One of the secrets to calling elk is positioning yourself in a place where elk will want to come. Proper setup is half the battle.

The following are excerpts from the first three chapters of the author's latest book, Elk and Elk Hunting.

Elk have just three things in mind most of the year: food, security and comfort. They'll trade comfort for security or food; for example, elk will elude hunters by living in steep, cold or otherwise uncomfortable places during hunting season, and they'll travel great distances daily to eat new grain or other choice food. Choosing between security and forage must be a harder decision. A bull elk that lets his stomach dictate his movements will certainly expose himself to rifle fire in the fall. On the other hand, elk that avoid hunters at the expense of foraging go into the winter undernourished, placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Foraging elk generally prefer soft vegetation to browse, though winter diets often include lots of browse because it's most available. In snow-free months, herbaceous plants account for 70 percent of what elk eat. Most of this forage is grass, though forbs (tiny broadleafs) attract elk seasonally. Forbs can make up 20 percent of an elk's diet in early summer, when these plants are most plentiful and available. Even in the peak of their growth cycle, forbs cannot alone sustain animals that need two pounds, dry weight, of forage for every 100 pounds of body weight.

A long, dry autumn that leaves the peaks bare until November won't fool elk. Some seem to know when winter is ready to pounce, and they'll begin stringing out along migration routes ahead of a big snow. A sudden drop in temperature at that time can send herds marching downhill. Some may march right back up, snow or no snow, if they meet hunters.

Big bulls are not always the last to leave the ridges. By late October in eastern Utah, rifle hunting for bull elk is essentially over. On one ranch I've studied, bulls are almost all on winter range at 6,000 feet, while cows under pressure from late hunts are still living at 8,000. Hunting segregates the sexes more dramatically than the weather does.

Sparring by immature bulls accompanies rut but is not easily confused with real brawls by big bulls. Savage fighting is relatively rare because, in most cases, posturing intimidates the lesser bull. But once in a while, two mature, evenly matched bulls will have at it. I've seen a few serious bouts among bull elk. Once engaged, the animals pay scant attention to their surroundings. They lower their heads and charge, antlers smashing with a sound like two heavy oak doors crashing together. Between contacts, they circle--long antler beams protecting their flanks from a quick, disabling thrust. One elk battle, videotaped in bright daylight near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, had a tragic ending. The elk were both trophy-class bulls, in the prime of life. They went at each other hard and often, over a period of perhaps 20 minutes. At last one of the bulls came in with a low thrust with his brow tines. The terrific impact lifted the first bull by the ribs. His opponent drove the tines in to the beam, pushing with all his might. The fallen bull skidded along the ground, limp. But after his heaving opponent backed up for a breather, he struggled to his feet and galloped off. Alas, he was found dead a few days later.

Like mule deer bucks, bull elk are polygamous: Each male will mate with several females during rut. But the buck will court only one doe at a time (serial polygamy), while the bull elk gathers as many cows as he can into a herd. Only the bull elk uses his voice to assert his virility (mule deer bucks grunt).

A cow elk's gestation averages 255 days. Unlike deer, which commonly twin, elk throw single calves. Twinning occurs in fewer than 1 percent of births. Newborn elk weigh 25 to 45 pounds, the males averaging four pounds heavier than the females. Birth weight influences a calf's chances for survival in its first month. Predation by coyotes, lions and bears contributes heavily to calf mortality, which can reach 60 percent. Black bears in particular have caused huge losses.

Successful elk hunting requires that the hunter understand the behavioral traits that cause elk to do what they do--and when they're most likely to do it.

Elk have a relatively long reproductive life. From ages three through seven, cow elk pregnancy rates generally exceed 90 percent. About half the cows seven to 10 years old conceive; after age 11, sterility is common. Old, infertile cows still contribute to the welfare of the herds, however. Though a dominant bull appears to control his harem during rut, the group pays more attention to a cow that's proven herself a leader. She steers the herd away from trouble and may even decide which bulls get breeding privileges. Experienced hunters know that bull elk are relatively easy to approach in September, but an old cow in the harem can be devilishly alert.

Chapter 2: Hunting History
To the best of our knowledge, humans have survived for about 2 million years. For more than 99 percent of this period, they have been hunter-gatherers. Sixty thousand years ago, humans apparently looked essentially like they do now, but not until 10,000 years ago did they cultivate crops, domesticate animals, use metal or harness any source of outside energy. To date, roughly 80 billion people have lived and died; only 10 percent of them have not lived as hunters or gatherers.

Early hunters killed game mainly to eat, but records of extinct hunter-gatherer societies are sketchy at best. Documentation of Arctic hunters covers only about 5 percent of man's total time there. And if Arctic occupation has lasted 10,000 years, that of Australian hunters is five times as long. The last great glacier to entomb Europe brought polar conditions to the 43rd parallel (about the latitude of San Francisco) as late as 18,000 years ago. South of this frozen front, primitive people hunted red deer--ancestors of North American elk.

In North America, Indians hunted for subsistence, burning forest and steppe to concentrate elk in areas where they could be hunted easily. They apparently recognized the value of fire in "setting back succession"--ridding the ground of decadent vegetation and tall trees so that shrubs, forbs and grasses could get a start and provide game animals with succulent, nutritious forage.

Elk are prone to pick up and move long distances; hunters who know the country are best able to determine where the elk might be.

White settlers on the Eastern Seaboard quickly reduced to token levels the native herds of deer and elk. By the time the Mississippi River marked the edge of the frontier, eastern elk were all but gone. At the end of the 18th century, Iowa had so many elk that settlers reportedly killed them with axes and corn knives. A Kansas resident told of seeing 1,000 elk in one "drove." But by the end of the Civil War, few elk remained east of the Great Plains. Market hunting for elk and other game followed the country's expansion west and left in its wake more carcasses than even the hunters wanted to remember.

The marketing of game meat in North America stopped even before Theodore Roosevelt and his fellow Progressives started a conservation movement. In 1887, Roosevelt and a group of influential friends organized the Boone and Crockett Club to promote game conservation. This was just a year after the U.S. government announced its first wildlife agency, the Bureau of Biological Survey. In 1891 the Forest Service Reserve Act designated 33 million acres for federal protection.

Hunters from other parts of the world came to North America to pursue elk in the late 19th century. Among them was Frederick Courtney Selous, famous for his exploration of southern Africa. In 1897, he made his first trip to the Rockies, hunting elk in Wyoming's Big Horn range. He noted that his readings of hunting 20 years earlier suggested that there was much more game at that time, and that it was easier to approach. But he killed a bull elk with a .256 Mannlicher rifle and 160-grain Holland and Holland "peg" bullet. Selous wrote glowingly of his fondness for the mountains and their game.