Ep. 56: How, When, and Why to Use Cow Elk Decoys

him to do, right into bow range. But you're hunting in a fairly open area and you just, for some reason can't get this bull any closer than maybe that hundred hundred and twenty yard maybe hundred and fifty yard mark. The bull just keeps hanging up out of range. What can you do? And why is that bull hanging up? You may not really be doing anything wrong. That bowl is just as close as he needs to be and is letting his eyes do the rest of the walking.

So on one hand, congrats you tricked his ears and his nose as well, But how do you trick his eyes? This week, I'm going to break down the use of a cow elk decoy and how employing them adds success. But first I want to share my favorite story of

decoys and karma. This story takes place in New Mexico and it was right when these decoys or Elk decoys came out, and honestly, when I first saw him come out, I thought, yeah, this is definitely something that I'm gonna be able to use effectively, because there are so many times where I thought, if I just had something to show the Elk, I could get him to come that further distance on those bowls that just kept hanging up.

And so when I first came out, I think it was a Montana Elk decoy was the first one that I ended up buying, and I bought a couple of them before I headed down to New Mexico to guide, and a couple of the other guides that picked him up as well, because it was like, oh, these things are pretty awesome. They're a little expensive, you know, on a guide salary, but I thought, man, I'm gonna use

the ship out of this. So I ended up getting two of them, and when I got down to where I was guiding in New Mexico, a couple of the other guides actually had him as well. In this particular place we had this piece of private that we can hunt on, and this one week it was actually an early rifle hunt, so it was like the first week of October, somewhere in there in October, and the elk were still running, but it was just like this really hot week and they weren't making a lot of sound.

And it's fairly difficult because there's a lot of timber around, a lot of oak brush and some real thick stuff. And then there was this one meadow like pretty much across from where we were staying, and every freaking night the elk we're just getting in there, and you could just hear them bugling, running around doing their thing, you know. We could see them just after shooting time come out into the meadow and start filing out and feeding out in this meadow, and it was really making me mad.

I was thinking, Man, there's gotta be a way we can get these bulls to come out a little bit earlier. All we need is just a half hour ten minutes in some days, like we just need them to come out earlier. So we got to talk and I started thinking, Hey, why don't we pull all of our decoys together and I'll create like a miniature heard of elk out in

this meadow, and then we'll set up and wait. Maybe that will draw them in because they're clearly hitting the edges of it, but they aren't coming out to where we can shoot, and we don't know exactly where they're going to come out at. But maybe just having some noise and then them seeing the decoys will just draw them out sooner. So everyone's like, that's a great idea. So I grab everyone's decoys and I think we have like half a dozen, maybe seven of them something like that.

We get out in the meadow like mid day and we're just gonna set up, and I at up all the decoys and then I made a blind on the one corner. And the way this meadow was is just like a mountain above it. This was down in the valley, and then there was fence on either Side's like a barberer fence on one side, barberer fence on the other side.

It's kind of like a pasture, but it's just a natural meadow and this particular area wasn't sometimes private land, and it's just like really good and there's elk everywhere, and this this was just a lot of thick timber, and there were a good amount of elk, but could be difficult to get the elk. So I figured this would be a good set up, or we could just hopefully drawn one of these elk out before shooting time ended.

So I built a blind on the one side out of some milk brush that I cut, and we just had it all set up, and so I just started calling and about like maybe two hours before suttingdown, just start letting out a few bugles kind of back in the timber behind us, and then just some cow calls out in the direction of the meadow, hoping maybe entice some eyes, maybe some elk cruising buyer, just let them know, oh, there's some milk out here. So it's about maybe an

hour and a half before sundowns something like that. And there's a road in the bottom and it actually went onto some public land, but like ways down the road, and so we just I see like this, Jimmy, just like driving down the road or about a hundred miles an hour like whatever, and you know, we were ways away, and so we're sitting there and I wasn't thinking anything of it, and now I'm like, Okay, it's about that

time when we should start seeing something. So I'm throwing out some more cow calls and you know, really getting into it, and we're watching and glass and the timber and kind of back where I expected the elk to be. I'm glassing and I see some movement. I'm like, Ei, there's some movement back there. But I was like, what the heck? And sure enough, this dude pops out like in the middle of our meadow and I look, I'm like looking at him through the binoculas, I'm like, what

