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For 15% off your first order, use code COUNTRY at checkout. Just visit markethouse.com. That's M-A-R-K-E-T-H-O-U-S-E dot com. And use the code COUNTRY. Well, this week, I'm talking to myself. I've been fortunate enough to hunt all over the West this season. New Mexico, Oregon, Idaho, with a bunch of good friends. We had a bunch of highs, we had a bunch of lows. But what I'm going to try to do is put a button on the elk rut.
So this week on Cutting the Distance, I'm going to do kind of that post-mortem of my archery elk season. I've been able to talk to a lot of people that spend a lot of time out in the woods, and I've kind of put my conclusion together on how the elk rut went. And we're also going to highlight some of the greatest lessons I learned this year. So as always, we're going to start off with some listener questions. If you have questions of your own, please submit them to ctd.com.
At phelpsgamecalls.com, myself or my guests will do the best job we can answering them.
So the first question today, and we're starting to get a lot of these rifle questions, you know, late season elk hunting questions rolling in. And a lot of people ask, what do you mean by early season, late season? So if I had to draw a line between what's considered an early season elk hunt, I would say like post rut, you know, the ruts over, we're now going into a different zone. And so with that early season, you know, a lot of times you're going to have your archery equipment. A lot of times, you know,
there's extremely early season prior to the rut, which some states allow you to start hunting
you know, in August. And then that archery season, most of your archery seasons kind of centralized around the rut. So many States, um, you'll start to get that pre-rut, which, you know, end of August, um, you know, first few days of September peak rut being kind of mid September. And then that post-rut going late September into sometimes middle of October, even later, um, a lot of hunting, uh, States will then close their hunting seasons, um,
Um, and then switch over to a different weapon, whether it's muzzleloader or rifle. Um, and then we, we consider that our late seasons. And then there's, in my opinion, there's two different, um, stages of the late season. There is late season where feed is still available up high. Um, you know, one, either weather hasn't pushed them down or, uh,
Two, their food hasn't burnt up or they haven't had to move down. And then there's the extremely late season where these elk will now have to start to migrate because of weather. They have no food left up high and they tend to push down, which starts that migration. So what we're talking about here today when we talk about late season, in my opinion, is switching over to these rifle seasons.
and you're going to be hunting late October through November, maybe not a lot of migration involved quite yet. Some people have always asked, why do they put the seasons where they do? And so your rifle season typically are put where those herd bulls and bulls aren't as susceptible to being forced out into the open by the cows. A lot of time that bull wants to stay with the cows.
Those cows and calves are typically looking for feed. And so a lot of times those herd bulls during the rut will then, you know, quote unquote, get drug around by the herd or be with the herd. And they're a lot more susceptible to being harvested, especially if somebody had a rifle. Well, we set these rifle seasons or a lot of these states have set their rifle seasons specifically
So that the chance of escapement is a lot higher. These bulls tend to go off on their own. They tend to go off and feed alone. The larger the bull, typically the more likely they are to be alone or with a bull of their caliber or their age or maturity. A lot of times once these smaller bulls start to break off, you'll still be able to find them in their smaller bachelor herds.
But they're typically trying to recoup from the rut. So that's why we put those rifle seasons where they are. These bulls are going to go to the deepest, darkest, more secluded places where they feel safe. And that's where we're going to find them. So question number one, what is the best strategy for elk in the late season? And so once again, we're going to take these that we're going into a typical rifle season.
Very much like my archery season, my archery tactics, I love to get up high and to glass. Now, I want to break my glassing down into two different types of glassing. You can get up and you can look at a large portion of the unit. And what I'm doing there is trying to figure out what elevation the elk are at. Maybe I can spot some of these bulls that are off feeding alone.
But I'm really just trying to figure out where elk at, where do they want to be? I'm not necessarily super concerned with finding cows. You know, a lot of times late October, early November, there will still be some immature bulls running, you know, with the herd. But the majority of time, those larger bulls, more mature bulls are going to be broken off. So I'm getting up high early in the morning, trying to glass as much as I can.
