recognizing a bulls response
 

Let's say I use a locator bugle early in sept.(be it displaying or whatever). And a bull responds with a bugle from a ways away,how do I determine if he is displaying or whatever? (he is too far away to distinguish grunts from chucks) Should I just asume he is also displaying early in sept. and go to him with non aggressive squeals and cows and calves until I'm closer. Also last year I had numerous occasions where a bull would do nothing but chuckle or groan,whine,and chuckle "ALOT" and close but wouldn't expose himself for about a half hour. What I think now is he was calling my cows. Elknut, I have your tapes and it seems to me I should have gotten into some whinning and some immature squeals with chucks. Or what about this huffing? Just how often do you use this??

RE: recognizing a bulls response
 

Once you've either recieved a response or a bull sounded off and he's to far to determine what he said or what's going on, move towards him, no need to call your way to him. Don't call and try to get within 200yds or so, then give him a couple different cow sounds and a calf call as well, a spike squeal in the mix is ok too, use it sparingly, once the bull responds to you, get even whinier with the cow sounds, show excitement, this excites the bull. You can also slowly move in his direction and keep calling, if he seems to be staying in the same spot and trying to call you to him, then he's probably got cows and won't come to you. You must go to him. Setup (in a spot he has to look for you) inside a 100yds if possible. Give him the same sounds, if he hangs up, give him a couple good dry huffs and extra whiny mews, longate them. Huffing grunts can also be used at this time to get the bull to react. You must convince him a bull has intercepted this herd right in front of his face, be sure to break branches and do some stomping around, make it real!!

The same senario I just explained above would work for your next question. Most bulls hang-up for two main reasons, they're close enough that they should see an elk and they don't or they fully expect the cow to come to him when he calls, when they don't he wants to know why, NOW, this is why by injecting huffing sounds or huffing grunts is a great sound, it shows the real bull why the cow or cows isn't coming to him, they've been intercepted. Huffing and huffing grunts at this time are used towards the cows and is not a threat to the real bull, (non-challenging) throwing in some level 2 distress sounds in addition to the huffing as shown on the video "Worse Than Wolves" shows she's resisting the intercepting bull, this gives the real bull confidence and normally comes in quickly! This is a time to be aggressive, don't let the bull down, be very whiny even to the point of pre-estrus whines and desperate type huffing. This is high energy and exciting!! ElkNut1