Dirk Durham. Here, I'm being your host again for another episode of Cutting the Distance. You listen to one of our previous episodes. I had my good buddy Tom Schneider, and we sat down and we start talking about rifle elk hunting post rut, and we got into the weeds a little bit on longray shooting. What to do when you hear a bull elk bugling in October and you got a rifle in your hands. And then after we record the podcast, we kind of laughed a little bit
and said, man, we just didn't get deep enough. So this is a bonus episode. This is a second episode, and we're going to continue that conversation of what if the bulls are not bugling? What now? How do we proceed with that? So welcome back, Tom, Thank you, Tom. Give one. Give it just another brief description of who you are. In case nobody's listened to the first episode. Tom operates the Stuck in the Rut YouTube channel and
social media. Him and his family very accomplished hunters and they film their hunts so they put them on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, you have to check it out. I feel like maybe you've lived under a Rock if you haven't seen it, because they've got a really big following, lots of really good viral videos on hunting all species of North American game and Tom tell us just a tiny bit about yourself and then we're gonna move right back into the absolutely.
So yeah, he covered most of it with me being stuck in rut. You know, I think kind of just the best, the simplest way to explain my family and how we are. But we just we work all year, we have our jobs, but we've made hunting a priority in our life where every year, if you I mean I have, it's myself, oh, the brother Travis, my sister Tan and my little brother Trevor. We've all made it a priority in our life to to take off hunting season every single year to hunt. You know, we don't work,
We work hard so that we can do that. And I think a lot of that I kind of go back to my dad multiple times because he owned the logging company growing up, and you know, he made a priority to take off hunting season and the hunt. And now do we live the ninety five type job. No, there's a lot of times in the week where we work fifty to sixty hours a week. But we do that so that we can have fun. That really for me, that that's my drive, like I you know, that's what
keeps me working, That's what keeps me making money. Is my hobby, you know. And I'm really fortunate where I live to where that's just the fact. You know, we travel a lot to hunt. We've talked about that. We're if you listen to the last podcast, we talked about Alaska. Hunt Alaska a lot. My sister brother in law live up there, so we have a lot of hunting up or tuning up there as well. But living down here in Idaho, we do have a lot of opportunity here too.
We're surrounded by three different mountain ranges and we have a lot of different species of animals to hunt. And you know, for me as a resident, I can buy attack over the counter. I could hunt to shoot. In September, I could have it's almost like anything goes right like I could in September. I could have an elk tag archerie elk tag archie deer tag which is mealy or whitetail. I could have a black bear tag and wolf tags. Man, I can get quite a bit of those. If you want,
how many do you want? I told you to pick up another one just in case, because usually the tough thing about it is when you're wolf hunting, immediately get off topics sometimes, but if you call it a wolf pack, there's usually more of than one that comes in. When Dirt came up here, he's like, yeah, I got one wolf tack, Like, we got to run to the store
to get another one just in case. Because I can't tell you how many times I had friends are like, oh, yeah, shot a wolf, but then the other wolf was just walking around and I couldn't shoot it because I have another tag. It's like, yeah, So for me, I've just learned to buy more than one wolf tag. And then if you get close to that number and then buy more, Yeah, as idahope for you, I love this state.
That's really smart. That was really smart advice. So we talked a lot about you know, calling, you know, how if you hear a bul bugling in our first episode. I'll let you guys, you know, look back to my previous episode. It'd probably be a couple episodes ago where Tom and I talk about if you hear a bull bugling in October and how to approach that. Now let's
go a little deeper into the post rut. So now elk are not talking, and sometimes, you know, especially in big timber country, you would almost argue there's no elk here at all, especially in an area that has low elk densities. How are you locating those elk and then how are you like hunting them once you found them.
That's a great question, and I definitely recommend anyone to go back to the other podcast where we are talking about. You know, it goes back to understanding the behavior of the elk first, because now you know we did talk about Okay, if you got a bowl buglin, this is how i'd approach it. But the majority of the post
ra hunt, you're not going to have elk talking. Now, it's great if you have glassing opportunity, but if it's an area I don't care how open it is, If it's an area where it's a public land easy tag to get to achieve, These elk figure out hunting pressure quick and they will pull into places that you you will never know. If you really don't know elk, you're not going to be able to know how to find them.
So it really goes back to understanding the behavior of the elk, you know, going back to the groceries, their shelter and their safety, and if there's anything you want to add to that, let me know. But that's what I always look at with animals. The one thing you and I both talked about is that a big bull
he puts safety a priority over other things. Now, sure, there could be one side of the mountain where there's a lot of food, right, there could be a lot of brows, you can find cows, you can see rag bulls there, but it's like, where did that big bull go during archery season? He's gone out in order to find him that big bowl will put safety as a priority over the groceries and the shelter. Now what I mean shelter shelter. I'm talking more like weather. You know,
we need a shelter. We have a home. Now, it doesn't mean we're safe that we're in a home. It's just the fact that you know, this is our shelter. You know, it rains, it snows, there's elk behave differently on a hot sunny day than they do in the wintertime. Now, even the hot sunny days that they need shelter for that right, they're going to hang out on a north facing slope. They're going to hang out a nice cool draw.
They're not going to be sbedded down most likely on a sell facing slope when it's ninety five degrees they need to stake. So that just goes back to understanding the behavior of the elk, and now what I like to do. And it's again it goes back to me growing up. I grew up around elk. I watched elk. I watch what elk do in the wintertime in their wain and range. I watch them where they drop their antlers, watch them whether it's summer, and sometimes in that timber country,
is like, well, how do you do that? Well? Trail camps, you know, finding those areas where these bulls are hanging out. Trail camps really important. It could be corridors, it could be wallows, anything. It's just setting a lot of trail cams out doing your homework. The one thing I've learned is that these bulls aren't hanging out where these cows are. In the early parts right before September kicks and right, we've talked about you, and I mean again, we've had
this week in the past three days. We've talked a lot about this and things that we've learned about Elk. We've just been geeking out over Elk week with ELK. We've noticed this where like Travis and I had an area and it was probably about i'd like to say as the crow flies. It is four miles apart. We had one area where we had a troil cam in the other herea we had another. This one particular spot, we had bacher group of bulls. It was probably four or five bulls that were hanging out. The other one
it was cows all summer long. It was one of the biggest learning curves I had, because I can't tell you how many friends I've had. They're like, I had this big, monster velvet bull. As soon as it went Hardharning just disappeared. I don't even know where he's at anymore. Well, in this particular area, these Bocher bulls also disappeared in the month of September, and they all started showing up on my trail cameras where the cows were. It almost
sounds basic, right, It's like, wow, that's pretty obvious. But some people it's just sometimes like we forget, like the most simple things, and those bulls moved back to where the cows are, Yeah, and that's where they'll go and to breathe the cows in the fire them. Now, now we're going back to the post runt, right, And sometimes in the early parts of October, you still catch these bulls biaglin, even a big bull. It could sometimes even be the first couple of gun shots that will go off.
