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Patience

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Patience

Postby Swede » 03 04, 2018 •  [Post 1]

Fairly often I read where someone says they don't have the patience to sit in a tree stand all day. That has me wondering if you have to patience to set up and work a cold calling sequence properly. Do you call a few times then if nothing answers, start hiking? In the early season and on those days when the elk just choose to be quiet, how do you hunt? In those heavily hunted area where elk are especially skittish, are you running and not gunning?
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Re: Patience

Postby Roosiebull » 03 05, 2018 •  [Post 2]

I cannot understand that when people say that, and I agree, you need some level of patience to kill elk, unless the only way you hunt is calling for a vocal bull.

I understand there are a few who are that good at calling, but how did they get that good without patience?

I don't mind sitting at all, and that is often my strategy in the evenings, set up a likely ambush, and sit and listen. I have never been in a tree stand, but plan on changing that soon.

No elk hunting requires the patience of calling lions, I do 90 minute calling sets, and I'm probably 100 sets since my last lion.... yet every stand I'm paying full attention like one IS coming in this time, haha.

Makes any elk sit seem easy, because I generally get pretty consistent results elk hunting (encounters)
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Re: Patience

Postby Swede » 03 05, 2018 •  [Post 3]

I noticed years ago that after sitting 1/2 hour, I would get up to move and be busted by a bull that was sneaking in. It happened often enough that I went to sitting and waiting 45+ minutes.
One day I was having lunch in camp when this young hunter came by tired and thirsty. I gave him a soda pop and invited him to stay for lunch. He declined the lunch, but in the conversation stated he had hiked 17 miles by that early afternoon. I asked if he had seen any elk. It was obvious he out to call them. He said he saw a lot of elk but they were not bugling back and he could not get close. Duh. He must not have ever really set up and worked any calling sequence. He was like so many that I have heard hiking along the trail, calling every hundred yards or so as they just hiked along.

So how do you guys, that work a cold calling sequence, know when to be patient and when to keep moving? I consider two main factors. Maybe you have other considerations.
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Re: Patience

Postby ishy » 03 06, 2018 •  [Post 4]

I obviously haven't figured this out, as I cost myself a shot this year putting an arrow in my quiver and had a cow with a bull in tow show up with in seconds of my arrow being placed into my quiver. I was standing on a logging road and couldn't do anything but watch as they crossed 40 yards away. This scenario had a big bull calling for 15-20 min. and then a smaller bull chimed in ( I was thinking it was a hunter) and the bigger bull went quiet and after another 15 minutes I moved and put the arrow away.
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Re: Patience

Postby >>>---WW----> » 03 06, 2018 •  [Post 5]

I like to do what I call silent calling. I think that is what you are referring to as cold calling. Just two different names for the same thing. I have found it works best for me in the first week or two of the season. Late August to around the 8th or so of September. I usually set for at least 1 hour on each setup. Jim Horn has a CD on how he does it that is golden. I highly recommend it if you can still find it.
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Re: Patience

Postby Lefty » 03 06, 2018 •  [Post 6]

Some things need to be learned the hard way.
Goose hunting I take the chance and wait (patience) for what could be a better shooting opportunity. Maybe a little closer or multiple shot.
Being in a hurry to go to the next stand we were busted a few times by herds and once by a single cow.

WW an hour,.. yeow I dont know if I could do that!
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Re: Patience

Postby Cbb » 03 06, 2018 •  [Post 7]

I think this is where I went wrong last fall. I was in a pressured area and the Elk were quiet. Very quiet. I would cold call and wait for 15-25 minutes and move.

I think I just kept waiting for a response and wanted to find a vocal animal.

Thanks for this thread, I will be more patient this fall.
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Re: Patience

Postby Trumkin the Dwarf » 03 06, 2018 •  [Post 8]

I learned a lot hunting whitetails this past fall. Namely that we are way louder and more obtrusive than we like to think. I figured out that the woods didn't even start making their normal noises again after I moved around for at least 20-30 minutes. I think the mountains are usually quieter for moving, given the general lack of dead oak leaves everywhere, so it's not really a true apples to apples comparison. But I'm going to sit longer on cold calling sessions, and at likely trails when I get back after elk with my bow!
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Re: Patience

Postby Elkduds » 03 07, 2018 •  [Post 9]

The older I get, the patienter I become.
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Re: Patience

Postby Mathewsz7-elkridge » 03 07, 2018 •  [Post 10]

Patience comes easy for me growing up whitetail hunting. Normally hunting during the whitetail rut I will spend days in a row sitting all day in a stand.

While elk hunting I seem to build off that and when I come across a really great spot i tend to stay put for a while. Cold calling I only wait 45 minutes because of hunting the later part of September I feel like if it doesn't happen by then it ain't going to. If it was earlier in the season I would give it a lot more time.
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Re: Patience

Postby BrowTines » 03 12, 2018 •  [Post 11]

To answer the previous question; when to run and when to slow down? For me ....it depends on a lot of different variables. However, if I am seeing fresh elk sign, smell elk, or hear elk of any kind, I become real patient for siginificant periods of time (45 minutes is our mininum for one spot but it can be longer - it depends). When I don't see, hear or smell anything then I move along quickly. In our part of the country if there are no elk there, there are no elk there and no amount of patience is going to bring them in. There aren't many elk so you have to move along otherwise you can spend a lot of time in an area that looks prime but holds no elk (the norm). However, at the first hint of elk we get slow real quickly because this might be the only herd for the entire area - if you blow them out, it could mean the one chance for the season is gone as well.

Story about an odd exception: - we were going along a very long ridge and we knew there there was at least one elk along it. We had seen a single bull go into the one end. We didn't want to spend all day trying to hunt this (the bull had not shown any interst to our previous calling in the early morning hours). We started along the ridge and it wasn't long till we started dogging elk tracks, it looked like just a couple of animals, it was clear there was not a lot of elk around. We would go along and setup for 15 minutes and use lost cow calls. We kept doing this in every little drainage of the ridge. Almost at the end of the ridge (hunting most of the morning), we had two bulls come in silently. We were hunting with a couple of inexperienced hunters and there were arrows flying and animals running (it is interesting how the elk gravitate to the inexperienced hunters every time) - no elk down but it was fun for a few minutes. That was a rare case where we didn't use a huge amount of patience but yet is was sufficient for the circumstance.
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