By Jim Horn - LaPine, OR

Early season bowhunting usually means cool mornings at the dawning, with clear blue skies and midday temperatures that warm to 85 degrees. Along with that comes the hunter with preconceived ideas that it is too hot and too early for the elk to respond to calls. How many times I have heard that statement and silently thought about how that bowhunter is limiting himself or herself to a successful elk hunt.
First lets ask ourselves why we use calls in the first place. First, we use game calls to increase our opportunity for a shot. Second, we use the calls to bring in an animal we might not see. Third, we use game calls to get the animal in close to increase our accuracy. And, probably the biggest reason I use calls is that it adds great excitement to the hunt. It is a fact that the elk call will do you no good just hanging on your neck or being carried around in your pack.

Elk will respond to elk calls from the first day of archery season, which usually begins the last week of August in most states. My hunting partner and I have called in elk consistently the first week of the season while other hunters return to camp complaining it is too hot or too early in the season. While they are giving up we usually hang an elk which we call from the same general areas they are hunting.

The difference is we believe elk will respond to the call and use it a lot. Hunters too often put thoughts of their own into the brain of an elk and assume it is thinking like them. Not so! I also was guilty of this same thought process many years ago when I first started chasing them. What you must know and understand is, an elk functions out of biological needs and changes in hormones from the last week of August until the last of October, and sometimes later.

Understand this, we as hunters have a window of opportunity during that time. We call it the rut. A lot of hunters think of the rut as the love making process, when it fact it is a series of changes that make elk react to their body changes, Without taking up space describing the changes and how they occur, let's just know it happens and it happens about the same time every year. The level of hormonal changes dictates the change in behavior of the elk. Both bulls and cows go through these changes, it starts the cycle of renewal.

As an example, bulls mew and chirp like a cow most of the year. This is how they communicate, it is herd talk. When the hormones change so does his vocalization. Now he bugles, grunts, blows snot all over and urinates on himself. Guess what? The cows vocalization change to. They make whining sounds and become more aggressive to breed as their time gets right.

Regardless if it is 100 degrees or 32 degrees, these changes are going to take place. Whether there are hundreds of hunters in the woods or only 3 or 4, these changes will take place. They must take place at a certain time or the calves will not survive.

In Oregon where I have hunted a lot of the early seasons I have found the larger bulls will hang out most of the summer in the higher elevations. When I go out scouting early in the summer I find lots of cows and calves in the low country amid lush meadows with plenty of grass and water. As the end of August approaches I find the bulls that have not been hanging around the cow and calf herds now hanging around in the vicinity. The hormonal changes are already happening and the bulls are seeking out the locations of the cows. When season opens the last weekend of August the bulls are very active in seeking out the locations of cows and are on the move a lot.

For the last four years I have killed a bull within the first three days of the archery season and all of them were called in with bugles and cow calls. Understanding the biological changes and using the elks reaction to them has given me a consistent edge. Not all elk will call back! The 1998 season was one of those years. In six days of calling, only two bulls answered our calls and they were not aggressive in their response. However, we called in elk every day, with my partner Gary Broadhead passing on bulls because he had a late season private ranch hunt for big bulls. The three seasons before this, we had bulls answer us from the first day of season. Early season bulls will come to a caller for one of three reasons. He is horny, he is angry or he is curious. I do not care why a bull comes in as long as he shows up!

When Gary and I set up to start calling, we believe a bull will come in if he is within hearing distance. Even though we do not receive an answer we feel we will stimulate one of the three reactions. To do this we like to call by creating herd excitement. If you have ever listened to a group of elk with a hot cow in it you know what I mean. The cows are very vocal and the cow in heat will do a loud whine. The herd bull will bugle a lot and usually there will be satellite bulls that will be bugling, as they have gotten caught up in the excitement. We create this same excitement with great success.

When we set up and start calling the sequence goes like this. I use a Primos Imperial Plate diaphragm to sound like several cows and calves. I will then use a Primos Hyper Lip Single or Double and do hyper sounds, which are loud drawn out excited whines. This is immediately followed with a bugle with no grunts or chuckles. We will pause about five minutes and do it again. Sometimes we will only do hyper sounds, but always follow them up with a bugle or two. This goes on for about 30 minutes. If nothing has come in we move to another location and do it all over again. Sooner or later a bull will come sneaking in.

Last year, two days before the season started, I took my wife out for a little scouting. We went to an area I had not been before and walked out on an old logging skid road. I cow called with the hyper lip single and immediately bugled with my Primos Terminator call. After about five minutes, I started again and only made two hyper sounds when a bull gave a half bugle about 400 yards away. After a couple minutes of silence I cow called and the bull answered closer. Needless, to say, we high tailed it out of there so the bull would not associate the calls to a human.

Saturday afternoon of opening day, Gary and I went back to the same location. We set up and started our calling, About 20 minutes later I saw a bull headed our way. He was about 300 yards away as he wound his way through the trees in a steady gait toward us. The bull was not making a sound as he kept coming. Gary had some cover and started sneaking away from me. The bull kept coming slowly as Gary cow called. When the bull was about 150 yards from me, Gary started running away from me and making hyper sounds with a hyper lip single. The bull threw his head up and started trotting after Gary. Well, the bull ran right to me and at twenty yards it offered an easy kill. The bull was a nice 6x6 and provided an exciting hunt even though he never made a sound in response to our calls. By the way, when he was standing at twenty yards before I shot, I noticed he was slobbering at the mouth and he was trying to urinate on himself. Even though he had not called back to us he had gotten excited from the hyper sounds of a hot cow.

You can take advantage of early season bulls by being in the woods and using the calls with confidence. Remember to be patient and use the elks natural hormonal reactions to your benefits and you can harvest more elk.