Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. September is finally here. The bulls are starting to get fired up, and that's exactly what we're going to cover on today's episode is elk hunting during the rut. Our guest today is a coworker here at me Eater, and when I first talked to him, I could tell that he just gets it.
He's a great elk hunter.
He can talk to people that kind of buffalo their way through a conversation. But you know, we got chatting about elk hunting and things that I did versus things that he did, and you could just tell it clicked with him. He was born and raised in Montana and has spent the last fourteen years guiding elk hunters, one in Colorado, thirteen in Montana, and those were both all wilderness expeditions as well as private ranches and everywhere in between.
He's going to be mad that I added this, because I know he was joking when he sent this for his bio, but he said he has killed more shit than the plague was his last line in his bio. But today's guest is Corey Caulkins, Gray Hunter, and glad to have you on the show.
Yeah, what's up, Jason, Thanks for having me.
Yeah, have you had a chance to get in the woods yet?
Yeah, I went out. I was opening weekend this last weekend here in Montana, and yeah, got out.
We had some beautiful weather.
Actually it was a little hot on opening Day and then some torrential rain came in the following Sunday and Monday. Over the Labor Day weekend, it was pretty quiet elk wise in the woods. There were sure a lot of people getting after it, some hunters, some just recreational dirt bikers, but it was loud in the woods. There's a lot of people making a lot of noise for sure.
Yeah, I've always loved and hated Labor Day because it's the start of elk season, but it's also like the last weekend for all the hikers and recreationalists aside from US hunters, and it just seems to pack every trailhead, every good area. Everybody's hiking everywhere, and it's and the elk really aren't cranking. So it's a little bit of your we're so just to be out in the woods, but yet it's not always like the most productive.
Absolutely, Yeah, across the board that I've heard not a lot of bugle in action. Elk still in their bachelor summer herds summer locations. But man, it's kind of change by the day here as we as we speak.
Yeah, I got to get out this weekend a little bit easier of a hunt because it was a rough hunt. And then the kid had drawn a rifle tag. But same thing.
There were bulls around.
They would answer beagles just enough so that we keep tabs on them, but they you know, if I had a bow in my hand, I would be really I wouldn't be real confident that I would be able to make anything happen. Just how you know, lacks of daisical. Their beagles were really wasn't interested. You know, the bull didn't the herd bowl didn't even show up in the
herd until eight thirty in the morning. He was obviously out running ridges, looking for other cows and whatnot, and then he kind of showed up and rolled into the group of about forty cows. But yeah, still real big herds and they haven't really got broken down yet and bowls still running together. So it seems I don't want to say it's late, but it's it's not kicked off yet for sure.
For sure, Yeah, I don't know the way this season, at least in the northern half of the Rockies, everything seems to be like a week late. I'm a big angler to fly fishermen, and a lot of hatches were late, rivers were high later than you know, at least still compared to the last couple of years. So one's got to wonder if things might be just a couple of days or a week later in the elkra this year.
We'll see.
Yeah, well, I mean we can get into this in a little bit. But I've always been that one like, no, your excuse of the rut's late, or your excuse of the moon, or your excuse of you know, they weren't bigle in this year. Like I've never bought into it. But one thing the last couple of years. And I don't know if I'm making my own excuses now, but I felt like it's been later. I don't know how what I would attribute it to or what, but it seems like, man, they were still going a lot better
into October than they have in the past. But may just be me making a weak excuse for myself.
Well, yeah, I don't know.
October is still great month those first two weeks to get after bugle and elk.
Yeah, they're still pretty fired up.
A lot of people give up by then, and man, it's not a good time to give up yet.
And one thing that I would like to point out, maybe it's not exactly true, but what I've noticed growing up hunting Roosevelts versus being able to the last ten years hunt a lot of Rocky bowls, is the rut truly is over somewhere as soon as October rolls around the elk, know, like Roosevelts were done. Where when I've got to hunt Rockies, you know, they're still bugling into the second third week of October. Still a lot of times.
I don't know if it has to do with herd dynamics or areas, or you know, the health of the herd when they can come into estrus or whatnot, But that's one that's one major difference I've known is that the Rockies seem to rut into October a lot further than the Roosevelts.
So, yeah, our rifle season here in Montana opens, you know, around like the twentieth through twenty eighth ish fourth weekend, and h October and I called in a bowl for a client with the cow call that opening weekend a rifle season.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been good.
Same thing with my wife when she had that tag as October twenty eighth and on a rifle tag, and he bugled three hundred times at that afternoon, and once they got out of bed, bugled this whole way up before she was able to get a shot at him. It was just, you know, just nuts. I don't know if a cow came in late or what, but man, it reconstituted the rut there for at least an evening and we took advantage of it. So all right, now we're gonna, like every show, we're going to jump into
listener questions. It's funny, you know, as ELK season gets close, we get all of these listener questions and I like to take those or give them to my guests and let them answer them. If you have questions for me or my guests here at Cutting the Distance, please email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com, or hit us up on social media, send us messages, and we'll do our best to get him included. So
our first question today comes from holding Kuhn. A buddy and him are going to go on their first l CONTs this year. It's a rifle hunt. They both have tags, assuming they're hunting and glossing together, and they spot out, how do you decide who shoots first? So me and my own buddies, I'll let ego first. We've always had our own system. But I'll let you answer, Cory. If if your equals and you didn't invite somebody or they didn't invite you, Like, how do you guys decide who shoots man?
Yeah, if it's equal, like you both haven't shot an elk ever before or whatever, I'll usually draw straws or draw blade of grass, or flip a coin, like just make it the luck of the draw. A lot of times like that, the scenario might play out to where only one person ends up getting the shot. You kind of want to leave it open minded to that, but yeah, I don't know, flip a coin.
That's that's how we usually roll, unless it's a hunt where maybe I've already got to go on a hunt and they don't have as much time or freedom and this is their one hundred the year. You know, you extend some you know, you extend that offer to them, like no, go ahead and start, and then you do every other day. We don't like to both carry our bows around. It's like you focus on what you're supposed
to do. I'll focus on and the chance of us getting a shot at a second bowl there is always that chance, but it's never really you know, shown itself.
