Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Today, I have a special guest. We're in an Airbnb in the middle of beautiful Montana. This person is known for a lot of things. Of course, he's known for his elk calling prowess. But I can guarantee you he is the only person in history to kill a bull elk wearing a hell Cogan costume. This was in twenty nineteen, so you have to go. You'll have to scroll back a few years through all the videos and find this video.
But I have none other than the amazing Jason Glenn Phelps, as you Instagrammers might know, I know. Welcome, Welcome to the show.
Jason, Thanks for the intro. I really appreciate being here. I think you should have that approved for you laid it out there.
No, I like to make you uncomfortable, I know.
And I needed to edit that out. That's the That was good. That was good.
Yeah, yeah, and uh and hey, let's just kind of a side note. This is off topic today, but Jason has an Instagram account. You may not know this if you fell follow the Phelps Game Calls Instagram page. Jason, in the last few months has started his own Instagram page. He puts a lot of half navid naked selfies on there. He shows progress from like working out, like dieting and bikini shots. No, just kidding, no, but I have way more followers than Jason, and I'd like to keep it that way.
So what you're saying is, do not follow, do not follow me.
Do not follow Jason. So it's Jason Glenn Phelps. Look it up on Instagram. We got to get him some followers. And while you follow him, give me a follow to. It's the Bugler, Dirk Durham, the Bugler, just the Bugler. One word. Give me a follow if you like our content, and give Jason a follow too. He's in a bad way. He needs that traction.
You know what my full name, Jason gel Like, that's what my mom would yell at me as I was getting like chased around the house of the Woodspoon. That's what that's the memory my full name brings back.
That's great. Yeah, well, I think I've yelled at a couple of times. We've been deer running when you really need to get there's an oulk over here, there's a deer over here. I think I yelled at you today but anyway, today, and I'm gonna have to apologize to our listeners. I gave you the guys the super secret number to call in to ask a question so we can answer it online. Here are on the podcast. And
the problem, here's the biggest problem. So when I did that, I recorded a whole bunch of podcasts because I've been gone for the whole month of September, the month of October, and here we November. I'm still hunting and Jason he's been doing a lot of the same, so a lot of the podcast episodes you've been enjoying haven't been real time.
So I was unable to get your question answered online in a timely fashion, which kind of sucks because there's some folks that had some hunting intended for this fall. But I think it's still relevant for the show. And I think you know we're not leading into ELK season. I mean, ELK season September is kind of a distant memory, and we want to kind of kind of touch base, refresh, think about those kind of things because Phelps and I've
been talking about twenty twenty four already. We're making plans for ELK season, and we want to make sure that we have everything dialed in, and so I think this is a great time to kind of answer some of those questions. That way, for folks who are planning ahead for next year, they can kind of think about it, listen to what we say, digest it, agree, disagree, to formulate their own system, and kind of move forward. For elks,
he's in twenty twenty four. So anyway, Phelps, do you have anything to say before we get started on this?
Oh, I'm like ready to start answering questions.
I know Jason always says this on his podcast when he's when he's the host, he always says, hey, guys, if you have any questions, email us at CTD at why what.
CTD at Phelpsgame Calls dot Com? Right, But you were just trying to talk in my voice, and I felt like you had to make me sound like a nerd.
What no, I was?
I don't know, Like when he always says, when you talked in a funny voice, that made me sound like a nerd.
I'm sorry, I'm I like to mimic people.
We have an email set up at CTD cutting the Distance CTD at Phelpsgamecalls dot com. Yeah, send this message or emails there or messages on social and we'll do our best to kind of grab those all those questions and kind of compile them and try to have our guests answer them.
Right, and if you want me to answer them, don't send them to that because I never s those questions every down. Then he's like, He's like, I don't know what to tell these people, Dirk, can you tell them? No?
Just kidding.
They're like, Jason, I don't want you to answer. I want Dirk to answer, and so they gotta pass one to him.
All right, So question number one, I'm gonna turn this up and uh, let's see if we can get this answered.
Hey, Dirk, my name is Garrett Harmon. I'm calling from Beufort, South Carolina. My question is is how you would go about hunting a once in a lifetime tag. I Drew want to arguably the best second season archery ELK tags in New Mexico this year, and I was wondering, I'm feeling a lot of pressure and putting a lot of pressure on myself, and I'm just wondering how you go about tack lining the tag like this. Any advice would be great. Thank you for everything you do.
But well, first off, I want to apologize because we should have answered this in real time because he's got a tag of a lifetime in New Mexico. I'm sorry, but we do have some advice. I'm like, Jason, go first.
Yeah, so we struggle.
We've got some good tags, right, and it's one of it's a blessing and a curse. It's it's awesome that you got the opportunity. But just like you, I feel extreme pressure when I draw these tags, whether it's a great archery tag, great rifle tag, and one thing I have to like, it's very important for me leading into the hunt is just to remember that I love to
hunt and why I'm out there hunting. It's it's It might seem a little cliche to go back and kind of boil it down to that, but when you got good tags, there's I think everybody feels a little more pressure.
You have to perform.
It's your it may be your opportunity for that you know, trophy of a lifetime or the animal that you're after, or maybe you know somebody hasn't experienced success and they're looking at this once in a lifetime tag is just
their first stepping stone you know in successes. So so first of all, like I feel it's important to go back and boil it down to why you're out there and kind of from that point, remember that you're out there to have fun, Like this isn't once in a lifetime potentially or or one of those like upper upper tiered hunts, and you just need to remember to have a lot of fun, you know, going into that. Now,
that's that's more of a mindset. Now there are things you can do on the technical, tactical, physical, mental side, right. I feel like I go into my uh my better tags a little more focused, a little more like ready, whether I've trained a little bit harder. It gives me motivation. You know, I kind of always hate motivation when it because it is triggered by things. You know, if you're disciplined enough, you'll But but I go into those things
a little better shape, you know. I've I've did a little more e scouting going into those I've called the biologists, a little bit more of the normal life, talked to outfitters in the area. But it really hopefully when he runs into a tag like this, you've had the ability to have some honey under your belt. And I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little bit astray. This is why I'm a big, you know, proponent of getting a lot of experience, right go out there and enjoy spike tags.
