Some food for thought on the subject as we prepare for elk season. Nothing earth shattering just some good ole experience & common sense reasoning!
If you really think about it & go over some of your past encounters with both bulls & cows (hunting or scouting) you’ll come to appreciate that both genders can produce a form and variation of any sound. A cow can make any sound a bull can make & a bull can make any sound a cow can make! Both can bugle, more mature bulls will have in most cases deeper sounds but more immature or younger bulls can sound much like a cows bugles or grunts. Both can give the Popping/Nervous Grunt therefore both can grunt or chuckle if the need arose. Cows have a vocalization of their own that they're most known for as do bulls. But both can produce all these sounds!
This comes to the question, why do bulls use cow sounds? The answer, the same reasons cows do! The meaning does not change just because the sound is heard by a bull or cow. Most Elk Sounds can be identified with or their meaning understood by us hunters as well as the elk themselves. Both genders can & do use contact mews & chirps for location reasons of the group or seeking out one another.
Both will use re-gathering sounds that can be shortened or lengthened out for a more demanding tone. Bulls can use mews & chuckling or short screams with mews when looking for the cow that they've heard. (Your cow calling) Both can mew, bark, whine or growl for the very same reasons. The meaning does not change because the sounds you experience are coming from one gender or the other! No more than you or your wife talking or explaining things to your kids, you're both saying the same thing.
Hope this bit of info helps out unraveling some of those encounters you've been in & heard both cow & bull sounds yet only see a bull with no cows? Most likely it was a bull using these sounds himself! Good Luck this season!
ElkNut1
