Sometimes when hunting elk, especially archery, you will hear elk calls and be unsure whether it is an elk or a human using an elk call.

How could one tell the difference?

  • Firmly attached antlers? – Drew Sep 16 '17 at 6:15

The tricks are,

  • Humans carry both bugle (bull) and cow calls, while a bull elk won't make cow noises. So hearing a bugle and then a cow call from the same place is almost guaranteed to be a human.
  • Humans can be over eager to respond and will bugle back very quickly while elk will take a while.
  • Elk move around while humans will usually stay in the same spot as they are hoping the elk comes to them.
  • Bull elk will vary their calls, but humans usually only carry one bugle call and that leads to it sounding pretty much the same.

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