Go out there and enjoy these other tags. Get experience calling Elkin, whatever it may be, so that when this once in a lifetime opportunity finally comes, it's not your first experience with a bull at twenty yards thirty yards.
You need to be.
Prepared, which is not a great answer because you've already drawn the tag and your chance to figure that out may not be there. But for everybody else before you draw this once in lifetime, take get out there experience, you know, calling an elk, experience, you know, having elk
at at very close range. Experience those emotions, you know, those mental breakdowns, whatever may come, and figure out how to push through that, figure out the mechanisms you need to have to push through that, and then you know, kind of get through it. But there's not aside from maybe being a little more prepared, I still put more
stress on myself on these tags. You just you just need to go out and enjoy it and hopefully that experience kind of kind of plays itself out because you do have a good tag, and don't don't put too much pressure on yourself because it will take the fun out of the hunt.
I've been on both sides, and that's the best advice I can give. Man.
I really love that. A really good friend of mine here drew probably arguably the best Elk tag in Idaho in twenty twenty two. And he's he's my age. He's he's forty eight years old while I'm forty nine.
He's so really old.
Ancient, so he's a little bit younger than me. But we talked about it and he said, you know, he's like, I'm so glad that I drew this tag in my late forties. He's like, because if I had drew drawn that in my twenties and my thirties, He's like, I would have worked. I would have. I would have hunted like it was a job, Like I would have I will probably would have. It wouldn't have been fun, and I would have put way too much stress on my And he's like, honestly, I'm my only goal for this tag.
He's like, I don't have a goal of inches. I have a goal of having the hunt of a lifetime, just the best time, enjoy savor every moment, the ups, the downs, all of it. I just want to enjoy that hunt and remember the rest of my life.
Yeah yeah, and that's yeah. You know in the question he talks about like the stress, and it's just if you boil it down, like that's not that shouldn't be part of the hunt. Like stress and not to I'm not a psychologist or anything, but like stress from what like we this is like self imposed reasons, right, Like are you are we concerned that people are I'm gonna throw myself in here because I'm in the same boat, Like are we concerned people are gonna judge us that
we weren't successful with the great tag? Like the heck with all of that, Like just go have fun hunt, make it a hunt of a lifetime, like you just said, and like put all the other stuff aside. Just just go enjoy the experience, enjoy being in a great unit, which typically being in a great unit, you're gonna hear bugles, you're gonna have more action. It's like take all that
in and and throw away the extra stress. And because it comes from a bad place anyways, I feel like it's it's you wanting to you know, find success, or you not wanting to maybe let people down to know you have the tag. Whatever it may be. Like, all that is just you know, it's not worth it. Just go have fun, enjoy it, and you're gonna have a better experience and you know, probably have better success by by going into it with that mindset.
Yeah.
Absolutely. And one the my my thoughts on the subject to kind of a little different note is I feel like sometimes people here, I mean I think I found myself guilty this before, like oh they drew this tag, Well, it's gonna be easy. It's it's it's not gonna be as hard as public land hunting. I think sometimes these
draw tags, especially really good ones, are they're harder. They're like harder than a normal over the counter public land hunt these because I mean, there's there's definitely gonna be a more target rich environment, there's gonna be a lot way more game, there's gonna be more way more animals to play with. But you can't like like let your guard down and think, oh, well I don't have to try as hard. I can just show up and kind
of half asset and get an ELK. I feel like you have to show up and work just as hard as you would on a normal over the countertag, if not harder, and just maximize that time. So this this is back, like, don't stress yourself out with this, but you have to. Like, you know what, We're not gonna sleep in. We're not gonna spend the milk. We're not gonna spend our mid days in camp eating rabbis. We're gonna we're gonna work really hard. We're gonna get up at three am if that's what we need to do.
We're gonna work. We're gonna hunt all day from dark to dark, and we're gonna leave nothing on the table. That way, when we when we're done, whether we're whether we take an elk or deer, whatever it is you're after, wherever you take. At the end, you can say I left nothing on the table.
Yep.
I gave everything I had for that time I had was having and it was the haunt of a lifetime.
Yep.
Great question number two.
Hello, my name is Pattie Zobot.
I'm a new archery hunter and I have not spent a lot of time.
Getting set up for a shot of forty yards or less. When you are looking for a spot?
What are you looking for in the brush?
Or sorry? Was how do you determine what a good location is and what is your strategy for.
Getting set up for the best shot you can Once you located in an alp and that.
Elk is coming in on you, thanks so much?
Fine?
Okay, So she doesn't have a lot of experience setting up or animals being inside of forty yards? And how do we determine where we're going to set up if that bull's coming in or the bowl to come in?
Did I get that right?
Yeah?
I think so.
Okay, So there there's there's I'm gonna answer this in a couple of different ways. There's what you're given on the ground. A lot of times we find ourselves in less than ideal setup. So you just can't make an
ideal set up on the ground. You know, you may be in a brush hole, you may be in a wide open timber stand where there is no terrain break, no vegetation break, and you're just kind of forced to set up where you need to set up, whether it's you know, get the wind right, try to be you know, for me personally, like on on the level or slightly downhill from the bowl if I can. Those things all kind of are just rules of thumb. But I say this because it's easy to say it while you're talking.
