Remy Warren (0:00)

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 Elk Month on the Live Wild podcast, everyone you know. To be successful elk hunting with your bow especially, you need encounters. And sometimes you need a lot of encounters. To get those encounters, you first need to find the elk. So what about those scenarios where you finally locate the bulls or a herd of elk and it just doesn't work out, whatever it might be? Well, this week we're going to look at that. What's next? We're going to look at elk hunting in a way where we move around until we finally find the elk and then once we find them, we're going to keep hunting them. To do this, I'm going to run you through five common encounters and the way that I would continue to hunt that particular area. But before we do that, I want to run you through a week long elk hunt with a buddy that I did a few years ago. So I'm going to just give you a brief play by play and how we utilize the area during that hunt. On that particular hunt, the rut was about as insane as it gets. Some of the best action you could ever hope for that ideal hunt. And then I'll do a brief comparison to a hunt where the rut in action was not very good and how over the course of that hunt, that hunt panned out and what we did each day and then what we did once we found the elk. So I'm going to compare and contrast those two weeks and then we're going to look at what to do once you find bulls and how to continue hunting those same elk. So let's dive In. It's always fun talking about those weeks where, you know, almost nothing goes wrong. Now this. Some of the best elk weeks that I've had. It's just more based on really good elk activity. But there's other weeks where not as much activity. You actually kill a better elk or have that one great encounter. On this first week that I'm going to run through, I'm just doing kind of a brief overview so you can kind of understand, like, how the hunt played out, because it's gonna. You know, what. What we're gonna be talking about here is those hunts where you're on elk, and then, you know, what's my next step? Okay, it didn't work out today or missed out in the morning. You found them, but what do we do in the evening? So we're just gonna kind of look at that of, like, what we do as the hunt continues and. And how we might utilize our time best spent in the elkwoods. Because there's a lot of people that, like, maybe I've guided or talked to through whatever, and they're like, yeah, man, I went out, I hunted this basin. It was just a. It was a tough week. The elk weren't bugling. They weren't making noise, and we. We didn't even see any elk. We didn't run into any elk, and then the hunt was over. Okay, so the hard part there is finding the elk, but we're going to. We're going to touch on that. And then once you found the elk, okay, maybe, you know, as we compare and contrast these two weeks, one week there's kind of elk action everywhere, the next, pretty slow. So we're going to. We're going to look at those two. So this first time. And here's the other thing, is you could have one hunt where the action's crazy and you don't kill a bull, and another one where the action's slow and you do. So this first week, great week. Prime September. The date would have been September 21st, I think. Like, the. The. The elk had just really fired up. Like, it was super hot this particular year, and it was super hot and, like, a lot of smoke, a lot of fires. And I had been out essentially, like, scouting or whatever, hunting pretty much since the opener, which was the beginning of September that year. And so, you know, it was just, like, slow. Not a lot of action, not a lot of bugles, nothing really going on. Then weather moved in, and it was, like, overnight, a ton of rain. There was actually snow hit the ground, and it was like, somebody turned the faucet on the fires. They pretty much went out. It was cold weather. And like, that next day was a different world. The elk just started firing off. This is around, like the 18th or 19th. I ended up killing my bull before my buddy came out to hunt. And then there's a couple days in between. And then he. Then he arrived. And so we went back into the place where I killed my bull because it was just like an absolute rut fest that first morning. Same thing I had encountered a couple days earlier. Like, just absolute awesome encounters. Bulls everywhere. You know, we ended up chasing some bulls that morning. I started off where I actually kind of killed my bull. Started off, and it was like that herd elk that I found in there. They were just cranking. We got them fired up, moved in. We're actually. So I'd film my tag and then he was hunting with his. His trad bow and so got in on the elk and, you know, it just didn't work out. Like, was one of those where the big group elk, they're all kind of moving together. They go up over the mountain. We have like, a lot of that. If you probably had a compound, you'd have a. Just at the edge of your range shot on some pretty nice bulls. And so we, you know, those ones went off, they moved off into the timber. We. We let them calm down. We didn't. We didn't push them when they were bedded. We kind of sat off the edge of them when they're bedded and then waited for the evening. Kind of the same thing. Evening came, few encounters. Not as crazy as it was in the morning. But, you know, it just didn't end up getting any elk to come in. Like, they. They had their hair. Macaus nobles wanted to peel off. Wasn't like a great wind. There's no way to kind of really get around him. And we just did our best. So next morning, let's make a plan. Started from the same bugle spot, kind of bugling into where we ended up that evening. Bulls fire up. Pretty dark. We move in, we do the thing. We do the dance. Elk kind of all over. We get in there. We end up chasing this one bull kind of back where we. Back where we first started bugling from. We went in on some elk that were like, up the mountain. They kind of shut up. So they must have just gone over the top. And one fired up, kind of where we started bugling from. We were kind of thinking like, oh, shoot, we called in a bull from where we were Start calling this morning. Turns out that, I don't know, maybe it was just another herd moving up from the bottom coming up below us. And we got in there, called that bull in multiple times, but it was just so thick, like no shots. And it was like, it was a good, good solid six point. Just a great bull, like super cool encounter. And then, you know, they died off, like got hot again like that. That warmer weather started come back. So things started to