So we usually pack one bow. The other guy's.
Responsible for the calls and the raking and the brushing, and then that way we can just kind of avoid you know, two people trying to get shots or you know, not doing any of that. And just like you, we usually either do like one full day that way we don't have to get back to camp, or if it's like a rifle hunt, we'll do like a night in
the morning. But usually once you flip the coin and get going or however you want to do it, just come up with a system and you know your hunter one day and then your color the next, and you just switch throughout the hunt and rifle Mildiary. Of course we're not in a Milier podcast, Like if it's rifle Mildier, we'll just play whoever spots it shoots it the entire time, you know, so it keeps everybody on the glass all the time, versus a guy thinking he's going to take
a nap or whatnot, which is another good incentive. You know, if you spot it or locate it or find it, then you're up. It just incentivizes a you know, staying getting after it and staying after it throughout the whole hunt.
Yeah, it makes you work a little harder.
This is a this is a question which I've got to get answer for what I'll see how you answer. His second question, also from holding Kun, he wants to be a better caller, but feels he lacks the lung capacity or the ability to call either long or loud enough. Is there a way to improve that?
Well, to get louder, he should get the Phelps metal bugle tube. Can't get much louder than that. My ears ring every time I blow that thing personally. Yea, man, I don't know. There's probably some lung exercises you could do. You know, I know a lot of folks struggle, say they're coming from lower elevation, they go into higher elevation, it can take them a few days to just get their lungs back up and running, especially if they're hiking
the hills and working really hard. It could be hard for anybody to blow a bugle when you're when your blood's pumping like that. But man, there's probably some long exercises you can do. Take some just you know, leading up to a hunt. Do some lung stretches. Not only are to be mentally and physically prepared, but also preparing those lungs for for what have you. And then just all in all, practice bugling and cal calling.
Yeah, and that's that's what's gonna be my two part answers. As we do design calls. The easy bugler attached to an aluminum our metal bugle to very very loud and it requires less error than being able to run a diaphragm. So there are calls that will get you the ability to be a better caller or to be louder if that's what you're after. And then one thing you may never let me, let me back up just by running calls a lot, like we've been able to be at
lots of sportsman shows. We've been around guys that seem to start to show as like a mediocre caller and then just being in the booth for a week half into bugle, half into bugle. It's just like anything, the more you do it, the more your lungs are gonna become adapted. They're gonna they're gonna be more comfortable, and you're gonna be able to bugle, louder, cleaner, all that stuff.
And we've you know, we've noticed it at the shows where a guy comes in it's like, oh, I don't know if we want him begling on a call, you know, or or blowing on a call, because it's not really good for sales, but just being around good callers and doing it over and over and by the end, you're like, that guy got a lot better, you know. And then the last thing I wanted to touch base on lung capacity is one thing and I'm going to nerd out on people here for a little bit, is it's fairly tied.
There is a very high correlation with your age and your height, not your weight, not anything else. So like a lot of the air capacity lung capacity charts that that I look at when I'm modeling a Beagle tube will have the age. I don't remember how all the accesses are laid out, but basically age and your height will then dictate like your max capacity, like output from your lung So it's one thing that you get older, you're gonna have less. If you're short, you're already at
a disadvantage just based on the core relation. And but one thing I found is maybe that doesn't necessarily add up because we've got small guys that can crank. So maybe it's a different, you know, a different capacity that your lungs have. But I would say to stop bssing about this long drawn out answer is just practice a lot. The more you're in a call, the better you're gonna get it running a call, the more control you're going to have over that call.
And and that'll kind of fix it for you.
Well man fitness getting ready for an l hunt, you know, is going to help your lungs, Stretch them out, get them stronger, get that fire out of them. The first couple of hikes up a steep hill with a heavy backpack, I don't see how that would would hurt your lungs. To be able to call a little bit longer and louder.
Yep, yep, and allows you to call without taking a minute break, so you can, finally, after you get done with it, actually still blow on the tube when you're when you're grinding it out is also another thing, like you know I've ran into like I need ten seconds before I can blow on their twenty or thirty, you know, and the better shape you're in that, the better you're going to be.
So our second question comes from Nick in Utah, which obviously listens to the show because he starts out, I know you don't use a decoy very much, if ever, but I was wondering if you've ever tried using a decoy for elk hunting in the low country of Juniper's opinions before.
If not, how could or would you use this strategy and what would it look like in your eyes? If this was used, would it be effective? And then is there a strategy where you wouldn't use this tactic? So go ahead and answer that. Have you ever decoyed Corey?
I have not.
I have not, but man, I really want to.
There's been many scenarios where I wish I had a decoy because I think it would have lured him in just that much further, because you know, they're pretty keen on coming into the sound of a cowora bowle coming in and curious. But a lot of times if they don't see anything, that just triggers their nervousness to not come in any closer. And man, it's happened way too many times where they get hung up at that sixty
seventy eighty yard mark. And I believe if the decoy was behind me or behind the shooter, then that would bring him in, you know, that extra twenty yards needed.
So no I have ever used one actually in the field.
I guess I don't want to carry one around because climbing twelve to fifteen miles a day.
Yep, I'm in the same boat. I've we've tried to take them and we've lost her before. We've ever got to use it, both on two different hunts. So somewhere out there there are there's an elk decoy out there. But I, you know, just thinking about it, I wouldn't want to use it in wide open country where you know, things can can can look out of place. I think the situation they're talking about that Nick's talking about, like
low country Juniper's pinions. As long as it's tight enough and not wide opening can be seen from hundreds yards away, it would work.
And then it works even.
