Hi shed, thanks and hope all is well up north.
To be honest the bigest bull I have taken with a bow is 300 class. My friends on the other hand have taken some nice bulls, from 330 on up to a very nice 371 Net bull taken in 1997 (I had the entire month of September to hunt that year). I learned to call elk by trial and error, starting when I was a teenager . My father's favorite mule deer area was a spike elk only area. When I started bowhunting at age 14. I was with my Dad during his mule deer scouting season in September. I could only shoot a spike or cow elk with a bow. I did hunt, but mostly I had a blast trying to call in the big boys. I don't want to give away the area, For the last 8 years, it has been considered a trophy area for elk. You still have to draw to hunt a bull with a rifle, general with archery. But back to my point I was under no pressure (couldn't shoot the heard bull) so if I screwed up and scared him away, Oh well, I just tried to learn from it so it didn't happen again. I don't consider myself the best and I am always trying to learn new tactics and tricks. But I have or should I say my friends have reaped the rewards of my persistence. I just want my friends or family to learn to call good so I can finally be out in front shooting and not in back calling. My wife will tell people that I have every call ever made from different maufacturers. While it's not totally true, I can sound like at least 4 different elk at once, at the same time. If there are other people in the general area that I have chosen to hunt for the year, I am a pest, and try to find out what calls other hunters, and guides are using. I then stay away from those calls or the type of calling they do. As I am sure you know, elk become call shy really fast. So I try to mix things up, and sound like different elk. I honestly believe that there is not a bull elk out on the mountain that a person cannot call in (even the call shy bulls) you just have to find out how push their buttons so to speak. That can take some time and a lot of effort. When you sound like a small heard of elk (a satelite bull and 4 or 5 cows). It somtimes will drive the heard bull crazy. Other heard bulls might respond best with just cow calling. That is where different cow calls, sounds, come in handy. I try to have at least 10 or more cow calls on me. Different sounding diaphrams, and reeds, and all of the push type calls. Other bulls might respond, though not as often as other methods, to head to head big nasty, "I'm better than you" bugles. I like to use this method when splitting the heard. I will say that in this method you have to be perfect in your bugles. This method is also fun to call in other hunters with guides. LOL. For the most part though I like to keep my bugles less threatening, mixing in cow calls. When I put a shooter in front of me, stay anywhere from 40 yards to 100 yards away. I keep moving trying to zig zag behind the shooter like a real elk. If the bull is coming in on the right of the shooter I try to move left of the shooter and vica-versa if on the right. I also move back at the same time to try to pull the bull into the shooter. I will e-mail you but I thought it would be fun to say this here, and hear what other people have to say. On a change of subject do you turkey hunt? I want to so so bad, but here in southeast Idaho we have to either draw or travel north. I have 2 kids ages 13 month and 27 months old. My wife would kill me if I left her home, she wants to turkey hunt real bad too. So we try to Draw out here locally, no luck yet. My entire family goes for the 2 or sometimes 3 week elk hunt. My wife stays in camp with the kids, just for awhile though. Soon they will be old enough to tag along. Thanks.

(added by his wife) and as soon as they can tag along mom finally gets to go huntin' again!!!