All of a sudden, you'll see a big bull just disappear. And I feel like if there was in this is I just noticed this in areas, if there was no hunting rifle pressure, no rifles shots going off, those big bulls, they'll still kind of hanging out around the cows, and they'll still bring a cow here and there if she goes back in the astress. But as soon as the rifles seem kick, it's almost like there's like screwed, Like most of the cows have been bred, I've done most
of my work. They just disappear completely. It could be day two in the hunt. They're gone, and now you got cows and rag bulls. So most of the time during this rifle season, people are after, oh, well, I'm just shooting rag bulls. So when we're talking about post right out. I'm not going to talk about just regular ragbulls. I'm not going to talk about cows. I'm actually going to talk about where to be big her bulls go. Where do they hang out? And you'll find out they'll
pull themselves in a hole where they feel safe. In some cases, if they don't get snow at least where eye hunt at least, they will actually pull back in those original basins again, and they'll show up for a short period of time. Like I was telling you about that game camera, all of sudden, those cows, those bulls no longer are there, so they'd move back to that other trail camera and then they show up period period of time. Now, if the snow starts getting deep, they
pull out and they're gone. The other thing that was really interesting though, is sometimes they'd pull out before the snow hit, and that was like, Okay, well, why are they doing that? Why are they pulling out of the high country when the snow didn't hit. Well, the weather got cool and the frost kicked in, and now a lot of that food sources disappeared. Right, we're back to
talking about the groceries. All the leaves on the brush that they really like to have, if that's that mountain ash or anything like that, Like all those leaves fall off the brush. As soon as that happens, they're out of the high country. And again it's it's going back to like not okay, they do this, So that's where I'm going. I'm going to follow them. It's like, why did they do that? I'm always asking why. Okay, that's why they elk left that high country because we got
a frost. And then a couple of weeks later, now now that the leaves all fell out of the brush, if it's all there's mountain ash, that waxy leaves and noses, well, they it holds its brush, but it's a little bit different. They pull into a different area. They move out to
where the food source is. And and actually kind of sorry and I did breaking up black sea noses that Actually it's the opposite we were talking about that where it curls up and it actually creates the opposite effect where now animals where we're at just they thrive on
that brush because the sugars go to the ends. And so I also understanding what their groceries are and why it does what it does for me being and I think a lot of it happens where my knowledge comes with brush and tree ease is the fact that I grew up. We talked a little bit about me working in construction, but the majority of my life I've been in forest management. From logging the clearing land.
I know a lot of.
Different species of trees, shrubs, and so understanding that alone can help you understand oak behavior. That really helped me out a lot, and and understanding what brush does, what's eating on the brush, And so I'll I'll see a species of brush and I'll see white tailed meal there or elk in the area, but they're not touching that brush. Well, I know for a fact that that's not a brush
they like to feed on. Right, we were talking about bear grass, right, remember that, we're like, oh, we're talking about like do you notice that, Like animals just don't hit bear grass. Will eat that stem out of the center, but they won't hardly ever eat bear of grass. Now again, I don't know, that's one thing. I don't know why they don't like bear grass, Just animals don't like eating it.
So beargrass doesn't hold an animal in the mountains. It doesn't even I talked about my horses meals they take, won't buite out of it because I think they're just deceived, like, oh, grass, take a bite and they're like, oh, I'll never do that again. And a mule will just about eat anything. They browse brush just like a moose. Right, So I understand that's really important too. Is their food source, so so that I'll try to break it down. And is
there anything you want to add yet on that? No, I agree with everything you're saying there, Okay, So now I'll try to break it down. So understand the groceries
right there, understand the brush. You know, I just explained a lot about why they elk leave the high country, especially when their main food sources, those leaves, those luscious leads the higher elevation, sometimes that grass loses it's and it that depends on the terrain too, because if I go to Wyoming, this grass is like they're actually still good even though they turn yellow stuff. The elk will still feet on that as long as they can are rat especially.
Once it kind of starts raining. Yeah, that bunch grass they I hope really start like they start eating that bunch grass once it starts raining.
Exactly, and so it really depends on the train you're at and what they're feeding on in the area. So understand that's really important. And then now let's talk We talked about shelter right snow when the snow starts kicking kicking in. We've talked a lot about snow conditions, and that is one thing a lot of people don't understand. We talked about the difference between deep snow light snow. Sometimes that's all that comes in somebody's mind is the
snow gets deep, the animals pull out. They don't understand the difference and how animals behave with powdered snow or crusty snow, and the same with meal deer. Crusty snow is hard for an animal to get food source, get their food source out. And I've seen elk at the head end of a basin belly deep of powder. Meali's as well, and you're like, why is this bowl not pulled down? Why is this big meali buck not pulled down? Because they can still dig up their food source. It's
not that hard to dig through powder. You step in that powder, you go right, you go right to your belly button. You know what I mean, and you can go You'll go right down to the ground. There's no base as soon as that bass layer gets kicked in. And a lot of that's just as simple as it just getting warm in the daytime and then freezing at night. You get that warmth that melts the snow, then it freezes at night, then you get a crust layer. That crust layer, if it's a thick enough crust layer, the
animals can't dig and get their food source. So what do they do. They pull down. Some cows they just they've been living in that area so long and against It's another topic we discussed before. Some areas elk stay up in the high elevation till the snow gets really deep and they pulled out, and other areas it's just
how they've lived and grew up. And it could be a lead cow in the herd where it could be just a skiff of snow, and they just in in their mind since they've been a little calf, they've remembered that if they stay up there, when it gets the snow gets too deep, they get stuck up there, so naturally they just pull down immediately. So I have areas
like that. Some areas a hunt, it could be a skiff of snow and the whole hurdle pull down to the base of the mountain, and other areas will stay all the way up at the top until they're forced down by deep snow. And so it just really depends on the herd. And again that's sometimes a lot of that's just time in the mountains show cameras figuring that out. But a big bull. One thing I've learned with big bulls is they move a lot less than a cow does.
Cows they can move back and forth from a field to their bedding area in no time, but they're burning a lot of energy, a lot of pointless energy, right, But they've also had all year to gain that body fat. And again this is just kind of my logic, and if there's something I'm saying wrong, stop me on this. But I've noticed that these big herd bulls, it's like after the rut, they almost just want to relax, like they're just like I've had a long rut, Like if
a predator finds me, I'm screwed. So they need safety is really important to a big bowl. Yep, he needs a rest. He doesn't like I'm sure a big bull would love to come down to the valley floor and eat in somebody's agricultural field, you know. And I'm sure if you're in areas where there's not a lot of hunting pressure or a lot of predation, you'll still see big bulls do that.
Right.
If you go in areas where that's a really hard unit to draw, you will see big bulls go to the agriculture field. But like an areas where it's public land and they easily get shot, the safety is really important to a big bowl. The same thing with predation as well. We notice the behavior of these big bulls with wolves too. There's big bulls that still survive the wolves. They just know that they have to live in a little bit of a different area for them to prevent that.