slow down a little bit. Those elk moved off and we couldn't really find them. So we ended up just kind of pulling out of that. Oh. And so we went back the next morning. That's right. Went back the next morning and it was just crickets in there. So, okay, the elk aren't here. Do we give it another evening? Do we give another morning? I had another spot that I wanted to check. We went into the other spot and at last we didn't. It was like real hot and kind of dead. So it was like this whole day, we. We almost didn't find any elk. And at the very end of the evening, this bull just started chuckling down in the bottom of the space. And that smoke kind of started to come back in. You know, it's like, oh, man, is it going to be one of these weeks where it just turns, turns off, Bull starts chuckling down in the basin. And so we move in like as fast as we can to try to catch that fading light. Get all, all the way down to the bottom. We got to climb back out of this hole and skid. Eyes on the bull. And he just has a ton of cows. He actually was like a 6x7, I think. Had this little cheaters. Cool bull, like, would love to kill that bull. But we, we've got the trad bow. We're trying to get within that 20 to 30 yards and he's off there at like 80, 90 yards, just screaming his head off. Big, wide open and a bunch of cows. Like a lot more cows than we expected. So. So we leave him, you know, at dark he's going. And the next morning we come in kind of above where he was that evening. Do a location bugle. He fires up just up the ridge. We move in, do the whole calling thing. Like, we've got bulls coming in. There's other. There's like multiple bulls screaming. Ended up like a really good encounter. And those bulls, we just didn't get on them. It's not like we blew them out or anything. They just kind of fed away faster than we could get in. They Were all chasing each other. And that's just, you know, typical of a lot of action. Like the elk are moving a lot. We tried to follow them the best that we could. Real thick timber in there and they just kind of disappeared. So that night, so that was like mid morning, we. We pulled out and tried to glass and relocate them. Couldn't relocate them, but we did. We did what? Let me think here. So we, we couldn't relocate them that night. Oh, but we, we pulled out and because we like it got hot again and then started glassing into maybe where they'd bed. And in that evening I saw one pop. An elk pop out on a ridge like further down in some in timber pocket, which I think it was the same group, we weren't really sure. So we moved in kind of like we did the night before back in. Got some, a little bit of action in the evening but didn't work out. So then that next morning started on those same elk. But it seemed like the majority of the place where we were going, it's like the rut was on and we were making plays, making moves and we're sticking on elk. So we got in on those elk, had a really like. So the next day, sorry, the next day we started glassing from where we left off. Spotted elk again and then moved in that next evening. And it was just like real thick, real short pines. So you just couldn't see in front of you. But there was a lot of elk in there. And I think the group we were on joined up with another group and it was just absolutely insane action. Like bulls screaming everywhere. I'm screaming, I'm ripping up things. It's just like the calling fest that you want while I'm there. I don't have a bow because I already shot my elk. I called like three or four bulls within, I don't know, sub 20 yards that I could have shot all day long. And I'm only probably 20 or 30 yards away from him at this point. And he had a bull like five or eight yards away, but just no shot. Like it never stop. Like it was just behind like the thickest little pines. You could just see his antlers in his, in his like part of his neck. Just some incredible action, you know. Then, then we ended up going back. I was like, okay, this is wild in here. Went back in there and the next day couldn't find the elk. Spent all day, almost all day in there and couldn't find the elk. So it was like, well, do we stick on these elk or I mean, it seemed like there's good rut activity everywhere. We ended up going around a different part of the mountain the next morning, bugling and getting some bulls to light off, and then ended up chasing those bulls. This is kind of toward the end of the hunt, you know, same kind of deal, had him calling, got him in close, just no shots. The hunt ended without, I would say like the hunt ended without killing a bull. But overall we probably over the course of the, the week that we hunted, I think we called in like 20 bulls to under 30 yards just without having like a. A shot, which is, you know, you're hunting thick country, that happens. But it was really good action. We kind of stayed on the elk. We, we moved locations a bit, but everywhere we, we got on elk. Okay, so that was, that's what it looked like, you know, kind of a short rundown of a. A, a week long hunt. In contrast, another hunt with another buddy, same area, year later, hunting and essentially starting at all these same spots. There were, man, the rut here was incredible. Last year, you know, like recounting the thing day one, get into the spot and where we'd been on elk the year prior. No elk. So nothing calling, nothing shown. So instead of staying there, I moved to another spot. Okay, nothing. No, no elk. Whatever. Okay. It was like, all right, we're two days in and I mean, we'd seen some cows, we hadn't heard any bugles. Just slow action. Decided, all right, we just got to find these elk. We're going to get to some vantages, cover a lot of country with some glass, throw out as many calls as we can, do what we can. It's freaking slow. So we do that and I spot some elk way off in the distance. And I didn't even see bulls, just cows, but they were kind of out, hit a little thing, feeding in the evening. So the next day we go in there, do the calling thing. I think I got like two bugles in response and, and I'm like, okay. And then, you know, we move in to try to call and it's like they already went to bed. We don't know where they're at. Like, what the hell? Back, back out. Do some glassing. And while I'm glassing, this is like mid elevation where we spotted those ones. I'm glossing up, like higher elevation. This one little burn. And I see a, like a, a bull kind of cruising through this little spot. She's like, okay, there's a bull up there. Let's. Let's get up in there. Like, I don't know where he's going, what he's doing. It kind of like went over the hill and didn't have a lot