00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, I'm Casey and and this is the Elk Hunting series from the Element podcast. If you want to get on ELK, it helps to hang with dudes that no ELK and that ain't us. But luckily the dudes that no ELK have cell phones and we call them up. So, whether you're a veteran of September or you're just cutting your eyebories and the Elk wood said, you're gonna hear something here that will help you get the full draw of this fall. If you find this podcast help, we'll pop that subscribe button and go check out our Elk Hunting playlist on YouTube. Now let's rock and roll, all right, All today, we've got Dirk Durham, the Bugler with us, the man who knows how to talk to Elk. Dirk, what's happening, dude? Oh here there, how's it gone. It's almost like it's almost like we just haven't talked for like fifteen minutes before this or something. That's cool, right, yeah, yeah, it's cool. So um, A lot of people probably know you, of course by your good looks, but also by your witty atitude and then your ability to just make Elk do what you want them to do that? Can I say that? Like, Man, I think about that's not that's not entirely true. I don't know, man, I understand I spent the time to Elk Woods. I know they don't always do what you want them too. But no, I was talking about the good look kind of like a face for radio. That's why we're podcasting. Man makes three of us. Yeah, but man, for real, like I've seen you do some freaking cool stuff on film. Just like being able to talk to bulls and and Elk that just seems super call shy on you know, heavily pressured public land stuff. You can just make them do some cool things, man, So I'm excited to talk to you and kind of pick your brain a little bit about some of that stuff. Um, you're moving to the happy hunting ground right now, is there? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I'm moving towards Bois. Yeah. Man, what's the reason for that? Well, I live out in sticks man. It's I can see, like in the mornings, I'll see anywhere between plenty hundred between my house and town. So I live. I live right in there, you know, in the country with lots of game rich environment. But you know, I don't want to sound like a millennial, but my internet sucks real bad, and um, where I live it would be a great vacation home, but um, for the technology I need to do my day to day job. Then it's it's a struggle I find myself. Just to upload a video to YouTube, It's an hour and a half drive one way, uh to you to find good enough internet that will upload my video, and then uh an hour and a half back. So there's those struggles. Then we live in the snow belt too, so come wintertime, you know, during trade show season January February March, if I'm gone for a week, the trade show, especially with the misses, comes with me. When we get back, we've got two three ft of snow to dig out from, you know, a couple of days of that. So you get back in the middle of the night and you gotta four ft burma snow in front of your driveway. Then that that kind of kind of takes a whole window years, I can imagine, but I don't know that. I've never seen it. It's not something that happens down here. Yeah, you guys just know we get maybe one one year once a year will get a snow the last like two or three days. Yeah, that's that's every other year or whatever. But we get the hundred and fives in the summer, so you know, it's it's give or take, you know how it is. Yeah, Yeah, I guess if if a guy could just like follow the calendar and just kind of stay where it's sixty degrees all the time in the future, one day, one day, it will happen. That's where Chant lives. Fisher lives sixty degrees there year round. Yeah, right on the coast. It's sucker. He tried, he tried pretty hard to get men to move over there, but it just wasn't in the cards. Yeah. I just hugged too much. If you were over there. That's that's why I know his wife would be ticked. So are you full time the bugler or do you have like a day job too. So my day job is work for Phelps Game Calls. I'm the marketing and UH sales manager for Phelps Game Calls, and then I just do my bugler stuff on the side, which kind of flows in between, you know, it kind of flows throughout you know what I do it Phelps too, So it's it's pretty pretty solid gig. Yeah, that's cool. So you know, you tell Jason Hanny to go do a bugler thing, He's like, oh, it's fine, you go sell a couple of hundred calls for me and we'll call it today. So that's good. Yeah, yeah, it's all it's all relevant. You know, my bugler stuff is all relevant to what he's doing and what we do with Phelps. So it's just it kind of helps. It all helps feed the machine. So so it's good. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Man. So, uh, let's get just a little background for you and then we're gonna dive into like some hunting stuff. So did you start out as a young man calling ilk or or how did you come into that world? So? Um, when I was fourteen years old, I uh, I was going bear hunting one morning. It was September and there's a palm close to uh my home that I grew up and my dad and i'd been seeing bear tracks in his palm and opening day of bear season slash opening day of archery season for alcan deer. Then my dad dropped me off about a mile from the pond and I walked in the dark and I set my pond waiting for this bear. I thought, well, I'll be there at sunrise and and I'll probably catch that bear coming through to to get a drink. Well, I sat there and sunrise came and pretty seen, i started hearing some brush popping, and I'm like, oh, yeah, here comes that bear. I'm gonna get you sec and uh, to my dismay, out walks uh three cow elk and a raghorn bowl. And they walk out and get in the pond and drink and splash around and and uh. Of course I didn't archery hunt at a time. All the head was a rifle, you know, I bear hunting rifle bear season with any weapon really, so all I could do is sit there and wish. And so they kind of played around there for five ten minutes and then they've left. I was just blown away. I'm like, oh my god, I could have I could have totally shot those help with a bone arrow. So my dad he finally comes and gets me around noon and picks me up. I said, Dad, yeah, God, Dad, take me to town. Because I had this whole recurve bowl, like a fifty pound barra kodiak him recurve bow. And I'm like taking a town. I need arrows and broad heads and an elk tag. He's like why because because then I told him the story and he and he's like, you can't kill an elk with a bow. I'm like, no, it can be done. People do it. He's like, no, no, you can't kill a bull. No, no, no, no, I'm not gonna do it. So I was just crushed, you know, because I loved hunting, you know, at that point in my life, I've been deer hunting for a couple of three years and I was a complete deer hunting fool. And uh so that just give me the drive for the whole next year. Man, I saved all my money, all my any little bit of onlowing money whatever. The next the next summer, I was old enough to go, uh work for farmers, you know, putting up hey bucking bales and putting bales of hey in barns. And I saved all my money and I made enough money to buy brand new bow, all the all the arrows, all the gear, some camel clothes. And my dad could see I was pretty serious about this. He's like, you know, what, tell you what if you kill a bull elk? A bull Elk don't mind you. Uh, well, I'll read emburse you for for all the money you spent on your your your bow stuff. And I'm like, okay, great. So he's thinking, this is this is a solid this is solid. Didn't I'm never paying up on this