← Live Wild with Remi Warren
Live Wild with Remi Warren
Ep. 195 | The one bull call you should know
00:51:45
In this episode of the Live Wild Podcast, Remi Warren kicks off Elk Month by sharing essential elk hunting strategies, focusing on the importance of the location bugle. He recounts personal hunting stories, emphasizes the significance of mastering this call, and provides practical tips for utilizing it effectively in the field. The episode concludes with resources for elk hunters and a call to action for conservation efforts.
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Remy Warren
Foreign I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape. So I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful. As a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild. Foreign welcome back to the Live Wild podcast, everyone. I'm really excited because today we're kicking off what I like to call Elk Month. Now, every year in preparation for the elk season, I like to do this bigger block of just episodes to fire us up and help hunters find success this September with some of my favorite elk hunting strategies. For me, when it comes to elk hunting, calling is really one of my favorite ways to hunt elk in September. But it can also be one of those tactics that's truly difficult to master. So today we're going to talk about the one bull elk call that every hunter should know. Whether you plan on calling or trying to call a bull in, or maybe you're just going to take a more spot and stock approach. This one call will help you find elk, make friends, and you're going to sound good while doing it. So today we're going to talk about the one elk called to rule them all. The location bugle. But before we do that, I want to first share the story of a time early in my elk hunting and guiding career when I did everything right until it all went wrong. When it comes to elk hunting, when everything goes right and you call a bull in, there's nothing like it. And I remember this, this one particular hunt I was guiding. This was a long time ago. I was probably, I don't know, it's probably 20 something years ago, maybe 22 years ago. I was probably like 19 or something like that. And it was actually, you know, it wasn't a bad week. It was just kind of like warm, a little bit slow. You Know, typical. So you just had to. You just had to work harder to find elk and, you know, hopefully get into some spots where you could get something to fire off or, you know, glass or what have you. And so I ended up this. This hunter that I had. We went into this one area I liked to call the island. And so I don't know why we called it that. It wasn't even an island, but it's just what we called it. And so we. We went into the island and we took this, like, old overgrown logging road to this point. And then I went out. Would go out on this point and call into, like. Because this one point came out further than the rest of the mountain and I could call back in and it kind of hit multiple, I guess, like, draws in there. So I get on there, I let off a location bugle, the. The kind of call. Actually, at the time, I would imagine I was probably either one of two kinds of bugles. So there was. It was not a diaphragm type bugle tube. I would either use like, this one. I can't even remember who made it. It was. It would have, like, this rubber. These little latex rubber bands that you, like, if it. If the band wore out, you could actually like, cut the finger off of a latex glove and stretch it over it. But it had like, this little. Little opening, this piece of plastic that popped up. You'd put this little piece of latex on. It was hooked to a pipe that looked like a radiator tube. And you'd put your. The like, plastic thing on your top lip and your bottom lip would go over this. This like, rubber band and you. You blow your bugles. You know, I would like to actually. I wish I kind of found that it was like, probably the most popular bugle at the time until I think Primos came out with one shortly after that had these, like, similar style, but it was like these blue latex things that popped over like a bigger bugle tube and kind of everybody switched to those. You know, I would still use like a diaphragm kind of call every once in a while. But I don't know, I think, like, I just didn't really at the time. Like, I don't know if I just. I probably wasn't really good at it. I could make probably better elk sounds out of this other bugle tube. You know, I don't know why, but it was just like a popular elk call. I wish I could figure out, remember the name of it, but would use that in, like, Honestly, the bugles you'd make out of these things weren't great. When I think back about like elk calling, I'm like, probably the struggle of elk calling was the fact that all the bugles sounded like garbage, to be honest. But anyway, so I'm out on the point. I do my bugles and sure enough I get a bull to fire off and he bugles and it sounds like he's a long ways away. So I want to do what I always do. I try to get close and get in tight to where the bull's at. So I bugle. He bugles cool. You know, bugle again, you know, just like a long location bugle trying to figure out where this bull's at because it's kind of hard to tell in like which drainage he's in, like which little ridge kind of thing he's in. So I bugle again and he almost sounds like further away. So I think, well, we're going to go get closer. So I move in, we move in. We go back to the like logging road above, it's not that far away, and start working our way toward the elk. And I get to another point where it kind of pops around and bugle. And I hear the bull bugle and, and I should have probably known better because like, thinking in hindsight it sounds like, you know, sound like he was a ways away. So I tell him, the hunter that I'm with, I'm like, okay, we're gonna go up, we're gonna go up and get right here and I, I stop. We're gonna go like to the next little bend and then set up below the road and call. And when I was there, I was set up below the road like thinking like, okay, I'm going to start my calling sequence from here and see what happens. And so I bugled again before we moved and the bull bugled back and the hunter was actually like, I think, should we stay here? And I'm like, no, that