Better and maybe tight timber where if they can get a glimpse, you know, when they're at seventy or eighty yards or one hundred yards, but real tight, and I'm gonna you know, roll roll into why. I think that a lot of times those bowls will hold up where they expect to see that cow or where that cow can then see them, and they expect that cow to go to them, right because they don't want to leave
their herd. And so if you're giving the bowl the ability or whatever you're trying to call the ability to see this cow from two hundred or three hundred yards away, he's going to sit out there. Most likely, not not always, but he, in my opinion's going to set out there and beegle and then just not come in so within shooting range. Versus if there is no visual and that bowl can't lay eyes on that cow decoy, you may
have better options. So I think it really depends on how tight the vegetation is when that bowl will finally be able to see that decoy and then you know, but like I said, I'm just guessed guessing at what would happen. You could have a bowl that has no cows and he's always looking for a cow. He may run right into that setup versus a herd bull may not be willing to come any closer, you know, and leave his cows for just a lone cow that's out there calling to him. He expects her to come to him.
And so I don't have a great answer for that either, but I think you wouldn't want to use it in wide open country. Want it to be at least relatively tight enough that bowl would have to be somewhat close to see it.
Mm hmm. Yeah, engage's curiosity just enough to bring him in that much closer for sure, yep.
Yeah.
And then our last question I believe come from Corey Bonen. He was wondering if we've ever covered the topic on post rut. He lives in Alberta, Canada, hunts elk in the foothills of the Rockies, and he says it seems to be the actually starts to taper off by the third week of September, and their rifle season up there starts on September seventeenth, and he says by the time they get the October they're hard pressed to get any bugles.
What are the best tactics for kind of that post rep for you know, kind of going back to what we've already talked about. You know, still pretty decent bugling into October. But let's say you had a tag for middle October and still wanted to run calls or use that to your advantage. Like, what would be your strategy?
Man, There's there has to be a fired up bowl somewhere, but yeah, having to hunt in an area where few rifle shots have already gone off, that'll shut some elk up for sure. You and I Jason to both hunted in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where we can hunt with rifles September fifteenth, and those first few days are fire. But then when they hear a couple of rifle shots go off there, they're a little less apt to scream
at the top of their lungs. You can still find them out there, you just might have to dig a little deeper and get a little further back, maybe where people haven't been.
I don't know.
I don't think it's worth giving up on just the same tactics hunting ridges, bugle in looking for that one that might still be fired up in there, because that's still early enough. Obviously it varies by regions north to south especially, but man, there's got to be one fired up somewhere. I don't think it's worth giving up on the calling.
Yeah, and that's I mean elk ridges they've got that built in safety feature right where they do hear those gun shots? Are the are you and maybe I mean we can't have a conversation with Corey Corey Bona not you. It's like, are are these elk just non existent? Or are you still seeing them? They're just not bugling? That would be nice to know. But my guess is these elk are going back to some Heidi holes, right, They're trying to get away from pressure. They still maybe you know,
you may need to go find those. It's tough to figure that out. But as far as strategy, I would still I use I use my bugle fairly religiously. You know, into the middle of October, if I was hunting rockies, you know, it's like I will probably get a response if there are cows in the area that are still coming into estrus or even if even if not, like he's still may be willing to try to find that last cow, he may answer you. And then as far as calling a bowl into range. You know, we're we're
pretty heavy buglers. But I would maybe switch a little more to cow calls at that point, especially if you've got a rifle in your hand. You know, I just got off of a rifle rut hunt, and it's tough to like remove myself from my archery tactics. It's like, hey, we got a gun. You know, we're hunting with a gun.
Now.
I don't need to call this bowl in the range. I don't need the risk getting winded. I don't need to get tight like. I just need to know where he's at and then we'll find him.
And so.
That's why I would say, if you're rifle hunting by September seventeenth already, I would bugle and locate and then turn it into a you know, a spot spot the bowl and try to get in a position to shoot it, not necessarily call that thing all the way in now. Like I said, I don't know where they're at. They might be in heavy timber, and I might be saying
stuff that's just not useful to them. But that would be my go to is you know, hunt them like you've got a rifle, and maybe some of this stuff we always talk about getting him into archy range.
It's just too much risk at that point.
Yeah, no, that's a good good point.
Maybe to sum that up, just spot, maybe shifting more towards spot and stock, but to be able to spot him with either your glass or if you can just locate them, get one to screw up by Yeah, bugle in her cow call and then stock in from there, get a few hundred yards away.
Got a high advantage with that high powered rifle.
Yep, yep.
So well, thanks, thanks everybody for your your questions. If you, like I said earlier, if you have questions for us, our guests myself, email us at ct D at phelps game Calls dot com, or send us social media messages. We're on all the platforms there. Make sure to get him over and we'll try to get him included here in our show. So now we're gonna jump into my
discussion with you, Corey. Tell me a little bit about where you where you guided, kind of how long you been doing, how you got it into it, a little background on yourself, and then we'll roll into some questions on your clientele and and the elk that you got to hunt.
Yeah, well, let's see, uh, fresh out of high school. I started guiding nell hunters. My first year was down in Colorado, which, as everybody knows, has an extremely high elk population versus the other Western states out here, and it's true there's a lot of elk down there. We went sixty four for sixty four in the archery and rifle seasons that I went down. They're not all bowls.
We never shot one over three hundred and twenty inches that year, but man, there's just a lot of elk roam in those mountains.
Very impressive.
Was signed up to go back down that next year when I was going to be nineteen, but ended up landing a job in the Bob Marshall Wilderness much closer where I was born and raised in northwest Montana, and couldn't pass up the opportunity. It started out as guiding fishermen in the Bob and then we have an early rifle season back there, opened September fifteenth with a rifle and it was kind of always a dream to go back in there to hunt.
Personally.
My folks had lived in Montana since the seventies and went back in there on some DIY hunts on their own and just hearing those, always wanted to put my boots in the wilderness, and this was a good chance
to do it and get paid to do it. So I guided deep in the wilderness for seven years, learned a lot about elk hunting I was young, that was my early twenties, and then just kind of through the grapevine of working in the industry, was able to land a pretty fantastic guiding job just north of Bozeman here where I live now, on a couple different private ranches that honestly are the total opposite spectrum of elk hunting.
Going from deep in the wilderness having to earn just getting back there mandatory nine to ten miles on a horse just to enter the wilderness unit versus shooting elk off the hood of a truck, not literally, of course, but pretty close, and then loading them in hole with a wench electric wench in the back of the truck. Pretty mind blowing spectrum to go from one to the other.