But the real situation out the in the in the woods is you set up where you can, where you know, when you can, where you can. You've got time running against you. You've got a bowl coming in or potentially coming in, or sometimes you may have time to set up with a little bit better set up. You've got to make the best. You know, there was times this year where I set it where I'm like, well, it's not ideal, but I have a twenty yard window here. You know, It's like that's all that's gonna work. But
I had I couldn't foresee anything better. I couldn't move forward. And so you've got to make the best of it, you know, best, the best with what you're given now an ideal setup, if you have the ability. Anybody that's hunted Archerie, hunted Elk long enough has dealt with hang ups. I think dirt can attest to this. I can like every year you're going to have bulls hang up no matter how well you pick your setup. But you want
to try to prevent that if you can. And in my opinion, I could be wrong, but what I've seen from my you know, experience of elk doing this or not doing this, is when an elk gets to a spot where they can see visually, see, not hear anymore, not smell, none of that. I think it's their sense of sight when they get to a point where they should be able to see the elk that's calling to them, being us with the call in our mouth however we're doing it, or the collar behind us, they expect to
be able to see that elk there. Now a little more nervous, they're a little more on edge, like, hey, I've put in the work to get to this point, like and a lot of times they'll get to this hang up spot and they will call or they'll do something, you know, whether they posture, whether they call, whether they
they expect the caller to do the rest of the work. Now, if this is, if this is truly a visual thing, we need to set up either on a terrain break, meaning that the terrain goes from flat to steep, steep to flat side hill, a finger ridge, you know, something that will block the visibility of you and that bowl but when they do get to the point where where they can visually see that that that elk calling to them, whether you're bugling a bowl elk or whether you're a
cow calling, you know that cow elk that should be in this location, you need to be able to shoot. And with that said, I like to be within forty yards like you you mentioned in the question to that terrain break or vegetation break. You know, a lot of times if there's clean timber that gets to a brush,
they will need to break through that brush. If they're in brush and they're breaking out into clean timber where you're at, they will get to that edge of the brush or some them we're in there where there they've got good sight. And this is one of the reasons I don't get to hunt with a lot of two
person calling setups. But this is where having a caller potentially thirty you know, I don't like to be too far back, but twenty or thirty yards back, because now the perceived elk that they should be able to see is now twenty or thirty yards behind you. If you do this right, or you put them in a location where there's another visual break, and that elk can't see them,
but you're now thirty yards ahead of them. It will potentially pull that bowl past the hang up spot for you is the shooter and bring them in for an archery shot. So when I set up i'm looking, I like to look at it as basically a ninety degree window where the bull's coming in or something like that. Like I want, you know, if I look forty five degrees to my left, forty five degrees a my right, ideally I have multiple shooting lanes from zero to forty
or fifty sixty yards right. So if that bull crosses to my left trying to get wind, I've got a shooting lane here. You know, if he crosses, you know I'm point Nobody can see me pointing here, obviously, but you know, if they cross in these different values, I'd like to have a couple of different whips. Excuse me, hit my mic there. I'd like to have a couple of different shooting lanes where if that bowl, depending on where it comes in, I will get a shot from
zero to sixty. Now, a lot of times, you know, it's a balance of you want some cover, but you want some shooting lanes. You want you want to have enough opportunities in there. So uh yeah, I like to set up where I can hopefully prevent that bowl from hanging up. And then when I do set up, I like to have my shooting lanes. And I've talked about this a lot. Set yourself up in front of obstacles and brush and material like let the let your camo
or let your solids whatever. I'm not going to get into argument what you need to have, but let your silhouette be broken up by brush or a tree something behind you, and then you stand in front of it. That way, you're you're free to move in any direction. You know, if the bowl comes in a different direction, you can move. And that's kind of my best advice for a setup. The hanging up, in my opinion, comes from letting that bowl be able to see too far your location.
Yeah, that's great advice. I in fact, when I when I set up, I even kind of take it like one step further on my shooting lanes. I I don't like to have very many shooting lanes. I like to have just a couple, okay shooting lanes. I want to be able. I want that bull to have to come into like thirty forty yards, maybe preferably thirty yards before he could ever see where those calls are coming from. Right. So,
and this is typically for a solo setup. Like Jason said, if I have a collar behind me, I want them to behind me, but I don't want them too far to where I can't see them. I want to keep eye contact. That way we can signal each other. It's like, oh, we need to move up or hey, collar, move back, or move up or down the hill, whatever, because sometimes as the caller, when you're back there, you don't know what's going on up up and up for the shooter.
