Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Best and Worst Cow Elk Call

Looking for input for my upcoming bowhunt. I'm comfortable with diaphragm calls. What should I buy and what should I avoid?

This cow call has worked well for me.

Carlton Cow Call

I don't even have a bugle.

The Skeery has always worked for me, but also, the Lil Chucklr from Elknut Productions work great as a bugle and cow call as you can take the mouth piece out to use as a cow cal.

The old original Cow Talk plastic ones works well also.

I can't use a diaphragm call. It doesn't hurt to have 2-3 reed calls hanging around your neck

Lot of guys swear by the Hoochie Mama, but you don't get much variation with them and they suck when they get cold.

A hoochie mama and a diaphragm call in combination are good for sounding like more than one.

I have a ton of them including mouth reeds and the famous hoochie momma, my favorite because of all the different sounds you can get out of it is Cow Talk by E.L.K inc.

The easiest-hoochie momma.

The hardest- mouth reeds.

Worst: Hoochie Mama, might as well bring a bike horn.

Best: Combo of the Bugling Bull ELK All-Star Diaphragm Call and a Bitterroot Custom Call. For a couple of bucks more than the hoochie you can get a hand crafted call that sounds like an elk.

thanks fellas, I obviously need multiple

The best cow call: my friend Leonard
The worst: any one you purchase

"it's the man, not the machine"

I'm 2 for 2 with a plain old Hootchie Momma.

Blowing a cow call the first time in the elk woods I felt like the last chair in the trumpet section. I had to be the worst.

As a I stood there shaking my head and vowing to not try that again, a bull bugled less than 150 yards away. So I guess the worst can fool 'em sometimes.

LA - elk make all sorts of strange sounds and sometimes the noise you make works.

During second rifle season last year, we were following up a small herd through some thick trees when one of the worst bugles I have ever heard sounded off about 50 yards behind me. I stopped and stood there shaking my head and was a little pissed that some nit-wit was following us, right up our tracks. I stood there for less than a minute when a nice 6x6 came walking up and stood broadside, smiling at me less than 30 yards away. He seemed proud of the guteral sound that he had made.

And yeah, I had a cow tag while my friend with a bull tag was too far to my right to see the bull.

Primos lead cow and calf for me

Cowtalk by E.L.K., Inc....no doubt about it.

Only time I elk hunted and called I used a Primos Imakadabullscrazy (or something like that). Bull came in like a freight train but didn't give me a clear shot. Definitely got the blood pumping though.

I found a dead bull elk during archery season a few years ago. It was sitting in a low spot and would have been difficult to find. Couldn't decide what to do. Marked the location in my GPS, then decided to go ahead and yell and see if a hunter looking for an elk could hear me. After a couple minutes of yelling from the top of a deadfall I hear sounds below me. Cool, they heard me. Turns out it was one of the oldest, biggest 5x5 bulls I have seen walking up the hill towards me. So much for all that sneaking around in the woods or using fancy calls. Didn't get a shot, but it was a great experience. I haven't tried the yelling call since. Maybe I should.

This is a hidden gem. Excellent advice.
If you aren't an expert caller and don't really know the elk language a few soft mews from more than one call can camouflage your presence. Just try to sound like a close, brief exchange between companion elk rather than a loud query to an unknown one.

I have a 100 or more elk living around my house almost year round except for heavy snow years. I can get the elk calling back with just about anything - hoochie mama, cow talk or mouth imitation. Elk aren't hard to call. My 10-year old is the king of mouth bugling elk.

However, when I hunt, I don't call anymore. My success has gone up by not drawing attention to myself.

My thoughts are similar. I do a few cow calls on occasion just to give credence to the noises I'm making. Definitely never bugle. Only time I will call for sure is if I've lightly spooked some elk. A few cow calls can often get them to go back to what they were doing.

A buddy and I used to call the Skeery the "Scary" game call. We ran elk out of the country when we tried that sucker!

Elk are funny, they'll come to some crazy sheit.

Got seperated from a hunting buddy on a quicky evening hunt, and being almost out of daylight I lit up the bugler and called one on top of the other, as fast as I could, so it would be obvious to him it was me, and not a bull. He later told me a big 6x6 circled downwind of me, and that was on top of the raghorn that almost ran me over.