Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Check engine light on? Take the guesswork out of your check engine light with O'Reilly Veriscan. It's free and provides a report with solutions based on over 650 million vehicle scans verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we can recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today. O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts.
You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to land.com. They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.
Market House has the cleanest, leanest, juiciest meat and seafood shipped to your home overnight. Expect the service of a local butcher and the convenience of a large supplier. Unlike many online butchers, you can grab just one meal's worth or lock in for a subscription box. Choose from grass-fed and grass-finished beef, American Wagyu, free-range poultry, grass-fed lamb, wild-caught king crab, seafood, and more.
Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today, my guest is from the big city of Weeife, Idaho. One of my good buddies, Phelps Game Call's marketing director and all around face of the company, The Bugler, also known as Dirk Durham. How are you doing today? Oh, fantastic. I'm doing great.
We are, what, five days away from September? Six days? Yeah, yeah. It is close. Six days, five days. I kind of quit counting at this point. Everything's a blur. I wake up disoriented and discombobulated and trying to figure out, is this today the day? Oh, good. I got more time to pack.
Yeah, we're getting close. So just like any other cutting the distance episode, we're going to take a few questions from the listeners. If you have any questions of your own, make sure to reach out to us at CTD at Phelps game calls.com. So we're going to jump into the first user question or user question, listener question. How long will you work a bowl before changing tactics? Um, I think it's kind of different on every single one of them. Um,
I get this gut feeling and I think the gut feeling I have is just from lots of reps and the elk woods. So for new hunters, you know, it's kind of hard to know and hard to gauge that. But usually as I'm working in bull, if things aren't happening and I need to move up and need to get closer, then something inside me says, let's go.
But if you want to break that down a little bit and evaluate it, I would say...
when things start slowing down, let's say you've been calling to this bull and things are escalating good. He's getting worn. He's getting wound up. He's coming closer and then things kind of slow down and he quits calling so much, you know, maybe the frequency of his calling or maybe the intensity of his calls just, you know, have has, he's taken it down a notch. Like he's, he's starting to second guess maybe his ability to fight, uh,
Um, or steal the ladies from you, if you will. Um, and it's usually at that time, I'm going to switch things up, change things up. Um,
a lot of times I'll just, if, if things start slowing down and he's kind of, uh, locked up and if he's not too, you know, if, with, if he's still a hundred, 200 yards out, um, I'm moving, I'm on the move. Right. Um, I'm going to move quickly. I'm, I'm at that point, I'm not probably going to try to be really quiet. I want him to hear me coming. I want him to hear, hear me popping brush. I want him to think, Oh, that bull is coming in. And sometimes just breaking that, um,
you know, walking 50 yards, breaking a lot of brush that that'll get, that'll peak his interest again. And that'll kind of kick things up. Um, maybe not, maybe I'll have to almost get right on top of that, that bowl before, you know, he, he gets, gets going again. It's kind of a fine line. If, if you get too aggressive and this has happened before too, sometimes they, they clam up and then they're just on a, they're on a mission. They're coming right to you. And, um,
By being too aggressive, I've been caught with my pants down. You know, I think, oh, I need to move up. And I walk about 50 yards and there he is standing there looking at me. So it...
It is a fine line. You got to walk, but I guess it's back to that gut feeling. Like after you've done it enough times, you start having these little gut feelings and like, okay, we need to go or let's just stay put for a bit. Yeah. One, one of the times I remember specifically, um, you know, when we were in Colorado, we had kind of got in a, in a lockup with a bull that just would not budge. I think he maybe was there for what? 20, 25 minutes straight, just us bigling from the same location, um,
him beagling from the same location. And then I, you know, me and you at the same time, like we started to look at each other, like, all right, something out of the box. And that's when you started to do the old, uh, we, I whiz bang, um, you know, and you started to, as the caller started to run back, you know, 50, 60 yards and just breaking all kinds of brush just to change up, you know, the presentation or, or the calling that we were giving them. And so, um,
You know, it's just, you feel like, all right, we've, we've thrown everything at him. We've, we've, you know, lip balled, we've cow called, we've challenged Beagle, we've bark screamed, we've did everything we can for the last 20 minutes. And just, we can't give up ground. We can't make up ground. He's not willing to give up any ground, you know? And so then we just, you know, change tactics to something maybe a little bit outside the box.