of time, so went in there. Okay, get in there. I think it was probably like the next next morning, start off in the dark, and it's like bugle city. Sweet. We. We just had however many days of no action, and then we just found bugle city. The bulls were ripping off, whatever, but we just didn't get in and get a shot, you know, it was just whatever. So the next morning, went back in there, and, you know, essentially, we were able to hunt these elk for three days, and the guy ended up killing a bull. We were chasing some, like, pretty good bulls. He ended up killing, like, a smaller raghorn that came in, and I think he might have even passed up, like, a bull like that on one of the days. But, you know, like, just, like, we're in the elk and just having, like, really good rut activity. You know, he ends up killing a bull. We get back, and I talked to another buddy that was also hunting, and he's like, dude, we haven't even heard a bugle. Like, the elk aren't rutting. Nothing's going on. And, you know, when you compare and contrast those two weeks, the first week, I think irregardless of success, because I think the. The year prior was like, I think I'd almost take that and not kill a bull because it was just, like, insane action. You know, the short story probably didn't, like, give really good context, but it was like, one of the best weeks I've ever had. Like, public land, general unit, elk hunting, like, just absolute rut fest. Calling bulls in, bulls, responding to the calls, doing everything right, right? In contrast, another hunt where, you know, it was like, there was no rut action. But once we found we wasn't just trying to find elk, it was finding elk where the action was good, and that action was as good as anywhere else. And other people hunting in that same area there was, like, elk. They, you know, they see elk, but, like, hearing no beagles, nothing. Didn't have the, like, the same kind of action that we had. And once we found that, like, particular pocket of elk that, whatever it was, maybe it was a hot cow, whatever, we were in it, and we were able to harvest a bull out of it. And we built our hunt plan based off of, you know, continuing to look and find those elk that, you know, find the elk. And then once we found those elk, we stayed in there and we continued to hunt those elk. I, I mean, I've heard people say, you know, don't leave elk to find elk if you're, if you aren't. Now, if you find elk and you're looking for a particular kind of elk, like, hey, I'm looking for a 300 inch 6x6, a 350 bull, whatever. Yeah, you got to leave a lot of elk to find those elk. But on some general unit hunts, like over the counter tags in places like Colorado or what have you, you know, sometimes the struggle is finding elk and then finding elk that want to play or, or finding elk that are stalkable or finding elk that are. That you can consistently refind. And so a lot of people might end up in one area and just keep focusing on that area, and there's no elk. No elk. No elk, no elk. And all their time's gone. And then there's other people that maybe no elk. So they continue to press up the canyon to check over the other ridge, to pop down on the other side to Glass way off in the distance. They locate elk and they get themselves into an opportunity where they can keep locating elk and end up with those encounters needed to find that success. So I think one of the things when it comes to elk hunting is the nice thing about elk. They often do things that can be predictable. Now they can do things that are very unpredictable and they can always, they can always fool you, right? I mean, that's, that's just the part of hunting. Like I tell these stories of hunting success, and you're like, yeah, you know, we were successful and it was like crazy action. But there's a lot of work in between the, the crazy action. The you, you kind of, you know, memories are funny. Memories are fickle because when I think about elk hunting, you know, especially, it's like somewhere you've been before or even a new area. Those, those highlight reels stick with you. It's like, man, badass action. It was so good. We killed bull over here. We had these ones come screaming in. And you remember those moments and you kind of. Your brain just kind of washes out, like the long hours of nothing in between. And so, you know, I think, like, just the more you hunt, the more that that kind of happens. And so you start to forget that. Like, there's oftentimes a lot of this time in between those. Those epic moments. Like, I've had many hunts, many elk hunts, even successful elk hunts, where it was no action until it was all action or it was like no action. Dude, I can remember a couple of hunts where, you know, guiding, and it's like a super slow week. We end up killing a bull on day four, day five. And it's like one bull that came in silent, right? Like, there's those two. But I think that the. The one thing that, you know, some hunters struggle with is that, okay, like, we found bulls now, now what should we do? Or this scenario, like, we got. We got on them, how do we get on them again? Because I think if you can continue to stay on the elk, it's important to kind of have that plan. And what do you think they might do next? Because understanding what they might do next puts you in a higher likelihood of getting another encounter. Most of the time when it doesn't work out for elk, I feel like it's the elk that just. They just did something. And it doesn't. It doesn't necessarily mean that you did anything wrong. Sometimes, like the wind shift and you blew them out. Oftentimes they just kind of get away. They go quiet. They've moved over the ridge before. You know, they can go through the deadfall fashion, can. You can't really sort out where they're at. The hunt's kind of over. So I'm going to go through five scenarios that I would like. Once you've found elk, pretty much encounter on nearly every hunt until you're successful and kind of what I would maybe do as my next play. So the first one, you're on bulls in the morning, right? You've got that perfect rut scenario. They're screaming, they're fired up, you get in, but they just move off. Either you blew a cow out, maybe, I don't know, maybe the wind shifted. Whatever. Maybe the wind shifted and you just didn't feel comfortable continuing to press in. They moved off and you're like, shoot, I don't really know. And then maybe on this particular scenario, like, they moved off and they don't. You don't hear them that evening. What's your. What's your play? My play would be, I would actually go. If it was a group of elk that had cows and were like, just