Playing the Wind Game

Yesterday, my second day of hunting elk this season in Montana, started out quiet, except for me doing elk talk. It was mid-morning. I was on the move when I smelled fresh elk scent. That beautiful, pungent smell that you know when you smell it!

I quickly took a reading with my high tech breeze sensor instrument (talc in a squirt bottle). The wind was whipping this way and that, so I was having a hard time figuring out exactly where the smell was coming from. A few tests and I had a good general direction that the welcomed smell was coming from.

I coyoted upwind 30 or 40 yards, set up and did a couple of pleading mews. I was satisfied to be a little bit above the elk and they were upwind of me. A bull bugled less than a hundred yards in the 1:00 direction. There were no trees big enough to set up my Eichler Elk decoy, because the jack pines and juniper shrubs were too small. I didn't have the stakes with me, only the hanging system.

I made a pleading cow call and the bull bugled again. He was now at the 4:00 direction. He had circled around a bit. I was sure he was going to try to wind me (6:00 direction). I moved to my 9:00 direction trying to stave off the inevitable sharp nose of his.

I was panicking trying to set up my decoy as a "bedded" elk, since I still couldn't find a place to hang it. The flat HD photo of a cow elk was not cooperating.

I turned around 180 degrees and made a cow mew sound and slinked to my right (my new 3:00 position) to get away from where I had made the call. Feeling good about avoiding letting him pinpoint my location, I readied myself for a shot.

I peaked through the short vegatation and saw the bull 100 yards away, up above me on the hill, now downwind from me. He had taken my advantage away from me and it was now his! He was now looking down on me and downwind.

Regardless of whether he saw or smelled me, it was what he didn't see that ended our close encounter. He took his two cows and a calf and headed for the usual bedding area. From his vantage point he could not see the cow that had been sweetly talking to him. That kills the deal with just about any elk!

I tracked the small herd over a half a mile, until it was obvious they were headed across the fence a couple miles away. One that I cannot cross. (Again!)

"Windage and Elevation", as John Wayne Once Said

One of the elk decoys by Montana Decoy could have saved this scenario from ending as it did. My reposition to the right of where he last heard me could have prevented him from smelling me, but he needed a visual. Of course, the visual (decoy) would have been to my left as I faced the bull, maybe with a little elk pee sprayed on it!

Proper Set Up for Calling

But then, this is a competitive sport between man and beast. The beast usually wins! They have to win all the time. We only have to win once! I'll be out on the "playing field" again in a couple of days. The rut is picking up! I'm hearing of hunters in other states who are talking about bugling bulls.

Elk Nut's Sounds by the Elk CD and Playbook. Paul Medel discusses many different scenarios and what to say and do to effectively set up calling attempts, for lone hunters and team hunting.

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