the heck is going on. He's got like a face mask on and he's carrying like a bush master, a r like style to I said. We stand up and we're like, hey, hey, dude, what's going on? And he's like a ways across the thing, like four d yards three hundred, four hundred yards across the meadow, and he immediately realizes that the elk that we're out there, we're

not actually elk. My summation is he was cruising down on the road, looks up, saw those decoys, and then decided that it was going to be a good idea to sneak in there. So he's got I've got like my video cameras because that it all set up. So I zoom in and I'm filming this guy and he's got like, you know, he's full face masked up, definitely poacher, perrying around, and he's he definitely wasn't like the most agile dude either, so he's kind of a big guy.

Now he knows that he's been caught and he's going to get out of there as fast as possible. So he goes back to the fence that he came through, and as he's scrambling to get over the fence, his leg gets hung up on the top strand of wire. So he's deciding he's going to go over it, and now's legs hung up on the top strand of wires.

He's like straddling this fence and then he falls because he's like hung up on it and he falls over and as he falls, I don't know how it happened, but the fence catches like his pants in the crotch and rips like the entire ass out of his pants and he stuck on the fence, just struggling. And I've got this whole thing on video, just like watching, and we are just rolling like the Karma just bit this dude.

I could tell, like through my binoculars he's bleeding because he's just like he's just been completely stuck in this barbed wire fence. Like a pretty large guy that was trying to jump, like pretty much jump this fence is now caught on this fence, as ripped out of his pants, leg in the air, just struggling, and we are just

rolling laughing. They're like whatever. So we get back to camp then, and clearly no ELK came in because we just had some guy like rock through our zone that wasn't supposed to be there and could have been like a kind of scary scenario, you know. And and at this point ELK decoys were pretty new. So we get back to camp that night and we got like you know, every night everybody comes back in its telling their stories, and we just like played it off like I don't

say anything about what we saw. We're just you know. So everybody was really curious and how our first decoy session went and if it worked, so like, oh how did decoys go? Everyone figured for sure they like we didn't hear any shots, you know, I'm like, oh, you guys will never believe what we saw come into what they worked so freaking good, and everyone's super excited, like,

what what do you see? What do you see? So like, okay, So I had the video teed up with the TV off, and I had it all plugged into the TV, and it's already and everyone's sitting around in the living room and we flipped the TV on hit play and this just this dude just splayed open and caught on this barbed wire fence, struggling and flopping around, and everybody is just rolling laughing. They're like, what the hell happened? Man?

So of course we didn't get an ELK that day, but that did not deter me from trying it again. So I guess it was the next day or maybe two days later. I'm like, all right, we're gonna do this again. We learned our lesson. Even though nobody should have been trespassing, there's a million no trespassing signs, you

just whatever. We just tucked him back on the other side where it's clearly invisible from anywhere that you could see, and try it again, and sure enough, I start cow calling early, still quite a bit of daylight out, maybe an hour before sundown. A nice five point. Bull walks

to the fence. I can see him walking in the timber on the other side, stops, jumps the fence, starts walking in, walking right to those decoys, and then he kind of gets this look like what's that bob and his head back and forth, and then he comes straight in. My hunter lines up, boom, shoots and drops the bull. And that was the first time I successfully used elk

decoys in bringing in in elk. So before we get into the tips and before you jump all over me saying like that's so stupid using an elk decoy during your rifle season, I know, you know sometimes you're thinking, you know, we were in the middle of private land. There shouldn't you know. You're kind of assuming that people would follow the rules whatever, and we didn't realize that you could actually see them from anywhere else. We learned

that and then altered our plan. They're pretty new then, but it was definitely legal to use the decoys during the rifle season. Then. There wasn't even a thing. I don't even know. Maybe there's places you can't use them now. We were in the middle of a large piece of private land. There shouldn't have been anyone there and there shouldn't have been clearly like it was very well marked.

