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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. For those of you that might have a archery elk tag in your pocket, we're like T minus three days until the beginning of September. So I'm assuming there's a lot of people that might be listening to this podcast on the way out to an elk hunt or as they're preparing or thinking about maybe going in the coming weeks. Whatever, we're here. It's like already season time. And when it comes to elk hunting, you know, calling is a really great tactic. But sometimes, as much as I hate to admit it because it's my preferred tactic to hunt elk, sometimes calling is not the right play. There are situations where an alternative move might be a better option. So this week we're going to talk about situations when to call and situations when not to call. Some of them might even be on the same stock or chasing the same elk. So we're going to call it. We're going to play a little game here. We're to going going to call it Call or Nah. Okay, so I'm going to give you scenarios combined with some hunt stories and some real life experience, and then I'm going to give you a little bit of a chance to answer what you might do. And then I'll tell you what I think I would have done or what I did do within that scenario. So let's dive in and play a game of Call or Nah. So before we get into it today, I think that it's important to say that there are definitely, especially when it comes to elk hunting, preferred methods of hunting. So for me, I really enjoy the aspect of calling elk that to me is what September is about. It's getting a bull, the fire off, it's tricking him with the calls. It's the challenge of that and the excitement of that. I enjoy that communication, I enjoy that style of tactic. And I also pick hunts and areas and in ways that I can utilize that tactic. Now, there's other people on the other side of the spectrum that go, when they think about elk hunting, when they get excited about it, they go like, I don't know how to call, I don't like calling. I feel like I'm just going to mess it up. Therefore, they choose spot and stock tactics. Some are like, I don't even bring calls. I don't have a call on me because their strategy is purely going to be spot and stock. Now, I'll say that, you know, whatever camp you're in doesn't really matter, but I think that the most successful hunters are going to be ones that utilize the strategy best fit for the conditions and the situation. And I actually kind of put myself in that category more often than not. Is like, I like all different types of tactics for it to call. However, you know, not every situation is designed for calling. And even if you are calling, not every situation that you encounter is when you should be calling. So I think that it's good to understand, starting off that there are different strategies and we're going to try to focus and get your mind working. Like today I really wanted to pose strategies because the way that I visualize people, even most people probably listening to this, is we're on our way out elk hunting. We've got a 12 or 13 hour drive. I'm going to listen to a few old episodes or whatever, the podcast, get my brain working, get into that mindset of the elk. And so it's fun to throw these scenarios out there. And honestly, like, there isn't going to be a right option. Like, it's just like hunting, right? You could do a hundred different things. 99 of them won't work in one will. Or you could also do 100 different things and 99 of them work and one doesn't. That's, that's just the part of hunting. But we're going to kind of get into my mind, get into the mind of these scenarios. A lot of these are based off of actual things that went down and what happened. Some were successful, some weren't successful based on the actions that happen. And I think that, you know, finding the balance between those things and understanding, when's a good time to call, when maybe, hey, it's better to stalk. It's better to be quiet. It's better to not let the elk know that I'm there. So let's kind of talk about a little bit of the benefits of calling. So one of the reasons that I like calling is the adrenaline pump of hearing a bull scream. But not all elk that you call in call back. The benefit of calling is you're drawing an elk to your location. You're tricking an elk to thinking that you're an elk. And he's closing the gap of from too far to shoot to being in a position where you can shoot him with a bow. And he's doing the moving for the most part. I mean, you're moving, he's moving, but you're closing that gap and bringing elk to you. That's the point of calling elk, is to bring an elk to you. Bring an elk within bow range. Now, the downfall to calling is a few things. One, it can tell the elk where you're at. It's like, hey, maybe he didn't know I was here. So the benefit of stalking is you can move in on an elk that's unaware that you're there. When he doesn't know that he's there or nothing's around, he's not paying attention. Whether it thinks you're an elk or not, it's alerting elk that there's something over here. I need to be paying attention to looking over there so it can actually hurt you in a way where you go, you've given away your position. The elk now know where you are, and it might not work out in your favor. Another thing that happens when you're calling is you just incite an elk's natural instinct to do something that maybe you weren't prepared for, like round up their cows and move off. Maybe they don't know you're a human hunter, but they just think you're another elk. They can gather up those cows that they have and start moving off. And maybe you. You can't keep up. You. It's going to put them in a position where you don't know where they're going to go. Or maybe it's like, hey, you're calling at them. They've just moved off and they aren't interested in coming into your calls. There's other situations where you're faced with this dilemma of you could let the elk know that you're there, but your situation is going to Be better when they really don't know or aren't paying attention as much to their surroundings because you need to get closer. There's also scenarios where you're calling and the timing of it is like, maybe we'll get into some scenarios here, but there's, there's times where, hey, you aren't calling and then you decide to call and it changes the kind of outcome of the hunt. So we're going to think about all these things. I'm