bull's around the next corner. You know, I'm just throwing out like location bugles getting him to sound off. I'm like, that bull's around the next corner. We're gonna get up there, we're gonna set up and call. Like he's not gonna come all the way in. So we grab our stuff, we start to move up. And as I round the bend in the like on this logging road, the frickin bull is standing there and as I come around the corner, just, I'm completely caught off guard, like a good six by Six. And I don't know how far this bull had moved, like, from the time that I initially called to. To where he was at, but it was, you know, he. He had just. It was probably like a lone bull that had just decided to commit and come in. And I, you know, to this I was thinking, like, when it happened, I'm like, oh, shit. Like, the bull was actually just around the corner. Like, he sounded close earlier and then kind of sounded far away as he rounded the corner. And he was actually a lot closer than. Than maybe I was thinking. I don't know. I just got impatient. I probably should have given it more time and came around the corner and just blew this opportunity. It would have been an absolute gimme shot, like bull walking on the logging road. And. And I blew it. Like, I just felt it was like the worst. And especially too, because the guy that I was hunting with was like, I think we should stay here. And. And he was absolutely right. Like, I just haunts me to this day that that one elk, like, that should have been a dead elk. But, you know, I think, like, that's the thing about, you know, hunting elk hunting. Sometimes you make decisions based off what you think. And, you know, I had that, like, gut feeling like I should stay here. But then I thought, no, no, it's better to get close. Better to get close. And I'm like, damn. I think he's kind of close, but I think he's far. I don't know what I was thinking. It was just one of those where I made the wrong call and blew the elk out. And it all happened so fast, too. I wasn't even in the process of my. Like, in my mind, I'm throwing out locations, figuring out where this elk is, and then I'm gonna set up and start calling throughout my cow calls, do my thing, drop back, make some meaner bugles, do the whole. The whole experience. And you know, that bowl was just. He was game. He was a lone bull, probably cruising, heard a bugle and was coming that way. It was like the absolute perfect setup to call in a bull. And I just. I blew it. But, you know, those are. Those are the kind of. Like, there's probably a lot of elk hunts and story where I. Where I actually probably have called the bull in, maybe even shot the bull and forgot about. And yet, for some reason, this one old memory of blowing it on this elk really stuck with me. And I think it was just a combination of, you know, not even. I don't even think, like, I didn't Even do that much as far as the calling. Like, I was just trying to figure out where this bull was and move in on him, and that bull moved in on me before I moved in on him. You know, maybe if I'd taken a little bit more time or trusted my instincts a little bit and. And held back just for a few seconds longer, it would have been. It would have been game over. But I blew it. And. And that was the story of that hunt. You know, that. That stuck with me. You know, I thought about it and how I went wrong and. And really kind of probably that moment actually changed a lot of the things that I did going forward of, you know, paying a little bit more attention and treating every single opportunity like it's the one opportunity we're going to get. Because to be, you know, the unfortunate part, I think that was like, pretty much our only opportunity on that particular hunt. And it was. It was a dang good bull and a dang good opportunity that, you know, I actually blew it. So it's good to think about those times that things went right and sometimes those things went wrong. And I think the thing that I kind of took away from that one experience was, you know, understanding, you know, how. How bulls sound in the mountains. And then also I think to just kind of playing it, going fast at certain times and having that right patience at other times, you know, and maybe you hear the story like, well, what did you actually do wrong? Maybe nothing, because in. In the moment, I thought I was doing the right thing, but I also had this thing in my head, like, I think he is a little closer than. I don't know. I don't know. It was a kind of a weird. It was a weird thing because I did think he was further away at first, but then it was like, yeah, he sounds close. And I kind of even told the guy. I forgot to mention, like, I remember telling the guy, like, sometimes when they're, like, they sound closer when they're further away, like. Because I think it was probably when he rounded that corner and, yeah, it just didn't work out. So blew that stock, but went on to live and learn and call in a lot of elk. And there's a lot of other elk calling scenarios where it hasn't worked out or something's gone wrong. You know, a lot of times you're working a bull and they don't come in, they don't commit, doesn't work out. You get close, but not close enough. Right. That's just elk calling. But in that particular instance, it Was like, my action definitely blew a bull that was 100% gonna walk within bow range. I think today I wanted to tell that story just to highlight the fact that elk calling can be tricky. It can be difficult, and, you know, there's so many. I have so many encounters with elk over the past over 20 years of, of guiding and calling elk pretty much. I mean, for the last, for the majority of my life, you know, more time than not, I've spent the entire, pretty much the entire September chasing, calling, stalking in with elk during September. I just, I absolutely love calling elk. Like trying to trick an elk with a call. And I think back, like, that's my preferred method for hunting elk. I'm not saying that it's actually the most and sometimes, like, it's successful for me because I. That's the way that I like to hunt, and that's what I do. So I find success that way. Last year, I actually didn't call it as the first season, I didn't even call. I don't think I called a single elk in per se, but had probably one of my