Late Rutting Elk Hunting Success & Tips | HW Field Report 9.27.2025

Foreign. To the Hunt west podcast. Here's your host, Jaden Bales. What is up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hunt West Podcast. Happy to have you listening. And I really appreciate everybody who's reached out and said they enjoyed the show. You guys, if you haven't done it already and you've reached out to me and said you like the show, you, it would really help if you went in and gave a review. I know that you've heard that on other podcasts, but it's just kind of the way the whole algorithm works. So if you have a chance to go do that, give us however many stars you think we deserve and would really appreciate it. On today's episode, we're going to go into a field report again. Another solo podcast, obviously. My Deer Story with Gray, him and I's Buck Story just published. So you guys have had an update on what was happening in the deer world, and now I wanted to give you a little bit of an update on elk hunting. By the time you're listening to this, I will be packed up and ready to head out for a big backcountry hunt with Cody Rich. We've talked about it on this podcast, talked about on other podcasts, but that one's going to be an October 1st rifle elk hunt, and we're going for big bulls. The fun part about this time of year is that there's, there's not like a stage right now where you're looking at the elk hunting landscape and, and saying, man, I wish there was some rut going on. There is rut going on everywhere. You just might not be in the right pocket if you're having a slow start or having slow interactions, or maybe you're in a pocket of elk that have been buggered with. But guys, this is like the last week of September and everything is they have to breed. If they don't breed now, they won't be born in the spring. So one thing to keep in mind is that as you're looking at these final few days of archery season, you know, if you're in Montana, maybe you've got a handful, a couple more weeks. But for the most part, across the west, these are the last couple days of archery elk hunting. And I've killed bulls in these last couple days twice. Both times it was when basically you're just out there and you're grinding, you're putting on miles and you're trying to find elk that haven't been screwed with yet, and then you're trying to figure out ways to kind of use pressure or like use their daily habits to your advantage. And it's not always tied to their calling. The nice part about this time of year is you can definitely count on them doing some night bugling and things will be rolling really good at night. But the downside is, especially in some areas with a lot of pressure, you'll find elk are quote unquote, call shy. If you're bugling at this big herd, oftentimes the herd bull is not going to leave as cows to come into you. And matter of fact, the cows might even go the other direction and the bird big herd bull might follow. So you got to get creative a little bit. One way that we can talk about how this might interact is actually based on this hunting story from my guided client I just had last week. I'm going to tell you that story today and then we'll kind of recap some of the things that worked and what you can expect for the week ahead. And then rolling into October, we'll talk about, you know, for the next about two weeks what a rifle elk hunter can look at and we'll wrap up maybe with some expectations for rifle deer hunting. So last week, right after this mule deer hunt that I was on, I went out to meet up with a guided elk client. This client worked with me through Extreme Outfitters, Chance and Kevin Marshall. They live in Lander. Good friends of mine. I've been guiding them. This my third year guiding for them. Essentially I told Chance I was like, man, I really love hunting this unit. If you guys have any inquiries about hunting it, I'll take somebody. So sure enough, this guy got a hold of them and said, hey, I drew this tag in the random draw for non residents. He's like, I know that it's a, a raghorn unit and there's some like 300 inch bowls and I would like to find like the top ends of what's out there. So do you, do you guys want to take me and this guy? He was a competent hunter. His name's Steve. Steve comes out and kills cow elk every single year. He started western hunting in the 90s and was doing DIY hunts with some friends of his with horses in Colorado. And then he moved into like the point games and was like able to draw some good tags. And essentially he's just killed a lot of elk. But he has shot one big bull. In 1992, he'd gone on a couple New Mexico hunts and killed some nice bulls. He was a max point holder in Wyoming. He'd Killed a couple nice bulls. But basically he was like, man, I just want to see. You know, he's been on enough hunts. He just. I want to see the top end in the unit. And so I want a local guy to. To kind of show me where they are. And I, like, have kept tabs on them. So based on my experience in this area, I knew where a bunch of herds were at. I learned the hard way from a couple