Now is the height of the rutting season among the estimated 140 elk that inhabit Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In Cataloochee Valley, where the herd was established a decade ago, the peak mating activity — including the bulls’ distinctive bugle calls — is expected to last through the second week of October.

“You see rutting behavior from the beginning of September to the end of October, but a lot of that is showmanship among the bulls,” said Joe Yarkovich, elk management specialist for the Smokies. “The bulls have hormones coursing through their veins. They’re out chasing cows and looking for a fight. The real action is now.”

Knox News

Here are some photos I shot a few years ago during the rut.

On the prowl

Testing the wind

The chase

3 bulls from back in 2009 #2 #17#21

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Law Enforcement Division is investigating the poaching of a Bull Elk in Haywood County North Carolina. The remains of bull elk #16, part of the initial experimental release inside The Great Smoky Mountain National Park, was recovered outside the park after biologists received data from the telemetry collar reporting the elk was down. The site was located in the 12 Mile Strip and Hicks Branch Road in Haywood County. Poachers removed meat, hoofs, and the antlers from the animal leaving the head, carcass, and the collar behind. This happened a few months ago but the news of this crime has just hit unknown whether the info was being held for investigative purposes or not.

How much evidence has been gathered and how close investigators are to breaking this case is unclear. Currently there is a $10,000 reward being offered for information leading to a conviction.

The recent killing of an elk near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Western North Carolina has prompted the North Carolina Wildlife Federation to pledge $5,000 towards a reward pool.

With the contribution, the award amount will be up to $10,000 being offered to a person who provides information about the elk killing that directly leads to an arrest, a criminal conviction, a civil penalty assessment, or forfeiture of property by the subject or subjects responsible.

Citizen Times

Bull # 16 was known to be one that lived primarily outside the confines of the national park and seen in the park mostly during the rut. There is no doubt he was one of the older bulls and probably had a prime rack. I’ve looked through my photos and I haven’t found any of #16 so it seems to support he spent most of his time outside. Of course starting last year bulls are no longer ear tagged and this year only a small sample of the cows will be tagged. The experimental herd is through that phase so much of the study and observation is being scaled way back. The herd itself seems to be doing well with estimates of about 130 animals.
I was in Cataloochee this weekend and saw about 70 elk and from talking to the staff their they expect another good calf season. The cows should start dropping calves in the next couple of weeks and they estimate an additional 25 or so will be added to the herd.

Poaching can significantly cut into survivability of this small herd so I urge anyone with any information to contact NCWRC. The return of elk to North Carolina is a great thing and great for the area tourist industry. When I first traveled into the Cataloochee Valley shortly after the release there was not many people making the drive into the remote valley this weekend there was heavy traffic in there showing that not only has the elk herd expanded but so has the sightseers.

SUV on side after wrecking on icy roads WRAL

Today I had planned to take the Ram Outdoorsman to the western part of the state for a few days. My favorite place to go in North Carolina is Cataloochee Valley inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and I was so looking forward to doing some wildlife photography and touring around. Well if you’ve watched the news any we are socked in with the first storm of the season we got about a ¼ inch of snow before it switched over to sleet and freezing rain. The roads are a mess here and while snow is not too big an issue the ice is an entirely different one. WRAL
Just the trek into the office this morning was like an obstacle course with cars and trucks littered all over the place after losing traction and sliding into each other and other objects. The Ram Outdoorsman handled great not the least bit of a problem. Yesterday in anticipation of this storm and still planning on making the trip west I put about 300 lbs of sandbags in the bed of the truck to help weigh down the backend. I normally do that with my truck so I just went ahead and did it with the Ram Outdoorsman.
While I’m confident that the truck could make the trip and get me there safely some of the other people on the road are what concerns me. I don’t need to make the trip so I guess I’ll heed the NC Highway Patrol warning and not make any unnecessary trips. I was going to have to head back home on Saturday anyways and the weather folks are predicting another winter storm for Saturday too. So I guess we’ll do some things closer to home the next few days I went into work today but I’m going to take tomorrow off to play.
There is still time to enter the contest follow the link for the details. The key words for today are “Wintery Mix”.

