figure out where they fit in and the pecking order. And they were all

battling it out. You know when I say battling it out, not literally battling it out, but they were all posturing. They were all moving, um, four groups of cows already. Um, So that was that was a pretty good sign in New Mexico that that the timing was late. Move on to Oregon, I would say timing was a little more typical. Um. We had uh, you know, a little at a biggling um but but timing was still a little late, Like it wasn't a ton of action. They would kind of

shut off midday. We did have a couple of days where we could get them going midday. Um, but really just weren't cranking yet like that unit should have been. Fast forward to Idaho. We don't show up until um eighteenth or nineteen, and the Elk there just aren't going. We're in Elk, We see elk, we know we're in Elk, and those things wouldn't make a whole lot of sound until we got right on top of him. Now fast forward to the very end of that hunt. Um, things

are finally starting to get going. Um. We have hunted this unit. Um, we've had people hunting this unit last couple of years. Dirks hunted into a couple of times, and you know, he always said it was very good early, you know, tenth or fifteen, and then it kind of actually seemed to have hit like an October loll um. And so for us, it's another indicator that this thing seemed to have been seven to ten days late, later

than normal. Um. I'm not a not a weatherman, I'm not a climate you know specialist whatever whatever keeps track of you know, climate change, whether you believe in any of that or not. But one thing I do notice is spring always seems to be later. We've been having about the last five years. You know, winners later, springs later, summer seems to go longer. UM. We saw some calves with spots on him this year, which leads me to believe that even last year, we were seeing some of

these cows get bread late late into November December. UM. But but to back up, I feel like, if I had to put an estimation on it, the rut was seven to ten days later than when I typically saw you know, back in in the early two thousand's when um, everything the peak rut really seemed to hit, you know, the thirteenth to the seventeenth of September. UM, I would say that, you know, this year, peak of the rut was maybe twenty three September, and we're gonna get pretty

good rud action well into October. UM. It is kind of the timing of that. Now, the intensity of the rut one of the other categories I kind of want to break down the rut. The intensity was way way down. UM this year. The the full moon hit, I believe, Oh boy, I'm gonna guess I'm probably wrong. I want to say it hit towards the end of our New Mexico hunt. So you know, somewhere around the seventh or eighth we kind of got that full moon and then

we were on the tail end of it. So I don't feel like, you know, the moon was necessarily a huge factor. A lot of times when you have full moon, UM, those elk kind of rotate the rut more into the to the night. They will they will get very intense at night, and you want to see as much running activity during the daylight. But I didn't see the moon really have any effect on the intensity. And that may

have a have a strong correlation with the timing. Maybe they just weren't there yet, but is is we started to go from the full moon back to to no moon. Um, we didn't see like a linear you know, pick up on on the intensity of that rud. It didn't seem to like spark or get it going when we were in Oregon. UM, So in my opinion, the intensity was down.

I'll talk a little bit about her behavior, which in my opinion, the intensity really has to do with the herd behavior, what the other sub dominant bowls are doing. And uh, a little bit of an observation I had on her behavior that really, uh was was not typical UM, especially for the areas that I got to hunt this year. So um, intensity seemed to be down. Now with that said, we we did get into some great action. UM we were able to finally get get the intensity turned up.

But we talked about this a lot um when we're setting up and some of our calling strategies. I felt like a lot of that intensity was on my shoulders. We would locate a bowl maybe with just a response, I would locate vehicle or one of our collars, one of my buddies would locate vehgle and we would get an answer, but nothing too intense, nothing that was over the top, and we would move in and a lot of times we would want these you know, bulls to

keep bugling. There really wasn't any of that. We would have to make a good decision. We would have to make a good call on where he was at, get in tight, and then have to work really really hard on getting his temperature turned up. You know he was he was very relaxed. UM, and this was morning and night. Typically, these these turn up the intensity situations have to happen when they're in bed or late morning early evening kind of before they really kind of get going or the

herd starts moving. UM. This was morning and night UM, and throughout the day we would have to go get in, start to make calls, start to make excited caw calls, UM, excited Bugle's challenge beagles, and then we could slowly get the intensity turned up um and and high. In Idaho especially, these elk were not interested in answering you from across the canyon. They weren't really interested in answering you. You know, from six seven dred yards away. We had to get

very very close. They would they would call on their own. Occasionally we had to take that little bit of information, develop our our plan, get the wind right. A lot of it was just a guess we thought they were in this area. Sometimes it would take us some time to get there, and we just had to kind of guess that they were still there. We would get in tight and then once we got within four, you know, three yards, we could start to hear them a little better.

