Unlocking Elk Hunting Success - Cody Rich’s 4-Step Blueprint

Elk Hunting Systems: Cody Rich’s Proven 4-Step Blueprint for Big Game Success

In this clip from Cody Rich breaks down a tactical approach to elk hunting that separates the consistent killers from the weekend warriors. Cody reveals the 4-step elk hunting system he’s honed over years in the field—covering everything from picking the right unit, to e-scouting like a pro, to locating elk efficiently, closing the distance, and finally executing without relying on luck. This is the ultimate roadmap for hunters ready to ditch frustration and start stacking up success. Whether you’re a first-timer or looking to level up, Cody’s advice will change the way you hunt.

🏹 Cody Rich’s 4-Step Elk Hunting System Recap

1. Choose the Right Area (E-Scouting Mastery)
   • Your tag and terrain choice dictate 90% of your success.
   • Build a system for picking high-probability units and don’t romanticize one golden drainage.
   • Think: access, pressure, efficiency.
2. Systematically Find Elk
   • Treat elk locating like a blood-trail recovery mission: cover every zone methodically.
   • Don’t “hope” elk are there—prove it.
   • More elk encounters = more at-bats = more success.
3. Get Close with a Repeatable Method
   • Develop your own “get in close” playbook (calling, stalking, or slipping into bedding zones).
   • Use tactics that match your style and the elk’s behavior.
   • Stack multiple strategies in your “tool chest.”
4. Seal the Deal Without Luck
   • Remove last-minute failure points: awkward shooting angles, poor wind judgment, or hesitation.
   • Master the red zone with experience, patience, and practice.

Bonus Tip: Treat Every Hunt Like a Recon Mission

• Cody rarely packs deep until he finds elk.
• Move light, fast, and scout smart before committing hard.

Transcript

Ryan Uffens (00:00)
You're listening to the Hunt Stealth Podcast.

Ryan Uffens (00:02)
let's dig into that for somebody that's new to elk hunting that still has the training wheels on how would you tell somebody to go through and build out a system and whether it's for them or just one that you found

that works that's going to be able to have them kind of let the wheels come flying off and get cruising. ⁓

Cody Rich (00:20)
Totally. you know, the hard part is like when you're brand new, you're right off the boat, like you just don't know what you don't know. And so it's hard to be like, here's what's going to be my system. And, you know, I, I kind of called my course the L201, which I think a lot of people are intimidated by it they're like, well, I'm, I'm super new, but I also feel like once you understand the framework, it's easier to apply the pieces later than it is, you know, just playing guess and check. So

I'll take elk hunting, for example. ⁓ and I think, you know, we could just kind of run through my system and it, ⁓ maybe it'll help explain, like everyone's going to find their own system or whatever. You're, it's going to depend on where you hunt. It's going to depend on, you know, the type of terrain, the type, you know, meal, the reverse, all these things matter. Right. But when I think about elk hunting, I kind of break it into four pieces. And I just had this conversation the other day. ⁓ you know, we.

really, really get wrapped around the axle when it comes to elk calling tactics or shooting our bow and these things. And, you know, those are great, but they're a very small piece of the big picture puzzle. Right. And so I kind of break it up into four pieces, which one is, choosing an area, right? So much, so much of your success is going to be dictated on the tag you have.

And this is something that gets so overlooked. People are like, just come close to my house. Well, if close to your house sucks, like you're going to spend a lot of years not being great. Right. And so, so much of it matters. So we break it into like just e-scouting, being able to pick a unit, be able to pick an area and you know, how you're going to hunt that area. You know, I think we romanticize throwing a dot at the map and we go there and it's like this epic thing. And more often than not, it's

you it's not good. And like, have to like, you know, be able to re-e-scout, relearn. Like, and, and even that is its own micro system. Right. And I think if I'm good at anything, it's, it's being able to pick an area. It's being able to like set it up in a way that's like, I'm going to systematically hunt the entire unit. One of the biggest problems I see when people come to me and say, Hey, look at it. Will you look at this area? Like I'm going there this year. And it's like, man, and that'd be an area I hunt in one day.