Bull Elk 21

Lowlife Bruce Wayne Cromer Jr. of Stovall NC pled guilty last month to the poaching of Bull elk 21 inside The Great Smoky National Park has been sentenced to 150 days in prison. Back in November 2009 he shot the dominant bull inside Cataloochee Valley.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis L. Howell also ordered to Cromer to forfeit his rifle, which was autographed by NASCAR legend Richard Petty. Cromer will also lose his hunting license for two years and has been banned from all national parks for the same time period.

Citizens Times

The killing of this elk robbed all of us who enjoy seeing the elk roaming the mountain meadows of Cataloochee. I don’t think the sentence is hard enough but then again I have zero tolerance for idiots like this. I always get a kick out of the “taking of hunting privileges”…. Hello he is a poacher a hunting license means nothing to him.

elk in Cataloochee Valley

The small herd of elk inside Great Smoky Mountain National Park seems to be doing well. We traveled to the mountains for the holiday weekend and it was exciting to see the elk. In the past I pretty much stuck with the Cataloochee Valley for observing elk where they were initially released but this time I checked out some additional areas. We located some near the Ocoaluftee Visitor Center outside of Cherokee NC as well as a nice bull off the park and in a private cornfield.
We went to the Cataloochee Valley on Sunday and it was spectacular. The cows are about done dropping calves and so far 15 of them have been captured and collared. The breakdown this year is 8 cows and 7 bulls and thus far they have not lost any to bears. In the past they have captured and moved the bears out of the valley but this is the second year they haven’t done that. The cows have adjusted to the bears and do a better job of hiding the calves.
So if you find yourself in Smoky Mountain National Park take some time to go see the elk.

Cow feeding in the woods of Cataloochee Valley

Bull eating flowers off a tree around an old homesite in Cataloochee Valley

Stop and Smell the flowers

Antlers in the weeds

cow & calf

Bull chowing in corn field

Whitetail deer

I was checking out Annie Got Her Gun blog and saw her post on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and thought it was an important subject that we should cover.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of deer and elk. TSEs are neurological diseases characterized by microscopic empty spaces in the brain matter, creating a “spongy” appearance. The disease prions attack the brains of infected animals, causing decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, a blank facial expression and repetitive walking in set patterns. Infected animals become emaciated and eventually die. To date, CWD has been found only in cervids (members of the deer family) in North America.

NCWRC

CWD has shown up in two new states, Virginia and North Dakota. Hunters in those states will need to comply with rules for handling members of the deer family. North Carolina hunters hunting in states that are positive for CWD will need to be well aware of NC law before bring any deer back into the state.

15A NCAC 10B .0124 IMPORTATION OF ANIMAL PARTS
(a) No cervid carcass or carcass part from any state or province where Chronic Wasting Disease occurs as identified by
the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance on the Internet at http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fuseaction/about.map shall
be imported, transported, or possessed in North Carolina except as provided herein:
(1) meat that is cut and wrapped;
(2) quarters or other portions of meat with no part of the spinal column or head attached;
(3) meat that has been boned out;
(4) caped hides;
(5) cleaned skull plates;
(6) antlers;
(7) cleaned teeth;
(8) finished taxidermy products.
(b) Pursuant to G.S. 113-291.2, any cervid carcass, carcass part, or container of processed and packaged cervid meat
imported as in (a) above from a state or province where Chronic Wasting Disease is known to occur as identified by the
Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance on the Internet at http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fuseaction/about.map shall be
tagged identifying:
(1) Hunter’s name and address;
(2) State or province of origin of any cervid carcass, carcass part, or container of processed and packaged
cervid meat;
(3) Date the cervid was killed and the hunter’s hunting license number from the state or province of origin
of any cervid carcass, carcass part, or container of processed and packaged cervid meat; and
(4) Destination of the cervid carcass, carcass part or container of processed and packaged cervid meat
within North Carolina.
History Note: Authority G.S. 113-291.2;
Eff. May 1, 2006.

North Carolina residents that deer hunt in Virginia are going to have to really think about the changes now that Virginia is a positive state. No longer can a deer taken in Virginia be brought across the state line and butchered here. Even though CWD is for all intense purposes is not really much closer to North Carolina the game has forever changed.