You know if the weather is still nice you may only get you know half hour to an hour max These bowls are gonna feed they're gonna go back and bed down somewhere So we're trying to maximize the time let our glass do the walking
I'm up high, I'm glassing for that first hour, hour and a half, and then we're moving. And the second stage of glassing is there's a difference between once you've located some elk or you're starting to really dial in or look for specific animals, you need to get in, in my opinion, get into areas that can't be seen directly.
very easily. And so with that said, I'm trying to get, you know, two or three miles in, maybe I've got to walk down a finger ridge, maybe I have to go, you know, get up on a cliff or climb a steep section.
I'm using OnX. I'm using a lot of our mapping software, aerial photography, trying to put together where the terrain and where the vegetation and how it lays out and then where I'm going to be able to see and to select nooks and crannies. A lot of times, like I said, these bigger bowls want to go into areas where...
They can feed out in the open but not necessarily be seen or they don't get bothered near as much. So I'm trying to be able to look into those areas. And I'm not looking...
i will sacrifice a morning or a night or an entire day in order to to find the animal or find the target animal or find the animal that i i want to go kill we may sacrifice a morning and night and and just lay eyes into this country knowing that we may be two three miles away using our spotting scopes using our binoculars doing as much glassing of as much country as we can and then once we find that animal
We will then, you know, draw up a plan to go to go try to kill that animal. But a lot of people, I feel they're not willing to give up a morning hunt or a night hunt. You know, they're always, they always want to have their gun on their shoulder, you know,
with a chance to kill. And I feel that a lot of times investing in, you know, a glassing session or whatnot can be very, very advantageous. So if the country allows, if it's set up to do a lot of glassing, I like to do that. Now I grew up, you know, in Western Washington where we do get to glass some clear cuts, but a lot of times in these raffle seasons, some of these bulls have figured out that they can live in the timber and never come out in the opening. So
Or there's a mix between, you know, semi-open and timbered country, you know, timberline country, whatever you may be in.
you know, we're in timbered country or an area where I believe there's a lot, if I can look into the timber or I'm in the timber and can see that there's a lot of food, um, and that the elk won't have to leave that, um, there is a chance you may have to go still hunt in it, or, um, you're going to be glossing the fringes very, very early, very, very late. And then you're going to have to get into the timber, you know, if, if there's a target animal in there. So you need to be able to adapt, um, to the country you're hunting, to the vegetation, um,
Um, and then my ideal area is right at Timberline. Um, you know, I want to be able to look above Timberline if the elk are still up there. If not, um, I want to be able to find, um, you know, small feed areas, whether it's avalanche shoots, whether it's small meadows, whether it's small little side patches where those elk can feel a little bit more comfortable, um,
you know, bowls specifically when they're feeding by themselves, when they want to be secluded, um, but they want to get access to that higher quality food. Um, I'm looking for, for small little, um, areas in the timber, um, and stuff like that to, to concentrate my glassing. And then once you find those elk, you have to put together a plan on killing them, you know, and, and sometimes it's a lot easier, uh, said than done. Um,
Some country we hunt is very, very big. Some of it's broken up. And a lot of times the more broken up country is actually easier because we can get on ridges. We can plan our approaches to get a whole lot closer to these elk, which actually sets up a lot better as far as having a plan to go kill them. If you're in big, big country where the canyons are...
Half mile, mile across, you know, you can't shoot from side to side. You can't get any closer. You know, a lot of times moving to their side puts you at a big disadvantage because your visibility is way, way low. You've got wind that you're dealing with, you know, even though it's rifle hunting, we're still paying a lot of attention to the wind.
You know, as these late season will bring a lot more weather and weather systems that will then do some crazy stuff with the wind. So as you're making your plan, you know, ideally for me, my ideal plan is to pattern
These late season elk, a lot of times they will continue to do the same thing morning and evening. They've got their preferred food source. They've got their preferred bedding area. And they're just going to keep doing, you know, they're going to go in the morning. They're going to go from feed to bed at nighttime. They're going to come from bed to feed.
