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 helpful, pop that subscribe button and go check out our Elk Hunting playlist on YouTube. Now let's rock and roll all right Today on the show, guys, we have got Chris Row of Row Hunting Resources. Chris, what is happening in your world? Man? Everything all at once? How about perfect? Do you spend time? I'm getting on a tractor today, maybe on a train? Did you fly on an airplane? All the stuff? Right? Oh? Godly, I mean we're in the middle of summer, so I'm still trying to juggle all my my white tail habitat, food, plot stuff, maintenance management, just getting ready for getting all the fall plot stuff in. But Meanwhile, just going absolutely falls the walls on the elk stuff right now for the website. So it's it's crazy. Yeah, pretty cool man. And I think earlier in the summer, Rotten snacked that middle of COVID stuff. We had you on for an Instagram thing and that was freaking a blast. So yeah, this is gonna be good stuff too, man. And uh, you know, I followed you for a long time. I really appreciate like how much knowledge you have about elk in particular and then white tail turkeys all that stuff. Uh. We actually had Jay Scott on the podcast recently, and uh, that's kind of where I found about out about you was from Jay, because you do some really good stuff with him. Um. But one of the things that I really appreciate about you is that, um, well, let me ask you this, how familiar to you with high school football? Do you know much about high school football? Chris? You know what I know very little about other than it's football. Okay, that's about That's about where it is, all right. Well, in Texas, high school football is a big deal, right, and I think you'll probably able to appreciate this. But um, on football teams, there are certain guys who just play a position and they learned that position and they're good at that position. And then whoever, once in a generation you get a guy who can play all twenty two spots on the field and make plays no matter where he's at. You are that guy of the elk hunning woods. I'm gonna say it right now. How do you feel about that? Well? You know, you know what they say about the guy of the jack of all trade, you end up being the master of none. So I don't know. I mean, I like that, I can I can juggle a little bit, and I think I've got to preach full toolbox. But uh, I don't know. We'll see how this year plays out. Yeah, I hear you. So my last name is Smith, which I always tell people, you know, you hear about blacksmiths, goldsmiths, all that. I'm just a smith. So that means we weren't ever good at anything, but we worked a lot, so that's why we named Smith. There you go, there you go, there you go. Yeah, So you are um a biologist by trade? Is that correct? Yes? Yes? And did you start out specializing in ilk or how did how did you get your how did you cut your teeth in biology world, all right, So yeah, I was always fascinated by animal behavior. Well, my grandfather was a game warden in Upstate New York, and so and then my uh family, my aunts and uncles and stuff. Everybody hunted. So between him, my grandfather getting me into hunting and fishing, fly fishing, and then his work in wildlife and then me growing up hunting, I just loved hunting. Well, then when I started turkey hunting and then really started getting into deer hunting, I realized, man, you know, I can call these animals, and I can I can you know, whether it's turkeys or the you know, rattlebox or whatever. I was like, man, this this behavior stuff is pretty darn cool. And the vocalization stuff is pretty darning cool. So I was always passionate about that. Well, so fast forward, get I go to schools, become a wildife biologists. Yeah, by several areas across the United They go to the military for a while, come back, finish up my degree at Colorado State. You end up at Colorado State University to finish everything up. And while I'm there, um get a summer job on the Upper Eagle River elk study, which is in the middle of Colorado White River National Forest, so it's just public ground and from a hunting standpoint, it's it's just an over the count At the time, it was an over the counter unit, so it's an area that anybody could go into and anybody could hunt. But the study looked at a bunch of different things surrounding human disturbance and cast cow ratios whether or not human disturbance would negatively affect chaft ratios the summer range. And so our job was to go around and we had cows cow elk that or radio collar and ear college. Where we go around it. We've either booger ram is to spook them and what we call it a treatment effect um and put some disturbance on them right after they get so about mid May to mid June, while they're in the middle of the calving, we go out there and disturbed ever love and Vejeva's out of them. And then we'd come back when the calves of the cows and calves were up further on their summer range in the big herds. So we've spend the rest of the summer up just camped up above some of these large cow calf groups hundred two hundred, three hundred head of cows and calves, and we just sit there all day behind the spotty so and just sit there and watch and record what cow had, what calf, did she nurse, blah blah blah, that kind of deal. And so I ended up doing that. I think it was like four or five five. I think it was five years in a row. And then so you just can't that at that time. That's just when it just sealed the deal, because you can't spend that much time watching. I mean you're literally a hundred two hundred yards from elk, just all day long, all summer long, listening and watching and listening and watching and watching and listening and listening and watching, and you're like, yeah, this this is gonna work. This is what I want to do. And so yeah, so that's where my elk passion kick again. But then when we started our business, I've always used animal behavior in I've always been passionate about it because if I can understand behavior, I am more able to tailor my management prescriptions on the landscape so that way animals want to do what I want them to do, whether it's I want to trap them, whether I want to see them whether I want them to travel in a certain way regard no matter what I want to do as far as a management prescription, if I can tailor where dove tails into their natural behavior, then they're more likely to do what I want them to do, and my projects are more of a success. And so that's where just my passion for behavior has gone and continued over the years. Yeah. That's awesome. And so is your wife of bologists as well. Correct. Yeah, yeah, so we've we met at t s U got married soon after we graduated. Uh, she's actually she's out on a project right now. But she also went and got her law degree, so she's an attorney and a wildlife biologists. Yeah, so you you talk about me. Yeah, I'm one of these guys. I'm a typically right. I I do one thing at a time. I don't want multitas very well. Yeah, my wife has got like five things going and they're all high level stuff and if if there's one done, she she'll picked up another one just because you need to have about five things going at one She's incredible. Yeah, yeah, that's all. My wife's an incredible person too. And so it's Tyler's wife I'll go ahead and give her credit for sure. But my wife actually has her degree, her master's degree from Northern Colorado in uh applied behavior analytics on the human side of stuff. So really, yeah, once you start talking about behavior, it's kind of clicked. I was like, you know what, I'm not hard to ask her some stuff because yeah, yeah, you know, she does that every day for a living with with special needs children. So I'm like, hmm, I wonder, oh yeah, I would. I would like, oh yeah, I could talk with her because I've always said that if if I did not go into the field of wildlife biology, I would have gone into clinical psychology at things. Oh yeah, that's what her her undergrad's in. Yeah. Yeah, n interesting stuff man, for sure. So yeah, um, we'll probably get her on the podcast some point in time and just make sure all your theories are correct. But anyway, I think it's cool that you've got to spend so much time around Elk and uh, you know, I'm sure you can go on for hours and hours about all the cool things you saw and whatnot, but this here is a hunting podcast, and the summertime stuff is very cool, and I understand the appreciation and the knowledge you can gain from being around animals all year long, but we're trying to shoot them specifically in the month of September, so correct, we need to talk a little bit about that side of the biology of ILK. And I think that there is a litany of questions that we could go down, and I'm sure that you already know all the standard ones and whatever. Now, the way we're approaching this is as um you know, it's a podcast to help people kind of take the next step into ELK cunting, So everything from a one on one to a high level class, right, But I think one of the big things that people like to talk about and would really like to know is the triggering of the rut. What is that all about in an elks biology? Okay, it's very similar to white tails or turkeys or anything else. It's gonna be photo period is what regulates that hormone cycling on soles on both cows and bulls, and so you know there, Okay, there's a lot layers to this one we're talking. Sam told Tyler beforehand, I was like, we're only gonna have to ask Chris like three questions because that dude can talk. So let you when you when you ask a question that's a twenty thousand foot deep, Well, we're gonna have to go to the bottom of it. No, So you joked in the beginning that you know you had you know, you hadn't subscribed yet. The website, Well, one of the things that you'll find in the website is I've got a was an eight part series on your seven or eight parts Shige called Rethinking the Rut, and we talk and there I talked about the fact that yes, photo period drives the hormone cycling, but there's a lot of other things that are going to influence when that cow cycle. So yes, you're gonna have the test dosterone cycling and bulls, and you're gonna have estrogen cycling and cow. Now, the testosterone cycling and bulls really plays into yeah, you know, obviously they need to develop sperm