years ago, like, scouting for specific bulls wasn't super helpful, but as you'll find out in the story, it did actually end up helping us get on the better age class. So I knew where a bunch of cows were, and we met up early, early in the morning, you know, an hour before shooting light, maybe a half hour before shooting light. And we drive out to this spot to glass, and we. We park the truck to listen, and glass and we look out the truck window and there's elk 150 yards away from us and bulls going crazy. And there's a whole herd of cows and, like, satellite bulls. And we're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't mean to park in the middle of them. That was a mistake. But they didn't feel too buggered by us. They kind of like worked their way off to like 200, 250 yards and essentially just were like, hanging out and milling about, going to bed. And we looked at the bull in there, and he was a nice bull, but it was opening, not opening morning, but it was first morning of our hunt. And so he was like, that's a good bull, but let's put it in our back pocket. You know, we were talking about it, and we had been chatting in the off season about expectations. And he was like, yeah, I want to shoot a good bull, but I'm also like, I don't want to shoot the first one that comes across in front of us. Let's. Let's look for some good ones. So we left that herd alone. We knew which direction they were going if we wanted to come back and try to find them later in the day. And we went to this spot where I'd run a trail camera. There had been a whole bunch of cows on this trail camera. And one day when I was checking the trail camera with some buddies, we had bumped a bull I was betting in this juniper pocket. And all we knew was he looked good. And he had a seventh. And he was like, oh, this is. This is a long, tall bull. He's got a seven point. That's a sweet bull. But we didn't really know much else about it. So we go out there to the spot and we're glassing, trying to find the herd. The nice part about these more deserty, dry country units is that even if there's a lot of trees around, you can usually pick up cows that are bedded in the shade. Cows and bulls that are bedded in this stuff at some point, especially if it's a big herd, you can look in there and you can pick out one or pick out a leg or something that's like bedded in this stuff. However, if they're. If they're a solo elk, it is awfully hard to find them. They can just stuff into some pocket and be hard to find. So we're sitting there glassing for a little bit, and I'm like, man, I can't find anything off the bat, but there's some stuff underneath us that I can't really see well. I'm gonna rip a bugle and we're gonna see if something sparks back and like, fires back at us where we can't glass very well. So it's like 8:30 in the morning, something like that. And I bugle, don't hear anything back. And I'm like, well, that's kind of weird, but no big deal. Get back behind the glass. I like, rest my eyes to come out of the spot and scope. And I look down below us and I see an elk staring at us. I'm like, oh, I throw my rangefinder and this bull is staring at us from like 500 yards away, just looking up at where we're sitting glassing. And I'm like, gosh dang it. So he's not gonna. He didn't blow out, but he was kind of uneasy by us being up there. And I was able to get some phone scope footage. And sure enough, it's a nice tall, long seven point. And we're like, oh, sweet. That's a great bull. Weirdly enough, this bull was by himself. So we were like, this is. This is a good opportunity. I think we can get this bull killed. So we watched him and he eventually, like, didn't really like our presence and didn't bolt out of there, but he just kind of like trotted over the ridge line into this other basin on the other side. And we basically go, okay, what are we going to do about this? So we start putting our thinking cap on and was like, okay, so he's a solo bowl. We're gonna have to call him in because we don't know where he's at bedded in there and it's thick enough like we can't really, we can't glass him up by himself because it's just, you can't. But we tried looking for them, but it was not a place that's really conducive to glassing for a single elk. You're more looking for, like I said, a herd. You could probably dig up in there. One bull, pretty tough. So we, we get a cow elk decoy, and we wait till the thermals are right. We took a second to shoot his crossbow and I'm going to talk for a sec about his crossbow. So Steve is, I think he was like 64, 65 years old. He had shattered his left shoulder at some point in his life and could not draw a bow back, though he was an avid recurve archer for a long time. And so when I was talking to Steve about using his crossbow, I was like, okay, I don't have any experience with crossbows. I understand you have an injury and can't draw bow back. Like that's, that's kind of what they're made for in my, in my brain. And I go, so what kind of distance are you looking to shoot? And Steve goes, well, this is an archery hunt. We