screaming their heads off in really good rut action. I would repeat exactly what I did that next morning. You know, this is like maybe a scenario where you hear them firing up pre daylight. Like it's just an absolute rut fest, you know, rolling thunder through the mountains and you lose them. Whatever. They go quiet the evening get. The day gets hot in the evenings, nothing. What's next? I would do that same play the next morning. And here's why. Because in that scenario, I would believe that the cows were probably in a feeding area. The bulls are all there kind of during the night, or maybe they've moved in that area and they're probably going to do that same pattern again the next day, at least for a while. Now, of course, like, let's say you go in the next day and it's absolute crickets. Well, okay, maybe we misjudged it. Maybe they were there for a different reason. But more times than not, you're probably going to get that, like, same repeated action with that same thing. There's. I can think back to, oh, when I was hunting with my mouth tab a few years ago, just as one example, but I got on a bull, called the bull in one morning, the next day, you know, just like, did the same thing. And like, I was able to hunt that for three or four days the exact same way. Every morning where the elk were was a little bit different, but not really. I had a good area that I could. I could broadcast that location bugle to. And it's like every morning kind of started out the same. It gave me a play every day, and then by the midday, it was shut down. And I never got on those elk in the evening. So I actually, after about the third day, kind of switched areas to find to see if I could get something fired up midday or in the evening, and then ended up getting something fired up in a different area, like midday. And then that's how. Then I started hunting that area kind of switched areas and killed the bull in the evening. But for. For the morning, you know, often they're. They're grouped up. Those cows are still. Those cows still want to eat. The bulls just want to rut. And so they're probably going to do a similar pattern, if not the same pattern the next morning, until they really, like, either truly get blown out with pressure like other hunters, maybe you, maybe whatever, or like, so broken up by the group of elk that they start to scatter and then they're, you know, one group becomes multiple groups. But if it was me, that, that would be my, like, play for the next day. Now, if I did that and it, you know, it didn't work out in the morning, now I'm going to kind of pivot midday and start looking into, you know, trying to relocate or trying to find other elk from that point on, because I'm like, okay, my, my, my play that was like, I found elk. Now I've lost elk now what? So now I'm going to try to find, you know, a different set of elk, maybe somewhere else, or, you know, look at hunting that area a little bit different. Like maybe try the other side of that mountain. Like hike up over the ridge. It doesn't matter whether you're like day hunting an area or packed in, you know, you can think about how you hunt your area and your effective range within that. Like, if you've backpacked into an area, most time you're hunting one basin. Okay, well, it worked out that one morning, but it's not this morning. Now I'm going to try to, you know, go around the mountain and do maybe the similar thing that next morning in another canyon. In another canyon. Until I refined elk. Whether it's the same elk or different elk, it makes no difference. So now scenario two. You spot elk in the distance, feeding, like in the evening. Let's say it's one of those slow hunts. It doesn't really matter. Like, let's say it's a. It's a real slow hunt because not every archery elk hunt. And a lot of this stuff can applies as well to just some rifle hunts depending on, you know, more like slow archery season hunts really apply to rifle hunts because to be honest, like, there's a lot more action generally in the archery season. Rifle hunting can be tough because it's finding the elk can be the difficult part. So these strategies really pay dividends then too. Or like in times when maybe the. The season's tough and rough and like, dude, we aren't hearing bugles. Okay, so what's our, what's our go to gonna be? Well, we're gonna, we're gonna try to use our glass. And even in areas that are. Are thick, there are places that you can still glass. I think that that's important to remember. But let's say in this particular one, you're glassing. Maybe it's thick country. It doesn't really matter. Maybe it's like sage country. You got this like, nice bench, and they'll come out into this grassy zone and they're feeding. Maybe they're doing a little chasing. Okay, cool. What's next? Well, you probably. Maybe in this particular scenario, you're glossing a good distance and you don't have time to get over there tonight. I remember a guy that I've hunted with a lot, guided a lot. His first hunt with me was a archery hunt. And, you know, we had, we had a lot of, you know, like, cool encounters on elk and he, you know, had to move a lot of locations, and things kind of slowed down a little bit. And then it was like the rut was like, just almost there. And so I was up on one ridge, and I'm glass and I see this big herd elk like, miles away. Absolutely no time to get there that day. So what was next? We went in there in the dark the next morning, pretty much right where we saw those. I mean, a little bit away from where we saw those elk, but, like, within that same kind of feeding area. A little bit of burn, a little bit of live timber. And then about, I would say 15 minutes pre light, let out bugle, see if I could, you know, locate anything. Sure enough, they fired up. Then about five minutes before shooting light, I created that cow party, Let the bugles rip. Heard, you know, like, wanted to start the action before the elk started the action. Sure enough, like, before shooting light, I think one spike came in. I thought he was gonna blow it for us. And then a few minutes late, like, I don't know, probably 15 minutes into legal shooting light, a legal bolt, like a nice five point came in, and he shot it at 30 yards. I sat there and continued to call and called in like, a couple other elk, which is like. It was fun. It was awesome. But what I would do in that scenario, you see some in the distance feeding or even just running around in a particular area that you've spotted. I would set up with a good wind in that same area in the morning. I would then do exactly what I did in that hunt. I'd broadcast maybe a location bugle