The shooter standing sometimes you can't hear those little nuanced sounds as like well that bull's moving this way, it's mo in that way. So if we can signal each other, we simply we tend to have a a better result in the end. But it all kind of depends too, you know, on your on your maximum effective yardage. You know, if you're really good out past sixty yards, and maybe
you want to set up like that. But I feel like if anytime I set up to where it's a little further distance to where they can come in and eyeball me, sometimes they hang up and I may not get a shot, but if they have to come in really close and I don't, I like to. I like
to shoot close. I like to be that thirty yards or less, maybe forty if I'm pushing it, because like personal for my maximum effective distance, I like to keep it forty or less, just because I know that if I have that shot, I'll one hundred percent make it. But everyone's different. Now as far as as I'm traveling, as I'm moving towards the bowl, and I'm doing a few things, I'm looking at as every step of the way, as I'm going to the words that bowl, as i
feel like I'm getting closer to that elk. Let's say I've I've traveled three hundred yards across the ravine or something to get close to this bowl. I've traveled quietly. I haven't been bugling, but most of the way I don't make a lot of I don't pop, I pop, I pop as much brush as I want until I get into that zone. It's like, I think that elk is probably gonna be a couple hundred yards away now,
maybe one hundred yards away. I'm gonna get really quiet and I'm gonna be very calculated at point, and I'm gonna and what I do is I look ahead to where if if I could see an elk standing there and he could see me, what's that distance? Is that eighty yards? Is that sixty yards? Is at one hundred yards? If it's if I only have visibility to thirty yards, I start thinking, Okay, I'm getting in a good place to maybe call this bowl into. But let's say I get over there and I can see one hundred yards
through big open timber. I'm probably gonna pause for a minute and kind of reassess. I'm gonna number one. I'm not gonna want to start calling until I get to a point where I think he's pretty close to here. But I don't want to start making a bunch of calls right now to where he could, like all of a sudden, appear one hundred yards away and look and see my location, because he's gonna be expecting to see an elk, and then he's gonna stop, and he's gonna
look a little bit, and then he's gonna leave. So I'm gonna probably be a little calculated before I show my hand, my cart, my hand of cards. Per se. If I get to that one hundred yards, Like, I don't like this spot. I'm gonna but I think he's close. I'm gonna creep forward slowly, and I'm probably gonna use
my binoculars a little bit. I'm gonna have my eyes just fixated on picking apart every little bit of brush, looking for movement, whether I see an antler time, whether I see an ear moving, whether I whether I see a black nose or a black mane. I'm gonna be looking for that bowl and then I'm gonna get through that section. And usually you'll get a one hundred yards or so, and then the timber will grow a little denser.
Maybe you'll have some younger trees and it'll get a little thicker, and it's like, Okay, now I'm starting to get to a place where it's a little bit I can't see as far. Now I'm gonna start picking apart. Okay, I want to have a couple pretty good, pretty good shooting lanes. You mentioned forty yards maximum forty yards. You know, It's like, okay, I shoot forty yards there or maybe twenty yards, so maybe one pretty decent one and maybe
one so so one. And I found when I do this bulls come in a lot closer, and they don't just stand out there and just look at me. All right.
Next question, Hey guys and Dan up here in North Ido, I had a question for you being here up here in Ido in a thick brush country. Often I have rely heavily on our calling. Of course, since you it's hard to blast them and whatnot, But often I have a we'll have an interaction with the bowl calling back and forth, and I know that they that bowl will
still be in the area. My question, I was wondering, if you can confirm that that bowl or whatever is still in the same area and you want to go back and try them another day, do you go back in there with different calls, different mouth calls, different bugle tubes or do you think they have a memory for that kind of stuff. It's just curious. Thanks for the show.
DOCU so bulls in their memory and calls. And then I have a different opinion now than when I started. I felt like, uh, if I if I was calling to bowl and wasn't able to call them in, I needed to switch my diaphragm up. I needed to go from an external you know, a cow call or whatever it may be, in my opinion, I not the elk aren't smart animals, but I don't feel they've got the
ability to associate like ELK calls with with the next elk. Now, individual individual Now with not saying this only affects people aren't good callers. But if you sound like a elk or close enough to a real elk and they believe that at that time, then you're probably okay. Now, if there are suspects sounds, I think elk could potentially and you make the suspect sounds the first time in the second time, like I'm not I'm not going to vouch for you that they're not going to pick that out
multiple times or every time you do it. Let's let's assume you call good enough. You know it sounds like you rely on your calls a lot in North Idaho, Brushy. If you're a good enough caller, I don't feel if you sound like an elk, you can really mess things up up or they attribute to memory.
I do get a little concerned.
Number one, if I ever get winded why I'm calling now, I don't know I'm saying I get concerned now. I don't know if that has just educated them for the season, if it's educated them for two days, three days a week. Sometimes we went back in there a lot of times I'll give them a day or two just because in my head it's like, man, they I winded them, I busted them, Like, I'm not going to put pressure on
them again. I want to let that memory subside. Now I'm speculating here a lot getting winded while calling is concerning being seen. Why calling? I think it has got to trigger something like why is there a predator or you know, a human looking at me that sounds just like us I and I'm I'm just I'm thinking of this like a human, Like I can't say what an
elk actually understand. So with that said that to to not circle around this question, if not to sound over confident or pretentious or anything, I feel like I sound enough like an elk with through my calling that I can go back in there and not switch diaphragms, not switch my style, as long as I know I didn't get winded, and I don't feel that an elk's memory. As a matter of fact, I've got enough, you know, boots on the ground, real world experience to tell, you know,
be very confident that it doesn't matter. I've called to a bowl one day, didn't work out, come back in the next day and kill them with the same exact sequence and the same exact diaphragm in my mouth. So yeah, I don't feel you can really mess up by or or by using the same calls, or that you have to go through the process of switching your calls up, or going from a diaphragm one day to an external cow call the next day to a you know, a squeeze call the next whatever you're using. I don't think
you have to go to those extents. Either the bulls you're gonna it's gonna be right or it's going to be wrong, regardless of what calls in your mouth. My opinion, I do play a little bit of defense there if if they've got winded when I come back in or whatnot. But I don't feel if you sound like an elk, you can really screw up too bad.
My opinion is pretty similar to yours. I feel like, if you haven't busted that bowl, if you haven't spooked him out of there, yeah, you could definitely go back in with you know, the next day, or maybe you want to let him set for a couple of days before you go back in whatever. I don't think you need to switch up your calls. But I will say from my anecdotal experience where there was a time several years ago I called in a bowl and I missed him.