especially like you said, if it's 100, 200 yards away, but the vegetation or the terrain doesn't allow us to get any closer, you're pretty much pinned down. The only thing you can do is something outside the box like that. And there's just those times where, like you said, it's more of a gut feel like, all right, we've played this stalemate long enough. Let's change it up. Yeah. Well, in that particular scenario,
that bull just, he, he wasn't going to come any further without something changing. And we have to, as elk callers and hunters, we have to remember that, um, sometimes, um, we get in our setup and we get real quiet in our movements. You know, we might do some raking, but, uh,
You know, if you've been doing a lot of calling, there's just doesn't seem like there's a lot going on over there in that patch of trees. Right. There's not a bunch of thumping around and not a bunch of, you know, antler tips going through the trees and stuff. If you listen to, you know, elk that are that are farting around with their cow, you know, bulls farting around with their cows, then, you know, they make a lot of noise. So it's it's it's adding that extravagance.
extra realism it's like okay they're not coming in now we got to double down on some some some noises and movement so like you said i ran back i i faded back like 100 yards and i can continue to call if anything i escalated my calling like a bull was following a naughty cow that wanted to get away or or maybe she was starting to like oh man she's an estrus so i was you know staying with her and then that circle around break a lot of brush i threw rocks and
you know, made as much noise as I could, but then I come right back up to the, to the shooter, but then I kind of faded back again, just, just painting that picture in that bull's mind's eye that, man, there's really something going on there. And I was hoping as I faded back again, he'd want to come up and take a sniff, you know, like I'm going to go and see if I can see something or maybe, you know, I'll be able to smell something, you know, where those elk have been. And maybe I'll,
you know, maybe there is a cow that's in estrus and I'm going to just kind of go fight that other guy. You know, so those are the kinds of things we want to paint in those, those bulls mind's eye. Yep. And I'll add one little, one more little piece to this is a lot of times, you know, how long can we sit there? It,
It, it, it's different for if it's in the morning when those, you know, elk are wanting to go from feed or travel to, to a bedding area versus if it's in the middle of the day. And if that bulls, if we're calling to maybe a bedded bull that will answer occasionally, but he's not going to move anywhere. Like our, our tactics are going to be completely different versus, you know, time of day, what those elk really want to do. And if we can add some of that.
you know thought process into our decision making um you know that's what we're doing out in the field every situation is different um and we're we're making you know changes on the fly um versus you know if it's a bedded bull i might work it for an hour and a half two hours before i move versus if it's early in the morning and something's held up like we may be more aggressive because at some point we've seen it you know i say a million times but we've seen it a lot um you
you know, that bull hold up for 15 or 20 minutes and then you can almost guarantee the next time you hear him, he's going to be three or 400 yards away because he's caught back up to his cows or back up to the herd that he's a satellite for or whatnot. Um, so I think, you know, that time of day, what they should be doing, you know, plays into, into our tactics and, uh, you know,
I think one thing that needs to be said again is a lot of times we don't set up once on a bull. We're setting up two, three, five, ten times sometimes on these elk. We'd prefer it, and there have been setups that work where you go set up the one time and you're done. But a lot of these early morning, if you're fortunate to be on a bull first thing in the morning or late at night when they're trying to move, a lot of times you are playing a little bit of catch up and then setting up multiple times.
Yeah, absolutely. I hear it every year from elk hunters. They're like, you know, gee whiz, you know, I get into these bowls and I just, I call to them and they call back, but they just keep moving off. They just keep moving off. Man, what am I doing wrong? I must be scaring them away. But the reality of it is, you know, those elk have their day mapped out already. They know
well, we played around all night and fed down here in the meadow or up on that Alpine Ridge. But now we're in that time of day, we need to start heading toward our bedding area. And you didn't do anything wrong. Those elk just want to go and get in their bed because they've been up all night. They want to go lay down. It's in a nice, cool place. It's very secure. And a lot of times those bulls feel a lot more confident in defending those cows once they get in that bedding area because it's
I think there's a little strategy, too, on where a lot of times where these elk bed, you know, it's a very defensible place. And, you know, if you just give up and say, oh, shoot, you know, he don't like my call. And I guess we'll go back and make some breakfast burritos at the camp. Then that's a big mistake. You just got to stay on them. You just kind of got to dog them for a while. And sometimes sometimes.
You have to really pay attention to that wind as you're following those elk to their bedding area, because at some point that wind is going to switch, right? Typically, they're going to be traveling with that wind in their nose. And as let's say they're heading up the mountain to their bedding area, they're traveling with that wind in their nose. As they approach that bedding area, a lot of times now we're getting a lot more sunlight on the hillside area.
And that's about the time the old thermals switch. And if you're right behind them and you get caught in that thermal switch and the wind starts blowing up to them, it's a game over deal. So so sometimes, you know, as that as that time gets close, you know, I'm always monitoring, you know, where where's the sunlight hitting the slope?
