The ElkNut Series is loaded with golden nuggets from the ElkNut about different situations he’s encountered in the elk woods. We’d like to open up the floor on the next podcast to a few of our listeners. Talk with the ElkNut about the situations you encountered this year and get his two cents on what went right, what went wrong, and suggestions to improve!
We will have between four and six guests on the show. If you are interested, please send an email to tayler@gotgametech.com with a picture from your hunt (killing an elk in 2019 is not a requirement to appear on the show), and a brief description of your elk hunt this year (years of experience, state hunted, weapon, how many days, how many elk encounters, shot opportunities, results, etc.). We’ll try to get a good cross-section of elk hunters to make this show as informative as possible.
We’ll accept applications to appear up until 11:59 p.m. MST on November 13, 2019. Guests will be selected, and we’ll coordinate podcast interview times from there. Watch for this podcast to be released around Thanksgiving!
We partnered with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to put together an amazing night of elk calling instruction and fun. The ElkNut, Paul Medel, was joined by owner of Elk Addicts, Chris Horton, to provide elk calling and hunting instruction to over seventy hunters at the new Idaho Department of Fish and Game building in Nampa, Idaho on August 23. We recorded the event, and the ElkNut’s seminar has been posted to the Got Game Technologies podcast and YouTube channel. Definitely check it out!
At the seminar, every attendee was able to leave with a door prize of one kind or another from our great event sponsors: Phelps Game Calls (bugle tubes and mouth calls), Exo Mountain Gear (hats, T-shirts, and a gift card), Nature’s Paint (face paint), Trips for Trade (lifetime membership), Elk Shape (one-year Elk Shape online membership), Elk Addicts (hats and T-shirts), Got Game Technologies (free ElkNut app downloads), and Sneaky Hunter (boot lamps). These are great companies and we hope you’ll check out their products and services.
We have already booked the building for another seminar next year. Mark you calendars for Friday, August 21, 2020. In the meantime, we hope you’ll take what you can from this seminar and punch some tags this fall!
We are excited to announce that we have partnered with the Idaho Fish and Game to provide a free elk calling seminar at the new IDFG building in Nampa, Idaho on August 23, 2019 at 6:30 p.m MT. The keynote presenter will be the ElkNut, Paul Medel. He will be joined by Chris Horton, founder of Elk Addicts. And for the youth attending, the recently crowned World Peewee Elk Calling Champion, Chris Fong, will also be in attendance.
This star-studded panel will be providing their insight into the art of elk calling and hunting over the counter public land elk. There will also be door prizes that have been donated by Exo Mountain Gear, Phelps Game Calls, Elk Addicts, and the ElkNut mobile app. Be sure to show your appreciation for these great companies by checking out their products in advance of the event!
The new IDFG building is located at 15950 N. Gate Blvd., Nampa, Idaho. If you would like to attend in person, please send an e-mail to tayler@gotgametech.com. We will also be broadcasting the seminar live for those who cannot attend in person. This will happen on the ElkNut mobile app Instagram page, @elknutapp. Either way, mark your calendars for Friday, August 23 at 6:30 p.m. MT. You don’t want to miss this!
We have received some great feedback from customers since our last update to the ElkNut App. And while we can’t put all the suggestions to work, we have been able to make a couple major changes that you will see on this new version of the ElkNut App. If you already have the app downloaded, the update will be automatically pushed out through the App Store or Google Play store depending upon your device. If you don’t have the ElkNut App, you may purchase it on the App Store here or the Google Play Store here and it will be in this new format.
The most noticeable update to the app is the menu bar that is located at the bottom of the screen. We learned there is too much information on the app that not enough of our users were able to navigate to very easily. This new navigation bar lets users now right away that the ElkNut app is more than just a library of elk calls. It’s loaded with tips, tactics, and elk calling sequences to help you become a more successful elk hunter.
Speaking of sequences, we have added a substantially more detailed Slow Play sequence! This used to be tucked away in the Tactics section as one of the “ElkNut Nuggets.” But it’s such an important sequence, and Paul has expounded on it so much in this update, that we knew it needed to be more prominently featured. If you want to understand how to work every bull you encounter, you need the slow play sequence in your life!
We have also added two additional tactics to help the Early Season and Solo elk hunters. Check those out and let us know what you think! We get a lot of questions about these two topics, so we hope you will find the information helpful. We’ve also added a couple more ElkNut Nuggets (in the Tactics section), but we don’t want to spoil the surprise. Open up the app and see for yourself!
You’re also going to want to check out the newly updated “Products Used” section. Here you can find the products we recommend to help you to find the most success in the field. This section can be found under each elk sound included on the app. Select the sound, then you’ll see the screen showing the video, audio, tips, and products used. Definitely give these companies and products your consideration.
In sum, it’s short time; elk season is next month for many of us. We hope you will dive in to this app update and let us know what you think and other things we can do to improve it. As always, thank you for your loyalty and for sharing the app with friends and family. Remember, friends don’t let friends elk hunt without the ElkNut app.
After following along with Top Priority Hunting’s 2018 bear hunting season on YouTube this spring, we (Joel, Ryan, and myself) decided running a bear bait could be a great way to get out this spring, stretch the legs, do some scouting for fall, and perhaps even take a bear or two. We had no idea how much excitement this bear season would hold. Here is a recap of our season.