I hit a branch and I missed him, and he spooped off and ran off, but he kept bugling, so I pushed up on and pressured him, and he came in a couple more times. But I had pressure him really hard that day, and one time he caught me in the open and he I don't know that he saw me, but I had the lad completely flat on the ground because he caught me in an open trail and I had a lay down so he wouldn't see me when he came back. But then he finally eventually
kind of spookeed off. But I went back the next day, thinking, well, this guy was hot. I'm gonna get him the next day. And I could see him. It was in kind of some kind of cutover timber, so I could see him at a distance, and I got out of my truck, hiked up the hill, got to the spot called I bugled, and soon and he was feeding at the time as soon as I bugled, he threw his head up and he ran like, I'm the opposite director, the complete opposite direction.
So I feel like that that pressure that i'd put on him the day before probably fouled that up. And what we don't know is like once that, once that scenario plays itself out, and you're like, well, I didn't get him, I'm gonna go back home or whatever, I'm gonna leave. Who's to say that bowl doesn't come back and sniff around like our scent can be left on the ground for quite a while. You know, I probably took a leak afterwards, because I'd probably been holding it
for a while. But those things come back around and sniff around the area a little later on in the day, and they're like, well, I don't know, like I don't like what happened earlier. I don't know if they're that smart, But I feel like, if you've bumped them, if they've seen you, if you've spooke them pretty hard, you might want to give them a couple of days to kind of forget, or the next time when you go back in, maybe you want to take your different bugle tube and
a different diaphragm. And kind of mix up your the sounds you make and try.
Yeah, hurt.
I mean, like I said, I can take different It seems like if I take different bugle tubes of different diaphragms, I end up sounding the same because I'm trying to force myself to sound like a certain sound.
But yeah, I agree, you can.
You can change things up a little bit, just if nothing else to give you the confidence that you're doing something different, a little bit of a placebo effect, right, Like, I'm of the opinion that it's either it's either right or it's wrong. You know, the time's right or it's wrong. And I don't know if it really matters what's in
your mouth for a call. You know, you're either going to sound like a cow and he wants to come in and find a new cow, or you're going to sound like a bull and he wants to come in and run you off, regardless of maybe what you sound like is my opinion, not saying it's fact. But I'm more of the opinion though, that it's either right or it's wrong at the time that you're using that call, And it doesn't this sly matter what you sound like.
You love it. I have to agree with a lot of that. All right, next question.
Hey, Derek, I appreciate this. I just got done with my second archery. I'll hunt and bulls are pretty vocal down in New Mexico and Nihila, bulls are pretty vocal. But quickly I was kind of realizing that when we were vocal using cow calls and stuff, they would be vocal and kind of stop and we'd cut the distance. But the second we'd introduce a bowl, they create distance from us and we would never be able to We
were never able to get on them. So my question is do you think that elk came to cipher between human and hunter? And do you think that they do that? Do you think that they stay in order to keep tabs on us to stay away from us? Thank you.
Man, that's a deep one. I'm trying to process it all here. I'm gonna try to restate the question. Make sure I got it. I'll let Dirt correct me. So it sounds like they were in the Hila had elk biglan being vocal and when they would calcol the elk would sometimes cut the distance or move in, but when they would bogle, they elk would shut up or maintain
their distance or get further away. I think that's it for the most part, and without having any any further detail, I think the distance or the the timing of your bugles is maybe more important than just saying.
And I've got to speculate here.
I've talked about this a lot on even it maybe ranks up as my number one mistake. Why calling elk is did you bogle when you thought you were one hundred yards away or knew you were a hundred yards away, or did you biegle when you thought you were three hundred or four hundred yards away and expected that to work? From my experience, and I learned the hard way many many times of wanting to get a bull to beagle. As I came in, I would, you know, be agle locate?
I would bugle a little bit down the hill or up, you know. As I approach, I'd bugle again, and I'm like, man, this elk is staying the same distance no matter what I do.
You'd call your way to the bull?
Yeah, I would, I because whether I wanted the confidence, I wasn't confident where he was at, so I wanted to hear him again to make sure I was going the right spot, so you call you bigle again, you get an answer, But you can only do that so many times until you get to a spot where he's gonna now pull his cows away and just leave right.
He's gonna avoid any confrontation if he can. For the most part, with that said, I buggled myselves into betting areas where that bowl wasn't going to move an inch, and it worked out. But for the most part, especially in the morning before they've actually betted down, I try to make sure that I don't bugle until I'm very
very close. I feel that buggling your way into a bowl from the time you locate until the time here within the red zone or the bubble is the potential greatest cause for that bull leaving or getting out of the area with his cows. Of course, we're talking about herd bulls here, which it sounds like I'm gonna speculate
that that's what you're you're hunting. But with that said, timing of the bugle, I'd be very curious, and I know we can't have a dialogue, but i'd be curious to know if you were bugling at three hundred yards or a hundred or five hundred like how that worked and kind of if the bull completely disappeared and stop bugling, or if the bull would just kind of stay in equidistance apart the entire time. In those situations, I would like, I said, you got to just you got to get
closer to bagle. You have to be quiet, you have to make some assumptions. You have to be confident that those those elk are going to be in that location.
And what once you locate them, Yes, once you locate them, then what you've.
Got to almost assume where they're at at that point. Now, some people might be like, well, I know right where they're at when they be agle. For me, a lot of times, whether it's mountain country or broken country, I'm like, there's a bowl down in that canyon. I don't know exactly where he's at, but there's something in that canyon, and you know, whether it's a long distance bugle, whatever it may be. So a lot of times you pull out your mapping software. For us, it's on X, You're like,
all right, he's down that canyon. You put your little you hit the I don't even know what the button is on the bottom right of on X. You hit the button, and it tells you exactly what's direction you're pointing your phone. You kind of pointed to the bugle. You're like, I think he's about five hundred yards. Well, he's about in here, right. So now I've got a point in my head or on the map, and I've
got to assume that he's going to be there. Now, if it's going to take you an hour to get there, he might not be there right, And and so you've got to you've got to add all this in. But you've just got to get really really close to olt when you're gonna bugle. You know, we we maybe talk about it too much that we you know, we're bugle bugle heavy collars, but we're we're always trying to get
very very tight. You know, we locate from a distance, you get a response basically like a game of Marco polo, but you don't you don't say it again until you get within tight tight dis And some of them because I feel your your chances of calling him in or are very very difficult. And you know, in those instances if you're gonna call them longer distances and a lot of times you're not gonna call this herd bowl in.