just going to start off, like, giving you a little bit of a scenario. These are common scenarios. These are things that within weeks of elk hunting, you probably will encounter or hope to encounter some on the high end of, like, massive action, elk screaming, everything you want, and on the other side, slow days and whatever. We're also going to assume in these scenarios that, like, you can be at kind of any skill level of calling. I think it's going to, like, depending on how you're calling, might depend on how much experience you've had calling elk, so what kind of calls you're using. But we'll even talk about, you know, maybe what calls that we would use and some of the strategies there. So think about these things. I'm going to pose the question. Think about in your head what you might do or what would be a good scenario. See if it matches up with mine. Now, maybe mine's right, maybe mine's not. This is just kind of probably what I would do in this particular scenario. You might also notice that a lot of these scenarios are very similar. And like, if you really just kind of looked at them, you go, oh, that's the same kind of scenario. But there's maybe one or two things that are a little bit different within those scenarios that might change my personal course of action. So let's get into the scenarios here. Scenario one. In this scenario, we're gonna call it middle of September. It's pre light, it's dark, you bugle, and a bull lights off below you. Okay, it's just like classic location. Bugle boom. And now a bull lights off in this canyon across from you, below you, wherever. And then a few minutes later, another bull lights off, and you're like, sweet. So you bugle again, and these two bulls, like, pretty much start screaming back at you. It's almost like they're now getting closer. They were apart, now they're getting closer. And the intensity of this, you. You kind of hold off. It's not daylight yet. You're just trying to locate bulls. And these bulls are just kind of cranking off to each other. One bull's calling, the other bull's calling. Okay, they're, they're screaming, they're being loud. What do you do? You're going to move in on these elk? Do you move in calling or not? It's decision time. Okay? So think about what you might do in that scenario. For me, in this scenario, the reason that I'm calling is the fact that I'm trying to locate a bull. Okay, I've located a bull. And in the process of locating a bull, maybe regardless or irregardless of whether I called or not, these two bulls might have been bugling toward each other. I believe that I need to get closer to these elk. However, I don't think that I need to be calling to move in. The point of them calling is to give away their location. If they're giving away their location, I'm going to choose to remain silent. I'm not going to give those bulls an upper hand of knowing that I'm coming, whether they're already doing that in a way where I can move in on one. So I'm going to attempt to move in on these elk that are making noise by themselves without making any addition noise, and that's going to be my play. I will probably assume in a way that these bulls have cows or there's cows in the mix. Maybe one has cows, maybe one doesn't. I'm going to pick the. The bugle that sounds more intensified and kind of just honestly which one sounds beefier to me, and that's the one that I'm going to chase. And then I'm going to move in quiet and try to get into position on that bull while he's making noise without having to call. I will also say that I'll probably have a cow call ready in case that I bust an elk out and, and need to hit a call so the situation will change of call or not, I'm going to say, nah, I'm not going to call, but if I bump an elk or do something that might push the herd, then I'm going to hit the calls to try to stop and make those other elk think that I was just a bull. If they continue to make noise, I'll probably continue to move in quiet, and that's going to be my initial play on these elk. I do think now that if you're the type that likes calling, this is a perfect scenario because this is actually a scenario where you can call a bull in. However, I think that in this decision making of moving in on an elk. If I'm like just thinking about, for all intents and purposes, trying to find good success, I would probably, especially if it's maybe like semi open or even more timbered country, these elk are giving away their location. I don't need to give away my location to move in on these elk. I'm just going to move into where those elk are. I think that it's a, it's a really good tactic, especially if elk are calling to each other and kind of keeping each other busy. Okay, scenario two, it's morning and there's a bull bugling across the basin. Okay, you bugle, he bugles and then you kind of wait a while. It's kind of the same, same exact scenario as before. Pre light, you bugle, bull bugles and then it's just like nothing. And then you bugle and a bull bugles and you're by yourself. Okay, you want to move in on this bull, you're going to close the distance. Do you, when you move in, are you calling or not? Okay, so the bulls replying, but he's not terribly vocal. In this scenario, I am going to move in calling, and I might go against like I like to move in quiet, right? I just. Scenario one, I'm moving in quiet. What I do when I get into position then can depend on my hunting strategy, right? So on scenario one, I'm moving in, I'm not making any sound, I'm cutting the distance by not calling. And then if I want to try to call the bull in, once I get into position or get close, I can. If I'm a stalker guy, I just want to stay quiet. I can, I can. I've. I've been given the opportunity to probably find success both ways in scenario one. In scenario two, I think that I will lose track of the bull, especially if I'm by myself. And this is a scenario that I often find myself in personally, because when I'm hunting than not, even if I have someone with me, they might just be filming and I'm more often than not hunting alone. So I am going to move in and keep that bull making noise so I can pinpoint where he is. I'm going to try to cover as much ground as possible between calling, But I'm going to have to move in that distance and continue to call. There's a few problems that might arise with that. Like he's. If it's a bull that's got cows, he's probably pretty likely to round those cows up and start Moving away. Why is that? Because