When calling to elk for locating purposes timing & use of the right sound is important as well as "Reading The Situation" you may be encountering! Calling elk into bowrange with consistent success is an art in its own & the ultimate western challenge that many here can attest too. Hunters who do not use calls at all can handicap themselves throughout the course of the archery season. Being versatile & knowing your elk country are huge assets to ones success. Versatility encompasses using all the available tools to achieve your goals. These can include glassing, ambushing, treestands/ground blinds, setups, calling & the use of natural elk sounds as raking should all be utilized by the serious elk hunter, leaving any of these out at one time or another can lessen ones opportunities at the most critical times!
Bull # 1 - We located this bull 30 minutes before light with a location bugle. He & 2 other bulls responded back instantly, this let us know there was most likely a hot cow there. The elk were 800' above us & moving up towards bedding. We'd planted the seed with our bugle, that there was another bull below them! As we did our best to close the distance we were able to slip in 300 yards under them as it was just getting light. We could see a few cows above through sparse openings & heard another bugle here & there but couldn't see any bulls but they were near the moving herd. It would be tough to slip in much closer in the broken steep terrain without being seen but the wind was perfectly in our face, advantage hunters here! My son "the caller" hammered out a series of excited cow calls & the biggest sounding bull of the group screamed for this cow to get up there, my son answered the bull hammering back these excited whines & retreated back down the mountain as if this cow was leaving. Answering the bull back immediately shows the bull you heard him & are interested in him. (no more bugles) The bull came charging down the mountain to grab this cow that was leaving, in doing so he was coming right by me as I was kneeling on one knee, I stopped him at 14 yards with a nervous grunt & put an arrow into his heart!
Bull # 2 - We had this bull bugle back to us before daylight. He was a long ways away, over 1/2 mile straight up the mountain & very difficult to get his position in the thick timber before light. We headed up in what we thought was his direction & trampled around for 2 hours on this rainy day, nothing, not a peep was heard! We decided to head back down & check another spot, we were in the area that we had called from originally where we had heard him before daylight, I decided to give a high pitch location bugle, bam, the bull bugled right back from nearly the same area but a bit higher up! We were like what the heck??? We must have just been in a dead area where sound wasn't traveling well & couldn't hear him on our 1st approach? The bull was up nearly a 1000' now -- I looked at my son & Clayton & said you boys go after him & I'll do my best to keep him bugling so you two can get a direction of travel. (They did no calling on their approach) They'd been gone aprox 35 min & I still had the bull respond back to me every 5-6 minutes or so. I finally got a hold of the boys on our garmin gps/radio & asked if they were close & could they see or hear him? My son said they had not heard a sound, I told them he was there still so keep climbing! (grin) 15 min later I get a call back from my son & he says they are within 75 yards from him, they cannot see him but they can now hear him answer me. No more than 30 seconds go by & I hear a faint bugle from where the real bull is answering me, I'm almost positive it's my sons bugle but too far to tell, then silence from my end? 2 minutes go by & I'm like what's going on up there! I think I held my breath this whole 2 minutes waiting to hear what happened! (grin) I knew if my son had bugled something was up or they were busted! He radios & tells me they were busted by 2 unseen cows as they were so focused on the bulls position. The 2 cows bolted & then all he'll broke loose with other cows in the timber scattering, my son knew he had to act fast to let the herd bull know why his cows were scattering so he gave a coarse one note bugle scream for the cows to come back & this unleashed the fury of the herd bull, he came storming in on a string & Clayton took him at 32 yards, what a recurve shot under a high adrenaline encounter! His first bull!
Bull # 3 - My son & I located this bull close to a mile away an hour before light with a location bugle. (see a trend here-grin) We headed his way & got up in the area right at daylight, about that time the bull & his harem were heading out of the small meadow/park they were in, we were on the edge of the 5 acre park but could not see any elk. We had not bugled or called of any sorts from the original location bugle so they had no idea we existed! There was a satellite harassing the group which was great, it showed a hot cow was there, this should keep the herd bull bugling! As the group headed towards bedding they were very vocal, we dogged this herd for just under an hour, we were fortunate they bugled continuously as it would have been tough to keep up with them if they had been moving silently. All of a sudden we noticed all the herd bulls bugles were coming from one spot, this most likely meant they had reached their destination, the bedding area! It happened to be in acres of densely thick 12' high willows, we were aprox 50 yards under the group in the only opening & could hear the herd bull giving off countless tending glugs/glunking as he courted this hot cow, no doubt at least one was nearing estrus! The satellite was close to 100 yards above this group whining/bugling away in an advertising manner, we got a glimpse of him here & there through the thick cover! My son setup 10 yards in front of me in front of a big spruce tree, I couldn't see him, I was just behind him kneeling next to a huge dead downfall with nice dry dead limbs. I screamed a one note coarse challenge & ran my forearm over those dead limbs snapping several off as if antlers were tearing them them off, this herd bull came in to us in seconds screaming his challenge right at us, he stopped 8 yds from me & 14 yds from my son, my son sunk a cedar shaft deep into his heart & the bull was down in under 60 yards!
All these bulls were in the peak of the Full Moon or right near it, we have taken many more at these phases as well over the years. Too, please notice we do not over-call, timing for calling is key here! These are Idaho bulls OTC Public Land DIY. We took these bulls in 6 days during peak full moon phase, all were called in when the time & situation was right!
Here's one of the bulls, it's one of my favorite photos!
ElkNut1