deal. Well, um, the third day of season. Um. I didn't even have a driver's license because I didn't want to take driver's head and cut into my bowning time. Right, driver's head was during September, so I just had my mom drive me. So my mom took me out one morning this labor day, I think it might have been Labor Day or labor It was Labor day weekend, September three, and there was a field hayfield, seeing a bunch of elkin, and so we passed it and got up into the hip into the state forest land and I started calling to this bowl and he called right back and made you go back and forth, and probably twenty minutes of this, you know, back and forth. And I didn't know really what I was doing, but I was kind of thought, if I and act like an elk, you know, do a little roll play type of thing, maybe I could call one in and uh exactly it worked textbook. That bull came in on a string, and uh, this is funny. That there was an old an old logging road there a cat road is Trent calls it. And there was a road grad park because they've been logging out there off and on. Um. So I made it past the road grater and I set up on this old road and this bull walks out. It comes out right into that road and this old road, and I whacked him at fifteen yards and he runs off like he runs all liked and fifty yards and piles up, and I'm like yeah, and I go back to my mom. My mom is waiting the pickup, right. I walked back like a quarter mile to the pickup, and uh, my mom's there. I said, did you hear what happened? And she's like, well, I heard a whole bunch of bugle in And I'm like, I shaddon. She's so she was excited. I said, go get go, get pop. Time to bring that. We had another truck we had we were in the nice to go to town pick up, you know, and he had an old woods truck. Go to tell him to get the woods truck and bring it out. So she went to town and told him to get his foreign and fifty bucks and it's come along. We loaded that. We loaded that sucker hole because it was flat ground, and and he couldn't believe. I don't think I've ever seen my old man prouder than that day. But that was that was my first first Elk ever, and and from that day on, I was just I'm hooked. I haven't I haven't missed a day off in September and not been in the Elk Woods since I was fifteen years old. So that's crazy. So at what point did you decide you might do some competition stuff? Um? I really wasn't too interested in it. But my buddy Corey Jacobson, he'd been going of the mugle and competitions and uh, you know, his family had competed for quite a few years, and he's like, man, you should go. I'm like, I don't know, I don't want to go. All you should go. There'll be a good it'll be a fun trip. I don't want to have to sit in the car with just my mom and my dad and my sister, you know, the family dynamic, you know. I'm like, all right, you want to take a friend I'm like, yeah, let's I'll go. So that must have been ninety four, uh somewhere in there, and uh so we we went to the bugle and contest. And first year I went, I thought I sounded great, but um, the judges didn't and I didn't. I didn't make the cut. I didn't make the finals. And the next year I kind of watched what everybody did and kind of listen, you kind of had to have your routine dial and I just got up there and blew my call, like that's to call it help, and everybody else had these polished routines and like, okay. So the next year I kind of worked on a little bit, practiced my routine and kind of figured out what I needed to kind of showcase, and um, the next year then I went and Corey got first and I got second. We were one. We were one point apart, and we're both like, man, this is awesome, but this sucks. We both want to win. And he's like, well, my dad owns this call company. I think I'll just go into pro division and I can you know me, Dirk, I can stay in the in the men's division, and then that way we don't have to keep compete against each other and we both can win if possible. So then that's how that's how we rolled from there on out. Um, you know, went in a title and went in a competition. Didn't really mean too much to me, but it was just a good time to go and get away and meet meet new people and make brands. You know. Yeah, yeah that's cool man. So so okay, let's get to elk elk hunting a little bit here. Um. You know, some people find it hard two have their mom drive them to the elk. So how are you finding elk that your mom can't drive you to? Um? There again, I lived in you know, kind of a it was north central Idaho, you know, and it was farm country but with a lot of timber too, and so it's kind of a checkerboard of private and uh and uh state land. And I knew all the farmers because I hate for a lot of them, and my brothers had had worked for them, so they didn't mind if we hunted, so I kind of knew where to go. So a lot of times, you know, my my mom or my old man and I would go out and we do scout, you know, we go take drives and look for elk. And then I was always hiking looking for for buck. I was always scouting for white tail buck sign you know, checking for for rubs and scrapes from the year before, you know, getting my game plan for deer season, and and so I just kind of moved that over into elk hunting too. So, um, I'd got all the time. A lot of times what would happen is my mom would or my dad would drop me off. I'd say, all right, dropped me off here, and I'd make a great big loop and come out over in a different spot and just have them picked me up at dark. So, um, I could cover you know, and I have to cover the same country twice. So um, where I grew up, there's there's probably not too many places I haven't been. I have canvas the whole places as a young when I was a young buck in high school, junior high school. So so what I mean like for a traveling for a traveling guy, you know, like when you go, say you go meet Trent somewhere, Um, like are you just relying on Trent to kind of put you on the elk or are you going are you do you have some input in there? You know what I mean, and how are you how are you going about going? This is where elk will be in this area. So we couldn't have a basic idea where you're gonna find elk, you know, the kind of likely places you're gonna find out. Um Like, say you're hunting out of day. Let's say I've never been to this spot before, so you know before before I go. This is what I do. Trent and Cody and those guys, they don't do a whole ton um EA scouting. They do it a little bit, you know, kind of make sure they know where the boundaries are in access points to get into where they want to hunt. But I typically dive in and do a lot of EA scouting with with Google Earth. So I'll go through the area that I want to hunt and look look on Google Earth because you can. You can you can change the turing features. You can exaggerate them a little bit to try to get them to be where they're more more realistic. If you just get on their Google Earth and never adjust anything, then you look at it on on the computer screen and be like, oh yeah, that looks pretty I can hunt that. And you get there and the place looks completely different. It's usually a lot steeper, more rugged. So I'll change that. Now, go turn and'll make weight points all over you know where I see you know, ponds or a or a wallow. You can from Google Earth if if you've got a good resolution monitor, a lot of times you can see you know, wallows, even trails through glades and stuff. And I'll put a little little pins all over my Google Earth area to where Okay, these are good points of interest. Then I can I can save those and I can export those as a KML file to my computer, and