he believes that the bull that's responding to him is now coming in for his cows. And that's absolutely the case. That's what's happening. But without him bugling, especially now, this is like, if I'm in these two scenarios, we're calling it thicker country, okay? Like timbered country, in that I would rather know where the bull is and be able to keep tabs on the bull as long as he's like being even semi responsive to my calls and then kind of try to continually move in closer and closer. If he starts to crank off and start giving me replies without me replying, then I'll absolutely, maybe switch to that tactic of stopping to call or another bull starts to go off and things start moving. But if that's not the case, I'm going to be on my call, I'm going to know where that bull is it as often as I can, and I'm going to try to close the distance on that bull and draw him in with the call and that's going to be how I'm going to play out. Scenario two. All right, so scenario three, let's say you're in. This is actually a scenario, a thing that happened last year. So got open country, right? You're up on a ridge and you spot some elk across the way, okay? You got like a group of cows, maybe a bull, and they're, they're, they're feeding through, they're moving your direction and the wind's actually pretty good for this. So you're thinking that you're going to be able to pull off a stock. Okay? There's a bunch of cows, there's a, like a smaller five point bull, whatever. It doesn't even matter what the bull is. And he starts to break off from the cows and, and come your way. Okay? So all the cows are going one direction, the bulls going another. Okay, now your options here are you can move in and set up an ambush where you can just try to cut the bull off, or you can try calling to this lone bull. He's, he's headed your way. Like there's actually pretty, you can see it like a pretty good hard trail going up your direction. Call or not on this particular scenario, I would say nah. Like we have the opportunity to ambush this bull without him knowing he's already moving my way. I have the height advantage of being above him and we can even run, like when he gets out of sight to where we think he's going to pop up. It is a Lone bull. But he just left cows. Why. Why did he just leave cows? He probably left to get away from. Go bed somewhere safe. In this scenario, the bull's doing what we want him to do, coming to us. I would say. I wouldn't call. Now, as we get in, let's say the bull starts to. To come up and he's. He's close. Okay, We've. We've cut him off. We've set up the ambush. When then should we throw at a cow call to maybe stop. He's cruising, right? I would say. I wouldn't put a cow call out until he's walked into a lane where I can shoot. I'm at full draw. Like, I would draw back, wait for him to come into the spot and hit the cow call the second he. He goes into it. So then I can release that arrow. That's the only time that I probably call on that particular ambush setup. The reason for that is the bull. Like, the point of calling is to draw a bull in. If the bull's coming your direction and he's doing something favorable, there's no reason for us to give away our position. There's no reason for him to come and start looking around. You know, this particular scenario happened twice last year. Once on my wife's bull, essentially, and once on a. On a hunt with a friend. Both those scenarios worked out pretty good. On one, you know, he called just as that bull was, like, coming up, and then was aware and it didn't work out. On the other one, we stayed quiet and let that bull just kind of feed in and. Or, sorry, move up into the position looking for where he believed other elk were earlier in. In the day. So in that scenario, I'm gonna say nah. All right, scenario four. So you've decided to hunt a tree stand over wallow. Let's call it, like, fairly open terrain. So you're like, you know, it's like, let's say it's timbered, and then there's maybe a little meadow, and you've got a wallow that has been getting a lot of activity. Maybe you've got trail cams on it. Maybe you don't. Doesn't really matter. You can just tell it's been active. It's like the middle of September. Maybe it doesn't. Honestly, for this, it probably doesn't even matter. Let's say it's middle of September. Elk are rutting. You're in a tree stand, and you're waiting for elk to come out. Okay, you've got a group of elk in the timber. And like you can see elk off in the distance. Maybe, maybe you can hear a bull bugling and coming in or coming that direction. Okay, the elk are in the timber. You're up in the tree stand. You got a wallow below you. Do you make a call call or not? This could be a tough one, right? It could go either way. You could let out a call and maybe draw the bull over each your location. I in this particular scenario, we know that the elk are there. With our knowledge of this wallow being hit, I'm going to say, nah, I'm going to say we're going to stay quiet and we're going to let the elk come to us doing what they're going to do. They might be active around and maybe they even pass you and go bed. I would still continue to be quiet because we're believing that where we're set up is an ambush spot Based on their behavior. What the bull is going to do is he's going to push his cows off. He's then going to, you know, maybe they bed and then he's going to at some point pop down and wallow. The reason that I wouldn't cause in this scenario, it's kind of open and the elk can look from distance and see that there's no elk there. A lot of really good wallows in this, like where you go from timber to open, Especially if there's not a lot of wallows around, they're very wary about it and they can use their eyes and their other senses to approach this. In that scenario, where they have the ability to see at some distance, I'm probably just going to stay quiet because I think that they would just find something suspicious and maybe just choose not to come into that particular spot. So you've got a good setup, you've got a good scenario. You know, the elk are there. I would be patient. Now, a similar scenario, we're just going to add this as like 4.2 or whatever. Let's say you're in the timber and you've got that same scenario. There's other wallows around. Like, you know that there's other wallows. You just pick the one that seemed to be getting hit the most and you hear all bugling and cows calling off in the distance. In that case, maybe