Ep.19: You’re Ready To Call, Get Your Setup Right!
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We are back here, part two interview with Dirk Durham, my good buddy, marketing manager here for Phelps Game Calls, great elk caller. And then even more important than just being a great elk caller, out in the woods, he knows what to do when there are elk there. So the last episode, we answered some questions like how long will he work a bull before changing tactics? How do we determine whether to be aggressive or slow play?

Um, we talk on, you know, what calls he uses while hunting, um, you know, when set up calling and you want to be a cow involved in some of those things to go back and check the old episode out. Now we're going to get into the new stuff. Um, once again, we're going to take some user questions, some listener questions here right off the bat. If you have questions of your own, feel free to email us at ctd at Phelps game calls.com.

So the first question I have for you here, Dirk, from a listener, when should you be quiet versus when can you get away with making noise while in the elk woods? So we'll kind of go back to that locating a bull, right? So we've heard this bull reply three, four times. We decided we want to get to that bull. He's across the canyon. Okay.

Um, I'm going to travel 90% of the way there to that bowl with, without much regard to noise. You know, we're not going to talk out loud by, of course, but we're going to walk, you know, as quickly as we can to get to cover the distance. But we may be kicking rocks every now and then we may be breaking the branch. We may be swishing through the brush. It's okay because we're still at quite a distance and we're not worrying about those, those elk hearing that, you know, um,

I will say, though, if there's some open ground, we want to make sure we try to avoid walking through great big openings, especially quickly. Just because, let's say, one side of the canyon has lots of trees where the bull is at, and then you're on the side that's very sparsely timbered and there's a lot of openings. You should avoid those openings because a lot of times when you're in those trees, you can look out across and see those open hillsides. So you don't want to get caught walking across there.

But I, I, I don't, I don't try to be quiet until I get to that last little bit. When I start, I live looking at my phone and looking at my Onyx on my, my little waypoint. I put where I thought that bowl was when I started getting about 200 yards from that bowl. Now I'm going to start slowing down, start slowing down, start being a lot quieter because I don't want to know, let him know I'm coming. Right. I want to get up close. I want to get everything to my advantage. I want to have

I want to have the wind ride. I want to have terrain features in my advantage. That way I can get as close as I can, almost danger close, quietly that last 10% of the setup time. And then after that, depending on how the conversation with the bulls goes, will determine my next move, whether I

make a bunch of noise, like an elk walking through the brush, or if I stay quiet, just, it just kind of depends on how the game goes after that. Yeah. I'm, I'm real similar. Um, a lot of times, and maybe we take this from our buddies that, that do more spot and stock, but in certain situations, especially if a bull is, you know, sounding off on, on his location, um, without us ever having to make a peep and, and, and, you know, according to that bull, we don't exist. Um,

I'll do the same thing. Very, very quiet all the way to, to where dangerously close, you know, get the wind right. And we kind of, you know, phrase that or dub it as kind of that shock and awe. You know, you didn't make a noise. He doesn't even know you exist. And the first noise he hears is, you know, either going to be a challenge beagle or a cow that's right on top of him. So in those instances, you,

I will be very, very quiet. Um, you know, a funny story, you know, or just what my dad always said is, you know, they grew up as rifle hunters, you know, and they, they'd get on their, their fancy white, you know, new balance shoes, maybe stained green from mowing the grass. And, you know, the dad's shoes and my dad's, my dad and all of his brothers, they hunted in white new balances because rifle hunting, especially here in Western Washington was a game of being silent, you know, woodsmanship,

was, uh, of the utmost importance. You didn't make a noise. Your goal there was to sneak in on a herd of elk bedded down or in the timber feeding. Um, you know, and you could only do that by being quiet. And I can remember being a, uh, a young kid or, you know, just getting to elk hunt. And my dad looked at me and like, you aren't cut out to do this type of hunting. You know, I made too much noise, too much racket. Of course I was a kid back then. Um, but yeah,

it's kind of a segue into when you're archery elk hunting, you, you can get away with a lot more noise. Um, you know, if you're announcing your location, one thing that naturally is going to come with an elk being there is noise of snapping sticks. Now these, you know, seven, eight, 800 pound animals may be the quietest thing on the earth at times, but the majority of the time they will make noise. They're going to step on sticks. They don't care about that stuff because they're just doing what normal elk would do. And that's make noise. Um,

As they come in and elk have very keen, you know, hearing they can a good example. Last year I was in New Mexico prior to Steve showing up on our elk hunt. I had watched a herd of elk all morning.

watch them do their thing and then let them kind of feed up to their bedding, which they were feeding down in some low meadows. They would feed up into the timber to some thicker chunks of juniper and whatnot where they could bed. I thought I had given this herd enough ground, never made a peep. I was just scouting. I didn't want them to even know I was there, but I needed to kind of get past their location.

I let them get up there what I assumed I could still make eye contact four or five hundred yards and I dropped down into the canyon to walk past their location that bull came charging down the hill and I didn't figure it out why or how come until afterwards he ran to my location and I hid behind a tree just so I didn't get picked off but he was ripping bugles at a very very close distance like left his cows came down close and and this is just how good they're hearing is I

I later figured out he could hear my feet like going through the brush, you know, through the grass, the tall knee high grass that was in that meadow. And literally I called him in with the swishing of my feet and basically pushing grass out of the way as I walk quickly down the road. Um, so with that said, like noise isn't always bad. Like elk will pick up on natural noise that would have been there, whether it was me walking through there or a real elk. And so I'm not always, uh,

super sensitive to how much noise I'm making. Unless like we said earlier, um, we're trying to do that shock and all, we really don't want them to know we're even there. And we're kind of playing on that temperament of that bowl is probably fired up and he's going to come in, you know, to check us out. Second question from the listeners, when will you finally give up on a bowl and go find another one? Um, there again, you know, situation dependent. Um,

Man, sometimes it's really tempting to give up on a bull, you know, especially if you've, let's say you've been dogging them for quite a while. If we rewind to 2020 and we were hunting New Mexico, Jason,