Chronic wasting disease has been found for the first time in a Virginia white-tailed deer, the state game department said Wednesday.
The illness is a progressive neurological disease that ultimately results in death. It affects deer, elk and moose in North America, but it can’t be transferred to livestock and isn’t believed to affect humans. Still, game department officials warn hunters to be careful when handling deer.
A hunter in Frederick County killed the affected deer in November of last year, less than a mile from the West Virginia border. Virginia joins 17 states and Canadian provinces where the illness has been found.

Virginia Pilot

While on the surface this is alarming for North Carolina and the health of the deer herd we must keep this news in perspective. While now a neighboring state has CWD the reality is by all reports the disease has only expanded a mile closer to our border. The restrictions and the rules put in place seem to be working so I hope NCWRC reacts to this news in a sensible manner.

NCWRC Executive Director Gordon Myers Opens Up District Meeting

Unlike the past few years there were little controversial items on this year’s proposals. The 37 fishing proposals didn’t draw a single comment from the 200+ people that showed up for the meeting. The hunting trapping proposals drew a little bit dialogs but not much. The two that garnered the most attention was the extending the squirrel season till the end of February and the delisting of the elk from the “Special Concerns List”
Extending the squirrels season has some opposition after an e mail from the NC Camo Coalition questioned the ethicalness of such a move given that biologists have documented squirrels bearing young in February. So it would be possible that a hunter could kill a mother squirrel and her offspring starving in the nest when the mother doesn’t return.
Dr. David Cobb address this issue saying that they had considered this when they made the proposal but they feel it would be a small percentage of the actually squirrels taken. Nursing squirrels would spend more time in the nest or near it limiting the opportunities for hunters to take them. They believe more males will be taken in February as a result but there will be a small percentage of lactating squirrels taken no doubt.

The delisting of the elk from the “Special Concerns List” is certainly one proposal that is making me think. The National Park brought in an experimental herd of elk inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and has had success with reintroducing them. While they have slowly expanded their numbers there is still only 120 of them so taking away this protection seems inappropriate to me.
Dr. Cobb explained the reasoning behind this proposal; the protection the elk get from being listed and not being listed will be about the same. There is no plan at this time to allow any hunting of this small herd however under current depredation law a landowner could kill elk legally if they were damaging crops. By delisting the elk a landowner could apply for a depredation permit from NCWRC and then they could utilize the meat rather than letting it rot. A depredation permit is required to allow the landowner to utilize the animal and NCWRC feels this will give them a little more leeway in managing the small herd.
I’ll be honest I’m not sure I’m crazy about either of these proposals. We have a few more weeks before public comments close on these so I guess I’ll mull them over. I’d be curious to hear what any of my readers think about these even if you don’t live in North Carolina.
Tomorrow I’ll report on the end of the meeting and the public comments the NCWRC got from those present at the District 5 meeting.

There are still a number of public hearings across the state if you want to attend

#21 Bull Photo Taken in Aug 2009 Poacher Killed this Bull Nov 2009

Park Rangers discovered the body of Bull Elk 21, part of the experimental elk herd that’s been introduced to the Smoky Mountain National Park, in one of the meadows. Investigators have already identified a suspect and an arrest is believed to be eminent.

The suspect in the shooting was found through witnesses’ descriptions of a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche that was seen leaving the area. A National Park Service special agent then located the suspect at his home in Granville County, according to the press release. Park spokesman Bob Miller said it is not policy to release the name of the special agent involved.
Miller said the suspect’s name will be released when charges against him are filed with the U.S. Attorney. Charges should come by the end of the week, he said.
The suspect could be charged with a number of different things including taking of wildlife in a national park or possession of a weapon, said Miller.
He did not know what kind of weapon the suspect used.
Anyone convicted of poaching in national parks can face a $5,000 fine and/or six months in jail.

Knox News

I travel into the valley a few times a year to see the elk and photograph them. This photograph was one I took of the #21 Bull on my last trip in the Cataloochee Valley. The killing of this bull is such a waste and I hope they throw the book at this poacher.