Um, and as we start approaching the time where I think the hillside is going to get warmed up and those thermals are going to start rising, then I'll break away and, and completely spin off in parallel, you know, maybe a finger ridge away, you know, a hundred or 200, 300 yards away, just to make sure I keep that wind in my favor. Um, I don't, I don't think that can be, um, talked about enough, just obeying that wind, um, to the point that, um,
If it causes you to hike a lot of extra miles in a day, it's worth it. Because if you foul them up with the wind, 99% of the time it's over. So you can't take it for granted.
Yeah. And we keep dog piling on this. Um, but one thing that also needs to be said is a lot of times, you know, if you're bugling or even cow calling the cows in the herd, most of the time, I mean, there have been times where we've called in the entire herd or the cows, but usually you get the attention of that bull and he's willing, he knows, you know, if the, the rest of the herd's not, not scared or, or startled, they'll typically just feed their way along to bed, right. At a very slow pace. So he almost feels that he's got
You know, he's probably got 15, 20 minutes. A lot of times he can maintain visual on part of his herd. So you can keep his attention for a certain amount of time. But at the point where he knows that he's now got to either see you or go catch back up to his cows is typically all you can hold his attention for. So that's kind of what I'm always thinking is like, all right, we've got a limited time. You know how fast are the cows feeding? Because that's about when he's going to leave if he doesn't see us or there's not an altercation.
And so that's maybe why I feel like we're a little more aggressive. Like, all right, we've got them here, but you can only do what the terrain vegetation allows. But yeah, there's a lot of things that go into how long we'll work a bowl before we're going to change tactics. And we can give our best cookie cutter tactics
Uh, examples, but at the same time, there's so many other factors out in the woods that play into this, you know, how well can you move? Are there other bulls beagling? You know, if that herd bull or satellite bull, if there's other bulls around, they're going to be quicker to leave or quicker to catch back up to the herd. All of that's going to play in. Um, and a lot of times you're going to get stuck in a cat and mouse game, um, with them. So we're going to move on to the second question here.
How do you determine whether you're going to be aggressive or slow play a bull when you first go in? We've heard a beagle. How do you break down the situation and decide what your first play is going to be? There's a couple different things. First off, I like to call to the disposition of the bull. So if his answer to my calls is no,
super low key and maybe even that money, not real interested type of bugle. Um, I'm going to know right away. It's like, well, we can't really get aggressive with this ball right off the bat. You know, I'm not going to hit him immediately close to distance and hit him with a big challenge bugle because you know, that could possibly push him away. He might be like, Hey man, I'm just saying hi over here. I don't want to fight anybody. So, um,
I want to kind of slow play that bull and just keep contact. You know, he'll bugle. I'll wait a while. Then I'll bugle. Wait a while. He'll answer. You know, a lot of times, you know, this is, you know, seemed weird, but you can literally from the time I take my stopwatch. So whenever I call on a bull, I'm trying to slow play.
When I call, I'll hit my stopwatch button go and then I'll let it run. And then whenever he answers again, I'll hit stop and then I'll look at the time. Like maybe he's only answering every three minutes. Maybe it's every five minutes, which seems like an eternity when you're trying to call a bull in. So I don't try to push that envelope too much. So it's like, OK, well, he's only answering every five minutes or every three minutes.
I'm going to try to keep that cadence. So I'll wait that distance, that, that length of time before I call again. And I won't try to escalate. I'll let him escalate. And whenever you're, when we're slow playing, I'll let him escalate and it may take an hour, but, but why, why would I do that? Why wouldn't I just close the gap? Why wouldn't I just get tight, you know, move up, locate him, figure out where he is on the mountain, make my notes on Onyx, make a, make a,
make a way point on on X and there's go right to him. Sometimes it's terrain. Maybe, maybe it's just a nasty, nasty Canyon. Maybe it's the time of day. Maybe it's I'm running low on water. And if I go across there,
uh that that canyon i'm gonna have to drink out of the creek and i'm gonna probably eat giardia um and if i don't kill that bull then i may have a rough week ahead of me um so there's a lot of little little things that kind of come into play so i've done it whenever the terrain has been something that i don't want to navigate and i can't navigate quickly uh or without you know um
sacrificing something. So I'll slow play it and I'll just kind of keep pecking at him, pecking at him. You know, I've done this a few times and, you know, it may take an hour, maybe even two, you know, pecking at him across that Canyon. But after an hour or two, I've had it to where all of a sudden their bugle changes, it just snaps. And it's like, instead of that moany bugle, it's a more aggressive full bugle. And when he does that, I know I got him right.
It's like, OK, now he's irritated. So he's escalated. Now I'm going to escalate. So then I escalate it. And usually it takes off pretty fast after that. He'll you know, next time you hear him, he might be down in the bottom of the creek. Next time you hear him, he's up on my side of the of the canyon or draw. And it's like, OK, boy, I better get ready here. And so I've been calling at him for an hour from this one spot.
