A bull and a cow have come in to your calling set up.
The cow is in the lead, bull is 10 yards behind her.
The cow stops at 30yds, no shot.
The bull also stops, no shot
You only want to shoot a bull
I\'m going to set tight & see what they decide to do. They will either continue my way looking for the \"other \" elk, or turn to leave. The bull is within range & if I have a shot, will stop him with another cow call or nervous bark. On more than one occasion, elk have spooked when I tried to draw, but have stopped at a nervous bark giving me the shot. You might get away with a cow call, but at 30 yds they both will be looking right at you with any kind of call. Pretty hard to draw then.
As a guy who knows (very well) what NOT to do, let me turn the question around ...
What do you NOT do in this situation?
Well, I\'d be tempted to \"make something happen\" and, like buglemaster, I\'d get busted if I gave away my position. They\'re too close to \"direct traffic\".
My hope would be that they would continue their search for the elk they heard ...
But ... my hunch is the stopped because they thought they should see something by now. If so, the stiff-legged, high-chinned cow is going to slowly turn. I\'ll wait for the bull to start some sort of movement (likely turning 90 to 180 degrees, but slowly and confusedly) then send a nervous bark while drawing, hoping that his movement carries him to a broadside position.
no, i would wait, quietly. first animal that presents a shot..zip. 30 and 40 yards..no big deal. this is the exact reason, i sold my mathews and sought out a bow, i could actually hold at full draw for a longer period.
nothing sexy about desperate. bird in the hand..bird in the hand.
I usually try to set my decoy up next to a good sized tree if I\'m solo cold calling. In this scenario, If they came in from the right direction, I could use the SLIP decoy for cover to stand up behind the tree when the time is right, and give a soft cow call.
Anything could happen from this point, but it\'s possible the bull would come in for a closer look, and I could draw and hold from behind the tree until the bull gets clear.
That being said, I have been busted 6 ways to Sunday when cold calling. I always try to go through all the \"what ifs\" before my setup...with wind direction being the primary concern.
By the lack of responses I realize there isn\'t an easy answer.
But in reality, this situation can happen to just about anyone.
Me?
I\'m not moving, not a muscle.
If they continue on, great!
If they turn and drift off, I may move just a bit and then call again.
But if you don\'t move and call, they will know something isn\'t right.
I will wait for the shot to develop or not. The bull is already in range for me so I am just waiting for him to offer me an ethical shot. If they come a bit closer so much the better, but if he turns broadside I am ready to draw quickly and deflate him.
