T is that you ?
I agree with some of what you say, but I don't think it was laziness, but lack of elk knowledge, only one trick in the bag and not thinking like elk.
I have used my slow approach tactic to kill elk every year except one and multiple elk some years and everyone was in a different area.
I do use a bugle, but it has to be what I consider a high odds in my favor situation. Even the best hunters using the aggressive bugle method will tell you it is a 10 % chance at best of actually killing the elk.
This bull and I had two other encounters before I killed him.
1st encounter ) I heard him bugling out of his bed and then move through the timer while continuously screaming. I did nothing but use the wind and got to 20 yards when he busted me as I made a strategic move I should not have`.
2nd encounter) two days later, in the morning, and no bugling during the night, I dropped into a lower meadow and heard him bugle across the meadow in a patch of timber. I high tailed it to get the wind in my favor and got within 50 yards of him but he would not finish and there were too many cows scattered in the timber to risk pressing in closer. I knew there was a high probability he would stay in the timber patch as it contained great bedding and a good food source and we would likely meet that evening if I let him go for the moment.
3rd times a charm). The meadow on the edge of this timber is very large, but at the west end was very narrow with small patches of pines in it, a wallow and more importantly two very small running seeps. It was perfect for me to get in a small patch of pines and wait for his move. At 6:20 ish he made a very low effort bugle cut short with even a lower effort grunt. I muffled and blew a very soft cow diaphram call. If you were 50 yards away You would not hear it, but I knew he would here it even though he was likely in the 200 yards range at the ride top.
I did nothing and heard nothing for about 2 or 3 minuets and then heard the slight snap of a stick inside the timber less than 25 yards. in less than a minute he walked just enough out of the timber, and 60 yards upwind of me, where he could scan for danger and, or the cow he heard. I knew that doing nothing was the best thing and let the scenario play out as if he headed straight across the finger of the meadow it would put him inside 30 yards of me and when he crossed thought the intermittent patch of trees I was hidden in he would allow me to draw. That is pretty much exactly how it played out, except for the part where he angled away and the turned to tear up a tree at 35 yards. He was hard quartering to me at 35 yards. I drew did all of my post draw checks and anchored the front edge of the shoulder closest to me and just above his briquet.
The rest is history and he dropped dead 70 yards from the shot.
I love killing bulls that I have had experience with previously in the season, or even better in previous years. My daughter got to kill a bull that I had chased around quite a bit the year before.