got to get to 50 or less. And I was like, oh, heck yeah. Like, this guy, he like, knew like he was having a little bit of an advantage with the, the crossbow, but he was like, this is archery season. We're going to archery hunt this thing. And that was a cool mindset to just go in with off the bat. So anyway, back into the story. We get in there, he shoots his crossbow, and I was like, sweet, that thing's on. We're good to go. We slip in there and get the wind right. We'd waited till 12:30 or so in the afternoon. The thermals are pulling uphill and we just start creeping in and for like we dropped in a couple five, 600 yards into this basin. And then we sat down and we cow called and I bugled a little bit, see if something would come back. Didn't hear anything. And we're sitting there looking around and it's a little sparser where we're sitting, but we just didn't want to push in and blow something out before we had an opportunity to call them in. So we're sitting there and we're like, ah, I don't see anything, don't hear anything. We got to push in a little to the thicker stuff and see if there's something Bedded in the thick stuff. And we get to the sweet ravine, that's really steep, and it's got some thicker bricks, brush in there, some thicker juniper trees. And we're like, awesome. This looks like where something should be bedded. So keep in mind we left the truck and we're in position calc hauling at like 12:30. So this is like 1:32 o'. Clock. We get in there to the second setup and sit down and I start cow calling. Start cow calling. Steve's sitting down below me. Just a couple hundred yard or a couple now, 20 yards and I start raking on a tree. And I stop raking on the tree and I look up and there's a spike walking up the hill towards us. I'm like, oh, sweet. Nice. We got a. We got a bull doing the thing. So I saw him at like 80 yards and so Steve saw him at like 60. And then I stopped raking. Obviously I didn't want to give up my position. And that bull put his head back down, licking his lips. And this little spike walks up closer. He stops at like 30 yards and he sees my decoy and he's like, what in the heck is that? You could tell he was like, kind of confused. And then he kind of like buggers off. And Steve and I go, well, that was sweet. I go down, sit next to Steve, and I was like, well, we just need a big bull to do that. Keep in mind, this is like the 17th of September. So for the most part, the big bulls are with the herd. And then, you know, basically your satellites are out looking, cruising for country. But we had seen this nice bull by himself. So I go back and I do another calling sequence and we kind of hear like this weak bugle and we're like, that's kind of odd. I keep doing my sequence and this bull comes up from our far left and. And we see him cross over this ridge, 100, 115 yards away. And we see him standing there and it's that nice seven point. And we're like, nice, this kind of worked. And he gets up there and he's looking at where I was calling from. I'm behind a juniper tree and he doesn't see anything. So he just kind of like stands there and is like, kind of curious but not sure what's going on. He low key bugles a couple times, but nothing, nothing. Like he's fired up. He's just more like, where'd you go? So then that bull, he eventually just gets bored, I guess, and like Goes back the way he came, and I go, all right, Steve, let's try it again. So the bull goes away. We sneak up to where he had called from, had bugled from. And I set Steve up front and I dropped back into the ravine and I started doing like a cow party. And every now and then I'm ripping a bugle and doing the thing, you know, like trying to make it sound like there's a herd there. And I pop my head back up to check in on Steve. After a good 20, 30 minute calling sequence, I'm also raking a lot. Basically the sequence is cow call, cow call, and I'll do some raking. And then I usually bugle right after I rake. And then I listen and I do that over and over again. Just like, keep it sounding like it's a herd. Keep it sounding like it's a cow party with the bull in there. Something interesting for other bulls to come check out. So I crawled up there to see Steve and just like, check in on, like, what he's seeing. And as I pop up right next to him, I see this bull standing there, like 50 yards, kind of like looking around. And he had come in silent. We're like, what in the heck? Like, this is a nice bull. Like, what in the world's happening? So he's there, but there's no shot for Steve. He's behind a tree for him. And again he just like, kind of gets bored and like goes off the other direction. I know that this, this story is really condensed, but all of this stuff from the time we left the truck at like noon, 12:30 until then, it's like 7pm this is like a full afternoon of working up elk and just kind of grinding, taking it slow, doing a lot of cow calling, like, trying to figure out what bulls in the area might be interested. So it was kind of a win. It was, I would say it's definitely a win. We called a spike in to