So, it's time to move. I know he's coming up the hill. Now I need to move forward, change my position because he thinks I'm up here. Now I'm going to tippy-toe down the hill, you know, 50 yards or so and in a straight line towards where that bull's coming. But then I'll get off that straight line a little bit, you know, 10, 15 yards. That way I'm not directly in his path.
That way, as he comes up and he's been probably going to hang up around 50, 60 yards to, to kind of get up there, assess and look to see where I'm at or listen again, then I'll be in position to take that shot. So, um, that's, that's for, that's for a solo tactic. Um, but let's say that bull is just answering. He sounds like, you know, that was a slow play scenario. Let's say that bull's answering really well. He sounds pretty aggressive. Um,
He's answering quickly. He's bugled four times in about three minutes. I know I need to go. I need it's time to get aggressive. So I stopped calling. It's time to close the gap. Hike over there. Again, I make my mark on Onyx. OK, there's a little glade over there and a big rock outcropping. And then there's a thick timber patch. Sounds like he's in that timber patch. I make a waypoint on there and then I start going. It's so invaluable. And some of that really.
steep, nasty country, especially if there's a lot of timber. Sometimes you think, I think I'm getting close and now you got 500 yards to go still. So then I push over there and get as close as I can without spooking him off, which is around 100, 150 yards away from where I think that bull is.
Yeah, that's a great answer. And I'll add to it. I always just default to being aggressive unless, you know, the one chance where that or the one instance where the bull, you know, he doesn't really answer you. He just answers on his own and kind of in his own world, you know, will maybe slow play. But I always default to aggressive unless there's really good reason to do it another way. So once again, if you have questions of your own, you want to submit here to me and my guests, please email us at CTD at
at Phelps game calls.com. Now moving into my discussion with Dirk, you know, I've got to hunt elk with him a couple of times. Um, learned a lot from when we hunt a lot of the, you know, similar ways, the SIM similar tactics. Um, but we're going to kind of dive in a little bit to, to the way dirt calls kind of the scenarios and you know, that, that, that we like to get ourselves into and go from there. So before we get into that, uh,
What specific calls do you make the most while hunting? This is kind of my own question to you. I've got my own little list, but kind of curious, you may say I use them all, but I guess start at the call you maybe make the most and then kind of go down the list as far as what you're going to use the most in a season.
I probably bugle the most out of all the calls in my vocabulary, if you will. And then cow calls, you know, and I don't get super fancy with cow calls. You know, I know there's a lot of information or a lot of, a lot of different takes on what kind of cow calls to make, but I don't get super fancy. I do calf calls, cow calls. I do bugles again. A lot of times I try to mimic them.
uh, or call to that bull's disposition. So if he has kind of a wimpy sounding voice, I try to give him a wimpy sounding voice. Um, if he's got a big jacked up bugle, I try to give him big jacked up bugles. When you say bugle, are you willing, you're not necessarily saying I'm only going to send location bugles and tell the answers. Like you, when you say bugles, it's like what everything and anything's on the table, you know, everything from, you know, high,
high pitch location beagles, the full blown challenge beagles with grunts and chuckles to, you know, lip ball beagles. You're just basically going through and trying everything out until you can get a response. Yeah. So if I'm just locating, then I'll start out with that like nice high pitch quintessential, beautiful, uh, three note location bugle, you know, the real long drawn out one. That's where I start.
Um, with bugles before I even bugle, I'll probably give a few light cow calls and then I'll give a little bit louder cow calls. And if I don't hear anything to that, then I'll, I'll rip a big long location bugle. And then I wait, you know, two, three minutes. Um, if I haven't heard anything cow call a couple of times more, and then I'll do a full bugle where you start at the bottom, the bottom end of the, of the notes, um,
go all the way to the top, back down, and then I'll add in a few chuckles or grunts at the end. And then I wait again, give a couple more cow calls, you know, after about four or five minutes, a couple more cow calls,
And if I don't hear anything, then then it's time to pull out the big guns. Right. That's when I do a lip ball. That's where you buzz your lips and you you use your use your lips buzzing to add that real gravelly type tone to the bugle. And then I give some very aggressive grunts at the end.
And that way I've got something that appeals to about any bull. There's over the years I've had bulls that like to bugle at a certain kind of bugle, whether it's just a long high note with no chuckles or grunts, or they'll only bugle at me if I chuckle or grunt.
Or you've done everything, but until you give them one of those big nasty lip balm type bugles, then they don't answer. But when they hear that, they're like, oh, something's going on. Must be a cow and heat up there. I'm going to go ahead and answer. And then now we've got a game to play.
