Public Land Elk Hunting with Ryan Callaghan | Cal In the Field

Ryan Callaghan lucks out by snagging a tough to draw Wyoming elk tag and heads deep into the mountains with his buddy, Brad Brooks. The action starts hot, but the boys find themselves in a September lull. Will Cal notch his tag with a bow in hand? Presented by Ollin
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Holy cats, it’s elk season. Couple days in in the great state of Wyoming. Took me 5 years to draw a tag that most people can draw with one. I’m with one of those people. Uh his name is Brad Brooks. It’s it’s archery season here in Wyoming. Um we’re packing in using llamas. It’s public land as close as you can get in Wyoming for a non-resident kind of over- the-c counter tag. So, lots of people apply for this, but we’re here now and we’re going to do an extended self- sustained elk hunt. We’re in search of a base camp. The ideal spot needs to have feed for the llamas, be near to but not inside the elk zone, close to water, and have a good food hanging tree for our kitchen. This is Grizz Country. Brad will demonstrate how to properly hang our chow. Nice safe underhand toss. Did you Did you hear that little squealy man trying to throw it up there? Watch your head. I’m telling you, for my money, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Tell you what, these are golly tents. I’ve heard great things about them. I slept in one one time. It was pretty good. Yeah. How’d it do for you? Would you say best ever? Or uh if you couldn’t tell, Brad is the owner operator of our goaly. We hunt together because when it comes to hunting partners, I’ll take good attitudes over fitness any day. Brad’s got both, but I won’t let that get to his head. We’ve got eight days together. Every opportunity counts. If we play our cards right, we should bring out at least one bull. So tempting not to. Do you know if that’s a big rock out there or a big elk? Where you looking? That’s an elk. You’re [ __ ] me. Oh, there you go. There’s a bugle. First bugle. That ain’t bad. No, that’s good. There’s the response. Sound like a little better bull. Good. I mean, this is elk tracks made today. Yeah. Right here on the ridge. So, yeah. So, I’d say like we’re we’re in them. Do you want to go try to kill those elk right now? They’re bugling. I think Do you want to just listen for a few for five minutes? You going to set the timer? Yeah. Okay. How do you want to see that’s closer? Told you. That’s why you sit and listen for a minute. I mean, I definitely think I heard bugles that were coming from that group over there. I guarantee you there’s elk right below those two that aren’t even saying [ __ ] right now. Um, so let’s slide back to the saddle. Drop down a little bit. Ease in there. So I say wherever you go, I think it’s going to be a good choice. [Music] This area has a 30% success rate, which is insanely good, but you know, 30% divided by two, carry the four. I am terrible with math. Just like that, we’re into the bulls, but we’re also into the blow down timber, which is a blessing and a curse. Close shooting, but hard maneuvering. [Music] Not always fun to cross these big openings, but sometimes you got to risk it. You can sneak in there with gear. He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s right back. And that little glimpse of antler is as close to an opportunity as you get on some hunts or some seasons. I think maybe we come back tomorrow morning. See if he wants to around. Yeah, there’s so many out below us in the bottom. They’re everywhere down there. Things are looking good. This was just our day to set up camp and lay the groundwork. The official hunt starts tomorrow. No sense in chasing this bull up and over the mountain, possibly out of the country. Yeah. Wash, rinse, repeat type of thing. Get up high, listen, figure out. Yeah, it’ be nice to have like a full day to chase all those beautiful elk around. Yeah. Push one of those big boys to bed with his cows. Go in there, stick them. That’s my favorite. I like it. This ridge is that ridge is what you’re saying. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the drainage coming up right there. Okay. I can see a bunch of old guns. Tell me where you’re looking. And see those ones that naked eye meadow. I saw them before I sat down. And then below them about 200 y there’s another group of elk. Oh yeah. Oh, little tiny calves. Oh, there’s our big boy right down the bottom. Oh, man. [Music] God, there’s stalk everywhere. It’s a big body everywhere. I’ve seen them all over the place. There’s three bowls. Oh, yeah. Holy [ __ ] Two satellites. He’s the king. It doesn’t matter where you elk hunt, you’re going to end up during archery season in the bottom of a hole. [Music] [Music] We got a bull responding right on the back side of this hill. So in the shade there is going down in the sun there’s going to start moving up. Best thing for us to do get in the shade on the same ridge as this bowl [ __ ] must have smelled us. I get him with