range, and Steve could have killed that one. That was no problem. And then we called in the target bull too, but the target bull came in silent. And as we were leaving that night, Steve and I were talking, like, man, that thing was just timid. Like, that was just a timid bull. And he's really nice. So wonder who whip the out of him, because he is really not aggressive. You know, it's kind of interesting, like, elk behavior, especially for a nice bull like that. So the next morning, we get out there and we're glassing the same set of cedar hills. I. I use the Word cedar and juniper interchangeably. I don't know why, but people that I've been around in Wyoming call them cedars. I know they're a type of juniper tree, but let's just. I use those words interchangeably anyway. So we're glassing these hills, and as we're glassing the hills, at first light, we hear bugles down below us, but we can't see them. Like, we can't see the owners. And I'm like, all right, let's just hang out. Eventually, these elk will come out of the bottom and, like, get into a place where we can see them. And there's a couple satellite bulls that you can see. We ended up seeing, um, three pop out of the drainage early. There's two that went off to our right, One was off to our left, like, and there's just the sounds of September coming out of this bottom. It sounded awesome. There's just bulls going crazy. And things were. Things were cranking on the morning of the 18th. So then we finally get a glimpse of some cows coming up the hill, and we see a bull following them, and he's just bugling his head off, kind of running around, trying to keep his cows rounded up, keep. Keep the satellites run away. And he is wide, he's heavy, and he has got a body of an absolute donkey. He is a huge body bull. And we both look at each other and go, oh, that's why that seven point was, like, timid. He's been getting his ass kicked by this guy. So that bull, it's like, okay, we would definitely shoot that one, or we'd shoot the seven point. And it's only day two of this hunt. So we're thinking, like, let's figure out a way we can try to hunt that herd bull. And as we're, like, watching the herd, watching where they go in the morning, the seven point shows up on the outskirts, and he's just kind of pacing back and forth on the outskirts, and he doesn't even try to steal cows. He's just, like, kind of watching and kind of seeing if he can get an opportunity. But he's just not making a play on any of the cows, which, again, this is just super interesting to be able to watch these elk do this thing because it tells you a little bit about how to hunt different herd dynamics and how to hunt different herd animals at various points in the rut cycle or based on where you find them. So essentially, this herd bull, he's with this group of 35 cows. There's a Bunch of bikes and satellites running around. And there's also a nice six point, like just a classic nice six point. He steals away five cows or six cows, something like that and goes off. And again, the seven point never gets any cows. He's just sitting on the outskirts of this herd and we watched him go up and around the corner and bed. They actually bedded right where we had bumped the bull while checking my trail camera in with, you know, checking that trail camera in August. So I was like, oh nice. Yeah, we have a pretty good idea where they went. So we get up and around and basically hang out like half a mile from where they're at. We know the right where they are, but we go, the wind's going to switch and we got to just like make sure we got really good wind. So we literally made a sandwich and friggin hung out and just waited for the morning thermals to be really steady, pulling uphill for directionals in the morning thermals to be consistent. And then I was like, all right Steve, let's just slip in here really close. And I, I think they should bed from the west face to the east face and they should come across right in the, right in the crease where I put my trail camera. And they should, again, this is all like things I'm saying should. They can do whatever they want. They're just animals doing their animal things. But I'm like, I think this is what they'll do. I've had them on camera doing this thing. So we slip in there and we get sat down and we're waiting and we're waiting and we're waiting. And about one o' clock we hear a bugle. And this is, we've been sat there for two hours waiting for something to happen. Hey everybody. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I had to take a minute to let you know that the virtual AI hunt buddy, it's, it's free. I just removed all the limits for hunting season because I wanted to make sure that everybody who has a question about their Western big game hunt can find someone who has some information about it to help them sort through the problem. And even though it's just me, but virtual, there's a ton of information that it's been trained on based on real life experiences of myself, my clients and hunters, and also other people I've interviewed and written articles with in the past. Be sure to check out the AI hunt buddy at huntwestplanning.com backslash virtualhunt buddy. If you just go to huntwestplanning.com it's actually right there on the homepage, so you can just click in and go start messaging it, bouncing ideas off it, whether it's gear, how to hunt a unit, what to prepare for, that kind of thing. It's there 24 7. All right, back to the show. One o', clock, we hear a bugle. And we're like, all right, sweet. They're going to come up and over onto the east face. As you as you can visualize this, all east faces in the west are basically shaded in the evening, and all west faces are super hot in the afternoon, evening. So most of the time, animals don't. They'll. They'll go to the west face in the morning when they're shaded up. And then once the sun hits somewhere around noon to 2, they'll get up and re bed and go to the other side. So that's just what this herd did. At one o', clock, we hear bugle. And I'm like, all right, they must be getting up by like 1:30 to 2:00'. Clock. They're actually up on their feet. And I like, peek up. I. They're not getting any closer. And I peek up and over to look, and this herd has moved out onto the. The opposing slope. So they did go to east face, but it was the one just across the drainage from them, not up and over the ridge. So we made the wrong gamble on that one. And we were like, okay, no problem. So then I was like, consulting with Steve, I was like, steve, what do you think? Should we ambush him or should we try to get in there and call that herd bowl in? And we're kind of watching the herd dynamics and that herd bowl beds at the top of the hill. He's only got 10 yards above him. He's got two cows. But other than that, he is like at the top of this whole herd. So I'm like, I think we can, you know, we chat about it together. And I'm like, I think we can get in there and call this bull in. We're gonna have to get pretty close, though, because a herd bull is not going to leave his herd of 35 cows to chase a bull at 200 yards. They're gonna do that. They're gonna chase a bull off that's 50 to 100 yards away maybe. And in the least, they'll just like get closer to inspect and see what if they're not? So we wheel back around, hiker, hike our butts up and around. And it's hot and we slip in there and as we're slipping down this cedar slope, it's pretty sparse. That's mostly what caught me off guard is the trail that we were sitting has thicker cover on, on that than where they ended up bedding. But, you know, I mean, even though it was mid-70s out that day, I guess it was just cool enough they didn't need the, the thick, thick shade. So we're slipping in on this herd and we're trying to go pretty slow. And as we're getting closer, we're like at the 150 yard mark because I dropped a pin under on the bush that the herd bull was at at like about 150 yard mark. We're getting ready to, you know, really get sneaky and try to slip in tight. And we bump a cow. And this is like one lone cow that was left over on the other side of the slope, so. So we didn't know she was there. And she kind of like trots up and over the ridge. So I'm like, ah, shit. I cow call. And then the herd bull bugles and I bugle trying to see if we can get him to, you know, expect or think that we're stealing some of his cows. And the herd bull, like, you just hear him getting further and further away. And so I go, okay, Steve, we gotta turn on the afterburner. So we like start heading down after him a lot faster. And as we're like trying to keep up with them, they're getting out and out of reach a little bit, but he's still bugling back at me. And then Steve goes, oh, shit, elk. I drop down and behind a bush and him and I like, stop, take a sec. And I look around the bush and it's that seven point. And he's coming to our cow calls like, oh, Steve, get ready. That's the seven point. So he is on the right side of the bush, a little bit around the corner to catch this bull coming in. And I dropped back just a skosh. I'm out of sight, but I'm not. I mean, we're behind one juniper tree. It's. It's a big juniper tree, but it's a juniper tree nonetheless. I'm sitting here thinking like, man, there's not much cover here. I'm curious if this will work. So now, after noticing it was the seven point that was non aggressive, I stopped bugling. I didn't, I didn't. I hadn't done any bugles since we blew out that cow, but I stopped bugling. I Was like, okay, this guy's just going to come in for cows because, you know, he's clearly gotten his butt beat. So I just start doing some cow calls like, And it was pretty consistent. Hopefully you can hear my terrible read list cow calls through the, through the mic here. But basically I was just consistently calculing and it wasn't like some hyper, hyper speed. It was more just like an assembly. I guess you could probably call it assembly. I don't know. I don't know the names of the calls very well. I just know kind of the general behavior that happens when they're doing it. It sounds more like a behavior when they're up and they're kind of moving around. They're