So you'll see a big bowl even sometimes not even batcher group up anymore. They're like a big bowl. Actually stay out alone by himself and just find a bench and bed down, and he just wants left alone. Sometimes it could be just as simple as he scouting to figure out where this big bulls hanging out. It's just you and I when we are looking at wolf packs and trying to figure out what these wolves are doing. You and I were looking at maps and we're like, okay, well,
this is a very popular road system people take. This is also very popular road system people take. Sure the wolves may run that at night. So I'm sorry, I'm getting off top of been talking about wolves, but this will make sense to you. But there's these areas where there's no road systems, people don't hang out at much.
That's where they hang out during the day. And so that's the same thing with a big bull and especially after the first couple of days of season, so rifle season kicks in, right, you see bulls chasing cows still. It could be October tenth, it could be October to fifteenth, depending on the region you're hunting. Yeah, bulls, big bulls still with the cows. The gun shots start going off. After a couple of days, you start seeing less elk and it's not that they're getting shot up, it's just
that they're okay. The openings are no longer safe, these brush fields are no longer safe. It's time to hide, and the big bulls are going to be smarter at it than a rag bull. So now you got to look at these maps and it's like Okay, where where these points where these bulls feel safe. Where is the least amount of predation? You know, that's again it's back being observant. If you're an area you got show cameras, you know where the mountain lions typically cross. Mountainines are
actually patnerable too. People don't know this, but mountain lions. I've seen mountain lions cross the same spot multiple times. Wolves are the same way. Elk figure this out too, and so they find out, Okay, well it seems that this is a spy. Don't hardly ever see wolves cross through. And now you're looking at the trail systems. You're looking at the road systems. It's like, okay, there's not a lot of road systems and not a lot of trail
systems in there. These big bulls pull in these really dark timber holes at least where we're at and on these benches. So now it's like, okay, these are the areas where we're going to find this bowl. And you're going a lot based on faith here because you don't hear a bowl bugling, right, and but means that maybe you got show camp photo of a big bowl in the area. It's like Okay, well he's on this mountain somewhere, but where is he going to be? And so I'll pick a spot like that on a bench. And we
talked a little bit about the Elmer Thudd technique. I've covered a lot of country at first, I'm covering a lot of ground. But if you have a big herd bowl and he's done rutt and he's only going to cover just a couple of acres as long as he's not getting any pressure whatsoever. And he found a very safe spot. He's got a bench just covering in his scent, covering in his tracks. And so this is and this is if you don't have snow, you got to find a bench like that. And as soon as I know,
I'll run these benches on foot. As soon as I cut one of these benches, where I catch a whiff of elk, I slow the freak down, and it's time to really start picking apart the timber. And then you get to the art of timber pounding, something that our family grew up doing a lot, because eighty percent of our country is in timber fifty yard shooting ranges under So then you're walking really slow and you're really you're trying to keep your eyes up, but you're also looking
down to a lot. You're trying to check what tracks are. It's like, okay, well there's a big bowl track in here. I can smell, and he's been living in here. And now you're just slowly walking on that little bench. It could be a two acre, it could be a five acre bench on the side of a mountain, just sidehill, really slow, and you're just taking a couple steps, and you're peeling apart the timber, and you're not looking for
a big body dolk. I think that's what a lot of people a looking at sidess like you're hiking, like, oh, there's an elk, Like no, you're looking for It could be a piece of hair, it could be an eyeball, an ear, part of a rack. You take a couple of steps and you're peeling the mount also taking consideration, and I have this sounds weird and it sounds unrealistic, but I have smelt an elk down I've I've cut.
This actually happened in New Mexico. I was in New Mexico timber pounding in the junipers, and I smelt elk and trapped it too and I was like, whach way is the wind blowing? And we saw the direction of the wind blown. So we started falling the wind and we cut and we found the bowl. So an elk are smelling animals. Yeah, I'm not saying that I have an incredible sense of smell like a dog. I don't. It's just the fact that elk smell.
Yeah.
And so if you got like a wind and it's not beened. I've done this twice. Actually, that worked on me twice. Right, I smelt an elk, I saw where the wind was blown, and I followed the wind, and so I used the wind to my advantage, you know, as an elk wood to his. And again you're following that scent and you're looking in the timber and you're just you're taking a couple of steps and you're just peeling apart with a pair of binos. Now again we go back to saying, well, why do my scopes just fine?
Why don't I just use my hunting scope. The reason why I like a pair of binos is you've got two eyes in the scope. It's a big while, it's a big view. You're look it's almost like looking through a TV, right, well.
What I like too is as you're looking with your buyos, as you focus at different points through the timber, some of those branches just disappear as your focus changes, yeah, blur out, and then the sub Let's say, if you're focusing on something fifty sixty yards, anything in front in the foreground just kind of blurs out. So you can kind of look through those little brushy pockets and kind of see an elk there exactly.
And you brought up really could point there in the sense that because sometimes I remember that. We're like I'll be looking at brush close by and then all of a sudden you zoom out, and all of a sudden you see eyes staring at you. The other thing we talked about is I've had a bowl where I would fall. I would walk in the timber, and I could I know I'm getting close to a bowl. I can smell them, and it doesn't mean I'm falling their wind, but I
just like, I know they're on the bench somewhere. So I'm just walking really so looking all around me, and in a cool morning where it's like thirty five forty degrees, I'll see steam like I see steam right there and I'll look at my bios and I saw there was a steam coming out of an elk's nose as he was breathing. And so you're looking for very small detail. You're not looking for this big bodied elk. The one time where I really failed that timber pounding alas with Travis,
I remember this. It was actually really funny where all was walking this bench in the and all the leaves if that area were yellow. Yeah, and we were walking really slow, as slow as I possibly could go, and I should have pulled up my biomes on it to not I looked to my left and I see yellow and I'm like, oh, that's brush. And I look to my right. Travis grabs my head and he oh, sorry, I hope they didn't make any noise doing that. He turned my head to the left and he's like, I'm like, yeah,
I just saw that yellow brush. And that yellow bush gets up in a six point bowl takes off front of him. Oh man, it was thirty five yards. Oh man, that just to me it was so broken up to where it looked like just a little bush. Yeah, but I failed there. If I would have pulled up my binos and look, I would have seen hair, I would have known that was a bowl. So utilize those binos are really important. Always have that in the timber. Most people that I know hunt the timber don't even care
bear binos because, like, I don't need it. I'm not seeing long grange. I'm only seeing fifty seventy five yards. You're missing a lot of important detail. If you're bumping the animals, you're moving too fast too. That's the other thing. It's the same with meal deer. If I'm bumping meal there multiple times, I'm like, the goal is you want
to spot the animal before it takes off running. If you're spotting multiple animals moving the timber before they take off front and you had a chance to shoot them, you're moving the right pace. Right, you can't move faster than your eyes.
You could.
It's easy to out hike your eyes.
I love that. That's a very good point. Yeah, I find because I sometimes I'll get in a hurry and I'll find myself doing exactly that, and I'll like, hey, slow down, like I'm out I'm I've never put it in those kind of terms before, but out hiking my eyes or out walking my eyes, like you have to have your eyes like cover the canvas, the whole area before you take your next steps exactly.
