Over five hundred people participated in last week’s live elk calling webinar featuring the ElkNut, Paul Medel, and Jason Phelps, owner of Phelps Game Calls. It was awesome! Paul started off the event discussing hunting quiet elk, and covered a number of other great topics along the way. Jason then shared his list of subjects that are often overlooked by elk hunters, including, for example, ensuring you have a proper setup. Ultimately both answered participant questions such as: “What’s your favorite call?” “When do you use cow bugles?” and “How to hunt elk early season (i.e., Utah’s mid-August archery elk hunt)?” just to name a few.
If you missed this webinar or would simply like to watch it again, we have posted the show to our YouTube channel or you can catch it on our podcast within the next couple of days (still in process but getting there!). Be sure to check out one or the other and subscribe to both while you’re at it.
We would also remind you to check out the ElkNut app if you don’t already have it, and to use the code ElkNut10 to purchase some calls from Phelps Game Calls. Many thanks to our other event sponsors as well, After the Kill and Elk Addicts. We look forward to holding a similar event again in the future!
Join us on April 9, 2020 at 7 p.m. MT for an elk calling webinar featuring the ElkNut, Paul Medel, and the owner of Phelps Game Calls, Jason Phelps. This is a free event, but seats are limited, so be sure to follow the link below to sign up. Jason is going to be giving some of his top elk calling tips, and Paul is going to focus his comments on calling in the herd bull (among other things). There will also be prizes given away to a few lucky, random attendees, so be sure to stick around for the whole show. And seriously, what else do you have going on a Thursday evening in 2020? We’re all stuck at home. So get registered, mark your calendars, study up on the ElkNut app, and come with questions!
My brother and I met up at the trail head late in the afternoon the day before Idaho’s general archery elk season opened. I had hunted mule deer with him down in Utah the week before, and this time it was his turn to play wingman. We were excited to spend three days on Idaho’s public land chasing bugling bull elk.
We headed up the trial with a plan in mind about how we wanted to spend the next three days hunting. I had two trail cameras set up in different drainages, and we figured we’d hustle up to the first trail camera to see what was in the area, and then hunt around that drainage the first day or so. After that, we’d transition into the second drainage, check that trail camera, and give that spot a go if things didn’t pan out earlier on.
That plan quickly changed. When we came up to the meadow that signaled our turn to the first trail camera, as well as the spot we wanted to camp, we came upon a group of thirty or so teenagers on a school-related wilderness campout. It was dusk, and we didn’t have a lot of time to call an audible. So we headed off trail to check the camera (which ended up having pictures of a couple good bulls in the area) then decided to chat with the campers and see what their plans were. They had arrived the day before and would be hiking all around in that drainage for the next two days. With that, we told them we were glad that youngsters were getting out to enjoy the great outdoors, and wished them well. Then we headed back down the trail, both agreeing Plan B had now become Plan A.
Things got a little tricky at that point. It was dark. I knew the general area in which to cross over into the other drainage, but it was just a game trail, and steep at that. We switched on the head lamps and made our best guess on the trail. I knew we were close, but we ran into a lot of downed trees, some cliffs we had to go around, and a pretty mean slide that was plenty nerve-racking. But by 11:00 p.m. we found ourselves at the saddle and gladly set up camp for the night. Hiking up that steep hillside with our camps on our backs had us beat.
Hunting with your camp on your back has its efficiencies. This is the Nemo Spike Tent.
The next morning it was easy to wake up, knowing that after eleven months of waiting, it was archery elk season again! We ate a quick breakfast, loaded up camp, and started down into the drainage with elk on the brain. I let off a location bugle no more than fifty yards from where we’d slept. We got an immediate bugle in reply. I looked at Ben and we knew this was going to be an historic day.
However, things didn’t quite pan out with this first bull. We tried to cut the distance in order to try our hand at the Slow Play calling tactic (as taught by Paul Medel, the ElkNut), in which you give a bull time to get fired up rather than starting out aggressive from the get go. But as we tried to close the distance, we bumped an elk on our left. We were pretty sure it was a different elk, but after that point we were not able to get a sound out of the bull we’d heard below our camp. After thirty minutes and no appearance, reply, or sound of an approaching bull, we decided to move on.