just chatting with each other. So I'm doing this and I told Steve before, like, I'm gonna range fine for you. I'm gonna count, call, stop him, and then you shoot. So I pretty quick, we can see the antlers coming from over the top of the bush and he's getting pretty close and we see him poke his head out and he walks out with just his hindquarters still behind the bush. And I range find and right when I'm about to stop him, he stops in his tracks and Steve lets loose. And so like, oh, shoot. Like I didn't even get a chance to tell Steve the range. Well, it turns out Steve's a dang good hunter. And while I was calculing, he was ranging things and knew how far that bull was going to be. He was either going to, you know, there the closest bush was 22 and the furthest bush was like 48. And he came out closer to that close bush. So he was like, oh yeah, it's a 30 yard shot. So anyway, he shoots this bull and I'm like, all right, hold on, Steve. And I like kind of poke around the edge while he's like getting his, his crossbow loaded up again. I poke around the edge and I'm looking out and I see this bull facing away from us still. And I'm like, huh, that's, that's not usually a bad sign when they're not running anymore when he turns broadside. And I said to Steve like, well, they don't usually make it when you shoot them there. Steve had put that bolt right through the center of the triangle. You'll hear people talk about like the deadly triangle on Alkalot where it's just up from the leg technically, but there's an empty spot there that goes through the front of the lungs. And usually Hits heart and it's a great shot. The bull was just barely slightly quartered towards so it went in there and it came out mid lung on the other side and it was just like, oh, couldn't have Chef's kiss. Could not have put the bull the arrow in a different spot and had a better result. So he just went out there about 100 yards. We're just sitting there watching him in our binos. He gets wobbly legged and tipped over. The celebrations beginning. So the important part about this whole experience was it was the middle of the rut, but we had two different bulls of roughly the same caliber doing two vastly different things. One was the the big herd bull running cows, not leaving his herd, doing all crazy sorts of stuff that you see on Primos. And then the other one was a really nice mature bull that had gotten his butt beat and he was being timid and hardly bugled at all and came into cow calls silently. That is what I think people miss in the nuance of September elk hunting is you always expect like the biggest bulls or the bulls in general to come in bugling doing their thing. And especially in this late season, it feels like if you're not on the one herd bowl, you're going to find bulls that are timid and, and they're going to come in more to cow calls and come in silently more so than you'll find the alternative, like that whole every bull seeking behavior that was the first two weeks of September and we are well beyond that now. So I would very much so be expecting to either a be hunting a bugling herd bull by slipping in silently kind of doing the Cody Rich slash Brian Barney move where you're, you're getting in tight and you're trying to wait for the herd bull to make a mistake or you're going to be expecting to call in a satellite. It doesn't mean that the satellites are all small, they're not all raghorns. But you're going to be calling in a satellite with a little bit less aggressive of a tactic than you might have had earlier in the month. They've had their butts whipped by elk at this point and they've been call shy by other hunters. And it's just going to be a different experience than I think that people picture in their mind. So going into this last few days be thinking about two things. One, you should be able to get herd bulls to respond, especially at night. If you aren't finding the herd of cows itself, keep looking like, keep covering big miles when I kill my bull in 2019. I did like 18.9 miles that day to find him, to find the elk, I should say. And once I found the elk, then I was able to peel a satellite off with cow calls and get him killed. The other thing is, if you're hunting a mature bull like this is a thing that Cody talks about a lot is like, you got to, you can't pull him out. You have to find out where they're going and kind of intercept him. And then you can kind of pull them a little bit. You can pull him 20, 30, 40 yards off his course, but you're not going to pull him 5, 600 yards across the drainage like you might have done the first couple weeks of the, of the month when there didn't have any cows. So, looking forward to this last week of season. Just keep in mind this is where you can leave it all on the table if you're an archery elk hunter. And this is where you're, you're going to be able to look back on what you do with these next couple days and say whether or not you left it all on the field or if you are going to have some, some regrets about what you did as far as your effort. There's a old saying that, you