And so that's how I would hunt a timber pound a big bowl like that. And I don't, like I said, I don't care if if that country your hunt is ninety percent openings, there's gonna be a hole that big bull knows where to hide, and you got to find them, especially on a general tag. Now again, some people, well no, I've seen them hit agriculture. Feel I've seen them. It's like, okay,
well how's your predation, Well how's the hunting pressure. I can tell you for a fact that like oh yeah, like yeah, we don't have oh yeah, we don't have I mean it's they only give out fifty tags in that unit. So sure you're going to see elk, you're going to see big bulls running the unit, running the openings because they've their safety is different. They're not they
don't feel like they have to go in those places. Right, But like when we're in an area like us where I mean you can attest to we're in a very predator infested area. Oh yeah, And it's also a general tag for residents. Any residents can pick up a tag and that's most of Ida home, most of the state of idahome in Montana as well, and also other states. So these elk are going to pull themselves into place
where they feel safe. You've got to realize, you kill an elk that's eight years old, he's had to survive eight years of predation and hunting pressure. He's got it figured it out by now, and so you got to figure him out and you got to beat him at his own game. Right. But I feel like that's pretty good at covering a post reup bowl. But I want to talk about snow conditions too. Do you have anything else to add to that?
Well, I was going to ask a question before we move on to that, which we'll I think will segue nice into snow conditions. Have a listener question. Okay, the listener says, when hunting those late season bowls, where do I locate the bowl on a cold day versus a warmer day? Do bulls bed in the on the sunny slopes when it's really cold versus when it's warmer? Do they bed in cooler slopes?
That's great questions. So studies show that a bull is actually has a better chance in staying warm than he has a chance to staying cold. It takes less energy to stay warm in the when it's hot out, and elk actually struggles more than in cold conditions. The only reason why we see an elk in the springtime look like he's a skeleton. It's just the fact there's just a lack of food source. But if he had the food in the wintertime, he'd be fine. Right, winter's great
like and they grow the thur out. So but yeah, so if we're to compare the difference on a hot, sunny day, let's say we're on a warm October. Right, it's a warm October, which, by the way, really sucks. They're not going to be feeding much during the day, or if they do feed, it's going to be in that heavy, thick timber. Think of where the sun is. Find a hole where the sun doesn't hit much. It could be a north slope, or it could just be a really steep draw where just the sun doesn't get it.
Elk wants to still cool, I said, he'll find a spot that he feels if he feels really good and safe and he's not getting bumped around a lot, he will stand less on a one acre piece of ground and just stay there the rest of the season. That's why it's so hard to find him. It could also be cliffier. It could just be an area where it's just hard to access and they could still be hitting those open those openings to feed, but beings that nobody's able to get back there, he's feeling pretty safe. So
that's one thing to think about. Now. Also think about this rain. Now rain there's a combination of like, does rain bed and animal down to as a storm? It does, But let's say you have two weeks of rain. Most of my October timber pounding experience is full on reindeer and I'm pounding the timber and elk are getting up and feeding and bedding down throughout the day. They're staying nice and cool. That rain's great. It's like imagine an elk just sitting in water. He's just getting rained on
all day long. So they're moving throughout the day. But it's a great thing too. With rain. It's actually one of the best times of timber pound because it covers your sound and it covers your scent. We have really heavy rain, I just move right in on elk. You know, I'm not sitting there focusing on my wind as much because that rain is just kno going to write down,
so you can sneak right on an elk. Also, the old leaves on the ground, the pine needles, it just all soaks up and it just it's almost like walking on a pillow. And in the sense that it's not making any sounds. You can walk through that dry stuff and you're not getting the cracks. You can sneak right up on elk. Now what happens if you're really close to an alcohol sudden you feel like he's right there,
It's okay to it's okay to. We talked about this earlier too, with a buglin bowl and you're sneaking in on them. It's okay to do a couch up here and there. But the mistake that I've made in the past is given out your location. Sometimes you're better off not giving out your location if you feel like, if you know exactly where that bowl is, like, don't need to give out your location. Although I've done this too where I'm like, I feel like an elk is right here,
He's right here somewhere, I just can't see him. Sometimes as simple as a cow call can just get him to like show himself because he could be hiding in a brush patch you don't even know it. Also, in you cow call and he gets up out of his bed to look at you. It's just enough to like give you a shot. Now, are you going to hear a bugle? No, you're not going to hear a bugle.
It's you're just expecting. What you're trying to do is you're gonna You're trying to bring curiosity and I you're trying to get him the step out and see you. I do that same technique with mule deer and grunt tubes, but rain.
Yes.
Now, now let's talk about cold conditions. What I love about really really cold weather is it does keep him feeding more, keep him feeding later. And so if there's a bolt like a big bowl and he's like I said, he's in a thick timber patch and he's bedded down, and let's say there's a clear cut nearby and with a lot of feed, you know, I may notice that bowl, you know, like he goes. I've seen the tracks all over the clear cut where it could be a clear
cut or burn or the habitat is just perfect. Have you have all everything they need to feed? Out there, but you're seeing their tracks, but they're not there. Well, he's obviously feeding at night. It's nice with a really cold the cold weather snap is that it makes them feed a little bit longer. Maybe they don't get their winter coat in all the way yet, right, so they're got it. They're moving more, they're moving more, they're feeding more.
I mean, you got to really compare it to people too, right, I stay pretty dang warm when I move, Like I could be pretty it could be pretty cold weather. And I'm I'm a thin skinned guy. I don't have a lot of body fat on me, so like I have to move a lot to keep myself warm. If I stop, I get cold and I have to throw layers on. You know, it's like an elk. It's like, okay, he still has his he still has his coat on, you know,
like is it really fall coat? And you get a crazy winter storm that kicks in, you know in October, Well he's they're gonna be feeding quite a bit. And you definitely see a difference with that when you get those cold snow snap or that cold that cold snap, and it doesn't have to be a snow it's just as cold cold keeps them feeding longer in the day. But again, most of the time when I'm killing these bulls,
I'm killing them in their bedding area. If you're one hundred percent relying only on their food source and where they're feeding during the day or at night, you're limiting your you're limiting what you're doing. So learning to hunt their feeding and their betting grounds, it kind of utilizes more techniques and how to hunt them.
Yeah, I found that in the past when I just focused on their feeding areas. So I'm going to go sit and watch this hillside, whether it's just a brushy hillside or maybe a clear cut whatever. You can sit there for several days and not see a thing. Conditions would have to be just right for to catch one of them bowls in daylight hours on one of those spots, especially if it's easily accessible. So I love that point
you brought up. You're like, that's just a portion of the portion of the day you would focus on that. But then you move into their betting areas. Where are they going to spend most of their day.
In their betting area, you can, yeah, the feeding grounds, you can catch them at first light or maybe in the evenings, utilizing prime time, get your butt out of bed, being there at first light so you can catch them they're feeding ground.
Yeah, and you may just catch a fleeting glance it's like, okay, they are here, where are they going watching bed down? Now? Where am I going to hunt them the rest of the day in their bedding area?
Exactly good point there, but that's pretty much in the sense of just hunting them there. But you know, sometimes if you get really far back country where there's not a lot of people, you can catch them a lot more in these brush fields where they are just feeding middle day. And again, if it's hot the bet on a Norse lop, it could be in the opening, but if it's on norselop, it's not getting a lot of sun go bed down mid day in the middle of an opening.
