My experience has been that a majority of elk hunters walk logging roads and main trails, calling from ridge tops and other places that they think that the sound will carry from.
I have learned to get off the roads, and away from other hunters.
A lot of hunters will look down into a seemingly impassable deep drainage and bugle from up on top expecting an answer.
I get most of my action by following drainages upstream until I get to the head of the drainage, then setting up and beginning with low volume "herd talk"
It is my opinion that you cannot "out bugle" an elk, but you can sound ridiculous.
Elk rarely are excited unless they have a reason to be.
Loud full volume bugles coming from ridgelines and main roads/trails will rarely get a response, however if you are down in the thick stuff and start out low and slow, then build the excitement...
it is all about making a realistic presentation, much like fishing.
Sure, some hunters get lucky, but to consistantly call in elk you must think about where the elk actually are, then go to them and call.
You hear stories about elk coming in from long distances, but the majority of elk that come to my calls are within a few hundred yards already.
In SW Washington the woods swallow a lot of sound.
It is amazing to me to be involved in a screaming match with a bull, sometimes several bulls, and then meet another hunter on the way out, or at a gate, and have them complain about how "the elk just are not talking"
Although I have had the occassion where other hunters heard the commotion, snuck in on the herd I was working and shot an elk with no idea that I was there,