And you and I and John Gabriel were hunting together. And man, we were chasing bugles all morning. And it just, it got really frustrating. I was like, man, are we ever going to catch these things? You know, we, and it was really hard to like pinpoint which direction to even walk. And man, it was almost...

it was very disheartening and you'd almost feel like, man, I don't know if we should keep following these stupid people. I mean, what are we doing? And we just kind of doubled down on it. You said, you said, uh, let's just, let's just keep going over here. And I think they're over here. And so we did and we caught up with them. Right. And, uh,

And it worked out great because you shot that really beautiful six point. But had we give up to a little, a little too soon, like, you know, if we'd have got frustrated, like, man, I just don't know where these things are at, or I can't, I can't keep up or whatever. If we would have, if we'd have thrown the, thrown the towel too early, then we would have never, we'd have never got that opportunity. And another, another scenario is,

Uh, cameraman Dusty and I in 2020, we were hunting and, uh, from first light, we were on a bull that was bugling. We got down in the, in the thick stuff with him and mixed it up and he he'd come in and he'd leave. He'd come in and he'd leave, come in and leave. And finally, um, as the morning progressed, it was getting to be about time to where he should probably get out of there and go find a place to lay down. Right.

So that bull and his cows, next thing you know, we could hear them moving off up, up, up, up the mountain. So there again, looking at the topographical map on my phone, I'm looking, I'm like, where are those things going? You know, we were on kind of a West facing slope, but over on that East facing slope, there was a lot of big, deep mature timber pockets that faced North and we

we all know that elk like to bed on a north-facing slope. Why? Because it's a lot cooler, there's a lot more shade, a lot of times there's little wallows or little seeps or some water. It's just a cooler place to be in the daytime and they're not going to have to get up in the middle of the day and change their bed, you know, especially if it's big dark timber. They can stay there without having to reposition. So looking at the onyx, determining that, okay, well,

there's fingerage after fingerage after fingerage, about five of them in a row with a real nice North face with heavy timber on it. We're just going to start checking those boxes. We're going to go to each one, call into it until we find those out. So we let them get up, get up and over the mountain. We had an hour or two before it was middle of the day, you know, 12 o'clock. So Dusty and I took a break, had our lunch, cooled our feet, rested up. And when the wind got right,

you know, now the thermals are very, very good on that next, on that next side of the hillside there, then that's when we were made our move. And so we kind of thought, cause we'd heard the bulls bugle this bull bugle the day before from the other side of the Canyon. So I had a mark on, on X there too, like, okay, well we'll just come across the Canyon and, and, or we'll just go over the hill where they vetted yesterday and get them while they weren't in that bed. So, um,

We didn't give up, you know, you know, me 20 years ago would have been like, well, I don't know where they went. I don't have a GPS and I've never been here. So I don't know. They disappeared. They must not want to bugle. Well, we just looked at the next spot. It's like, okay, well, we walk a quarter mile to the next pocket, walked a quarter mile, the next pocket, nothing, walked a quarter mile, the next pocket. So like in the fourth pocket, we got close to it. I called, bam, he answers. We found him.

And within 30 minutes, we had that bull called in and, you know, there's too much brush in the way and poor old Dusty didn't get a shot. But it worked out great. So I feel like, you know, unless you've really spooked them,

Um, just keep on them, just keep on them until either you kill them or they go to someplace. Maybe you physically can't follow, or, um, maybe you run out of daylight, um, or whatever the case might be, maybe, but don't, don't give up. I feel like people give up a way too soon. Sometimes use the tools you have, um, whether it's the maps or just maybe a strong set of legs, you know, just, just keep going.

Yeah, and I'm going to elaborate on that a little bit and stretch the question. So giving up on a bowl as far as like, you know, that morning's calling versus, you

One of the things I get to hear around here a lot is people have their, their favorite little spot that they hunt, right? They're, they're going to this spot day after day, hunting this specific bull day after day, you know, around here, our Roosevelt's are very, very patternable. They're going to do the same thing. Well, we get stories or we get to hear the stories of, man, you know, what do I do? I've been in here five days. I've got them to bugle in the same spot.

And, you know, I, I'm over-exaggerating, but they go to the same spot in the road. They get the bull to answer from there. They go down the same trail every day. And so first is my first thing is change up your, your, your, your tactic, right? Don't do the same thing. Cause you've, you know, I don't know the exact, what the definition of, uh, what is it?

like idiocracy is like doing the same thing over and over. Insanity. I probably butchered that whole thing. Insanity. There you go. Not insanity. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. And so that's kind of where I've go is like, well, have you tried something different? Have you tried from approaching the opposite side or the opposite, you know, crick bottom or drainage, whatever it may be, but you get my point. Like,

You've got your butt whooped there five or six days in a row. Like switch it up because obviously those elk want to be there. It's obviously their calling. Like go switch something up. And then at some point, there are situations where that elk goes to a bedding area that's so secured. And what I mean so secure is it's got swirling winds. It's got inapproachable side, whatever it may be.

If I feel that my chances of killing this bull are less than a hundred percent on any given time, I'm going to switch my plan. I'm going to go find different elk. Like,

Don't get stuck trying to kill the same elk, you know, day after day, you know, set up after set up. If it's just get, if you're getting your butt kicked because you've only got a certain amount of days in September, you've only got so many days of the rut. In my opinion, you're better off pulling the plug on. Yeah. We also say don't leave elk to go find elk. But in these certain instances, like I'm, I'm pulling up, you know, I'm pulling anchor and I'm going somewhere else. Um, if I'm, if I'm getting beat that many times in a row.

That's some great information. I feel like people get in that rut, you know, I've heard, I've heard that same story a lot, you know, man, I've been watching this big bull and I hunted him for eight days. And, you know, what, what could I have done to call him in? And honestly, your first encounter with an elk is your best to kill it. And, and,

your second encounter the odds in your favor go way down you know the odds tip towards the elk every time you have that encounter especially days day in day out every day in a row um so i'm with you jason if i'll hunt an area one day if we don't kill in there um but we had pretty decent luck a lot of times i'll walk right away from that and go hunt in a different spot you know

I may go 20 miles away to a different spot completely. And I'll let those elk set, especially if I'm not worried about somebody else going in there to hunt them. And then I'll come back in two or three days.