to reproduce. That's that's fine, But the test afterone cycling in bulls really ends up ramping them up for territorial stuff and and all that time and dominance interactions and petting orders and and all that um dominance. You know that type se with a cow, it's going to regulate when she comes into esther's and that is going to be what triggers the quote unquote. Okay, that's the thing when somebody says, what sugar is the rut. It's just like when we're talking with white tails. You hear people all the time will argue whether moon affects rut or whatever and what where you end up. What you end up realizing is that you get in an argument because people are talking about two different things. Some people that are some people define the ruts as actual physical breeding, when copulation is occurring, that's when it when it starts and went it in. That's that's the rut. There are other people that define the ruts as just the general behavior around that, so they include the pre rut, the rut, and the post run as well. That's just the rut. Okay, we've got to define what we're talking about. Are if we're talking about cycling, the reproductive cycling of females, then yes, that's driven largely mostly by photo period. However, her body condition is going to play into it. Whether she's got a calf at her side is gonna play into it, whether she's been bonding, whether the cows is gonna play in it. Whether or not there's a mature bull in her presence is gonna be a factor. And how long that bull has been in her presence has been a factor. So there are a bunch of different factors that can influence the exact timing of when she cycles, but it's primarily the broad strokes are driven by photo period daylight versus dark, and then that drives bull activity. Right, Because here's the thing is that, Um, I've looked at things a lot like you do there, but I don't put them quite so eloquently. I I've always thought that people, especially like in the white toil world, perceive the rut as perceived deer activity. You know what you can see that's the rut. Well, actually, if you want to really break down, you know, and talk biologically, the rut last five seconds if if you're talking copulation, right, So, like, what are you really gonna call it? Either that or at the very minimum, what is it? Let's just use a ballpark figure of what twenty four hours while the dough or the cow is willing to stand and receive the bull, you know what I mean? Yeah, call sometimes called standing instrus right there? You there? Yeah? Yes, And and then then you got a lockdown period in front of that or behind it sometimes too, and it gets real complicated, right, But as hunters, um we're trying to uh usually at least take an arrow and put it through one of the antlered critters. So we're trying to figure out how to work with their behavior to do that. So it's good to know what is going on with the cows, But how do the bulls react to that? Is it is it really a um photo period thing for them too? Or they smelling instrus And that's what ramps things up because uh, I haven't spent a lot of time in the early season elk woods. We usually try to go you know, mid to late September. But you hear a lot of guys talk about like this early period of bugling and then there's like a lull and then there's the true you know, mid to late September what we think of as the elk rut. What do you think about that? Yeah, no, no, it's it depends on where you are, It depends on the herd dynamics of the the area that you're in, and it depends just like white tails, it all depends on you know, age structure. Do you have a mix of mature animal mature males and subordinate younger males in the mix, or is the population primarily of unch youngsters or what I see in a lot of places, especially in UH states that have you know, whether you're talking to Oregon, whether we're talking to Colorado. In a lot of unit that get heavy hunting pressure, what you end up with is a really even age of your bulls, you know, plus or minus one or two years, but I mean a large percentage of the bulls are all a younger age class, and they're all the same age class, which means they have the same rough body side and they have the same amount of potential dominant status. So you end up having this situation where maybe you don't have as much UH conflict going on across the landscape. But yes, it's very similar to white tails. You will have that what let's just call it a pre rut. Let's define the rut is when the first cow stands to you know, she comes in, she cycles into esters and she's got a standing standing asters she's ready to receive a mail. So um prior to that, you will have a period where the bulls are bugling and they're they're out there primarily more interested in one another. They're not they're definitely interested in cows, but they're more interested in what other bulls are on the landscape. They're trying to figure out their packing order. They're trying to get that at steps, not not any different than what the white tails are doing. They're figuring out their precking order before the rut kicks in. Then you have that that faith and if well, it can coincide with this where you have that free rut group move, free rut move where a lot of if if we're talking about older age class animals, a lot of those older age class bulls are going to be off bachelor groups by themselves smart white tails. As the rut, as the testosterone cycles, as we start getting closer, when those cows are gonna cycle in, that's when those bulls will make that move to those cow calf groups. That's when they figure out their packing order, who's doing what, who's going to wear whatever. Meanwhile, the cows are starting to ramp up their estrogen cycle, they're getting a little testy, achieved with each other, and that's when they start to break up. They start pick that they don't choose a bowl. They're like, yeah, I like him, I'm gonna go with him, and they'll just want they'll start to fragment and break up, and that's how you end up get your harems. And there can be there can be a period in there, depending on when that pre run activity occurs. There can be a period there where there's just not a lot going on. Everybody's scattered, there's no reproduction going on, so there's not a lot of interactions, so there may be not a lot of vocalization. Especially we're talking about heavily hunted public you know, public land units where there's human activity on the landscape. They can absolutely go off and just find a little hole in the side of the mountain and they just kind of seemed to vanish for a week, ten dates or whatever. And then as soon as those cows start to cycle, that when you can start hearing that bugling activity picking back up again. So so there's a lot there. I think that if you take if you if you were so, okay, I'm gonna think about this from a hunting perspective the whole time love wildlife biology. I wanted to be one, but the school that I went to didn't have the degree, um, but as a guy who's never killed an elk, that that's something I'm thinking about in this podcast. So for me, I think about all the things you just said, all of the different variables, um, And my question that first comes to my mind is how do you show up on the mountain at any time in September and figure out what the elk? You know, where the elk are at in that whole process of the rut essentially, or what might not be the rut. Okay, So before I answer that question, honest and truly to everyone listening here, did you ask me that? Did you set that question up? Did we talk about that question prior to you just uttering that out of your mouth? No? Okay, awesome, because I just I literally just got done talking with us. I'm in some other videos and this this and I'm sorry, I'm just going this is I'm just going to give a shameless plug. This is what separate this is what separates me from almost every single other person out there talking about that. You the high school football starf if you, okay, if you truly want the answer to that question, then you're going to do exactly what I do. Completely disregard the the ruck, completely disregard testosterone, completely, disregard estrogen, completely, disregard hormone cycling on those animals, and you go to the animal was that. I'm glad you threw the animals parting there because I was like, hold on it, you know, I don't know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm dead serious. This is that the reason why I spent so much time. So yeah, I looked at all that stuff when I was doing on the elk study. I was in the summer. But then I go up, you know, in the off season, up to the national parks or i'd go you know, into some of the open space areas in Colorado where elk are habituated to human presence. And we were talking about this before week we kick things off. So the beautiful thing about going and watching elk in places like say Rocky Mountain National Park or Yellowstone or um anywhere else elk have become habituated to humans. Suddenly humans are irrelevant. So what you get to watch is their base behavior. Their behavior is not affected by the human presence. Where it is usually in places that we hunt. So we go to a place that we hunt and we show up our presence on the landcape is going to alter their behavior, and so it throws a wild card into it. But if we go and we look at other places where human presence is not a factor, then what we can do is we can start to tease out what is base level behavior, What are base level communication, what is base level vocalizations? What are they doing three hundred and thirty five days out of the year that by default they're gonna do in the other thirty days of the year. The problem with everybody just showing up in September and going on the landscape and evaluating, you know, trying to learn to call in September and evaluating what's happening in September and learning from stuff from September, the problem is is you always have testosterone in the next you always have estrogen cycle. And that's just a wild cards you're gonna throw in there. Let alone, all the changes that you're gonna have with bold cow ratios, age class structure, weather patterns, human disturbance, you know, moisture cycling, all of these other things are gonna be a wild card of the landscape that you're not gonna be able to heed