Aggressive Elk Hunting for Herd Bulls
The majority of hunters each fall head into the woods with the idea in mind of calling a herd bull into range. Switch up your tactics and become aggressive to increase your chances.
I’ve probably heard it over a thousand times that “you need to call sparingly”, “don’t sound like too big of a bull”, “I like to setup 100 yards away while my partner sets up 75 yards behind me” and the best one of all “Roosevelt elk don’t call very much”. While sometimes these quotes maybe true or work in certain situations I do not subscribe to any of the rhetoric above. Instead I employ what some would call the run & gun, call too much and too loud, spook too many elk trying to get close, and the guy that scares all the elk out of an area guy.
Label me whatever you want to, because my only goal is to harvest an elk every year and with the tactics I employ I feel I increase my chances of obtaining my goal exponentially.
GET CLOSE:I mean get within 100 yards before any calling setup and I actually prefer the 60-70 yard range. Some guys say this is not calling an elk in, but I will let them call them whatever they want. By getting in this close you have now become a threat to that herd bull and his cows.
If you do not get close enough the bull has nothing too lose and the majority of the time he will take his cows that he already has and will exit stage left.
USE BULL AND COW SOUNDS: I hear a lot of guys say that they “only use cow sounds when they get in close”. That is fine and WILL work but in my opinion you have just cut the effectiveness of your calling setup to about 25% if you were using a combination of cow/bull sounds or even bull sounds alone.
In the elk world once a bull has his cows he will call new cows into the herd not the other way around (remember this is herd bulls we are talking about, satellite bulls are different). Therefore if cow calling you are expected to go to the bull and a lot of the time a bull will not wander to far away from his herd to investigate this new cow.
By mixing in pleading/whiny estrus sounds followed by a challenge bugle you have just painted a whole new picture for the bull. The bull now sees the situation as a cow coming into estrus and all of a sudden there is another bull tending and challenging for this cow. The bull will go through the whole fight or flight decision and if you did your job and got close enough “fight” should be the right answer.
CALL TYPE/VOLUME: This gets back to the idea about not sounding too big or not too loud. I challenge everyone to go out in the woods and setup their video camera or try it with some hunting buddies and move 100 yards apart and see what the volume is of your calls (you will be surprised).
When I am setting up to call in herd bull I never cut back my calling or put in a reed that sounds like a little raghorn. I hit him with mature bull sounds and don’t hold back on the volume. I also use full length growls, raspy grunts, etc… to give the idea that I am the baddest bull in the area.
CALL OFTEN:When another bull gets fired up he may sound off every 10 seconds and it is necessary to match his intensity and frequency (I try to picture two guys getting into it at a bar. It takes both guys getting fired up for there to be a confrontation).
Even when they aren’t bugling frequently or aggressively I usually still will. I don’t know how many times I have seemed to work the bull up just by aggressive calling and being so close to his herd (picture a guy yelling at someone consistently, eventually the cool calm guy will snap).
Also don’t be afraid to make “natural noise” to add to the realism. Sticks breaking, raking trees, stomping on the ground, etc… only add to proving to that bull that there truly are elk close to him and his harem.
Try some of these tactics this year to increase your odds of bagging a herd bull!
In the video below you can see the aggressive bugling and estrus calling I employ even as the bulls are coming in:
Aggressive calling at 7:30
Primetime Outdoors - Gettin After It: Season 2 - Archery Elk Part 1Aggressive Calling at 11:20
Primetime Outdoors - Gettin After It: Season 2 - Archery Elk Part 2