Um, a lot can change in those, those two or three days, you know, maybe, maybe there's, uh, been some fights happen. Maybe there's been a change in hierarchy of dominance, you know, between bulls. Maybe there's, there's cows that have all been bred. The last couple of cows got bred. Now there's bulls that just about ready to leave and go find some greener pasture somewhere. You know, there's so many unknowns there, but, um, but hunting them over and over and over and day to day, they learn your tricks.

You know, just because you're not there, you leave just because you're not there. There doesn't mean you haven't left remnants of your of your presence. You know, we all we all take take a leak in the and go to the bathroom in the woods or or, you know, just walking through the woods, touching things and stuff. We leave behind scent at nighttime when they move around, you know, a lot more freely that they'll find evidence of our presence. So if we continue to just go in there day after day and stink it up, it just it makes it really hard to kill.

to kill one of those bulls. And then, you know, back to the point you made about, you know, you go out to the same landing, you bugle off in the same spot every day, man, elk get so conditioned. I've got this, I got this hunting spot in Idaho, this big, nasty, gnarly, deep Canyon. And there's not been a year that I've stopped there, you know, hike over there, get out on the point and bugle to where I didn't hear a bull except for this one year. And I'm like, man,

The timing is perfect. It's cold. It's just, man, there's, why isn't there not some able or bull multiple bulls bugling down in there. And I get to look at it and there's lots of boot tracks. Every, every Tom, Dick and Harry this pass through there has stopped here and called. So I'm like, huh? Well, I, I think there's bulls in here. So I backtracked, walked down, dropped about 500 feet in elevation and got a little bit of different angle into this big Canyon and

and started calling again and it was like night and day bam answered immediately and i'm and i'm in just a rut fest bugling match with this bull in a matter of 15 minutes right so changing your position means everything because those elk get conditioned they heard they've heard and you know this was towards into september they've heard every tom dick and harry from september 1st till then bugle from that sweet spot you know and probably some even come in

That people don't even know about and catch their wind or hear them or see them or something. So if you can mix it up and just try some different places, like if you know there's elk in there, don't use the same, the same routes to access it. Don't use the same bugle points, get creative and get in there.

Those are all great points, Dirk. And so once again, if any of you listeners have any questions for me or my guests, please submit them at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com and we'll do our best to get them answered. All right. In today's discussion, Dirk, and we could probably spend the next 20 podcasts talking on just this one subject is setting up.

I have full confidence in the majority of hunters. Some of them I would still question, but the majority of hunters can go out there and one locate elk, either with glasses, either with location beagles or shoot, just seeing them cross the road or finding tracks, whatever it may be.

But once again, you know, kind of the theme of this podcast is we get to hear and listen to a lot of people, you know, whether it's at sportsman shows or whether it's through emails or, you know, social media messages, whatever it may be. But I think maybe if we were to keep a tally, this is probably the most common thing.

or the common scenario that we get where we're at a sportsman show. You've already can see that the, the person's got their phone out, right? They're getting ready to show us a video of what happened to him last year. They, they, they get all ready to show us this video and they call a bull in the 90 yards or 80 yards, but they just can't get a shot. Um,

And, and we already kind of know the outcome, right? We're going to get to see a video. We're going to get to see a flash of an elk or where this bull gets to or whatever it may be. No shot. And then I'm already thinking of, well, why did you set up where you did? You know, there was a brush line 90 yards ahead of you, right where it held up or, you know, a lot of times, and I've even did it on our own videos. And the more I think back to it, um,

we'll, we'll call a bull in and you get to see maybe it's eye guards and about half of its nose and its eyes up. Right. Because guess what? That bull got to a spot. He expected to be able to see you calling to him and he holds up there and he's not coming any farther. Um, so we're going to spend a lot of time here talking, uh, with Dirk about setup and all the things that are associated with it. Um, you know, as you're going over there, what you're thinking about, what you're looking at terrain feature wise, uh, you know, vegetation wise, uh,

wind, what the wind's going to be doing in an hour, how to use that wind. And so we're just going to jump right into it. Talk about setting up. In my opinion, it's the most important thing that's going to allow us to get a shot at an elk and get a good shot. So Dirk, let's say we've

let's go through the whole thing. Let's back this all the way up to the beginning. I know we've talked about bits and pieces of this. We've located a bull, you know, we, we glass them. Let's say we glass them across. We're able to get great information. Um, you know, it's eight o'clock in the morning. There's, there's a herd bull with a couple of satellites and maybe 10 cows and they're going towards a bedding area and you can, you know, what's your process. Are you, you know, trying to figure out where they're going to bed? Uh,

What is everything you're looking at? And then what is your, you know, how are you going to formulate a plan? And I know this isn't exactly setting up, but this all leads to the setup, which in my opinion matters. Yes. I think of all those things whenever I, whenever I hear that bull going on, I'm thinking about, okay, where, where are they trying to get to? Where's their bed going to be? Where are they trying to get, you know, what,

Are they moving quickly or are they lingering? Some days they'll linger around for a few hours in the morning. Some days, you know, a lot of times when it's a full moon that within an hour of first light, they're in their bedroom. You know, they make their way there quick. So, yeah.

how they're moving this definitely going to dictate on, on how we're going to set up. And, and sometimes if they're moving pretty fast, then I'm, I'm not even thinking of calling in the elk. I'm just trying to maintain and follow and keep track of them. Right. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to stay with them as best I can and just, and keep tabs on them as they, they climb the mountain or come off the mountain, depending on where they're going to bed versus where they, they fed the night before. And, and,

you know, you can, if they're on the move and you're like, okay, let's get set up here. Um, a lot of times you can stand there and waste 20, 30 minutes and those elk will completely move out of the County. If, if you're trying to set up, um, when they're in transition. So I don't typically try to set up at them, them times, unless I actually have a bull coming my way. And I'm like, oh, okay. I'm going to, I'm going to set, go ahead and set up now. But,

If the elk are moving towards their bedding area, I'm just trying to keep tabs, trying to keep up. Maybe if the terrain is gentle enough, I'm going to try to push my way up towards them hard to where he feels crowded and maybe turns back and wants to come and fight. I've had to work both ways. Sometimes you just kind of push them and dog them all the way towards their bedding area, and they'll turn around and come back before they even hit the bedding areas. But sometimes they just...

