Well if that’s your bag, then more power to you! Hopefully in this article you will find something that might make you a better elk hunter. Far be it from me to tell you what method you should employ to take your animal. Now let’s talk a little about some styles I have used in the past, and will continue to use.

Spot and Stalk (or Run and Gun!)
       
I must confess, this may be one of my favorite styles of elk hunting. If a bowhunter is forced to take to the woods solo, this is a great method. There are many times that you will find this may be the only way to get close to a call-shy bull. 

Many times a herd bull will be perfectly content to stay at a safe distance, and bugle until his throat hurts. When this happens, I quickly put the calls away, and take to the stalk. 

Your best bet in these situations is to put on your running shoes and quickly get ahead of the herd. This is so much easier to write about, than to do. If you are familiar with the area you are hunting then you probably know where he is headed, but if you are hunting unfamiliar territory it can be difficult. 

When hunting new country your best bet is a good topo map, it will show you all you need to know. I look for draws with a pond, as elk frequently will hit these just before bedding. When attempting to get ahead of moving elk like this remember, they walk faster than you can run, so time is of the essence. 

To catch up with a moving herd, you must find some sort of obstacle that will slow them. When elk are feeding they will never stand in one spot and eat until they are full, so a herd can be strung out over a large area. I have found that as elk near a fence line they will group together, almost as if they are too lazy to jump the fence. Seize this opportunity and make your move! 

Another obstacle that is often overlooked is what we here in the West call “black timber”, a thick web of fallen pine or fir trees, meshed in among living ones. As elk near these bedding areas they will slow down, this is the time to make your move. If you are able to stay within striking distance of them, your odds will increase greatly. You will be surprised at how close you can get to a bugling bull in this thick timber. I, or my hunters, have been very successful using this style. 

One thing that will help you with any type of hunting will be a good wind checker, whether it is a bottle full of powder or simply a piece of sewing thread. I choose to employ both, I use the bottle when I am deciding which way the prominent wind is blowing, and I prefer the thread when I start to get close to a bull. Simply tie a strand onto your top limb or possibly your quiver, this provides a hands-free alternative to the bottle.  
    
Calling all Bulls! 
       
This is the most fun you can have in elk country, period! Nothing can compare to calling a bull to within feet of a nervous, shaky bowhunter. Calling bulls is, to steal a catch phrase from Will Primos, “the heart and soul of elk hunting!” 

The single most important factor in calling a bull in close is your set-up. As a rule, I try to use the lay of the land against a bull. If he is below you, make him come to the top of the rise before he can see that there aren’t any elk there. Have your shooter position himself in front of a tree, just below the top of the hill. This way the bull will have to come past your shooter to look for the source of the calling. 

I always choose to set-up in front of a tree, if you should make the mistake of getting behind a tree, a bull could possibly come in and the very tree you are behind could block any shot you might have. Try to use things in front of you to block the bull’s vision, and use these to give yourself the chance to draw your bow.
        
I often use a modified version of the X-system used by many bowhunters on elk. The X-system is when the shooter sets up as described above, and when a bull is coming in, the caller moves accordingly to draw the bull past the shooter. 

My modified version is what I call the Y-system, once you get a bull fired up and you are ready to set-up on him, I draw a straight line from the bull to the caller and position the shooter 40 yards on the downwind side of this straight line. This imaginary straight line is just that, imaginary, so adjustments may need to be made by the caller. 

We have all seen a bull get to 100 yards of the caller, only to have him circle the source of the calling to get the wind.  In the wild, when a bull approaches another bull or a receptive cow, he will come in with the wind in his face. 

This system uses a bull’s own natural instincts against him. By having your shooter set up 40 yards downwind, he will then be in the path of any elk trying to get the wind on the caller. I have found for every bull that comes straight in, there are many more that circle to get the wind. I am not saying that this method is better than any other out there, it is just another trick to have in your bag! 

With that being said, there is something out there that will help… a decoy! Many times if a bull spots the decoy he will come straight to it. I have found that if you are using bugles mixed with cow calls, he will probably circle to get the wind of the bull that he thinks he hears. 
       
As far as the types of calls I use, I view elk calls like a fisherman views lures. You never know what they will be biting on, on any given day, so you might as well carry all of them! When calling for someone else, I generally use an external call, such as the Primos Hyper-Lip or Carlton’s Estrus Whine. 

When hunting alone I use a diaphragm call much more. For bugling, I have been known to use it all, but have settled on the E.L.K. Power Bugle. This call is much louder and carries further than its competitors. I tend to call a lot when a bull answers me, if I think there is a chance he might be interested I pour it on! As a caller don’t be afraid to make some noise. I am usually in a position where the elk can’t see me anyway, so I will stomp my feet, rake trees, throw sticks, you just never know what is gonna make him come to you! 
   
Treestands and Blinds
     
This method is best employed over something that elk frequently using, such as water hole or it could be simply a trail. I have had my best luck on waterholes during the midday, but you can use them much like whitetail hunters do, on travel corridors. 

Safety is of course always important, so I wanted to share a bit of knowledge about treestands out West, learned the hard way! A few years back I had a water hole that was being hit hard, by both some big bulls and a few monster mule deer. I decided that I would hang a stand there in order to take advantage of this. Not knowing much about treestands, I chose a fixed-position stand that I knew would be comfortable. 

Where I went wrong was in my choice of equipment to get in and out of the stand. The water hole was quite a hike from the truck, so I chose to go light weight with my climbing system. I decided on screw-in tree steps. My cousin, Shane was going to go with me and help hang this stand. I got about 7 steps up, when the one I was standing on suddenly pulled out of the tree. I fell about 15 feet, and on the way down, a step below me hit me in the chest taking a big chunk out me. When I hit the ground I landed with all of my weight on my left foot and broke a couple of bones’ in it. Luckily Shane was there to help me limp back to the truck. 

I have done some research on this, and the thing that I overlooked was that our trees out West are drought-resistant. They aren’t hardwoods like the trees that these steps were made for. That means they are much more porous than a hardwood tree, in order to soak up as much moisture as they can. To use an aspen tree as an example, when you put a step in it, you’re doing little more than boring a hole in it. Pine trees are better, but they still require some preparation, you need to knock the bark off of them before putting the steps in. In some larger pine trees, the bark can be a couple of inches thick in order to hold moisture in. 

Needless to say, I had some fear of getting back in a treestand for a while. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that year I went to a hybrid type of elk hunting by using a decoy and calling while set up inside my ground blind. It’s much like turkey hunting, only you have to worry about not only their eyesight, but their noses as well! This method helped me get a small bull that year.

Conclusion
       
Now I know that these aren’t the only methods for bowhunting elk, but hopefully these will help you get started. Maybe if you have been hunting elk for a long time this article will lend a hand. If you ever get to spend much time chasing the wily wapiti, you too will have a new found respect for them. 

I have been asked this question many times, “If you could hunt only one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?” 

I take a deep breath, and think of the sound of a bugle echoing through a distant canyon, and reply “ELK!”