then I can upload those to base map. You can do this with on X two. But you you upload those two um base Map as a KML file, and all of a sudden you migrate all of your all of your way points and pins and everything, and even if you drew like little trails and stuff, it will migrate those right over to base map or on x that way, then that's for your desktop, but then it also updates to your phone. So it's awesome. So I find it's it's really nice to have both those tools to to uh to scout with so UM and then when we get there, you kind of tell to make your game plan A A through Z, Like, I want lots of backup plants because usually you get punched in the face a few times before you ever find an elk and uh so, and then it's a lot of times we don't get there early and scout before season begins. When we get there, it's just like all right, let's hit the ground running, and we're on a mission to find elking. And so we're covering tons of ground looking for trying to get a bolt of bugle, trying to get one to sound off. That way we can we can call them in. Now, there's a lot of different ways to hunt elk, and some guys will, you know, they'll go sit on those ponds or those water and holes or those wallows. Um. But we're kind of a running gun um type, kind of like guys running gun for turkeys, we're running gun for elk. You know, We're covering a lot of ground trying to find bowls that will be vocal and then we're gonna stop and slow down and hunt them. Yeah, man, And that's why I think it's it's cool that's you're relatable that way, because I mean, you take somebody from out east just coming over to elk hunt for the first time. I mean I tell everybody, like, hey, the first elk you get a chance to take a shot at and uh, for me, a lot of times that's bulls because I call a lot and uh, you know, I just don't see a lot of cows, which is it's kind of a strange anomaly. But either way, like, uh, is that the best way you think for like a guy coming from out east to to approach elk hunting is do the running gun thing and try to find a bull that wants to play the game. I don't know if it's the best way, but it's a very effective way. Um. And depending on your train, you know, some some places have enough broken terrain and some high points and you don't have a ton of timber to where maybe maybe that's not the best way. Maybe you want to get a big vantage point and sit and spend the first day or two their um glassing. You know, a lot of times the first day or two were or in the truck covering the unit. Figure out the road system. Okay, Um, you want to kind of figure out the lay of the land. Look at the road system. Look where there's a bunch of people camp. Look where there's not people camp. You know, you're trying to formulate this game plan in your head to be like, Okay, it looks good on the map you're scouting, looks good on the map. You show up your trailer. There's twenty seven horse trailers there, may or may not want to hunt there, you know what I mean. So if you can kind of dedicate a day or something of exploring the road system and then kind of dial it in from there, now you can maybe google from some vantage points, maybe hike out some ridges, Maybe there's some gated roads that you can hike out and just kind of check things out and just trying to find some elk or uh that are vocal or if it's like us talking earlier, if you have that those vantage points to where you can do some glass, you know, early morning, late evening glassing to just find find elk, then that's a very effective way to um. I know a lot of guys really depend on their glass. That really saves them a lot of a lot of boot leather or gas for that matter. You know, if you gotta getting any plan, Yeah, believe me, I don't glass a lot. And last year my feet really fell off, so I can I can see where that's the case. So all that glass and stuff, it's, like I said, it's not something I've done a whole lot of. When you find a bull in glass, like you can can you assume he's like in a I don't know a section of land and he's gonna kind of be in that same area as long as you don get bumped or like, how do you take that and turn it into a hunt? Yeah, let's say. Uh, let's say you're a daylight at first light and you spot a herd of elk across the valley, you know, a mile or two away, and you watch them and as the sun comes up, they move up into a timber pocket. As long as they're not disturbed, they should be you know, whether well, depending everywhere is different. Sometimes elk will we'll leave a feed area, like I've seen this before. We're they'll leave maybe let's say an agricultural spot and they'll climb the mountain four miles and go up over the top of the ridge and drop on it down onto a backside north slope to bed for the day. You know, they may have they may they may have that kind of a pattern. I've also seen where you can if you heard a bold bugle down over in the hill into this one little on one little knob, a week later, you may even hear him in the same exact spot. So it just kind of depends on on the elk you're hunt. And some of them travel a lot, some don't. But but if you can see where they're kind of going to to bed down, typically they'll be in that you know, half mile area or a mile depending on how far they're going to travel once they get into the timber and stuff. So um, so you could feasibly watch where they go, kind of watch them get out of sight, make your game plan, get over there, and they should be in that same area by that time you get over there. You might be able to get him the call to it. Yeah. I filmed a sheep hunt two years in a row a couple of years back, um with a guy that I know in British Columbia, and it was it was a weird deal for me because we glassed a lot um and then whenever we finally saw rams, uh, there were long ways away um and we didn't move on them, and like almost I didn't know when we were gonna move like I started figuring out, like don't we may not move on them for like days here? Um, So yeah, it was weird. It was like, you know, we were thinking about like, well, let's just see and we saw him in the morning, you know, and it was one of those things where they were gonna like I wasn't sure if we were gonna move on them that day or not, by by the way that the guide was talking and everything. So like, are you when you see an elk, like you said in the morning, um, heading a certain direction, Like at what point do you do? You go, Okay, I'm hopping off this vantage point. I hope he doesn't move anywhere. I mean, how long does that does that look? Like? In most situations, I guess yeah, I'm going the same morning. I'm not gonna wait for a couple of days. Um. Some play, you know, elk or weird regionally one place. You know, elk can be pretty predictable, almost patterned, patternable UM to an extent, and until something kind of disrupts their pattern, whether it's predators, whether it's other hunters, so public land elk n you can't you can't really depend on that, um because there's something's gonna disrupt their plan. Or let's say it's the rut and another mature bull comes into the area and wants to take over that herd. That herd may travel somewhere else, completely may drop, they may go up over the mountain into a different spot just to avoid confrontation, you know, just to defend his herd. Um. So, and then I've hunted elk that make these big circuits before. So day one on they're right here, you chase them around, hunt them here, and then in the night they move, move, move, move over into a different spot. And so there are a few miles away. And then the next day the game resumed somewhere else, and