out why in the hell, would we want to go in there and try to die to the deep end on stuff that we I always Okay, if you can, if you can go straight to their fundamental base level behavior, you at least have solid footing from you know, if we're talking calling, if we're if we're gonna go in and call and try to work an animal, at least you have solids footing on fundamental vocalizations that they use year round, so that you know, Okay, here's what I'm saying, and why generally speaking, you're gonna be using me that leans heavily on the cow vocalization side. But once you understand what that is, then you can build up from it rather than just like I said, just jumping in the deep end and then trying to figure out how to learn to swim afterwards. It's nice to go in the shallow and you kind of figure the things out before you get it over your head. Okay, established this right quick? Though? Are you stating that calling is the way to go in and and understanding out behavior and that's the way to kill an elk? Not necessary? Calling is just a tool. Yeah. I love to call, and I love to talk with animals, and I absolutely do. And quite honestly, you know, I've been blessed to draw some of the fig orange sheep tags and a mountain goat, and and I enjoyed those hunts, but not nearly as much as maybe a turkey hunt as my white taunts as my elk hunts white, because I can call, and I can interact with him, and I can play that my game. I can I can try to affect their behavior through their vocalizations, and it's just it's just fun that that intellectual chess match is what I get off on. So I am always going to try to call if I can. However, if there's a pool, it's coming in. I just literally talked about this on my podcast. A guy asked me a question about he's got a whole bunch of wallows. Okay, so if you go up and you scout, and you got a couple of wallows, and all of a sudden, you've got a wallow up up the side of the mountains and you put a game camera on it. Let's just say you're the guy. You're one of the guys that puts game cameras out, and there's a giant sick by stick that keeps coming to this wallow between three pm and five pm every single day for the last two weeks. And you're standing in the wallow, standing after wallow, checking your game camera, and it's two o'clock in the afternoon, and you look at the picture and yesterday, that boat was there at three o'clock. The day before, that boat was there at three o'clock, the day before that, it was at there at three thirty am. I gonna start calling at this moment. Hell no, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna just find a down wind side of that that that thinking wallow. I'm gonna take a hole, like a hole in the side of the mountains. I'm gonna sniper that sucker, My boy, I want to I want to take an elk hoome. So likewise, Dan Evans, dan Evans uh trophy taker. I mean, the guy has killed more big bulls than I know a lot of other people. And most of the time he's not calling. He goes into places where the bulls are screaming. He listens to him, He stalks in, watches what they're doing, figures out what their pattern is, figures out a way to get in, and he will sneak himself in there, and I mean when that vote presents a shot, he'll just sniper. Okay, calling is a tool. I love using that tool. But if you are in a situation where the tool is not needed leaving in the box, you know what I mean? What about if you're not confident in your usage of the tool, get better? But I mean, the thing is that here. Okay, this is where I will say, this is where the wild card of testosterone can be your friend, because yeah, there are certain vocalizations that they will use that Elk used, and they mean certain things. However, we have to understand to the mindset of a bull. When you're talking about a bull that wants to breed, it's just like all male animals more than merrier. Okay, it's it doesn't matter if I bred one cow. If I can breed you two cows, that's better. And if I can breed four, oh I'm happy. And if I can breed eight, giddea up, let's go. Whereas on the cow side, she does not care if all two hundred other cows on the landscape got bred. She needs getting right. It's a very selfish, uh individual focus on her part. She needs to breathe, so when you're looking at the interplay between the cows and the bulls, and you're and you're if you're focusing on bulls and in This absolutely makes sense, especially with younger age class animals because so much occurs. And I talked about this a lot to see you first series seconds now your third principle, and then the way l communicate, communicate, not dealing with safety talking about communications. They're a visual animal. Everything is the vast majority of everything is based off of visual communication body language. And so if an elk, say able is on the landscape in and around, but whether it's pre rot, peak of the rock or post rot, and he is interested in, say, cows sound, or he's take a step back, he's interested in finding a cow. Sometimes you're going to find that animal. It doesn't matter what you say. If you make a decent quality cows sound and he hears it and he's interested, then in some cases it is in his best interest to be the first individual mail on the seen so that he is the first one to make eye contact, He is the first bowl that she sees, and hopefully he can get some play before anybody else shows up. So, yes, can you grab yourself the primos, Hooshi Mama, and go off on the mountain and and push the little box. I mean I used to be a pro staffer for Preemos. I love Dreamos and the hoochie mamo is is an incredible call. Is used properly. It's just been abused, but it's an awesome call. Can you go up there and call elk in with that? Yes you can. The issue is the only and this is let's just say this. This is where we start getting maybe into your your football analogy. If you have only one tool in your toolbox and you or maybe maybe not football on analogy, but if you only have that one tool in your tool not really you're not really familiar with how to use it. Yes, you're gonna be able to get lucky on using it occasionally when you find the right job. It's the what separates the vast majority of successful hunters versus those those that are in there are intermittently successful or just lucky, is how deep is their knowledge and how much flexibility do they have on the landscape in different scenarios to adjust and move and and tailor what they need. So the more you know, the better off you are. But yet, if you go out there and you just want to start with the basics. Just get a mouth diagragm, get an open restyle, call, maybe a who'shi, MoMA, maybe you get yourself and vehicle to and you just want to learn the basics and go absolutely go. But the more time you spend understanding things, the better off you're gonna be when things show up on the landscape that you're like, wait a minute, that's a little weird. Okay, fine, now I know what's going on, roll with it, but just moved go okay. So that's like the transition I'm trying to make, and it's very difficult to make whenever elk season is short and you if you know, eight hundred miles away. But I started out on my elk hunting ventures because at least calling ventures because he used to be kind of a just a as a ambush top guy, but um with kind of the way that people portray it a lot where you just go out there and you hit these you know, level one bugles and just see if somebody will talk to you, and you go find him and you just do whatever it takes to get him to come in. And that has worked for me in the past, I've killed bulls that way. But I have a lot of hunts that hunt seven or eight days and I have my one opportunity and from there, from there my goal And I think kind of the way my brain has started to work, it's like, Okay, there are more elk in the woods than me stumbling into one every eight days. What do I need to do to make sure that I have more encounters? And therefore enter your idea of really understanding elk behavior? Right, yeah, yeah, keep going, keep going, keep going. So my my thoughts are is if instead of going out into the woods and just hitting the bugle tube for four hours in the morning, taking and at midday and hitting the bugles through four hours in the evening, instead, if I understood what elk we're doing, and I knew that I could go to this spot on the mountain and make this certain noise that you know, I have a sixty percent way. I want to know the statistic, but you know what I'm saying, like a much better chance of actually having an elk encounter. Those translate into dead bulls, right, And let's be frank, I'm OTC hunter most of the time. Most everybody is, unless you buy lnard tags every year, and um, you're pretty much looking for an illegal animal to shoot, right, So I'm trying to find more encounters means more meat that I get to take home. All right, then then this is again, Okay, this is where I DV from the vast majority of people out there talking about calling and honey out. Yes, you're absolutely right, there's no two ways about it. Um, And I don't mind naming names because I mean, I'm friends with these guys and I have exceptional amount of respect for him. Corey Jenkinson is a guy that that I first started with. There you go, yeah, yeah, And but here's the beautiful thing about Corey, Corey will and this is why I do have respect for Corey. He and I have a fundamentally different velocity on ELK calling. Calling, not the fundamentals and maybe hunting, but calling. And but Corey stays in his lane kind of just like I stay in my lane. And Corey is flat out that he will go across the landscape purposefully looking for the one bowl that wants to bugle and scream in his face. Okay, And what I have said, and you probably saw this on my YouTube video, I said, I've got a YouTube video that says, you know, mastering your elk calling? Does it really matter if you know what you're saying? And anybody can go to YouTube and watch it. It's also on my website. And the whole point behind that is, Okay, let's let's let's taught, let's think about let's talk about that a little bit. And my philosophy is all right, Corey's philosophy and a lot of other people's philosophy, but like to lean heavy on bugles. They are looking for the bull that wants to scream in their faith now jokingly kind of