I would throw out a couple calls and potentially hope draw them to my particular wallow. Especially if they can't see, like there, there's less option for them to stand back and look and see that there's nothing there. If they can see from a good distance from where they're at, I'm going to opt to stay quiet and just believe that the wallow that I'm hunting is productive for a reason or I'm sitting there for a reason and I'm just going to hold off and wait and let those elk naturally move in, which is, which is hard to do sometimes, but that's, that's probably the scenario that I'm picking right now. Obviously, depending on what happens, like on all these scenarios, sometimes I might even completely flip the script and do something different. But based on what I've set up, that's probably the, the smarter choice of action. All right, so in this one, you're, you're glassing a mountainside. You see a group of elk, let's say they're bugling, let's say they're not. I don't know if it really matters. You've got a whole group elk and there's a good bull in there and you're watching them, they're doing their thing. Mid morning hits, it's time to bed down. The cow's kind of moving to the timber in one spot. It's like sparse enough where you can kind of see what's going on. And you see the bull just peel off and go park himself into some timber over here. This happens a lot early season and late season, especially once the, like the bulls have had a lot of rutting activity and they're just starting to tire out. They kind of just like remove themselves till the cows start to get active again. So you watch the bull bed. He separated from the group. Now your decision, you're going to stock in on this bull. You're moving in. You get to kind of where you think he is before moving into the timber. Do you let out a call or do you just continue to stock silent? Right. So the benefit of calling would be, hey, I can, I can. I don't necessarily know exactly where he plopped down, but I never saw him come out of there. Or you can continue to go in quiet. So you call or nah. In this scenario, I'm going to say nah, I'm going to opt on moving in, treating it like I just watched a mule deer bed down in, in some zone. I'm going to move very slow, methodical. I'm going to keep the wind right. I've probably removed my shoes. When I believe that I'm within 100 yards of this bull. Probably drop my pack, you know, or whatever. Maybe I'm not Maybe I'm just moving in and glassing. I'm going to have my binos to my eyes and I'm just, absolutely, just going to stock this bull because I have the perfect scenario. I have a bull alone. Bull elk to be 100% honest or eat fairly easy compared to other animals to sneak in on, especially when they're by themselves. Elk or herd animals, they, they kind of survive by the use of the herd. And when you get a bull by himself, he can be pretty stockable. The other reason he's stalkable is he's got big old antlers that you can see often easier than you can other things. The goal is going to be to spot that bull before he spots you and move in quiet. You don't want him looking around. You don't want him to pick his head up. You don't want his ears moving around listening. You, you're going to just move in silent and try to arrow that bull before he knows that you're there. I did this last year on a bull that I spotted. I ended up creeping in, like, getting within, you know, 50 to 100 yards. Yeah, I could have, could have pulled back on the ridge, throwing out a few cow calls. But there's no, like, that bull would have known I was there. And there's no, really, like, he moved off by himself. There's no reason that I would think that he would want an interaction with an elk at that point. He's by himself. He wants to stay that way. I'm just going to move in quiet and try to get an arrow in him. All right, scenario number six. Okay. Almost the exact same scenario as before. Number five. Right. But you watch the bull go in and he's moved in to the middle of the herd. So you move in and there's really, like, he's just kind of in the middle of the group. And let's say it's like semi open terrain. You stock in and you, you realize, like, I can't crawl in on this bull. There's no, there's no more moves here for me. I've got within, let's say, 120 to 200 yards, something like that. You're like, that's it. Like, I can't, I can't stock this bull. Do you stay quiet or do you call? Call or not. Okay, this is a hard one. And, and for me, I don't know if there's a right answer, but I'm going to give you two options. If I am by myself, I don't know exactly What I would do to be 100% honest, I would. I like to call. So I would probably back up a little bit, throw a few calls, see if the elk respond. And if I get no response, I would continue to. To wait. If I get no response, I'm just going to stay quiet, not call, and then continue to shadow those elk until something changes. I believe that once they get up and start moving around, they'll probably do something. If I'm with a friend, I would probably stay there, have them go back, throw out a couple calls, see if they interact at all. And if they don't do anything, I'm just going to wait. So on this one, I'm just probably. So you're probably more likely to find success, especially if it's like a bigger bull, maybe just one waiting, shadowing the herd and waiting for that bull to do something stupid or something to happen that that makes you think, okay, it's time to call. I like the idea of doing a sample call because you think about it, they're better. They might be better there for a long time. I wouldn't call a lot if I called. I would just do a couple calls, you know, where it's not really going to entice too much like, of them pinpointing where I'm at. But I probably would do a few calls thinking that if something happens, he gets up, he seems interested, then I can kind of continue with that course of action. Without that, though, I think that this is a scenario where the people that like to stock have a really good scenario and the people that like to call also have a potential play. I think I would err on the side of not calling and waiting for the right moment if I want to call. Also, you could continue to shadow that elk and, and, or that herd and kind of keep yourself within range and once they start moving around, hope that you can maybe close in a little bit and they could close in a little bit and get you within range. At this point, they're bedded in their