And so I'm going to ideally get myself within shooting range, whatever my comfortable shooting range is of where I expect those, you know, that bowl to present itself. And like I said, a lot of times it's easier, you know, said than done, but you need to look at everything, you know, wind,
where you plan on them coming out what's going to give you the best view of the area all of that will come into you know finding the elk but then the plan to killing them you need to put some thought into that and you know if it's in the timbered area you're gonna have to figure out you know how to get the wind right you know use elk trails use you know be as quiet as possible and try to make your your play on how to kill those
The next question late season calling. A typical question I get is, hey, I've got a rifle tag for such and such unit. It runs November 1 to the 10th. What calls do I need and what calls am I going to make while I'm out there? And as much as I would like to tell everybody, like, oh, yeah, go buy a bugle tube, go buy some diaphragms, buy one of everything. In my opinion, from what I've seen, we don't use calls near as much as we do during the rut.
And I'll give some of my reasoning for that. One, you're drawing extra attention to yourself. If you're out there cow calling or getting, let's say you spotted or heard it, you know, a thousand yards away, you close the distance to a couple hundred yards. We need to remember we've got typically, you know, some sort of a long range weapon in our hand, you know, something that's capable of two to 300 yard shots very comfortably.
if we were to go get within 200 yards and try to communicate with those elk through calls whether it's a cow call you know i would say bugling is completely off table but if you were to bugle all you're doing in my opinion is is letting those elk now know of your location and then you're putting a whole bunch of extra eyeballs on yourself um you could have got to that same position
silently had zero eyes on you and then been able to have a lot more time to make your decision, maybe find the bull. You know, all of these things that happen when we finally get in close, like where am I going to set up to shoot? But by making a call, you've now alerted them to your location. And a lot of times that's,
that gets a lot of eyeballs on you. Let's say it's a late season, you know, timbered rifle or, you know, late season archery, whatever it may be. You get in tight. A lot of times it not only does it put eyeballs in your direction and now alerts them, you know, elk in my, in my opinion, no of other elk that are around. They don't, you know, there is a chance a new elk just showed up and it won't put them on alert. But a lot of times in my experience, you know,
making a call out of the blue they kind of know like something's up or if it's not a great call um you know they all kind of perk up they all kind of look around they all lift their heads up from feeding they're all looking in your direction so number one eyes in your direction and it puts them a little bit on edge and on alert where i will use calls in late season um number one if i'm still hunting as i mentioned a lot of times growing up in you know the the pacific
rainforest you know we're hunting still hunting we're literally walking through timber as quiet as we can trying to spot elk before they spot us you know if we got the wind right a lot of times we could smell them beforehand and what not but
But if we were happened to bump an elk, but they didn't necessarily smell us, they may be seen or maybe hurt us. We can then use a cow call. A lot of times I'll still hunt with a diaphragm in my mouth. I'll make a couple of cow calls just to settle them down. Maybe that will be enough to get them to settle down and I can, you know, get get to the next ridge and maybe make a shot from ridge to ridge or whatever. We have used some aggressive methods.
Tactics in late season when I've hunted with some buddies, we've actually broke up herds, like specifically went in to bump them and then use some lost cow calling, some long drawn out cow calls to call them back to the location. We've had a little bit of success with that. For typical late season elk calling, where I love to use calls the most is in an area where I need to stop an elk for a shot.
If I'm shooting three, four, 500 yards across the canyon, whatever it may be, say it's brushy and I've only got certain spots that are going to work for a shot. I don't typically want to yell across the canyon. You know, the meh, I don't want to yell, hey, I don't want to get, you know, do any of these things.
A loud external cow call is a great way to stop that elk. And the thing I like about using that cow call is typically as long as he's not scared, he's just feeding or moving like they normally would, you can typically get them to stop for longer than just a second or two. If you yell, if you make the fake meh, a lot of times they'll stop, but then they'll get nervous. They kind of figure out what that sound was versus if you're using a natural sound like a loud cow call,
I typically, I like to, you know, call on it as loud as I can one time, get them to stop. And then they are going to have eyes on you. So I, you know, usually don't like to be moving by that time. Hopefully the shooter's down ready, um, tracking the elk. So we will use, um, cow calls, you know, in that, in that instance to get them to stop for a shot. Um, I guess, uh,
do what the elk are doing. If I showed up to an area on October 25th, let's say for a rifle hunt and there are bulls bugling their head off and I feel that by bugling back and locating bulls is going to give me an advantage, I'll always have my bugle tube around or in the truck or a diaphragm available. Quick story, my wife's first bull back in 2017, October 29th, we hiked into an area and
She had a tag and we started to hear a bull bugle down below us on October 29th. And I could kind of listen by the type of bugle that it was.