then the next day their games to resume somewhere else, and somewhere at some point they're gonna be back where you chased him the first day. If that makes me sense. Yeah, yeah, And it's it's weird, um. You know, like when we when I hunted Colorado with the born Rais guys here a couple of years ago. Then those elk didn't never seem to be in the same spot two days in a row. They were always on the move, making these big circuits. Um. And I think a lot of that had to do with hunting pressure. There was tons of people there everywhere, you know, don't and we had a hard time getting away. There were a few Texas, a lot of guys Wisconsin, you know, a cheeseheads, um, tons of Wisconsin guys in there, and just plays for all over the country. But um, but we were finally able to hike into some really rugged remote places and find some milk that hadn't really been messed with. But I was beginning to think that we may not find elk like that because there was there was people everywhere. So for guys coming from like out of eastern just on a first time the elk hunters, guys trying to learn a little bit more, would it be conducive to like look on the map? Okay, let me back up a little bit. Most of my elk hunting has been done in Colorado, uh, and a little bit in New Mexico. Uh. The Colorado stuff that I've hunted has all been just heavy timber, not really a lot of glassing opportunity. Um. Do you think that it's easier to hunt elk when you can glass them up and then no kind of where they're headed to bed? I think you know, you talked about the coloradol doing circuits. I think it's because there's so much thing habit at that they can kind of go where they please and feel pretty safe, you know what I mean. Yeah, Yeah, where we were at there was tons of you know, it was a lot of metal kill timber, a lot of forest fire, you know, burn up stuff. But there was like water everywhere. There were little ponds and creeks and marshes and swamps everywhere, so you couldn't say, well, the water is gonna hold these elk. There was the helk could go in any direction and have everything they needed. So um, yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. Yeah, it's a dang rainforest up there, you know, and I think it was uh we went like there wasn't a day it didn't rain. You know. It's and it's always those like surprise you showers. You're like, oh, everything's with Yeah, okay, So let's get down to the fun stuff. Are you've you've pin pointy of those elk you're moving on that morning? Uh, now we're getting down to uh your game and that's that's the calling stuff. So you know, you said that like the first experience you had you called in a bull, and I can't imagine that you knew a whole bunch of different varieties of calls. Right, So if if a guy UH is in that situation or wants to be in a situation at least, like, what do you think somebody should start learning how to do with elk calls when they're headed nail cutting? I think they should trying to really keep it simple um, as far as when they're trying to call in a bowl. UM, because it's easy to maybe overdo it or underdo it, but I usually let I'm I'm a big fan or a big proponent of listen to what the elks telling me. So I don't claim to speak. I'm not like Dr Doolittle. I can't speak to the animals. Really, I don't know what exactly they're saying. But what I can tell you is, UM, I can gauge the bowl's temperature. I can you know of how aggressive or how irritated he is? You know? UM? And I don't. I try to keep my my calls at the same level as his until something really changes. I don't. I don't want to swoop in there and start punching him in the face. I want to kind of talk to him on his on his level, um, equal to what his mood is, and then every now, every now and then, maybe try to move it up, move the knoch up just a little bit, um and let and let the temperature build slow. It seems like when I do, when I, especially if I have time to let them temperature build slow, they get they get to talking to you, and they get mad, and then they they get really mad and then they just they just come over. They want to fight. I've had it happened to where. Um. For instance, last year, Dusty, my camera guy, and I we got out of the truck, ripped a big Google gonna we're bugle to cross this river, thinking we're gonna hear a bold bogle on the other side. Both cracks off sixty yards below the truck. I'm like, oh, jeezus, trap, grab your stuff. So it was game on immediately. Well, we didn't have that time to um get him all riled up, you know what I mean. We didn't have that time to build it up. It was already kind of like right there in the face, and we got super close and it was really thick country, lots of these um new growth trees that were probably years old that had a lot of limbs, so I could see the bull he was when they arranged, But there's absolutely no shot through all those limbs. But I feel like if we had had that bowl and we started him from a greater distance and then kind of got him going and then worked up on him and then continued, you know, to to work him up, I think we'd had a better shot instead of just like surprise here, let's fight. You know, it seems like those that kind of instances don't really work out as good as the ones you can kind of build them up, because when you build it up, you're almost kind of taking control of the of the game. To you're you're like kind of pulling the strings a little bit more so than the bull is. If if you can do all right, you can kind of get him mad before he knows he's mad. He can't see it coming. Pretty soon, he gets mad once it come over and rip your ass instead of like, um, like wait a minute, you're trying to force this. I don't know. It's it's kind of this weird balancing act. So yeah, on that note, like to say, you do have a bull that's working. I'm assuming let's talk about like a non heard it might be a herd bull, but you know what I'm saying, a bullets not cowed up like it's just a bullet. You've got mad and he's out there, and you're out there, and you're both bugle, and you're both working each other. Um, how much ground do you want him to cover versus how much are you trying to push into him? Well, usually let's say, let's say this bulls anywhere from two, three, four or five dred yards. I want to cut that distance. I want to get to about a hundred yards of him before we want to escalate things. Um, there's a couple of different ways of doing it. I've I've done it both ways. I've called from the very first time I've heard him bugle, I'll call my way to him. The problem with that is a lot of times though, is Um, he can kind of hear you coming and he can kind of make up his mind what he wants to do. But if you get up pretty close to him, then you're like challenge him. So he's like, Hey, that bowl came all the way over here. Now you're putting. Now you're now you're calling to him some more. Now he has to decide what he's gonna do on a quicker note. Um, it almost sounds contradictory what I said before, but it is different somehow. But I want to get pretty close. That way, he doesn't have to cross the canyon and get sidetracked. He can just come right right over to me. So you know, a hundred hundred fifty yards is a good distance to to set up. How much are you cal calling in there too? I cal call quite a bit. Um. It kind of depends. Um. I usually feed feed him what they like if he's if he's biggling really good to the cal calls, I'm gonna give him a lot more cal calls. If he don't be a gole to cal calls, I I get that a lot here in Idaho. The bulls they do not answer a calcohol. So I'll do it every now and then just to reminding me as a reason to come over here and fight. Yeah, but if they're not being to calcols, then I stay a pretty bugle heavy. So then that's interesting because you know my experience in Colorado, it's kind of the inverse, Like I can I can get bulls to pop off from time to time, but it's always like the cal calls that actually end up bringing them in, it seems, you know, and it's just kind of straight. I don't know if it's pressure or what, but have you seen that, like from state to state that they will react differently? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, yeah regionally even here, you know and Idaho depend depending on where I'm hunting one spot, like they say, may not they may not even answer at calcohol. You drive a hundred miles and you're hunting in a different area and they love them. They love calcols. So I don't know why that is. I wish I did case You're a really good tag. Last year in New Mexico and we we spent day nine, um so actually yeah, we counted. We counted, uh, I counted in the in the video that we the edited video, there was like a hundred and seventy two bugles in the edited video. I mean like we we chased bugling bulls of all kinds. I mean it was literally like most of the day, probably three to four bulls were bugling around us at any time. Yeah, there was not a time when five minutes went by and there wasn't a bugle until three pm. Until three pm. It was insane, so but so and we were close a bunch of times. We saw a lot of elk um as we would like, you know, move in on them in this kind of thing. But like all those bulls in there, we saw a really nice bull that was probably in like the range and um, a bunch of rags um. And so like we're sitting there all day, we we we kind of get aggressive right off the bat. So we're like we're charging in. He's ripping bugles right back at him, cutting them off, you know, and this kind of thing. And we find that it's not working after you know, forty five minutes an hour or whatever. And so I mean we tried everything. We tried. Um, we tried just sneaking into the mix and then making a little cow calls. We tried weak bugles. What else did we try? I mean, we we tried anything we could think of one time just to see what would happened that didn't go good. Eather. It was. It was crazy, but like we were, we were just really baffled as to why, like nothing really would finish. I mean, we had a couple of bulls kind of work in real scared like, but never came within range or anything too much. Um, what do you I mean, have you ever encountered something like that where you just cannot figure out and and it's you're in the action, you can't figure out how to close the deal, um, and why they're not coming to you. I mean they essentially a lot of times we'd go into them and start calling and they would just take off, even even when we had caw call. It was like the cows were leading the bulls away or something. Wow. Yeah, one year I had a tag in Oregon and there were so many. I was an Oregan resident at the time, and it took me like three years to draw this tag. And there were so many elk there was There was a herd, no joke of about three, and there was probably fourteen, fourteen to twenty bulls in this heard at any given time, and one bull with bugle and then the rest of the one kind of sound off. And I bagled my brains out, and I figured out real quick that I meant nothing to those out. They could give two hoots if I was bigging, and I could call calcol to the cows came home. It didn't matter now, if I got away from that big group and got over it into like maybe a bull that had like fifteen cows. They were very responsive to a normal calling, but those bigger groups, it was I What I did is I finally would put the calls away and I would kind of I'd watch them from a distance and wait till they'd bed down. And this place was crazy, um Ponderosa Pine. You know, big open timber, you can see, no wonder brush, you can see for three yards almost. And what I would do is I'd wait till they all lay down and go to sleep, and then out belly crawl, you know, belly crawl for hundreds of yards, pettle close and then and there's cows everywhere. You know, they all they're all kiped over with their head land. There'd be bowls you can see with their heads tipped over their antlers, laying on the ground or laying on their side. It was the coolest thing. But you know, I'm trying to get the herd bowl and the man. Those herd bulls they would always bed right in the middle of the cows. And every time I'd get super close and okay, everything still sleep, Okay, I'm getting up and stand up. Okay the range finder okay, good, got a got an arrow knocked. I need ten more yards and I'd slip, but you know, get to ten yards closer. Okay, I'm there, double check my range finger and there'd be a cow cow I balling me and then cheat bark and they do all stand up and I couldn't treat the bull because they all stand up. It was covered up the run off. It's so frustrating, and it was it was super cool because I got to watch all sorts of really awesome behavior. Got to hurt here, the craziest ELK vocalizations that you never I've never heard before. Um, but man, I don't I wouldn't have traded that elk kint um or. I would have traded el khunt offer Idaho back country wolf infested hunt any day of the week because it seems like eating up an Idaho and then I'd have had better luck, you know, calling in and ELK. So it was tough. Yeah, it's kind of weird. You just kind of getting lost in the mix. That's how I felt that day. It's like you get to feeling kind of futile out there, like you're doing all the things that normally work and you're just like, well, I'm just another elk for these jokers. They don't care. It's a really strange thing. But like I said, it's fun. You learn a ton there. So, but that's not a scenario that a lot of people are going to encounter when they're hunting, right, Like, if you're talking about like a general unit OTC. You know you've hunted across the West, Like, what do you think is is a is a real expectation for people as far as like encounters go throughout the West. Um, well for the furs of the places I've hunted, I've never hunted the Southwest before, but I've hunted. You know, I had a home Montana, Washington and not Washington. I had a home Montana, Oregon, Um Wyoming. And I almost say a guy get for every ten ten bowls of guys here are ten different bowls a guy here's you might call one in. So you put that in perspective. If it's an area that's got quite a few elk, chances are you know, will have a few call in. If you don't have very many elk, you may only get one or two shots a year, you know, Or for the time you have off, so you kind of have to make the most of it when when you do finally get one in um and I think and just kind of speak to that situation you explained in New Mexico. I think that could be another reason why a lot of those hunters down there set water so much, because you know, it's just so hard to call them things in. I've never hunted down there. I've got a New Mexico tag this year, and yeah, Phelps and I and John Gabriel are going to go down and we're gonna we're gonna give her a shot. And I don't know. Uh. John, he filmed last year down there and said an open read cal call was like the pie piper's flute. Man, you blow that baby and they come running. So you'd rip a big bugle with your tube just to locate, and then you just close the day a gap and then you start honking on that open reading cal call and and it's like magic. So I'm I'm looking forward to to seeing how that really plays out, because I've heard that a lot before. Yeah, it