They were biggling very very quietly, without a ton of meaning a ton of force. That was just very very quiet baggling. But when we would get in set up, you know, let's say we were hundred fifty two yards away, we could start to get those bulls to to get

that intensity picked up. UM. But it was a lot of work, and like I say, it was a little frustrating knowing UM running this multiple times on on different herd bowls and different satellite bowls that we were unable to get them the answer across the canyon, which really has you, UM, second guessing everything you do because you feel like you put yourself in a good spot. You feel like there should be elk there, there's elks in there, but yet you cannot get an answer UM. And so

it's it's one of those real frustrating times UM. You know to be an arch realk hunter that likes to call because you really had no no idea if you were in elk or if you were an elk. UM. So you know that intensity. You want those things to answer back quicker, You want them to be interested, and you want them to continue to answer UM. Weather this year, the weather for UM, in my opinion, has a big effect on kind of snapping them into uh a better rut, UM,

you know, a better rut from a hunter's perspective. The weather all across the West. I don't know too many places, if any that I've seen a bunch of rain or a bunch of weather issues. I would say my typical weather forecast from the first day we were in New Mexico on September one, all the way to the last day hunted Idaho in September. Um. Aside from the day before we drove into Idaho, which was a kind of a quick little wet mass, they're um, extremely hot, extremely dry,

not a lot of water where there's typically water. Um. New Mexico. You know, it's more of a a man made water game. So there is water where we expected it to be, water through tanks and whatnot. Um. But

the weather was very, very warm. And what's very frustrating for an archerial hunter is when you've got thirty to forty minutes to hunt in the morning and then you have to take a ten hour nap because those elk are completely not unresponsive the rest of the day until right before evening, and they're bedding themselves, all of them, not just a few of them. They all seem to bed in a flat top or a flat bottom where the wind just would not allow us to make an

approach from from any direction. So UM, you know, weather was was hot. It was dry. Now. I don't mind clear and cool. I don't even mind some hot days. But we need, in my opinion, you want a little bit of rain, you want a little bit of cold, you know, and then and then a warm snap. You want some days where it doesn't get above fifty or sixty in the mountains instead of every day being you know, in the seventies. So, um, I think weather played a little bit. I don't think you just want the same

static weather pattern for an entire month. It doesn't give you, um, you know, any of those you know, cold snaps or or you know, warm snaps and and and changes is really what you're looking for to kind of change the animal behavior. So weather didn't help us out at all this year. Herd behavior. This is more of an observation. When we go and locate elk either by you know, typically by um glassing them up, we noticed very very little, uh challenging. We noticed very very little um bold of

bowl biggling or communication when they're out there. It seemed like the pecking order was very well established this year. And the herd bowls that were in the area we're running the show, and the satellite bowls really weren't that interested in messing with the herd bull at all. And uh, the most glaring instance of this was when I was

in Oregon. You know, a very very good unit, a lot of bowls that are not only you know, upper end, but a whole bunch of bulls that are in that next tier, you know, very mature bowls, and most units will be running herds. We saw a very very little challenging from those bulls, and we saw a very very very little opportunity to call those bulls in. They were either by themselves non vocal or just not interested. You know. There was one evening we got into a little bit

of a bugle fest. You know, it's a big brushy hole. Um, we kind of just all disregard for how much noise you're making. We kind of ran in there and we had a a mid size six kind of messing with with a mature you know, three twenty type six point. And that was really the only crazy bold bull action we had experienced aside from us trying to insert us into the into the calling games. So real, real weird, um, you know, herd behavior in New Mexico, Like I said,

the only two bulls bigging at each other. Were the two biggest bowls that really didn't have any cows around or UM so real strange air aside from bulls just calling back and forth to each other across the canyon or maybe answering the location Bugle Oregon seemed to be herd behavior was one dominant bull with thirty cows kind of just running the show. Some smaller satellites really just feeding way off to the side. UM. In Idaho herd

bulls were making a little bit of sound. We did have UM satellites around the herd ball calling UM, but real, real, non vocal. The herd bull was actually doing the majority of the calling, which is sometimes you know, not what happens a lot of times of satellite bowls will give away the herd. But yeah, just real weird where we didn't have a lot of satellite bowls keeping that herd bull talking so that we can make good decisions, plan our approach, get the wind right, and do all this

stuff we normally do. UM. Herd behavior was was definitely UM down this year as far as subordinate bulls challenging for the herd or pestering the herd bowl And then the main thing I'm looking at as far as how the rut goes is how callable were the bulls, um, and this is where you had great success in the past, and some of these same units are very similar units.