They just keep on going and they go lay down for a while. So every scenario is a little bit different, but you just have to kind of know when to set up and when not to. And I would say definitely when they're on transition and they're climbing the mountain, you should be climbing the mountain instead of setting up to try to get a shot.

For sure. And if we were to, and we're not going to have good numbers, but would you say you're more likely to call a bull in that's already heading your way versus, you know, one thing if possible, and it's not always possible. I hate to try to call a bull in.

Back to the opposite direction he's wanting to travel or follow his cows. It seems like it becomes exponentially hard or maybe even into single-digit success versus if I can somehow muster up the energy or come up with a plan to get in front of them and let them continue on the way that they're wanting to go, my odds seem to be way higher. Have you found that same thing?

Same thing to hold true, like not trying to get them to change what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I almost feel like if they've already pushed through that area, that's almost like scorched earth, right? That it's really hard to get them to come back track and come back to that. Uh, unless maybe the, you know, the herd's been split, let's say half of his cows are up on the hill and there's half still down below. Um,

Yeah. He may come back down and gather up those cows again, or those cows just may be like, Oh, we got to go to daddy and they'll just run up the hill. But more times than not it's super hard to get them to backtrack. But if they're coming towards you, if they're already coming towards you, yeah, definitely. That'd be a good time to try to call one in. And that might be a time to think about, right, where are we going to set up because they are moving towards us anyway. We're on their natural path. Yeah.

on their natural course, maybe we can set up and call them in here. Yeah. Great, great points there. And I'm just going to give a little teeny tip there. We talked about early on spotting that bull across looking at the bulls behavior. You know, if I've got a bull that's, I,

If I'm going to try to call a herd bull in and the disparity of the bulls and the pecking order isn't so spread out that that bull's having to work his butt off in the morning and chase every satellite bull away, I'm pumped to go try to call that herd bull in. Versus when the disparity gets big, it seems like, and there's a giant herd bull or a very mature herd bull, and he doesn't even really give a crap about the other satellite bulls because they're not willing to get close. That one, I'm not so much looking forward to go call in. Yeah.

you know, by, by looking at the temperament and how active a herd bull is and how much work he has to do to keep satellites gives me a little bit of, you know, that's in the back of my mind as I go try to call these bulls in is just how aggressive he is. And a lot of it has to do with like that pecking order and how, uh, you know, the disparity from top to bottom. Um, so keep that in mind, you know, as you're on your way to setting up, if you can get that information, you know, a lot of times if you're, if you just get a bugle back or you're not able to lay eyes on everything, you can't get that. But

you know, a big important part to some of the strategy that we're going to start with and knowing the bull that you're dealing with. So let's say we've come up with a plan. We've located elk. The first thing we usually do is try to figure out, can we approach now? Should we approach now or we're going to leave them until a different time? You know, a lot of that has to do with

the amount of time it's going to take to get over there to get to a good setup, what the wind's going to be doing. Do we need to go set up on the different side? And so maybe we'll look at this as like a nighttime approach. How do you make that decision? Whether you're going to go now, whether you're going to wait for the wind to switch, whether you're maybe going to go get them in the evening, like what all goes into that decision for you?

Um, yeah, a lot of it just depends on, you know, what time of day is it? What is the wind doing? Like you said, how much time do we have left in the day? Is this, is this the last hour of light? Is this midday? Is this morning? Um, yeah.

But the one thing I will, you know, I will say is like the wind usually dictates everything typically. And there's, you know, we kind of talked about it earlier. We touched on it earlier quite a bit about, you know, when do you give up on a bull? I may not give up on a bull because the wind is horrible and wrong, but I will wait in the wings and press pause on the game just until that wind gets good. And you have to like,

You can't, you can be tricked. You can sit there for two hours and think, okay, the wind's good now. And you get up and walk a hundred yards and then the wind switches again. I like to have it, you know, maintain, you know, 15 minutes or so good, steady wind and be like, okay, the wind is definitely switched and it's going to probably going to stay like this for a while. Now it's time to make a move.

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All this, we made all these decisions, right? And we're getting over to where we want to set up. We've ideally got the wind in our face. We're going to have a steady wind. What is your checklist for a good setup? You know, go through everything as far as like, are you setting up in front of trees? Are you standing? What's the terrain and vegetation look like? Are you trying to call a bull uphill, downhill? Like go through everything that's on your checklist for us and what kind of goes into those decisions.

Well, ideally when I'm going for the setup, so I've traveled 90% of the distance. Now I'm in that 10% of the distance left to the bowl. So I'm hoping I'm within 100, 150 yards from the bowl. That last time,

little bit, you know, before I think I'm danger close, I'm looking, I'm assessing the terrain, right? I've, I really want to position myself on the same topographical line as that bowl where I think he is that way. All he has to do is come side hill to me. Um,

I've called bulls uphill, I've called bulls downhill, and I've called bulls side hill. But the good thing about having them come side hill to you is typically, you know, your thermals are going to blow up or down. So you've waited till the wind's good, but let's say a big cloud comes over and cools the hillside, and all of a sudden you get a swirl of wind. It

automatically just changes directions and starts blowing back downhill. Um, if you're not on that same contour as the bull, um, that could be a, that could be where you get fouled. Right. Um, so I really love that. That way I've got more of a crosswind I'm hunting in rather than having a strong one in my face. Strong one in your face is good, but sometimes, um, that means you have to try to call the bull up or down. Um,

And if I had my druthers, if I'd rather call one up or down, I definitely would rather call one up to me than down. It seems like more often than not, whenever I'm trying to get a bull to come downhill to me, it's just, it's a tougher game. They have, they have the advantage of being able to see you, um,

they do have momentum and gravity on their side, but for whatever reason, I think it, I think it's that whole site thing. Um, when they're, when they're above you, a lot of times it's a little tougher to get them to break free. And for me, it's at least it's been a little tougher from the get to break free, but I've had them come climb up the hill right to me. Um,

A lot more often than we're coming down. But ideally, though, I really want to try to get that bull on that same level as me before I try to call him in, because then in case there's a snafu with the wind, then we still are probably still good.