most successful elk seasons with. Not my, myself and my wife. And we had like, you know, a lot of great tags and a lot of great elk action, and it was primarily spot and stock. Just because you want to be able to adapt to the scenarios that are there for people just getting into it. I think that calling can be somewhat intimidating. But I also think that there's a lot of things that you can do with a call that will benefit you for finding success. Now, I like to tell the story of sometimes when things don't work out, because, look, you can be doing all the right calls, all the right thing. They all can be doing the exact right thing, and you still blow it. That's just hunting, right? Things happen, and that's. That's the struggle of bow hunting and elk hunting and part of the reason why we keep doing it and going out. However, I do think that there is one call that probably every elk hunter should know that's heading out, bow hunting. And that's what we're going to call a location bugle. So to break it down, a location bugle is pretty much the basic, most simple bugle you can do. It's like one or two high notes, and it's to broadcast your sound out into the woods, wherever you're at. If you know nothing else about elk calling and you want to do a bugle, this is like your basic bugle. This is the. The building blocks of elk calling. But it can stop here, or it can continue on to learning other elk calls and other dynamics. The thing about one of the other reasons I wanted to tell that story is, like, I wasn't doing any fancy calling. I was just bugling, and that bull was bugling, and that bull ended up coming in. That happens, right? Like, that's. That's the ideal scenario. That's what you want more often than not, you bugle and elk bugles. They bugle, you bugle, and they're off in the distance, you're off in the distance, they're. You're communicating back and forth. But the bull doesn't commit without doing some other things. However, the point of the location bugle, the reason that it's the one, like the one elk call to kind them all, is it allows you to figure out where the elk are by saying, hey, where are you? And the elk are saying, hey, I'm over here. It's the best part about September when you get in a reply, when you let out a bugle first thing in the morning or wherever you're at and a bull bugles back, you almost go, gotcha. Because you know that there's a bull there and you're in the right area. Sometimes they let it out once. Sometimes you can get them to keep responding, but it. It tells you that there's a bull here and now the hunt's on. Whatever the strategy or move is, this call is extremely important. And you can continue to just use this one call even as you move in to call in elk. Like, I do think that there is that guys that call elk a lot and are really good at it. We start to mix in, or they start to mix in different calls. As you. As you get close, you start mixing in cow calls, other types of bugle, sometimes all bugle, but you mix in other taxes that we've talked about, tactics that we've talked about on this podcast, like raking and all that kind of stuff, glunking, all kinds of things. But at the very basics and basis of elk hunting, just having a bugle is a way that a bull can communicate, and it gets other bulls to fire off. Most bulls will respond to a bugle before they'll respond to cow call as far as in the distance. So we're going to. We're going to dive into how to use this location bugle, how to do the location bugle, and some of the things to think about are other strategies that you can use to not only maybe potentially call that bull in, but to get yourself into A position to either stock or move in on this other bull. So today, one of the things that I want to do, we're going to just understand what that location bugle is and talk about how to use it, why it's used, what it sounds like. So we're going to actually first go into how do you actually make that bugle sound for. We'll go like very beginning, basic beginners, like popping a note, calling your mouth for the first time. Okay. Once we do that, because there's going to be a lot of guys are like, well, I already do that. I need a little bit more context here. We're going to then understand how that location bugle can be utilized during the hunt to find out what it might mean. And then we're going to take it a step further and look at some tactics utilizing that bugle. Whether you're going to try calling the bull in or you're going to maybe plan a different method of like stocking in. How we're just going to use that particular call to start our hunt off. So we're going to first go into the how to make a sound with a. With a. I'm going to use a diaphragm call. There's other kinds of calls. So a diaphragm call is the kind that goes in your mouth. You put it. Get kind with a plate on it or something. I mean, Phelps makes good ones. Rocky Mountain hunting calls makes good ones. I have a combination like a mixture of. I mean, I kind of have like almost every brand in my little bag and I've tried a bunch of them and I just have certain ones that I like better than others. But find one that's actually like there's some that are a little bit easier to blow. It's generally ones that have not as tight of latex because you don't need as much air pressure. So when you're first starting, you'll insert it in your mouth. The if he's got a dome or plate on the top, like that'll go up against the roof of your mouth. Some people have struggle using these kind of calls. And for those people, I'd say get the kind. There's. I'm sure they still sell kinds out there that have maybe some kind of read or I don't know, something. I saw one a long time ago is like a button that you push, you blow through and then your finger raises or releases pressure. The way that these we'll just talk about alcohols work is, you know, the sound and pitch and Tone is changed by the amount of pressure that's applied to whatever that read is. So these diaphragm calls, it's got like a latex read in there. There's bite and blow calls where it's. You like bite down and it's got, you know, like a sturdier read in the middle. There's like open read cow calls where the reed's on the top. And just the pressure on that kind of changes the tone of the call. It doesn't matter what