That bull was still running. He still had cows in heat, whether they came in on a second or a third cycle. And we got to listen to that bull bugle probably 300 times that evening as he pushed his herd of cows up past us and she was able to make a shot. So I didn't have my bugle tube in that instance. And I probably still wouldn't have called because I could hear that they were ultimately moving from down below us to up above us. And we were just going to let them go by anyways. We had the wind good in our face.
But in that instance, if we wouldn't have killed that bull that night, I wouldn't have hesitated to go back in there the next day with the bugle tube, knowing I could probably get that bull to respond. So do what the elk are telling you to do. You don't want to be out there if the woods are completely silent, you're on elk and you're the only one out there hammering bugles.
You don't want to be the only cow in the woods just screaming on estrous wines. So do what they're doing and you're going to be safe. Don't try to force the issue. Don't over call because in my opinion, sometimes you can do more harm than good by one alerting them and getting a whole lot of eyes looking in your direction. The last user question, what time of the day should I be hunting in the late season?
You know, so where we typically archery hunt all day, but we always know that, you know, morning and nights are going to be best with the most action because you get that, you know, it's hotter in the midday. The days are longer. So when it comes to rifle hunting, number one, it's a little bit of a mindset change for me is I've got a gun in my hand. I'm now more lethal.
It just takes out one that one elk to show itself in the wrong spot or the right spot for me Wrong spot for the elk and and I can be successful in these late season hunts. We've now got cooler weather Which will let those bulls and and cows those elk will be on their feet a lot more As they're using more calories to stay warm and to survive
they're going to be on their feet more. They're going to need to put down more calories. On top of that, bulls specifically, it puts a toll on them getting through the rut. You kill a bull late August, early September, you look at them and they're just loaded up with layers of fat. You kill a bull post-rut and that thing is wore down to nothing, nothing but meat and bones,
Those bulls are trying to recoup very, very quickly because they just went from the rut. They've got a very short feed window and then they're going to have to survive the winter. So those things will be on their feet a lot more. So with the cooler weather and then we also have shorter days, right? You know, it's crazy to start with an archery season where it seems like you're getting up at
4.30 and you're going to bed at 9, by the time a rifle season comes around, you're getting up at 6.30 and it's dark by 6 or 5.30. It's pretty drastic. But that also, in my opinion, with shorter days, I'm out there more. So
during late season. If I were, if I have a tag in my hand, I'm hunting all day from morning till dark and don't give up on those mid days. Yes, you may not see as many elk out in the wide open, but during that midday concentrate on brushier, um,
more of those fringy fringy areas and when I say fringy it's like you're not out in the wide open meadows you're not way out away from the timber you know above timber line but you're looking at where let's say timber meets the meadow or maybe a brushy avalanche draw or maybe just a brushy area in the area a lot of times those you know bowls will feed in there all day and feel like they're secluded and they're hidden from any danger so
Midday switch your focus from wide open feed areas to kind of that secondary feed where they're a little more comfortable and you can a lot of times create plays midday that you can go capitalize on that evening or before the day gets you know too dark to be able to hunt. So
My opinion, hunt all day in the late season, especially if you have a gun in your hand. You never know when you can find success. So that kind of wraps it up for some of the Q&A. Once again, if you have your own questions, email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or hit us up on social and we will make sure to do our best job of putting an answer to it.
All right, now we're going to jump into the final field report for the 2022 Elcrut. The engineer in me really wants to break this down based on components.
And some of those things, when I look at the rut, I look at kind of where was the timing? How did the timing line up compared to what I typically think of the rut? What was the intensity of the rut? Was it on fire? Did it seem to be lackadaisical? What was the weather that we experienced in each of our stops? Herd behavior, which also kind of ties back into intensity, like were there subdominant bulls trying to challenge? Were they pestering the herds?