That first year guiding on those. One of the private ranches up here had to send video of the first bowl I harvest was a three hundred and fifty one inch bowl that.
I helped harvest.
Excuse me, guided, and I wench the whole thing in the back of a truck, was able to drive right to it and had to record the video send that to all my buddies who were still grinding and out in the wilderness, and they all, I'm pretty sure puked on their phones when they saw that. But so I was pretty spoiled from there, but definitely earned earned my stripes,
I would say, to get to that point. And yeah, two very different spectrums of guiding, and I spent eight years guiding on these ranches that I'm speaking of.
Yeah, so you've got a real It sounds like you got a real contrast from doing it maybe as hard and as far away from the truck as he can versus doing it as close and maybe I don't want to say easy, but definitely, definitely the odds are stacked in your favorite more on that private land you know it's managed to be that versus you know, the unmanaged wilderness, semi unmanaged wilderness.
Did you just kind of.
Get what you get and the train gets thrown at you and whatnot?
And exactly so quick.
Story about me.
I don't know if I tried to be a guide an elk hunting guide right out of high school, and uh, my parents gave me the the ultimatum of like this is where we break your plate. Like if you go to college and and go do all of that, you get to you know, you can stay here and finish out your college or if you go do that, like you're kind of on your own.
I'm like, gosh, dang it.
But uh no, long story, so I wouldn't trade it for the world, like the path I got, you know, to being able to sit here and have the conversation with you. You know, we're both in similar spots. But uh, that was my that was my goal out of high school. I didn't wasn't interested in getting what I would call a normal job or doing the normal I didn't want to go to college. But uh yeah, that was my goal, is to do that guiding right out of high school. But never never got to it.
Oh yeah, I never knew that about you.
Yeah yeah, So, uh you got to hunt with a lot of different elk hunters and and these when I say elk hunters, guys that guys in get that were maybe coming in for different experiences. Right when we booked the ball, we booked it with the full understanding that if we didn't kill anything, we'd get to see some amazing country right and see, but there was still decent
elk and deer to be had in there. And then you've got to see people that book on these ranches with the intention of they probably just want to kill the biggest bull they can as easy as they can do it. Be back in the lawge drinking a whiskey at night, you know, so you've got to see the
entire spectrum of elk hunters. Is there like a parallel you can make regardless of whether they're in the wilderness or whether they were down at the ranches that like made a good elk hunter or made a good client, or you know, is there any parallels you can make there? Or maybe the major contrasts.
You know, just trusting your guide it would have been a major I guess it's kind of switches up your question a little bit, but kind of a great parallel between the two types of clients. That just made a guide's job or my life so much easier, was just to listen and trust your guide because they're doing it, they've been doing it, and you know they're gonna ask you for pointers or your opinion on a certain scenario.
But just follow the leader, whether you're on a horseback or in the side of a pickup truck, just trust your guide that he's taking you the right spot and trying to get you the you know, most successful outcome that you're paying for.
Whether it's you.
Know, four thousand dollars for a nine day horseback hunter, twelve thousand dollars for five day drive around and spot one hundred elka day hunt, they're very different. But yeah, does that answer your question?
I feel like I pivoting.
Yeah, yeah, No, For the most part, it's a tough question to answer. So I'm gonna kind of twist it up a little bit as I present it here. Is so let's let's take away the ranch and let's just focus on the public land, grinded out, a little bit more physical, a little bit less guaranteed by by far when you were up in the in and the bob, Like, what do those hunters, let's say you're coming from out east you've never experienced the West, or like, what do
these people need to be prepared for? Like what would be your best guidance, you know, for them to hit the ground running and maybe be successful.
One hundred percent physical stamina, Like start preparing physically early on That country we were in is very hard on people. I guided people who had the sheep grand slam on their walls that that elk hunt kicked their butt. It's pretty rugged terrain. And any elk terrain, whether you're leaving a leaving the pick up every morning or going deep in on horseback or whatever, elk living really rugged terrain. So just physically being fit, having your stamina as high
as you think you got, you can handle it. You know, you owe the respect to the animal to say you shoot something and doesn't drop right away, You owe that animal a lot to be able to cantinue to grind and try and recover that thing. Don't give up on it. Also a mental stamina as well, not only physical but mental.
If you got whether it's.
Five days or ten days designated and something happens early, or it's just the hunts not going your way, luck's not having it, just stay in the game and yeah, stay at it. Mental and physical stamina is so important for l cunning.
Yeah, and one thing, I mean, I'm going to take a little side approach, but even the physical side that we rode there was a fire of the year I went in there and we had to come in a different direction. So we were on the horses for or mules for thirty plus miles. There were a few of us that had been working out fairly heavily, and we were okay because we walked about eight miles and walked our horses for another twenty two or whatever, you know, plus or minus a few miles.
It was along.
It was before you know, dark to after dark sort of a ride. There were some of the guys in our crew that couldn't walk the next stage just because of the horse ride, and you know, guys that aren't horse guys or meal guys, and the guys that were in better shape and have been working out, we were sore, but we were able to go, you know. And so it's like it all tied in like something I never would have thought preparing for a for a hunt, because
I'm not a horse guy. I'm not a meal guy, but you need that to be able to access that country, like the physical win as far as that, and then these guys that maybe needed some breaks, like the very next day we didn't need to recoup from our base camp. Then we spiked out an additional five miles because that's where we thought, and these other guys were like, oh no, we'll do it later in the hunt, and we went. You know, we were there to go be successful, and
that was kind of our our mindset. And that's where you know, we always look at physical and mental as different.
But I would always argue that a lot of your mental will come from physically challenging yourself, because that's usually where you start to question your Your mental starts to come into play, as your sore or your feet hurt, you're tired, you know, you're hungry or that, and so you let that physical ability like start to affect your mental you know, like, well, I'm gonna just hunt around camp today, not saying it's not it's better than not hunting at all, but it's also not as good as
climbing back up to the top of the mountain, you know, where you think the critters might be or whatnot. And so my advice is always getting as good a physical shape as you can, and it's gonna limit either your exposure to that like mental you know, breakdown or your ability to talk yourself out of something. And then I'm gonna add one more piece onto that, like good hunting partners. I'd be lying to say that I'm always like at the very top physically or at the very top mentally.
