Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Learning a few calls of the wild
Pennsylvania’s late archery, flintlock, and antlerless deer seasons here in Wildlife Management Units 5C and 5D are winding down to the final days since the season closes this Saturday, Jan. 28. With this in mind, last week I once again clambered up into a favorite tree stand in hopes of filling my deer tag. Although I did spot two distant deer, the highlight of the morning came when I glimpsed a flash of movement on the forest floor. Too small to be a deer and too large to be a squirrel, a second glimpse confirmed the critter to be a red fox gliding silently across the rainsaturated carpet of fallen leaves some 70 yards off.
Foxes are opportunistic predators and can often be lured into range by the sounds of injured prey animals, mewing sounds that can resemble the cries of an unhappy baby. These kinds of predator calls designed to attract foxes and coyotes are commercially manufactured and can be found on the shelves of your favorite sporting goods store. Since my own storebought predator call was back at home gathering dust, I decided to test my own vocal skills and try to trick ol’ Reynard. I at-
tempted a few soft mews like those of a crying human infant (or injured rabbit) to no avail. The fox seemed unaffected and continued trotting away in the opposite direction.
Then I remembered a trick I had learned many years ago — that kissing or sucking air with your lips pressed against the back of your hand can create a kind of chirping sound that curious foxes sometimes find irresistible. The moment I pressed my lips to my hand and emitted a series of chirps, the fox reacted, pricked its ears, did a 180, and eagerly trotted directly toward me like a fish on a line. But I was in for another surprise.
As the fox closed to within thirty yards and emerged from the brush, I realized that I was not dealing with a single fox. There was a pair of them, skulking toward me side by side. I couldn’t say if they were a mated male and female couple or possibly siblings. They were about the same size with notably dissimilar coloration. One was a very pale red, almost orange, the other a much deeper red and more vividly marked. They came to within ten yards, then stopped to look around, searching for the source of the sounds. Even though they glanced up at me a few times, they never actually noticed me, perched in a tree some twenty feet above their heads. After
a few seconds they turned around and began making their way back into the woodlot, walking on fallen tree trunks and branches whenever possible, as sly foxes often do to dampen the sound of their footfalls.
Before they strayed too far away, I chirped a few more times and, sure enough, the dark red one spun around and marched right back to me, passing directly beneath my tree stand in the process. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me or I could have snapped some great photos in the full sun. After a few moments, red seemed to shrug off the search and strutted away, rejoining his significant other before fading away into the woodlot.
That foxy encounter made my day, and reminded me of how effective calls can be to lure wildlife to within range of bow, gun, or camera. I spent one morning earlier that week huddled in a goose blind, my goose call strung on a lanyard around my neck. My calling efforts were convincing enough to draw three of four flocks of the big Canada honkers into our decoy spread and within shotgun range.
And just as goose and duck calls are indispensable to waterfowlers, calls are even more essential to turkey hunters. A typical turkey hunter’s arsenal of calls is expansive. From diaphragm calls to box calls to slate calls and more, serious turkey hunters seek to imitate the big bronze bird’s diverse vocabulary — gobbling, chirping, and purring their way to tagging
their Tom. While my own turkey hunting career has been limited and I’ve bagged just three birds (a Jake and two big gobblers) over my lifetime, each successful hunt was exciting and memorable as I witnessed first-hand how the expert calling efforts by my buddies drew the gobbling turkeys within range.
Admittedly, while I can work a goose call pretty well, when it comes to turkeys, I’m a nimrod, and unashamedly rely on the expertise of friends. However, I have had reasonable luck calling in deer and elk. In last week’s column we explained how rattling antlers in Texas can lure in whitetail deer, a technique unlikely to work well here. Better results can be had calling in Pennsylvania whitetails by using bleat calls and grunt calls. While I’ve called in a number of Chester County bucks and filled my tags that way, the technique is not foolproof and far more bucks have ignored my calling efforts than have responded to them.
But the five-by-five bull elk mounted over my fireplace bears testimony to my elk calling prowess. Like gobbling turkeys looking for hens in the spring, bull elk in search of cows in the fall are extremely susceptible to calls, and there’s no more exciting way to hunt them. While I’ve trekked out west on a few unproductive archery elk hunts in the past, one rifle hunt in Colorado proved exceedingly successful. After the guides dropped me off that afternoon, I hiked up the mountainside
until I heard the distant bugle of a bull elk. I pulled an elk call from my pack and sounded the high-pitched, flute-like call of a young male elk.
The bull immediately answered back. I called again and elicited another instantaneous response. This back and forth continued as the bull and I closed the distance between us until finally concluding with a single 200yard shot from my .280 Remington Mountain Rifle. That heart-pounding sequence of events still ranks near the top of my outdoors adventures.
But if you want to enjoy some awesome encounters with bugling elk, you don’t have to travel out west. We have a thriving elk herd right here in Pennsylvania boasting some of the biggest bulls you’ll ever see. The elk range includes parts of Elk, Cameron, McKean, Potter, Clinton, Centre and Clearfield counties with the central point of the herd being located in Elk, especially around the town of Benezette. I’ve visited the area a number of times in September when bugling elk are more than willing to answer your calls and storm into camera range. It’s always exciting stuff!
The first time you hear the bugle of a massive bull elk, it will raise the hair on the back of your neck and instill you with a newfound respect for the calls of the wild.