I'm going to pull out the callability component. You know, it's a piece of us being archery hunters, like how callable were the bulls and what did we see on that, you know, as far as trying to call these elk and how susceptible they were to calling. And one thing that's hard because we're never in the same spot, on the same herd, you know, at the same time. And so I do my best here. I'm going to kind of preface this with I'm going to do my best to kind of
overarch and overreach my my opinion here on years past and being in similar areas and you know a similar elk and then the other thing is I've got a chance to talk with you know 30 40 other guys you know I get back we all me and my buddies all get on the phone get you know some of our pro staff some of the guys that use our calls whatever it may be and we just kind of BS about hunting you know what worked what didn't work what was your big takeaways you
you know, and so on and so forth. And so I'll try to do my best to kind of roll all of this together. So timing of the rut.
I would say I'll give my, my overall opinion and I'll kind of break it down. So timing of the rut, in my opinion, seem to be later than, you know, past and by past, I don't mean a year or two ago, but the typical rut timing seems to be late. And I don't just mean late by a couple of days. I'm thinking, you know, seven to 10 days off. Um,
a typical rut cycle you know i i got to hunt new mexico with ryan callahan this year um we were a few days of ahead of when um steve ronella and myself got to hunt the same unit last year and so we've got a very very good location same elk um just a few days off and the end of me and cal's hunt kind of overlapped the beginning of me and steve's hunt and what we saw was very very
different elk behaviors between the two different years. So 21, Steve and I started hunting on September 5th, 2022, Cal and I started hunting on the first, but we did get four days of overlap. The larger herd bulls this year were still by themselves on September 4th and September 5th, which seemed very strange to me. And when I say larger herd bulls,
We were covering 10 to 12 miles a day. We were locating a lot of elk. We were getting to lay eyes on herds. And the bulls that were running the cows weren't quite...
in the same category as some of these bulls that were off still bachelored up. So number one leads me to believe a lot of times we see, you know, those smaller bulls running herds in the late August, but by time September rolls around, we can almost always guarantee that those larger bulls will then take over the herd and court the cows, you know, for the rest of September or until an even larger bull shows up. So I was a little concerned seeing that
The two largest bulls we seen on the entire trip were solo by themselves. We also made a move on the largest of all of these bulls, got within 125 yards thinking he's by himself. We got down next to him. Wind was really good. We cow called 125, 150 yards away.
And the bull never made a peep. A lot of times, you know, if he's ready or even if he's not ready by September 5th, he's going to be accepted. You know, he's going to be accepting cows, make responses, make a movement, you
So we didn't know that bull was there. We made some cow calls and continued moving. And then ultimately, you know, you're a little concerned like, well, as a last ditch effort, we don't think anything's here. I'm going to bugle before we walk out of the canyon we just crawled into trying to get this guy. I let a bugle out and that bull takes off ripping, you know, right out of the draw, right down below us. I could have thrown a rock and landed on its head. That bull takes off. And so
You have that scenario on September 5th. You fast forward to September 5th with me and Steve. We call in three or four different bulls on the first evening, and you have what I would consider dominant bulls, bigger than this bull that me and Cal tried to call in. All of them...
bouncing around from group of cow to groups of cows, trying to figure out where they fit in and the pecking order. And they were all battling it out. You know, when I say battling it out, not literally battling it out, but they were all posturing. They were all moving four groups of cows already. So that was a pretty good sign in New Mexico that the timing was late.
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It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. Move on to Oregon. I would say timing was a little more typical. We had...
you know, a little bit of bugling. Um, but, but timing was still a little late. Like it wasn't a ton of action. They would kind of shut off midday. We did have a couple of days where we could get them going midday. Um, but really just weren't cranking yet. Like that unit should have been fast forward to Idaho. We don't show up until, um,
18th or 19th and the elk there just aren't going. We are in elk. We see elk. We know we're in elk and those things wouldn't make a whole lot of sound until we got right on top of them. Now fast forward to the very end of that hunt. Um, 26th, 25th things are finally starting to get going. Um, we have hunted this unit, um,
We've had people hunting this unit last couple of years. Dirk's hunted it a couple of times. And, you know, he always said it was very good early, you know, 10th to the 15th. And then it kind of actually seemed to have hit like an October lull. And so for us, it's another indicator that this thing seemed to have been seven to 10 days late, later than normal. I'm not a...