Like you're not thinking big enough. so they, you know, they put all this effort into this like one drainage and you're like, what if there's no elk in that drainage? You know, what are you going to do? And this is where people really stumble because they're so fixated on podcasts about whether to cow call or bull call or challenge people that they like, they have this one area and they haven't really thought through this. What is the system for finding elk? So the first step is like, I have to be damn good at finding elk and

That could be in the entire unit. could be all over the state, but like I need a system like I'm going to check this draw. I'm going to check this draw. I'm going to check this draw. And you know, again, lot of people like romanticize this back country hunting, but if you're new, that's probably not the best answer. Like maybe there are pieces of that puzzle and like to each their own, whatever hunt you want. don't want to, I don't want to turn people away from back country hunting, but if you're not, if you don't understand how to choose an area to find elk.

The last thing you should be doing is committing an entire hunt to one place where there may or may not be elk. Right? ⁓ If you're Ryan, I would say if you're Ryan Lampers, it's different. think he's a lifetime choosing spots and he could, you know, he's really good at throwing a dart at the map and knowing there's oak there. He's got a lot of repetitions for that gut intuition, which most people don't have. Right.

Ryan Uffens (03:59)
Well, and he spent so much time

out hunting and to your point, I think, and I don't want to interject myself, like I'm the expert. That's my one takeaway too, is if you're going to go hunt an area, you should go and do some scouting and where you might find them in the summer is not going to be where they're necessarily going to be but it helps you familiarize yourself with the terrain. And that's been one of the big things for me that I'm the guy that's like

Cody Rich (04:19)
Yeah.

Ryan Uffens (04:28)
Boom, that sounds like a good place that I can go try and fill my OTC tag. So I'm going to go there for four days. And then you go there and you didn't do any e scouting or anything. And it's just, it could be frustrating for sure.

Cody Rich (04:43)
Right. So I say like step one is being able to find a unit, find an area, whatever it may be. And like choosing the right, like a little bit of that plays into like, what are your assets? you like, do you have horses? Do you have mountain bikes? Can you hike farther than anyone in the world? Like there's, there's a million pieces to that puzzle and it's its own, like, you know, you can spend hours just on that topic. The next one is like being able to find elk once you get there. Now, the analogy I like to use is, if you, you wounded an elk.

⁓ would you just randomly start looking around in the canyon and like going into different places? No, you would like choose a systematic path. And so being able to, in your East guiding plan, develop a systematic path for like searching the unit. Like, okay, we're going to search this entire unit to find elk. And then we can start hunting, right? Like we have to be able to find elk. So step two is like, can you find elk? This is the most important skill that no one talks about. No one practices. No one can, you know, like that's it's the differentiator.

If I am successful year in and year out, it's mostly because I am able to like find elk in a unit. No one does that. They're all practicing how to get close, to do, you how to kill them, how to shoot, which is great. But, you know, if you're only getting two opportunities, I just had this conversation. If you're only getting two opportunities per season, like it's even I wouldn't be successful, right? Like it's just like that. It's too tough, right?

I had a guy message me that day and he's like, you know, here's the two opportunities I had last year. You know, what would you have done differently? And he had videos of it. He's like, this bull comes in, stops and turns. I was like, man, honestly, I would have made the exact same decision you did. I would have thought that that raghorn bull would have given me a second chance. I wouldn't have thought about it. Right. And he's like, God, what can I do differently? I said, just get more at bats. You need like, if you're, if you're getting 10 at bats, you're going to be successful. 10 at bats only comes with being in the right

units first and foremost, and then being able to systematically find elk. Like if you're on elk every single day, you're going to be far more successful than if you spent five days trying to find elk in an area. So that's a big piece of it, just being able to find elk, right? And you we could, you could dive into like an entire system of how that works. Then it's like, then it's like, okay, how do you get close to elk? Which is it, you know, it's the thing that everyone, it's the sexy part. It's the thing everyone wants to talk about, wants to do. It's like,

Do you call? you stock? you... But too many people only focus on that. To me, it's kind of the easy part. Like getting in the red zone, it's a hurdle, but like it's not the biggest hurdle. Finding elk, it's the biggest hurdle. And so like then you develop your own system and whether that's like, you're like, I'm going to locate and every bull that answers me, I'm going to run in a challenge bugle. You know, that's a system. And if you had enough elk and you were good enough at finding elk, that would work.