Gotcha. Are you in front of brush or behind brush, next to a tree, kneeling, standing? What's your preferred, as far as before you make your first call, like how are you set up? And then, you know, do you, one of the things, you know, do you clean out brush under your feet so you're silent? Like go through, you know, in front of brush, behind brush, where are you physically at during this setup? Right.

Right. Well, before I get to the spot where I'm actually physically going to stand, I've, I'm assessing, you know, okay, I've, I've got my, I've got my, uh, contour line, right. I'm on the same contour as this bull, but now I'm looking, I'm picking out shooting lanes, right. And I'm looking for terrain breaks and looking for, uh, uh,

topography breaks and I'm looking for shooting lanes. So if I can, if I got like five really good shooting lanes, like, man, I can shoot to 70 here and I can shoot to 50 over here and I can shoot to 60 in this one. You know, I can, I can shoot up to really long distance in about five different shooting lanes, man, I'm in the wrong spot. I am set up in the wrong spot because that bull is,

whenever they get to that edge break, whether it's the edge of the trees, edge of the brush, meadow edge, or maybe they've climbed up a hill or they've come over a ridge, that's where they're going to hang up. The first place that they can stand to see where those calls are coming from, that's usually where they're going to hang up. So I want to make sure if they come in and hang up, it's going to be close, right?

So if I'm solo calling, I want to make my calls and then move up close to where I think they're going to hang up. And if I'm with, with another hunter, which is really great, which is makes it a lot nicer. Uh, most of the time is I want my shooter to be set up at that, at that, um, terrain break or that topography break, you know, or that Ridge just that way, the first place that that bowl is going to set up that, that, that hunter will have a good chance to shoot at them.

So then second, okay, once I've identified that, okay, I've got, I've got an okay shooting lane. I can shoot 20 yards through this one. I've got kind of a crappy one. I can shoot five yards and, and then there was one a little bit better. I can shoot about 10 yards. You know, that's ideal. You know, a bull is going to have to come in really close to see me or, or,

he's going to have to come out by the, by the shooter to take a look over to where the collar's at. So that's, that's what you want. You don't want to have a whole ton of shooting lines. You want to have a, you know, pretty tight. And then I'm going to look down at my feet, right? Okay. I may have to stand here for quite a while. I may stand in this spot for five minutes. I may stand in this spot for 40 minutes. So I'm going to, I'm going to look down at my feet and,

Are there a bunch of pine needles under my feet sticks? Am I standing in brush? I want my back up to a big tree or something that's not going to show my outline. Let's say I'm going to blend into like, there's a great big bush and

And I kind of blend into that. I always turn around and look behind me, make sure there's not a whole bunch of daylight. You know, I don't want to be silhouetted with a big daylight background. I want something to break up my outline, whether it be a tree or a big brush pile. I want to be in front of that tree or brush pile. I'm going to let my camo do my work. For the guys that don't wear camo, that's okay too, because you're wearing earth tones typically, right?

you're going to stand in front of something and let it break up your outline. And then, uh, you're going to stand there very emotionless. You're not going to stand there, um, swatting flies or swatting mosquitoes or, you know, pointing this way or pointing that way or scratching your nose. You know, if you, if you have to scratch or something, that's okay. You just have to move really slow, you know, slow movements. Those are hard to pick off, uh, in the woods versus, you know, a white hand moving around, um,

you know, swatting flies around. So, um, you want to stand there motionless. I don't want any twigs, any branches, anything under my feet. And I, and a lot of times I look around, it's like, okay, if the bull's going to come in to my left, um,

And I can't quite get a shot. Maybe I need to be able to take two or three sidesteps over there to get a shot. I want to make sure there's that's clear. There's no branches or there's no twigs in that in that way. I can just move, take two sidesteps quickly, quietly and then and then get him. Right. But if you stand in like a big, a big bunch of branches where any movement is going to make a noise, that's that's going to tip off that bull.

Another thing I've met, I've found over the years, it's really, really fouled me up is setting up with a, like a big windfall in front of me that has long branches or one that's kind of like, it's not all the way on the ground. Let's say it's, you know, waist high off the ground and then there's branches, man, I get away from them, those windfalls and not set up by them because, um,

every time bulls will walk up on the other side of that windfall. And I think that might be by design. If they know they put a windfall in between them and their rival, they know that rival can't just sabotage them. Right. They feel like that's a, maybe that's like a safety net or maybe even a predator, like a predator wouldn't be able to, you know, come through that windfall very easily. So every, every time there's a windfall in the way they always walk up behind it. So,

If I see a windfall, I get away from it and, um, redetermine where I want to set up. I don't kneel. Um, the only time I would kneel is if,

I would be able to have, if there was too many branches at normal standing level, and if I had to kneel and I had like really, really good shots because there were no branches low, I might kneel then, but that would be the only time. I typically don't kneel. I've been, I've in my, in my young days, I kneeled a few times and every time I would get, you know, the bull would come in where I didn't think he was going to come or I

I would kneel for so long, my feet would fall asleep and I'd get so uncomfortable. Then I was moving around and shifting around and then a bullet come in and see me moving around. So I like to stand more often than not, unless there's, you know, unless, you know, the foliage of the trees or whatever makes me makes me kneel.

