I bugle to locate a bull, once I think I know where he is I move closer and bugle again. I move again when he answers, when I feel like I'm either close or am not sure where he is I bugle again, when he answers I move. This is normal elk behavior and we push them until they stop and turn and then we shoot them. A lot of times bulls will answer bugles the entire time they are moving and only stop once they get to where they are going. Midday if you hear weak quite bugles those are typically bulls bugling from their bed.
In my experience, most bulls move if your bugling and getting to close, the only time they typically don't is when you get too close and they feel like they need to fight. 9/10 times they will leave as you bugle your way in, if they can slip away as you approach they are 100% for sure going to keep their cows, if they stay to fight they may lose. Since they don't know your bugle they don't know if you are a dink they can run off or a slob coming to steal their cows. It's always best to only bugle when needed or sometimes just for fun to keep a conversation up. The bull I killed this season had a dozen cows and constantly pushed away from bugles, when we would get close he would stand his ground and shred a tree or two, when we didn't show up after a few minutes he would move on or most likely his cows would get annoyed by all of the bugling and move on and he would follow. After a few rounds of raking and screaming he ended up in a more open area raking and me and my two boys were able to pop out of the vine maple at 45 yards and kill him. His cows stayed there and feed next to his dead body for the next 30 minutes.
This has always been my experience with killing bulls, hardly ever will they come screaming in on a string. The only exception for me has been medium-sized satellites, it seems like they always come on a string to about 70 yards and then walk around and try to get a look at you or circle down wind. My last 3 bulls have all had several cows with them and they all pushed away from our bugles until they had to stand their ground. We literally almost run toward a bull right after a bugle to close the ground, if they close the ground first they will stop out of range in most cases and look where the sound was coming from. If you get there first sometimes they will come in for a shot, my last couple bulls tried to intimidate me by vigorously rubbing trees, the one before that finally just go mad enough that he turned and came screaming in after about 2 miles of chasing him, he was so pissed he let me miss him at 10 yards looked at me circled around me and still charged in at the bugle so I shot him at 20 after he passed me.
We pushed this bull for several hours before getting a shot. My 11 & 14 year old boys were calling. I told my son to answer every bugle the bull made as fast and loud as he could. If the bull didn’t answer for a bit I’d use the tube and give him a lip bawl.
