BULL ELK CALLING SERIES

Even call-shy bulls seldom stop calling all together. While soft cow calls aren’t usually a problem, learning to make soft bull vocalizations was much more difficult.Īt first, I didn’t understand the value of this skill, but Don was a master of it.

Learn Bedroom TalkĪ few years back, a Colorado guide named Don Latham showed me the value of being able to call softly. I don’t know why, but I’ve found that it pays to have a variety of calls with which to experiment. For whatever reason, the bull would only respond to that sound. I tried my distinguished calling again with no success, but every time my client would “slam the cat’s tail in the door,” the bull fired off. But seconds later, a bull hammered back at him. When he did, it sounded like a cat got its tail slammed in a door. The client then asked if I’d mind if he gave it a try.

BULL ELK CALLING SERIES

After several series of beautiful-sounding calls with my diaphragm, we got no response. One year, I was guiding a client who had an old bite-and-blow call hanging around his neck. Sometimes that sound ends up being cow calls from a diaphragm sometimes from a bite-and-blow-style call sometimes a chuckle, or even a whistle through a grunt tube. While high-pitched squeals are generally good choices for generating responses, I’ve witnessed bulls that I swear have a favorite sound that fires them up, and nothing else seems to work. Typically, it’s a go-to squeal that they swear will motivate a bull to answer. Some successful elk hunters have a favorite call. Break this rule too often, and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll experience exactly what JD and I did earlier in this article. Just because a bull didn’t respond doesn’t mean he’s not going to come and investigate, so follow my first rule and assume he’s on his way by giving him time to get there. Oftentimes, their reaction to hearing a call will be to sneak in quietly. Both early season bulls that are just starting to think about gathering cows and late-season bulls that have been called to, can be very hesitant to respond. It’s very easy to get lazy as a hunt draws on and to stop giving bulls time to show up after you call. This is the one that has burned me most throughout my career. I stopped, put my grunt tube to my lips, let out a squeal, and then followed it with a few cow calls. I led the way with JD in tow both of us were simply covering ground and not paying much attention. The time we spent waiting after each sequence of calls became shorter and shorter, until eventually we were doing nothing more than throwing out a high-pitched squeal and a couple of cow calls - listening momentarily for a response, and then moving on.īy the time evening arrived, we were tired, a long way from camp, and frustrated by the lack of any response. Without consciously thinking about it, we’d gradually stopped being as selective about where we stopped to call. We covered several miles that morning, and as the day wore on, the monotony started to wear on us.īy that afternoon, our discipline started to wane. We started out early, diligently setting up each time we stopped to call, nocking an arrow, and then silently waiting several minutes before moving on. It was late September, and our plan was simple - get a rutting bull to answer our calls and kill him. Earlier in the year, we had packed in and hunted up near timberline, but with this short weekend trip, we intended to stay lower in heavy timber. With the season’s end fast approaching, my good friend JD Gossage and I had decided to take a quick weekend trip to some public land not far from home.

Bull elk calling