There are times where you need a hunting partner that's just as dedicated to the cause as you, or somebody you can you know, pitch ideas off of and and at times when maybe I'm not feeling it, they'll pick you up. And when they're filing down or out or don't want to give it the extra effort, you're like, no, we need.
To go up there.
And at least the group that I run with, like, we push each other so hard that you never want to let the other guy down. And so it's nice to be able to like, now we're going up there, and you're going with me, whether you want to or not.
Mm hmmm, absolutely. Yeah, picking great partners for that is key. And if you're ever going on a guided hunt, usually typically not always, but your guide, you know, that guy who's waking you up in the morning, getting you going in the afternoons, keeping you keeping your head up.
Yeah, I I didn't realize, and I feel for the I understand why we took the two hour naps because they need I needed it anyways. But those guys are out wrangling hobbled horses and mules at like three in the morning, where we're still sleep and then they get you up at four thirty and it's by time they're done taking care of the horses. Like you guys deserve
a bigger tip than than I get. That I gave, you know, and it was my good buddy, But I'm like, gosh, dang, you know, these these cooks are up at three in the morning starting your meals or lunches or whatever, and I don't know, it's it's it's not not for the faint of heart. You better not light, you better not need sleep to be able to survive.
Oh, it's a lot of hard work for sure, late nights, long days.
I mean you'd sneak in a little nap mid day kind of you know, you want cool, uh, you know, kind of overcast weather, you know, consistent weather, but you also kind of hope for really hot weather, so you can sneak in that two or three hour nap while the elker yeah, down mid day, whatever it takes.
But it's a lot of hard work.
But yeah, it's it's you don't see too many older like especially wilderness hunting guides. It's a young man's sport career, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Those are the Those were the times back then.
Man.
Yeah, all right, So let's diverge a little bit from
the clients, and I'm more interested in the elk. The differences that maybe lived, you know, thirty miles from anywhere, you know, elk that never seen a person compared to these elk that live on a place that was pretty much designed for their uh, you know, for them, for them to for them to flourish, get as big as possible, carry the absolute highest carrying capacity you can, versus the opposite of just you know, being being in the middle of the bob or some remote color out of wildernes
where they're just given with what's on the ground. Are there any major differences when you'd go to hunt those elk as far as the elk are concerned, or are they different creatures as far as being able to call them, pattern them whatnot?
You know, it's hard to say. My original answer just now is going to be that elk on some of the private land obviously don't have the pressure as much as public land, say, whether it's deep in the wilderness or just your typical national forest trailhead.
But elk on.
Private land don't seem to run away as far now they're elk, they're skittish. You bump them once, that's probably your only opportunity. But a lot of times they know where the border that private and public land is and they don't want to go to public because last time they did that, they just got bumped right back on to private. Even if those ranches are being hunted and hunted hard, you know, with multiple clients every week, they still know where the border is and they don't necessarily
want to leave. Now. It's what makes me backtrack that answer a little bit. Is in the vast open public land wilderness, what have you You bump an elk and you're looking at such crazy massive country that you're not going to ever be able to catch up to that. Where on a big private ranch, yeah you can, you know, give it a half a day and then drive your truck over there and be to the other end of the ranch where that elk headed, you know, within an hour or so. So I think just the it's the terrain,
whether it's private or public. If if an elk runs away from he or it goes over a ridge that just doesn't look passable to your stamina or your whereabouts, whether you're on foot, horse or vehicle. That's probably the biggest difference is just the the terrain for the elk and for the hunter.
Yeah, and one thing that you know, being able to hunt. I haven't got the hunt. I have hunteds of private land, but like the ability to pattern those elk, right, because those elk one like, we know they're probably gonna go bed here, They're probably gonna come out and feed here, versus sometimes up in the mountains, you know, if.
A cougar or a wolf runs through there.
I mean it could happen on public or the private chunk as well, but it seems like, you know, the private stuff there may be a little more patternable, a little more predictable, versus up in the mountains. It's like they may feed in this section one day and then for some reason, the lead cow takes them to a different spot the next day to feed, or they're in like you know, three or four day rotation, you know, versus And one thing that I've heard and maybe you
can you can you know, solidify this answer. It's like a lot of times on these ranches, they won't let you go hunt them in bed right, because they do not want you to disturb them. They don't they want that pattern to be the same. You get your one shot in the morning, why the wind's right, the bull goes in there, you're taking the afternoon off.
Versus in the.
Mountains, it's like, you know, everybody on the mountain that spotted any olk going into a bedding area are gonna get bumped or killed one or the other. It's like for the majority of guys, right, they're gonna go in there and keep an elk until they either bump them or kill them. And so that's one nice thing where
it's managed a little bit better. And I never fought anybody for going a little bit harder on public ground or mountainous ground, because that's your opportunity, right, But that is one thing where I think that private land ranch stuff, whereas if you've got rules in place that make sure that those elk don't necessarily get ran out of there is a pretty good system that their pattern stays the same for quite a while.
Yeah, that's very true.
Well, yeah, I guide it on two different ranches here in central Montana. Yeah, the latter one that I've guided on. Yeah, if you weren't back for breakfast by eleven am, like if you didn't have an elk on the ground, the outfitter started getting a little suspicious that you were maybe hunting a betting zone or something. That was definitely rule number one was don't hit hunt the betting zones. You bump an elk out of his bed, he's not coming back for a while. And that was the last thing
we wanted. We wanted those elk to stay there, to feel somewhat comfortable in your opportunity. And the more in the evening was so great, whether we were sitting tree stands, sitting by wallows, or spot in stock trying to get be in the right place at the right time. It was very open country, and of course the elk are going to come out to those openings in the middle of the night. And then where they would go in was the limited betting areas, and those were just yeah,
do not enter or limits. Didn't want to be invited back, and you wanted to be invited back as a client or a guide.