sounds like fun, John. And then we're hunting a couple of units north of us, and yeah, that they definitely were getting on some bulls and some pretty kind of area type stuff. Man, that's you're gonna have fun down there. New Mexico is the real deal, dude. That's all I can say it is. It's a blast. So you know you're talking about call selection there a little bit like what should people be looking for? Like I said, they wanna they want to call ELK, Like what should somebody grab, you know, from from Phelps online store or their local box store or whatever to start messing around with and kind of get ready to go out west. So if you've never used an alcohol before, never like a diaphragm read, then I always say you might want to pick up two or three different ones. Um. As far as the Phelps line up, I always recommend the Black amper Red, the Gray amp Eating, the Maverick so And the reason I do is because all three of those are very different latex thickness and very different in their latex stretch. So you may lay love one and hate one or the others, or you might like kind of like all three, but there's one that really stands out. But you never can call. You never can't tell what person is gonna like what, Um, even even the lady colors. You know, you think, oh, you should probably have one of these, you know, with the lighter latex and you don't have to blow so hard. You know, lighter latex equals less air pressure. But she may grab one of the like the Maverick for instance. It's it's a heavy latex, tight stretch. It takes a lot of air pressure. She may blow that thing really well. So you just never know. UM. So that's why I always say, you know, you pick up two or three um and kind of kind of experiment there. UM. A lot of times, guys, I hear this a lot. You know, my my hunting partner recommended I should use this certain diaphragm because that's the one he uses. And I tried it and I just couldn't do No, I can't do it. I guess I can't call out. But a lot of times, you know, um, you know, not all calls are built the same, you know, from for within our own line. It helps versus you know, manufacturer different manufacturers have you know, there's a lot of differences. So if a guy is really serious about it and not it's scared to throw a little money around, you might start out with two or three and then kind of sample a little bit of this, and you may have to sample a two or three different brands, and you might even just find the one that works great for you, because everybody's palates a little bit different shape and everybody's tongue pressure is different. Uh. I do these elk shaped camps with Dan Staton, and he teaches a lot of fitness and and a lot of you know, elk tactics, and I teach the fallowing aspect of it. And I'd say, and then I go to a lot of trade shows. I'd say at least one or two two glad of ten they have the shape of their palletis so narrow they it's like physically impossible to even make a make a noise. So so a lot of these guys, you know, they're getting frustrated because, um, they think they just can't do it, or if they experiment, they find the right one, or maybe maybe they just have a palette that's just too narrow and they have to try to find an external google that will work. But yeah, there's there's options out there. So you can't get frustrated, you can't give up. You just gotta kind of see it through and like, no, I'm gonna get this and and there's there's ways if you want to learn how to call it out, you can definitely do it. Yeah, yeah for sure. And uh, you know, like you said, if you want to throw a little money around, We're not talking about like sixty bucks. It's like eight or nine bucks pretty much, or ten or twelve depending on what what call you get for differens, Like you get a couple of them, you know, you you know, skip skip going out to eat one time that we can you can afford, you know, getting a couple of dims to mess around with. And I'm one of those weird palette people. I think, Um, not that I'm narrow, but man, I've tried all the dome palettes out there, and just like a straight flat um whatever, I don't know what you call it, but you know the little ridge. The hard thing about Yeah, the flat frame. Yeah, flat frame is that like the only thing that I can really feel good about. Everything else just wobbles around up on top of my my palette. I can't. I can never make it sit solid. I don't know if if I don't really know what I'm doing, or if it's just the way my mountain mouth is built. But yeah, I kind of probably have a shallow palette. Huh shallot shallow yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen that a lot a lot before too. You know, a lot of guys, you know, they have a shallow palette and they just can't use those dome calls and you just don't fit right. And you know, those those flat those flats were great. They're a little more finicky though. I think you have to take a lot more practice. You know, you get pretty good. We'll see. It's funny you say that, but like with me because I have that situation, they're not as finicky. The don't really well because the dolt one because it moves around so much. That's what seems finnicky to me, you know. So like I don't know, I live it in the world, but I don't know any difference, you know, so that one seems seemed really easy. So I don't know, it makes perfect sense. Actually, every once in a while, I do every once in a while there cool man. Well, um, okay, two things. What would be like your number one piece of advice for somebody coming out and elk hunting for the first time or at least want to elevate their game somewhat. Um, first time elk hunters, I would say, don't don't let um let me just put it for it this way. So everybody has kind of like this a little dream in their head while el hunting is um and maybe that's hiking ten mill ten miles to the wilderness with your pack on your back. That's pretty romantic. It's pretty sexy to think about that. Um. You know, they see it a lot on YouTube and UM, but that's like that's like level ten difficulty of l cutting, right, that's like that's the hardest. That's super hard. Uh. Yeah, we did last year. It was it was not like there was there was fun parts of that hunt, but the pack part is not the fun part. There's no fun, sir, No, No, it's tough. Um. And a lot of guys see you know a lot of YouTube stuff, you know, unless they watched us on Born and Raising. But we've been doing this a long time Worst season vets, you know, we've kind of seen the trials and tribulations of l cutting and and then we may look at make it look a little bit easy, but there's a lot of grind in there. For us even I mean, you know, we turn off the camera and get a gridded out, you know, through the hard parts of the hunt. But um, I would say, you know, try to set yourself up for excess. Maybe your first few hunts aren't those wilderness type hunts. Maybe they're a little more of the front country, a little more gentle country. Um. Maybe you know, you're gonna have a little more people to contend with, maybe a t V s and stuff. Um, but it's a lot easier, or it's a lot it's a lot harder to bite off more than you can chew in that kind of country. You know what I'm saying. If you're not, if maybe your woodsmanship you don't you just don't know nothing about the mountains. You come from from Texas and it's flat as a pancake, and you come out here and it's like, oh my god, Like where I live. I live in the front country, and I still think you Texans be like, oh my God, what do I do here? You know, it's there's lots of canyons and hills and you know, the foothills and it's pretty