I'm not a weatherman. I'm not a climate specialist, whatever, whatever keeps track of, you know, climate change, whether you believe in any of that or not. But one thing I do notice is spring always seems to be later. We've been having about the last five years, you know, winter's later, spring is later. Summer seems to go longer. Um, we saw some calves with spots on them this year, which leads me to believe that even last year, 2021, we were seeing some of these cows get bred late, late into November, December. Um,
Um, but, but to back up, I feel like if I had to put an estimation on it, the rut was seven to 10 days later than what I typically saw, you know, back in, in the early two thousands when, um, everything, the peak really seemed to hit, you know, the 13th to the 17th of September. I would say that, you know, this year peak of the rut was maybe 23rd to the 27th of September. And we were going to get pretty good rut action well into October. Um,
is kind of the timing of that. Now the intensity of the rut, one of the other categories I kind of want to break down the rut
The intensity was way, way down this year. The full moon hit, I believe. Oh boy, I'm going to guess and probably be wrong. I want to say it hit towards the end of our New Mexico hunt. So somewhere around the 7th or 8th, we kind of got that full moon and then we were on the tail end of it. So I don't feel like the moon was necessarily a huge factor. A lot of times when you have full moon, those elk will kind of
rotate the rut more into the to the night they will they'll get very intense at night and you won't just see as much uh rutting activity during the daylight i didn't see the moon really have any effect on the intensity and that may have a have a strong correlation with the timing maybe they just weren't there yet but is is we started to go from the full moon back to to no moon um we didn't see like a
a linear, you know, pickup on the intensity of the rut. It didn't seem to like spark it or get it going when we were in Oregon. So in my opinion, the intensity was down. I'll talk a little bit about herd behavior, which in my opinion, the intensity of the rut really has to do with the herd behavior, what the other subdominant bulls are doing, and a little bit of an observation I had on herd behavior that really
was not typical, especially for the areas that I got to hunt this year. So intensity seemed to be down. Now with that said, we did get into some great action. We were able to finally get the intensity turned up, but we talk about this a lot when we're setting up and some of our calling strategies
I felt like a lot of that intensity was on my shoulders. We would locate a bull, maybe with just a response. I would locate Bugle or one of our callers, one of my buddies would locate Bugle and we would get an answer, but nothing too intense, nothing that was over the top. And we would move in and a lot of times we would want these bulls to keep Bugling. There really wasn't any of that. We would have to make a good decision. We'd have to make a good call on where he was at, get in tight,
and then have to work really, really hard on getting his temperature turned up. You know, he was very relaxed. And this was morning and night. Typically, these turn up the intensity situations have to happen when they're in bed or late morning, early evening, kind of before they really kind of get going or the herd starts moving.
um this was morning and night um and throughout the day we'd have to go get in start to make calls start to make excited cal calls um excited bugles challenge vehicles then we could slowly get the intensity turned up um and in high in idaho especially
These elk were not interested in answering you from across the canyon. They weren't really interested in answering you, you know, from six, 700 yards away. We had to get very, very close. They would call on their own occasionally. We had to take that little bit of information, develop our plan, get the wind right. A lot of it was just a guess. We thought they were in this area. Sometimes it would take us some time to get there and we just had to kind of guess that they were still there.
We would get in tight, and then once we got within 300, 400 yards, we could start to hear them a little better. They were bugling very, very quietly without a ton of meaning, a ton of force. It was just very, very quiet bugling. But when we would get in, set up, let's say we were 150, 200 yards away, we could start to get those bulls to get that intensity picked up.
But it was a lot of work. And like I say, it was a little frustrating knowing running this multiple times on different herd bulls and different satellite bulls.
that we were unable to get them to answer across the canyon, which really has you second guessing everything you do because you feel like you put yourself in a good spot. You feel like there should be elk there. There's elk sign there, but yet you cannot get an answer. And so it's one of those real frustrating times, you know, to be an archery elk hunter that likes to call elk.