tongue in cheek. There's a lot of seriousness to this, but it's also there's some some caveats. But if you're going across the landscape looking for the bull that wants to scream at your face, you're looking for a particular bull that is, does it feel pressured by danger, who feels confident, who is um very eager, very energetic. You quite honestly, if I was, if I just wanted to be just utterly just brutal, you're kind of looking for an easy l because if you if you are finding a bull that just wants to bugle at you and bugle that you can kill that bull. I think if you, if you show me an l that wants to do wants to respond to a hunter in that way, I will challenge you. I could probably kill him a hundred times. And whether or not I even need to use a bugle, here's why. But let me before I go to wait, here's here's my blossom. I'm the guy, and I and I make the example of the Valley of the ten Bulls, and I think this is where you're going. There's a valley that has ten bulls. I would love to exactly exactly. Okay, we'll hold on a minute, because if you go with a lot of what you see on the board and rais in the and all the YouTube series that are out there, in the full draw film tour and all that, what you've got is a lot of guys that are going across that landscape. They're looking for the one bull that wants to play their game. They want a bugle. They want to find a bulloglants the bugle. So they're gonna move across the landscape until they find that bull that wants to bugle. Meanwhile, there are nine other bulls in that valley. That might not want a bugle. I My philosophy is I want to go into that valley and work every one of those goals. All tend of those bulls, however they need to be worked. If one wants to be screened it in his face, I will give it to him. However, if another one is just absolutely support maybe not to subortinate, he's that he's a lover, not a fighter, and he's been had his butt look eighteen million times and he's finally got himself one cow that wants to be with him, and he just is like, you know what, I'm gonna go over here on the mountain. I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. I'm gonna lay low, and I'm just gonna do my little thing and hope I can make it through season and can breathe this cow if I stumble on him. I want to be able to have the tools to kill that bowl, just like I would have the skills to kill a giant herd bull that's out there just screaming his head off. I want to be able to go in and kill all I want to work all ten of those bowls, however they need to be worked. That's where a that's again, this is where I go back to get rid of testoster, get rid of the testoster, and play to the bait. Play to the baits fundamental communication. So for me as a guy who doesn't have a ton of experience, I've been on a few elk hunts. Um. And when you go on a few O T C L hunts sometimes, um, you don't have a lot of encounters and so um. And also growing up in Texas, you know, I just I didn't grow up around elk in East Texas. So um, when I if I was to go out and and go into the mountains and go hunting, hey A going to elk hunt this year, it would be a struggle for me to have confidence as I walk around to think that I am within you know, two fifty yards of elk? And so how do I find that valley that has bulls in it? That's a jokey, that's right there that I mean seriously, Um, I'll tell you what because Marcus, have you heard of Mark Livesey? If you it's you stumble across the tree line academy. Okay, yeah, Okay, Mark, I don't work Mark, I I I had I've talked to him twice once on the phone twice. I don't know. He just save me a whole pile of time. Because his online scouting, of course, is incredible. It's absolutely incredible. He's got like fifty out. Yeah, my elk stuff is all behavior, vocalizations, communication and how to use that to kill an elk. His website in minds like fifty some hours. It's all video based. His this video based, and he's got like fifty some hours. It's all on the scouting. So first and foremost you got to dive in, not all over the counter units. You're created equal and g peak. If there was a magic bullet to find elk on on public ground, I'd be a millionaire. So quite honestly, I can't answer that question for you. It depends on where you want to hunt. It depends on what your abilities are, the type of hunt that you want. Are you wanting a backpack hunt? Are you wanting a camper hunt? Do you want to use a TV? Do you want to do it on your feet on horseback? Drop camp? It's all there's so many different experiences in so many different habitats, in so many different states, with so many different herd ratios and public planned pressure could dis racists. The thing is you have to spend time online. Not only going through maps and Google Earth and and on X and all the things things that that Mark talks about. You do need to spend some time in the off season talking to either go to you know, like uh, just a site like go hunt or some other place that has a lot of data, herd analysis, data from the agencies that they can cool all that together. GC. Okay, how many elk we have in this area? Okay, here's here's the here's the unit I'm looking at. And they're saying that elk population is such and such. Okay, it's got ten thousand elk and yeah, okay, what does that mean? Well, okay, we got ten thousand elk, but we also have ten thousand bow hunters. What the what? Okay, so you can have a bunch of elk in there, but if you've got a whole pile of hunters in there as well, uh, that's gonna throw a monkey wrenched the thing. And then like some units in Colorado, Um, I'm looking at a unit right now where I might actually be hunting this season. One unit is generally the winter range, and another unit is generally the summer range. Al right, guys, real quick, Chris is hard to get a word in edgeways because he's got so much good stuff to talk about. So we're just gonna stick us in here right now. Chris just mentioned on X, as you know, we're big believers in on X. And what helps so much with this app is that you can go and you can do your scouting, your map scoutting before you ever get there, to give yourself some confidence and know only you can go in these OTC units and find elk. And even on some of the states like Colorado, you can go in and click species button, like you can go in and click the elk button and it'll show you the range of elk in that particular unit. That way you can better adjust where you're headed this fall. Okay, So now whether or not the elk are in the area I want to hunt is going to be largely dependent on what part of September I go and hunt in there and what the weather is gonna do. So all of that data you have to just guy sept for yourself before the season starts to figure out, Okay, what are we looking at. Once you get comfortable with this is the area, and this is the this is the style of hunt, and this is the area I want to choose. And yes, I'm comfortable in in the realities of the number of alcant here and the age structure and the number of you know hunters that are in here. Then you start picking apart to have a tat looking for those you know again, Mark dived up. I'm telling you it's money well spent right now. Just go buy his course and just go dive into it because he's gonna talk about the benches and the aspects and the slopes and the buffer areas and the trails and how you interlate. Oh, he's awesome, He's got it. Awesome. Course Again, again, I don't make a dime. I just love his product and I think everybody should get it. You know, can you use that baseline elk behavior that you've been talking about, I mean, like, is that a is that a general thing for elk? Do they elk as a species have those? Is those baseline behaviors? So can you use those behaviors to to help you once you learn those in any other different habitat or anything. Absolutely, just it's no different than white tails. If you get to learn white tail behavior in Texas. Can you go to Illinois and be successful? Of course you can. Sure, do you need to learn a little bit on Illinois habitat, Sure, and and maybe move just specifics on movement on how they go between where you normally hunt and where of course, But is white tail behavior white tail behavior? Yeah, So it doesn't matter if I'm talking about Roosevelt Elk in the coastal range of Washington or if I'm talking about you know, Rocky Mountain Elk in southern Colorado or northern Mexico. It's all the same. And yeah, the vocalistation again, this is what I'm talking about with when when a cow, And this is why I really focus a lot on what cows are doing, is because two reasons. One, the cows are the ones that are driving the whole thing that they're driving this bus in the fall anyway, okay. The cows are the ones that are the ones that choose the bull. The cows are the ones that set their daily movement cycle and and and feeding regime and all that. The bullet is just there to keep them safe and follow along. The cows are the ones that are leading across the landscape. So they're they're the ones in charge in the fall, that's what they're the ones in charge in June, in July, they're there. They're the ones in charge of their movement on a daily basis anyway. And so that bull, let's just say, you're gonna go to a public land over the counter unit and it is heavily hunted, which means your average age class of your bull is probably what two and a half, maybe three, and maybe if you're lucky, three and a half, it's probably a two and a half year old bull. That two and a half year old goal is not biologically, psychologically, he is not independent. He's not a ten year old goal that just does his own thing for the rest of the year until the short little window when it's time to come and breathe. That two and a half year old bull does have a cycle. He likes the safety blanket of the cow cast groups, so he wants to be with him. But guess what two and a half years ago, two years ago, one year ago, he was a calf. He was with his mother. He was following his mother. He was listening to his mother, and when his mother went he and said, come, you know, where are you? Give me a response? She would live, hute, okay, here I am. I'd give her response. And when she give an assembly of you and say hey you, I want you to come here, she would listen to her mother and he would come there. And when