content. The bulls got some safety. There is the potential to kind of draw him out if he thinks, like, oh, a cow's doing something. But I think honestly, the odds of calling that bull in are pretty slim to none, and you'd just be better off saying, nah, not calling. So I guess I answer that two ways. But I think at the end I'm settling on probably waiting. These can be tough, right? Okay, number scenario seven. Okay. A herd is fired up and you are calling. You've got like this whole herd and now maybe there's like a lot of bulls bugling, a lot of action. This is exactly like the best day, best case scenario. Everything you want, just massive commotion. You're hunting thick timber. The bull's rounding up his cows, but there's a lot of elk around, a lot of things going on. And you're, you're. You can now continue to move in on those bugles silently or you can continue to call. It's decision time. Okay, you got like, you're in the middle of yelk. You've closed the distance. You've been calling. They're responding. They're all responding to each other. It's just like a massive elk fest. What do you do? Do you move in quiet? Do you call call or not? For me, I'm gonna call. Now. I said that I kind of always choose the call over the not call. But I really like the scenario. There's a couple reasons. The thought here is, like, there's already a lot of commotion and there's going to be elk kind of all over. You're probably going to. And we're in thick timber, like we said. We're probably going to encounter elk that we don't want to shoot incidentally. Cows, calves, whatever, lots of looking eyes. By calling, they're going to think that our movement and noise and other things is going to be another elk. And I'm going to. I'm going to probably be very aggressive on this scenario. The other thing is, what I'm going to do is I'm going to throw out lots of bull sounds, lots of cow sounds. I'm going to sound aggressive. I'm going to try to make other satellite elk think that I'm the actual herd bull that started this whole thing in defending his elk. And I'm going to make sure that they think that there's a lot of cows around me and. And I'm the real party. There's an elk party going on in real life. I'm creating an elk party where I'm at as well, because what will happen is you'll be able to draw in other bulls that might be incidental to the one bull that's running the show. There's going to be a lot of elk running around, trying to pick up stragglers on the fringes. There's going to be a lot of elk that don't know where the actual action is. They just hear the noise and are moving in quiet. For me, I want those elk to move in quiet or move in on me. So I might get an opportunity. This is a strategy that I use a lot. And when this happens, it's the most fun. It's like the apex of elk calling of September. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it goes right like this, those are just the days that you live for. And for me to do that and call in, like, I've had success calling in the herd bowl. I've also had a lot of success getting shot opportunities at stragglers or satellite bulls. I mean, I've had one where I'm moving in and there just happened to be a smaller five point that that hung back and. And I'm making so much commotion, he, like nearly sees me, is like, what is that? And then moves in and end up shooting him, right? So, like, depends what you're looking for. But that kind of ilk action is a lot of fun. And for me, I'm just going to say, absolutely. Call. Now, that scenario is very similar to the one where we're saying, hey, we got some in dark. We're. We're just in this call or not, right? There's a bunch of bulls making noise. And you can see the difference in these two. I'm already in the herd and calling, and they're moving, right? They've got a frenzy going. They're moving. I've already closed the gap in a way, like I'm within 2 or 300 yards of these elk. Not across the canyon anymore. At this point, I'm hoping to capitalize on the frenzy that's going on. You absolutely could just continue to move in quiet. But for me, someone that likes to call, I think that I'm going to have a better chance of success by continuing to call to these elk because I can draw in other elk. And there's going to be a lot of elk that get bumped in this scenario. And that call does stop them and kind of prevent fringe elk from running away. I'm going to be very aggressive in this scenario. I'm going to move in. It's thick cover. I'm going to be real aggressive to try to get to that bull, but I'm going to be so aggressive doing it that I know for a fact, like, elk that I don't want to spook are going to see me. And by calling and making them think that I'm an elk, I could probably prevent the whole herd from running away. And so I'm going to continue to call. All right, scenario eight, it's the middle of the day. You haven't on this hunt, like, dude, you haven't heard a single bugle, and it's just been dead. You're doing everything you can, everything in your power to turn up an elk. Like, it's just. It's tough, man, and you're grinding it out. You're going through the timber at like 11am Something like that. Maybe it's 3pm it doesn't really matter. You're moving through this timber pocket to a new spot. You're just doing whatever you can to find an elk. And you catch a bull just like moving through the trees 250 yards out. He's just walking. You really just stumbled on this bull. What do you do? Call? Do you throw out some cow calls or not? Do you just stay quiet? Do you throw out a bugle call or no? This is a hard one because this is a. This is like your, you know, this is my opportunity. It's a lone bull. As far as you can tell, Loan bulls are real good at coming into calls. I actually accidentally skipped one here because I was going to set this up with a different scenario, but we're going to go into it either way. So you've got a lone bull really good with. With calls, right? You just stumbled on. Do you throw out a cow call and hope that he comes your way? Do you try to trail him and move in? What do you do in this scenario? I think I'm gonna try to shadow this elk and move in quiet. The crappy part about this is, right, like, this is your opportunity, but he's too far for a shot. He's moving. And you think, like, oh, if I throw out a cow call, he might move toward me. I think I would try at my best ability because it's been so dead. I'm kind of assuming that, like, the action isn't there for the calling, and