Whether hunting public or private land, the fundamentals of calling elk remain the same.
Calling Elk Bow-Close
Michael Waddell

The “Professor”, Waddell’s largest bull came from the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Public land bulls like this can be call shy and may require some double teaming with a separate caller to fool. Master the cow call and you will call in elk bow-close. Use the bugle to locate as well as seal the deal on an aggressive bull.

We heard the bull bugle at first light and snuck into his core area. When I hit a lick on my bugle, the bull simply came unglued and stormed our position like a tank, crashing through brush and small lodgepole pines like they were matchsticks. Before we could react he was in our lap and we were pinned down, me hiding behind a camera, too scared to touch the tripod for fear my shaking hands would ruin the footage. All I could see of my partner wedged against a stunted pine was the tip of his undrawn arrow quivering on the rest. Before a shot presented itself, the bull smelled a rat and disappeared as quickly as he arrived. While this experience didn’t result in a dead elk, it did hopelessly addict me to calling them.

It seems that in all walks of life, be it the animal kingdom or humans, communication is a key ingredient for all social interaction. However, not all living things communicate to the same degree. If you ask my wife, I am sure she will tell you I am lacking in the communication department; in fact, I’m sure she believes I don’t listen to her at all, but when it comes to communicating with animals I can barely shut up. Of all the animals I love to communicate with, elk rate right at the top.

By nature, elk are very vocal. The uninitiated often simply think of bulls bugling, but cows, calves and bulls make all sorts of noises year-round. If you encounter a large herd, while you might not hear anything from a distance, if you get close you will hear lots of subtle vocalization. Most of the time these are sounds of contentment, but depending on what’s happening the vocalization reflects it. Elk can convey contentment, danger, curiosity or a cow in heat. Bulls, for instance, only bugle primarily in the rut, but they also communicate to establish a pecking order. After spending a considerable amount of time chasing the mighty wapiti, I’m convinced every elk in the herd knows each other by sound alone. This happens with the cows as well as the bulls, and based on my evaluation, somewhere in this mix is the deadly secret to calling elk bow-close.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
It seems that the more vocal a herd, the better the odds are for success at calling them. Some cows call subtly, while others are loud-mouth ladies actively looking for a date. By listening, it gives you a better opportunity to imitate the particular tones and intensity of the herd.

Master the cow call and you will call in elk bow-close. Use the bugle to locate as well as seal the deal on an aggressive bull.

By calling, we are automatically intruding into the social club without an invitation. The closer we can sound to a known elk and match that intensity, the better the odds are of filling a tag. Even though we may sound like an outsider to the herd, luckily for us, love-crazed bulls are not looking to be intimate with just one or two cows; they are looking for all the love of every cow in the world, so taking advantage of their sexual frustrations and promiscuity is our salvation.

It doesn’t take a world champion elk caller to trick bulls within range. By simply paying attention to the herd and understanding simple elk rhythm, tone and, more important, volume when calling, a hunter can depend on an elk call to be a valuable asset to dulling broadheads.

Public Versus Private Land
Since I started hunting elk 16 years ago, on private as well as public ground, I’ve realized comparing these two different types of ground is like comparing night and day, and it is all about the amount of pressure each receives. Generally speaking, private ground bulls are way easier to call than public ground animals, but this is not always the case. Some private land gets a lot of pressure, which can make for some pretty tough calling duels with elk that can serve you up a humble pie every time you bust out a call. Conversely, some public land, either through sheer remoteness or hard-to-get tags, is like calling the best private land in the nation.

Hunting untouched land and cow calling to bulls that have never heard a Hoochie Mama would obviously be nice. It wouldn’t take long working over these uneducated elk to start feeling like an elk-calling pro, only to be deflated the first time we went to the national forest and mixed it up with bulls so well known by local hunters that they have nicknames. However, regardless of where you hunt, the basics of calling remain the same.

Start with mastering the cow call and all its various inflections. Your basic reed-type calls are the easiest to learn as well as get proficient with. You will find two kinds; both are bite-down reed-type calls, one being enclosed and the other having an open reed or reeds. These calls make a very realistic sound and before your wife can run you out of the house you will master the basics.

