September 09, 2023
By Zach Bowhay
Many years ago, my father-in-law and I were calling along a timbered ridge that I knew to hold some elk during the early season. We came upon a timbered flat with an open hillside and a patch of aspens directly above it. I quickly noticed the body of an elk 150 yards above us in the opening, and when I got a closer look through my binoculars, I was happy to see it was a nice 5x5 bull. Being early in the season, I figured the elk weren’t call shy yet and decided this was close enough to try and call him to our location.
I set Evan up and dropped fifty yards behind him to try and coax the bull close enough for a shot. At my first cow call, the bull snapped its head to attention and stared in my direction; with my second call, the bull turned and headed our way in a hurry. The bull disappeared into the timber in a straight line that would have it passing by Evan’s location in short order. I could hear the elk’s heavy footsteps when suddenly they stopped. I assumed the bull had just slowed to a walk, but suddenly, I saw it walk out on the ridge headed directly away from us. I knew the wind hadn’t betrayed us, and the bull hadn’t broken the timber far enough to see Evan, so I was confused about why it made the sudden retreat.
After talking to Evan, he told me that the bull never came into view, so we decided to continue up the ridge in the bull's direction. Walking through the wall of trees where the bull had stopped there were two giant downed trees directly in its path. The bull’s tracks could easily be seen coming off the hill and stopping when it reached this obstacle. Don’t get me wrong, I know elk jump logs all the time, but these were the kind of logs a guy needs a step ladder to get over. In my mind, being early in the season, the bull was curious but not fired up enough to charge in, regardless of the situation. The elk wanted to investigate, but not bad enough to get through those downed trees and put itself in a position it couldn’t quickly escape. I am convinced had the trees not been there, we would have at least gotten a shot that morning.
Avoidable Obstacles When calling elk, there are many obstacles to overcome, but trying to minimize the barriers in the woods is one of the easier things to do once you know them. I feel that when calling set-ups go wrong, hunters tend to think it is due to their calling, over-pressured animals or the rut hasn’t fully kicked in. One or all of these could be true, but sometimes it’s as simple as you are in the wrong setup, and the elk don’t feel comfortable approaching that area. Let’s go over a couple of scenarios and how to ensure you put yourself in the right situation for up-close elk encounters.
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Large Meadows and Openings We all have seen videos online where big bulls stroll across meadows, bugling and carrying on, then get an arrow through them at point-blank range. Yes, this can happen, but these videos generally occur on well-regulated private land or on rare occasions on public land. When you are working a bull and moving in, it can be tempting to set up on the edge of a large opening where you can see and shoot approaching bulls from multiple locations and angles. The more likely ending to a situation like this is the bull will approach the meadow, stare across it at you, out of range, then turn and leave.
In my opinion, 99.9% of the time, the better play here is to stay in the timber and loop around the meadow, keeping the wind in your favor until you are in the timber on the elk’s side of the opening, then set up and do your calling. The biggest meadow or opening I prefer to set up on is one only large enough that if a bull steps out on the far edge, it is within shooting range immediately.
River Crossings, Ravines and Rock Slides Elk often cross ravines and creeks, and most don’t bother them. They don’t usually cross large rivers and gorges or navigate through boulder fields to charge into a calling setup. Much like I highlighted at the beginning of this article, bulls like to have an easy getaway when moving into a herd of elk; they spend their whole life in survival mode and don’t like being put into situations where they can’t escape quickly if things go badly.
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In these situations, if you can, you are better off getting across the river or being in a spot where there isn’t a considerable ravine or rockslide they need to cross to get to you. Sometimes navigating these areas can be difficult for us hunters as well, and you can feel like you are burning precious time when a fired-up bull is bugling not far away. However, if you take the extra time to get across or away from these terrain features, you will have more elk in your setups.
Dark Timber Calling elk in timber is typically the best scenario. They feel comfortable there, and you can move toward them more easily without being seen. Be aware of the aforementioned downed logs or extremely thick brush or trees that make their approach difficult. The biggest thing with calling in the thick timber is shooting lanes. Always set up where you have at least a couple of shooting lanes in the direction you anticipate an elk approaching from. If you sit down and your setup is terrible and lacks shooting lanes, move to a better spot. Even if moving might risk the setup, I would rather get busted trying to get to a better spot than to have a bull come in and leave that I never get a chance at because I chose a poor setup.
Also, I will always be looking for a chance to move in. The shadows, brush and timber hide the human form well. So, if an elk is responding and isn’t in view, always look for a better setup closer to that bull.
Digital Mapping Some of these terrain features may be hard to spot or recognize when you don’t know the area intimately. While hunting, I constantly utilize mapping apps like Basemap and OnX on my phone. If you have the area downloaded on your phone, you can access an aerial view of where you are at all times, even in areas with no service.
It might be hard to pull out my phone in the heat of the moment. But, if you are beginning to work a bull, it can be a good idea to take a quick look to see where the bull is in relation to your location. This will help you to see if there might be any significant obstacles between your setup and the elk.
Final Thoughts These scenarios are just a few of many that could arise while calling and hunting elk. Plenty of things can go wrong that, as hunters, we don’t even understand, so trying to control what we can is paramount to our success. No matter how hard we try, there will always be that bull that crosses the river, passes through the rockslide and walks out in the meadow behind us as we try to jockey for a shot. That situation is the outlier, though, and rarely actually happens. Your best bet is to give that bull the path of least resistance to put yourself in the correct position for a shot, and you’ll almost assuredly punch more elk tags.
