To call or not to call

[briverb]

For archery opener, my buddy had a bull moose come into 80 yards across a marsh. The moose stopped, stood for a while and then went back the other way to a natural mineral lick. We did not do any calling with the hopes the bull might eventually come back. It is possible he picked up my buddies scent. If the rut isn't on, should we still have giving a few cow calls or would that just give away our position and make the moose even more wary?

I had a decent buck at about 60 yards through some very thick stuff while sitting in my stand last weekend. I was watching him to see which way he was headed. He started going the other way so I thought I would do a grunt to see what happens. He looked in my direction for a second and then kept going on his way. I grunted again and he didn't make any notice of it.

If nothing is responding to your calls should you just let them do their thing and not make any noise or does calling outside the rut sometimes bring them in out of curiousity? Most of the time, I will not make any noise.

In previous years, I was doing some cow elk chirping and had a nice whitetail buck come in. Also, I was doing some antler rattling during the deer rut and had a small bull moose come in checking things out. Sometimes you just never know what is going to happen, eh?

[savagewsm]

Generally the biggest mistake is over calling. When you are up on a stand remember that if the animal has a line of sight to where you are calling will allow them to pin point you and even the slightest movement will tip them off. They may not run away but be put off enough to forget their original curiosity and move on.

I call when I think nothing is happening then give at least 20 minutes before I try again. If there is an animal in view I generally keep quiet. This is where a decoy can really be helpful

BTW this is for my white tail hunting. I'll let the elk and moose experts speak on those.

[Cowboy Al]

I usually play each situation differently depending on my "gut feeling". If the bull or buck is leaving I'd probably call as you don't have much to lose anyway. If they're coming in I'd call sparingly as to not let them pinpoint me. But every situation is different...I've seen moose that would come only when you called stopping when you stopped coming again when we started calling. I've scared bucks away by grunting..... in my limited experience with elk I've seen bugles cause a bull to round up his cows and head for the next time zone. It's real easy to second guess what we did / didn't do in the field.