It doesn't work that great anymore, but like, you know, it would work. Um, and so you're like, that's my system. I usually like to have two or three, you know, like in the tool chest, you, got your cow, your, your calf call, right? Like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to get close. I'm going to just hammer on my calf call and see if I can call bull or I'm going to, I'm just going to slip into bedding areas and I'm going to do light cow calling for 30 minutes. Like that's one of my tactics. And I'm just going to hammer that over and over and over. And that's how I'm going to get close to.

So like you could develop an entire system around, you know, step three. And then step four is like, I think it's called how to, how to be successful without getting lucky, which is, you know, basically from the red zone on. you know, this is where most people make mistakes. And, and to be honest, like you kind of just have to go through a lot of those to like get, you know, learn how to move around elk when you're that tight, when to draw, when not to draw, you know, like it's, there's a lot of the taking out all the variables that you can.

as far as like being able to shoot from a kneeling position, like all these little things that will screw it up at the last moment, which happens to a lot of us, but you know, like there's a lot of things you can dive into. So I guess that's kind of the rough outline. I don't know if there's anything like you like, man, I want to dive into this piece.

Ryan Uffens (08:48)
I mean, the finding the elk portion, think is like you said, and that's that's step two, right? Because, if you can't if you can't get to step two and find them, there's no three or four. maybe you can get lucky on accident.

I've discovered that when I try and do a cow call, I sound more like a mountain lion. So nothing's coming running to see what I am. But anyway, if you would be willing to dig into a little bit more of your system and how you do that, and maybe from an e-scouting perspective,

Cody Rich (09:11)
Yeah.

Ryan Uffens (09:24)
the e-scouting is probably gonna be your best bet. Maybe just touch on a little bit of that if you would.

Cody Rich (09:29)
Absolutely. I mean, I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. Like I'm, not getting scout time like I used to. ⁓ I, I'm e-scouting at night when my wife watches Netflix. Like that's just what I do. But it's like that phase goes hand in hand with, you know, kind of the finding elk phase, which is, and I learned this really from the unlimited sheeps in Montana. Sheeps, the sheep stag, the unlimited sheep hunt in Montana is one of those.

And sheep hunting in general, think it's just one of those you have to be very efficient with your use of both time and like energy resource, right? Because it's like every glassing spot, it's not like, I just run up to this glassing spot. It's like 4,000 vert. And you know, you really got to plan your routes. You really got to know exactly, you know, you can't just be like running around in there in the, in the wilderness, like, yeah, let's go over here. Let's go over here. Let's check this. And so you have to like get.

there may be a spot you really like, but at the end of the day, it's just not efficient, you know, because it's not aligned with a bunch of different ways. And so it really made me think about Elconning in a different way as like, and I think this is also what Lampers and, ⁓ know, Barney are really good at is they build their like paths or whatever. So it's like, you're efficiently scouting a unit. And so when I think about e-scouting, it's not just like, what looks good? What's a north face with this angle and whatever, like,

It can have the perfect face, but it's nine miles to get to. And it's the only spot to hunt. It is not worth my time. I'm probably still going to do it because I have this like, you know, I gotta go see, but for the most part, you really want to be able to like, if I hunt this ridge, right. And I can stay high. I can go here, here, here. ⁓ inversely, like, if I hunt this long North face, I can, I can check this Canyon, this Canyon and this Canyon. You're like, well, now I'm not just throwing a dart at the map and hoping there's an out there. am.

systematically breaking down this unit to where like, I'm going to like, here's my three sections. I have different elevations. have different ⁓ aspects. have different vegetation. Like I have everything and I am going, here's how in three days I could basically search half the unit. That's really efficient. And by the way, it makes you effective. And so instead of saying like this one golden spot, which I feel like too many people get honed in on like the perfect

I don't know, culmination of north facing aspect and this timber and this, it's like this, they think it's this magic Goldilocks. I can tell you, like, I've just hunted enough to know that there's not really a Goldilocks spot because even the Goldilocks spot you find this year in two years from now, you're like, why the heck did all these elk go? Like, they're just not here. And so when you really just think about finding elk as like, I just have to figure out where they're at this year and, and where the, you know, why.

