Saturday night was another almost-kill. I snuck out in the woods in the evening, took a seat in the middle of some small pines, and did some calling. No elk were responding, so I figured I was in for a boring evening. Just as the sun was slipping behind the ridge, an elk started locator bugling about half a mile away down the valley. This was the same elk that had snuck in and winded me the previous morning; he had a distinctive, hoarse-sounding bugle. Another elk, up on the ridge above me, responded, and I threw my own bugle into the mix, along with a few cow calls. Wandering bulls tend to get very interested when they think there are some ladies around.
Now, bull elk have several different bugles: A high, clear "locator bugle" that seems to just be for keeping track of who's about; a "chuckle" that seems to be a (usually friendly) invitation to come on over, and a "grunt" (I think of it as a roar), a bass growl that underlies the bugle and seems to indicate hostility. Cows make an odd little chirp at each other (sounds kind of like a cross between a cat's meow and a sparrow's chirp); they will also make longer, drawn out mews when they are lost, annoyed, or, um, getting really interested in finding a bull. If ya know what I mean.
Well, as soon as the first bull (whom I named Frat Boy, because he seems to like partying all night and sleeping all morning) heard me and the second bull, he started throwing out these loud, growly screams: He was itching for a fight. I couldn't go to him (I'm still in a walking cast, and can't sneak worth trash), so I kept bugling every five-ten minutes, chuckling, throwing in an annoyed cow call and some breaking branches once in a while, so I sounded like an adolescent bull chasing cows around. That got the Frat Boy pretty mad. He'd bugle every few minutes, and he seemed to be coming closer. Once I figured he was within a couple hundred yards, I started throwing some grunts into my bugles, too, and blowing some "distressed" cow calls. Man, did he get mad! Screaming, roaring, breaking branches, thrashing trees with his antlers. I was hunkered down about 20 yards from a little rock outcropping, and he was right on the other side of it.
The trouble was, all this had taken about an hour, and it was getting dark. I knew he was going to come around that rock at any moment to whip my tail, but by that time it was so dark that, if I had taken a shot, I wouldn't have been able to see where the arrow went, which really determines what you do next. So I gathered up my gear and snuck right out from under his nose. We heard him and the other bull (and a little spike with a squeaky bugle that sounded like a nerdy little kid trying to hang out with the high school jocks) bugling at each other a few more times from our camp.
He's still out there.