Trad Archery Elk strategies

[sneaky]

Listened to a tradquest podcast Ep 5, he talks about actually getting an elk to whirl just before drawing. Especially with bulls since their neck is so big, and have a hard time looking over their backs. Interesting technique. He also talks about barking to get them to stop. You guys bark? I would be nervous to send them running with a bark, but people are saying they stop hard and fast.

Best Tradquest Podcasts | Most Downloaded Episodes

Rank #1: Episode 62 The Elknut on elk calling tactics, Rank #2: Episode 13 Elk Nut part 1 (Paul Medel), Rank #3: Episode 33 Aron Snyder and Ryan Avery

www.owltail.com

It's not a bark like a nervous bark. It's a "popping grunt" as ElkNut likes to call it. You've probably had elk do it to you if you've been around them enough. Cow calls they usually take a few steps before stopping and looking because they hear those all the time. That popping grunt will stop them dead in their tracks to look for you. It's their way of asking you to show yourself. Happens all the time when they come in to a set and they don't see the elk they know they just heard. It's a different tone than a nervous bark.

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[Beendare]

Barking works, stops them dead. I've done it a couple times....with varied results. The problem for me has been to stop them exactly in a small opening....I had one nice bull coming off a steep muddy slope and I was trying to stop him in a 2 foot wide shooting lane. He stopped when I barked...but slide in the mud just enough to be only guts in the shooting lane....and of course then he is staring right at you. done.

 

[sneaky]

Barking works, stops them dead. I've done it a couple times....with varied results. The problem for me has been to stop them exactly in a small opening....I had one nice bull coming off a steep muddy slope and I was trying to stop him in a 2 foot wide shooting lane. He stopped when I barked...but slide in the mud just enough to be only guts in the shooting lane....and of course then he is staring right at you. done.

If you were shooting Rages you could have sent it lol

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[ElkNut1]

Hey guys, I see lots of thoughts here, very cool!

As far as the older phrase Popping Grunt! (over 20 years ago) It's the exact sound as what I now call the nervous Grunt! This sound made by all elk asked for an Action out of other elk, it's asking for a visual or identification by sound that you are an elk & not a threat to them.

A Warning Bark & a Nervous Grunt are basically one in the same Grunt/Sound! The difference between them is in their use! A Nervous Grunt is used or heard in a single note fashion. A Warning Bark is generally used repetitiously as they vacate the area & warn other elk as they do so.

The Nervous Grunt has many positive uses in the elkwoods, right time, right sound! We've taken dozens of bulls when this was the last sound they heard!

ElkNut

 

[Stickbow]

Thanks for the replies guys, I love talking these things through ahead of time, it takes so much effort to get an opportunity, always frustrating to have a simple mistake blow it.

What are peoples thoughts on order of events. Say an elk is walking towards a reasonable shooting lane at a good distance for you. Do you draw before they get there, call, then shoot? Or call, draw, shoot? Might depend how thick the cover is I guess.

 

[Ridge Ghost]

I've killed a pile of elk with a decoy and my compound solo....since shooting the recurve, I had this minimalist thinking that didn't include a decoy- big mistake.

In the perfect scenario, where you can call and then change positions before the bull comes in ....a guy doesn't need a decoy. Those didn't work for me last year. O

Compound is so easy to get to full draw when they are coming and you are right on them when they show themselves- mostly anyway. I'm still adapting to Solo calling with a Stickbow.

Do you have any experience with a bow-mounted decoy? I picked up an Ultimate Predator decoy last year but never actually put in on my bow while hunting.

 

[Beendare]

Do you have any experience with a bow-mounted decoy? I picked up an Ultimate Predator decoy last year but never actually put in on my bow while hunting.

I've used the whitetail one on Kodiak...and it worked well.

I've got the heads up Decoy...and 3 Montana decoys...but not the UP decoy....yet. Grin [its in the mail]

_____-

 

[LostArra]

Due to point creep I'm almost exclusively a cow hunter and unlike most of the posters here I rarely call. When I'm moving slowly thru timber that has held elk in the past I will do some cow/calf mews as a cover sound but that's it. Unlike bulls, the rut does not make cows stupid and I would prefer they remain unaware of my presence.

I used a Montana decoy once to kill a young bull but he was so clueless I could have used my truck as the decoy.

My preferred method is to glass elk in the morning while they are moving to their beds then anticipate where they eventually go to feed. This can involve a lot of sitting once you find them. Where I hunt they will nibble around their bedding area all day but by about 3 they start moving to grass and/or water. I try to be in a spot to intercept them or get to the water hole first where I will sometimes have a tree stand already set up. The treestand can be great or terrible depending on the wind.