It was a cool place to con and I.
Think that lesson can maybe translate into public right right, I mean we do. We talk about hunting betting areas, and we talk about like midday magic. You know that you can get into, but there is something to be taken away, like if you want those elk to continue their patterns and do what they've did the day before and where you found them, going into their betting area could could potentially change their patterns if you bump them or blow them out of where they think a safe,
secure spot is. So I always, I mean, this is a great way to reiterate, like, go in very cautiously, whether you're on public, because you know that the guides and the ranches are running the system for a reason to make sure those oak continue to do what they've did.
Yeah, you know, it's smart, it's a smart system. Yeah. So if you got time and you watch one go into a betting zone, yeah maybe if you don't, you know, if it's dry and crunchy, leave them be. But if it's wet, drizzling and you might be able to sneak in take your boots off, maybe it's worth going in there, especially if you're limited on time.
But yeah, you gotta that tough decision.
So this this will be a good segue. I'm going to ask you and then we're going to talk about some of the hard You know, it's sometimes hard to talk about elk cutting, right because you've been we've been doing it for so long. Some of it's just kind of ingrained into into our thought process. But is there can you define what makes a good uh time.
To go into a betting area?
Is there is there like a few things you check off a checklist where you will go into a betting area, or how does that decision come about? Or there's just so many factors we can't hardly talk about them.
I don't know a few of the main factors. I'd say, how many eyeballs just went in there? You know, if it's a bowl and I don't know more than four cows that went in there, that's a lot of eyeballs you're trying to sneak in on unless you can. I think that your ultimate scenario would be if you're like, say, across a ravine, and you can see how they're bedded, exactly where they're at, find yourself a little ambush route. You know, you're fairly confident in which way the wind's
blowing in there, then you're set. But man, yeah, the number of eyeballs, and then also how loud it is, how crunchy the leaves and the and the pine meals are going to be, you can always I've taken my boots off a hundred times trying to sneak in on an elk, and it's worked a couple of times. I even took my my breeches off once just so I didn't have my legs up swiping back and forth.
That time it did not work.
I was caught in the middle of a herd of elk, running away with my pants down.
Literally.
But man, yeah, eyeballs and the how dry it is. Man, if you can get in somewhere where you know where he's at or where your target is at, and if it's like drizzling rain, your sense not you know, pushing around as much, you got a pretty good chance of getting close anyway.
Yeah, now I like it. We've tried to approach a lot, but a lot of times we get turned away like brush on the entry. We're gonna have to be noisy to get in, Like if I've got good elk trails going, and like you said, there weren't any satellite bulls.
That's one thing that I almost.
Always abandoned the mission if there's a satellite bul because inevitably, and it makes total sense when you think about it, that satellite bowl doesn't get to bed with the herd, right, that herd bowl will, and that satellite bowl almost always gets kicked downwind of that. And so when we're approaching to be good elk hunters, we're gonna come in with the wind in our face. So tho'se olk can't smells.
But guess what elk you run into about one hundred and fifty yards out, you run into that damn satellite bowl. Almost every time we've tried to approach that way. And so if we know there are a bunch of satellite bowls around, it's it's proced at your own risk. Like how late in the hunt is it? How quick you need to try to make something happen if you've got a lot of time left, we usually just leave it alone.
But yeah, this is a great segue into what we We kind of talked about this a little bit before we started recording. We talk about elk hunting, and all of these are like very cookie cutter examples, Right, we say the winds doing this, or the elk are doing this, But a lot of times like what's the moon doing? Has it rained for the last week? Are the elk running? Are there cows and heat? How big are the herds?
How many satellite bowls? Like all of these things boil in to our answers, and it makes it talking about archery elk hunting. It makes it difficult. And I think that's why we we a lot of times just talk about our system. Right, It's easier for me to talk about the system, But then all of these variables still come into play. And one thing I got I got a question the other to day, is is what makes
a good elk hunter? Or in your opinion? We were talking about it around a campfire on the elk hunt that I was just on and I kind of came up with this is is I think most successful elk hunters have a system that they use, they stick to it for most part of the hunt. But the one thing I've found out is if you look at all the successful elk hunters, their systems aren't necessarily always similar.
And so I was trying to boil that down, like how does all that work, and so what I've really kind of said is is rather than try to play every variable all the time, like just stick with a you know, if you're a if you're a caller, call if you're a spot in stocker spot, if you're what have you found corey? As far as like what makes somebody successful year in and year out?
You know you you are.
Typically always able to kill your elk or help buddies kill their elk fill their tags in your opinion, like what makes a good elk hunter and consistent?
Well, I brought it up earlier. I think just the both is a g mental stamina. Odds are it's not going to happen right away or even where your plan A or even B spots are going to be. So being able to stay with it mentally and physically obviously and grind it out, don't just stopping your plan A or B spot, say some other folks are there. There's just not elk happening. It feels like the rut hasn't started, or it feels like it could be a little late.
Maybe switch it up, be a little bit more open to try a new area, whether that means driving somewhere or having a hike, move camp. I think just kind of keeping it open minded, you know, not sticking, not having the tunnel vision for one plan. You know, having a great plan A, plan B is important, but man have a X, Y and Z plan too. Hopefully you
give you give yourself more than just a weekend. Obviously you can get out every weekend of the season, that's great, but give yourself five to ten days for an area and don't assume that it's all going to happen right then and there. So I think just being open minded and then having that mental and physical stamina to last you're you know, allotted hunt window is really important and that's something that I've noticed I've been able to do.
Was younger, it was frustrating not having Plan A or BG, right, but just being you know, knowing that you can't control mother nature and having a plan X and Y in your back pocket is super important and eventually it's going to work out for you. Maybe not with meating the freezer, but at least have a heck of a hunt yep.