I'm not going to want that bull to know where I'm at. If I lose that bull, I'll probably start calling, and I would do subtle cow calls, and I pay attention for a bull to come in quiet. If you throw out a cow call, right, you lose him. You throw out a cow call, and he bugles. That bull is coming in. Like, that's what's gonna happen. But until that point, I think I'm gonna just try to move in, see what he does, and shadow that bull. It can be easy to lose him in the timber. So, like, maybe he's on a trail, whatever, because you kind of got to move fast and you kind of got to move, you know, through stuff. Like it's a risky scenario either, either way. But in this, in this scenario, I'm gonna say nah. Okay, so now the next scenario. I might have got off on my order. This would be scenario eight here, nine. Whatever we're at you spot. It's mid, mid September. You got this canyon. It's like there's timber. There's not timber. Maybe it was a burn. It doesn't really matter. You got this five point lone bull walking across the valley. He's up on his feet and working up the mountain. Decision time. Similar to the last one. Okay, decision time. Call. Stock in. What do you do? Call or not. All right. In this scenario, I'm absolutely going to call. Why am I going to call? Well, he's across the canyon. It's a lone bull. And I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep eyes on this bull, keep up with him. Like there's a lot of timber, there's a lot of places that he could disappear to. The best bull you're ever going to call to is one that's by himself. And you're like, well, just a minute ago we didn't call. I think it was a proximity thing in that, like he was 250 yards out and he's just walking. We don't really know why he's walking, especially because it's timbered. There could be cows around. There could be other things. We're going to move in until we get more information. In this one, we're across the canyon. We probably have a pretty good view of the. This bull for sure. Being by himself, we know that he's moving and looking for something. We're going to give him our location and see what he does. We're also going to do that with the ability to watch this elk and see how he responds. Not in a. In a close proximity setting. If that bull like stops on a dime, puts his ears towards you and rips off a bugle, you're going to kill that bull probably. Or you're going to get that bull. Like that bull likes what he hears. He likey. Okay. Like that's a great scenario. I've called in a lot of elk in this exact scenario. Even on slow elk days, like when you can watch them and see how they're going to respond. Now you're going to want to make sure that maybe you're in a position where he can't see that far. Like if you're up on a. Like if you're just on an open hillside across from me, you can look over and be like, oh, there's no elk over there. It might not work as well as you'd like, but I think primarily you'll be able to call this elk in or. Or at least see how he responds and continue to call. I think that it's like, I'd probably work cow calls first. Just like, throw out, like, a cow party, make him think that there's some cows around. And if he starts to bugle to those cow calls, I would think that, like, you're in a pretty good position to draw that bull in. Especially because, like, here it's like, we know it's like a. A smaller bull too, like a younger bull, maybe a satellite bull. He might think that he's just got like, ooh, group of cows. Awesome. Like, he's pretty excited about it. You've got sparse timber where you can watch him for the most part, and he's already up on his feet moving. Like, this is a really ideal scenario to throw out some calls and draw that bull in. If he loses interest, it wouldn't like. And you can kind of see like, he kind of came, he's working, whatever, and then he just starts to go off a different way. Then I'm going to hit him with some bugles. Like, I'm going to really try, and maybe then I'll get more aggressive and move toward him. Especially if then he starts bugling back, then we've got a different play. But in this scenario, it's a really good scenario to call a bull in. So I'm absolutely going call. All right, so this is. I'm building this scenario off of, like, a hunt that I did that we were guiding. And so this is like, let's say you've got you and a buddy. You're elk hunting. Okay, Your buddy's gonna call for you, or. Yeah, your buddy's gonna call for you. You're the one moving in. Okay, so you got. Let's say it's the evening time. You got this bull. He's responding and he's kind of a ways out. He's like, every time you kind of bugle, he kind of in some way responds, but he's just up on this ridge or up higher, maybe not necessarily coming to the call, but you can tell that, like, he's moving in and then maybe moving back and then moving in and moving back. Okay, so our play right here is going to be your buddy's going to hold back and continue to bugle to this bull, and you're going to move in Quiet, okay? Because you don't. This bull is responding. You now know where this bull is. Based on the calling you. You want that bull to continue to give away his location. You've already decided this is the play that we're going to make. We're going to move in quiet, okay? You can tell the bull's interested, but he's just kind of holding on that ridge. So you move in quiet. Now, the bull, like, let's say there's a draw or whatever, the bull is up above you. You're close, you're within 100 yards or so. The bull's bugling, your buddy's bugling there. They're kind of going back and forth, and the bull starts to. To. To move down, okay? But you can tell he's moving down maybe across the way, which would be out of your zone. Do you continue to stay quiet, or is this now the point where you let out a call? Call or not, do you continue this current path of moving in, or do you now decide to break silence and make a call? That's a tough one, right? It was working. You moved in, and if you call, it's going to give away a location. In this particular scenario, I think that the distance you have from the other person calling with the bugle and this bull is going to allow you to draw that bull to your location with a call. I would start by throwing out a few cow calls. If I was to bugle, I would back up and bugle back toward the guy that was bugling to make him think that that bull now just closed the distance. Once we get within that sub 150, let's say 150 yards range, even the