Yeah. A specific example, running back to shoot, I'm going to date myself a little, you know, back 2011, I think similar thing, like we're the, the sign on the ground showing up. We know they're elk in the area. And I think we do a bad job maybe as educators when we talk about these location beagles all the time. But in my opinion, the location beagle is just whatever the heck, whatever beagle you need to make.
to get that bull to give up his location. But back then, I used to go through and a location bugle had to be your pretty three-note, high-tone bugle, no depth to it, no gravelly growls, no grunts.
And I was getting frustrated because, you know, these bulls weren't answering. And then I pulled out what I consider my challenge bugle, you know, gravelly, a lot of growl into it, you know, deep grunts and chuckles. And instantly after from the same position, probably trying for a half hour to get something to locate with multiple location bugles, that challenge bugle got them to pop off. So that's one thing like...
Nowadays, I don't hesitate to throw everything out there. You know, I'll do the pretty high note bugles. I've actually had a lot of success lately with you kind of mentioned your lackadaisical money bugles. Like I'll just...
beagle to what I consider like a mid-range tone and just kind of hold it. It's a real hollow sounding beagle. And sometimes they're more apt to, to, um, answer, answer that beagle versus a challenge. Um, you know, some of the places we've been hunting, I seem to be hearing more bark screams and stuff. So we've been using the entire gamut to, to, to get those bulls that give up their location versus sticking with the, the, uh, you know, atypical location beagle that isn't necessarily always going to do the trick.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of fishermen in the audience and if, if
you go up to the stream and you throw in your maps, let's say you're lure fishing. You're not, you're not a fly fisherman, or maybe you are a fly fisherman. You throw on one, one type of fly or one type of lure, you toss it in there and you fish that hole for 30 minutes and not, and not get a bite. You can literally change lures or change flies and have on the next cast, have a fish on. And I, I feel it's the same way with elk bugles. You know, it's,
you never know what kind of tones they're going to bite on. You know, maybe that bit, that money bugle that you refer to in, I know in New Mexico, you, you played that a lot and you got really good responses from it. You know, maybe that reminds that bowl of some other Joker that he'd messed around with before. And I was like, Hey, I don't like that guy. And then, so he answers, um, I don't know what's inside an elk's mind, but I always feel like sometimes they're a lot like us and in, in different ways. So,
Yeah. And you know, nobody send me hate mail or anything, but you relate it back to, you know, turkeys and shot gobbling. And, you know, I know it's not the same thing, but it's like, I'm willing to do anything just to get that dang thing to give up its location before I drop, you know, 2000 feet into a Canyon, you know, or whatever it may be. We're just trying to get that thing to answer, give up its location. So then we can start to put all the pieces together and go set up. Um,
So we, we've got a bull located. Um, you're going to go get set up. I know we're both known, you know, for ruining elk hunting and bugling way too much and all the stuff that, that we do that screws up elk and educates them, but you're ready to call your setup. Let's say you're a hundred yards away from the elk. Are you going to include a cow call?
initially, or are you going to beagle at them? And then how do you play it from there? Do you want a cow to be involved? Do you, um, you know, let's say you've only got one beagle, so you don't really got a good, good idea on his temperament, but you're close. Um, we, we, I always kind of go back and forth whether I want a cow to be painted into the situation or not. So I'm, I'm curious to hear, um, if you're going to open up with any cow calls early on in the conversation.
I've done a lot of experimentation over the years and that's every elk I call to, it's basically an experiment. I'm experimenting with what he wants to hear or what he's going to respond to or how he's going to respond to it. So
If earlier he, the bull has answered to cow calls, you know, when we, during the location process, if he's answered the cow calls, it tells me he's definitely interested in hearing, you know, hearing from a cow or interested in cows. But if, you know, before I took in after him, if, you know, I wait and, you know, for my three or four good locator for him to answer three or four times before I move in to get set up. If he hasn't answered cow calls at all, I know that he,
it's probably not going to be in my best interest to make cow calls when I get close. A lot of times, like early season, you know, I've had when bulls are not herded up, they're still kind of singled out all across the hillsides there. They'll have their little hidey holes. Most of the time in those scenarios, those bulls won't answer my cow call, but they will a bugle. So,
They know, I think they know that it's way too early for a cow to be in heat. I haven't smelled that smell yet. So if I get close, I'm going to bugle at him because I want him to feel like I'm going to encroach in his little spot.
I want to feel a little bit territorial, like, hey, man, get out of here. This is my spot. I want to try to appeal to that. But if he's answered a cow calls, even if it's early, then I will probably open up the show with a couple cow calls just to test the waters.
And if there's no response from a couple of cow calls, then I'll progress to a bugle. But keeping in mind what kind of bugles he was biting on before, like if he was he liked these chuckly, wimpy bugle with a bunch of chuckles, then that's probably what I'm going to start the show with once I get close. I'm not going to try to knock your socks off with a big blaster, if you will.