And that's one thing we learned as we started. You know, I grew up industrial timberlands, hunting around home. You packed your lunch for the days I started to venture out and hunt what I'd consider more mountainous, more adventurous type elk hunting. You know, we would go in like, well, how are we going to carry all of our food? You know, we hadn't had it dialed in, so we would pack ten days of food into one camp six miles in. Well, guess what that did? That locked me
into an area for the entire time. And it's like, well, then you were based seeing your stay based on what your food's already all in here, or you know, this is what we had planned on doing for ten days versus where I'm at now, where I packed maybe a half a day's food, I can live off of it for two days, and if there aren't elk there in that half a day, I know I'm gonna be back at the truck, going to a different trailhead or a different area.
You know.
And it sounds so cliche, and we say it over and over, but you need to be able to like pull the plug and not be married to an area or a spot because it looks good on on X, it looks good on Google Earth, it looks good wherever. If there aren't elk there on that year. So if I can't go into a spot and find very fresh rubs, very fresh signed elk scat you know whatever, like, I'm out. And especially if you can't add a live elk to those tracks, you know, a bugle or spot them with
your glasses, I'm out of there. And one thing, you know, I think people overlook is like, well it looks kind of fresh, like well that once that elk crap or track, you know, if it hasn't rained or whatnot and washed it out, Like those elk could have been there two weeks ago and in the month of September.
Those things are moving.
If they got bump out of there, they might have won a drainage over and never came back. Like you just might be in the wrong spot. So yeah, I feel that being willing to move, get out of a spot, go try plans, you know, be through Z or whatever it needs to be, like, have the ability to open up on X or whatever mapping software you use. Say, oh, I think this spot might be good. It's going to take me, you know, an hour and a half hike in this three miles is where I want to be in.
Go try it out that night. You know, one thing we talk about is if you need to if you need the third part of the day, like go locate at night time, like do whatever you gotta do. But you need to find some elk and just keep moving zones.
Mm hmm, yeah, even if it means changing mountain ranges. You know, at least where elk tend to live in the Rocky Mountain West. You got a lot of options and any you know, unless you have a trophy unit tag where you're restricted to a certain zone, you're just carrying a general elk tag in your pocket. Man, you got a lot of country to explore, so go check something new out. You might have had a great spot that was great last year, was great the year before,
historically a great zone. They're not there this year. Switch it up or or also stick to it. You know, if it's been a good spot, they might just not be in there yet.
You know.
It's I've been amazed by the number of times where I've given up on a spot. Well, not one hundred percent given up, but like, man, tomorrow, I'm leaving if I don't see anything in the morning, and sure enough a huge hurd al moved in overnight and there they are. So it's tough what to say, you know, flip a coin to make a decision, because it's it's a lot of skill, but man, there's a lot of luck involved.
Don't forget that for sure.
So we're recording this on September fifth. We both just came off of you know, you got the hunt a little bit over Labor Day weekend. I just came off of a hunt Labor Day weekend.
And one or.
Actually two of the things we were dealing with on for both of us is the moon.
We're coming up.
We were out a full moon the on Thursday, I believe, which was August thirty first, and.
Then we rolled in.
We got a bunch of weather Thursday, Friday, and then coming from Washington, it hit you guys, what Saturday, Sunday?
I think, yeah, Monday.
Yeah, so you guys got the weather after us. So next thing I want to talk about is your opinion on does the moon matter and how that affects it versus. And then we'll jump into the rain in that system that rolled through.
Yeah, I don't hunt during a full moon. Stay home, elk aren't even out out in the woods.
I don't know where they go.
But no, I'm totally kidding. I'm sure it affects them. And I've always had this theory that whenever like the second, third, fourth week of September lines up with a full moon, that's going to be kind of towards the peak rut, the elk get to do their dance during the evening twilight hours while they can see a little bit better, they get to roam a little bit more. I don't know if that theory is true, has any any truth to it or not, but man, when elk are fired up,
they're fired up. And if it's the third week September wherever, you know kind of the peak time might be for your region, whether it's a full moon or a new moon, I don't think it matters. Honestly, I haven't noticed anything. I've killed elk on a full moon and I've killed elk on a new moon.
It's hard to tell what it is.
I know it's easier to sleep with a new moon because it kind of keeps you up at night with it's full blasting in your eyeballs.
But yeah, I don't know.
Fourteen years a guide, in twenty plus years of just hunting myself, I haven't noticed. Yeah, at least in September a difference with the moon.
I'm I'm right there with you, And I just kind of sum it all up is there's only so many days in September. I'm going to be out there as much as possible. One the one thing that throws a little bit of a of a wrench in my system is maybe somebody contacts me with I only got one week to hunt? And then do you put them around the moon? I usually don't. I still say what do you after? Like do you want post? Like do you
want peak of the rut? Then you have to be there on this week, regardless of whether the moon's are or not. That's when you're going to get your most action, you're most bugling. And so yeah, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the moon. And this is going to everybody, how big of a nerd I am.
I had went back, I'd looked at a bunch of trail cameras and then like timed it with what the moon was on that and what time they were showing up at a specific wallow, And it didn't really matter when the full moon was there, they showed up a little bit later, they didn't They weren't coming in the daylight, and they left a little bit earlier, but it really didn't affect things through the end of August into like the middle of September, I think, is when we ran
that cam and then I had just looked at like there for a stretch of like the ten bulls I had killed that was like from I don't even remember two thousand and five to twenty fifteen, and I had looked at all the bulls that I had killed, and almost all of them were within four or five days of a full moon. It's just how it landed, how it had added up, and you know, someone were on
the front side. Some people, you know, the moon. The guys that claimed the moon really matters always say that you want to be on the back side of the full moon, you know, tailing off. But it was five days before or five days after. It didn't really seem to matter. There was no correlation with with when I killed and what the moon was doing.
Interesting, well, I know you brought it up that this was going to be our next topic, so this is kind of segues. But I certainly think weather has more drastic involvement with elk Habits versus the moon.
Yeah, So what's your opinion on like a rain system or a snow system that moves in. Let's say, you know it's it's been decent weather, rain moves in in your opinion or what have you seen that do to the elk or the rut Man.
What I've seen consistent, whether whether it's rain or dry is key. So you know, having a week of rain, they're still going to do their thing. But having a week of dry and then all of a sudden a rainstorm comes in. I've certainly noticed it. It's shut down, or at least it feels like it shuts down. I always assume that estrous smell of cows breeding, that scent in the air just kind of gets locked down with that moisture in the air, is what I've always assumed.
