Only one I would try are the Montana decoys. Everything else too big and bulky. I have used them for deer, the buck one scared does away and the doe one has drawn in little bucks and youngsters but nothing mature. Montana Decoy RMEF Collapsible Cow Elk Decoy | Cabela's
I've hunted elk for the past 5 years, imho, I'd pass on the decoy. I can only think of a single time last year with about 6 encounters and 1 or 2 occasions in years prior that a decoy may have helped. There is enough work finding the elk, looking, listening, calling and positioning your self cms not getting busted as they move about should you get into them. Having said that, in addition to the Montana (#1) , the ultimate predator (#2) would be the other I'd look at. If o had a Montana set up 20 yds to the side of me, the bull that came straight at me, head down, may have veered toward the decoy and gave me an opportunity. Instead he stood behind a group of trees and stared at me for what seemed like 5 minutes around 25yds.
Thanks, I’ve heard of the Montana but the ultimate predator is one I have not heard of. I’ll check it out. That’s pretty exciting having a wild animal that close for sure. I’d check that box as a win.
agreed, I would not bother to bring one unless maybe I knew where a water hole was ahead of time. If you have a friend that has one already or something it might be worth bringing along, but I can think of a lot of other bits of gear I would rather drop $100 on not knowing you are going to have the time and opportunity for the "just right" scenario where one might be useful. Another thing is, remember elk are herd animals- in my water hole scenario above, cows and youngsters came in to the hole first. If I had a decoy up and was not intending on shooting a cow, cow sees decoy, cow approaches decoy, decoy spooks cow, cow spooks herd, no elk shot. Granted, that's not to say a lone bull won't come in by himself, but you have a pretty high likelihood a group comes in.
We've never bothered with a decoy but I've talked to people that say they work really well. One group of guys I talked with said they use the decoy as cover for the shooter. The shooter would deploy it and stay behind it, and their callers (they were a fairly big group and used two callers and one shooter for a setup) would stay inside the edge of cover to call. They said it worked really well for them. Elk are really good at pin pointing where calling is coming from, you don't want to be by yourself and call from an open area. A bull will pop out to look, usually a 100+ yards away from you still, and if there is no "elk" for him to see then they normally won't fully commit to come clear in to the caller location. When hunting solo I often stay just inside the edge of the timber and do my calling from there. It gives you cover to move if the bull tries to get downwind, and also "explains" to the bull why he can hear elk calling but can't see them. I make a ton of racket too, stepping on dry sticks and trying to sound like elk milling around in the timber. A few head of elk are very noisy in the timber. I just make sure I have some shooting lanes out of the timber into the opening I'm trying to get the bull into. A decoy may work decent at steering a bull to a specific spot. The only decoy I'd consider is something that is very light and folds down to a small size. It is a lot of leg work to roam around and find a bull that is vocal and willing to come to "play".