There's so many variables in hunting that it's really difficult to like solve for all of them. And so I just focus more on how do I be really efficient and effective with my time and boiling down? Like I e-scout the crap out of it. So I know every path, every route, and I'm going to figure out the unit and I'm going to search, I'm going to search a canyon and be done. out. Like there's no out there. done. I'm out. I'm moving very fast.

Ryan Uffens (12:45)
when you sit down and you start looking for locations that you want to go in and scout, what are some of the key things that you want to try and look for that would be that, you you're to have an increased likelihood of having elk in that location.

Cody Rich (13:01)
Yeah. mean, like a lot of this is gut intuition and lots of time, right? Which is not the answer noobs want to hear, but you stared enough maps. Well, and it's like, you know, and I think too, how I figure a lot of this out and get good at new areas is by looking deeply at the areas I have found. So it's almost like a hunt recap. So like you go on your hunt and you find where an elk was, like go back to e-scout it and like, look at the timber density on the map.

Ryan Uffens (13:09)
Well if that's the answer, that's the answer though.

Cody Rich (13:30)
Look at like a few of the features. Why were they there? And there's no perfect place, right? Like you could, the most remote place on the map. Like Onyx put this like purple section in there where was like the most remote. That's where the most people are now. Like that's guaranteed the most people. You know, it's like the most remote equals the most people and the heart, yeah. And so like, there is no like perfect, I don't think there's any perfect like, this north facing slope or this.

bull canyon that faces north or this burn. To me, it's like, I've, I don't know. I just learned over the years that like, I don't, there's things that look Elky and it's a blend of like timber densities, openness, thickness, ⁓ know, water sure in certain places, maybe not in others. But to me, I almost care less because I found that I find out where they're at. And you know, a classic saying is like, don't.

elk where you think they're going to be, hunt them where they are, which is to say, just figure out how to move through a unit very effectively and search it. I mean, it's like looking for your keys in the house. You know, don't want to just bounce around. You're like, I know they're here, but like, okay, the two year old moved them. Now where are they? Like, who knows? And so like, kind of just have to be like, think like an elk a little bit, but they kind of are where they are. The deer or the elk is like so many times I have thought an area was perfect.

Ryan Uffens (14:45)
Yeah.

Cody Rich (14:55)
It didn't end up to be true, right? Like I just found them where I found them. And to me, that was a big aha moment of, you know, like I can have my ideas of where I think an elk is going to be in a unit. And I may be right. I may be wrong, but it doesn't really matter because I am going to just search this unit. it's my job. I'm going to show up. And a lot of times I will drive an entire unit. I will burn a day to see the entire unit and the roads. And that's all I need to see. And then I'll start taking exploratory missions. Like I rarely would just

bomb in and say like, we're going to this spot. I am very much like base camp, whether that's the truck or whatever. we're spike, like we're going super hard and fast. If we bump elk, we bump elk, but we're like, we're just need to figure out where they are. And then we can figure out how to hunt them. I think a lot of new hunters think like every

Ryan Uffens (15:42)
So almost treating

it like a recon mission, right?

Cody Rich (15:45)
Yep. It's

a hundred percent a recon. yeah. And I'll, mean, like, I'll go five miles and not take any sleeping, anything with me. And I just like, I'll be, I'll be back out. If I need to go back out and get camping gear, that's fine. But I rarely, rarely take like backpacking equipment unless I know there's elk in there. Cause I'm just, you know, to me, it's like, it's a recon mission. And if we get into elk and we kill an elk, that's fine. Solve that problem. But, you know, again, it's like, how do you.

Ryan Uffens (16:13)
Yeah.

Cody Rich (16:15)
move faster. I think that's a big problem that people are like, they're always hunting and they're not searching. I don't advocate bumping elk, but I think too many people walk through, like there's an elk around every tree. And you do this long enough and you kind of figure out like, man, there's pockets for sure. But like the vast majority of these mountains is not just an elk around every tree. And if you hunt where there is an elk around every tree, then call me. We'll discuss a different plan.

Ryan Uffens (16:37)
Yeah.