know, my football coach would tell me when I was in high school, he was like, there's only two things we can control. That's our attitude and our effort. And that's the same thing in elk hunting. As long as you've got a great attitude, you've got a positive attitude, it can all come together in the last couple days. And that's where you're sitting right now. So be sure to keep after it, guys. Otherwise you've got, you've got 11 months to wait for it to come around again. Looking forward to the next week or so next couple weeks. Like I said, Cody, Rich and I are going out on a rifle elk hunt deep in the backcountry. We're really excited about this. We're going to be looking for big bulls. And what we're going to be looking for primarily are where these big groups of cows are and what big herd bull is running that, that herd. What happens a lot of times though is like you'll see a herd middle of the day and it might have a decent bull that's sticking with it. But a lot of these big old bulls will also kind of bed off by themselves during the day and then in the night and in the morning, like when their activity is really going on. They'll come down in and breed cows at night, then they go off again by themselves in the day. So you're basically looking at each of these cow herds as like a quote unquote bait pile for the big bulls to come in. You're going to get some satellite bulls especially branching off, and maybe they're licking their wounds and they're getting ready to just call it a quit on the rut this season. But for the most part, every herd of cows that you find will most likely not every time, but most likely have a bull with it somewhere. So whether you're gearing up for one of these early rifle seasons in Wyoming, or you're getting ready for a Utah over the counter, or you're getting ready for Colorado first season, just keep in mind that you're still going to be hunting the cow groups even well into the second week of October to find a, to find a bull to hang your tag on. The other thing to keep in mind, this time of year is essentially the month of October is just storm watch. Cody and I were talking about it today. The expectation is sometime in this first week of October we're going to get a big low cycle system come through and probably put down snow on us in the high country. You're also probably going to get some rain down low. And for the most part it's just going to be a classic, like first October big snowstorm where it'll hit and then it'll melt. And I do not expect the elk to come out of the high country. I had this conversation a little earlier on the podcast and I've had conversations like this with multiple people who are hunting like first season Colorado, and people will be like, well, if it snows the first week of October, will the elk come out? And it's like, no, no, no, no. They're definitely going to stay high until that mid October or later time frame. The best feeds up there. The least amount of hunting pressure is usually at the tops where there's no roads and it's hard to hike up to. So I'd still. Even if you get a good snowstorm somewhere between the 1st and 5th October for that first rifle season, or like the Utah general rifle season, I would still expect to go high even after that first storm of the year. Once you get the second storm of the year, then maybe some things will start shifting and they'll move into a secondary spot. But like I said, for this first two weeks, I, I still think going high for most elk hunting is a really viable option unless you're going low and using some of the private boundaries where they've been pushed from archery and rifle hunting pressures in Colorado. Also muzzleloader pressure to get into private and into some sanctuaries. So keep that in mind as you're looking at your plans. If you see some snow in the forecast, again, don't think that all of a sudden the elk have bailed out. They're big, tough animals, they stay high a long time and usually a lot longer than we expect. And they're either going to be at the top or they're going to be at the bottom, working along some private public boundaries, especially once the shooting starts on your average opportunity type hunt. So I just said that October is the month of storms. Um, that is especially true for mule deer as well. One of my favorite things about mule deer hunting is that deer go get so tough to find. And a couple friends of mine who were still archery hunting in September, they were talking about this like they were. They had found bucks in the summer, hunted them the first couple weeks of September, and then they're having a hell of a time turning them up. Now that's like just the classic nature of mule deer hunting. It's not that they've gone anywhere. They're just awfully hard to turn up. Whether they are nocturnal or they're sticking close to the thick cover. This is the time of year that mule deer hunting is renowned for being really tough. Last October, I still had a deer tag this time frame and I was hunting, I think the 3rd, 4th, 5th of October and I was at 11,000ft. I was at the top, top