I've seen that during like during a really cold period, Yeah, really cold would probably they would maybe go in bed where they get a little more sunshine.
Yeah, that can happen too, so exactly so it just really depends on the on the on the time of the year and and that and I and I've watched bulls bed down in clear cuts in cold weather. Sure, just like as before, if it was like twenty degrees warmer, they had move right to the timber.
Right now, what about deep snow? So you talked about you know, bulls with the snow conditions are right, they'll stay in the deep snow up to their belly. I'm like, sometimes that would be a pretty hard hard to locate if you can't see them from a distance. How are how are you going to get on bulls like that? That's that's where you have to kind of dig deep and pull up your bootstraps and really trudge through some snow to find these bulls. What are your thoughts on that?
One thing I love about snow. I'll give you the pros and the cons, so that I'll start off with the con hiking his snow sucks sometimes. Now I'll start with Now, that's it. That's really the only ConA snow. You know what. My favorite time to hunt any animal with a rifle is snow. I can see him better in the snow, I can I got tracks now. Now, Now the question is how do we find a big bulls tracks? And I think that's where it starts first. And yeah, some of these bulls are still pulled up
in the high elevation. You get enough snow, they finally like it's time to go. It's time to pull down, you know. Unlike a cow and a rag bull, they're just like, oh, skiff a snow, time to pull down. A big bull, he's just he's tired. He wants left alone. He just like I've watched him, just like, it almost looks like they're dead. Sometimes if you have a chance to glasp up a bowl after the rut, it almost looks like they're dead. They just lay down and they
just sleep, just like we do. Eyes down and they'll just sleep for hours. They're just so exhausted after the rut. And those cows and those you know, they got all the energy in the world. They'll run down to the Oh, snow came in, and we're running down the valley floor and we're we're you know, eating food in a different location. Those big bulls, it's just like, I'm not going. I really don't want to get down here until I have to, you know, especially if they know they're safe up there.
Right.
So it's like, how do you find an elk like that? Well, even in the thickest timber country, you can still find tracks. Imagine having a snow background inside the timber, you can still glass timber. Like if you're on a steep hill side and you're glassing across on another steep hill side with timber, putting your eyes in there and glassy. Now, are you planning to find elk? That'd be great, But a lot of times I'm not even looking for elk. I'm looking for tracks, and I utilize a fresh snow.
If I get a fresh no, I'm like, I want to be in the mountain all day because I need to find the tracks. You're on the snow, and then you get up on the other side of the ridge where and I'm glassing across, I'm first trying to figure out where they are at, so I'm not even f Sometimes i feel like I'm wasting time just hiking him out namelessly trying to find elk. Come like, I got snow, now, let me get teler side glass across. It could be a spotter or pair of binos, But I'm looking for
a trail of tracks running through that deep snow. And I've just done enough to where I know the difference between a deer and elk track. From a distance, you can see the big enough strider like, yeah, that's pretty big. Most likely that's a bowl, you know, pulling out of the high country. And then after you do that, if you have time, either A get over there on those tracks, or B go up there the next day and then
try to and try to pursue that bowl. It goes back to thinking, oh, well, I'm a day behind on that bowl. What doesn't matter. That bowl is still tired and exhausted after a long rut. He's just pulling down in some lower elevation, or maybe he's just maybe he's just moving. Now you just see where he's moving back and forth to where he feeds in beds. But regardless, now you know where his tracks are. Climb up on the other side of the ridge. I get on his tracks,
and then I stay on it. So now I want to talk about how do you track a bull elk? This is the tough thing, and I do the best I can with this. But one of the best things you can do is not be actually on the track. If you have a chance, stay track it, be standing above it. If you can do ten to twenty yards above the track and follow it. Okay, sometimes those bulls, the predators are following their tracks all the time, so when they bed down, they're bend down facing their tracks.
It's great. If you could catch a bull feeding, then that's a different story. You can track a bull in the timber and he's you caught him feeding, then sweet, you can get him. But let's say let's say that bull's bed and he's facing right at you, so you're sneaking in that snow, you're charging through. Well, he's got you spotted most likely. To me, it's like whoever's moving is the easiest one in the spot right right, He's still he's going to be hard for me the spot.
So so if you're right on his track, he can spy and he'll bump out. So kind of like the best thing to do is you want to try to get above him, above those tracks, and try to follow him if you can. If you can stay like twenty yards, that's like ideal, and you want to be above. It seems with elk and deer they always expect predation to come from below. So if you try to stay below the tracks and follow him, I feel like also he's going to have a better chance to spot in you.
You always want to be above the tracks, gotcha, But then the other thing. So it's like and then again it goes back to like you're moving. Remember this bowl, he's not planning on moving a lot. He has no reason to. He's just trying to feed him bed down,
and so move slow. If you get into a new spot where you're you're peeking over a ridge and you're in the timber, like you're really scanning that timber as hard as you can and trying to find a bull bedded, and then what typically happens if things don't go right, that bowl will start to move. He feels that he's being followed. He starts to move, and sometimes he's not running, he just feels like, I feel like something's following me. So you'll notice that bull get out of his bending
els and he starts to move. And then you'll notice a different this I've seen almost every herd bull do or every big bull do. This is they'll climb up. They'll do a loop where they'll walk in a straight line. It could be one hundred two hundred yards, it could
even be five hundred yards. You do a loop and get right above and he'll bed down and he looks down on his tracks, watching his back work in his back trail, and I man, I can't tell you how many times I felt stupid rob follow his tracks and I'm like, and then I do literally feel like the old Elmer thud, you know, just like no dah no, no, you know, And I do the little stupid walk and and then I follow tracks. I see that back track.
I fall back up and I realized all that bowllll betted right above his track, staring down he had me. And then he'd back moving again, and he'd do it over and over again. So you want to again. It goes back to trying to stay above the track, and it's it's challenging. But the best scenario in this, and my dad's done this is he's been above the track and he's watched and when he caught up to that bowl, it'd be staring down at his own tracks, waiting for him.
In fact, he might even hear I wonder if he the bull would even hear your dad or you or your dad or you hear the noise, a little bit of noise coming, and then they still focus on that track. It's like I hear something, but I think it's probably following me. Well, if you have powder, they can't hear me.
They can't hear that. Powder is the best time the track just it muffles down. You can sneak right up on animals with powder. Snow another time of the day that's really nice to track and it really gets red as scent is. Let's say you get a good snow and then it warms up and all that you've have you been in this situation where all that snow's falling
out of the trees, just noisy and dripping. It's noisy and dripping, and I've walked right up to mule deer, I've walked right up to elk on days like that, those days are awesome. Yeah, you're sting. It doesn't matter if the windsbone right at them. That scent it just it just goes right to the ground.