kind of call it is, whether it goes in your mouth or it's a, you know, a different kind of call. Even the like a push button call, not like one that you actually provide air to. I don't know if they still sell those. But whatever it is, it's just the pressure on the reed changes the tone. So we're going to go. This is just. We're going to start real basic here. If you got a call, I'm going to. I'm going to give you guys some calls and just give you a little bit of instruction. And kind of the way that I try to teach, you know, people to use these things, that's the hardest part is telling. Once you. Once it clicks and you get it, you get it. So the thing is, if you're brand new to elk calls, especially diaphragm type elk calls, you put it in your mouth. And the key is to first figure out how to make a sound. It goes in your mouth. I generally put the tip of my tongue down behind my bottom teeth and use my. The pressure of like the flat part of my tongue to put pressure on the reed that's in my mouth. And then I blow air over the top. The first thing you have to do is just figure out how to make any sound. Make it to squeak, put it in your mouth. Do whatever you can do to get a squeaky sound out of it. Bear with me here. So do it in any kind of sound you can get. You get. This is for people just never done it before. Maybe you've turkey hunted. You can make a sound with it. Just get a sound. Okay, so you're gonna start out. It's gonna be hard to figure that out. Your first goal is just figure out how do I make a sound. Now you're just gonna try to figure out how to make a couple different sounds. But what I want you to do is once you can get a sound with it, try to hold a note. Okay. This is the basic of pretty much every bugle, but especially this location bugle so I'm gonna just like do what I like. How I would practice, like just starting out. We're starting from the ground up on this one. So I've got the call in and then I'm gonna make any kind of sound. Once you've got that sound, you can kind of continually make that sound on demand. Now we're just going to make that sound and try to hold that note. Now, to change the note, you're going to, you can either increase or decrease your pressure. The, the more pressure you apply, the higher the note gets. So we're going to go from the beginning here. Okay. So that would just be me practicing, like, I don't know, know how to blow the thing. I made a sound. Okay, now I'm going to get that sound. I'm just going to try to hold it. So we're just going to practice holding those sounds. Okay. And then once you've practiced holding those sounds, that is really the basic of a location bugle. A location bugle can kind of be understood as a single one or two note, long drawn out bugle. The point of it is to kind of be loud and project across a canyon. Now, the thing like that, when it comes to elk calls and people talking about calls and people get hung up in the type of call, like, is that a location bugle? Is it a challenge bugle? Is it a chuckle right there? There are definitely different types of bugles and we can talk about that, but today we're focusing on this location bugle. I do think that in the world of elk hunting and elk calling, there is a little bit of like, where you're like, oh, I don't know which of these elk calls to make. And I'm saying that to say you can call in an elk with what would just be a basic bugle, because really, in some instances it matters, but not really. Sometimes it doesn't really matter. You just have to be able to make a bugle. And the location bugle, or what we're calling, we're going to refer to as the location bugle. Like, you're using it to figure out the location of elk. But you can also use it in other instances in elk calling of like, this is just my bugle. You got the one bugle, you got it down. You can do all the calling tactics and have a bull come in without doing anything else. You can throw in some chuckles to it. You can do whatever. But really, if you can just master this one call, that is elk calling, that is bugling, that's that's. You can call in a bowl this way, but it's going to be, you know, the basic of starting out, being able to hold one note and then you can blow that through a bugle tube. So I'm going to play a couple. I've got a queued up. Just. Here's a. Here's a. What it might sound like, like a location actual, like bugle of an elk making it in the woods. And then I'll do a couple of my own, just so you can kind of see. Here's what it might sound like. So that was from an elk in the wild. And you can hear that kind of, like sound travel and echo. Now, the bulls will make those similar calls, like when they're around each other, because you think about a location bugle is actually, in many ways, the bulls talking to the cows, not necessarily talking to each other. So it's. It's more along the lines of a bull saying, like, speaking of the cows, like, I'm over here. Okay, I'm over here. He's really trying to attract the cows or talk to the cows. And then another bull cuts him off and says, no, actually, I'm over here. And what it does is it gets bulls to communicate to each other. The way that we use it is we want bulls to communicate to each other. But for the most part, when Elker first communicating, they might not necessarily be communicating to the other bull, which they will do. That's as we get, like, closer and more aggressive, creating challenges. But the initial is just to let everything in the valley know where they're at and potentially help that bull locate cows or keep cows or let the cows know that he's here and he's in charge. And then other bulls are like, oh, I want in on that action, so I'm going to do the same. And then it kind of becomes a. Switches from cow talk to bold a bull talk. So we're just going to do this. You can. You can add in, you know, once you've got, like, one note, at the very bare minimum, just keep one note and push it out loud and loud and proud, I guess, across the canyon, because you want that sound to travel. The goal of this call is to figure out where the elk are, and so you're trying to effectively cover the area with that sound. So we're just going to throw out a location bugle. Okay. And then we're hoping that, you know, a bull's gonna respond in kind with the. A location