Employing the Raking Tactic

[Trophyhill]

How often do you rake and when does raking work best for you? Tell us about the technique and how too.

[Toby]

A couple years ago my son in law and I were working a bull. We moved towards him 5-6 times, but he kept pushing his cows off, stopping to bugle back at my bugles. On our last set up I didn't bugle, my son in law got about 75 yards in front of me, and when he was set up on the bottom of a little hogs back ridge, I took a big limb and started raking the side of a tree, trying to rub the bark off and busting something limbs. He immediately screamed at me and I could here him getting closer, I raked even more aggressively and finally saw him on top of the ridge just above my son in law raking a tree himself. One more bit of raking by me, and he came straight down the ridge 12 yards from the shooter who put an arrow into his lungs. I didn't call at all on that sequence. This was one of my most enjoyable hunting experiences.

I think raking is an important tool to use, good to do when I doubt about what call to use.

[otcWill]

I almost always use raking for cold calling settups. I like to sound like a group of cows being run up on by a small bull. He (I) charges on the scene with a short, high pitched bugle and then shows off with some raking before chasing the cows around pestering them. I'm pretty sure anybody who heard me do this would say, "Well, there's either some elk over there or an Elknut". I just grab a stick and smash/thrash a smaller tree, break some branches, etc. I also like to run around rolling rocks and stomping. I'm sure I've painted a funney picture but I swear the noise making part of my settups are the deal closers.

[Swede]

I have used raking throughout the season. It may involve different things including sequences similar to otcWill. Often I will throw in just one short single note bugle or none at all. If I do some raking while the elk are bedded, then the raking lasts a couple minutes. After that I move away a few yards and just wait.

[Washington Wapiti]

I'm not sure from a strategy stand-point when it is best to employ it exactly. But in 2012 I was trying to pull a bull in that had responded to my cow calling. He was hung up at 80 or so yards (weirdly enough, the same directionality and distance of the bull I shot this year. If you shot an azimuth it would intersect with the bedding area I found my dead bull in. Could it have been the same bull?? Things that make you hmmmm.) and I was trying everything I could to pull that dude in. When the cow calling alone wasn't working, I then began pounding the ground with my feet, and shaking small alders around. They have great sounding foilage! That didn't work either. All I was getting back was some lazy sounding bugles. Perhaps he was already bedded in the super thick stuff and wasn't coming out for anything. I began walking up trails on two different sides of his location, lightly cow calling every 5 minutes or so, and shaking trees here and there too. Never going far enough to let the wind get behind or to the side of me. There was no way I was going into that mess. I never would have gotten the jump on him in there. Maybe I was creating the wrong situation by cow calling and then raking, not sure. But he never did come out. Soon his lazy bugles stopped . . . he must've gotten bored and fallen asleep.

[WapitiTalk1]

Maybe I was creating the wrong situation by cow calling and then raking, not sure. But he never did come out. Soon his lazy bugles stopped . . . he must've gotten bored and fallen asleep.

Oh great, "now" I find out you have the ability to rake bulls to sleep Gonna have to get you a bigger stick before this fall

It doesn't sound like that bull was gonna leave his bedding area to investigate your raking, or, even a lonely cow. If you could have gotten a bit closer and lit him up with a high level threat, it may have made him seen red and dislodged his stubborn butt. That situation would have been a good one to have a partner calling for you.

[Washington Wapiti]

Oh great, "now" I find out you have the ability to rake bulls to sleep Gonna have to get you a bigger stick before this fall

LOL, it's a new tactic I'm working on! I put 'em to sleep and follow the snores I think you're right, and I still often wonder if I had been more up on my bull vocalizations if something like that would've worked. It is funny the excruciating amount of thought you can put into the "one's that got away."

[WapitiTalk1]

I may have to start calling you Bull "Dozer" Just kidding... Sorry about the temporary thread diversion Trophy. Just had to take a good hearted poke at Shawn. Please, back to our regularly scheduled program.