As we rounded a bend on the game trail, we looked across the drainage and saw a group of five bulls feeding their way up a steep slope. They were a long way off, far enough that we couldn’t see antler sizes through the binoculars. But it was early and we decided we had time to get around to this herd about the time they’d be bedding down. We picked a spot we thought they’d be when we got there and started out. As we approached it became clear that the group included five bulls, three were rag horns, one was a five point, and one was a six point. Perfect; we had options!
Bow in one hand, bugle in the other. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
The plan went really well for a while. But as we got within about 250 yards, we ran into a flock of grouse. As soon as one would explode out of the brush, we’d move along and another one would bust out. Any high country hunter knows how nerve-racking this can be! Anyways, when we got to the spot we’d picked from across the canyon, I let out a location bugle. No response. I waited another few minutes and bugled again. Nothing. We started to think that maybe we’d picked a spot that was too high and the elk had slipped below us. But we hadn’t heard anything, and it had started to warm up. There was a chance the elk had bedded down where we expected and they just weren’t interested in talking yet. We decided our best bet was to drop down into the trees about fifty yards and see if we couldn’t work our way into the herd of bulls with some cow calls.
The trees were thick, and our visibility was about thirty yards. Within about two minutes, we’d found one of the two bigger bulls in the group of five, but he stood about the time we realized where he was. I cow called and froze him, but I could only see his back half through the only available shooting lane. As I tried to take a few steps down hill, still cow calling, to get a better shooting lane, he busted, and the gig was up. We heard the five bulls crashing through the trees. Within minutes, they were standing at the location we were when we initially spotted them. It was not even 10:00 a.m., we’d been presented with two opportunities, and swung and missed both times!
After some water and food, we decided to head down the drainage and check that second trail camera I’d hung, which was on a wallow. I had found the wallow after hunting this area the year earlier and had marked the spot on my OnX app as one to explore next year. I’d only made it in three weeks earlier to set the camera, and this would be the first time we’d checked it. Who knew what we’d see? We also knew there was a good sized creek along the way and our sore feet and knees were calling for a little refresher.
The hike down was steep and slow going. We descended about 2,000 feet in elevation. At last we reached the bottom of the ravine. We found a great spring and saw a small mule deer buck (I had a mule deer tag in my pocket as well, but this buck wasn’t big enough to turn the elk hunt into a deer hunt quite yet). After wrapping around a ridge, we wound our way into the drainage with the creek. We took a quick soak and then enjoyed a great early afternoon nap. (Any honest archery hunter will admit that naps in the woods are the best!)
While scouting in early August I discovered the creek and meadow with this bull moose hanging out there. I knew I needed to come back during hunting season.
At about 2:00 p.m., we slung the packs back on our backs and headed up to the wallow. Although the action had slowed down over the past few days, there was a serious amount of elk, deer, and even moose coming into this wallow. There was a wide variety of branch antlered bulls as well as one shooter mule deer buck checking in. That decided it for us. With the elk so far not wanting to “play the game,” so to speak, when it came to calling, and considering we were pretty beat from our hiking around the drainage that morning, sitting at the wallow sounded like a plan worth trying.
Just a few of the bulls that came into the wallow in August 2018.
The setting was perfect for an ambush. We picked a spot with good wind and cover and started the waiting game at around 3:15 p.m. On and off I’d let off a location bugle or engage in some creative cow calling for a few minutes. But the wallow was tucked in a ravine and it didn’t seem like my calls were traveling far. By around 6:50 p.m., my focus was waning. Fortunately, my brother’s wasn’t. I heard him whisper my name, and when I glanced his way, he gave me the “there’s an elk” eyebrow raise. I slowly turned around again and didn’t see anything. Ten seconds went by and then I heard him.