Yeah, I was going to add that tip. As you're setting up, you know, trying to minimize movement, which can be an oversight. But if you're looking the wrong direction, I always like to set up with my left shoulder, you know, at least facing like the extreme right, right, you know, the right, as far right as I expect that bull to come. Because as a right-handed shooter, I know I can lean forward.

you know, I can turn my body very, very easily to the counterclockwise direction, but I can only go about 10 degrees further in the right. And so being able to get a shot, I like to always like overemphasize. And that just, it seems like it's way overkill, but it's just trying to limit any movement is that bull comes in, in an unexpected spot. You know, we do our best to guess, but you just never really know where that bull is going to end up. And so by being on your feet with your shoulder facing them,

Um, it gives me the ability to shoot pretty well, you know, 90 to 120 degrees to my left and be pretty natural already in the right position, um, for shooting a bow and everything. So it's just little teeny pieces that we've picked up. And then I also wanted to add in, um, you know, as, uh,

is you're setting up, like Dirk said, you can't, I made the mistake setting up in brush. You've got a 25 inch arrow hanging out in front of your bow. You can't move. You can't move without making, you know, no, you know, any noise. And so we've just found up, you know, set in front, let the brush break up your outline and go with that. I do want to touch on wind a little bit. And this comes from a lot of personal experience. A lot of, you know, calling elk in,

We always talk about keeping your nose into the wind, right? Which is great. It's fail-proof. But with that said, there's a lot of conservativeness built in with that wind being directly on your nose. I'm just taking a guess at it. It's probably not a true 180 degrees, but that elk would have to circle you a long ways probably to get that wind right. They can probably go, for sure, 90 degrees. They can be off to your left, and they're probably going to have to go another 45 degrees behind you to finally pick your wind up.

Well, what this led to a lot, especially as a solo caller was the opportunity given for a shot was typically frontal. I'm not going to debate on the podcast, whether, you know, what you're going to do with frontals, but what happened is, you know, naturally an elk wants to smell whatever's calling to them. They're trying to wind check, you know, you as the caller. So as you go to set up,

I would rather have that wind, let's say, hit my right cheekbone or my right cheek. So now we're not playing the wind is perfect. The wind's no longer on our nose, but we've set up with a consistent enough wind that you can predict more accurately which direction you expect that bull to go. So if the wind, let's say, is hitting our right cheek or our right ear, somewhere in between there, we can now...

guess with pretty dang good certainty that that bull is going to get to within 60, 70, maybe 80 yards and start to do a circle to our left. Um, which is a great tip for, especially when you're doing two person calling. Um, we use that in the Mexico back in 2020, Dirk, where you were calling, I went forward and then the left and the wind was blowing up the hill. And so it kind of drove that elk into our position at a more broadside shot versus, you know, if I would have gotten perfect line with Dirk, um,

on the direction you were calling that bull into me, I would have been presented with the frontal, you know, as he turned and came up that hill. So use the wind a little bit as a steering wheel and don't necessarily use it to be perfect all the time. There's some lead way in there. And by using a little bit of those angles, you can get yourself presented with a little bit better broadside shot than having to make a tough decision on a frontal shot. Yeah, that's great information.

Another thing I'll say to like getting set up for the shot is as soon as you like determine that's where you're going to set up, knock an arrow.

Right then, right there. Like I'm, this is where I'm setting up here. I immediately knock an arrow. I can take my ranges. I can arrange everything later. Um, but if, if a bull all of a sudden just comes in, I don't know how many times, um, bulls will unpredictably come in a lot quicker than you may think. If you're not knocked up, it's really hard to get an arrow on your stream when a bull stand there and then get a shot off. So, um, first thing I do knock up an arrow, um,

And then I clean, I clean the ground around me after I'm knocked up. And then after that, I go ahead and range everything, settle in. I usually arrange, that's usually the last thing I do just because then it's all fresh in my mind too. And I may have to, you know, I, my memory is about as long as my pinky. So I, I, as I'm set up there, if I have, you know, time to make a few more movements, you know, I may range, you

after I've done everything right, then I may arrange again a little later just to refresh my memory. I want to touch on real quick. A lot of times we're doing our own calling for ourselves, but there are times where we're calling for, for buddies. We always talk about kind of the fight or flight and being aggressive, especially when you're trying to call a herd bull or be within that zone.

How far do you want your color back? Because in my opinion, you may be taking your color, which is the threat to that bull out of that zone. But you know, how, how far do you, do you want your color to be back and why? Um, I like, I like my shooter and color to be within sight distance of each other. Um,

especially if you guys haven't really hunted together much, let's say this is the first time you've gone hunting together, or maybe you're both new at hunting and just haven't really hunted with partners or done a lot of calling. And it's really imperative in my opinion to be, to be within, I, you know, sight distance of each other because your shooter, you know, they're right on the front line. They may see them some things that you don't see. And if, and if he can make a motion to you, like, Hey man,

stop calling or call more or back up or move forward, you know, he can kind of, he can kind of coach you along too of what's, what's going on up there that you can't see and vice versa. Let's say maybe, maybe your, your shooters hasn't really done much calling of elk or been involved with calling elk. You may want, you know, you're, you're the, the quarterback of the situation as the color, you may, you,

want to move up or you may want to like hand signal like, Hey, move up or fall back. Um, you may want to give him some signals, but if you don't have sight of each other and he's being quiet and all you're doing is calling, you're

And it's really easy to get like spread out and then like, man, we're on two different pages here. The elk is coming and you've, you know, your shooter's kind of gone off somewhere else. And we're, wow, we need to move up now. Let's, let's go. You know, there's like certain times when you make that decision, like we have to move up and we have to move now. If you don't know where your shooter is, that, that's a problem. That poses a very big problem. So I like to keep us, you know, within, within, I, you know,

seeing distance, but I will say there's an exception. So let's say the bulls hung up and he's raking across the draw or something, or up on top of the ridge, he's talking, but he's raking. He he's not coming. That's a, that's a really great opportunity for, for you to do agree to say, okay, shooter, you sneak up, you, you go up there and sneak up on that bull when he's, when he's rubbing or raking his antlers on a tree. Um,

instead of just sitting there being tight, you know, let's say he's been, he's, you've been calling for a while. You don't think he's going to come any further, but he's just standing over there raking and raking, man, you're crazy not to send your shooter ahead and sneak up while he's preoccupied and let that, let that caller stand back there and just, you know, keep him going and let your shooter sneak in. For sure. Um, one thing I wanted to add to set up to, um,

and this is gets a little bit more into calling, but it's, it's one of my favorite setups because it's like pulling the wild card out is there are just special setups where you've got multiple herds that have come together. Um, you know, and it's, it's kind of that rut zone, uh,

you know, these, these elk, and those are those magical setups. You can, you can set up a hundred times, you know, on the same elk, but you get, you know, similar to, we've talked about a ton that New Mexico 2020 setup where there were multiple large herd bulls in one location. Those are those magical setups where you just want to be a part of it. You want to be involved and, and be ready. Like you said, that's definitely the situation where you want to have your arrow knocked, but it's,

