Elk Hunting Tips: Aggressive Elk Moves

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 4/8/20 | S Haugen

[w1n1]

Seven miles in to our do-it-yourself wilderness elk hunt, I was growing discouraged with the number of hunters my buddies and I were seeing. Then, at about the 13-mile mark, camps began to dwindle. Leading our pack string of horses five more miles, we found the isolation we desired. That night – two days before opening day of Wyoming's archery season – the mountains were alive with bugling bulls.
On opening morning, the three of us hiked four more miles, to over 9,000 feet in elevation. By 9 a.m., two of us had big bulls down, with the third member of our party arrowing a 355-inch brute the following morning.

The next two days were long, hot and extremely tough, but we got all the meat and our gear off the mountain. We quickly filled those tags because we traveled farther into the wilderness than other hunters, and we called very aggressively. Shortly after that hunt, I went on another elk adventure on my own in central Montana. I was on a chunk of public land that’s landlocked by private grounds. Public pressure had pushed many elk over the mountains and into the drainage I hunted, just as I’d hoped.
Rather than call to these elk with straight bugles or timid cow chatter, I mixed cow, calf, young bull and aggressive bull talk. The approach worked, and soon a big bull came charging in. I wasn’t in what I’d call the ideal shooting spot, but I hunkered down in the waist-high grass, amid shade, with a few straggly aspens behind me.

THE BULL CAME IN BUGLING and agitated. When he started walking from right to left, I hit him with a cow call, and he stopped. I’d already reached fulldraw, and the Gold Tip arrow buried tight behind the bull’s leg, piercing the upper heart and both lower lungs. He went a short distance and piled up. A few days later, I went to Oregon to chase elk. Though I called six branch bulls to within 25 yards, I didn’t let a single arrow fly, as I was hoping for a monster bull or nothing. I was aggressive, called a lot, and learned a great deal; a successful hunt, for sure. Read the rest of elk hunting.

[eartick]

Something I always wanted to hunt with my bow but never could afford it.

Now that both shoulders are bad and my bow hunting days are over, I have plenty of money. Go figure...

Thanks for the post

[KEVLAR]

I’ve worked with elk.

If they curl their lip or start “squeaking” their back teeth they have had enough of you!

[Timothy]

I find the Rotarians and the Optimists are much easier to track and kill.

[Responsibility2nd]

An elk once bit a moose that once bit my sister.

It’s complicated.

[Billthedrill]

Elk bites can be nasti.

[glasseye]

I used to hunt ‘Cross Mountain’ in NW Colorado, near the Dino park.
Shot a bull opening day...8 miles into a wilderness area, 3,000 feet above where the truck was parked...in a foot of snow.
Took 3 days and 4 trips to bring the meat down the hill.
That bull broke me, never hunted Colorado again.
Pity that Elk are so tasty.

[DannyTN]

LOL

[spiderpig]

Elk Hunt!

My favorite exotic dancer at the Cheetah Lounge!

I don’t think it was her real name, though.

[real saxophonist]

Yes it is. She had a brother named Mike.