thicker stuff, the game changes. You've moved in on that bull. If you can get sub 100, it changes even more. I think by throwing out a cow call and that other person bugling behind, you have a better opportunity to draw that bull to where you're at than maybe potentially spook them. We don't know what the selk has sticker cover. We don't know if he's got cows. We don't know if what. We don't know his deal. We don't know his story, but we want him to come to us. At this point, I would hit that call. I did this on a hunt. One of my other guides was calling. I went with the client. We moved in. Our plan was to move in quiet, but then that bull started to kind of take a different route. He was still interested in that bugle, but he wasn't coming to us. And that was the time to go. Okay, now it's time to call. Work like a charm. Bull came in on a string 30 yards away. Arrow got shot, bull went down. So in those scenario, in that scenario, I'm going to say call. We're moving in quiet, but then we hit a point where we've closed the gap, close the distance, and we're going to call that bull to our location. You can do it either way, right? But I think in the time where it's like, okay, I've moved in, but I don't know where this bull is. He seems like he's moving around. And. And to continue to push in might risk blowing it. Now it's time to draw that bull to us, and I'm just going to go with call. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast, the scenarios that we put forward. You know, the thing about elk hunting and what I like to do with this podcast is give you guys as many ideas and just practical knowledge of just having interacted with elk. I've been very fortunate to, for the majority of my life, like, well over half my life, I'd say three quarters of my life spent nearly every day in the elk woods during September and mostly October, November, through guiding and other things. So I've got to encounter a lot of scenarios, and I just kind of found what works. And some things work sometimes, some things work more often than not. So it's just giving you that little bit of an edge to have all the. The pieces fall into place. As we're getting into the season, if you guys start to find success, you know, reach out social media, you can send me a message. Instagram, you can actually, it's still live. You can, you can email myhuntimmywarren.com if you got, like a hunt story. I know I'm getting backlogged on that. Like, I do look at them and read them. I don't necessarily reply to everything, but at least it just, it kind of motivates me to continue with the podcast and doing all the things that we do, because it's awesome to just hear about your guys a success. You know, it's a lot of fun for me as we've been building this podcast and doing these episodes, to start seeing pictures of, like, man, I really liked that. Or this is the way that I utilize the podcast. I'm. I'm headed out on. On an elkon. I'm listening. I'm downloading. I've got all these other ones there. There's Just it's fun to be kind of a part of your, your hunt process for me and especially those successes. And sometimes maybe it's not a success as far as punching a tag, but you've hunted however many times and didn't get any opportunities, but you got an opportunity this time or man, it was just tough. But hey, this kept me going, this kept me in the game, whatever, all those kind of things. I enjoy hearing that, that stuff. So if you've got something you liked in the podcast, tag me in a story on Instagram or whatever. I'd like to share some of that stuff too if you guys are cool with it. So thank you guys so much and as always, if you don't already subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. You know, leave a comment, leave a rating. Also, I, I hope you guys have been enjoying. We dropped a few elk hunting videos on, on YouTube. I also have a really fun one I recently did about a Spain ibex hunt with my buddy Pedro. We released that film on my YouTube channel. And then he's got like kind of his part of the hunt on his YouTube channel. So if you haven't watched that, it's definitely a good one. Go over to my YouTube channel, check it out. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you don't already because there's constantly stuff coming out, little shorts and other videos. It. We've got a bunch of other awesome hunts planned to be coming out here pretty soon. So a lot of cool stuff throughout the season. We might even do like what you're going to see. I'm going to kind of, there's a few hunts where on there on the, on the shorts and I might start to do on, on Instagram as well some of the hunts that I go on during the season. I'll just kind of recap each day like essentially right after I get back. So the week after last week I was, I was hunting caribou in the Northwest Territories. Phenomenal hunt for mountain caribou. I think I'll probably share that hunt story maybe next week and then I'll throw down some other. You get some dailies from that so you can kind of see how that unfolded. And then we'll, we'll, we'll come out with that full video. But I just thought like ah, in the season it's kind of fun to just do these things that are fresh and live essentially semi live or if I get somewhere where they're service maybe I'll, we'll cut those together and, and do a mid hunt. So it might be kind of fun to just to. To see if you guys are into that. That. That's fun for me to do. Another thing that I want to mention before we go, an incredible sponsor of this podcast, an incredible partner of ours, and definitely has one of the. I would say one of the ways that hunting has been influenced for the better, like made making people more successful is having Onyx Hunt app on your phone. I mean, I don't know, like, there's even like, I was in Canada or wherever, and let's say you're in an area that, like, a lot of people don't realize. You can still use all the tools and other things. Like, I downloaded the maps and was dropping pins and waypoints and tracks and all that stuff. Even though in Canada didn't. Where I was at, didn't have like the layer data, it still had the map and all the features of the app, which is the real important part. Dropping waypoints, dropping pins, all that kind of stuff is awesome. Like, spot something, drop a pin. Okay, here's where our camp is. All that good stuff, especially with like the offline maps and all that stuff. If you don't have it, I think everybody has it, but it's worth mentioning