Elk Bugle

[jeffro]

What elk bugles are you all using. Whats the best you have found.

[QCwtAddict]

I like the primos terminator. I have tried a few others and found it the easiest to use.

[mjmhunter]

If you don't plan on using a diaphram plate of some sort, I would suggest the Terminator Bugle from Primos. The blue reed system sounds very good and is easy to use. If you are going to use a diaphram to bugle with I would suggest the Bully Bull grunt tube from Bugling Bull Game calls. The Bully Bull has a back pressure system and a larger tube which promotes a little deeper sound making your bugle sounds a little more realistic. Either one would do just fine.

[Coach]

I don't bugle much when chasing elk, but the Elk Inc. Power bugle is pretty easy to use. Good for getting them talking.

 

IMO, bugling to call them in has become pretty ineffective over the past 10 years or so. From what I've seen, bulls in AZ are getting pretty call-shy. They'll respond, just to know where you are. I'll bugle to get responses, kind of like shock-calling turkey, but once they are going, I think it's better to let them do the talking.

 

Cow calls, especially diaphrams or reed calls, are way more effective, once you have a bull located. I'd avoid the "easy" calls like the hoochie mama, because the older bulls have heard those so often, they know how to distinguish them from the real thing. Sometimes, using a mouth call might not sound "just right" but it's enough to get their curiousity up. I've heard recently of guys using diaphrams or reed-based calls as if they were calling coyotes - just wailing on the mouth calls - having better success than the more "typical" sounds produced by the easy calls.

 

Just a side note - my dad worked for B.I.A. on the White Mountain Apache rez for a long time. Many of the top guides on the rez were day-workers on heavy machinery in the off-season, so he got to know them pretty well. Some of the best and most successful guides on those high-dollar hunts preferred some of the most "jimmy rigged" calls you could imagine. They used copper pipes smunched down at the end or in some cases, kids' whistles like you might falling out of a pinata.

 

I guess where I'm going with this is, you need to make your calls sound unique, more than "authentic". What we humans percieve as the "perfect" elk sounds are not always what the bulls will respond to.

 

Good luck on your hunt! I hope you get a stud bull!

 

[youngbuck]

I prefer double reeds and a grunt tube, but also use a small blue reed one from primos. My dad uses really old reed call that has a 1" diameter tube about 6" long. It sounds like a little punk bull.

[jeffro]

I was planing on using the primos terminator. Thanks for your help.

[azhuntnut]

I use an old Primos bugler that is cut down to about five inches, and Primos dual reed mouth call {red}. I had good luck with the dual hot lips without the converter and the cowgirl in the past. I recently heard the Bull Hooker cow call from Hunter Specialties that sounded really good, and a little different from the others. David

[HEADACHE]

I like the primos terminator. I have tried a few others and found it the easiest to use.

 

agreed!

 

I believe the Terminator to be the easiest and best sounding off the shelf bugle.

 

Their smaller pack bugle has the same mouth piece with a different tube, it sounds comparable.

Not loving thier baffle bugle though.

[Heat]

Whatever diaphragm you are comfortable with and a Elknut Productions Chuckler or Mini Chuckler! I agree with the guys about the less is more concept with calling bulls unless you absolutely have to challenge the bull. If you're going to do that, you better be in close, like in with his cows close. In my experience in most cases they are going to clam up and move out when you sound like a big ole mean herd bull with the agressive bugles with the grunts and chuckles.

 

Nick

[NavajoHunter]

Just my two cents from years of guiding non-tribal members on the Navajo rez for trophy bulls, and hunting in both the White Mtns. and public lands. I've learned if you use the same bugle as every one else, the elk don't respond too much as they get desensitized to hearing the same bugles over and over with the same pitch and tone (quite a phenomena on public land hunts). You be surprised how many people use the same bugle and sound the same on public land hunts. Ask any tribal member pulling a 400+ bull on prime hunting land and see how many of them use the same call. If you got late tag after the rut, imagine all the terminator calls they will have heard.

[TAM]

Is it me or does that Primos terminator with the blue latex reed sound very "hollow" and sort of "canned"? Not sure how to explain it, but it just doesn't sound right to me and I can always tell when there is another hunter in the woods that's using one. I myself like the Primos diaphram type calls with a regular old grunt tube. Much more realistic and versitile if you ask me. Either way I try to avoid bugeling all together if I can.

[BASS]

Is it me or does that Primos terminator with the blue latex reed sound very "hollow" and sort of "canned"? Not sure how to explain it, but it just doesn't sound right to me and I can always tell when there is another hunter in the woods that's using one. I myself like the Primos diaphram type calls with a regular old grunt tube. Much more realistic and versitile if you ask me. Either way I try to avoid bugeling all together if I can.

 

 

It does sound a little odd, but when you yank that hose off it, I love it for a cow call.

[Webber]

U can't go ring with an ELK Inc. Bugle... has worked the best for me.