Elknut playbook help

[Cstangle24]

You will never be good caller until you understand elk. Before I picked up a bugle, I would spend some years hunting and learning elk. After that I would add calling as another tool for an option. It is not a universal toy that is a free pass to elk. Many of the best hunters don't use them at all. My advice would be to find an experienced and successful elk hunter to tie in with.
I met an elk hunter with a necklace full or the wood/plastic cow calls and a bugle on a string. Total rookie.
BTW: You never said if you are rifle or bow hunting. That can make a big difference too.

Haha don't even try to call elk until you have hunted them for years.

Good info thanks again elknut.

 

[Swede]

If you are calling and it is resulting in dead elk on the ground for you, just keep on calling. Calling is a tool and if it works for you, where you are hunting; great.
I have found things have changed a lot since 1990. Elk in the OTC units are a lot more call shy. If you are hearing and even seeing bulls, but can't close the deal, most likely it is something you are doing. There are many possibilities here.
I hunted some with a professional hunter that worked with calls. I asked if he allowed new elk hunters to call when he was guiding. He said he wanted them to just stay quiet. He would make all of the calls. He would place them where they need to be. His home is filled with trophy bulls.
Sure you can go and call anywhere and everywhere, and follow a playbook, but how does it work in your area?
I watched as two herds ran past me one morning. I could hear this bull farther down in the timber. I knew they were running from him. This bull was making those guttural sounds that only a real bull makes. Slowly he was making his way up the shallow draw below. I was ready. As soon as he stepped through this last patch of saplings, I would be at full draw and ready. Suddenly I saw legs in the trees just below the limbs. The legs were covered with camo. It was no bull. It was Mike Slinkard. He had been making the most realistic elk sounds I ever heard coming from a human. Still all he had accomplished was running off two herds of elk.
I like the response to the original question where it was suggested going with an accomplished experienced hunter like the friend I mentioned above. The hunter with the original post said he hunted solo, so I did not go there, but I like that response. Where I hunt you would do better to sit in a bush above or below the confluence of two well used trails rather than running around calling. You would do better spot and stalk hunting.
They are selling a thousand times (my guestimate) more calls today than in days of plaid shirts, wood bows and matchstick sights, but the success rate has not gone up even in most draw units. Elk calls, and expensive camo are more fashion statements than well used tools.