bugleback or a bugleback. And this is where you know, the elk calling and elk, you know, finding elk starts. The reason that the location bugle is so effective is it's used to broadcast across country that maybe you can't see in. And I've talked about this before, but it always bears repeating that the way that your sound travels in the mountains depends on the type of topography and terrain that you're in. So when you think about producing a bugle that's meant to locate a bull elk or have a bull elk bugle back and give you away as location, you need that sound to travel. So I think of, like, calling locations much like I do glassing knobs where you get on a glassing knob. And the theory is you need to be able to see far with a calling, let's say a call. We'll call it a calling, standard calling location, a location location. We really want that sound to travel in the way that we would be able to see far. So the further the sound can travel, the more likely a bull is to hear it and respond in kind. So we let out, we find a location where I often start my hunt from an area where that sound's going to travel, where I can hear that echo kind of continue down the canyon like in the story. I went out to a point and called back in toward the mountain. I could hear it like, you can almost hear the sound travel over each one of these little ridges, and then, boom, A bull will light off from somewhere down below or somewhere in that area. Now, as you're moving along throughout the day, you can continue to throw out these locations. But if you're in thicker cover or flatter terrain, your sound's not going to travel as far. A really good way to understand how your sound's traveling is just have someone else say, like, hey, you go up, go up 3, 400 yards and bugle and be like, hey, can you hear that? Meet back up. Did you hear that real well? Yeah, I heard it like, it was right here or, man, I didn't even hear that. Did you bugle? You'd be surprised that in some areas you cannot hear that bugle very far, and in others, it carries for a half a mile. So depending on how the sound travels in the area, depends on the effectiveness of this location bugle. Now, when you're. When you're letting out that location bugle, here's what. Here's are. Here's some things that can happen. One of them is you light it out. Sweet echoes. You wait a few minutes, and a few minutes later, a Bull fires back, Whoo. I'm over here. Okay, awesome. So you wait a few more minutes and you let out another bugle, and that was it. You didn't hear another one. So there's a couple of things that can happen, and the reason that that might be the first being that maybe that bull is just out of direct sound of where you bugled from. So you kind of have to, like, understand the topography of where you think that sound came from. Often I like to get two responses at minimum to try to pinpoint where that elk is, because with the. The way that things echo, it's hard to pinpoint where that sound initially comes from. Think about, like, if you're standing with two guys in the first bugle. First thing I like to do with friends or whatever, when we hear a bugle, it's known like nobody says anything, but you point to where the bugle is. Okay? So as soon as a bugle is heard, you just point. And if you have a group of three people, oftentimes there are many times where everybody's pointing in a different direction and they're just pointing based off of almost maybe they were standing in a different direction the way that they heard it. Maybe someone heard it right away because they were walking, or someone was stopped, or there was other noises and they caught the tail end of the bugle, which sounded like it was over here, but that's the sound traveling. They didn't catch the initial part of that sound. And then maybe somebody's faced another way, but they shot a lot of shotguns, and their right ear seems to be a little better. So they're always pointing whichever way their right ear is facing. And then you got the one guy that actually heard it, right, and he's pointing over here. Or maybe you got two guys that are pointing in the right direction. You go, okay, well, we just verified that that's kind of the direction that. That that elk is. But it's a. It's a good habit to be in if you're hunting with other people. Just immediately every time there's a bugle point into the direction of the bugle. If you line up, cool, that's probably where he was. If you don't, maybe you're going to need some more. More information from that bull, maybe get him to fire off a couple more times. But I do like to try to, when I'm throwing out locations, at least get two responses of, I've got a response. I wait a little bit, I bugle again, and I got another response. I'M testing the temperature of this bull to say, where are you at? And how likely are you to continue to remain vocal? One thing that you might find with elk is an elk calling. Is that from this calling, let's say it's a calling our calling vantage, where we've got really good sound travel. There's a bull across the canyon, and he lights off nearly every time from me, from my original location. I probably am not a real threat to that bull. But it's important for that bull to kind of continue to call back for a couple of reasons. One, he could have cows, and he's just like letting those cows know that I'm here. You don't need to go over there. Or he's letting that bull know, like, I've got these cows. They aren't for you. Okay. Another scenario could be that it's a lone elk and he's trying to find other elk. So he's using, like your bugle as thinking you're that bull with cows and he's going to come to you. That's the app. That's what happened in that. That story that I shared. It was a lone bull and he was coming to us. That's the absolute best case scenario when you're elk calling and you find that bull that wants to find elk and isn't afraid to call back and comes to you. That's a. That's a dead elk, in my opinion. Like it in finding that scenario doesn't happen all the time. You can go a week or multiple weeks or a season without that perfect scenario. But when you get that perfect scenario, I mean, I've had it happen where shoot when a bull that I shot, this is probably in 20, I guess it was in 20. 