But man, I've chased elk that have bugled all day long and a the rain that turned to snowstorm. Two bowls dueling it out for about thirty or forty cows all day. Never been able to get close enough to the bulls. Could have shot a few of the cows many times, but that didn't affect them one bit. And it was a snow rainstorm that came in after some eighty degree heat and then it was the next day.
So I've kind of seen it all.
But it does seem like the rain that kind of comes out of nowhere and breaks up a dry week at least in September. You know, we're still dealing with some warmer tempts right now versus say later October November. That it does affect them, whether they just don't dance in the rain or the scent or something. But it's still worth going out, no doubt, yep.
And I've my my experience is almost mirrored years that it's not so much the consistent rain or the consistent sun, but it's a change, and within like three days of that change, you know, it's on the.
Tail tail end of it.
So for instance, we haven't had rain for ninety plus days or something like that. We were getting ready to go hunting, and Thursday we get that downpour before we leave, and it really quieted things down to compared to what everybody said that the elk were doing that unit, and they slowly started picking back up as the weather was
getting nice again. And the same thing I think if it's been raining for you know, five six, seven days, the elk are getting used to it, and all of a sudden you get a high pressure moveing and it gets nice. It's like, all right, it takes a couple more days for things to like get back in the in the normal. And you know, so we've had, you know, up in the high country, we've got snow a little bit, and it doesn't it seems to be more of like
middle ground. It doesn't seem to for some reason snap them in or out as much as rain versus sun. But that just maybe my limited experience in the high country, but it seems like the rut just kind of continues on, at least in the snow. I don't know why or how come, but just from my experience, the snow didn't seem to affect them as much as the rain.
Yeah, no, I know.
And you can't pick the dates necessarily, Excuse me. You can't pick the weather of a hunt that you've had planned for weeks, months, or years even. But you know, an ideal weather condition would be just like consistent sixty or seventies, maybe a little chance of rain here or there. But you know, if you're if you're crossing your fingers for weather, just hope for consistency for sure.
Yep, yeah, I like that overcast with a little you know, fifty percent cloud cover good, you know, mid mid tamp's cool in the morning, crisp in the morning, and then you know, maybe heat up to six or seventy in the afternoon. Like that's that's my favorite. The other thing I hate systems coming in and out is because it screws with your wind on both ends of it, right is you get these pushes. Now all of a sudden, you're not just dealing with the local thermals. Uh, You're
now dealing with these crazy swirlling winds. It's just a headache to deal with.
And that's possible. You got to wonder if that affects the elk, you know, their their habits. They get a little nervous when they're so used to that southwest wind, at least here in Montana prevailing winds southwest, and then all of a sudden it's out of the northeast. They're like, oh, I got to you know, change my location where I'm going to feel comfortable during.
The day, not going to talk as much.
It must affect them as well, So yeah, you definitely got to change up your tactics.
Yeah, I mean, not that we need to think like an elk, but we've all watched them in the morning. They go from their feed to their bed, and then they bed down, and then they go from their bed to their feed. Well, one thing that I didn't think about a whole lot is a lot of times they let that wind switch and they're feeding with whatever predator would be in front of them. They're feeding out into that wind, right, and they're doing it. They're not dumb.
They're they're always smelling what's ahead of them, whether their eyes can pick it up or not. But they typically will will feed with the wind in their face. That way they can smell any danger that they're walking into. Well, like you had just mentioned, you switch the wind on them one hundred and eighty degrees. Well, now that betting and feeding area connection is like broken up, right, But
they can't do that. They've got to go to a different feeding betting area combo or connection, and so it really and maybe that's why, maybe that's why it really kind of throws their pattern off. But yeah, I've noticed that you know, wind switches, or you've hunted an area for two or three days, you've about got it figured out, and all of a sudden, some weather moves in and your plan that you'd been building is completely thrown out
the window. You can't do it anymore because the winds goofy and they're uncomfortable and they've changed your pattern.
Yeah.
Well, it's question as old as time.
Every elk that I try and ask, or at least that I try and get close enough to ask the question, they seem to be dead on the ground, so I never get the chance to ask them. But one of these days, maybe I'll get to whisper in an elk's here and ask them what's up with their habits?
Yeah, I wish I could figure all that out.
I'd be a lot better elk hunter, I think, than just taking a guess at all this stuff or what's worked one time but then it doesn't work the next twenty times. That's the only thing that's like a given when it comes to elk hunting is that it's never going to be the same from time to time, scenario
to scenario. I feel like you can have all the factors exactly the same on scenario a versus being the results will be different just because of that elk's personality or or something that that elk just isn't going to do the same thing. And that's I mean, I don't claim to know, but I feel that there's some of that that goes on where one bowl might be full of piss and vinegar that you're trying to hunt, and
one bowl might just want to avoid any confrontation. And one thing us as elk hunters need to figure out is how do you deal with each one based on the way they be agle, the way they react to calling, the way they react by just watching them through binos.
And that's some more of this stuff we talked about earlier, which I kind of stumbled through on how to describe it, is that all of these little tips and tactics get like brought into the decisions, like that bull's super hesitant, or you see a bowl over there, like trying to rip a satellite's head off. Anytime it gets within a couple hundred yards, you're like, well that's a bowl I can challenge, you know, or get close to. It just seems pissed versus you know, one that doesn't really care
for satellites. I don't know, all that stuff matters and should affect like your next move.
When you're out there, el cutting keeps you on your toes for sure.
Yep, yep.
So well, I really appreciate having you on here, Corey. I know you're you're getting ready to take off for for the month of September and I've got a got a hunt coming up. So uh, the best of luck, And like I said, really appreciate you coming on here and talking oak cunning here.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited, man, We'll be in touch. Best luck to you. I know you got some fun trips planned or one big epic trick plan for sure. I can't wait to hear how it goes.
Yeah, all right, we'll take care. We'll catch up to you on the backside of hunting season.
Sounds good, Jason. Thanks again.
H