I rely heavily on the cow call and think most of the time hunters are better off sticking with it over a bugle no matter where they are hunting. However, learning how to make a basic bugle is important, especially for locating bulls at a distance before getting close and working him with your cow call. In addition, sometimes it is the bugle that finally provokes a dominant bull to commit, especially during the early season when bulls are still sorting out their pecking order.

This public land bull didn’t sound like much when he bugled, but he turned out to be a lot better of a bull when he responded to some subtle calling and snuck into 16 yards.

In the Gila, the trophy potential is off the chart, sporting some of the biggest bulls in the country, but just because the big ones live there doesn’t mean that you automatically make one call and they come running to get in the back of your truck. These mature jokers have a Ph.D in avoiding hunters.

Over the last six years I have hunted this area religiously and have had the opportunity to shoot some nice bulls, all by using elk calls as an aid to close the coffin.

Notice I said, “as an aid,” meaning the call was just one thing in a bag of tricks to help smoke these monarchs. My biggest bull that came out of the Gila was a 378 P&Y bull that earned the name The Professor because he always seemed to take you to school when you applied too much pressure. However, this bull was vocal and would bugle his butt off. He also seemed to be fairly easy to find, not only by his gnarly, raspy bugle that set him apart, but frequently he could be found early in the morning in a large meadow just south of a particular water hole that always attracted a large herd.

The Professor was not the only bull in the area that had large headgear, but it was the Professor that seemed to call the shots. I had caught this bull in the open several times, but calling seemed to really make him uneasy when you were in close. However, he would bugle hard to distant cow calls and seemed to be whole heartedly interested, but he had a sixth sense when you moved in for the attack.

Finally, we decided to have a caller stay behind as we worked him coming off the meadow at daybreak. By doing this we could keep him interested and bugling as we stalked in closer. The caller always was no closer than 80 yards behind me. While the caller kept him occupied, I slid within 50 yards and gave him a G5 Tekan right behind the shoulder. This hunt was really a stalk, but the call and caller had a big part to do with his demise. Once we started quartering the bull, we found a piece of an old arrow lodged just below the backstraps, so obviously someone had him in close before and gave the teacher an education, which explained why he was so wary.

The Double Team
As this old bull showed, hunting with a partner can work extremely well. It not only puts the hunter out in front of the call, it gives the hunter a chance to move and adjust the angle based on where the bull might be approaching. Likewise, the caller has the flexibility to move and apply a lot of different calling techniques.

The double-team plan worked again on another hunt. It had been hot, and the bulls were only bugling early and late. As soon as the sun would rise the elk woods would turn into a ghost town.

Just after daybreak on the fourth day of our hunt we heard this bull bugle. He hit it only two times, both very weak. He sounded like the littlest rag horn in the land, but with no other game in town we went after him. Getting as close as possible to where we thought the bugle came from, I eased up and sat down by a pine stump while my buddy moved back and to my right about 40 yards.

Neither of us was very optimistic about our chances. My buddy made one or maybe two very soft cow calls on a two-reed diaphragm, then he started raking a tree and rolled a few rocks. We sat there for possibly 10 minutes in silence, then out of nowhere appeared a wide 6×6 coming directly to us.

At 25 yards the bull let out a soft chuckle, looked over his surrounding, and kept walking in the direction of where the last rock had been rolled, which led him 16 steps from my pine stump. By now I was at full draw, waiting for a broadside shot. When the arrow left my bow, I knew we had killed a call-shy monster by keeping it low-key and staying patient. Needless to say, I was never convinced by the two times he had bugled earlier that he was a shooter. This was a lesson in itself. Never judge a bugle until you can see what is making the sound.

The most exciting way to bag a bull elk is to get him in close, and the best way to do that is with a call. Confidence in your call is critical, because if you’re insecure about using your call, there is a good chance you will spook elk. Have confidence in your calling ability and become just another elk in the herd where you are hunting.

Find a call that works for you and not what works for someone else. Think like an elk and do as elk do. Realism, rhythm and volume control can make the difference between bringing them in or running them over the next ridge. Remember, it’s not always about calling. It can be about just patiently listening to the sounds around you and applying minimal calls while practicing good woodsmenship and stalking skills that could help you put that monster on the back of the truck.