20 shot with my longbow and that bull. Like, I had some bigger bulls firing up with a bunch of cows down below. You know, I was on my point. I let out my location bugle, and there's definitely like a herd of elk just over the ridge, like above me. And there was some big bulls in there. I actually had seen them. You know, I'd been hunting those elk, so I knew that they're in there. And there was like an elk party in there, cows and bulls and whatever. And there was this other bull that was off on his lonesome, wanting to join the action. So what I did was I started calling to that lone bull to draw him to think that I was the elk action, not the real elk on the other side. And that bull came from probably 1000 yards, maybe 1200 yards, something like that. I don't know, like almost a mile, you know, three quarters of a mile, something like that, right to my location. Popped up, I don't know, sub 20, and I shot him with my longbow. That happens, right? Those are the good days. Those are the days that we talk about. Those are the days where we're smiling at the end of it if we. If we play our cards right. And that happened to be in a burn, so I could see him coming. If I didn't see him coming, it might have been real hard to distinguish. So that's why I like to, when I'm on a point, let out and try to get a couple location bugles to verify the movement of the bull that I'm calling to. So in one scenario, you might call the bull calls, and then you wait a minute, call again. The bull calls back and he's closer. If you can get another call and he's even closer, well, you know that the bull's trending your way. Now, on the flip side, you might call, you let out that. That location bugle. He calls back and you call again. And maybe he doesn't call again or he calls again further away or in the same place. Maybe he just seems like he's held up on this one ridge and, you know, and he's not coming your direction. Well, now we know that it's time to make an action or play on this bull with our calls. And in that case, I would try to move in and get closer. Now for those kind of just getting started, and you go, okay, well, what are we going to do as we move closer, we're going to just use the same bugle, the same call that we use to locate them. We use this location to initially get them. But what we're doing is now that you can make, you know, the goal is going to be for you, if you're just getting started and listening to this, to be able to make an elk sound, to make that bugle, hold that note, maybe add a note or two. You've got a bugle, you've got the communication basics to call an elk in. Now we're just using the proximity to use that same call essentially to bring the bull to our location, and we're going to try to move in on that elk and use that same call. So of course, there's other calls that you could throw into the mix, cow calls and other things. But for all intents and purposes, it is absolutely possible to call in a bull elk with air quotes, a location Bugle. And that's the thing that I wanted to talk about today is, you know, if you've got a bull that's responding in kind to the call that you're putting out when you're across the canyon, and then he's continuing to respond to it, and you can move in closer and continue to let that call out and the bull is responding to it, it's a bull that can be called in and what you're giving him is working. And that is one of the things I think that people get intimidated by elk calling. Going like, I don't know what call to make when there is a science to it that gives you a little bit more of an edge. Like, the way that I call, you know, involves a lot of other thoughts and measures. But on the flip side, like, it is possible and it happens all the time. And I've done it, you know, for the majority of my elk hunting career. Called in elk with really basic calling of just understanding, being able to get out along one or two note Bugle and just being in the right proximity to the bull to get him to come into my location. Because if, if you're the bull that if you're calling and there's a lone bull and he thinks that you, you've got a herd elk, you've done the work, the other bull's going to do what he needs to do to get to you, that's a win. Now, if it's not, which is probably most elk calling situations where you have to move in on that bull, if you can keep that bull talking, you can move in and you can kind of get within his zone. You do have an opportunity to draw that bull in one out of curiosity or two out of a challenge to just run you off and bring that elk in. The other thing you could do when you get in is then just initiate some cow calls. And cow calling is nice because you can use a multitude of different types of calls, like read calls and other things that are pretty easy to do. Cow calling seems to be like the. I would say if you're just going to learn one kind of calling, you should probably learn cow calling because it's easy to do and you can kind of draw any kind of bull in with it. Potentially, you can draw a big herd bullion because he's going to check cows. You could draw a wandering bull in because he's, he's, you know, interested in looking for cows during the rut. Elk are looking for cows. You can also use the cow call late in the Season to, to stop elk or to, you know, like, let's say you spook something or bump an elk and you're moving in, maybe you're even spot and stalking. You can use the cow call to stop the elk or calm them down if you've. If one's seen you in the herd and busted out real quick. So whether you're going to plan on spot and stalking or, you know, try to call an elk in, everybody should have cow calls at bare minimum. Now the bugle, and the reason I wanted to talk about it today is because it's the one call that allows elk to ping off in the distance. It allows you to kind of verify where they are and where they're calling from, and then you've got your hunt. When I'm elk hunting, I'm really, you know, there's those times where you're like, okay, what you need to be successful is you first need to find the elk. I say, like I would always tell my hunters, like, elk hunting is three steps is find the elk, shoot the elk. Pack the elk back to the truck. Truck. Sometimes the distance between zero and step one, find the elk, can be long. And then the, the, the. The distance