she got angry or or she got a little upset or emotional, don't she went through some wines where she's using vocalizations to talk to that cap. It's entire life. And now he's a tuning half year old bowl, he's moved off on his own. He's he's he's kind of left his you know, maternal area. The same vocalizations are in play. So if you know how to speak to that goal as a child just like a mature how would what's he gonna do? Is he gonna argue? You know? The problem that I'm sorry that again, I know that This is where I deviate from a lot of other people. The problem I see all the time is people want to throw a bugle at him. Well, the problem if okay, you're gonna you're dealing with a child who's just out there on his own. It's the first year he's been out and he's like, I'm a big boy now. I've got my big boy bands and I want to go out on the big boy landscape. And then all of a sudden, a big book comes in. What did he do? Head? He's runs back home, he runs back to the cow cat throw. Okay, he's gonna stay on it. He's gonna stay on the peripery. He doesn't want to so a lot of times, yeah, is he out there bugling yet? But when you bugle back at and are you going to trigger that? You know everybody tells about all that book came in looking and looking for a fight. Did you know? If you if you watch the I mean you watch any YouTube and I've got the Hunt Companion on my website that we're doing, watch any of the video on YouTube. Watch their body language, what they come in, head up, years up, curious, next, craning, They're looking, They're cautious to stop and they're looking. They're can't not looking for a fight. He's trying to figure out whether he's just oh, is this a group without? I kind of really want to be with a group without. I'd like to maybe can I come out to hang with you guys? And what's going on versus versus? If you go out on a landscape and perfectly say hey, I want to like you use the loss few where are you? Where are you? That's a mature and if you use with short house downs you can do that, or you use cast sounds, don't matter. I send the lea clean out a little bit more cast downs for a variety of reasons. But where are you? Can respond excellence I get, I don't even care if you just just a squeal, that's all I need. Good, Now I know where you are. I'm gonna close the distance. I'll make check in with him again. Where are you? Giving a lost new? Where are you? Maybe he just does awesome, that's all I need. Clothes, I'm gonna try to close this and now if it sounds like he's coming my way, okay, how's that up? I'm gonna try to close the distance to get within a huttered hotter fifty for show yards and from there. I talked about all the time a targeted strategy using a combination between loss views and as SEMBI mws and ASSEMBI news are those ones that it's a mature house in all you to come to me? Come to me if he thinks there's a mature cow moving across the landscape and she's calling to him. Okay, okay, there's I kind of want a cow right now. I don't know why I want a cow right now. That's like you're twelve andteen years old. I really am starting to like girls right now, even though I have no idea loss it's it's exactly. Okay. So you know my my best friend who's a girl. I really like her, but for some reason now I really like her. And I don't know why I really like her, but I really like her now. So the two and a half you didn't even say a three and a half year old bulls like, Okay, hey, I get somebody in what Oh, there's a lady who okay, caw, yeah, I'm over here. Okay, you're gonna answer. He's eager. He wants to answer again. There's a reef again. We're talking about this man. There's so much to this. Again, it's in their best interest to be the first one on the team, because he wants to be seen. He wants to be seen, so he's gonna probably move that way. But if you've got a mature how saying hey, come here, he might just gougle and be like ohkay, what look, just come here, come here, come here, as long as you don't throw a bugle in the mix, because as should as you throw a bugle in the mix. Now you're a hurt you're a bull with cows. That bull with cows is likely going to try to defend those cows. Does that bol that you're engaging right now want to have a confrontation. I have no idea, because we don't know if that bull is a lover or a fighter. We don't know the age class of that bowl. We have no idea his history. Maybe he just got his butt with eighteen times in a row. Every time he comes across another ball in the landscape, they beat the ever love and snot out him to where the next time he hears a bull vocalization, he's like, screw a bunch of that, I'm out, and he just leaves. Versus you go in there, don't don't drow a bugle at him. You just come in there and say, hey, come here, come here, and you stand that, you stand there and you act like a mature cow. They come here. I cannot tell you the number of people that get back with me after they go through that and learn how to really do a target strategy, call a strategy and go like, holy hell, why have I what? Why am I fighting? Next? I'm like, I don't know why you're fighting. This is so much easier, Like, yeah, this is a lot easier when you don't play to testosterone. Don't play to testosterone to start. If you end up getting in a situation where you have a bull that is with hows and that bowl is defending those cows, now we're going to be in a different ball game. Now we can have a different discussion about using different vocal nations. I'm still gonna go in there and I'm gonna use a cow call strategy to try to sucker out a cow and suffer the cow out so he follows in a relaxed manner. But hey, let's talk about that at a different time. We can talk about the fact that we can have abet you know, if we want to people like that, well we can't, dude, I'm telling I'm I'm dead serious. You I know that you guys haven't signed up for it. You need to sign out for the West Side. Because all of this stuff is the whole discussion, the entire fundamental the foundation principles talk all about this, about what is their behavior? How do they want to engage one another? How do they move along across the landscape. All the fundamentals of communication are laid out, and then you can build on it from there. I've got an entire section that's called the gallery. It is literally nothing but me video me or Kelly video ng elk doing elky things with no disturbance. I'm not calling them, we're not hunting them, you know, it's just watch what help do and literally watch what they're doing with the frame of reference of all those foundation principles, and just watch how much it plays out. Even in the middle of September, in the peak of the ruts, the base fundamentals are in play. So why would I not just go to those base fundamentals and screw a bunch of the whole variability on the testosterone and asters and all the other crap that goes with it makes a ton of sense. Man, I love it. I think, Uh, it's just it really does. It clicks with me. So but the one thing that that I now the next question that comes up here is is, you know, like, how do I do I go and make a calling sequence or am I walking a hundred fifty yards and making a cow call, and then walking another two hundred yards and making a cow call you know, through my areas that I've map scouted previously. Yeah, that all depends. Okay, So there you go. Um, if you are going, once you get to where you're hunting, you're gonna want to evaluate what the sign looks like. So if you're you're saying, okay, this is this is where we're gonnahunt, we're gonna camp here, we're gonna take off in the morning. You go off that ridge and walk down that ridge, and I'm gonna go off this side of the ridge and we're gonna go down that and we'll meet up at the head end of the valley or whatever at lunch or whatever. Will pow out and blah blah. Yeah. If I know, you know, there's there's there's a little meadow and it looks like there's a wet spot up there, a little wallow. Okay, I'm gonna go to that. I'm gonna try to get up there early and listen. And then the other guys like, all right, well, I know there's a real big thing. You know, there's an aspen stand over there and it looks like it has a good grass, and then there's a real dark timber up there that has a bench on it. I'm gonna head that way and I'm gonna I'm gonna see what I can find. Yeah, in the morning, especially if we're talking out, let's just cut it. We're okay, let's just stop. Where are you guys hunting? I don't I mean what state? What state? Uh? Most of my hunting has been in Colorado. Last year I grew it, drew a Halo Wilderness tag, which was definitely a different experience. But this year we'll be out Colorado again. Okay, So this year they changed the season structure to where it starts on September two, So weird. Now we are squarely in the realm of there's going to be bulls with cows. That there's gonna be bulls looking for cows. There's gonna be bulls finalizing their dominant interactions in their packing order. So there you absolutely can have bulls that are gonna be bugling on the landscape or the potential thereup. So for me, absolutely, you hear me talked all the time about the facto sor you here, we talked about all the time of getting out early. Maybe you thought, I don't know, maybe you don't follow me as much as I talk all the time. And if you watch that video, I've got my hunt, my one of my latest hunts on YouTube. I'm out there at three thirty four o'clock in the morning in position on the mountain, halfway up the side of wherever, and I'm just listening because i want to know what's going on in the dark, in at night or when they're feeling free. And I'll stand there and I'll listen and tell it starts getting to be day brick. Sometimes you might get just a little squeal two hours before the first sliver of light, and that's all you get. Well, at least now you know where that little squeal was, and you can at least move in that direction. Sometimes they don't kick off n tell maybe eight o'clock in the morning when they start working their way getting closer to the bedding area, but it leaves. If you start halfway up on the mountain somewhere early, you've got a better chance that at early detection, before all the other hunters start working their way up the valley and everything else, you can get in there a little