mountainous. Um, plenty of adventure for for for a new elk hunter. So you know, set your sights on on places maybe that you wouldn't maybe become getting a really dangerous situation, like in the back in the actual wilderness. And then also do your research figure out where the higher concentrations of elk car because if you're going to a place that doesn't have a high concentration elk, let's say North Idaho, not a lot of elk up here. They're kind of few and far be string between. We'll find an elk is gonna be your hardest, your hardest aspect, you can't glass them up. You have to you have to hear them. I know, I've talked to lots and lots of non resident guys. They will spend ten days here not seeing elk or see very little elk sign. So maybe with that in mind, you're you maybe don't want to go to level ten on trying to find out and you want to kind of go to level five, go to a place. You know, all the fishing game websites, if you dig deep enough, there's there's a ton of information there to where eventually you can find out the units that are actually meeting their objectives. They're they're bold a cow ratio objectives and their population objectives. If you can hunt that up and find out where that is. You know, there's units in Idaho they're shooting the excess surplus elk during the summer, and there's other places in Idaho where elk are almost extinct, you know what I mean. So if it sucks to go, if you're a nonresident, you're gonna go to the place where they're almost extinct because you didn't do your homework. And then you you just wasted a lot of money to you know, take lots of selfies and pretty bowhids. It'll be a frustrating and you may say, heck with this elk hin, I'm never doing it again. It was fun, but we didn't see no elk. So and then also, you know the kind of terrain. Let's say, let's say you're you're still pretty new a calling, you're not super confident with it. But if you're hunting an area that's not super timbered, you can spot out and you can glossom from to three miles away. Well there again, finding elk. That's that's half the battle, if not more of the battle of just finding elk. So if you can spot them, things sort of glass long ways away and then make your moves and then and then put the hunt on them. Now you're interacting with Helk, you're messing up, you're doing things right, you're doing things wrong. But if you can never have any Elk encounters, you don't know if you're doing it right or if you're doing it wrong. Right, you see what I'm saying. Yeah, for sure, So I would definitely set myself up for success in those kind of regards. Yeah, that kind of brings a question to my mind here. Um, you know, for me, like when you were talking about this in the beginning kind of the running gun aspect of what you guys do a lot um and you from what I understanding for what I've seen with you guys, is that you pretty much truck camp most of the time and so um, you know, it feels like that you're getting into ELK pretty close. You're not you know, doing those five mile marches back in you know, And I know you can make pretty good loops if you take an entire day and make make a day out of it. But I mean, and people say this that you always hear you read these articles about well right next to the road, you know, if you find the right spot, or if it's hard to get into, if it's steep, if it's nasty, whatever, But like on average, what what what what's the distance from from the road or from the truck that you guys are getting into Elk usually, um kind of depends so on what stadium hunting Colorado. That was a backpack hunt. So we packed her back, are packed her bag, our camp on her back. We all day long. So we Bibby hunted, right. So I think at the furthest point we were from the truck. We were probably about twelve miles. That was probably the furthest place we can and that it was rugged. We actually we climbed up over the peak. It was like eleven thousand feet. For their super fan is like, oh my god, that was I think that was on Born and Rai's line of the three two point oh and uh it was. It was extremely difficult. Um. And then once we got into this little remote canyon we were into Elk, we hunted, but had we shot one there? Okay, now you're you're ten twelve miles from the truck. We had how many guys? We had four of us, so we would have probably tried that one trip that out, So each one of us would have probably carried fifty to sixty pounds of meat plus plus our pack, which are packs before we had meat in them, you know, when we had full food, full water. I think Cody Killums was about thirty six pounds. Mine was forty two to forty six, depending on how much water I had in there. I'm not sure what Phelps was packing, but um, so we probably would have shed some gear. You know, we'd have been dumping the mountain house meals in the fire or something of packing out the rappers and some way eating eating some steaks and but so then you're you're one trip and now you know, close to a hundred pounds of meat. Dude, that's a grind. And I I've hunted with guys that are super fit, and I've hunted with myself, and I'm kind of fat, and even if even the super fit guys get worn down, you know, so especially carrying those kind of loads, So you know, you have to you have to understand what your limitations are physically and kind of hunt within those meats. Now, let's say you can only hunt, you can only pack pack meat. I mean, I'm not saying, you have to carry a hundred pound load. Um, carry as much as you can, but you just have to make trips. So if you're only hunting a mile or two from the road, that's me. That's feasible too. I've killed lots of elk within a mile or or two from the truck. Um. And if you can carry forty pounds, well, you know, a bowl boned out, you're looking at two mmt boned out. The biggest bowl that you're ever gonna see, or anybody ever that you're anybody you're ever gonna know is gonna have three d pounds of boned out me as far as like a rocky mountain. Now, I can't speak to a Roosevelt, but Trent says, there, you know, two thousand pounds. I'm pretty sure he's full of Ye, he's a little smoke up. But they're personality. Yeah, they're a little bigger. But um, but so you have to kind of understand that and factor that in. Well, what can I do you know? Um, can you find out close to the road you're bad? Um. So there's some of these back country places. You know, guys are packing in way deep in the wilderness with pack strings. You know, let's say they're in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. They're going in twenty miles. Those guys ride their horses right by all kinds of elk. But they're not they're not just they're not just after, they're after the adventure. Um, so then they get killed and they don't have to fack anything out because grizzlies everywhere right exactly. But but there, you know, there's there's elk and places for everybody. You know, even in that kind of the front country, it's a little easier to hunt. You know. Um, let's say guys old or let's say a guy has an injury. I say a guy too. I mean girls like to hunt too. But uh, there's there's hunts no matter what you what level of ability or physical capability, there's there's elk khunts out there that a guy can do. Um, you just have to do it and just have to jump, just jump in with both feets say I'm gonna do this. Yeah yeah, man, That's what we tell people all the time. You know, like guys like man, it's a dream to go on elk hunts like you do it? What are you waiting on? Like now you know, I uh understand it is a financial commitment to do the thing. Um and a lot of people you know are living