Out stepped a six-point bull elk, on his way to what turned out to be another wallow above the one we’d been sitting on. Fortunately, while I had been waiting, I had ranged about every tree in the ravine and knew the distance from me to the bull. As he started towards the upper wallow, I tried to get my knees underneath me and bow in place. He looked at me from 40 yards away, and I froze. After about ten seconds, he turned to advance up the trial and took a couple more steps. I was able to kneel at this point, and when he put his head down to drink, I drew back my bow. When I did so and the bull didn’t look my way, I knew he was a dead elk. He was fifty yards from me, and when I lined up that green pin in my peep sight behind the bull’s shoulder, I let my arrow fly. I saw it hit right where I was aiming and the bull jumped. We heard him crash once in the brush out of sight and then nothing. I looked back at my brother; we both knew we’d done it!
This August archery bull expired not far from where he was initially hit. His death was quick. And he would feed my family for months. We were very thankful. I walked up in awe at the size, strength, and overall impressiveness of these great creatures.
It was about 7:30 p.m. at this point, and we got to work boning out the bull. We knew we were in for a long night. At 9 p.m., we were all loaded up and ready to head down the trail. My brother took the two game bags with the bull’s hind quarters. His pack was full with bivy gear, so he tied the two game bags together and wore them like a squat bar across his shoulders and behind his neck. I had the front quarters in one game bag and the miscellaneous bag (backstraps, tenderloins, neck meat, etc.) in another bag. My EXO pack was loaded full of bivy gear myself, but fortunately the pack has a nifty meat shelf. I was able to fit the miscellaneous bag down in the meat shelf, and then stacked the other game bag on top of the pack and lashed it down. Finally, I held the bull’s head and antlers in my arms like a curl bar and we started out. For the first mile, there was no good trail, and we bushwhacked it for three hours to cover that mile. We hadn’t had dinner and were running on a Five-Hour Energy shot a piece. When we finally did reach a cognizable trail, we collapsed and rested. It was 12:15 a.m. Three and a half miles to go.
On an actual trail, we did make better time. But our bodies were tired and it became an exercise in “mind over matter.” At just a little before 3:00 a.m., we finally found our vehicle at the trail head. What a night (and early morning)! I’d managed to tag out on a great Idaho public land bull elk on the opening day of archery season (even if we didn’t get him to the truck until technically the second day), and my brother was there every step of the way.
Here are a few things I learned from this trip:
1. Build off of your failures. In 2017, I didn’t fill my elk tag. I hunted long and hard, sometimes with family or friends, sometimes solo, for a total of nine days. Each day we had at least one opportunity, and each day I came up empty. On the last day of the 2017 season, we had one of those amazing days with the rut on full tilt, and just about came away with an incredible herd bull. But once again I got beat, that day by the setting sun. On the hike out in the dark, I nearly fell in what looked to be a great wallow. I marked it on my On X app and decided I wanted to come back to this wallow next year. Lo and behold, this wallow is the one I set my trail camera on in early August this year. It’s the one that we decided to sit that afternoon on opening day. And it’s the one I shot my bull on. There’s always room to build on time spent hunting, even if you don’t always get your tag punched.
2. Details matter. One thing I didn’t mention above. When I sat down at the wallow, it was after about eight hours of hard hunting and hiking. I’d pretty much sweated off my Nature’s Paint face paint. Part of me wanted to say, no biggie, it probably won’t matter anyway. But I decided to reapply some face paint with the expectation that I would need it when an elk came in. And an elk did come in. And I did need it. That bull looked right where I was before I ultimately had a shot. Fortunately for me, my face wasn’t glowing and he gave me an opportunity to shoot. That reapplication of face paint detail mattered immensely.
3. A good hunting partner is priceless. Having my brother along was a game changer. He helped keep me focused when I was losing it. He spotted the elk I killed well before I did. And having his help on the pack out was priceless. Thinking about packing that elk out solo, after the grueling six-hour hike with my brother’s help, is staggering. My brother reduced the pain of the pack out by at least fifty percent. (He’s also 6’3″ and 240 pounds, so he can carry a lot.) I highly recommend finding a good hunting partner to take with you elk hunting.
There are probably many other principles to glean from this elk hunt. But those are the high points. Now it’s time to enjoy the fruits of our labors, namely elk steak, burger, roast and jerky, until we are blessed enough to do it again next year.
It’s always awesome bringing a successful hunt’s rewards back for the family to see!