closer, but I'm gonna get myself in there, and I probably am gonna start off just what just what I call that level one contact people. Just high, start high, pull that high note and then just drop off. And I'm not gonna be that loud initially, I'm just gonna send it out just like just a where are you? Who's out there? Is anybody wanting it to? Anybody willing to give me a response and let me know where they are, and I'm going to pay attention. Get yourself away from a creek bottom, get yourself away from anything loud, and you know, if it's a little breezy, don't be standing in the dead aspens where all the leaves are just you know you can't hear. Think, Go stand over in the dark timber where it's dead quiet. Get yourself away from the creek bottom where you can hear. But if I send out that, maybe I'll just and sometimes depend again, it depends on what sign I'm seeing. If I'm seeing a lot of signs, then maybe all I do is start off with a with a calf lost meals just a lost cast me a high very high pitched lost them. Where are you? Give me a response, because I want to know where the cows are, because the cows are there, the bulls are gonna be somewhere in NEARBYX. And if I don't get a response to that, and if it's if we're talking to early season, then maybe I just go to a lot or a level one contact. You just send that peple out and I will listen. I will listen closely, because sometimes you can get a cow that might even respond to you, and or all you're gonna get is the off of the distance. You'll just hear this one bull just give you. Is this light chuckle. That's all I need. And then I'm gonna move and I'm gonna try to make up distance and get in. I'm gonna just keep I don't call in that situation. If I get a response off at a distance, I am not going to call my way to him. I'm gonna just beat beat and try to close distance. I'm gonna go a good way to stop. I'll test again, see if I can get another response, just to try to find tune where he is to give me your response. Awesome, beat close distance. I don't start calling and working them until I'm hutter hutter and fifty yards away try to anyway. If, however, I don't get a response, that doesn't necessarily mean the elk aren't there, especially if they're signed like fresh sign around. If that's the case, that's when I know, Okay, then I'm gonna have to play the slow game a little bit, you know, because there's I've got an entire video on my website. I was down in Arizona, Unit nine, which is on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, right next to Grand Canyon National Park. I was literally I was on the fence line of the Grand Canyon National Park, Unit nine, Arizona. For those who don't know, is the Holy Grit. It's like Tyke County, Illinois on steroids for elk, because this is I mean, it takes twenty plus years of drawing, you know, getting preference points to actually draw a tag. And there's just piles of elk and monsters. You know, we're talking four in bowls running around. I'm just monsters. So if there's and I'm on the edge of a national par Okay, it's September, I think I don't remember. At the end of September, it's day break. I'm standing there with a camera rolling and I did. I just said, just take a listen. The entire born crickets not a peep. We have hundreds, if not thousands of elop in and around this area, age class structure, up the yin Yang, conflict between bulls and harems every which way, and there wasn't a peep at the end of September. Yeah, because we had a weather system come through and they just shut everything down. Okay, you might be in one of those situations where the elk are right there but they just don't want to talk. Okay, fine, If that's the case, then I'm gonna make it a little bit more subtle play. Maybe I will go up to that little meadow that I thought might be a feeding area, my butt down and just be quiet and just listen. Maybe I will call, you know, work across the landscape. Maybe following those elk check make your chiel trails. Maybe I'll call a little bit here, call a little bit there, using those lost mutic looking for a response, where are you, Where are you? Where are you? Just taking it slow, understanding that maybe they don't want to chime in and they don't want to, you know, vocalize much. But again you maybe in a situation where you sit up, you call. Forty five minutes later an hour, here comes snap, crap, here comes able just kind of sneaking down trying to figure out who's down there, who's looking. You just gotta take the temperature of the area that you're in. It's no different than white tails, do you. You know darn well you've been out there hunting white tails. And there's some there's mornings where I mean, the birds are singing, the squirrels are running everywhere, dropping bombs out of the tree, just everything is alive. And then there's other days where you don't dare step on wet grass because it's so dead time, there's just nothing moving. You've got to take the temperature of the area that you're in. Get the birds are singing, if the squirrels are moving, If everything is alive and active, will so likely could be the elk. So maybe I'm gonna call a little bit more freer, Maybe I'm gonna expect a little bit more vocalizations in return. And now those days if I'm not getting a response, maybe I cover more country a little fat master. Then those days where it's just debt, if it's just dead maybe that's all I do, is I go up to that little meadow that's got that little wallow in it, and I just sit and I just play the whole day in a small little area where it has the best sign. You just gotta you just gotta play it by ear based on what you and and that's the problem with public land. You know this, other hunters in the area are gonna throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing too. You gotta evaluate what other hunters are doing. The more you're calling, is it is it it tooks coo fold if you're calling and the elk are getting fired up? Is it just calling in other hunters and all their hunters are finding those out now? And or are you calling and calling other hunters too? You? Okay, if that's the case, then you gotta play it a little bit different. Yeah, that happened uh to us in or you're kind of chasing a horrible around And not that we knew exactly what we were doing, but I can sound pretty good on the beagle to you, you know, and uh then you hear the stupid beagle from behind you and uh we go down there and these uh, these guys are shaken because they're so excited like, oh, yeah, we thought you were a hunter. It's like, yeah, I bet you dide that's why you chase me up the mountain guy. Yeah, that's a hund percent of thing that can happen, especially in OTC. But dude, let's talk about the thing that you preach. That really changed my elk hunting more than anything. And I'd really appreciate your knowledge on the calling. And I know that's just the tip of the Osburg of what you have on you know, your module, uh with with the row hunting resources stuff. But um, I don't know if you invented the doorway principle or if it's something you picked up from somebody else, But man, that was just like a complete enlightenment for me and changed the way I set up for elk completely different than what I used to. Yeah, I know. I mean I was sitting there with Kelly, we were working on some stuff and you know, we were you know, it was it was one of those things where you're saying, Okay, how do you how do you how do you explain a behavior? Um? And I do. This is another thing I talked about all the time, is the fact that, UM, you a lot of people want to put human attributes on animals, and I do it all the time. When we're talking about elk. It's not because I'm trying to disneify it or you know, Animal Planet, how cute they are. Um. But when we're talking and talk to your wife and I this, oh, I'll debate her all day long in this room. Um. The thing is, when you are dealing with a social mammal, you're dealing with a mammal that lives in a social grouping a social community, and especially when you're talking family groups that are interacting with other family groups, and there is investment in so like people and help and large mammals typically have one or two offspring, and those offspring take a long time to mature, and so there is a lot of investment in the upbringing of that individual offspring. Makes sense. So when we're dealing with a mammal that lives in that scenario and is is uses communication, there are similarities. It's called conservation of characteristics. From an evolutionary biology standpoint, there's conservation of characteristics. Those things that tend to work just kind of just kind of stay out there. There's a reason why you don't see primates with six fingers, so there's some conservation of characteristics there. Behavior is also one of those things where you will have conservation of characteristics, and some behavior is very similar across species. Okay, so when I'm giving examples of what they're doing on the landscape, I'm not saying that they think like people. However, I'm saying they think like people because because there's there's some similarities there. So when I'm sitting there looking at them, like, how okay, if I'm gonna try to talk about how they're moving across the landscape, what it really how it developed was Okay, well, we're in their house. And if we're in their house, you know, I tell you, you know, if your wife calls to you, say, you're in the living room watching TV and your wife calls to you from the back bedroom, you don't go to the garage looking for right, so as you're trying to avoid her, but you don't go to the garage looking for you go to the back bedroom, right or or pretty damn close? Why be what you know, your house and the two years on the side of your head work and you can try and you know where the sound came from, and you know the layout of your house. So what do you do if she says, hey, I need some help? Okay, you get up. If you're a good, beautiful husband, you get up out of your chair. What do you do? You you go stares down the hallway around the corner, and you approach the room where you think you heard her from. Right now, at that point, let's just say you get to the end of the hallway and you've got a bedroom on your right in a bedroom on the left. You don't know which one she