between find the elk and shoot the elk. There's. There's a lot that needs to go on in there, but it's the three basic steps to elk hunting. So we're using the location bugle to jump to step one, find the elk. When I'm elk hunting and I, you know, we're looking, I'm glassing, I'm doing whatever, I. I'm letting out these location bugles. When I get a bugle back, I immediately know, boom, check. We found the elk. Maybe I can't see him. Maybe it's timbered, whatever. Maybe that was the one elk call that I got back that day or that morning. Like, maybe I bugled. I bugle again and I just don't get him to fire off again. It doesn't matter. I found the elk. I know that he was over there. Hopefully I kind of understood the location of where he was at. And now I can move in and, and make a play or at least understand that there's elk here and I'm in the right zone to make a play. Now maybe you're thinking about this and you go, okay, well, I've got it. I've got a couple notes down. I'm going to utilize this location bugle to help me find elk, but I'm not feeling confident moving in and calling. That's fine. You've used location bugle to help you find elk. Now you can use glassing tactics or still hunting tactics to move in and try to find those elk without giving away your location. Again, I will say a really good strategy to use with this is because of that distance of if a guy's like, if you're on a good vantage, that glassing or sorry, calling vantage, where that sounds traveling a good distance. An elk in the distance is very likely to reply in kind because he knows that it's not like a threat that's going to take his elk, his cows away right away. He's more just like replying and letting those cows that are potentially with him or even the cows that are maybe with that bowl, they're like, hey, I'm over here too. Give me a shot. Or hey, cows, I'm here. Stay here. That bull, that, that bull doesn't really matter. You might even be just replying back to that bull like, nope, sorry, dude, I'm over here. You can't take the ladies. I've got the ladies over here. Doesn't really matter. But it, they are very likely to continue responding at that further distance. So with two hunters, a really good strategy can be one person can stay on that. That calling vantage or the place where that sounds traveling good and continue to keep that other elk hunter two moves in and that other elk is continuing to give away his location. One thing that I'll do sometimes if I've got like a buddy up on, let's say he's up on a ridge calling and I drop down to move in on the elk. If you can see back to the location where that other person was and they're bugling sometimes I always actually bring like a. An orange vest or something, like some kind of blaze something to keep in my pack. I actually have a. What's it called? It's a cape, mate. It's like this thing that you can. I use it like as a game bag for the skull or if you weren't. If you're going to just not keep the head in the field and you want to wrap the hide and head up together, you can do it. But it's like this blaze orange color. I like to use that as an indicator to the person moving in what's going on. Because you can be on that calling point setting out the location bugle. A bull can be bugling off in the distance and when the hunter goes in to drop in on it from where they last thought it was, they kind of lose that, that audio of the elk, because of the terrain that they're now in. When you're up higher, you can hear things better. You've got that kind of. We'll call it Dolby surround sound or whatever. You've got that amphitheater kind of action. And when you drop down below a ridge, that other person might not hear it. So they go. They don't know if that elk's still calling back or not so often. Like, if I'm the one calling, I'll put that orange thing up in a tree maybe where somebody could see it from, if possible, in that. In that scenario. So when they get closer, they can kind of glass back and say, like, yep, the bull's still playing. Even if I haven't heard it for a while yet. Seems to be, like, responding to my calls pretty good. If I know for sure, like, oh, that elk has definitely moved off, isn't around, I'll pull that. That blaze orange down and be like, okay, game off, or whatever, or do the vice versa. Like, put it up when it's like, it's blown out. Because as you're moving in on that, sometimes until you get close again, you might not hear that. That location. Because like I said earlier, the. The way that sound travels is extremely important in this whole game of utilizing location bugles. You need to be in an area where that sound broadcasts, and you have to also understand how that sounds traveling through the mountain. If it's. If you're in close quarters and that sounds not traveling very far, then you know that when you hear a bull reply, it's close. You're probably in a higher likelihood in that scenario for that elk to come in. You're already within a zone where if he replied two times after that, he's. He's within that zone now. Middle of the day could be a little bit different. As I'm walking through, I'll get to a van, I'll get to a new draw, I'll throw out a location bugle. That's kind of the first thing that I do, see if I get anything to reply. Sometimes you'll get a bowl to fire off in his bed, like, bugle back. You do it again, and he kind of doesn't reply again. But you do it another time later, like, maybe move a little bit. Do it 10, 15 minutes later, and he bugles again from the same place. That bull's probably sitting in his bed mid morning. He's just letting the cows around him know, like, nah, it's not a threat, but he's not really going to get super fired up and active off of your bugle because he's locked in. He's just kind of more communicating to the cows that don't listen to that guy over there, like it doesn't really matter. And that's. That right there is one of my favorite things, because then I go, okay, I either have a place that I can stock into and look for this bedded bull, or here we go, we might get some action. And I'll just post up and wait for the evening to start to try to call to that bull. Sometimes I'll move in and try to call that bull from his bed. Depending on when in the rut, it is like earlier, it seems more likely that it might be just a bedded bull by himself, doesn't have co. And then I can kind of work my way in, throw out some cow calls, and get that bull to pop up and come check me out. So the location bugle for me is kind of the way that I start my hunt. It's how I get into the action, and then I make my decisions of how I'm going to hunt, how I'm going to proceed after that. Once the bull's given away his location, once I've decided how's this bull moving and acting based on wherever I'm at from this bugle, and then it gives me the incentive to decide how I'm going to make my play either later on or right then to try to call this bull in or move in on this bull and try to get a shot. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. I think that when we get into Elk Month, it's fun to be able to dive into the different tactics. And if you've listened to this podcast a lot, I think that you'll start to hear a few common things of, you know, trying to bridge together some of the information so it's actionable when you get out into the field. You know, there's podcasts on the way that sound travels and different kinds of out calls. But I also really wanted to be able to touch a little bit on, you know, the confidence of learning to use a bugle and getting out that sound. And if you're gonna. If you're gonna figure it out and do one call, if you could try to just work on one call, what would it be? It would absolutely be this location call, because that location bugle can do everything from find elk, to draw them in, to. To bring a bull into your lap. Like, it is the basics of calling elk, and it's the starting point for the majority of my hunts. Whether I end up stalking the bull or end up trying to call the bull in. It's how a lot of elk hunts start for me is throwing out that location bugle as I move through the woods, as I move through the mountains, as I've got a couple different places where that sound can travel from like a calling or glassing vantage. It's, it's the starting point and the jump off point for a lot of successful elk hunts. So I hope you guys enjoyed that. As always, keep me posted. Send, you know, feel free to shoot me messages on Instagram, YouTube, whatever. If you got social media. Appreciate that. And especially if there's tips or tactics you guys want to know about. We've got some live calling Q and A's coming up. We've got a lot of elk hunting content that we're releasing on our YouTube channel. We just released a later season rifle elk hunt film with Federal and Weatherby. And then I've got some pretty sweet archery hunts coming up on our YouTube channel. So make sure you subscribe to the channel if you don't already go check it out. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We appreciate it. That way you don't miss any of the new stuff to get you pumped up, fired up for elk season. Maybe you got an elk hunt, maybe you don't, but it's a good way to just, to just get fired up for the season. Another thing I wanted to mention, if you aren't as we go into Elk Month, you can't have Elk Month without elk, right? So I just wanted to say if you aren't a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation, get yourself a membership jump on. You know, get a membership, think about some of the events and other things that they do. Like it's, it's an awesome organization. And I definitely encourage those that are elk hunters, those that think they want to be elk hunters, those that are like, I'm not even a hunter yet, but I'm just really starting to figure it out. And I enjoy listening to hunting stuff because it's something that I want to do one day join the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. That's, that's one thing that you can do to kind of give back to conservation. Because you know, the nice thing about organizations like that is, you know, pulling all these resources together allows them to do a lot of things that we can't do individually. And it has tremendously benefited elk and habitats for all wildlife species over the years. So it's a, it's an awesome organization to, to be a member and be a part of. Another thing that I wanted to talk about before we left, one thing coming up, we had my elkhorn knife drop that went last week. And there's, as far as I know, I'm not, I don't really know at this point. You know, it depends on things. But that might have been kind of one of the last times to get the elkhorn. Except for they're doing the Blaze Friday drop and that's kind of like Montana knife company's version of Black Friday. But they do it pre hunting season. And what it is is like it's a blaze orange coated blade on like almost, I think like it's a large drop with a good variety of knives in there. And so it's, that's going down. Just set your calendars because that is going down on the week of August 14th to 17th is when the Blaze Friday hits. So beginning like they just do different drops throughout that week. So check it out. There's going to be, you know, a lot of information. Just get on their email list, get on, you know, go on their website, sign up for the email list. But if you're looking for a Montana knife company knife, maybe one that you didn't get Blaze Friday is their, their way that they have a lot of blades that people maybe missed out on that you can pick up. And I like that idea because, you know, Black Friday, middle of November, that's when most hunters are out hunting, right? It's like I can't be worried about trying to get a knife on a drop then. It's really awesome that they do this before the season. So it's pretty much, I think, as far as I know, like one of their biggest drop events is pre hunting season. So there's a lot of different knives on there. Check it out. Make sure you just set your calendar for that. Because I know there's a lot of people that had emailed after this last drop or send messages like, dang it, I didn't get one. I didn't get your email ahead of time. I didn't. I missed out on the drop. I was there too late or I was on, but I just didn't get one. They go quick, the knives go quick. So here's another chance. And the best way to be successful on their drops is to have the knowledge of them first. So if you guys are interested in that, check that out. And I'm going to say until next week, Bugle on. We'll catch you guys later.