and cow call, you know, 15 minutes pre light. If you're not a caller or you don't want to call or maybe just like, let's say it's a scenario where they aren't responding to your calls or just not a lot of red activity, whatever it might be. I would. I would kind of set up in that. In the, you know, like, try to move in where, you know, you've got a good wind and you can be in a. In a place where maybe you could see them out there in the morning and then set up an ambush. There's many times where I've gone into these, like, feeding locations where I've seen them, and then I just set up an ambush for them to move off in the morning. My brother did that last year. Is like, dude, these elk are. I mean, like, I say that there. There are call shy elk. Like, he would call and the elk would just not have anything, not want anything to do with it. It was a little more open terrain. Like if you're hunting open country, if the, if you're calling a lot and the elk aren't making moves, it's because they can see that they're. It's not, it's a fake setup. And that happens a lot in a lot of places. Like I think a lot of places where elk are real call shy per se is the fact that like they can just look and say, yeah, that's, I'm not going over there. So my brother, you know, he did this as like elk were feeding in this particular area. There was one big pine on this open face and he just sat at that one big pine and sure enough had good bulls like feed within that range past him in both the evening and the morning. So it's a, it's a good setup. Especially if you know, the elk aren't being vocal or you know, you finally find elk, that next move is just like find them in the evening, get in there in the morning because they're probably going to feed, maybe do some rutting activity, bed somewhere in there and then move back off or kind of continue feeding before they get riled back up by the group in the morning. And that's another thing too. You can, you could throw out like some cow calls for archery season, you know, some little mew mew mews and you know, keep it light, you know, in that pre light and see what like it. If and if nothing else, maybe kind of direct to the elk within that 3 to 500 yard range of you up to that location. But I would, I would also think about getting a good wind and maybe you know, utilizing some of that pinch point or potential natural travel area. Like if you saw them pop out at a certain area of that meadow or opening where they came from that night, that might be a good place that they work back to. They're more likely to travel long distances like, or like, you know, maybe take a new route back in the morning as opposed to like if you saw elk late season per se. So you saw elk move off a feeding area in the morning, they're likely to come back that same way in the evening, but in the evening when you see them come out, they're likely to take a different route back in the morning because they're moving around under that kind of moonlight or cover darkness. So that's something to think about. Now encounter three. We've got you spotted an elk bedded middle of the day. And let's say you just like you pull off a stalk but Maybe you blow them out or I don't know. Yeah, let's say you just blow them out or they moved off. Let's say you blew them out. I like this. Like, you found elk. You maybe you moved in, you know, you spotted them bedded, you bumped a cow, they blew out and went up over the mountain. So what's next? Well, if I've found elk in the middle of the day and they've moved off, my question that I'm asking myself is, where did they go? So what I would try to do is I would try to shadow them, even though, like, maybe you aren't going to keep up. I'd say, like, they ran over the top of this. So depending on how, like, if you're hiking, maybe you can get to where they went and glass into where they were going. Another option maybe be to go around somewhere else or like, higher up and look into maybe like a canyon or two of where they might be. I would. I would probably. Me personally, if there was enough ability to glass a little bit, I would maybe throw out a location bugle or two quite a bit later. But I would probably just kind of hold off and start my calling in the evening to relocate them. Because the thing is, we're. We're trying to see maybe where they might be heading or where they may be slowed down. But I would. I would probably try to relocate them by one of two ways. Like, you can follow them and see if, like, okay, are they. Are they right in here? Maybe you can hear them calling. Because often when you bump a group elk during the rut, even if they aren't calling a lot as they move off, once they get a little bit distance away, especially if it's a larger group, they might scatter and that might get them calling. Like, sometimes you can get up on a ridge behind where they went, even a little bit later and throw out, like a lost cow, just. Or I gotta call here. I'll just throw this out like a. And sometimes that's enough to either get a cow to respond or get a bowl to fire off. And then I'd maybe throw out a location bugle. If it was a. To let that sound broadcast and travel, maybe you'd get something to fire back. If not, I might even, like, think about crossing the canyon and glassing back in. I had this happen a few years back, and I kind of kicked myself for not doing that in a way. Like, I. The bull went off, I knew he went up, and I didn't know if he went up and over or stopped in this zone. So I went around and started glassing in there. Didn't turn him up. Didn't turn him up. Threw out some, you know, bugles and a couple calls, and it was just nothing. It was hot. It was kind of later in the. In like end of September, and I thought about, like I was already across the other way and I dropped down and came back up and was like, this is a big mountain. And I thought about going on the trail that maybe he did, but I didn't want to, you know, maybe I should have done that, but I didn't want to blow him out. So I was waiting for the evening and I thought about crossing back to where I was before and just glassing from that angle one more time, like, maybe a better angle. I wish I would have done it because sure enough, this is like a really big bull in a pretty much general area. He came out from exactly where I thought he was going to be, you know, kind of kicking myself to this day for that move. Like, you know, it was a lot of extra leg work. And I don't think I was necessarily being lazy, but in some ways, maybe just like, oh, I didn't. You know, you're going back and forth in your head, right? If you had a hindsight's 20 20, because