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Splash around in the wallow a bit and then go wait for an hour or so.

Look for choke points in their travel patterns like a saddle, fence crossing or something. Build a ground blind out of branches...be careful about the wind again. Ambush them when they come by.

Sometimes you can just rake a rub tree, squeal a little and not too loudly, and then keep an eye out for a silent responder.

Glass the slope across the valley and then spot and stalk one when you put them to bed.

Basically use your brain and knowledge of their habits to defeat their defense mechanism and kill them. Simple, but not easy.

Michael Batease

Bugling Bull Game Calls Pro Staff

We've taken bulls by setting up on trails leading from feeding to bedding areas, wallows/water sources. (trail cameras) We've taken them via Call & Stalk. (one of my favorites) We've taken them when they were totally silent yet accidentally bumped into cows on the way up the mountain, we run at the cows & scatter them & scream 1-2 times with sounds that a bull would use to call these cows to him. It's loud & raspy. We've brought bulls in on the dead run screaming like you've never heard with this method. We've setup & have done the "blind calling method" in elky (sign) areas too, thing is nothing but smaller bulls & spikes show first, it's low odds to pull a herd quality bull in ahead of the others with the standard cow calling & short bugle. To pull bulls in first you can increase your odds by creating the competitive spirit in nearby bulls (within earshot) instead of cows/spikes. Go through your cow calling, elk milling around feeding leisurely, do some light stomping & brush rustling to create the illusion. A couple cows & a calf are perfect, then inject a pre-estrus low volume nasally whine during your regular cow/calf sequence, only 2 or 3 times in a 30 second span, DO NOT OVERDUE THIS SOUND!! Most hunters carry on with pre-estrus whines way to much making it un-natural. Remember, we are not talking Peak Rut!! Now that roughly 2-3minutes have gone by from starting, turn around or move away from your cow calling & give a short high pitch type whistle, kinda like from a 5-point, wait 2 full seconds & give a series of 5-6 low volume rapid chuckles. This signifies to any elk within earshot that this bull has showed on the scene & is calling them to himself. Move back to where you cow called or just turn back around & wait one minute & start raking brush/branches, this shows this bull is "displaying" what he has to offer in an attempt to win them over! Remember cows choose the bull they want to be with! This sequence has proven to be a bull getter instead of a cow getter! (grin) During raking add a few very soft type pleads, wind down with your calling similar to how you started. Be willing to hold your position up to an hour. Setup is important, check wind & make sure you are covered that elk can't sneak in downwind of you. Force them to have to get into bowrange before they can see where sounds are coming from!

We do play it by ear early on when bulls aren't real vocal. At times we get into areas that has held elk for us in the past early on & advertise our position a 1/2 dozen times within 10 minutes or so, this generally will get the dander up just enough with any bull within earshot to come check you out, he doesn't recognize your sounds as a bull who was part of the bachelor groups he's been around in the last 5 weeks or so. Bulls are curious & want to know who each other are in a given area, they want to know what the competition is. Too, who's this bull that has come right into his living room & calling cows from right under his nose? Sometimes it provokes a bugle but in most cases it doesn't but they do show to see who you are! Once you use this method you must stay put for up t 30 min. By the way we also throw in some light stomping & raking as well, this is also a form of trying to attract the ladies & showing what they have to offer. All raking is not necessarily a challenging posture!

At any rate you can see we don't just do one thing, we evaluate an area, test it out with sounds & are willing to adapt to a given situation if things start unfolding NOT according to plan! (grin)

And one never to be overlooked is the lost or re-gathering cow/bull sound, yes, both use it, we've received responses or elk just "show up"from this early on, there are some cases when a bull will respond, one can tell the matureness of a bull by his response especially his ending. If it's a bull that interests us we will move in & give him what he wants, no bugling for him! If we happen to attract a bull with cows by calling for cows early on & he warns us to stay away then we move in close & give him what he doesn't want!! (grin) At times we must get aggressive even early on when the situation calls for it! Herd bulls can be very defensive in Aug--Sept.