you. Yeah. God, did you see him? Yeah. Oh, he did. Yeah. I mean, he read the playboat obviously and I should have just gone for this Yeah. shade and stayed more on this side, but I How far was he? I didn’t think he was going to pop out up here. I thought he was going to come in through the timber down here. Why don’t we I think we should chill out. Maybe have a snack. Wait for this wind to settle a little bit. That sounds good. Four on down. Think about our actions today. But the action is far from over. Should we all ass for the timber, you guys? [Applause] [Music] There he is. [Music] That was a lot of elk. Yeah, dude. There’s so that’s so many eyeballs. Yeah, it’s all those cows. I don’t want to Yeah, I’d rather find something that doesn’t have that quite that many uh other elk with it. All right, pack it up. You find them where you find them and you deal with it then. It’s only been 24 hours of hunting, but it feels like the elk attitudes are changing. A solo bull adjacent to a herd bull should come in for a look. I’m hoping attitudes swing back in the right direction in the morning. A different morning this morning. Just real warm up high like a little inversion. I’m trying to listen a little bit just to kind of hear where the bulk of the action is. And then uh we’ll start dropping elevation, get down into the hole. Communicating with elk is trial and error. We have bull calls, we have cow calls. We can be harsh and challenging or calm and welcoming. And just like with people, sometimes you just can’t say the right thing. Thought that had dead bull written all over it. I could have shot a spike. Is that what came in? There’s a spike and a piece of rag horn. Again, we’ll leave this bull hoping we can come back to him later or find another. When you you’re up high in the morning, the wind’s draining. So, anything that cuts off below you, you got to work to get underneath or parallel with uh or else they’re going to wind you. There’s a handful of bulls in here. Two of which sound big. That’s our bull. Let’s see what we’re inside of. See what he thinks here. [Music] That’s what you call a spike plus. He’s got brow tines and couple extra points on top. We are in the elk, but the bulls are just not willing to move. Either for fear of getting their butts kicked or fear of losing their ladies. Llamas are from the same family as camels and can go days without water. Even though I’m putting in the effort to take them to water every day, these ones refuse to drink. More effort with no reward. [Music] Oh, it’s hot and smoky at the halfway point of our hunt. It’s what the sailors would call the doldrums. We know the elk are here, but they aren’t moving or talking much. It’s right about now you could choose to remember that in this unit, archery elk success is only about 30%. which when compared to a national average is wildly high. There’s a lot of just like casual happy elk sounds down there. I think if we’re just real chill and couple light cow calls, he should should come in. Wild out here in the woods. [ __ ] your mustache right here. I have one that I keep going on. It’s glue. Not a fashion contest out here, bro. [Music] Did you see any of those bulls in here? Oh, yeah. I just That was 30 yards from that guy. Tried to sneak in on him bedded. Mhm. Couldn’t find him. So, I came back out and as you’re coming across bugling, he pipes off and I was like, “Son was there the whole time.” Yeah. I just couldn’t see him. Okay. Well, eat your sandwich. Yes, Dad. Yes, Dad. Yes, Dad. Other than packing out in hopes of finding a new herd with more elk talk in them, all we can do is keep working the timber and hoping for the right scenario. With this many elk, it’s got to happen, right? Back at camp. Got three llamas, which is good cuz that’s how many we started with. Save the headlamps. Look at that. Ain’t that nice? That’s really nice, actually. Yeah. And what’s nice about you can raise it, lower it depending on how much company you have. Whatever you want. Yeah. Whatever you need. Fully adjustable. Yesterday it kind of little storm cell came in really shut everything off. On top of that, it like held the heat down and it just got hotter than than Hades in the uh afternoon and evening. And then uh consequently early this morning, bulls were just ripping like 4 or 5 a.m. ripping five point. Pretty long main beam. Fivepoint though. Big old brow tines. Moving fast. He was looking over his shoulder. I think he’s getting chased by a bendable. Yeah, dude. They might spore. None of them must blow. This is great. You know what’s nice about these guys? There’s no cows. That’s exactly what Brad and I need is to find balls that are transitioning from group to group. They’re a thousand% easier to call in. How’d everything go, Brad? Exactly how you want to go. Oh, that’s nice. jump in there cuz you were gone for a really long time. See anything interesting? Well, I thought you’d never ask, Brad. Jeez. Loot tracks on the trail. other other people. Elk are a lot less talkative. They’re a lot less talkative right now. I’m pretty used to that. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere where I’ve heard people during archery season. having a hell of a lot of fun and just like an absolutely incredible landscape. One that’s so good. I don’t really want to share all of it with you because I don’t want you here. But I do want you to appreciate your public lands. And you know, not to get all preachy and stuff, but we only have 648 million acres of public land in the United States for all of us. It’s not very much. It is not very much. And right now, there’s people out there who are lobbying their asses off trying to make sure that we don’t get any more public land. and that all this public land gets sold to individual owners, which means folks like you and I are not going to be able to come out and enjoy this. Now, you know, there’s some expense involved, right? Paid a lot of money for an elk tag that I got in a raffle and all these hoops and stuff and that’s how I can hunt. But this stuff’s available all year long. Even if you don’t get out here and enjoy it yourself, you should be extremely thankful that this exists because this is where a clean air and clean water comes from for everybody. It’s just that classic thing, man. It’s it’s up to us. And if other people are lobbying to take it away from you, all you got to do is say, “Hey, it’s important to me. It’s that much.” Like, it’s not a big ask. Not a heavy lift. Basically battle here is like the tempo in here has cooled down a lot significantly. It just doesn’t even compare with the first two days we had here. No kid in a candy store. Yeah. Yeah. And like a child wandering through a candy store overwhelmed with options, we came out with nothing. For this deep timber hunting, when you’re as noisy as we are, it certainly helps things a lot if things are a little communicative, so you kind of know where they’re at. Yeah. I mean, it’s difficult, right? Because like that sea of blow down timber is such an elk refuge that that’s what makes this little spot sustainable with human pressure. The hills can’t always be alive with the sound of music. Brad, what’s that? Is that like a music reference? I’m talking about elk bugling. You know the old saying, if you can’t be quick, be pretty. Brad. And Brad, you know, you’re getting there. All he needs is one good one. That’s it. Just Just one. That’s it. Come on. Come on. Let’s go get it. Right there. So, right now Brad and I are split up by about 100 yards. We’re kind of cruising through this dense slope where we know some bulls are bedded. Just light cow calls back and forth. It’s black bear. These balls are just like completely not responsive. We are in their bedroom and it’s just cow gone. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] This is last day. My last day. Yeah. And I got maybe probably an extra day. Yeah. So, we had the bulls fire up last night in like a very willing to work manner. That was the first time we had elk like to a bugle. I’m coming to you to come check you out. Yeah. Been a damn good trip really. I mean, it’s been frustrating that bulls aren’t more playful, but there’s Yeah, you can’t ask for much. I mean, we’re in elk. We’ve seen some great bulls. growing up in Montana learning how to archery hunt. I spent so much time hunting without ever hearing a bugle. Yeah. Right. And so like just the mental relief of knowing that there’s elk here has made this a pretty relaxing trip. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of places I hunt where you might not hear you might hear a you know one elk a day. Yeah. Type situation. That’s pretty normal. Yeah. All right. [Music] Well, I hate to say it, but I’m tapped out for Wyoming this year. It was a damn great time, an incredible hunt, but my time is up. Old Brad, on the other hand, still has a few days and presses on. As luck has it, he makes it count. The elk rut is like a wave. We showed up just on the backside of a peak and we slid down into the trough as the week went on. Now, as the wave of elk rut is starting to build, I have to head on to the next adventure. This sounds cliche, but that big old bull would have been icing on a hell of a cake. I got to take a big part of the calendar and spend it with a great friend surrounded by amazing country and tons of elk, bow in hand, and tag in my pocket. The only limiting factor was me. No fences keeping me in, and that’s because we have public lands and access to them. I don’t need you to do what I do, but we all need you to appreciate the fact that you could. As long as we demand these places exist, all good things take hard work. And trust me when I say people are working hard to take these opportunities away from us. These tags in our pockets are so much more than an opportunity to bring an animal home. They are a ticket to adventure, a challenge, and our doorway to appreciating these magical, unbelievable landscapes. A bull would have been great, but honestly, how lucky are we to experience this?