If you do this but sticking to the cow calls, like you said, you're most likely going to call in some of those satellite bowls and they may be great bulls. And if you're just after any legal elk and you're not after any legal bowl and you're not after that herd bowl, it may be a great tactic.
But that's just my opinion.
I can't ask you, you know, the exact you know, situation, but my speculation is you were maybe buggling a little too far out, which would allow that bowl time to run his cows up and get away from you.
That's a great answer. One thing I'd like to bring up to is he said he was second time, second year l hunting.
Now.
Sometimes, and I don't want to assume that you're not a good caller, but sometimes as new callers, we don't sound like an elk very good. You know, Sometimes we make some bugles that are a little suspect, like maybe your cow calls sound really good, maybe your bugles sound not so good, And especially if you're hunting in an area that's had some pressure or whatever, or maybe you know,
I've heard some elk calls before in the woods. Guys, running calls and it sounded nothing like an ELK, and they were selling it hard like it was an ELK and it was not an ELK sound at all. So you have to, like, you know, to look at the man in the mirror a little bit and like, do Mike, are my ELK calls authentic? Now? You don't have to sound like some world champion ELK caller, your favorite YouTube celebrity, whatever.
What you have to sound is like an ELK, and ELK make all sorts of weird vocalizations and some of them sound really terrible. But what they do have is they do have that realism. There's some there's a there's a level of realism to the call. It may not be a perfect call, but it does still have some realism to them. But if your your calls are you know, subpar, and they're just not sound like a real ELK, then
right now here we are it's November. Pick up a call and wear out a few between now and next September. You know, practice, practice, practice. It's a five to ten minute thing a day. It's not a five hour thing a day. You do not have to do this for an hour a day unless you want to. But even five ten minutes a day is definitely gonna move the needle. So by the time next fall comes, you're gonna be very familiar with your call. The call you want to make is going to come out of your bugle, and
you're gonna sound pretty authentic. That would be my first thing. Now, New Mexico. We've hunted New Mexico a few times, and I know we got a lot of advice from people who've hunted New Mexico before. One one piece of advice I was given was don't ever call No, don't ever bugle to bowls. In New Mexico. They don't bugle to bugles. And I said, okay, what should we do? Well, be very very heavy on cow calls. Okay, great day one, New Mexico. Lots of cow calls. I'm doing lots of
cow calls, hardly no bugles. I'm just not getting any reaction. I'm not getting any replies from these elk I'm not getting you know, nothing is good, nothing's bad. I start bugling, like I start running my normal program where I do. I'm pretty bugle heavy, but I do use a lot of caw calls too. Now I'm starting to get reactions from these elk. So you can't always take all of the advice as gospel. There's good advice, you know, in every in you know, there's there's there's there's shades of
truth to everyone's advice. But you have to take that that advice for what it's worth and for the day and the situation that you're in. So if if Lake mightst say, one day, you're doing some cow calls, but you're just not calling anything in, try some bugles and if those bugles are working, great, stick with them. Or if the bugles are not working, let's say your calls sound good like you in your bugling, but they elk keep moving away. Maybe you should lay off the bugles.
Maybe let's let's just go to cow calls. Maybe try to locate them really good and try to figure picking down exactly where that bull is and then get there quietly, get as close up close and personal that bull as you can, and maybe at that time it'd be time to dif some cow calls. But whatever's working, keep doing it. Whatever's not working, don't do it. I'm a big believer
in that. And then one thing was really crazy for me in New Mexico was we thought, like, we've been hunting out for a long time, and you have kind of a distance gauge. Every time you hear a bugle, it's like, oh, it's this far away. Well, New Mexico really screwed with my head because the bulls would sound like, oh, yeah, they're just right over here, you know, they're like three
hundred yards away, two hundred yar away. They could be almost a mile away because of the din because of the how dense the timber is or the cover there. It's not as they don't have big tall trees like we have up in the Northwest. It's more open, so the sound travels so much further and it's so much louder. You. I felt like there were several days I thought, oh, I would set up I think I'm gonna call this bully in and he was still a quarter of a mile away. I was not even in the realm of
calling this bullet. So you have to really factor that in to your calling setups too, especially in New Mexico. I mean, it's a different sound travel pattern there. So all right, next question.
Hey, Derek, this is a Dimitri just calling. I just got back Montana archery hunt. I had a bull come in to forty yards that I had just previously arranged. I was standing in front of some brush in a tree and the ilk came in so fast I didn't have time to draw. He faced straight at me and was sniffing around looking for the cow that that I just called. And I feel like five minutes I was frozen,
couldn't move. He finally turned quartered a little bit and suck three steps in front of right behind two trees. And so my question is, should I have tried to tend that needle between those trees? Should I have tried to take that funnel shot?
When he did quarter two and got his head yet behind one of the trees. I did draw back, but he never seems to give me really my shot that I was kind of looking for.
I was hoping that he would take a couple.
Of steps, but he never did, and he.
Just kind of shot it off after.
I try to call Calum back. But yeah, just one of those cify Ghanny tips for me on that, Thanks yer.
Man.