as soon as the thing happens that you think might happen, you go, son of a bitch. I should have done that different. But, you know, it never hurts to kind of, once you've lost an elk, try to get good different angles and vantages and try to relocate them. Whether you've bumped them or they've pushed off on their own, doesn't really matter. That particular bull I think I bumped to the herd, but he pushed off on his own. So it was like an ideal setup. But I also didn't know, you know, if he. Maybe I. Maybe he did. Maybe I did push him. I didn't think I did, but you never know. And he could have blown off and been into the next canyon. So I kind of wanted to be able to hunt both those. But, you know, kind of once they've moved off, try. Try that strategy of. Of pulling out and. And figuring out where they went if you can get a good eyes onto where they might be. Like in that first story, you know, we lost some elk, went across the, like hiked across the mountain to the opposite side and glassed kind of back into where we thought they might have been. And sure enough, three or four ridges away, which we might have not gone and found or maybe not Heard them see a few elk pop out, and it kept us on that herd of elk. So it's a good way to kind of relocate the elk and stay in the game. Okay, so the fourth scenario here, you get on a fired up elk and it's just absolutely a rut fest, but you lose them. Like this is. This is probably the main scenario that happens. Let's say you're calling elk, or maybe you aren't calling elk. Maybe you just hear him bugling. You're like, I got to get in on this herd. Like, that's a great way to move in on elk. You don't have to. You don't have to worry about making the wrong calls or doing anything because you. They're giving away their location. You don't need to even broadcast where you are. Just get up in there. So you're getting. You're getting after it. You move in, you try it, but you just can't keep up. They're pushing cows. There's a lot of elk. They've disappeared. Either they've gone quiet or they've just got so far away that you just don't know where they are. So, you know, one of the things that you maybe could. What I would do is I would get to a place that I could call to where I thought that they might be. So let's say they disappeared. Maybe they went up over this big mountain. They pushed across a bunch of ridges. You kept hearing them, you know, they kept always being like, too far away, too far away, and then they're just gone. Right. I would kind of not necessarily back out, but continue in that same vein of where they were going and throw out some calls, but try to be at a good enough distance where I'm not going to blow them out and see if I could get one to. To pipe back up. Okay. Now if I didn't, I would probably kind of hang out in that area. This is where those like midday naps come in. It's like I'd probably just try to be patient, hang out in that area and wait for them to fire back up. Especially if I knew that I think they were just pushing each other. Because you kind of probably have a scenario like you did in scenario one where they were in an area, the action kind of moved the herd and those cows that like, might want to get back to where they were or kind of have a pattern that they like. So I would hang out in an area where I thought they might be close, and then I would wait for the evening and try to get them riled back up again, I'd throw out some bugles. I would, I'd probably, you know, listen and try to be in a position where they might, you know, might be able to rehear them. So even thinking about a place where my sound is going to travel good and I can really be listening for the evening to get those elk fired back up, or maybe they get fired back up on their own and I can get back on them. I, I know a lot of times where I've, I've lost elk and then just been patient and waited for that evening again. Like if you're on elk and they're rutted up and you don't really blow them out, being patient and letting them fire back up in the evening is a good way to maybe have a potential chance for the evening or set yourself up for the next day where, okay, at least we know where they're at. They went up that next drainage. Now I'm going to reset tomorrow and kind of be in position for a good calling or good sound check up in that area to get on them again. Now the last scenario here, you can think of it being like, it's been slow, not much calling. You're on a hunt and you're glassing and you turn up elk and you move in, but it's just no dice. So it's like, whatever happened, they moved off. Who knows, right? Or you like, scenario where they're out in this meadow, you get up there. I was like, elk are gone. And calling is not an option because they just either you don't call or they aren't responding to calls. Typical, like hot weather elk hunting or just some scenarios where the elk have had a lot of pressure. It happens. I would continue to hunt that kind of same vantage point again. You know, I would use that as like, we found elk from here, especially if it's a good vantage. Let's, let's glass into this again. So I would kind of start the hunt off from where I spotted this elk. Even if it was like, let's say, a spot in midday, they moved off, I move in there, nothing happens. I would probably get back and be like, okay, I need to, I need to step back, I need a good view and I need to kind of glass in there again. Now another option is you could kind of find a better vantage to where and maybe try to turn these elk up. So continually moving vantages, vantages, vantages, until you can turn up these particular elk again. Because, you know, there, there's that thought of like, okay, I could go somewhere else and maybe find some other elk. But when it's slow and you found elk, you've kind of. You sometimes go like, okay, well, I found the spot. Now once I stop finding elk, then I go find another spot. And the big question that people ask is like, how do I know when that is right? Because this is, this is a scenario. I'm adding some scenarios here, but this is a scenario in elk hunting that happens a lot. Last year I was in this spot. It was absolutely insane. Bulls everywhere. So I go back in there this year, maybe it's the same week, maybe it's a different week because of a schedule, whatever. And it's like crickets. And I'm like, whoa, it's a slow rep this year. You know, the elk are in here. They were in here last year. There's still some tore up trees and some other stuff, but I don't hear any activity. I haven't seen anything. And then you hunt your five days in that one canyon and you're like, gosh, I