Well, there's a lot of movement in the forest too, because you have like these limbs that have some snow and then the snow melts and then the it'll make a whoosh and then that limb will wiggle.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great time the track. If you're on a bull track, just stay on it and and you can move pretty fast on them at that point because there's just so much movement in the trees. Like I said, the branches are moving. That was actually maybe you've seen that video where that mule deer sniff Travis's pants. Yeah, there was a buck chasing a dough and they just weren't a at the trap sniffed this pants. Everybody's like, what snutwalk?
Did you use? What type of set control do you use?
Nothing? It was just that was the conditions. It was just perfect where all is scent and we were moving and everything and they didn't see us. It's the same thing like, that's a really good day to kill a bull elk in the snow. So really utilizing the snow is really good. Like I said, Montana has a November rut, which you're guaranteed to get snow. Now where I hunt, our season pretty much ends before November, so you're just
kind of hoping that you get an early snow for that. Again, I've made the mistake of just walking too fast, falling tracks and thinking they're on the move, and then I bump them and it's like when you do that, you're moving too fast. You gotta slow down. Are they always looking at their backtrack? Not always? If they feel safe in their area and they've been not been chased around for a while. You'll you can catch them just laying
down right, look in a different direction. But you just always have to expect that like a bull, you get an old bull, he's he's reason why he's alive. And every all elk are stinky, So you gotta imagine this bowl has with as stinky as he is. He's survived wolves, he's mountain lions. Don't think that a big bull doesn't get killed by mountain lion, you know. So, I know some of you may not see this, but behind you there's a really big bowl that's it's a skull, and
it's actually a mountain lion killed. Young female lion killed that bowl, and it's like, wow, a mountain lion can kill a big bowl pretty easy. Doesn't have to be a big lion. So so mountains are still considered a pretty big party or to elk, wolves are obviously the worst.
I've got a question, Yeah, so as you're tracking this elk, how do you know if he's walking with purpose or if he's feeding along the way, And how do you know is there any indicator if he's going to bed down?
Yeah? Usually if they're meandering. When I say meandering, you'll see him like they might walk to the left, they're feeding. They walk to the right they feed. It could be on moss, on a tree, it could be brush. You can see him kicking it up. That's a good indication. He's not walking a straight line, but it's a purpose. He's walking a straight lion. When it's a real purpose, you start those You see those strikes get a little bit wider, longer. He's starting to know he's follow You
see those strikes get even longer. You're like, oh, I think he's I think he knows I'm onto him, you know, right, see those strides. But the best thing to notice is like you'll see him he And I think I told you this yesterday. There was a time and we wish we were like, oh my gosh, this would be so cool. We just I think was Travis. I was with him in Montana. He just filled his elk tag like a week prior, and so we're out hunting meal deer and the deep snow and it's elk season two. But like
I said, he doesn't have an elk tag anymore. There was a big bull track, big bull track, and he and we just like kind of curiosity. We're just like, we're just following the bull truck for just a little ways and we saw in bed like twelve times he just hued feed bed down, feed be down. Like, oh my gosh, I wish we had the tag, you know, because that's you know, he was pretty obvious. He's just but he just the high country just pulled them out. They've got a deep snow in the high elevation. He's
just was pulling through and moving down. He's kind of forced out of there. Although the ragballs and cows already pulled down, he was still a little bit higher. At that time. I was actually really supplised that bowl was still up there. I'm like, wow, that that bowl's been I mean, he's been in deep snow for a while. But then also too comes back to where there's a lot of country. The higher elevation, the less timber there is too, right, so you get up higher, there's these
trees are more sparse. Some well, those zlk do feel safe up high, and a lot of the predators an't running up high anymore. They're falling the majority of the game at the base of the mountain, and so you do catch big bulls in an open country like in the openings in knee deep snow or plus you can catch him up there too. That was my I mean, how awesome would that be, you know, to do that, to find a bowl like that, and so that is
also a possibility too. There's a lot of options in how to hile that time of the year.
Now here's one of my biggest peeves or big biggest nemesiss mesis hunting elk in snow, is finding the right snow conditions. It feels like the day that if I'd have been there a couple of days earlier, I'd have had that beautiful powder. But now I get there and it's like melted and froze and melted and FROs and that's pretty crusty, it's pretty noise.
You're you know, this is just the fact you're not going to fall an elk on that. I mean, you're better off trying to glass, trying to find them in a spot where maybe catch them the opening. You're you're just gonna bump ups, gonna bump elk, and you're better off waiting for a good, better snow conditions.
Yep.
I really watched the weather closely, Like I'm looking for a window too, And I think it's just my older age. Like I think just when we're older, we also are like a big bowl right where we don't want to waste our energy on bad days. Right Like if I have a week old, crusty snow, I don't even And if I know that I have more hunting season, if I have a couple of days left, I'm like, I have no choice at this point, i just have to
go out in the woods. But if I have like another week or two of hunting season and I know that we're going to get some more snow front, like some weather fronts, we're just going to wait for another weatherfront to come through. Again. Like I said, it's just like you're trying to find a window. It's like, Okay, there's my window. Time to get up there, and I'm not going to burn myself out before it gets good.
Yeah, but you could sit there for a week on bad snow conditions and you just spending your wheels.
You're just wasting time. That was And again I don't mean to jump back to Mule Deer too, but with Mewlee's like last year, I was, it's you know it's a month long hunting season in mont Dana, but I was fogged in. There was a lot like there was probably about ten days of straight up fog, and I just knew that I was going to be wasting my time. So I like, Okay, well i'll catch up with work. And then when I see that we're getting a we've got a window, and I'm I'm fine with hunting snow
or rain, whatever. It's just you can't see in fog. It's just if you have thick fogs.
You're screwed.
You're not going to see anything. And so now I have time to move in. I found my window. And but what's good? What's good with old snow? So here here I'll give a So I just talked about the cons about heart like old snow. Here's the here's the pro. We talked about glassing. You know, if you have the chance getting on the other side of ridge and glass in that open timber, if it's sparse enough, you see you kind of see patterns with the olk. Right, maybe a bull is living in the air. You'll know is
he passing through, is asy passing through? Or b is there an olk living in there? You'll see a pocket of just a whole bunch of tracks. It may look like there's a herd of elk in there, but it's maybe just one bowl just going around and just feeding around every day.
They're just doing a little different round.
Yeah, just a little yeah. And so that's a great thing with old snow as being all do that now doesn't mean you should climb over there and then try to bump them out. Maybe it's not the greatest or maybe you got a long range opportunity. It's like, okay, well he's living in there. Maybe I just need to sit here all day like I'm hunting. I want to utilize my time wisely. Maybe you just need to wait there until you see him come through. I have long ranged elk and deer in in open timber. But I
mean open timber. I mean it could be thick, even thick with brush. But when all that those leaves fall out of the it could be an alder field. It could be a combination of trees and alders. When the leaves are out of the alders, you can see right through it. Yeah, I've long range our family. I mean, I I want to say I have, but I have my little brother. He's he's long ranged elk. You know, I've long ranged mules in alders. They feel safe. They think, oh yeah, I'm hidden it. You know, the brush is
head hot overhead high, right. They feel safe. But then when you're looking across on a hillside you see them and they're just like, dude, you're you're sitting duck like you don't realize it. And it's the same with big bulls too. Sometimes you're like, I'm hidden in this brush. No they're not. And you know, I'd rather do I would not want to pound those alders, So I'm like, I'm just gonna wait for them to step out for a shot. Even have to sit here all day. So
there's a lot of different ways in doing it. And like I said, I do really like having snow conditions. It's it does help tracking. You have tracks, you can see what's going on as much versus you don't have snow. I mean, you can still find tracks, but you're there's a lot you have to pay attention to a lot more detail, and you just don't have that snow background to spot an animal. It's just so easy to spawn an elk or a meal deal with a snow background.
Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's there. They blend in so good when there's no snow, like you could just if you're not like really good with with your glass and good at spotting animals. They can be really tough and they can't snow. But with snow man, they really pop out. It makes the job spot in a lot easier. It does.
And they can still hide in snow, but definitely like it's like if they're moving, you're like, oh, yeah, there you are.
Yeah, absolutely yeah. Well I got a question off Instagram here, and the question is what calls are you using to call in elk in late season.
I'm not using any calls. I'm not even being one. I'll run a col call to a stop and elk. Sometimes if I'm just pulling up, then maybe maybe he's behind. Like let's say I got an elk spot in the timber. He's fifty seventy five yards and I just need him to like step out for a shot, Like he can't see me. I can't see him. Oh cal call see if I ca get him step out or it could be a stop and elk. Right, elk takes off front
ew you you bull stops. That' so sound. He recognizes like I remember that sound, turns around broadside boom, you know, get a shot. Another thing, long range shooting. Sometimes it's like, okay, this bulls I got it, I'm set up, I'm prone. This bull is about ready to walk out in the open. I can see him in the timverybody's gonna walk out. I got a good window to shoot him. Well walks out. It could be you could throw a bugle. Stop with a bugle. You're just the only time I'm using calls
post rut. If they're not talking, is this stop them or just control them in some way, shape or form. But I'm not calling them in.
I love that. A lot of new hunters I think that just don't know, you know, about the timing of the rut or how how Elk vocalized throughout the year. I get this that same question a lot. You know, what kind of bugles should I be doing, you know, during late season? But but yeah, I agree you we're not trying to call in Elk, and especially in the late season, we're probably not even gonna hear. Let try
to locate Elk with a bugle. That time has passed. Now, that doesn't mean Elk won't be bugling on their own sometimes in that later season, and when they do, that's a great time to capitalize. But again, we're not trying to call them in. We're trying to close the gap. You let them give away their location and then move in on them.
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, follow those steps you'll be you be successful every time.
And I think the one of the biggest things too, is like that you haven't touched touched on is like not giving up. So it's super easy in that post post raut season to give up. Like, man, I feel like I've been walking forever. Man, I don't know. I just haven't found any ELK sign. I think I'm gonna turn back. But like you said, though, here's something to kean. Those bowls will live on a one in a one
acre spot. You know, they have some water, they got some food, and they got some some safety right there. They're not moving, They're gonna They're gonna try to sit there. They're gonna try to gain back some fat before the winter snows start coming. They're not gonna move, they're tired. They're just signing to heal up from the rut. It's going to take a lot of boot leather and a lot of glassing depend on the kind of country you're in.
But just trying to locate those elk, trying to find that elk to hunt so and then, like you talked about on the snow part, walking in snow sucks. It's difficult, it's hard. I think what I found for myself walking in snow is if I try to get in a hurry and overdo it, then I swept myself out and I overdo it, and then I'm exhausted. I'm just like, all right, I just kind of kind of a flash in the pan. I just did two way too much
too early. It's more of a like an endurance thing, like take it easy, take your time, move move to at a pace that you don't oversweat, over exert, and don't go move too quickly, too quickly where you're gonna bump those elk. Yes, exactly, because you have to stay in the woods, right, You got to stay in the game if you want to kill them. And if you get discouraged and give up and go home, well you just ate your elk tag exactly.
And then of course I was joking about like it works every time, you know, right, Yeah, percent time works every.
Time, it works every time, right, right, And then these are these are great great tips and tactics, and you know they can be modified. You know, there's not always there's not always the perfect rule. You know, there's always you know, an exception to every rule. But but this is a very excellent baseline. I love the detail and how you laid it all out, and I appreciate that that.
I hope that helped for our listeners a lot. I know it's helped me a lot, because sometimes I find myself, you know, spun out and like, you know, when you talked about snow conditions and like crunchy, crusty snow versus powder snow, and where elk may want to feed or deer want to feed, you know that that was like a big aha moment for me because I was like, you know, I think we even talked about this, like, yeah, some of the deer in my spots, you know, one year,
they'll be up in that really deep snow. In the next year and you're like, oh, it could be the snow conditions. And if I think back, it's like, oh, yeah, they moved out because it was really crunchy and they're having a hard time finding food, where as the powder snow, it's easy to do. I have time to share a story, Yeah, yeah, we got we got a little bit of time. Okay.
So and this is this is probably be a really good narrow down. This was not snowed conditions, by the way, So this was actually in Wyoming, and it was an area with a lot of hunting pressure, you know. So right out the get go, I was trying to be selected. I'm like, okay, I do this tag. So I'm going to go into Wyoming. But as a residence, a lot easier to get the tag Wyoming. So anyways, first couple of days you couldn't even and I'd say sixty or seventy percent of this unit was open, and there was
just a lot of timber. But it was just like at first, like the day before season kicked in, there was we were seeing elcohol over these open country. We stopped by day two, we stopped seeing elk in openings morning and night. They were just no longer going out in the openings of feet in the day, right, And so Travis and I said, well, let's go back to our roots and timber pound. And so we really had to pick apart the map right, there's still like a
lot of timbers. So it's like, okay, well, not every timber patch has elk in it, So where do we find where our odds are best to find elk? Well, just scouring the unit and learning about everything, there was this spot that was quite interesting where we saw that at the base of the mountain, people come up the hunt elk. We saw a road system on top of the mountain. We saw people hunting the top of the
other there's road systems in there. Right in the center at this particular elevation, there was not one road system going through. There's a lot of roads on this mountain all time. Like this was like it almost seemed like everywhere you drive there was you can get to it by a pickup or a four where there right, But we saw this one section of the mountain where it's just like there's this timber seam that ran all the across the mountain. There's a road. This is a place
I've never hunted before. So this is not like, oh, yeah, I've watched the oak for all these years. It's like, no, but I'm utilizing my exact techniques that I talked about, so trous and are like Okay, Well, obviously hunters have that, like they hike a little bit, they put them their hunt pressure and they get out. Well, now the elks, in our opinion, we're like, okay, I bet you those elk are just stacked in there right from from the time pressure blow and belove. It just kind of puts
them right in the center. So Trous saying, Okay, all day long, we're just going to timber pound, just like what we do in our timber country. We did that and we were jumping. We were bumping elk all day long, and I ended up killing a nice bowl out of there, just like I just like we'd go in the timber it's like, oh there's a bull, Nope, not the one we're after. Oh oh there's a bull. No, not the one we're after. Finally, for probably about two o'clock in the afternoon, I saw the bull I wanted and I
killed it. And then talking you know to other people, like I haven't seen an elk in a week or two. You know, it's like it's just they didn't know how to hunt it. Right now. This is this goes to the same concept to a meal deer killed in Colorado where there was a lot of hunting pressure. I stayed in contact with a bunch of people. You know where I killed a nice Meali Buck. Other people are like, oh, like stuck and run, I love your videos. I was like, yeah,
I want to. I'm curious because this is the first time ever hunted this unit. I want to stay in contact with you and see how your success was. And again, it's one of those units where there's a lot of timber and there's a lot of openings. So they afterwards I contacted them and they're like, I was like, how did you go? Oh, I just couldn't find meal. There's like every day there was less and less meal deer.