did. What do you do? Do you pause? You're probably in a vocalize and where are you? She is going to respond, I'm in here, Okay, she's in the left bedroom, all right. What do you do? You go through the bedroom, You go into the bedroom, and what are you gonna do? You're going to kick if she's not standing like right there in front of you. Maybe she's in the back of the closet you walk in. Most of the time, if you think about how we engage our house when we respond to a vocalization trauma, place that we think we know where that is, and we think we should see someone when we get there. As we approach, if we don't immediately see someone. What do we do? We naturally will stop in the doorway of the room that we think they should be in, right, we will cause will look down. This is where the brain is dominic and the interplay between our eyes and the brain. If we get to the doorway and we go. As we come to the doorway, we look up and she's standing right there trying to move the dresser. It's millisecond. If we don't need we can see her confirmation this is where she is. We see her convert us. She's doing such she needs help because I can assess that, Oh, I'm just gonna walk over and help. It's like if practice of second man. We we see, we understand, we act, but if we don't see, if we get to where we thought we should see but we don't see, the first reaction oftentimes is a pause. We seek and if we don't see anything, then we vocalize. It is no different than else. They here and we are out there calling on the landscape. We are pretending to be another else. We are in their house. We're walking so that meadow is their kitchen. That dark timber bench up there, that's their bedroom. That elk trail that goes from that little bench to or that bench down to that little meadow. That's their hallway. Okay, we're walking in their house. They and well know what their house is. They've been there before, they're familiar. So they're walking in their house. They know where their house is. And they have big loncin ears on the side of their head, a lot bigger than ours. And they know darn well how to pinpoint in you know, sounds and information and locations. They know exactly where you are exactly, and I show this repeatedly on the videos on the website. They know exactly where you are within a matter of a few yards. They know where you are or where you should be, where that cow or that other bull, where that other elk should be. So they're gonna move if they decide. You had said where are you, and and that bull said I'm over here, I'm here, and all of a sudden in his brain he just it's in my best interest to come down there and make eye contact with her. He's gonna move across that landscape as though you move across your house. He's gonna get out of his chair, he's gonna get up, walk down the hall way, he's gonna go around the corner and he's gonna get right into that spot where he thinks he should be able to see where that elk is. And he's gonna come in and he's gonna pause and he's like, Okay, where the heck issue? Where? Where? Where? Where are? It's no different than the doorway of our house. And that's how that's why I called it the doorway principle. It because it becomes a doorway. It's it's that spot where they're naturally going to pause to make visual life contacts with whoever they're responding to. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And appreciate the human analogies because we can all kind of understand that. Right, But I think your tagline is calm to your toes. So to convert that into a hunting situation, you go stand in the doorway and wait on it, right? Is that the idea? Well as at the very least you want to make sure you are in within your effective yardage of that doorway when yeah, it's seriously, well absolutely, I'm conpect if you're on the website, I've got the strategies in action section where I mean deniscrations. That's all it is about Okay, we're looking for an elk. We've got an elk over there. I'm gonna use this calling strategy. Let's go see. We can call him in and I put him seven steps in front of me or you know, eight steps or ten steps or whatever in front of me. Yeah, I'm gonna set up in the doorway. But I will set up in the doorway. But I also know exactly the fact that they know exactly where I am. And so with those situations, this is no Joe. This is literally the video I am editing right now when you when we're supposed to. So I mean literally this question comes up all the time, and so I'm editing the video showing why I'm setting up and how I would draw about and where I would kill this out because a lot of them. I'm letting these guys come all the way into seven steps or whatever, but I would kill them. I would have probably killed him at twenty yards the first time they stepped in and pause. It would have eaten an arrow and gun. But yeah, I my goal when I'm calling, especially if i'm calling for the strategy, is in action. Second, I want to grab a fistful of hair that's cool. So one of the things that comes to mind a lot when you think about this idea, and I've kind of ran into a little bit, is that if you're using the doorway principle and you're talking about calling them to you and like you just said, shooting him at first opportunity, Um, you're not really talking about a broadside elk a lot. You're talking pretty often like the frontal shot, right, and uh, you know, we we shoot really heavy arrows, we shoot day six arrows, and kind of to to deal with that situation, you know, you you're you're talking about pretty significant, dense animal, right, and you're trying to punch that thing in there through a bunch of hair and get in there. Is are you comfortable with that frontal shot? And is that why you're trying to get them close like that? Yeah? You so? So what's you're what you're telling me is you're spoiling my entire video that I'm working on right now. Come on? Yeah, So no, that that is literally the part two of the video. So the first part is gonna be how I would draw by bow when they're that down at blows, But the other one is, Okay, what you do with quartering two shots, because you're absolutely right, you're gonna be faced with a lot of frontal shots. You're gonna be facing a lot of quartering two shots. Yes, the long answer is this is where you do want a You want a setup that it's gonna be maximized for penetration. So if you're gonna use those heavier day thick roos or full metal jackets, I don't care what you what arrow you run. I'm I'm myself. I'm running a five fifty grain arrow, but um anything okay, So if you're if you're running a five hundred grain or five grain or air, you know, once you get once you start getting too big, then it becomes a little bit tricky. Just as far as the fact that you know it doesn't that we can dive into that one a different time. But yes, you want maximum penetration number one, and you definitely want a good broad head on there that is built for Matt. You know I I run iron wheel heads. You can run the day six is if you want you want a head that just absolutely absolutely penetrates because yes, you're gonna be going not Yeah, I don't want to. I don't ever tell people to go through the bone. But you are going to be going through flirting with bone number one and number two, you're gonna be going in places where there is bone and heavy muscle. Mhmm yeah, yeah for sure. Well, so how do you how do you execute that shot? I mean, are you are you talking about you? You don't tell people not to go for the shoot through the bone? Are you talking about shooting through the base of the neck or what does that look like? No? No, no, yeah, you know you just be you just be vicky on exactly what your angle is. So a lot of times if the frontal comes in and you, guys, I mean, Corey did a phenomenal job on his video, you know his tutorial on frontal shots. Um, yeah, the frontal shot g as long as you if he is a true frontal shot and you can execute that shot, well, um, that's just nothing but soft tissue. Uh. If you're quartering too, that's when it's either got to be a very very steep angle quartering two to where essentially all it translates into is just a slightly off centered frontal or or I am waiting until they move and either come further in and present more of a broadside, or they start to leave and either turn and I can hit him then, or I will let them leave and then I'll call to him and let him stop. Come background Smith. No, I'm I am not one that advocates taking purposefully a four. You know, basically your cointessential for your quartering two shot, because you've got way too much muscle there. If you try to go in front of the shoulder knuckle and this is what I'm talking about, and I show this on the video I'm working right now, if you go in front of that and just try to shoot at the base of the neck in front of that shoulder, yes, you can get a good penetration into the vitals. But a lot of times you're still long gonna catch that off side long. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna get a one long hit. Now is that lethal? Shore a candy? Can you lose it out with one long hit? You absolutely can't. So it's just get it's risky. And then the same thing goes There's some people who will say, well, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stay away from that front. I'm gonna shoot right behind the shoulder, thinking that well, I'm gonna gonna tuck it tight right behind the shoulder. Well, okay, the problem is if you do that, based on the angle, you're only going to catch the near side long. And if you catch the near side long, then the arrow is gonna slam into the gut pocket and hopefully you hit the liver, but you're gonna hit one long maybe liver, and you're going straight into the guts. And again, is that a lethal shot? Sure? Is? Are you going to recover that animal? Well that's a great US ship because I mean that video I have again, it's there's a version of it on YouTube. I've got the fool so the so the version on YouTube is called high Country Redemption, and it's a it's a great I think, well maybe it's anyway, there's a it's a I kill a you know, a three and a half year old six by six up in the high Country. Yeah, um, on the on the website. The website. The reason why it's a members only or a subscriber version is because what I don't show on the YouTube one is I ended up getting one long and liver and that help was still alive sixteen hours later, and I had to look I don't know how I I mean, I basically was doing a grid pattern across the landscape and I stumbled into him. He was bedded down with his I mean, he was feeling sick, he was not doing well. I stumbled into him, and I was able to get another arrow into his chest and anchor him right there. But I mean, that was sixteen hours, and that is still a lot. She's very very much alive. So that's the thing is, are you going to recover that animal if you just get a one lung and liver shop. Depends on the terrain, depends on the habitat, depends on the cover, depends on your ability to track. I mean, and Kevin forbid, Heaven forbid, you're doing it in Wyoming or Idaho or my channelry of wolves or bears around. Yeah, and not to mention, you know, the possibility of other hunters bumping that sucker. To man, it's very exact, exactly exactly how many times. That's a great point, great point, man, that makes you feel good. You said that, then it's not a fun thing. I actually, uh hit a bowl last year and didn't recover it. I don't think it was I don't think it was a lethal hit, but it's it stinks, you know, and you try to do everything you can to make sure your equipment, substance, asking that you you know, practice and do your thing to make sure that you're lethal as you can be. But it happens. It's just a part of hunting, man. Oh yeah, exactly. And the only thing that we can do is try to make smart decisions on the landscape to say, Okay, I'm not going to try to make that shot because it's got a low percentage play on being successful, you know what I mean some time, And that's what I'm talking about right now. In that video I'm editing, is just Okay, I know he's standing there, he's standing, he's wide open, he's standing right there. You're at full draw. You want to send that arrow, don't, don't because it's not a good angle. Just let him move a little bit and then you know, and and then on that I even talk about the fact that you know, depending on the angle, depending on what the slope and the train is, depending on how he approached you, there's there's a natural tendency for them to roll if they spook and they roll, or if there they try to wheel around and leave. There's gonna be a way that they do that. And most of the time, a lot of times, a lot of times those quartering too shot end up being where that animal is going to want to when he explodes. So if he's standing there looking in your direction, he's quartering to you and you want to take that shot. If he reacts to that shot, he's gonna roll towards you and down in a way. It's just makes it just a nightmare. You're gonna hit it, You're you probably hit him, You're gonna wound him. Good luck, good luck, I'm finding it. Just wait, just just wait, breathe. Let the elks either relax and take a couple more steps. If you need to give him a little call to just to have a move, go for it. And sometimes just if what you need to do is just spook him a little bit so he's like, what the hell are He just kind of spins and trots off ten steps and turns. Now take him now, take him? Man. So much good advice. Man, I knew this is gonna be a great podcast. Chris. We appreciate everything. And as we kind of wrap this up, I have to ask, did you kill and unit nine. Oh, so I don't. I have not hunted down there. I died down there. I usually go down there every year. This is the first year I'm not well. Well, we'll see. I've got a hunter lined up. We'll see if everything pans out. But um, I might be down in Unit seven West this year. So normally I'm in Un nine. I go down there every year if nothing, either guiding or just going down and helping some other folks and getting footage. Yeah, well, I don't have to call you when I draw Arizona. I've got ten points, right, so it's I got ten. You know, it'll be a while before I draw, because I'm gonna I'm gonna stay in those appretional Yeah, you never know, but uh I don't. I don't bank on getting lucky very much, so uh yeah, every once in a while, do you though. But anyway, Yeah, I may have to holler at you. Yeah. I wish I had a holler at you last year and talk to you to go into the helo with me, because man, there was one day especially that Chris Road would have had a field day. We heard hundreds of bugles all day long. It was unreal and on sleep it was one of those situations where we just had like stimulus overload and it just you know, it's on day nine and it was just more than we could handle, you know what I mean. But yeah, that's that's a tough go ahead. Yeah, no, I was gonna say I I was. This is a number years back that I hunted in Arizona excusing, New Mexico with a buddy of mine. And it was one of those days too that I think they started at one pm and I was counting it the minimum number of bugles per minute, So every minute from one pm until pitch black, every minimum every minute, there were at least three bugles. Uh. Yeah, it's nuts, man, insane, it's weird, sane. The editing footage from our hunt, Um you know how editing footage you goes like you you don't get near was actually happening. There's a hundred and seventy six bugles in the edited footage of Yeah, there you go, you know, twenty two minutes of hunting. You know, it's it's unreal, man. But uh, maybe I'll get to do that again one of these days. But this year, going OTC, Colorado, I'm not gonna ask you where to go until we get off the air here. But anyways, I'm not gonna tell you anyway if you uh, if you had to pick, you know, taking testosstrown out of it and using all of you know, the Chris Row method. Here, Um, what dates are you headed to Colorado to go hunt out? I always liked that first week ten days. I I really do. I like the early because if I can find bowls that are just making their pre rut move, now this is okay again, Colorado is gonna change. We used to start the last Saturday of August, which meant plus or minus seven days. So there were some years where it started like August um, and then there's other years that would start on the thirti or whatever, so it fluctuate. But I like early because oftentimes you can catch those bulls before they are locked down with cows, and you can find bulls that are both interested in cows and bulls that are interested in still working pecking orders. So it allows you to use if you want to use a little bit more bugling, that's fine. You can if you now not the type of bugling that Joe Schmidley everybody else does out there, but regard if you want. Let's just put it this way. If you want to use bull vocalizations, you can very successfully. And if you want to use cow bowing strategies, you can very successfully. Because they're getting interested in cows, they're still interested in pecking order. It gets it puts all the tools on the table. So I always love going early. Plus, like I said, when we're talking about evaluating the rut, there's only one thing that's gonna pull the rut late in that body condition of the cow, but there's a wholest of thing. It actually can sucker the cows cycling into estra's early. And if that happens and you miss it, well there so I would I would rather And there's a lot of places in especially Colorado, where you're seeing bulls move make that prerop move a lot earlier in August, and they're already locked down in September. So there's a lot of things that play where sometimes I think the best play or the best activity can oftentimes be prior to the fall equinox in that first couple of weeks of September. So that's where I always go. And if you are somewhat local, you know some people that doesn't help. But if you are somewhat local, you go up there and you decide to go hunt for a week and it's just stone dead. Just bail and then come back later, you know, take a long weekend later. But if you wait until the last weekend, that's last week of season, well guess what you're eies are all in all done that. Yeah, that's a good point man. Well, great info dude. As always, everything you put out is is top notch um. If people want to get him a whole bunch more Chris Row and really dive into the stuff that you uh that you want to make them pay for. Where where can they get check that out? No? Experiously, just seriously, my last name is R. O. E. So row Hunting Resources. Whether you talk about the website, what you're talking about, you too, whether you're talking about Instagram or Facebook, you just go row Hunting Resources. That's where it is. But they know that the educational stuff is on row hunting resources dot Com under the yelk module. There's just like this is this is what I geek out on, this is what I love that passionate about. So that's what's all in that module. So most things we're talking about here today is exactly what's in the module and like eight eight levels deeper. So there you go. Man, Yeah, that's all what base Sorry would you say? I said, it's all it's all video based because anybody can flap their gums at you. But if you can put it help in front of you and you can watch the elk do it, don't fine, don't argue me. Argue that you just watched her do it. You just watched him do it, so argue them, don't argue me. Yeah, yeah, that's cool stuff. Man. Well we'll definitely link to all that in the description below, so guys go click on that link. Chris, good luck this season. Man. I up, you do good up there in the woods. Well, we're gonna find out. I'm venturing out into completely virgin territory as far as I'm concerned. I've I've never stepped foot in these areas, I've never hunted these areas, and so it's gonna be an interesting and again because I'm gonna be guide in Arizona. I've got literally a week to go in the first part of this, you know, the first week, and then I got a bail and then maybe if my guy gets done uh in Arizona early. I can maybe come back and try the last week, but it's gonna be h. We're gonna see, I'm gonna punt and we're gonna find out. Well, it's gonna be instantive base if you can, if you can do a good job and get him to his toes, you know you can get back in time too. So it's gonna work exactly exact. All right, brother, we appreciate it, Mann, and you have a good night. All right, Thanks you guys, You guys too. Now that was 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

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