if you don't. Now is the time to get it. Or maybe your. Maybe your subscription ran out. Now's a great time to get it. You can always use code LIVEWILD. You'll get 20% off, but you got to do it through their site, not through the app store, so you can go to their website. If you don't, maybe you've got just a standard membership. But hey, you're like, I'm traveling through. This is something that I suggest, right? Let's say you've got a hunt in, I don't know where, Idaho or Colorado or whatever, and you're driving from somewhere else. You got to drive through a couple different states to get there. Road trips are one of my best scouting methods. I'm not lying to you. Like, I'll be driving through. I like, you know, I've had the premium version of all the states on Onyx since they came out with it. Like, it used to be on little cards that we'd put in a handheld gps, right? And as I would drive, I'd swap out those cars. I'm always looking at it being like, what unit am I in here? I see something that looks pretty good. Like, those mountains look rad. Drop a pin with like a reminder in the notes of like, oh, this Looks cool. You can even what I'll do sometimes, I'll pull over, take a picture, and then drop a pin. The other thing is, like, sometimes you'll be driving. You see somebody with like a big buck in the back of the truck that's still got the hide on it. Well, he probably shot it somewhere near there. A bull, right? Like, you can do a lot of highway scouting. Be like, oh, what unit is this? Just places that I look into later. Go into a town, in a local gas station, some random place, and you're like, look at the board and look at all these pictures. Like, this looks like a cool area. I've done a lot of recon and found a lot of incredible hunts in places that no one else was talking about. All because I was traveling somewhere else to go hunting. So having those multiple states, like, upgrading to that, is worth it. If you're traveling across multiple states, doesn't matter what you're hunting. It's a great tool to have for that travel. Like, you can drop pins, take notes, take a picture of things, and leave it on the pin so you can be like, oh, yeah, I remember that. Like, my. It's funny, man. I should. Like, I wouldn't do it, but, like, if I screenshot my eye, there's just pins all over the world. It's kind of fun to look back on and be like, wow, that's cool. Like, a lot of it makes no sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me. It's pretty cryptic the way that I keep it, but, you know, there's stuff that I've found on. On road trips or unrelated road trips. I've talked about that in the past, but, like, sometimes you just never know when you're going to find that. That zone. You're like, oh, this looks cool. Or even you just see them, out you go, man, that looks. That looks rad to hunt. Wonder where that is. I've been in a plane once. I was in a plane flying over, had no clue where. I was just in a plane flying. Look out the mountain and go, those mountains look rad. And just dropped a couple pins. Turns out it was a pretty good mule deer unit that I'm. I'm actually going to try to draw now. Just had no clue. I'd never been in that area. Didn't know what it looked like. And I just see this zone. I'm like, dude, that looks like incredible mule deer country. Well, I was right. A lot of big bucks have been shot in there. And now I'm like, now I really want to hunt in there. I mean, I think I can get it with, you know, not crazy amount of points, but I don't even know if I would have focused on that area had I not flown over and seemed like, well, that's what it looks like. So another use for Onyx when you're, you know, maybe you're like, I'm not in that state, I only need one state. But if you're traveling to another state, it's good to have those other, those other maps and options show you the units and the boundaries and all that. So what's public, what's private? Because you never know where that might lead down the road. Thank you guys so much for tuning into the podcast. Oh, this is, I gotta, I gotta say this. For those of you that got arrows broadheads from our Day six company, we appreciate every order that comes in. I thank you guys so much. You know, we've been working around the clock. Like it's, you know, like in some of it we had like a lot of backorder in a little bit of way. We're caught up. The orders are going out, everything's working smooth. I just want to say thank you guys so much. You know, we hope to be your aero company for years to come. Broadheads, like, you know, thank you guys for, for investing in us and, and you know, honestly, it is the best stuff out there. Like you can, you can check it out. Day 6 gear.com for those of you that might have missed the news. I, I took over Day six. I bought the company. It's now my company. That's, that's kind of the where I'm headed with things going forward. We're, you know, we're in the field prototyping stuff. We're in the field like doing that. We've also got, you know, arrows are being built. You also got to know too, like these aren't just factory arrows, these are custom built arrows as well. So when you order these, there's a human that's very, well, like very good at making arrows, assembling the arrows too. When you order the assembled arrows for just like shafts and components and other stuff, those whatever. But if you're having us build those arrows, they are 100% done by us here in America. So it's just a cool feature to have. But thank you guys so much. And if you haven't, you're like, what? This is the first time I'm hearing this. Go check it out. If you, if you want to support us, if you're in need of new broadheads, like arrows. Whatever we've got, we've got that stuff. So thank you guys again and you know, appreciate all of you like it. It means a lot to me for that we've had and the people that have got it and be like, dude, why did I not shoot these arrows earlier? I'm so glad I know about these now. We've already had people sitting like, hey, I'm new customer. I got back from an early season hunt, like so stoked. So thank you guys so much. That to me means. Means the world. So thank you guys. And we're excited. We're working hard to get everything out and it's going good, it's going awesome. It's exactly what we want to happen. You know, we want to be busy and building and doing all that. So thank you guys again and until next week, I'm just going to say call or not, you guys decide and catch you later.