If you're hunting areas where glassing can be done then pre-scouting with good optics can certainly come into play for location of these elk & then move in for a stalk or use any of the above to get their attention/interest! I find the better caller you are then the more believable you are & the more confident you are when it's time to use good elk talk! Knowing what you're saying is a HUGE part of our success, we do our best to "fit in" for both the time of year & use sounds elk expect to hear per encounter or time of month. I could go on & on but I think you get the idea of our style? (grin) It works well for us! Good Luck!

ElkNut/Paul

If they're silent, revert back to the methods used before calling became the norm ... if it ever did become that.

The Old Sarge

ElkNut1

If it is this time of year you can pretty much believe that the elk are rutting. It kind of depends on the hunting pressure in the area. Are the elk quiet because of the number of hunters in the area that are calling. If so realistic calling is real important.

Continue to move and continue to call. Look for real fresh sign and spend a little time there giving good calls. I've had great luck by getting in close to silent elk and getting them to respond. A bull that doesn't answer you at 300 yards might scream back when you're 100 yards.

I really like Elkaholicid's strategy and use it quite a bit. You pretty much don't know they are they until they crack a branch or step out.

Called in plenty of rag horns just with a cow call when they were silent. But no shooters that way. At least not yet.

Sometimes I can locate with an estrus whine. They will give you a single short bugle back. You have to modify your calling. A full blown bugle can be seriously ineffective.

i've had luck cold calling with the regathering technique and luck with getting close to likely bedding and wallow areas at mid day.

other than that, i try to get up extra early to be out there more in the dark, and then if suitable for the area, extra time to get to a suitable glassing area before dark.

and i am not shy about cold calling techniques as mentioned above.

I did get a herd to respond with an excited cow/estrus cold calling setup. Late evening and stayed mostly silent myself. Tried two locate bugles on my way into the area, no response. Setup and went into the excited cow talk with some estrus whines. After the second round of calling, I started hearing cow calls and then a bull bugle. So here I was with a bull with some cows. I moved up trying to close the distance and boom, there's a cow. BUSTED! She was way away from the herd, like 150-200 yards from the herd. I wasn't expecting an elk that close. Anyway, she busted back to the herd and they took off.

I waited a little bit and started walking up to my left. I hadn't gone 60 yards when I heard a loud snap straight ahead and there's an elk, with antlers. I just caught a glimpse but he was moving from right to left in front of me paying absolutely no attention to any of my calls I had made. Was unable to get on him after that.

Bummer of a season...

There are other ways to call elk in other than the typical vocal sequence. Try breaking branches and whatnot. Elk are pretty noisy critters, actually, when they are just being elk.

People often find sign that is a day old and think it's newer. People often times find sign that is fresh and the elk only moved through there and are now a mile or two away.

People often times find bugling bulls and pressure them, causing them to move, and then say that the elk became quiet, when they actually are no longer in the area because of pressure or because they just moved on. Or Bubba blew them out and you didn't even know. Or a bear blew them out in the middle of the night... etc etc.

2 miles for an elk (as the crow flies, not gps miles hiked) is nothing. If you're not seeing or hearing elk or walking across steaming, fly-swarming, green poop, it might not be that they're quiet; they might be noisy as heck out of ear shot.

The last two years, I've talked to people in town that have said, "man, the elk sure are quiet," and we were in screaming elk that day.

There were four of us this year, hunting in pairs. We split up and hunted different areas every day, covering a ton of ground. The elk were quiet... We'd run calling set ups and then come to find there were elk within ear shot that never responded. Sometimes we'd get a bugle in response to our locate and that would be it.

The year prior, in the same area, you could pick nearly any drainage and find bulls that would readily respond to your locates. If that didn't work out, not a huge deal cause it wasn't hard to find another responsive bull. This year, not even close, it was totally different.

all that said - I think both Idyll and Mossy are correct and the key is realizing both things can be true things and you need to evaluate other things to determine which situation you are dealing with

really appreciate the input.