To fully appreciate this hunt, we have to go back 28 years. It was 1977, the first year I purchased a nonresident Montana archery license, a year I'll never forget for two reasons: It was the year I missed on a bull elk and hopelessly became hooked on hunting elk forever, and it was the year I married my wonderful wife, Marilyn.

Marilyn and I live in Washington State, but my elk expeditions have led me to places such as Idaho and Montana nearly every September. Marilyn, to her credit, has never complained once. How could she? She knew I was an elk hunter from the get-go -- I had already secured my Montana license before we even got married, which was in July of that year.

The four-yard elk happened on September 15, 2003. I was hunting in Montana with my longtime friend, Jerry Bianchi. Jerry had been with me on nearly all of my Montana and Idaho hunts. This particular adventure occurred on the very first day of our hunt.

The day started normally -- us eating our morning cereal, making sandwiches for lunch and leaving camp before dawn. Because this was the first day, we decided to stick to a trail and not attempt to gain too much elevation. We weren't down the trail too far when we heard a bugle from across a drainage. It was 7 a.m. and shooting light was starting to appear. We needed to be on higher ground to confirm the direction of the bugle before committing, so we quickly proceeded to climb. The bull bugled again on his own, which gave us a fix on his position.

We hurried across the creek in an attempt to gain elevation on the other side. Climbing higher, I let out a bugle and received an immediate response. We quickly moved toward the bull. I bugled again to confirm distance and direction. I got the response I needed. We were moving in each other's direction. Soon, the finesse of cow calling would come into play.

FINESSING ELK
As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, I have become hooked on calling and hunting elk, preferably large elk. Back when I first started there were only a few elk calls available, with barely any instruction on how to finesse the large beasts in close. I used the traditional elk whistle, and when grunting through various tubes became the ideal method, I thought I had found the solution to taking big elk.

Then bugling and cow calling with turkey-diaphragm calls became the primary method. Using the turkey call came fairly easy to me, because I am also an avid turkey hunter. Now I had even more weaponry in my arsenal to challenge the mighty elk. Since then, I have tried numerous elk calls. However, I still rely on a traditional-sounding elk bugle for initial contact, followed up with various cow calls for close-in work.