I don't, I don't really know where to go with this, but there've been multiple times, you know, 2016, Idaho, 2020, New Mexico, um, you know, Tyson's Idaho bowl in 2018. There are times where if you can approach a situation, be fairly silent and just kind of sneak into these rut zones, you almost, I don't want to say you don't have to do any calling, but you can almost sneak in there and just let the chaos of the situation like work in your advantage. So, uh,

You know, it's not necessarily on how to set up, but I guess it's to recognize those opportunities when there's multiple bulls bugling and going at each other. You just have to somehow find your way into those situations because it's one of those few magical times that we get to experience in the elk woods. And it's usually pretty damn good for somebody trying to arrow one of these bulls.

Yeah, I found myself in that situation last year in New Mexico. We heard the bulls from afar and man, we just moved in, moved in, moved in. I put, I literally put the calls away until we got, you know, we were seeing legs in the, in the, under the trees. Right. Um, if I had it to do over again, I think I would have taken a little different line, you know, um,

From the movement of the elk at that point to where they were then, I felt like they were going to keep moving. So we were still right, right directly behind them. I feel like if I'd have known they were going to keg up for a little bit on that little knob, I would have kind of, I would have pulled off and went circle above or not above them, but get up on that same, that same knob.

topographical line and came in from the side and put myself in a better position. Um, because, you know, again, they were above us. They had the side advantage. We can only get so close without getting picked off. And then we start calling at that point and man, we almost made it happen, but it just didn't quite, didn't quite happen. But, you know, and maybe I shouldn't have started calling. Maybe I should have just like shut up and just let things unfold too. Cause, um, that, um,

let's face it. I think, you know, we love, we love calling elk. We love the exhilaration. We love the chase. Um, so fun, but the spot and Scott guys probably kill bigger bulls every year than the guys calling. So that's probably the truth of the matter. So, um, maybe, maybe, you know, be,

you know, don't get stuck in what, in such one mindset, you know, be able to pivot if you need to. Um, if it's, if you think, you know, this is one of those times to shut up and not call and sneak in. Yeah, do it. And if that don't work, then pull the calls out. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. It's just, those are, those are places where you just fly on the wall, take it all in and it's usually chaos. So let's say we've got the setup. Perfect. We've gotten location, you know, the elk, the bull is a hundred yards away. We've got our setup. We've got the wind, right. We're set up 30 to 40 yards away from the terrain break. We're set up that same distance from, from a brush, you know, line. We're not, we we've cleared out all the hangup locations and,

Now what we have to do is figure out how we're going to call. How does your calling change, let's say, young satellite versus medium satellite versus a herd bull? And how are you going to kind of finish off this setup with your calling based on what you think you're calling to? Yeah, I just try to, you know, as far as the size of the or the sound of my bugle, I usually try to just match what I'm dealing with. You know, so if the bulls kind of sound mediocre, their bugles aren't super good.

nasty i i try not i try to bugle the same way they do if it's if it's big herd bulls just blaring everything they got then i usually pull out that card too um because i've tried both you know um

I've experimented with different tactics over the years. Oh, well, big herd bull, I'm going to bugle like a little wimp and then he won't be intimidated, so he'll want to come and chase me off. I feel like I've had less success with that than anything. I feel like that...

that bull hears me. He's like, you're kidding me, right? You're a joke. You're not going to, you're, you're like a, probably a four point rag horn. I'm the king of the mountain. I'm not going to be concerned with you. You know, a lot of times I even had them where they wouldn't even answer me, but man, when I'd turn up the heat and turn up the volume and sound really nasty, give them some really nasty big bugles. Boom. It's all of a sudden I'm speaking their language and they're like, Hey, you shut up down there. You know,

maybe I become a threat at that point. And then you kind of get in their head a little bit. Yeah. When we used to hunt Idaho all the time and some of the burns and stuff, we would, we would locate or spot, you know, satellite bulls that were five, 600 yards away from, let's say the main herd, the herd bull or the more dominant, uh,

you know, satellites and it would just be the smaller satellites, but maybe there was a bull in there. We wanted to call in. And a lot of times we could hurry over there. And one thing, usually I'm the same as you. I've, I've killed a ton of, you know, very young satellite bulls way back in the day. And we use just straight herd bull tactics on all of that. You know, I think they're, they're fairly curious. It's almost like they know, like,

They go and check things out for the herd bull or they just come and check you out anyways. So we've used that with great success on satellite bulls. But if we know we're targeting a satellite bull, that's the one time I may go over there, do all of the same stuff. We're still setting up the same, making sure wind's right, everything's good. But we may just lay on a ton of heavy cow calling. Those satellite bulls may not be interested in coming over and running into a bull. If that's the case, they're just going to keep following the herd.

So we will switch, you know, on young satellite. I've even found that the more mature satellite bulls that are just looking for an opportunity to cower are even easier to call in sometimes in those very young bulls because they're just wanting to stay with the herd, with their mom, whatever it may be.

where that more mature satellite bull, he's just looking for his chance to breed. And so that will be the one instance where I do go away from kind of our aggressive, you know, get close to the herd and just kind of pour on a lot of cow calling and get those satellite bulls to come into our location. And like I say, we were in burns a lot of this. So we were able to see like the more we cow called, the faster they kind of ran or scooted over to our location.

So that's the one time where I seem to change up my strategy. But I know what I'm dealing with. I know exactly what I've got. But other than that, I'm the same as you, going and getting close, being fairly aggressive. And like I say, I've got enough proofs in the pudding that being aggressive and calling the herd bulls will turn up a whole lot of satellite bulls.