and still finding bucks. So don't expect at least in most standard migration ranges for them to come down yet. They'll stay high until after that first big snowstorm. But unlike elk, I would expect a big snowstorm to push them down into the next level, especially if you get that foot of snow or, or more in the high country. So the other piece of the mule deer hunting equation, this first two weeks of October is oftentimes that it's going to be tough. Like you're not going to see. Even if you've pre scouted animals, you're not going to see them in the normal places very often. But stick with it, they're right there somewhere and it's fun. Like you go talk to guys like a Robbie Denning or Travis Hobbs or Dione and Musha Stagi and like all those guys will tell you, like they don't go anywhere, they're still there somewhere. Or even if they do go somewhere, they're like on a loop and they do come back eventually. So you just got to grind it out. If you've got a scouted animal that you're trying to, a scouted mule deer in particular you're trying to kill. The last thing is if you do get a snowstorm, make sure you're out in it and make sure you're there when it breaks. Granted, we were in September rifle hunting in Wyoming this year when I shot my buck. It was just a classic storm example where it was stormy, rainy, snowy, haily and. And as soon as that storm broke it was like 9am in the morning, so well past your kind of golden hour to be glassing up critters. And we still were able to turn up those bucks cuz like as soon as the, the nasty weather shut off they got up on their feet and they were, they were feeding. So if you can I, I always bring a tarp this time of year. I have like a little electronic hand warmer that I bring that's also a charger. I just bring stuff to like be able to weather out a storm because as soon as it breaks, man, it can be good. Robbie Denning's got a great blog on this topic that it's not a long read but it's worth looking at and he's got some great examples of the two faces of October. One is hunting scouted bucks and then the other is when you get a big snowstorm in October and how well that can, that can just turn deer on their feet and make them a lot easier to find. So. So I would highly recommend that just go Google something like that or maybe I'll put it in the show notes here. So check the show notes and I should have that linked up below. Okay. We're going into basically the bulk of rifle season after these next couple days of archery and I really appreciate everybody who's contacted me with some success stories. They're freaking awesome. There's been some great bulls that hit the ground, some awesome bucks that have hit the ground and, and I just love hearing these stories and seeing the photos. So feel free to keep reaching out and letting me know as that's happening, this next chunk of time is going to be awfully busy. So I apologize if I can't get to everybody's response very quickly. Going to be in and out of the backcountry, in and out of service. So just be, be a little patient with me and I appreciate it and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can. Also, one last pitch. If you are interested in scheduling a tag application session, a Hunt west planning session or a hunt plan in 2026 or for the 2026 season, we've got a booking form thing so that I can get you on the books and make sure that we're holding a spot for you. What we had happen this year was multiple people later in the season wanted to hunt in the same units. And, and I can't take multiple people in the same unit for the same season. I'm just not going to put folks on top of each other. And it's a little bit of a drawback to the, the my business model, but it also as I think the best way to provide equal service and, and quality service for anybody who gets a hold of me. So feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the different services we're doing. I think they're going to change slightly come the first of the year, but I'm going to keep it the same format until January of 2026. So let me know if there's something we could help you out with and I'd love to get a hold of you and or talk to you about whatever else you would like to plant. All right, everybody, that's going to do it for this field report, stay tuned for another one coming in a couple weeks. We got some pronghorn hunting on deck after this elk hunt, which I'm super excited about. Haven't done much pronghorn hunting this year or really in the last couple years. So that's going to be fun. And just maybe, maybe you'll get my buddy Kane on the podcast. He's a little rough around the edges, but I sure love him. So if we're lucky and if anybody who's listening knows who that is, he's a character. So stay tuned and we'll keep you updated. All right, everybody, that's the pod. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to the Hunt west podcast. If you like what you heard today, the best compliment you can give is to share the show with a friend. We will see you on the next episode and we hope one day to see you Hunt West. Sam.