Because you really had no idea if you were in elk or if you weren't in elk. So, you know, that intensity, you want those things to answer back quicker. You want them to be interested and you want them to continue to answer. Weather this year, the weather for 2022, in my opinion, has a big effect on kind of snapping them into a better rut, you know, a better rut from a hunter's perspective.
The weather all across the West, I don't know too many places, if any, that I've seen a bunch of rain or a bunch of weather issues.
I would say my typical weather forecast from the first day we were in New Mexico on September 1st, all the way to the last day I hunted Idaho in September 28th. Um, aside from the day before we drove into Idaho, which was a, uh, kind of a quick little wet mess there. Um, extremely hot, extremely dry, not a lot of water where there's typically water. Um,
New Mexico, you know, it's more of a man-made water game. So there is water where we expected it to be water through tanks and whatnot. But the weather was very, very warm. And what's very frustrating for an archery elk hunter is when you've got 30 to 40 minutes to hunt in the morning and then you have to take a 10-hour nap because those elk are completely non-responsive the rest of the day until right before evening and
And they're bedding themselves, all of them, not just a few of them. They all seem to bed in a flat top or a flat bottom where the wind just would not allow us to make an approach from any direction. So, you know, weather was hot. It was dry. Now, I don't mind clear and cool. I don't even mind some hot days, but we need...
In my opinion, you want a little bit of rain. You want a little bit of cold, you know, and then a warm snap. You know, you want some days where it doesn't get above 50 or 60 in the mountains instead of every day being, you know, in the 70s. So I think weather played a little bit.
I don't think you just want the same static weather pattern for an entire month. It doesn't give you any of those cold snaps or warm snaps and changes is really what you're looking for to kind of change that animal behavior. So weather didn't help us out at all this year. Herd behavior. This is more of an observation when we go and locate elk either by, you know, typically by glassing them up.
We noticed very, very little challenging. We noticed very, very little bowl-to-bowl bugling or communication when they're out there. It seemed like the pecking order was very well established this year, and the herd bowls that were in the area were
were running the show and the satellite bulls really weren't that interested in messing with the herd bull at all. And the most glaring instance of this was when I was in Oregon, you know, a very, very good unit, a lot of bulls that are not only, you know, upper end, but a whole bunch of bulls that are in that next tier, you know, very mature bulls and most units would be running herds.
we saw very very little challenging from those bulls and we saw very very very little opportunity to call those bulls in they were either by themselves non-vocal or just not interested you know there was one evening we got into a little bit of a bugle fest you know it's a big brushy hole we kind of just all disregard for how much noise you're making we kind of ran in there and we had a
a mid-sized six kind of messing with a mature 320 type six point. And that was really the only crazy bull-to-bull rut action we had experienced aside from us trying to insert us into the calling game. So real, real weird herd behavior. New Mexico, like I said, the only two bulls biggling at each other were the two biggest bulls that really didn't have any cows around or anything.
So real strange there aside from bulls just calling back and forth to each other across the canyon or maybe answering a location bugle. Oregon seemed to be herd behavior was one dominant bull with 25, 30 cows kind of just running the show. Some smaller satellites really just feeding way off to the side. In Idaho, herd bulls were making a little bit of sound. We did have satellites around the herd bull calling
But real non-vocal, the herd bull was actually doing the majority of the culling, which is sometimes not what happens. A lot of times those satellite bulls will give away the herd. But yeah, just real weird where we didn't have a lot of satellite bulls keeping that herd bull talking so that we can make good decisions, plan our approach, get the wind right, and do all the stuff we normally do. Herd behavior was definitely down this year as far as subordinate bulls challenging for the herd or pestering the herd bull.
