My 5 year old daughter, Jessi, helping us look for elk
Testing our stalking skills, and the Optifade, on a mule deer doe
Labor Day weekend is a popular time for lots of people to be in the woods, so we weren’t overly anxious to head out hunting. My wife and children came up to camp with us and we spent most of the weekend just hanging out and going for some drives with the family. With much of the weekend crowd clearing out on Sunday afternoon, and the forecasted cold weather for Monday, Donnie and I were excited to hit it hard on Monday. We’d have a full four days, plus Friday morning to hunt before we had to head back home on Friday afternoon.
Monday morning was everything it was forecasted to be. 20 degrees and crystal clear…perfect elk hunting weather. We hit the trailhead and made it up to the main ridge right at first shooting light. Donnie immediately glassed a nice bull about 3 ridges over feeding up the hillside. I let out a few cow calls, which were immediately answered by several cows in the saddle 100 yards above us. We continued cow calling to them as we moved up the ridge to within 80 yards. With Donnie set up I moved back 20 yards over the ridge and continued the cow calls. The cows eventually got quiet but we knew they were still in the saddle. I decided to give up my ace-in-the-hole and let out a bugle. Nothing. I waited a few minutes and gave another one. Still nothing. Finally, on the third bugle, the bull that we knew had to be with the cows growled at us and immediately rounded up his cows and headed up the hillside. He stopped at the ridge and gave us one more bugle, then dropped off the backside.
Watch video of the bulls below…
Confused that a big bull was with 10+ cows and not responding to bugles, we quietly slipped up to the saddle and gave a few cow calls. A satellite bull that was following the herd squealed at us from below as he made his way across the hillside and up the ridge towards the herd. We gave them a few minutes to get ahead of us, then started up after them, hoping to be able to follow them to their bedding area and work in for a better set-up there. The plan worked great and with the morning sun starting to warm up the hillside, and our fingers, we moved into position above the heavily-timbered north-facing slope. I let out a few cow calls and the herd bull bugled back immediately. Before we could get up to move in a little closer, a branch broke in the draw 150 yards below us. We sat tight and continued cow calling, hearing an occasional branch break every so often, seemingly closer each time. Finally, with the sound of hooves crunching the dry pine needles just 30 yards away, we began to see the outline of an elk materialize through the thick brush.
Donnie was set up 30 yards in front of me with good shooting lanes to his right and straight ahead of him. The elk was moving through the brush and heading straight to Donnie. With just 3 more feet to go to clear the last of the brush and step out at 20 yards, a tree squirrel scampered through the brush and startled the elk, causing him to whirl and bust down the hill 30 yards. I cow called and he immediately stopped and turned back up the hill, but his approach was now lower on the hillside and he came out 50 yards below Donnie, concealed by the rise of the hill and the huckleberry brush. The 5X6 bull walked back and forth looking for the source of the calling, but wouldn’t come back up the hill the 5-6 steps necessary for a clear shot. He eventually walked off into the draw below.
Watch video of the silent call-in below…
The cause of quiet elk in our hunting area
We continued up the main ridge, stopping to cow call every 150-200 yards and began to realize why the elk might have been so quiet. Fresh wolf tracks and scat were scattered along the ridgeline and it was evident that the wolves had been in there for several days. Our theory was further proven as we jumped 2 mature 6X6 bulls out of their beds at less than 40 yards without knowing they were there until we almost stepped on them. In both cases we had cow called within 100 yards of the bulls with no responses. All totaled, we had either seen or heard 7 different bulls that morning, but couldn’t get any of them fired up or moving with our calls.
We decided to grab our mobile camp and head to a new area about 40 miles away and hunt there for a few days with the hopes that the bulls in this area would fire up soon!