So I've been a big fan of Frontals for a long time. Anybody it's heard me talk or talk about Frontels knows that I'm a big fan. Now forty yards. I'm not a big fan, right, so I'm gonna I'm not telling you what to do, like this is the decision everybody's got to make. But for me, forty yard frontal is not gonna happen, no matter how excited I am, no matter how much I want to kill a ball.
I know my limits usually going into season, and I've never been comfortable to a point where a forty yard frontel was like on the table, I've got to hit a four inch wide slot, and if I can't guarantee that arrow is going to hit inside of that four inch wide by about twelve inches tall pocket, you know, ten inch tall I pocket, I'm I'm not shooting, so I would say frontels off off the table, you know, shooting between two trees, I've got to guess a little
bit here, right, we didn't We don't get all the information. I'm gonna assume you had vitals between those two trees. At that point, there's no harm, right, You're either gonna hit him where you need to hit him. If if it's the vitals, are you gonna stick a tree? I do way more comfortable with a shot between two sound like maybe there's an opening between these two trees, I'm way more confident there as long as I can tell where the anatomy of this elk lays out in between
those two trees. You know, not everybody knows elk or big yellow tan critters. You can get real confused, real quick, especially if that gap between those two trees is tight. You might not know if you're hitting guts, back, haunch, shoulder blade right, if you can't make out definition and so shooting between these two trees could be risky. But if you're confident, if you can maybe see his head sticking out one side, his hind end sticking out the
other end, can gauge where you're at. I'm very confident shooting between two trees because I feel like I'm either going to hit him where he needs to be hit, assuming he's at forty yards, or I'm gonna hit a tree and worst thing is I lose a broadhead to a tree. To back up a little bit, you know, yeah, elk, we still get surprised all the time on on elk coming in silent.
You know, it's it's.
Crazy how how quiet an eight hundred pound plus or minus critter can be.
But uh, I've.
Learned that a lot of my success hinges on this that very short window of hearing, seeing, knowing a bulls there, and getting your bow drawn in a in a timely fashion that one you don't have to hold it forever, but two you've got it drawn before he can see you draw, you know, learning that it's almost more of a of an art than it is than it is anything else. Is just knowing when and what you can
get away with and getting drawn back. But yeah, aside from that, I don't have a lot of other advice, Like you got to be very confident, you know, is as Dirk had mentioned, he knows he's he's a hundred percent confident if it's inside one hundred or inside forty yards, he's gonna he's gonna make the shot. You know, same thing here if that bowls inside forty yards, I'm very comfortable and and and if I'm gonna make that shot, I want to be one hundred percent confident that I'm
gonna kill it. And so I don't like a forty yard frontel, and I like the shot between the tree. But you know, having your bow drawn back soon enough that you don't have to try to decide when to draw, and if they're gonna draw, why they're you know, if you're gonna get away with drawing, why they're looking at you? You try to prevent all that from being drawn before they their eyes are out in the open.
Yeah, I have to agree with all that. That's a great that's spot on. And I will say this too, as far as alert elk in a frontal position, a bull that's alert and looking like has stopped and is looking for that other bull or cow they're they're they're
on high alert at that point. So at forty yards, when your bow goes off, it seems like you're both shooting fast, but there's a there's enough time for between the time your bow goes off and that arrow reaches that elk for that that bowl to be facing the complete opposite direction. They can spin on a dime very quickly. So I don't really recommend a frontal shot on an alert elk, whether it's at ten yards or at forty yards. I've been around, I've taken a frontal shot a couple
of them. I've I've been around other folks who have taken frontal shots. And the bulls that are that are coming in like on full alert. When that SHOT's taken. You know, maybe the pen everything is in the perfect spot. But at the very split second that that bow goes off and the arrow reaches the elk, they can move and now it's not hitting in that same slot that Jason was talking about. And now it's now it's gonna be a track job that you may or may not yield a bull elk. So it's it's it's kind of
a tricky situation. And especially at forty yards. I don't recommend a frontal shot at forty yards whatsoever period. They need to be closer twenty yards or less. There's so many things to consider, like the angle of the elk. Is he quartering this way, is according that way? Is he above you? Is he below you? All the angles have to be good to thread that that arrow right down the pipe right, So consider extreme angles, whether it's upper high or low, and angles of quartering. And then
the alert factor. If that bowl is not super alert, yeah, he may not know what hit him and he's gonna tip over dead in forty yards on a perfect shot. So that's my advice. All right, we have time for one more question, Dirk.
My name's Preston dressler. I live in southwest Oregon. I hope to harvest my first Roosevelt elk in the next few years. I've been after them for eight years plus. I'm hunting at over six thousand feet, so obviously a very different train for Roosevelts. However, I understand that they live here year round and have had several close encounters, just not what put one in the freezer yet. I'd love to hear some information on hunting Roosevelt's.
In the mountains.
I'm a rifle hunter. My season isn't until a round Thanksgiving. Obviously, this is after the rut. Snows normally on the ground, but the elk are being quiet. It's a you know, a bowl only tag. So unfortunately cows aren't an option for me. With relatively low success, I'd love to hear some tips on how to find the elk come November. I'm in contact with my wildlife experts in the area. Unfortunately, this is a deer unit, so they don't have a lot of information for me.
Please let me know.
What I should be doing, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong. Love the podcast, hope to hear more soon.
Bye bye, all right, so.