to where they only have, you know, maybe a one week vacation that can go on a hunting trip. And I get that, but like if you if something's a dream, make it happen, you know, like it's not hard to not go in Mexican food seven times this year and save up enough money to buy oktay, Like it's the thing you can do. Absolutely. You know, people you know, we've all worked with the guy that says, well, it must be nice, right, yeah, must be not should be able to hunt out of state? You know, I work with guys who used to say that, And uh, I'm thinking, okay, let's get out your calculator. Yeah, what's a case of beer cost? Yeah? What's what's eating? How much does it cost to eat of the casa? Yeah? How yeah, exactly right? Okay. And these are the same guys that got a seventy tho dollar truck jack the kit they got four thousand dollars tires and wheels and lift kid on their tracks. Um, don't tell me how nice it is, because you know, I guess that's where your priorities are. And honestly, if a guy budgets you know, if you put a little bit of money away all year, it's easy to save up enough money for a nonresident tag all your gas money, you know, your provisions by good gear. I mean, you just have to be diligent and be like, yeah, I'm not gonna eat out or I'm gonna gonna spend my money on Copenhagen or cigarettes or whatever. You know, your vices, you know, that's that's that you know, you're you're investing in something that's it's important. And what's cool about ELK cutting is that all the advices that you all the vices that you cut out, are helping you prepare for an ELK com You cut the case of better a week and you're gonna be better equipped. You cut the tobacco, you're gonna better equipped. You cut all the eating. Now you're gonna better equipped, you know. So it's it's, uh, it's kind of self fulfilling once you make it happen. So it's it's yeah, it is. It's a cool thing, man. So well do you It's been pretty awesome talking to you, And uh, I just can't thank enough for like all the knowledge you you've been willing to share and whatnot. You know, you said this all You're going to New Mexico, Like what's the rest of it fall look like for you? Going to New Mexico? And then, uh, so I'm gonna kick off elk season in Idaho. I'm moving down h moving down to southern Idaho, and they probably trying to find something a little closer to hunt there because the typically hunt up north. So I'm I'm starting over new, new fresh, never set foot in some of these places, so, um so that's gonna be fun. It's spending all summer set in trail cameras at scouting. And then I drew a tag in Montana, so Trent Fisher, Trent Fisher and I we're going to Montana. So he's hunting a little different spot than I am. Here, You've got a different tag than me, So we're gonna hunt for him for a week and then go hunt for me for a week and then um yeah, so it should be awesome. I can't even hardly wait. And then and then we also trying to both drew the oldier tags for for I think they're just a deer tag. I think you shoot white tail or Immu only, but we're going to focus on Mulier. So we're gonna go back over into the same kind of country he had a tag for last year and uh go Mulder hunt in November, So that's gonna be. That's gonna be a blast. Man. That's cool. A little something besides the Ok. Yeah, you get a call to those guys too. Yeah, yeah, I'll bugle at themalll see what happened that Man's some reason they ran well, you know there was the tactic, right, they hunt those on drive, so you just get the head of the canyon bugle and then dropping pastry work. Yeah, there you go. That's we're gonna that's what we're gonna do. Write that down. Yeah, that was How was the shoulder feeling, man, I know you kind of had an injury last season. Yeah, it's good. It's actually uh real good. Um. I was telling somebody, I've kind of lost my my old man strength, you know, that's kind of thing. I've always been pretty strong, um, and then this man, this has really taken out of me, you know, especially doing all this moving picking up everything. Like, man, I just don't have the strength I used to, so working on building my strength back. Um, I can shoot my bone now. I gotta set a fifty five pounds, Um, no problem pulling it back and it's no no pain at all. I can actually draw. I have. I have two bows, my hunting bows set at seventy, so that's my goal. And I can pull it back and shoot it at seventy. But that's that's a stretch. So I gotta work. I gotta work up to that, um this summer. But I don't see any any problem doing that. It's just gonna be, you know, lots of reps. Yeah, it's good. You were doing mouth tab this year, weren't you. Didn't you kill a bol with a mouth tab? Is there on? Yeah? Yeah? Because I hurt my shoulder there September four, So I had to go home and I sat around my underwear for about a week, everything crying in my ice cream and the sad songs on the radio. I finally come home after like four days in a row. I was sitting on my stilling my underwear, and Jesus like, all right, get off the couch and do something. This is pathetic. So I she didn't know this, but in my mind. I'd kind of been thinking about the whole mouth tab thing because I hadn't heard about it, you know, like Larry Jones, you know, Iconic el counter, he had he shot one, you know, for I don't know more than more than once. It seems like and Dwight. I think the Old White Shoe even done it. But I didn't know anything about it. So I started doing some research on on YouTube, watch some videos and called my guy at the local pro shop and he's like, yeah, man, figure out how they do it, and come bring them videos down here and we'll rig up your bow. And once we figured it out, it wasn't wasn't bad. It took a little, you know, we I spent most of the afternoon they're getting the adjustments right, because you know, your draw links got to be a pretty it's it's it's way different, you know, setting the draw link out tab. But but once we got or dialed in, it was actually really accurate. And after a couple of days of practice and I felt like, oh yeah, these utprint trouble there is that yards I was deadly forty. My my group's got a little bigger, so um, I figured I'd keep it at thirty and under and maybe forty for a follow up shot if I needed it. But oh man, it was it was good. I think I think anybody could do it. You know, anybody had to maybe have a disability or just an injury. You know, it could definitely do a mouth tab unless you had false teeth. Now that might be sure. How that would work? Yeah, well, man, with the way you call, I mean, there's no just top pen them every time. I don't know, so you get to go, well, cool, dude. If we if people want to find out more about you, what you got going on, or follow you this season, where should we send them? Uh, you can always find me on Instagram, Facebook, Thunder, the Bugle Alert one word um. And then I had my YouTube channel it's the bug Alert as well, and I got lots of old videos on there, and uh, we'll have more videos coming up this summer and definitely this this fall. After hunting season. We're I got my camera guy Dusty. He'll be following me around so should be pretty awesome. We'll be able to share some really cool content with you guys. Cool sounds good, brother, Well, we appreciate it, and uh, good luck this season. Man. I hope you just smoke him. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me on. It's your thing, brother, Now that with some killer info, don't forget to subscribe in a five star review means a ton to us. Remember it. This is your element living in se

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