Yeah. And one thing that I think we need to point out is what we're doing or what the way that nature works, if we're not involved, if you go out and just cow call, I wouldn't be surprised when trying to call an elk and if he responds maybe every time to that cow call.
But we need to know whether that's necessarily a herd bull or a satellite bull, because you may be able to call that satellite bull into your location. But if that is a herd bull that you're trying to cow call to, he's basically just saying, hey, I'm over here. But he's not going to leave his cows to come find some new random cow that just showed up, at least not the majority of the time.
O'Reilly auto parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day I went into an O'Reilly auto parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there. You know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.
They did not have it, and the dude told me specifically where I would go down the road to find it is how nice they are. They offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. Thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in-store, or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam.
They'll test your battery for free. If you need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or quick service, they'll help you find the right part or point you to a local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, best of all, friendly. These guys are your one-stop shop for all things auto, do-it-yourself,
You can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit them at OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. That's OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam Motor Treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.
It's really simple. When you pour it in your gas tank, sea foam cleans harmful fuel deposits that cause engine problems. I'm talking common stuff like hard starts, rough engine performance, or lost fuel economy. Sea foam is an easy way to prevent or overcome these problems. Just pour a can in your gas tank and let it clean your fuel system. You probably know someone who has used a can of sea foam to get their truck or boat going again. People everywhere rely on sea foam to keep their trucks, boats, and small engines running the way that they should the entire season.
Help your engine run better and last longer. Pick up a can of Seafoam today at your local auto parts store or visit seafoamworks.com to learn more.
This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.
There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.
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.
not bringing up a bunch of issues or some of the discussions that we all disagree on, but we get a lot of, hey, that bugling's all BS. I've always just cow called and they come running right in. But that's great in a certain situation, but was that a satellite bull? Was that a herd bull? We're all out there trying to call different things in. And so I wanted to point that out that when you're using just cow calls, you've now just really...
You know, you've just kind of changed the way that we're trying to get this to work. We're trying to call a bull into our location, but the way it works out in nature is if you do cow call, that bull will respond, then he expects you to walk up to him, right? Not necessarily call him to your location. So,
I think being a, you know, a thinking elk caller is always going to be to your benefit that you're not just going to be able to set up on any, any given bull. Um, it really depends on, on who and what that bull is and how effective, you know, just straight cow calls are going to be. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. And just knowing the herd dynamics in the area you're hunting, um, there's,
New Mexico, for instance, last year, we saw like hardly any cows, right? There was virtually no cows on the landscape. We heard more bugles than we saw cows for sure, like different bulls. So in theory, you would think, man, cow calls are going to work like a magical flute here. But I didn't really have that happen for me. A lot of the bulls didn't care at all if I blew a cow call. They weren't that interested. They were all about a bugle.
So you just have to be ready. Don't get stuck with a predisposition idea, I guess, in your head. Like, oh, you know, people say this or people say that. Just, you know, experiment with it. Play with it. Try to understand your elk that you're calling to. And then one other thing to think about cows, a lot of times they don't they're like women. Right. They don't want any competition.
You know, you have a group of wives out having cocktails somewhere and a couple of husbands standing there. And then if some new hot little thing walks in immediately,
They're on edge, right? They're like, Hey, who's that? Should we get her out of here? Come on, let's go. I think it's time to leave. Right. I think cows are a lot like that. They don't like, they have their little click. They knew they know who's who they don't want any new interlopers in there trying to steal their man. Derek, that's dangerous territory comparing your wife and her groups of friends to a group of cows, but hopefully they won't, they won't listen to this one.
I know, right? My wife, I think she's within earshot here in the house. So I'm hoping I'm not a dead man when I get off here. So my next question for you, I would always prefer...
to see the elk that we're gonna go try to call in. Like, I wanna know, you know, even, you know, people can talk about horn size, body size, maturity, you know, dominance is mainly what I'm looking for, but I wanna know how dominant that herd bull is, how many cows he has, you know, are there satellite bulls hanging around? Like anything that we can get out of visually looking at these elks to our advantage,
But one situation I find myself in year after year is you're walking along, maybe above a patch of timber or in a canyon, and you locate a bull. We don't get all of those cues that we got when we were able to see him across the canyon, right? We now have no idea if a two-and-a-half-year-old satellite bull answered us.
We don't have an, I, you know, we don't know if it's a five and a half year old satellite, but we don't know if it's a herd bull with a bunch of satellites around it. All we know, I mean, to some effect, I should take that back. A lot of times you can get a little bit from his bugle, but the majority of time you go in a little bit blind, right? Because, you know, we've called in some great bulls that sound wimpy and we've had some wimpy bulls, you know, horn and body wise that have sounded like monsters. So
When you get that bugle, like what are your assumptions? Is there a safe play? Do you go with like a default aggressive play? Like, you know, what are your assumptions when you hear that bugle and then how are you going to approach? Well, my, my first thought that crosses my head as soon as I hear a bugle is like, okay, what's the wind doing? So I assess the wind. Then I, then I assess the topography. What, what's it going to take for me to get close to that elk?
And then as I, as I'm thinking all this in my head, then I'm trying to like focus where I've heard him. And then I'm going to try to locate again, but I don't, I guess it's maybe the, like the way he's answered the tone, you know, the, the way he, the tone he's answered in rather than how it sounds. Maybe he's a squeaker, but man, he sounds like a really mad squeaker or, or he's a big gravelly growly thing that it doesn't have any high pitch at all to his voice.
Typically, I'm going to envision a mature age class bull with a very, very, you know, broken up, worn out bugle. Right. I'm going to picture that. But I'm just going to kind of back, you know, go default back to that call of that disposition of the bull, because I've I've had some bulls that sounded wimpy when you first start calling to them.
to flip the switch and then now they sound like Godzilla, right? So it's like almost like they play possum a little bit sometimes. So I just kind of try to assess
how they sound. I don't want to try to sound too much bigger. And I try to play it by that, but I typically like it's a, it's an aggressive move though. Once I, once I've got them pinpointed, we're going to get aggressive. We're going to get close. We're not going to get, now when I say aggressive, we're not going to say reckless, you know, we're not going to throw caution to the wind and say, Oh, we'll get over there at all costs. You know,
the wind be damned, you know, we're going to make sure we follow the wind and, and make sure that we don't make any mistakes as far as that goes. And we want to get close as we can quick as we can, um, closing that gap. One thing, you know, they're all different. Some bulls you've, you follow them from, from first light till middle of the day.
um, before you ever even get close to them, you know, just because of terrain features or whatever, or maybe just the way they're, the herds move and some, you know, those New Mexico bulls shoot those things and move four miles in the morning. And you're just on their heels the whole time, just trying to keep up. Whereas some of the, some of the Pacific Northwest stuff where it's big, heavy timber and stuff, they're not moving quite as far. Uh, but you may have to spend half the day climbing across the Canyon to them, or, or maybe they're on your side and you're getting, you can move up quickly. Just,
Every scenario is so different, but, um, you know, I'm just going to assess what they sound like and then try to tailor my calling to how they sound. Yeah. And one thing, you know, on that situation where you've located a bull through audible, you know, you be a gold or you didn't be a goal, but you hear them be a goal. One thing that I really like to do before we, we put our plan together is here, multiple bugles, right? I want to just, and I'm not good at it cause I'm the most impatient hunter ever, but
But I found as time goes on, being able to hear multiple beagles from that bull is giving us some sort of indication like, is he moving in a direction? Is he sitting still? Do we need to change where we thought we were going to go versus if we make an aggressive player, we take off and we don't get to hear him beagle again? Did we just miss him by 15 minutes? Did we just miss him by a quarter mile of where we needed to be when we got down there because he's now off in a distance? So a lot of times,
Ideally, we don't poke at him too much, but we really want to hear that additional bugle from a long ways away because maybe, especially if we located and gave up our position and he bugles, he may be coming already. Or we located and he answers, he may be going away. And so without being able to see what's going on, I really like to know
what his plan is, um, you know, and to get a second or a third or fourth bugle, whatever it may be, gives us at least some additional information versus, you know, one bugle is kind of unfortunate because all we really know is that we've got an elk down there, you know, of, you know, or a bull down there really, uh,
we don't know what's going on. Um, you know, we can't make any indicator, you know, or guesses whether he's got cows, you know, any of that. So multiple bugles is always great. And then similar to you, um, the very first thing I do and, and,
I think my grandpa would be pissed that this is the first thing I do, but you pull out your fancy smartphone out of your pocket as soon as you hear a bull bugle, rather than figure an idea out, you're instantly looking at topo. If that bull's there, what are my routes to get there? Similar to you, what's the wind doing? Where would you potentially go from here? So yeah, I want to hear multiple bugles. I'm going to get out some mapping software, figure out how I'm going to get there.
And then, you know, typically based on the wind and time of day planar approach. Yeah, I agree. I couldn't agree more. Back in the day before we had GPSs, we carried those and especially in areas that you'd never hunted before.
you'd hear a bull a few times over there and you'd get over there and you'd be like, well, I can't turn him up. He's he, I guess he got out of the mood or just quit bugling. But, um, with these smartphones now and are mapping, you can look at topography and you're like, Oh, well there's a saddle right there. He walked right over that through that saddle all bet. You walk over there, bam, he's bugling his head off. You just couldn't hear him. Um,
Man, I wish I had a lot of those back from back in the early days. I think I really messed up by like, well, I guess we'll go somewhere else. Dang it. Yeah. And one thing that I've drawn on from a lot of experience and extreme frustration. So these specific examples are etched into my mind is elk.