Pick a General Location. We knew a few areas that held bears from our experience hunting, and we listened up whenever there was a good bear hunting podcast. Brian Barney with Eastman’s Elevated put a couple great ones late winter that helped us decide on a location–close to grass, close to or near rocky areas where a den might be, and not too low in the elevation (as the snow would continually melt through the season and impact bear activity).
This was the night we picked the general area for our bear bait. Saw a bunch of elk to boot!
Start Gathering Supplies. We used a combination of molasses oats and old bread as the base for our bait. We also tried out a variety of scents and flavorings, including Moutlrie’s and Boar Masters among others. We also contacted a few local eateries about getting their old grease and picked up some chocolate sauce containers on the cheap from Costco. One truck load from the bread shop took care of our bread needs for about $20. As for the barrel, a friend helped us weld a chain to the barrel and cut a small hole in the side to limit the amount the bears could get to at a time.
Bear baiting is a family affair.
Set the Bait and Camera. We mulled over a few specific locations, but ultimately went a little higher up the mountain to set the barrel. We rode four wheelers a mile or two in and then hiked the last half mile or so straight up. It wasn’t so bad the first time. But the second, third, fourth, etc. time doing that hike with heavy packs full of bear bait got old fast. (Note to self for next time.) We picked a flat spot near a grassy park, dammed off the back of the barrel to force bears to enter from the direction of our stands and camera, and hacked off some limbs for the tree stands.
Bear baiting was a different type of heavy pack–good training for fall!
Feed the Bears. The next few weeks were a waiting game. Since it was a new bait site, it took a while for the bears to start hitting it. We had it set up on April 17 or so, and didn’t have our first bear until May 7, I believe. But once the bears started to come in, it didn’t take long for a lot of different bears to start hitting the bait. Between the three of us, we made sure to restock the bait about once a week, sometimes twice a week. We arm twisted whatever buddies we could get to come help us carry the bait up the steep hill to the site. Most of the bear action was at night, but early morning and later evening hours also started to produce some bear activity.
Here’s a good sized boar we happened to catch on camera during daylight hours.
The Hunt. We initially hunted the bait from the tree stands we set up. Unfortunately, we had assumed thermals would get the wind in our favor nicely for an evening hunt, without thoroughly vetting the directionals that time of day. Unfortunately, there was a fairly constant directional blowing up the draw. The bears were coming in above the stand, so any chance at sitting the stand and taking a bear were nixed early on. However, we shifted strategy a bit by coming in around and high, above the bait, and watching from a distance before stalking in. This produced some good encounters.
Joel’s Shot. The first encounter that produced a shot occurred in late May. Joel went in with archery tackle, hung out above the bait, the snuck in when he saw activity. He was able to sneak in to about 40 yards, and made what we thought was a pretty good shot on a bear. But unfortunately he was not able to recover the bear. We saw it show up a few days later on the trail camera and were not able to locate a carcass as the season went on.
Tayler’s Bear. I went up again a few days later, rifle in hand. I’d never taken a bear and didn’t have much more time to hunt. I wanted to get it done. So I sat up above the bait about 200 yards away with a good wind and waited. For about three or four hours. Finally, I heard the chains of the bait rattle. A couple blonde color phase black bears (they were regulars) showed up. I had already decided if the bigger of the two showed up, I would make an effort to take him. The trees around the bait were thick, and I didn’t have a clear shot, so I started slowly sneaking in. It took about five minutes, but I crept through the trees to about 60 yards before I had a good opening. I sat, rested the Tikka 6.5 Creedmore on my knee and waited for the right shot. The bigger of the two blondies walked back into view near the bait and sat down, facing immediately away from me. He slowly started to quarter to the left. I waited until he quartered enough to give me a good shot at the lungs on his opposite side–he did so a few second later, and I squeezed the trigger. He jumped, yowled and headed down hill out of view. The other bear lumbered off in confusion and stopped about forty yards to my right. I told him to move along and he obliged. After calling Ryan, my wife, and my dad, giving the bear a bit to bleed out and die, I hiked down to the bait. There was good blood. I peeked over the ledge and could see my bear piled up. Success! He was a younger boar with a beautiful blonde coat!
Blake’s Shot. Ryan’s younger brother Blake had been staying with us this summer, moving pipe for a local rancher. He hasn’t shown a lot of interest in hunting, but when he came up, he decided to give a bear hunt a go. So we signed him up for Idaho’s mentored hunter passport and Ryan and Joel took Blake to the bait. (Blake had also helped me haul in bait on one prior occasion, so he had some skin in the game.) On back to back nights Blake had a shot at that smaller blonde bear and unfortunately wasn’t able to connect. It was a good lesson for him that hunting doesn’t always come easy, and it’s important to invest time on the front end to practice shooting more and make sure you’re comfortable behind the trigger.
Summary. We made about 20 collective trips in to our bait with 50-70 pound packs. We probably saw about 25 different bears on camera, including two or three really quality boars. These big males rarely hit the bait during shooting hours, but it was fun to watch them through trail camera pictures. Ultimately we were able to come away with one really cool blonde bear and a ton of memories and lessons for next year. We feel bear hunting is an important part of conservation and were glad to do our part this year. Not only is bear meat good eating, but controlling the bear population is important to our elk and deer populations.
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