And then the main thing I'm looking at as far as how the rut goes is how callable were the bulls. And this is where you had great success in the past. And some of these same units are very similar units in the Mexico being as early as we were. We had,
very very uh lackluster results i would say as far as being able to call a bull into our lap you know the very first day september 1st we were able to to call in what i would call even a more immature bull um to very close range he was full of piss and vinegar um he was one of those bulls where once he responded a couple times you're like all right i can throw anything at him you know a couple challenge beagles raking a tree and we had that bull come in and then
from there on out, we watched a very large five point, very mature bull go from having cows to losing his cows. And then when we when he lost his cows, like, all right, I'm just going to go in and cow call this bull. And it seems like a perfect opportunity for him to get cows back. Just really not interested. So we ramped it up to beagles and
And he just wasn't interested. He was going to stay 100 yards, 120 yards off and not make any change. Now, we did get into a lot of calling battles, but it seemed like the ability to move these elk the last 40, 50 yards sometimes was very, very difficult. Also, bulls that just weren't interested in committing, they would call back and forth. You could play the, you know, I'm over here, you're over there game. We can let each other know where we're at.
But the ability to move that elk, you know, midday or late morning just wasn't going to happen. If they weren't on their way to feed or to bed, they weren't really going to change the location. I think that comes back to the weather and the heat. They just weren't going to pull themselves off of there. We did have a couple other chances there just for one reason or another. Couldn't get them to commit. Moved to Oregon.
About as frustrating of elk hunting with a call in my mouth that I've ever experienced during the rut. These bulls did not want you to get close. You know, our normal game plan is get very, very close. Estrus wine, challenge beagle in his face. You're basically saying there's a bull there to take your cows down.
That was maybe the worst thing we could do is get close and bugle because they would find enough time. They didn't really care. We had multiple bulls walk away from their cows when they are the herd bulls. They would just leave if they couldn't round up their cows and leave. So we realized very quickly we couldn't call to the herd bull. So we switched to cow calling. Let's get in close and cow call. We did have a couple call-ins that were very successful with cow calls, but then a bunch of scenarios where it didn't work. So we would get in close and
We would try to cow call and once again they would either leave or it would put eyes on us and by time we would get something set up. It didn't work out, but a lot of times that bull was not interested in listening to cow call. He would once again kind of round his cows up and leave.
And it turned into Oregon. We were hunting elk a lot like mule deer with a bow. Be very, very quiet. Try to be, you know, sneak into shooting position. Try to get into an ambush position ahead of them. And time after time, you know, we'd find ourselves kind of coming back to, hey, calling should work here. And we would you would.
try to resist it the whole way. You go to make a call and sure enough you would screw the whole thing up again. So very uncallable Idaho. The elk were callable once we would find them. Like I said, they were very, very quiet, but once we would get in close, get them to start talking on multiple occasions, we were able to call elk in into shooting range.
or they would come in silent, but they did what elk did. Like I don't necessarily think that elk are always going to come in bugling. We had elk come in silent. We had opportunities and things did line up. So Idaho, they were definitely more callable. So my button, my recap on...
The rut here, the elk rut for 2022 seems to be a little bit later. Intensity seemed to be down at least during bow season. I wouldn't be surprised right now if those bulls weren't still talking very well into the end of October. Weather was hot. We need a little bit different weather to kind of break that up. Herd behavior seemed to be down. We didn't have satellite bulls challenging and then callability. I don't know if it was the area of the units I was in compared to normal, but
you know, the first two hunts were frustrating, especially having back-to-back New Mexico hunts where they were extremely callable in 21, not very callable in 22. And then one of the best units in Oregon, just having it very, very tough to be able to call to these bulls. Well, it was real frustrating. So that's kind of my recap on this year's rut. And that's kind of breaking it down on timing, intensity, the weather we experienced,
what the herd behavior like and what the call ability was. So, um, like I say, I think if we continue to get these slight changes in later winters, later Springs, we're going to continue to maybe get this rut timing moved back, which, um,
I don't know if I'm ready to start to plan around that or not, but we may start looking into pushing our archery hunts later into September, maybe move some, you know, if we can get rifle tags earlier in October, we may start using that to our advantage and seeing if what I believe is happening can translate into some hunter success. So once again, thank you very much for tuning in to Cutting the Distance. This is kind of my synopsis on the field reports for the 2022 elk rut.
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