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MT file photo Bill Leever, right, has used elk calls to lure several hundred bulls while bowhunting in the past two decades. Leever enjoys call of the wild By MARK FREEMAN With a plastic diaphragm vibrating between his teeth, Bill Leever carries on conversations with big bull elk, chats he finds more fulfilling than carrying one of the big creatures home. Sometimes it's Leever's rendition of the soft bleating from a sex-crazed cow elk, chatting with her beau bull like two kids slow-dancing at the prom. Other times, Leever belts out the bombastic bugles of a full-of-himself bull, filling the air with the elk's equivalent of cuss words in hopes of picking a fight. Photo by Jim Craven There are several bull and cow calls currently on the market for elk hunters. Leever likens these moments of melodious chatter, typically referred to as "calling" for elk, to the hunters' equivalent of ballet in the backwoods. "You have this melody of your calls that is accompanying a story, like you're setting it to the music of the bull," Leever says. "As a hunter, you're choreographing your moves, trying to get yourself into position. And the elk is expecting a fight, and he's moving, trying to get the upper hand. "And together," Leever says, "it's all pretty." So pretty, in fact, that Leever counts himself among the growing slice of hunters whose talks with the animals they stalk are as gratifying as any fine shot they can take with a rifle or bow. "You never leave these encounters disappointed," says Leever, a 50-year-old Medford man who has called elk for the past two decades. "You know you're privileged to have that excitement and are aware of the magnificence of the creature." Many hunters will exercise this privilege in the High Cascades beginning Saturday during the traditional fall elk hunt for rifle men and women. This elk hunt, which is one of the last great general-season hunts, is open to all licensed hunters who buy their $26 elk tag by Friday night. The hunt runs Saturday through Oct. 22, with a heavy concentration of elk and hunters in the forests above Prospect, Union Creek and Butte Falls. While elk calling is most closely associated with bowhunting, many rifle hunters will take a page from their archery counterparts by using a few elk calls during their hunt. It is widely considered unsafe to bugle like a bull elk during the general season -- doing so could draw unwanted interest from other hunters who think the bugler is a real bull. But a few tricks with a cow call can help calm a wary bull or get a jogging bull to stop. "You have to have a call to be successful," says Tom Sittingdown, who sells elk calls and dishes out hunting advice at the Black Bird Shopping Center in Medford. "Without one, you have to be awful lucky." As a bowhunter, Leever won't try his luck during the rifle season. But he will resume his elk hunting when the rifle hunters leave. And he again will rely on his elk-calling skills, where the hunters' art imitates the elk's life. Like all mammals, elk have their own speech for communication. Hunters learn to join in on these backwoods chats elk have, either to locate herds or lure bulls within shooting range. "It's the excitement of the chase," Leever says. "Your encounters are invariably close, loud and heart-thumping." For bowhunters, that can mean drawing a massive and wary bull elk in within five paces. "Big bulls don't get really big by being dumb," says Leever, who has talked with several hundred elk in his 20 years of bowhunting across the Western states. "It's the highlight of my hunting season every year, without question." Typically, hunters use a series of calls that can imitate specific speech patterns of both male bulls and female cows. In late September and early October, the elk are in their mating season and the males are very susceptible to calls. All sorts of calls are on the market, and require anywhere from no skill to years of practice before the caller can sound like an elk. The calls range from long, plastic bugling tubes to cow calls that resemble duck whistles to plastic diaphragms held in a caller's mouth. Regardless of the tool, the sounds remain the same. Bugles are male noises that often start as a low whistle and build to a rousing crescendo, sometimes spiked with grunts, growls and even a rapid chuckle at the end. These calls are used to imitate a bull willing to fight another bull for mating rights. Good calls will lure a charging bull in expecting a fight. "A friend says it's the elk's equivalent of you walking into a bar knowing you're going to get punched, but not knowing when," Leever says. "They're tense." Cow calls imitate the different speech patterns of females. A soft mooing resembles a cow's call to keep tabs on her fellow herd members. A higher-pitched, more pleading moo can be a cow in heat ready for her bull, and a fast barking sound can imitate a cow ready to fight a fellow cow while ready to mate. The soft mooing can be used to calm a skittish bull down, while the other calls can bring a sex-crazed bull sprinting Leever's way. Using this art to get a bull within spitting distance is what makes the hunt better for Leever than the kill. "Even though a clean shot doesn't present itself, you still accomplish what you set out to do," he says. "You, essentially, win by drawing that animal close to you. "It is an art," he says, "and it's what makes hunting exciting." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA