Hi all I am heading up on an Archery Elk Hunt the week of August 25th. I have hunted Elk (usually the following week -first week of sept) in the past and have had calling success, but it really depends on the year, temp,etc. Normal rut is around the middle of september in these parts. The guy who owns the land and I am going with called in a lone cow and lone sattelite bull this past weekend with just a cow call. He figured they were just looking for friends.

The set up is very good, with forest & valley running north-south, water located in the bottom of the valley and fields to the east where the elk feed. This is rolling terrain where elk live in the forest/valleys vs mountains areas (which we have none of here in Saskatchewan). 2 pockets of Elk inhabiting the area one to the south and one to the north, in rifle season they seem to back and forth and that is were we have been successful but that is during the heavy calling stages. I have hung some stands already on major game trails to the food source out of the valley/bedding area. Would it be a good idea to call from these locations, in the early stage? If so what type of call would you suggest?

Any experience or ideas on calls to use in the early season that may maximize my odds?

I have a variety of elk calls, diaphrams, bugle tube and a squezze cow call.

Thanks!!!

From your description it sounds like a pretty good setup to me. Elk should be moving from feeding to bedding and vice versa. It appears you' re in a spot where they have to come near you, that' s a good thing, you know there' s elk around.
By all means do some calling to increase your odds not only to see them but get them in close. I' m assuming your bowhunting! I would stay away from any hard hit bugling, no challenging. Get to your ambush site, if you' re in a treestand that' s your setup, if on the ground, I like to use two guys a caller and a shooter, the caller should be about 50 to 70yds. behind the shooter, setup and give some spike to raghorn squeals and 2 or 3 different cow calls so you sound like a small herd moving thru. Give more cow calls than squeals, especially excited cow calls, those are ones with a little longer (1-2sec.) mournful or whiny mews. During early season sometimes I' ll really put up a fuss with such calling, again only a few squeals are necessary then focus more on the cow calls, give it time, at least 45min. with elk in the vicinity, you should see some action. We' ve taken elk with this exact setup. Good Luck Skeeter. elknut1

Skeeter, sounds like your already in premo elk country as the rut there occurs bout the same as it does here, The only thing I have to question is hunting out of a stand and in useing a call at the same time, as Elknut said, someone esle calling would work out great, but I personally would not call from a stand, they' ll know right where you are. I don' t even hunt elk from the stand as I like the mobilility in stalking or ambushing on top. They are so unpredictable (Duhhh) and some folks have a tendencie to hunt elk like white-tails. I personally would avoid the bull call during this time of the season, especially when the hot cow call will work just great, this is when the bulls are a screamin there head off. I would not like to be in a stand, but rather if you have the option, maybe just below a ridge over looking a revene/meadow, but I am not too sure of your terrain that you' ll be hunting either as if you can do this? Wish you the best of luck, keep us posted, by the way Elknut is going to be calling mine in this year when he doesn' t know it, Bobby

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You' re going to have me looking behind every rock and tree expecting you to pop out at anytime. Everytime I get a bull going, I' ll be as nervous as a fox in a henhouse just knowing you' re stalking my bull. (grin) But It would be good to see ya, hope I don' t accidentally blunt ya. LOL. elknut1

Thanks elknut & bobby for the advise and well wishes...same to the both of you best of luck this season!!!

Yes, I will be bow hunting and I never thought of that being in a tree bobby...good advice! I have always called elk and moose from the ground, funny I never clued in to that fact. The 1 stand is really a sit and wait stand on transition routes, the other over looks a long skinny Pea field that the elk should be all over in the next month or so, my thought was if an elk entered the field and I was interested in trying for him, I get down and try to call him from the ground. I do have several other spots in mind that are ground locations, so maybe I will reserve the calling to them. I am going with 3 others, so tandem calling is great idea. That is how we call moose with the bows, which has been extremely successful. Elk I usually bugger off for the day by myself and call, still hunt, etc but being early and possibly hot it may be better suited to do the calculated team effort as you suggested at peak times!

The terrain is near impossible to spot and stalk, it really favors the elk. Lots of popular timber and willows mixed in with valley terrain, their is a creek running the whole distance of the valley and the food is really only located to the west. To the East their is some decent pasture land, but it has been so dry this year the farmers cattle have hit it hard, slim pickens for any game. As such the west is a pretty good bet for where the elk will be feeding and makes concetration of effort a little easier to boot.

What about trying calf calls? I was thinking while I would love to get a good bull, chances are this looks like my elk season(one week with the bow) and if the weeks is getting short a nice dry cow may be pretty hard to say no too! After all I love the meat[8D] and the area is rich with cow pop.(only allow cow harvest in archery season in this zone). I have never targeted cow elk before, any suggestions???

Thanks

Skeeter

If you' re interested in calling cows, check out the thread," Calling in Cows" if you haven' t already.

As far as looking for a descent bull to call, there' s many early season ways to do so. One of my favorites is to first locate a bull with a location type bugle, bulls will usually respond in early season to non challenging calls. Once bull is located, move in quickly, noise is not a factor, if there' s two of you setup the shooter aprox. 100yds away, make sure at no time that the bull can look in your direction and get a visual where he should see this elk, in other words use available cover or knoll to be out of his view during his approach, setups are very important. Once ready, have caller start his calling scenario next to shooter, bull will most likley respond vocally, trying to call you to him. Caller should slowly start backing up calling all the way with convincing whiny mews, and shuffling his feet, back up aprox. 80yds or so from shooter and hold position, make a couple calls and stop so bull has to come and search for you. If a couple minutes go by and no bull yet give a couple more calls to let him know your still there and interested, this should bring him right by the shooter. Try this it works. Good Luck. elknut1








(watch the wind, and don' t be seen) have the caller begin calling with those excited cow calls,(no bugles or squeals) be persistent, the bull should respond with calling of his own trying to bring you to him.

Elknut good advice. I have been practicing my calling lots lately and concetrating on non aggressive calling, hope it pays off. I will check out the cow calling thread a little more closely, as you suggested.

Thanks again.