The person definitely knew they were breaking the law moving in on those elk, like especially the whole face mask and like caliber rifle lent me to believe that that's what was going on. It was. It was definitely a poacher, So you know that in mind. That was pretty much the only incident, bad incident that I've had with elk decoys, and just so happened to be one of the first instances with them. But on the flip side, use some

common sense when using them, you know, don't do something stupid. Also, here was another thing. There was no cow seasons in that area, just bulls only, so I was using cow decoys thinking, you know, that's a good indicator. No one can be shooting cows. Well, in this particular instance, that necessarily didn't work. But before I even talk about it, yes,

use some common sense, don't do something stupid. And also if you're a hunter, make sure of your target, like you shouldn't be shooting at something that you don't know what it is. And he clearly figured out that they were decoys pretty damn quick, Like it was he didn't even have to throw his gun up on it. He didn't even have binoculars, but he realized like something was weird with the whole scenario. You could tell by the way he was moving and his whole posture and expression

before I even had to make a noise. So they should be fairly identifiable that they are elk. But every once in a while, you know, just use common sense. Whether you're the hunter that's not having a decoy and you just see elk, or you are the one with the decoy, use some freaking common sense. Now we can get into the awesome part the tips those two minutes of me explaining safety, which I shouldn't have to do, but you know, so here's the breakdown of using elk decoys.

I have three ways that I use them and think that they help really well. So in the in the scenario that I set this whole thing up with, a lot of the time, when you've got a bull elk that is being super active, he's bugling, he's responding to your bugles. You see him come out and you're like, why is that bull hanging up at a certain distance.

There's sometimes where you get these certain bulls that just they hang up and it seems to just be like that, just out of range or just out of being able to sneak in where there's too many cows, too open. And the thing that I factored in out of all those scenarios when that happens is he's either hung up because he has cows, or he's hung up because it's open enough that he doesn't have to walk over there

and see what's there. And if I was a real elk in a natural environment, you know, we would show ourselves to each other. Yet I'm hiding and not coming to advantage where I could see him, and he would expect another elk to do the same. So he's doing a check with his eyes and he says, that's not a threat or nothing interesting. I'm just gonna keep calling from here. If that bull wants a piece of this, he's gonna have to show himself, and we're gonna do

this like gentleman, we're gonna duel. So that's where this visual aid comes in. Now, Yeah, he's probably looking for a bull, but throwing out a cow as a visual aid is a good thing to say, Oh, there are some elk over there. Maybe he's got one of my cows. Just behind that ridge. And I found that using that decoy as a visual aid in certain scenarios works really well to get those bulls that just happened to be

hanging up. And it works really well in open country or where it's like sparse enough timber I've I've used them in Pondo forest or it's just not a lot of thick canopy. The elk doesn't really have to get close to see what's going on. And there's a lot of places where there's a lot of elk like that, and the the challenging calling them in is the fact that they can see a little bit further than maybe

something in some dark timbers. So having that visual aid can work really well, but you just have to know how to use the decoy right. And I've messed around with them long enough and in as many different creative ways as possible to know what works and what doesn't. What doesn't work is walking behind the decoy and using that to block your silhouette in like a direct way that the elk can see you, because for the most part, the cadence isn't right, something's off, and it generally doesn't work.

I have used it in times where I need to move, but I want to. I'm like in enough timber where it's not direct, but I'm just kind of holding it and carrying it, but not trying to stock behind it. Stalking behind it for me personally hasn't really worked too well. I have used it to draw behind I've used it also as kind of a blind in the open when I get a bull fired up. But for some reason, stalking behind it doesn't necessarily seem to work that well. What does work is a system kind of like you

would do for geese flagging. So what I like to do is, in this particular scenario, I've got a bullets hanging up. It's open enough, maybe there's a roll or a contour. What I'll do is I'll throw that kelk decoy up. While that bull is looking way sees it, I'll be hidden. I'll be doing my calling. Then when that bull looks away or whatever, I will move that elk decoy down and then continue the calling. So he kind of has this thought in his head like I

saw something. It was supposed to come my direction, come to me, Yet now it's disappeared. Where is it? And that curiosity I've drawn in a lot of bulls now. Another setup that I've used decoys with a lot of success is actually kind of a play on that first scenario of in the meadow, like creating this visual aid in a very open space where I'm planning on ambushing