know there's elk in here. It looks so good. And you never turn up elk. Okay, well, in my summation, the elk probably weren't there. They were there. Maybe they were there the day before you got there. Maybe they ran through there one night and whatever, I don't know the scenario. Maybe they are there, Right? But like, you can't turn them up. So is that, is that beneficial to you? No. If it were me, I would probably hike over the next basin and see are they there? Is there activity here? I would glass at longer distances. Are they up on that peak? Are they down in this valley? Okay, well, they aren't. Okay, Maybe I would think about moving and checking another spot. Are they at this other spot? No, until I found the elk. Like, I probably move more than most, and it's because the goal is to find the elk. I don't need to find elk. I don't need to commit to a spot so much that I need to find elk here. I would rather just find the elk and then hunt those elk. And that's what this podcast is about. It's like, okay, we found the elk, now let's hunt these elk. Okay, it didn't work out. What's next? And that's kind of how you can increase your encounters is you just have to find the elk or elk doing something that you particularly need. Right. We've talked about this on a lot of podcasts and hopefully it's like sparking some memories for people. But you know, if you're going to spot and stock elk and you aren't finding elk that are stalkable or you're just, you know, it's like, oh, man, every time I find elk, they disappear into the trees and I can't see them. Probably not a great spot for spots. Like, maybe you got to find elk and find a spot where you can do the kind of hunt that you want to do. Or you've got a broad range of tactics, which is nice, which is what I suggest, because you can hunt a lot of different scenarios, areas and find success kind of no matter the conditions. Well, let's say you've got that going and you, you get bulls. So maybe they're calling. Okay, cool. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump into calling. You're continuing to fall, like, stay on these elk. And as long as I'm getting into those elk, I'm continuing to hunt those elk. As long as there's a bull that I want to take or I believe that there's a bull that, you know, I'd want to take if I'm maybe in a trophy area or something like that, or, hey, I'm being really picky this year and I got. Oh, this kind of seems like a nursery. It's just small bulls. Oh, maybe I'm going to change my strategy. I'm gonna go like, it's early in the hunt. I got cows and, you know, rag horns all together. Yeah, it looks like the big bulls haven't shown up yet. Maybe I'm gonna go up the mountain and try to catch them in more of that summer range, you know, like. Well, when my wife killed her bull last year, it was just, you know, there was elk down lower in some of the other stuff, and it was a lot of like, cows and raghorns. And then the bulls were still, like, the big bulls were still in their summer range. Like, they were just all bachelored up in the beginning of September. And then on the other side of the mountain, the day after she killed her bull, it was like there was a ton of cows there, and it was a rut fest with like some really nice bulls in there. Not maybe not as good of bulls, but still good bulls. You know, my buddy John had the tag too, and he wanted. He was looking for like a 370/bull. And there was like, we had a lot of encounters, like 343, maybe 333 40s, maybe a 350 type, but just, you know, a one range over or whatever. A Little bit different kind of terrain. Elk were doing something completely different. And if you were like, hey, I want to call elk, and I want that, like, running action, you know, just moving around the mountain and finding where that's at, you can change the way, you know, like, how you're hunting, and you can continue to, like, stay on those elk and hunt those elk that way. And then, honestly, like, maybe that was a weather thing because the weather changed and it changed back. Those elk shut up. And there was no more bugles. I don't even think that those elk left there. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but the conditions changed, and then was time to change locations or change hunt style or change the game plan until you find the elk again and then hunt those elk till that no longer works, and then you change again. And so just by knowing a few things about the way that elk move, the. The things that they like to do, you're a lot more likely to continue getting on those elk. And then when that stops working, you go find elk. Once you find those elk, you keep, you know, doing that cat and mouse anticipation game, planning your hunts based on what you're seeing out there to continue to get on those elk until you can't get on them anymore. And by doing that, you're increasing your chance of encounters. And by increasing those encounters, you're increasing your chance of success. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. And it just gives you some ideas and some scenarios that if you encounter that scenario, maybe gives you a little bit of an edge of, what, what might I do tomorrow? What should I do? What should my next move be? Because I think that one of the things with, with elk hunting, especially people that are new to it, is like, you get into a scenario and you're like, what do I do next? Right? It didn't work out. What do I do next? How can I. How can I try to make this work out tomorrow? And so just a few of those little things, those are just the things that I do on a hunt to try to continually get into those encounters. One of the things that I wanted to mention, too. This week I saw a great partner of ours, Vortex Optics, awesome supporter of this podcast. They just released their Ranger HD 3000 binoculars, and I actually got them ahead of time to get to field test them. I've really been enjoying them. If you're somebody that's like, hey, I want my rangefinder and my binocular together. This is an awesome option. You know, there's some updates to the, the particular, like the Range finding binocular that I found, you know, really good a couple of them. One is that streamlined design of them. They're just more slim and form fitting like they feel like a non range finding binocular. And they've got the rangefinder in there, you know, the rangefinder, you know, a 3,000 yard rangefinder. But the nice thing about it is some long like some range finders that range at distance have trouble at those closer ranges but this one does closer ranges. Like I think the minimum range that I got on it was like nine yards or