I prefer to be stationary but not trapped by cover and the elk to be moving rather than to stalk a bedded group. There is always a bedded cow I have not accounted for. The exception would be rifle hunting where the "stalk" is just to get within 250 yards.


When things go well it's like I'm invisible and scentless but when things go bad I've seen and heard elk stampedes and I have no clue on the cause.

One other elk hunting tip I have to remind myself of every season. Be hunting any time you take a step. Last year I found some elk but after watching them for 30 minutes I decided to backtrack a mile or so to move around and get a more favorable wind. During this mindless backtracking I stumbled on to a small group that had bedded about 1/2 mile behind me.Somehow I got it together and shot one but they could have easily run to Nebraska simply because I was not paying attention and didn't expect them to be there. Elk are where you find them.

 

[Stickbow]

I wonder if a stalker decoy on your bow would help not to get picked off so easy when moving in on a bedded group of elk.

@LostArra do you generally wait for the wind to shift before moving into your intercept spot?

 

[North Idaho Stickbow]

It couldn’t hurt. I can’t see what I’m doing past those decoys though.

 

[Stickbow]

Good point about seeing what you're doing. Plus I bet they are loud if you start pushing them through brush.

 

[LostArra]

@LostArra do you generally wait for the wind to shift before moving into your intercept spot?

Where I hunt there is usually a fairly strong prevailing west wind during the day. (I don't hunt there if the wind is east). In the aspen draw that I intercept I'm usually ok as long as I stay on the east side of the draw. The water is on the west side of the draw and I use a lot of wind checker while moving in there. The timing can be tricky because I don't want to spend the whole day there. I wait for the wind to be dying down but a lot depends on when the lead cow decides it's time to go.

Last year I made it to my treestand by the water around 3:30 and my timing seemed perfect. I got in the stand and the wind started laying down the thermals started down hill and I could see some elk slowly feeding towards the water about 75 yards away in the timber. Then I noticed a small group of storm clouds behind me and a tiny thunderstorm kicked up probably a mile from me, not close enough to scare me out of the tree. But a gentle gust of cooled air hit me in the back and the party was over. Those elk literally stampeded out of there.

I have to constantly check the wind but like I said previously, sometimes I just seem to be scentless and invisible and elk can be all around me. Other times the elk seem personally offended I would get within 100 yards of their intended path.

 

[wcasey755]

Following

 

[Beendare]

I dont remember seeing that comment from a podcast stating, get them to whirl.....I can tell you from seeing in up close.....thats a really bad idea. Sheesh, who said that?

Elk dont move like whitetails...but when they decide to go...
it can be quick with a lot of body movement.

I was trying to get my buddy to shoot that frontal shot. I called in one bull to him that was six paces away facing him and instead of shooting the frontal he waited for it to whirl as this guy says to do.

it was ugly. First arrow hit-picture- him in the spine above the guts and the bulls back legs dropped paralyzed. The bull tried to claw his way downhill all while my buddy was fumbling to get more arrows in him. You know how your adrenaline rush is after the shot well he had it times two. Im sure I helped- grin......by egging him on like those Loosiana gater hunters, “Quick Choot em, Choot em”

Three more arrows later it looked like a Mack Truck hit that bull on the freeway- a mass murder.
He was lucky on the first shot he used a strong fixed head that penetrated that heavy vertebre....otherwise that bull was gone.

I remember that bull whipping around super fast like it was yesterday....faster than Ive seen most elk move.

 

[North Idaho Stickbow]

That is such a cool picture!

 

[Beendare]

That is such a cool picture!

Yeah, I cant remember the name of the head...not a Magnus....it had bleeder blades making it a 4 blade...and a big bump out on the ferrule. That bump out and steep angled bleeders stopped that head dead.

I think if it would have been a smooth ramped 2 blade it would have severed that vertebre completely ( compound bow)

——

 

[North Idaho Stickbow]

Yeah, I cant remember the name of the head...not a Magnus....it had bleeder blades making it a 4 blade...and a big bump out on the ferrule. That bump out and steep angled bleeders stopped that head dead.

I think if it would have been a smooth ramped 2 blade it would have severed that vertebre completely ( compound bow)

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Bump on the ferrule and the gold washer? I’d guess it was a Steel Force.

 

[ledflight]

I was gonna say steelforce, too. Great story/lesson there.

 

[Beendare]

Bump on the ferrule and the gold washer? I’d guess it was a Steel Force.

Yep, thats it.

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