and elk in. Over the years, i've honed that to get a little bit better at understanding how to set the decoys where to set them, But it's worked pretty well as far as getting elk to draw to your location, and that that tactic works a lot um in later or as well as like pre run when you don't have a lot of calling activity, maybe the elk are

going to be kind of quiet, but you can spot them. However, you can't spot them during enough time to make a stock, or it's too open to make a really good stock. So what I generally do is in those scenarios, maybe the elk aren't making a lot of noise where you're at, but you can spot them, and you've just got your spotting them in a meadow. Let's say a meadow that's five hundred seven hundred yards wide or long, and those elk can pop out in multiple places from the timber.

They aren't calling, but every day they're just happened to be feeding. So what I like to do is I'll be glassing in the morning all glass those open feeding areas, or maybe it's in an area where you can't glass, but you've got these these meadows or parks or whatever, and you see the elkcoming out. They're coming out quiet. You know, how do you get them to your location

or set up in the right spot. So what I'll do is I'll figure out where they were in the morning, I'll watch, and then I'll go and set up a blind very close to where they went out, kind of set up just off of that, and then set those decoys just off the edge of me. So what I'm planning on doing is when those elk come out, the first thing they do is they look around, they see

there's other elk out there, and immediately drops their guard. Now, they might be more like keyed in on those elk, but in combination with that calling, it draws them to your location. And I've had a success doing that where I've spotted the elk in the morning, I go in there mid day, get set up, throw out some calls, just like I did in the story, and then as those elk come out to feed in the evening. It

draws them to my location. The only thing that sometimes doesn't work as well with that is if there's a lot of cows, it will draw that lead cow often first. But there's many times where I've had it happened. I mean I try to set it up in a visual spot. I could even do it across from where the elk work, and I've had the elk come out cows and bull and then that bowl will just kind of see those cows and be like, oh, fresh meat, and then go

down there and check it out. Boom bow range. And so that's a really good way to draw an elk to your position using those decoys. They kind of walk in a little weird to him because they aren't moving. But you can throw out some cow sounds. You can even bugle back into the timber behind you, and that sometimes incites that bowl to bogle and then come in and check it out, and he'll generally try to circle him.

So when I set up that scenario, I try to set up obviously I'm down wind, and you want to be down wind of where you think of those elk are going to come out, and then try to anticipate how that elk is gonna circle, and try to intercept

that elk as he circles for a shot. So one of the ways that I do that is like I'll set those decoys out and then I might be up like in the middle of the meadow more hiding or in some way where that bowl might kind of circle, but he's fixated on those decoys and that draws his attention where I have enough timing to get up, aim and shoot. And so that's just another way that you

can use them. And then probably the third way, in the way that I use it the most is when I'm hunting by myself, So I do a lot of elk hunting by myself, a lot elk calling by myself solo. Honestly, I would say calling elk when you're by yourself or if you aren't gonna stalk, is a lot more difficult than if you have someone calling or you're calling for someone else. And the reason is because elk do tend

to hang up. It is certain distance because there's this natural expectation that two bowls should collide, and so if you have a guy that can draw back and then the shooters forward, you're cutting off twenty yards or more of that expectation of that other bull, and as he comes in, he's more looking for that other elk and not necessarily focused on where the shooter is. So you've got more opportunity to draw back, to be unseen and to have a good shot where if you're the one calling,

he can kind of pinpoint that. And so hunting alone can be difficult and adds this little extra layer of challenge that for a long time for me, was hard to figure out how to kind of counteract that. And over the years I've I've really developed a lot of different techniques, which maybe some of those will be a different podcast, but using a decoy is definitely one of them. And the reason that is because it fixates the bulls point of attention as well as gives it a visual

queue of something to focus in on. So I'll set up how I would, I'll call, I'll do my calls like back, I'll set the decoy up, and then I'll move forward into a position where I think the bull is gonna come. I think he's gonna see that cow decoy, and then I'm in a position where I can either draw and shoot where I expect him to be more unnoticed or it'll draw him in a good line to where he's going to move into a shooting lane for me.