Each season we try to make improvements to the ElkNut app to continually give our app users a competitive edge in the elk woods. To that end, we have just rolled out an entirely new section of the ElkNut app called “ElkNut Nuggets.”
This section is located in the Tactics section of the app as seen here:
Then you scroll down to the Tactic entitled “ElkNut Nuggets”:
Once you open it, you’ll see ten tactics, including:
The Slow Play
Bugling Bulls Moving Away
Those Advertising Bugles!
Bugling Too Aggresivley
Herd Bull Tactic – Herd Bull with Hot Cow
Calling Before Daylight
Two-Man Call and Stalk
Opening the Corridor
When Bulls Cow Call
Understanding Emotion in Elk Calling
Be sure to get your app updated if you have it, or if you don’t, definitely check it out here.
Our first elk season with the ElkNut app on the market was awesome. Many elk hunters successfully applied the ElkNut’s guidance found on the app and were able to fill their elk tags (and freezers) and learn a ton along the way. That has been and will always be our goal.
Needless to say, there are some indicators we follow to see how we’re doing in accomplishing that goal, and a pretty exciting one happened last week. The ElkNut app was the #100 paid sports app on the entire App Store! It’s always ranked well in the Sports genre, but to see the app being downloaded and used by enough elk hunters to put it in those ranks was a special accomplishment. And we have you as an ElkNut app user to thank for that. Thank you!
Be sure to keep updating your app, as we’ll continue to ad content and make it better!
Anyone who hunts the elk rut in September will fall in love with listening to elk bugles. Getting a taste of the sound of an elk will hook you forever. You will dream of that sound the rest of your life. The sound of a bugle can be so captivating that we sometimes focus on the bugle more than the actual elk. However, the trick isn’t just hearing a bugle but understanding what the bugle means to that elk and other elk in the area. We as hunters can hear the sound easy enough, but many struggle comprehending the message. This is a key reason why so many general season, public land elk hunters eat their tag year after year. They are trying to learn to speak elk only during that short window when they are in the elk woods hunting. There’s a better way.
Thanks to tools like the ElkNut mobile app, a hunter can study the elk language year-round. And not only just learning to execute accurate elk sounds, but also by developing an understanding of what each elk sound means, which is critical to elk hunting success.
Indeed, as made clear on the ElkNut mobile app, there are many different sounds bull elk and cow elk make that are similar in sound but have very different meanings. Take for instance two bull sounds, the Location Bugle and the Round Up Bugle. The Location Bugle is a sound used by bulls to locate other elk. It is non-intimidating, high pitched, and lengthy relative to other bugles. You won’t hear a lot of grunts or growls with a location bugle. The Round Up Bugle, on the other hand, is not the growliest sound an elk can make either (think Lip Bawl Bugle or Challenge Bugle for that), but it’s a shorter sound than a Location Bugle and has more urgency implied in its tone. A bull is rounding up his cows and preparing to leave the area in light of a perceived threat. Think for a minute, then, that you hear a bugle. If you thought you heard a Location Bugle, and you formulate your plan accordingly (i.e., cut the distance and initiate some cow calls maybe), but what you actually heard was a Round Up Bugle, then your plan is not likely going to succeed.
There are similar variations in cow elk sounds. Think about this: social cow calf talk is conversational and used by elk to keep in touch while grazing and moving from feeding to bedding area. Pleading cow calf mews, on the other hand, are asking for attention from other elk. There’s a more demanding tone. A trained ear can tell the difference, but an inexperienced and unlearned elk hunter cannot. Hearing one sound, and thinking it is the other, could prove disastrous.
These two scenarios show why it’s so important to educate yourself on the various elk sounds and what they mean. You can do this the hard way, through years and years of trial and error (and the errors can be so painful!), which is how many have learned it, or you can expedite that learning curve by looking to tools like the ElkNut mobile app.
Elk have a language of their own. Speaking and understanding any language is something that takes time and effort. But if we’re thinking about and trying to learn the elk language only during that sometimes very limited window when you’re out in the elk woods hunting elk, then you are taking the slow route that will be filled with missed opportunities. Expedite your elk calling learning curve by downloading the ElkNut mobile app today.
Recent Comments