I just couldn't find them in the openings anymore. And this is a place with a lot of hunt pressure, right, I'm like, well, did you think of hitting the timber? Like, well, I'm sure that would you know? They just thought like if they were there, they would have seen them feed, right, But all of a sudden, the meal is although I said, like meal deer do like naturally, meal deer feel safe in open country. As soon as those gunshots go out, they know that they feel safer in the timber. The
height from those unshot. Right, it goes and it goes back to that too, you know, it goes back to your techniques and timber pounding because people limit themselves on just I'm only going to glass if I can't see it from the pickup, I'm not going to go after it. You're you're not using all the techniques that you could
possibly do. You can make I don't want to say that every row has a big monster bowl elk, but there's a lot of units that people neglect and don't think they're there, right, It's because they don't see them. And you and I both know you. I both hunt country where there is big bulls still around. There's few and far between, and you just have to know how to hunt them.
Yep.
And so I just thought i'd share that story because I felt like that was a really good prime example of like most people wouldn't know what to do in that situation, and we just being knowing that our tactics it worked for us, This scenario never hunted before.
I love it. I love it. I love it. I think I think that for me, the take away this is learn elk habits behavior, understand what they eat, and understand how they react. To hunting pressure and you'll you'll be able to find them during the rifle season. And this is some really great knowledge. Now it's time you know this fall. You know, I helpe our listeners get a chance to go out and put this into practice. Listen to it again if you need a refresher, but
don't give up, and you're going to find success. And it may take you a couple of years. I mean, you've been hunting since for how many years?
Cash, I mean since I was allowed to so age twelve, So I was like, okay, like you know, you got to be twelve to hunt. Yeah, and so, and now I'm thirty four, so if I actually I think I did so. I did count the other day and I just longly. I was able to count how many elk I have killed, as I just have a pile of bugle teeth and I've counted twenty two pairs, So I've
killed twenty two bul elk in that time. And some years I've killed three elk, and some years i've I was hunting Alaska and I didn't kill elk at all. But yeah, so for me, I'm still I considered myself pretty young, still thirty four years old, but killed twenty two bulls. Travis killed twenty four. I talked to him. I just asked him, you know, just like what's your number. But again, I'm not the type of person who notches
my belt. But I'm just kind of saying like, yeah, I've I've hunted a lot of bulls, and I'm not always a shooter either. So although I've killed twenty two bulls, it doesn't mean that i haven't seen more elk die either. I'm helping my brother, helping my little brother, vice versa. Travis's helped me kill big bulls. We've helped my little brother killed. But you know what I mean, We're just our family's really close together, and I've we've watched a lot of stuff die.
Yeah, you guys have been successful for a lot of years, and I think it took a few years to develop this system of understanding and finding the elk and knowing how to huh them. So for our listeners, don't get discouraged if the first first year you try to apply these tactics, you go out there and it's it's like, well I got I did better, but maybe I didn't.
Not a tag. It's going to take a little while to develop that system and get that gut feeling and understand where those elk are going to be and where you can shoot them.
So and then could I mention Yeah, so our camps that we do it also, okay please, And so we've had a lot of people ask us about, you know, how to hit elk and sometimes it's really tough to teach people online. So we've actually just started this year doing an elk camp where people can come out there is we just we made it really simple. The name is Stuck and Rode Elk Camp, and we've had people
come out. We teach them how to elk hunt and teach them several different tactics, teach them about long range shooting, teach them about archery talk. You know, we did the whole teaching people how to use the calls and and so that is an option for you guys if if you want to do that now. I don't have the next one announced for next year, but staying caught like that, follow Stuck and Rod on Instagram and we will announce it here shortly when we for the next camp, So
stay tuned for that. I just wanted to mention that metcha, So it's great. If you guys really want to learn our goals, we want to cut that learning curve. And the reasonhy I was saying that is you said I was there where I was scratching my head, and I was like, and is especially when we lost our numbers, our elk numbers. It's like, Okay, well now I have to really learn how to hunt elk because just pounding the mountain and just putting the time alone was no
longer helping me. So I actually had to learn. I had to put in not just the time, but I also had to learn and understand what I'm hunting and the behavior of the yelk. And so we can teach you there and we can cut that learning curve. It's an investment. Like if what you learn there is going to cut, you cut your learning curve in half, if not more. And you know you I've had people and
you've probably heard people say this to you too. I've hunted elk for five to six years and I've I've not killing elks.
Folks tell me twenty years. They've hunted elk for twenty years and they still have a Nashia tag.
Yeah, And so if you guys are in that position. It's it's and it's not saying you suck at hunting. It's just maybe you're just missing a couple of things. Sometimes there's just some fine tuning that we have to do.
Looking for that aha moment.
Yeah, exactly. And I was there, like I said, I was there. I was there was a time where I had to learn there's a time where I didn't notch my tag. I've ate plenty of tags. So but now I feel like we're really consistent with it. And you know, it's really funny is that my quality, although we have less elk, my quality and my success has got better. So how interesting is that that when we had more elk,
I was killing less elk? Right, And so it's just it's just the fact that we've learned how to do it better.
Absolutely, Yeah. And Phelps is a proud supporter of those ELK camps and you're camp and.
I appreciate you guys for everything you've done with that. That's been really helpful.
Yeah, happy to help anyway we can. So we like to support people that we believe in, So.
Absolutely, thank you for that.
Anyway, Well, thanks a lot for coming on. I would like to remind our listeners. If you guys have questions for the podcast, whether it's for the host or for maybe one of our subject matter experts, please email us at CTD at Phelpsgamecalls dot com, or you can call our super secret number and you can leave a message and let us know you can leave a message. Keep your message at three minutes are under because if it's
over three minutes, the recorder will cut you off. But record your message your question, ask your question, and we will play your question on the air and answer it to the best of our abilities. So thanks again, Tom, always a pleasure. I've had an incredible week up here, or incredible three days up here looking for wolves and trying to try to notch a wolf tag with you and Man I hope, I hope we can connect again soon and maybe on some kind of another adventure.
So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it and had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. I mean, obviously we always want to notch a wolf tag. We know how challenging it is.
Yep, yep, it's it's it's not easy. It's not easy.
It's it's the same thing with el cutting though. It's like you put in your time, you're gonna it's not if it's when you're gonna get a wolf.
Yeah, that's that's one hundred percent. Yep. All right, thank you. M m m m hm.
Hm hm
Hm hmm