I'm Amazed...
10-13-2006, 03:52 PM
#11
Typical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 590
RE: I'm Amazed...
It appears that I did jump the gun a little bit. I was unaware of the server change.
I've had a new experience in elk hunting this year, seeing the effects of rising hunting pressure on the elk rut. I hunt in the Bitterroots in western MT, among other places. Our elk herds are getting well advertised of late, because we have had record elk numbers showing up in game counts for about three years running now. Our case is an interesting one, because it shows that wolves and elk can coexist, and because we had the "catastrophic" forest fires of 2000 here that burned several hundred thousand acres of forest.
Anyhow, news of the elk numbers has apparently gotten out as of this season, because we are seeing absolute hordes of bowhunters this season. I had gotten into a sweet area beginning three years ago where I saw tons of elk and no hunters. In fact in three seasons, I saw exactly one bowhunter in approximately 30 days spent in this country. I headed in this season expecting more of the same.
I ran into 3 wall tent camps before I got to my camp spot this year! Think of that - jump from one HUNTER seen in 3 years to 3 wall tents in one day. I saw humans or heard human bugling nearly every day of a twelve day hunt. I had never heard a human bugle that I knew of in the previous three years. The pressure came from an influx of MT hunters, plus an even bigger influx of outfitters. I had never before seen an actual outfitter camp anywhere in the Bitterroots during bowseason. The outfitters got a jump on me, as they ran their hunts beginning 9Sep while I started my backcountry hunt a week later. By the time I got there, the hunt had been ruined by standards I was accustomed to.
I can well document specific aspects of this situation, as I keep a very detailed hunting diary. The bulls were in a state of shock this year. Going over my diaries, it's just shocking how nearly every bugling encounter I had went something like this, "Had a bull going a quarter mile below me. Started down toward him, moving slow and with the wind. The closer I got, the less he bugled, and by the time I closed to within a couple hundred yards he piped down and disappeared". This happened over and over again, and I've only previously seen this behavior on rare occasions. Another little diary tidbit: this year, I never heard a single bull bugle between the hours of 10am and 5pm. Not one! In my piece of country it just doesn't normally work that way. From 15 to 30 Sep you can hear bulls bugling at nearly any hour of the day, and on the hottest days you can find bulls that literally bugle every 3-5 minutes from dawn to dusk.
Comparing notes with a couple other hunters I was running into, they all agreed that the outfitters were playing heck with the hunt. (In fairness, I'm sure those same outfitters were blaming us, IF they knew anything was amiss.) See, this is rough country, and if you're not in shape AND willing to dive down into real heckholes, you aren't going to do more than dabble in the edges of the herds. The outfitter approach in here seems to be to load their fat clients onto horses or 4-wheelers and cruise along the ridges using their bugles to try to avoid the hard work of going after elk. In short, they overbugled and put the elk on alert.
I really think we bugle hunters have a responsibility to protect the "bugling resource" the same as we would protect the habitat or the game population. I think most ofus would agree thatan elk bugle ringing on a crisp mountain morningisone of the A-list reasons for being out there in thefirst place. Let's preserve that!Bugling is a fragile habit, as my experience proved this year - it took one week for overbugling outfitters to materially alter bugling habits in my country. We all hear old timers sit around and muse about the old days when elk bugled more and were easier to call in. We bugle hunters are solely responsible for this change, and I think we need to own up to it. We probably hear of areas where the equation has been altered to the extreme, such that blowing a bugle will actually cause elk to run away in alarm. Do we have to accept this state of affairs? Can we establish some common sense guidelines for responsible bugling? I don't see why not.
The problem comes, as I see it, from hunters who don't take ownership of the situation. These hunters are disproportionately nonresidents, guided or unguided, who may never return to a place again. Why, other than basic ethics, should they care if they educate a bunch of bulls, so long as they get one? Those of us who treasure our hunting areas and the elk on it do care. I for one would absolutely support a ban on elk calls before I would see my area turned into a silent zone, which it seems to be well on the way to becoming.
Let me close this long plea by posting my ideas of overbugling that should be avoided in order to protect the natural order of things:
1) Overbugling is not necessarily tied to the number of times you toot the darned bugle. I have heard a rutty bull bugle 500 or more times in the course of a twelve-hour day. In peak rut, many bulls will call more than most hunters are inclined to do.
2) Overbugling is tied more to specific situations than number of toots.
3) Bugling from the immediate vicinity of any road or ORV trail is overbugling. Elk quickly learn to be leery of such areas. Is it really worth pulling in one raghorn every 10 years close to the road to educate dozens of bulls every year?
4) Bugling from a setup that ignores wind and cover is overbugling. You should never bugle in a situation where a bull can come in and tie you to the bugle it just heard.