For one reason or another, they're very good at sensing pressure and being quiet when needed. So I can remember, you know, multiple times where we've got a bull going pretty good, but maybe it's a half mile, a mile away. And we've got a pretty good, you know, track to get there, you know, down across the Canyon, up through some brush, whatever it may be. We go over there right to where we thought the bull was.
We do our calling. We try to locate him. We try to get the wind right and nothing. And then you will come back down the mountain, get back to where you located him from. And for no other good reason, he's in the same damn spot. And you're like, well, we were just there. You know, they, they will, you know, I think they do a lot of listening multiple times. We've climbed the mountain, climb back down the mountain or vice versa and get back to that original point. And I, I just feel like,
You know, you've got to let the elk win occasionally, right? We're not going to win them all. And in these certain times, they're just very, very smart and good at like, well, this bull's got too close. I really don't want to give up my position now. I'm willing to give my position up from a mile away or a half mile away. You know, some of those, you know, we're just, that's just what you're dealing with is an educated elk and they don't get old from, you know, doing everything wrong all the time. Yeah. Yeah.
And there's been often times where I've been calling to a bull a lot and he's been calling back. And then for whatever reason, he just clams up and you're like, huh? They just went from a hundred miles an hour to like zero just within a couple of minutes. And you're like, what happened? And you know, everything's good. The wind is good. He can't see us. Why is, why did he be quiet? And rather than like, well, he must've figured us out and like packing up camp and leaving. Um,
Well, that's not the last few years I've been just kind of just sitting down like, Hey, let's just sit down here and take a break. Let's have some snacks, have some water, kick our feet back, catch our breath and sit down for maybe an hour. And especially if the bulls are, you know, he's, you know, a couple hundred yards away, you know, we'd gotten pretty close to him. A lot of times you get in quiet.
and doing the same thing to him makes him uncomfortable and they start calling again. They're like, okay, where'd that bull go? Is he sneaking in on me or what? So sometimes if you just, you know, play possum a little bit and just be quiet, let's say you didn't move, move over there where that bull you'd been hearing him and you can't get him to go do a bunch of calling and then shut up and sit there for an hour. He may, he may start talking. He may,
come walking in on you with no, with no bugling at all. I've had that happen too, where you hear a couple of twig snap and you're like, what's that? And then here comes this bull walking in. Yeah. That's, that's a great tip. And, and, you know, from, from your experience, you know, the same, same stuff that we've had happen. So if Dirk, if you could leave the listeners with, with one golden nugget that may help them, um, what would it be, you know, this year elk hunting?
Practice, practice, practice on your outcalls, right? Of course, you don't have to sound
perfect you know like the perfect guy like the all your favorite guys on on youtube or whatever uh you don't have to sound perfect but you have to sound like an elk right um if your calls don't sound like an elk don't just put them away don't use them but if they actually sound like an elk add some intensity add some emotion to them and uh and then have the confidence to use them you hear a bull go ahead and rip it back at him or cow call to him or whatever but don't
don't pigeonhole yourself with just one type of calling. Don't just lean a hundred percent on cow calls. I don't think you should lean a hundred percent on bugles. I think it's like a, a very, um, use a balanced approach, a little bit of both, whatever the bull likes, give him more of those and you'll have success. A great tip. Uh,
Really appreciate it. So we're going to roll this into a part two. And in part two, we're going to cover setting up on elk. So there's a lot we talk about calling on here all the time. We're going to talk about the specific setup, you know, whether you're going to call a bull downhill or uphill, what's your preference. We're going to talk about strategies such as calling in, you know, a young satellite bull versus a mature satellite bull versus a herd bull and how some of our tactics are going to change.
And then, you know, even adapting during a hunt, we got a very prescriptive calling method, but, you know, similar to last year in New Mexico, we started to get our butt kicked and we had to adapt a little bit. And, you know, it was one of the more frustrating hunts. So join in for part two, and we're going to touch on these next subjects in that podcast.
Hey, we're going to take a little break here and talk about interstate batteries. Now, if you're like me, enjoying the great outdoors, you need gear that is as reliable as it gets. That's why I power my adventures with interstate batteries. I use interstate batteries in my boats. I use interstate batteries in my camper. Great for your truck, too. From Alaska to Montana, they're outrageously dependable.
Battery is essential. With over 150,000 dealer locations, finding one is easy. For all your vehicles, land or sea, choose Interstate. Head to InterstateBatteries.com and find your power today. You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to Land.com.
They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.