something. I could be wrong but that was just testing it and messing around. I don't remember exactly but I do remember it was sub 20 yards which is awesome because you know, for me I like, I would use it for both archery or rifle hunting. The nice thing about having both your rangefinder and your binocular together is just less things when I'm guiding I like it because I don't have to take my eyes off of it to help range. I can just boom. Give a range, give a range as I'm going. It's just a lot more streamlined if you're going between binoculars and rangefinder. It's nice now you know, I like you know having the option too of like okay, a handheld rangefinder might make sense in certain situations and binoculars rangefinding binoculars makes sense in other situations. But for those of you that are like I don't like having these separate. It's an awesome, it's an awesome piece because you don't have to swap between the tools and kind of waste those seconds that make or break moment. Especially if you're by yourself or even just helping someone out. You can just stay on target range. I like it when I'm helping someone especially because I can, I can range be like 300 yards, 360, you know, without having to go between and take my eyes off because then they shoot or something happens, you know, you know, okay, I saw your impact, here's what happened. I liked it too because I was primarily, you know, I haven't got to take it on a hunt yet but I was using it just doing like a lot of 3D shooting. And it was awesome because I could you know, sit there range. I could see where the rings that I wanted to shoot at it. It was nice for that aspect as well. So that's new. That's cool. It's a 10 by 42. One of the things I'm like, I'm so used to my other rangefinder that that added zoom I'm like, oh, wow. I. I can actually see this really well. Cause a lot of times I might not take my binoculars when I'm. I'll just take the range finder out and go shoot or whatever. But yeah, having that extra, you know, fewer steps. And then the nice thing is there's still the same target mode. So you've got like first, last, normal, which they have on there is. You got line of sight which just shows you that line of sight range. And then I just use it in the hcd or that like horizontal. Horizontal comp. Like compensation, distance, whatever. So it just accounts for that Pythagorean theorem of the angles. And. And then you can also scan with it. So just continuous distance readings, which is awesome. So it was a good quality and clarity in the binocular. The nice thing too. Like I, you know, with the, the range finder in your eye part didn't really mess with the, the color clarity of the Bino. So they did a great job with it. Like, it's been awesome so far. And like I said, the best thing about it is just that streamlined design. I don't think you could tell really that between holding that one and holding the other one that it had a rangefinder in it. So if you're someone that's looking to have rangefinder and binos combined, awesome option. The Ranger HD 3000 just released this week. So you could probably find that, you know, sporting good shops. I'll try to get. I'm gonna try to get some in my store, Remy warren.com and check it out, see if we got any there. We'll probably just get a couple, you know, hopefully get a couple around the launch time and, and you know, they might sell out quick. But if you guys want to check that out, you can always go to my website and find those there too. So thank you guys so much for the support. All the stuff we've got, let's see, we've got a cool ibex hunt coming out that I did with Pedro and Puerto. My portion of the hunt, he. He did. So like yeti, we did a film with YETI and then a release to that. And then I've got like just my whole hunt film and then Pedro has his whole film releasing those kind of together. So check those both out. They're. They're awesome. If you don't subscribe to Pedro's channel, I think it's like, I mean, he's a good friend of mine, but he's also one of the people that I really enjoy his content that he puts out the way he does videos, the adventure, the, like, the goat rope of things. The, you know, like, he's just, he's just fun to watch and he, you know, he, he brings the, like, action of the hunt in on it. Like a really great hunter, awesome guy, and it's always fun to get to go on hunts with him. So I'm excited about that one. Then I've also got a, an archery elk hunt coming out on YouTube, so you check those out. Appreciate it and thank you guys so much. Oh, also thank you guys. Everyone that's, you know, made a purchase on day six, whether it's broadheads, you know, a lot of guys maybe are like, I don't need arrows yet, but hey, I'll try three of these broadheads or I'll jump into some of these broadheads. Give it a try. Thank you guys so much. For those that have ordered arrows, we've been, we've been, you know, working day and night to keep up with orders and get your stuff out. You know, I know a lot of people had questions about, oh, I'm doing this or that, what should I do? So we've been helping people out with that, but it's been a lot of fun. Thank you guys so much for, for all the support. And if you're like, this is new to me. Haven't heard about this. So Day Six Arrows. I. I am now the owner of Day Six Arrows. That's. That's my company and a lot of things are running the same. But we're also, you know, we're also going to be coming out with some new stuff here pretty soon that we've been working on behind the scenes. And that product development side's always fun for me, but it's been an awesome journey so far, and that's because of the support of all of you. And I thank you guys so much. So if you're in, if you're in the need for arrows or broadheads this season or maybe, hey, you know, somebody that needs some arrows or broadheads, send them our way. Day six. Gear.com is the website. There's a lot of. You can go back and listen to my podcast on it. It might be cool to just do like a elk arrow setup. Maybe I'll just do like an elk arrow setup podcast. See, I tease that and everyone be like, when? Why didn't that happen? I'm like, I was too busy scouting, but I think that would be a good one. Maybe I'll bring Brian on and we'll just. We'll chat about that as, like, a little bonus episode. Whether you use our arrows or not. Just understanding, like, to set up a solid elk arrow and maybe some of the other options of setting up a solid elk arrow. You know, I think that that might be a cool topic. So thank you guys so much for the support. And until next week, I'm just gonna say keep after and catch you guys later. Sam.