5) Bugling to an elk that has detected you as a threat - by eye or nose - is overbugling. Sure, you might eventually turn one elk in 50 around, but the other 49 go away much less likely to ever be fooled again.
6)Bugling just because is overbugling. Because you're bored, or because you're trying to signal a partner, or because you saw a guy on a video do it, or whatever.
7) Over cowcalling can be just as bad, and in my opinion is easier to overdo than actual bugling. For instance, this bow season, I heard about 30 different bulls bugle, either on their own or in answer to my bugle. How many cows chirped in that same time do you think? Two! Two against 30, that's quite a disparity. Furthermore, each time it was a single chirp. This ratio is very typical for September. Granting that cowcalling is somewhat less audible than bugling (but I must stress the somewhat), it's still not terribly common in September.
I spend lots of time with elk throughout the year, and the really intense cowcalling occurs mainly in June and July when calves are young. It really dies down into August and September. I really believe that more than a cowcall or two begins to trigger suspicion in September, as repeated calls really communicate something is wrong. (Like a herd is ready to bolt and they're trying to get everybody on the same page.) Once you've cowcalled and been answered by a live elk, either a cow or a bull, further calling on your part is a little bit superfluous. You've called, they've responded and said, we're over here. What else is left to be said? Some may disagree with this last paragraph, but that's what I believe.
Anyhow, this is what has been on my heart this year. Do you agree that we should protect the "bugle resource", or do we have to just resign ourselves to letting it fade away if people choose tooverdo the calling? Wouldn't it be nice to see some leadership on this issue by guys like Primos and Carlton and all the other call pimps? Instead of inventing a new crackerjack elk vocalization to sell every year, wouldn't it be nice for Wayne Carlton to stand up in that souther used-car-salesman voice of his and say,"I reckon we done overdid it on the callin', and I fer one am rich enough now, so let's not overdo it any more fellers."
Thanks.
P.S. I'm not trying to bait the South here with the Wayne Carlton thing. Go Cowboys!
I've had a new experience in elk hunting this year, seeing the effects of rising hunting pressure on the elk rut. I hunt in the Bitterroots in western MT, among other places. Our elk herds are getting well advertised of late, because we have had record elk numbers showing up in game counts for about three years running now. Our case is an interesting one, because it shows that wolves and elk can coexist, and because we had the "catastrophic" forest fires of 2000 here that burned several hundred thousand acres of forest.
Anyhow, news of the elk numbers has apparently gotten out as of this season, because we are seeing absolute hordes of bowhunters this season. I had gotten into a sweet area beginning three years ago where I saw tons of elk and no hunters. In fact in three seasons, I saw exactly one bowhunter in approximately 30 days spent in this country. I headed in this season expecting more of the same.
I ran into 3 wall tent camps before I got to my camp spot this year! Think of that - jump from one HUNTER seen in 3 years to 3 wall tents in one day. I saw humans or heard human bugling nearly every day of a twelve day hunt. I had never heard a human bugle that I knew of in the previous three years. The pressure came from an influx of MT hunters, plus an even bigger influx of outfitters. I had never before seen an actual outfitter camp anywhere in the Bitterroots during bowseason. The outfitters got a jump on me, as they ran their hunts beginning 9Sep while I started my backcountry hunt a week later. By the time I got there, the hunt had been ruined by standards I was accustomed to.
I can well document specific aspects of this situation, as I keep a very detailed hunting diary. The bulls were in a state of shock this year. Going over my diaries, it's just shocking how nearly every bugling encounter I had went something like this, "Had a bull going a quarter mile below me. Started down toward him, moving slow and with the wind. The closer I got, the less he bugled, and by the time I closed to within a couple hundred yards he piped down and disappeared". This happened over and over again, and I've only previously seen this behavior on rare occasions. Another little diary tidbit: this year, I never heard a single bull bugle between the hours of 10am and 5pm. Not one! In my piece of country it just doesn't normally work that way. From 15 to 30 Sep you can hear bulls bugling at nearly any hour of the day, and on the hottest days you can find bulls that literally bugle every 3-5 minutes from dawn to dusk.
Comparing notes with a couple other hunters I was running into, they all agreed that the outfitters were playing heck with the hunt. (In fairness, I'm sure those same outfitters were blaming us, IF they knew anything was amiss.) See, this is rough country, and if you're not in shape AND willing to dive down into real heckholes, you aren't going to do more than dabble in the edges of the herds. The outfitter approach in here seems to be to load their fat clients onto horses or 4-wheelers and cruise along the ridges using their bugles to try to avoid the hard work of going after elk. In short, they overbugled and put the elk on alert.
I really think we bugle hunters have a responsibility to protect the "bugling resource" the same as we would protect the habitat or the game population. I think most ofus would agree thatan elk bugle ringing on a crisp mountain morningisone of the A-list reasons for being out there in thefirst place. Let's preserve that!Bugling is a fragile habit, as my experience proved this year - it took one week for overbugling outfitters to materially alter bugling habits in my country. We all hear old timers sit around and muse about the old days when elk bugled more and were easier to call in. We bugle hunters are solely responsible for this change, and I think we need to own up to it. We probably hear of areas where the equation has been altered to the extreme, such that blowing a bugle will actually cause elk to run away in alarm. Do we have to accept this state of affairs? Can we establish some common sense guidelines for responsible bugling? I don't see why not.
The problem comes, as I see it, from hunters who don't take ownership of the situation. These hunters are disproportionately nonresidents, guided or unguided, who may never return to a place again. Why, other than basic ethics, should they care if they educate a bunch of bulls, so long as they get one? Those of us who treasure our hunting areas and the elk on it do care. I for one would absolutely support a ban on elk calls before I would see my area turned into a silent zone, which it seems to be well on the way to becoming.
Let me close this long plea by posting my ideas of overbugling that should be avoided in order to protect the natural order of things:
1) Overbugling is not necessarily tied to the number of times you toot the darned bugle. I have heard a rutty bull bugle 500 or more times in the course of a twelve-hour day. In peak rut, many bulls will call more than most hunters are inclined to do.
2) Overbugling is tied more to specific situations than number of toots.
3) Bugling from the immediate vicinity of any road or ORV trail is overbugling. Elk quickly learn to be leery of such areas. Is it really worth pulling in one raghorn every 10 years close to the road to educate dozens of bulls every year?
4) Bugling from a setup that ignores wind and cover is overbugling. You should never bugle in a situation where a bull can come in and tie you to the bugle it just heard.
5) Bugling to an elk that has detected you as a threat - by eye or nose - is overbugling. Sure, you might eventually turn one elk in 50 around, but the other 49 go away much less likely to ever be fooled again.
6)Bugling just because is overbugling. Because you're bored, or because you're trying to signal a partner, or because you saw a guy on a video do it, or whatever.
7) Over cowcalling can be just as bad, and in my opinion is easier to overdo than actual bugling. For instance, this bow season, I heard about 30 different bulls bugle, either on their own or in answer to my bugle. How many cows chirped in that same time do you think? Two! Two against 30, that's quite a disparity. Furthermore, each time it was a single chirp. This ratio is very typical for September. Granting that cowcalling is somewhat less audible than bugling (but I must stress the somewhat), it's still not terribly common in September.
I spend lots of time with elk throughout the year, and the really intense cowcalling occurs mainly in June and July when calves are young. It really dies down into August and September. I really believe that more than a cowcall or two begins to trigger suspicion in September, as repeated calls really communicate something is wrong. (Like a herd is ready to bolt and they're trying to get everybody on the same page.) Once you've cowcalled and been answered by a live elk, either a cow or a bull, further calling on your part is a little bit superfluous. You've called, they've responded and said, we're over here. What else is left to be said? Some may disagree with this last paragraph, but that's what I believe.
Anyhow, this is what has been on my heart this year. Do you agree that we should protect the "bugle resource", or do we have to just resign ourselves to letting it fade away if people choose tooverdo the calling? Wouldn't it be nice to see some leadership on this issue by guys like Primos and Carlton and all the other call pimps? Instead of inventing a new crackerjack elk vocalization to sell every year, wouldn't it be nice for Wayne Carlton to stand up in that souther used-car-salesman voice of his and say,"I reckon we done overdid it on the callin', and I fer one am rich enough now, so let's not overdo it any more fellers."
Thanks.
P.S. I'm not trying to bait the South here with the Wayne Carlton thing. Go Cowboys!
10-13-2006, 04:06 PM
#12
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Moccasin, Montana
Posts: 1,835
RE: I'm Amazed...
To tell you the truth Dirt you are pretty close to right on.
Every elk that we as hunters call in and let walk will then know what was making them calls and learn to avoid it.
But thats beside the point we as callers have to get better and more advanced.Elk are not easy prey to us 2-legged predators.In time I think elk hunting will get old and borring like watching all of those white-tail hunting shows(to sthe masses...not me).It's to hard for alot,and to demanding on others.
Good story
BBJ
Every elk that we as hunters call in and let walk will then know what was making them calls and learn to avoid it.
But thats beside the point we as callers have to get better and more advanced.Elk are not easy prey to us 2-legged predators.In time I think elk hunting will get old and borring like watching all of those white-tail hunting shows(to sthe masses...not me).It's to hard for alot,and to demanding on others.
Good story
BBJ