In the Mexico. Being as early as we were, we had very very uh lackluster results, I would say, as far as being able to call a bull into our lap. You know, the very first day September one, we were able to call in what I would call even a more immatura bowl um two very close range. He was

full of piston vinegar um. He was one of those bulls where once he respawned a couple of times, you're like, all right, I can throw anything at him, you know, a couple of challenge beagles breaking a tree, and we had that bull come in and then from there on out we watched a very large, five point very mature bowl go from having cows to losing his cows. And then when we when he lost his cows, um, You're like, all right, I'm just gonna go in and cow call

this bowl. And it seems like a perfect opportunity for him to get cows back. Just really not interested. So we we ramped it up to beagles and he just he just wasn't in there, said he was gonna stay a hundred yards hundred twenty yards off and and not make any um you know change. Now, we did get into a lot of calling battles, but it seemed like the ability to move these elk you know, the last uh forty fift yards sometimes it's very very difficult. Um. Also,

bowls that just weren't interested in in committing. They would they would call back and forth. You could play the you know, I'm over here, you're over there. Game. We can let each other know where we're at. But um, the ability to move that elk um you know, midday or late morning just wasn't gonna happen. If they weren't on their way to feed or to bed, they weren't really going to change the location. I think that comes

back to the weather and the heat. They just weren't going to pull themselves, um you know, off of their um. We did have a couple other chances, they're just for one reason or another, couldn't get them to commit move to Oregon. About as frustrating of elk hunting with a call in my mouth that I've ever experienced. During the Red um these bulls did not want you to get close. You know, our our normal game plan is get very very close, Um extrus wine, challenge Bogle in his face.

You're basically saying, there's a bull there to take your cows. That was maybe the worst thing we could do is get close in Bogle, because they would find enough time they didn't really care. We had multiple bowls walk away from their cows when they are the herd bulls. Um. They would just leave if they couldn't round up their cows and leaves. So we realized very quickly we couldn't call to the herd bowl, so we switched to cal calling.

Let's getting close in cal call. We did have a couple of callings that were very successful with cal calls, but then a bunch of scenarios where it didn't work. UM. So we would get in close, we would try to cal call, and once again they would either leave or it would put eyes on us and by time we would get something set up, UM, it didn't work out. But a lot of times that bowl was not interested in listening to cal call. Um. He would once again kind of round his cows up and leave UM and

it turned into Oregon. We were hunting elk a lot like meal deer with the boat. Be very very quiet, try to be you know, sneak into shooting position. Um, try to get into an ambush position ahead of them. And time after time, you know, we'd find ourselves kind of coming back to hey, calling should work here, and we would. You would try to resist that the whole way you'd go to make a call, and sure enough you would screw the whole thing up again. So very uncollable, Idaho.

The elk we're collable. Once we would find them, Like I said, they were very very quiet, but once we were getting close, get them to start talking. On multiple occasions, um, we were able to call elk in into shooting range um or they would come in silent. But they did what elk did. Like I don't necessarily think that, you know, elk are always gonna come in biggling. We had the outcome in silent. We had opportunities um and and things did line up. So Idaho, they were definitely more collable.

So my my button, my recap on you know the rut here the elk Upo seems to be a little bit later in cities, seemed to be down at least during bow season. I wouldn't be surprised right now. Um, you know, if those bulls weren't still talking very well into the end of October. Um weather was hot. We need a little bit of different weather to to kind of break that up. Herd behavior seemed to be down. We didn't have you know, satellite bulls challenging and then

call ability. UM, I don't know if it was the area of the units I was in compared to normal, but um, you know, the first two hunts were frustrating, especially having back to back in New Mexico hunts where they were extremely collable in one, not very collable in twenty two, and then one of the best units in Oregon just having it very, very tough to be able to call to these bulls. Um, what was real frustrating.

So that's kind of my recap on this year's rut, and that's kind of breaking it down on timing, intensity, the weather we experienced, what the herd behavior like, and what the call ability was. So. Um, Like I said, I think if we continue to get these slight changes in later winners, later springs, we're going to continue to

maybe get this rut. Timing moved back, which I don't know if I'm ready to to start to plan around that or not, but we may start looking into, UM pushing our archery hunts later into September, maybe moved from you know, if we can get rifle tags earlier in October, we may start using that to our advantage and seeing if what I believe is happening UM can translate into into some hunter success. So UM, once again, thank you

very much for tuning into cutting the distance. UM. This is kind of my uh my synopsis on the field reports for Elkret