Yeah, no, I like it. And one thing to note too on that, like it's been my experience and maybe you could, could chime in here too. But a lot of times when bulls come into cow calls,

that, that last little bit, that last final approach before they come in, you know, sometimes they'll just come running right in, but, but a lot of times they'll, that they'll break off and then they'll dip and try to get that wind at the last little bit. So knowing that if you have, let's say there's, you got two or three buddies with you, you know, um, make sure you set up with one guy or gal downwind, you know, 40, 50 yards. Um,

They may feel like they're not in the game at all, but if you're just cow calling, a lot of times that's deadly because that elk's going to go down low. That young bull is going to want to see if that is actually a cow that's in heat or maybe to see if there's another bull there that hasn't been bugling. He's going to scent check that, make sure he doesn't come up there and get his butt whooped.

Yeah, we've seen the same thing where they'll circle. Like I said, typically, there's been a few bulls that haven't because we've played the wind too perfect. But typically, every elk we call in, aside from one, has always tried to go downwind and check wind as soon as possible on whatever is calling to them. So yeah, they're going to dip and dive. And a lot of times, one of the downsides to calling in with just cow calls

is especially if you can't see in a burn, you don't really know what's coming, how fast they're coming in, if they're coming in at all, right? You maybe had heard a satellite bugle or you spotted them and then you go try to call them into timber. You're really in the dark, like, maybe I'm sitting here. You're not paying as much attention. You're moving more than you should because you have no idea if something's coming because a lot of times when you're laying on heavy cow calls to a satellite bull, they just won't make a peep necessarily, which is for me, you know, being...

um, you know, very impatient. It's tough for me to sit there. So yeah, cow calling stuff, they will split. And, um, you know, on those sorts of situations, you're going to have to probably give it 30 to 45 minutes, you know, before moving, just because you're not going to typically get a response. Yeah. And there's been times too, you know, whether I've been bugle into bulls or, or cow calling and they've been pretty reactive and, and you, you sit down and wait that hour or something. Maybe you decide you want to take a little nap, a little nappy nap. Um,

be careful. There's, there've been times you wake up from your nap and there's a bull stand on there or they're busting off cause they walked in and seen you laying on the ground. So, um, you know, sometimes it just takes them a while to get there. Uh, you just never know, especially in that really thick country. You just, you don't know what's coming.

Yeah. Great tips. And hopefully, you know, just by putting a little bit of thought into your setup, you know, looking at your shooting lanes, looking at where you're at in relation to terrain breaks and vegetation. When we say that you can really boil down terrain breaks and vegetation breaks to when can that elk expect to see your calling location, that elk that's calling to it, when can it see it? And when is it going to stop and reevaluate the situation? Um,

Um, that's what you're really looking at. And then by, you know, your, your, you know, different calling strategies, hopefully, you know, by setting up, it will bring you more success this year. Dirk, give us one more tip to kind of close out today's discussion, um, to help, you know, elk hunters out there that are maybe struggling or just need a good tip, um, heading into this year. Um, we kind of touched on a little bit earlier, but you know, don't give up.

it's it's super easy to kind of give up on a bull like you know they they've moved out of the area you think um and just don't give up or you know sometimes three or four days of getting your teeth kicked in from bulls that are just you know um they're smarter than you which is most of them for me and don't don't give up after a lot of hardship it seems like um

Once you kind of hit rock bottom, that's usually when things kind of turn around. So expect that. Expect to have some highs but have a lot more lows. But know that it'll come back around. And don't give up and go home because if you go home and it's your September vacation, you're just going to end up painting the house or doing chores, mowing the lawn, something. Yeah.

It's better to stay in the woods and, and, uh, and dig in a little deeper and a little harder and be like, okay, I know this is, this is, this sucks. Maybe we need to just dig in and, uh, stay at this. Now it's going to get good because it's been so crappy so far. Yep. Yeah. And, and to add on to your point, um, you know, most,

Most good elk hunters or elk hunters that are successful every year, they're resilient. They're not going to give up. And a lot of them can draw from past experience. It may be tough if you've never found success late in the hunt. But those of us that have, you realize that it may have been a hunt where you've heard no bugles. It may have been a hunt up to that point that you've had no cullens under 100 yards.

But we've all been there and like, well, we just killed the best bull of our life or we just had the greatest experience on day eight of a 10 day hunt, you know, and it was going so horrible up till then. So it may be tough to draw from that if you haven't been there, but trust us.

We've had, you know, guys that are supposedly supposed to know what they're doing. Like me and Dirk, we've had these situations play out where we're just like, man, are we ever going to be able to even call an elk in to, you know, the next thing you know is you're packing out a bowl and, you know, having a good time. And just like that, the hunt switches. So be resilient. Don't give up. You know, one more thing I'll throw in there, stay on track. It's easy like to get distracted. Here a few years ago, it was the last day of season. It was, it was,

middle of the day, middle of the late afternoon, actually. And I hadn't heard an elk bugle yet that day. And I'm like, man, I am getting desperate. It's the last day I've been having a terrible year season. And I'm driving along in my truck, relocating area. And I look out and there's this bear and this berry patch just stand there looking at me.

And I stopped and he just stand there staring at me. I'm like, I'm going to shoot that bear. And then I kind of slapped myself back into reality. He's like, I'm not bear hunting. Okay. I could have shot that bear. Definitely. But my elk hunt would have been over at that point. Right. Cause I'd have been taking care of that bear. I would've got a bear for the year. Great. Cool. But in my mind, elk hunting,

Elk are greater than bears, especially in elk season. So I'm going to go ahead and say, well, I'll see you later, Yogi Bear. I'll come back another day for you. But anyway, I stayed on point and I ended up calling in a bull the last day.

literally the last 15 minutes of shooting light on the last day, notched my tag. Had I messed with that bear, I would not, I can guarantee you, I would not have been in that position, that exact spot to call that bullet. I would have been behind the gun. So stay focused. Stay on track. Yeah. Great tip, Dirk. Good luck to everybody out there. And thanks for joining us, Dirk. And good luck to you. Thanks. We'll see you next time.

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