High it sounds like high mountain Roosevelt hunting. You know, cascade roosevelts. I've got a lot of experience. I've i hunt cascade roosevelts growing up, still do occasionally, but I've never had the experience hunting them in rifle season. You know, you add snow in, There's there's a lot of There's a lot of components to this question. I'm trying to to kind of go back through them post rut. I'm just gonna boil it down to just what I know post rut, and Elk's job now is to fatten up
and eat as much as he can. He's gonna typically the big bulls are gonna go into solitude. Smaller bulls may bachelor back up, some small bulls may stay with the herd. So it really depends on what your goal is going into the hunt. Some of the times I've hunted late, I'm looking for where is that bowl gonna find solitude and the feed that he needs to to basically put on as much fat, as much weight, and regain as much of that health as he can to
get through that winter. If there's snow on the ground, I use that snow to my advantage. Whether it's uh, you know, you mentioned being high in the mountains. I don't know if there's a road system leading in or a trail system. Cutting tracks can can tell you more than than anything else can where the elk have been recently, where they've been for the last couple of days, weeks, whatever it may be. I don't know if you can
glass in this area. If you can glass, I love to get up and look into openings early where they may be feeding, or where I can maybe look into some some some spots and you may some people may know what I'm talking about, but they're these spots that aren't like you're glassing a clear cut or an alpine above the tree area, but it's there are these spots that may have avalanche shoots, or they may have little teeny pockets in the timber you can look in. Those
are the spots in those later elk seasons. I like to look because these elk want to be, you know, where there's food, which will be these small little micro openings, but they want to be secure and have that security and kind of that solitude. So I'm looking in areas like that. One thing I like to do. I like to I do two things. I want to be able to find elk obviously, so you can glass, you know, miles across canyons or miles from ridge to ridge.
But I also like to be in the hunt.
I like to look at canyons where if there is an elk there and the wind's gonna be right, I can shoot across that canyon.
I'm in the hunt.
Versus there are times where I consider I'm hunting, but I'm out of the hunt, right I'm glassing at something two thousand and three thousand yards away, hoping to find something that I can then play on, but I'm never in the hunt at that moment. And so I I tend to like that, to be in the hunt when I can, or or when I'm looking at spots. But cutting sign obviously going to be your best bet.
Calling.
There's there's no denying. It's it's off the table, cutting tracks, glassing in spots where other people aren't going to a lot of times, these bulls are gonna want to be away from pressure, away from people. If it's if it's a cow tag, you know, if you're allowed to. I think he did say bulls, right, you know, so so scratch that but you will find if you're looking for any bowl. A lot of times those those younger bulls will stay with the herd, especially as roosevelts tend to do.
So if you find a large herd, I would definitely concentrate on that as well. Those bigger bulls will typically as soon as the rut uh kind of winds down, they're going to be off on their own, away from from all the cows. But not a great answer. We we still kill cascade roosevelts, uh, you know above the tree line, or I say we or people that I know every year up high until the snow basically forces them down so you can go high, which it sounds like where you're at, and you know it can work.
So not a great answer, but that that's really all you can do is find tracks, concentrate on those micro openings. A lot of times those bulls aren't gonna want to be out in the wide open where where you may have found them in September October, And uh, yeah, that's that's the best I can can give on that one.
You know, I can't really add much at all of that. I mean, that was exactly how I would approach it. I don't. I can't really speak to Roosevelts, but elk or elk, right, they need they don't need all the same things I ROCKI needs all the same things a Roosevelt needs. You know, they need, they need food, they need security, they need to be you know, they need
to recoup from the rut. Right. So just to recap, if you're just having a hard time finding elk, like start start cast a wide in the beginning, drive the road system, look for elk. They're gonna try. If they're gonna cross roads. Maybe it's a trail system. Hike the trails. A lot of times elk cutting with a rifle is all about boot, leather and glass.
Right.
So if if you need to hike a lot and just find elk, if you can't, if it's not an area you can glass up, maybe you just got to cover tons of country in a day just to just hike a lot until you find sign and then slow down and hunt from there. Like Jason said, you know, bigger areas, you know, you may be able to glass into some clare cuts or whatever and find some elk. You know, a lot of times you're gonna find the
cows and maybe younger bulls, more mature bowls. A lot of times will like you just said, well, we'll separate themselves looking for those micro habitats, those those little those avalanche shoots, those smaller openings in the timber, just those
micro places where they don't have to travel far. If they can bed one hundred yards away, if they can go over there, they can either belly full, maybe there's somewhere to get some water, or maybe they don't need any water at that point because there's enough snow on the ground, whatever, whatever the case may be, to locate them that way, and then and then dig in, whether you need to can shoot long range across the canyon, you know, within within range, within reason, or maybe it's
like okay, i've i've i've spotted that bowl, I've I've used my on X to to pinpoint that little location. Maybe you don't have to get over there and and dig in and hike that that timber pocket to find that bowl. But that's that's how I would approach it to So anyway, thanks, Jason, appreciate I appreciate all these answers. I mean, one of these days we're gonna find some stuff we don't agree on and we're going to have a debate.
White tails versus meal ears. We've had that a few times.
Well, yeah, we've had that a lot. You know, people may not know this. Jason has a lot of hobbies. But but I call it arguing, but debate health help. He says, Hey, healthy debate. So like, I think healthy debate is one of his favorite hobbies. So I'm always challenging him on because I know how much he'll enjoys it.
And I sure do too. But one of these days we're going to have a debate on here, We're gonna take opposite sides on something, and like, you know, I mean, we could go out night about my tails and mule deer, but you know that's for another another conversation. Appreciate it. But hey, you know we can do this again sometime.
Guys.
If you guys want to call in to the Super Secret hotline, it's two zero eight two one nine seven seven zero one. Leave a message. It can't be over three minutes long. I think that's what it is. Three minutes long, or it'll can just cut you off.
Yeah, and don't no more than three minute because you won't remember the question. You're gonna have to like, play it back three or four times so you can put it all again.
We're simple minded people like, but our memories are not that long. I'll have to play it two or three times. Wait what do they say? So anyway, call in with your questions and we'll get either Jason or myself or maybe one of the guests on here to answer the question. Thanks a lot for listening, and we'll catch you on the next and