So it's a way to kind of help control the bowl at a visual aid and distract from you that is the caller slash shooter and lead to a little bit more success that way. When I am using a decoy by myself, I generally don't like to use the stakes as often. I've actually um used like clips or punch a hole in one end. I actually think they make some stuff now for this because people have been using this technique for a while. But I have a

lot of my decoys. I'll tie parachord on it, and if I'm in a timbered area, I just hang it on a tree so I don't have to waste that time trying to get those stakes into the ground if I'm in a timbered area, and then I'll keep the stakes in my backpack or whatever as I'm moving in as well, I kind of use it as a sort of a shield where if a cow's there, I might be able to kind of can use the cow of oh,

that's just an elk. You throw out some calls and then get out of sight or hunker down or do something where if I get caught moving in because I found that when you're by yourself, the closer you get to that bowl, the more likely you're going to be to get him to come into your setup. And that that really is anybody, whether you're by yourself or not. That's just my strategy. But having that decoy as a

sort of a shield really helps. Now a couple of things you want to be careful of, you know, if you're using as a shield, just make sure you aren't like rocking up on some other dude that's calling at you. Also, another thing to think about is just as you're moving, you know, I kind of like to have my hands free where I can glass and be ready on the

bow and other things. So sometimes just having that decoy available and out in front of you can be difficult to maneuver with, but it's definitely worth it to add that extra point of attention to draw that bowl to your location and give him a visual aid, especially in more open country. I really hope that this kind of deep diving too some aspects of elk hunting helps you out this September, or at least get your mind thinking

on things you can use, things you can utilize. There's so many different strategies, and all those strategies can be employed super effectively in the right scenarios. And just what I want to do is build out this library of understanding these different scenarios and then how to essentially strike from there. And the more you can grasp that and know what moves to make, when I promise you, you're

going to be a lot more successful, you know. I mean, it's like a broken record saying probably ten percent of the guys take nine of the elk every year. It's just that the same guys who understand elk behavior and understand what moves to make. Elk hunting can be extremely easy. For people new getting into it, it can be extremely difficult. You know. I've read so many statistics of for most people just to shoot an elk, it takes five to

seven years. And that's because that's that learning curve. And then they get in there and it's like, Okay, it took them seven years to get their first elk, and now they're shooting elk every year. But what I want to do is I want to cut that learning curve time down to listening to this understanding and taking so many years of just elk experience into the field with you, you could be successful in your first year and every year with just that knowledge and that learning gap decreased.

So I really hope that this helps you. And if you have an elk hunted yet, you know, keep thinking these things. So we're gonna keep building this out. I'm gonna go back and we're just gonna compile like some of my favorite tips of things that I think you should think about. As it now rolls over into September.

You should be gearing up, getting everything ready, and I just want a few of these other tips at the top of your mind, because really I could pin down a thousand elk tactics and how to operate each one, and over the course of the life of this podcast, hopefully we can build that out. So I hope you've enjoyed it as a reminder if you are going out hunting, or you like these tips or whatever, seriously tag me and social media and other things. I love seeing that.

I mean, I've gotten some pretty awesome success photos from people early season archery talking about specific episodes that they I mean, so many people brand new to Mule your archery hunting have been sending me pictures some awesome bucks they've taken, just with some of the tactics that they've learned through this podcast. That's some of my favorite stuff to see. So please send those out. I'd love to share those and tag you back in them or whatever.

So I really appreciate that. And then thank you guys so much for the comments and the good ratings. You know, if you don't subscribe, or have friends that are hunting with or no people that would like this podcast, share the knowledge. Man, It's like I might as well have everybody in your crew understanding what you know and and helping them kind of cut the distance of the learning curve as well. So if you could share these, that would be great. I really appreciate it. I hope you've

enjoyed it. Feel free to shoot me a message either at Remy Warrant on Instagram or Remy at the mediator dot com. I want to get into a few question and answers here coming up, and then good luck this September. I hope that you can take all this stuff you've learned and be successful. I actually know that you will be, so congratulations on your success. Preemptively until next week. Don't go chasing elk decoys. Stick to the live elk that you're used to h