Rich Landers: Bull elk have way without any words

Deep in the dark, damp jungle of northeastern Washington last weekend, I was reminded once again that the most stimulating communication in North America is a one-on-one conversation with a bull elk.

The yodel of loons, moan of wolves, chorus of coyotes and cacophony of sandhill cranes are wild calls that will highlight a day for anyone who listens.

Hunters take the awe of being an audience to another level by talking back. They enjoy a natural high when honking geese lock their wings and commit themselves to decoys or when gobblers respond to a yelp from a slate call.

But a vocal bull elk can make tall trees tremble, and strong men weak in the knees.

As it often is in elk hunting, my encounter materialized from the verge of hopelessness. From what I could see on the ground, I’d been shopping all day for a fresh loaf in a day-old-bread store.

I’d hiked miles on gated logging roads, probed the edges of timber sales of different ages and burrowed into tangles of false azalea and alder so thick I was expecting to come across the bones of elk that had become lost and died of hysteria.

Elk had been in all of those places. I crossed their paths, poked their droppings, sized their tracks and stood in the matted grass of their beds.

By 5 p.m., however, just as I was beginning to think the elk were as gone as Elvis, the woods seemed to explode ahead of me.

I was moving very, very slowly to take a stand at an elky transition of recent clear-cut, maturing clear-cut and thick natural forest. Triggered perhaps by my boot crunching brush, a bull with antlers the size of oil derricks, or so it seemed, burst from a depression about 100 yards ahead.

Before I could raise and cock my muzzleloader, he’d sprinted across in front of me, up a small ridge and in and out of sight through the timber. Immediately, I made a cow call and I could see the bull’s yellowish rump stop. I called again and the bull turned toward me, but out of sight.

Then he talked back.

He didn’t bugle; he grunted three deep-bass notes that pumped my senses to fever pitch. The grunts also caught the attention of my hunting partner, who was a couple of hundred yards away and immediately riveted to the scene developing above.

The bull positioned himself perfectly in timber behind a barricade of thick brush in colors ranging from green to brilliant orange and yellow. He grunted the three notes again, announcing that he was coming closer. I eased the muzzleloader up and steadied myself against a tree for a negotiating session that would last about 15 minutes.

Any wildlife watcher would be thrilled by this experience, but it’s the tag in my pocket, the weapon in my hands and the anticipation of split-second decisions that amplify everything to the magnitude of life and death.

I mewed, and the bull grunted again, giving away that it had quickly sneaked 700 pounds of muscle and antlers the size of twin Eiffel Towers through impenetrable brush to within 40 yards without so much as snapping a twig.

Then it called again with three bass notes that resonated through the forest as though a stubborn-starting D-9 Cat had belched exhaust up a road culvert.

The sound vibrated the vertebrae of my neck.

Then I felt a slight puff of breeze on my cheek and realized the bull was not coming closer, but rather angling a slow step at a time to the uphill – downwind – side. I would have been fully exposed in the open if I moved, so I stayed put.

He’d liked what he heard. He didn’t see anything disturbing. But eventually before stepping into view, he apparently caught a whiff that deflated his longings.

His last three-grunt call was fading away into the impossibly thicker brush beyond.

The sudden quiet seemed as ominous as the big bull’s call had been moments earlier.

The forest seemed empty, until the spell was broken by a solo “Whoo!” A pygmy owl that must have been observing, drummed up the nerve to change the subject.

At that moment, the little bird sounded as though it were the size of the Eiffel Tower, too.