Hey Leveraction, I’m feeling the elk blues too. I’m a new hunter, currently in my 3rd year. Been spending my winters eating tag soup the last three years other then some grouse but I make my annual week long or so backpack trip solo into the woods in attempt for an elk. So far nothing. In 3 years I’ve only had 3 replies. This year finally called a bull in! I had a solid 5x5 at 87 yards as I am a rifle hunter this bull was off limits but damn was it an experience. I’m by no means an expert but I think you just need to practice a ton and rip your bugles with conviction and as Dapesche said you need to cover ground the elk are few and far between so keep looking for sign. I was recently in an area where the woods were all quiet in the day but at night they game alive. I say just grit your teeth and keep going for broke. It’s good to know my significant other isn’t the only one smirking when I head out for a hunt.
^^^^you got it exactly right, keep practicing, with a little more luck that 5 pt would have been a 6 pt, 3 years is nothing trying for elk...practice does pay off, as I recently learned....
I don't know what a cat stuffed under an armpit sounds like, but I have a good sense of what elk sound like. Hunting elk also depends on where you are hunting. Different tactics for different geographical and topographical areas.
I think the one thing I employ in my elk hunting, which perhaps gets overlooked, the bulls have just spent the summer together, they know who each other is and what each other sounds like. As a hunter, you are an intruder into their home. It takes time to have your bugling presence accepted. Persistence is important.
There are so many different sounds a bull makes, that it is less important what your tone is, or how long you hold the high note, and more about know what type of call to give, and when.
- Grunts and chuckles, while raking an alder
- Monkey chuckle (if you haven't heard it, you haven't been close)
- Glunking (always interesting when you are close)
- Long mew while stomping ground and raking
- A short bugle 'at dawn' (used with a grrrrowl out of your chest, a short whistle) letting the cows (who have been feeding during the night) know where you are
- A long two tone searching/location bugle. Not the best when you know you are in close
And on it goes. Getting too aggressive when playing a bull can scare them off.
Listen to the bulls in the area you hunt, the starting point is to mimic their calls. And mix it up from there.
Someone mentioned the need for patience when calling. Ya, NOT. Ok, if you know there are bulls in the area and they aren't returning a bugle, then shift to cow calf combos. Calf first, cow second. Lost calf, Mom giving reassurance. It has to be a quick sequence. A Mom wouldn't pause to reply to her young. it has to be quick.
If you hook on to a bull that replies, get moving. Cut the distance in half, as quickly as you can. Patience is for hunters that don't cut a tag. Show him he's in your turf. Push him.
Depending when you are hunting relative to the rut, if you find the bull, and push him and push him, eventually he will get pissed and turn on you and come in. It might take a morning, it might take a few days of pushing. But eventually the bulls turn and come to the challenge.
The only time patience is important is in the number of days you have to hunt elk. It's very difficult to come to an area you haven't done reconnaissance on and expect to take a bull in a couple of days. It takes time to get into the rhythm of what is already going on, find the elk and find/insert your place in it.
As I've mentioned in other threads, bugling and calling elk is like fishing. You don't go fishing with one hook. You need a bit of a tackle box, a selection of reeds and mouth calls. Some quiet cow calls, some louder cow calls. If one isn't working, mix it up.
Glunking was one i heard just the other year for the first time in person (seen on videos).
Definitely makes you think what the hell if you haven't heard it before.
At the same time we heard a bunch of branches breaking a 100 yards or so in front of us, and moving right to left and left to right,
all the time with this odd glunking sound.
At the time i was bugling and i was hearing something approach thru the timber, so i was prepared for a bull to step out.
I think now it was a cow elk that was approaching to my calls, and at the last second a bull herded her back.
In videos that i have seen, bulls make that glunking sound when they are trying to round up the cows.
So, that is another call to use in the arsenal to confuse a lone bull into thinking your a bull with cows.
I have found that they are way more vocal in the early morning hours while it is still dark ( around 0400 ) . Gives you time to guesstimate their location and head there . I have also noted that where there is a heavy wolf presence , they sound like they have laryngitis . Almost as if they know that bugling at full volume gives away their location to the wolves as well . Just my encounters .
In the interests of full transparency, and to answer the OP's question, I currently have work to do on two aspects of bugling.
1) maintaining a consistent tone as I go from the low pitch to the higher pitch
2) Coming out of a growl into the whistle pitch and coming down out of the high pitch into a chest growl.
Reply With Quote
