Chronicling My First Elk Hunt

[aodeh]

Hi all,

I’m not sure how well this fits the forum, but my buddies and I grew up dreaming about our first elk hunt—this is the year. I’m starting this thread to chronicle the journey, ask questions, pick up advice, and give people like me a realistic preview of what this process actually looks like. I expect it will capture plenty of failures alongside whatever I manage to learn.

I’m not a resident of a Western state, which brings obvious hurdles. My buddies and I are middle class, late 20s to early 30s, with families and normal budgets. Hiring an outfitter or dropping a few grand every season isn’t in the cards. Our plan is to split costs and rotate one or two tags during archery season in easier-draw units, keeping it to about $500–$800 each. I often see gear junkies or folks with deeper pockets making elk hunting feel out of reach; my goal is to make it workable and affordable. That said, I have purchased a lot of gear this year, mostly backpacking equipment. I have slowly accumulated gear over the years knowing this was coming at some point in my life, but there was still so much more I needed. Some of my buddies are spending about a grand, I'm closer to 1500 for this year, not including the tag. 95% of this is gear I expect to keep for many years, so I'm okay biting the bullet. If anyone is reading this and expecting a number, I'd say I have about 2000 worth of gear, not including bow and associated bow things, hunting clothing, or an emergency satellite unit.

This year I drew a Colorado unit that used to be OTC. It’s a big complex of units, and there will probably be around 800 archery hunters in September based on the draw numbers. That still feels like less pressure than a typical weekend in central Michigan, so I’m not worried about the competition.

My approach is to to set up where I can scout a lot of country from one base camp. I’ve e-scouted three or four spots that let me cover multiple areas, even though I haven’t laid eyes on them yet. I’m training for four to six miles with roughly 3,000 feet of elevation gain. I can do more, but I’m realistic about the chance I may have to double the weight of my pack and walk that same distance back out. I have lived near the smokey mountains for a few years, so I have a handful of trails that I think mimic all but the elevation, though roughly the same elevation gain. I'm concerned about road access. I see lots of purple trails on onxhunt that seem to be open, but I don't really know how I will know this without actually being there during hunting season. Anyone have a resource?

I plan to arrive 4 days before the season start. I'll acclimate for a day before the climb, and probably get be on a prescription for altitude sickness to ease the transition. I then plan to commit to the hike at a slow place, do some light scouting, and hopefully get acclimated some more. I'll be camping high elevation, but within tree cover, somewhere in the range of 11k feet. The goal is to have access to a ridgeline that can give me a lot of glassing opportunities. That's one of my scouted areas. The other 3 are slightly more remote drainages, requiring 5 miles in on a trail and about 1-2 to get to where I expect the elk to be. I haven't the slightest clue if I'm on the money or far from it based on my escouting, but I imagine this is not unlike whitetail hunting where you only know if a spot is good when you actually get boots on the ground.

For glassing, I'm bringing a 15x56 pair of binos with a good tripod. I may get a spotting scope in the future given my heavy focus on glassing for opportunities in drainages where I can see for up to a mile, but I don't think thats in budget this year. One area I am concerned about and would love to get some advice on is how I would know that it's time to move on. Suppose I'm on a ridge and I have many adjoining ridges. My goal is to scout into drainages. I could spend a month walking across this ridge and glassing the dozen or so adjacent drainages. If I am not seeing them in one, is it fair to say they're probably not in a similarly shaped one a ridge over? Am I better off packing up and shifting locations?

My goal for this season is to see the country, experience the trails, and maybe glass some elk. In the off chance I am able to take a shot at an animal, I'll feel like I won the lottery. More than anything though, I'm looking to share a few amazing days with some lifelong friends and start a journey a younger me would be proud of.

I've read this forum for a decade, but this is my first time posting. Wish me luck, and would love any shared tidbits of knowledge. I am eager to speak to the reputable here about the details of my hunt in private messages.

I’ll keep this updated as I go. I’m here to learn, share what worked and what didn’t. I expect to mostly be documenting my failures, but, God-willing, I'll also have some success over the coming years to share.

Thanks for reading!

 

[WoolyBugger]

Good luck out there!

 

[ElDiablito]

Good luck. How many guys in your group?

 

[aodeh]

Good luck. How many guys in your group?

We're 4 guys this year. We got one tag, so I'll be the only one out there with a bow. We hope that we might learn some lessons and buy two tags next year.

 

[Packer9037]

Good luck man! Experience is the best teacher...tons of great information here, but the experience and lessons you learn will be so valuable.

 

[Indian Summer]

See that you focus a lot on glassing. Are you sure that you are in semi open glass country? I hunted elk for 25 years before I ever needed a spotting scope. By then I had switched to different country.

If you are archery hunting I’d suggest 10x42 binos. 15 is too much for anything but wide open long distance views. Besides it doesn’t sound like you’re counting inches so 10 power is plenty. Especially on a tripod.

It sounds like you are doing your homework. But I would think twice about backpacking to a spot before I hunted it a day or 2 from a base to camp to make sure the effort will be worth it. It’s much easier and faster to relocate from a base camp.

If you don’t see elk in one drainage or canyon yes….. they could very well be a just half mile away just over the next ridge. That’s a big difference between elk hunting and deer hunting. With elk hunting you have dead zones. The animals aren’t scattered evenly but instead in small herds. I wouldn’t give up on an entire area just because one spot didn’t have elk before relocating. I would try an area of about 2 miles wide by 3 miles long. If they’re not in there, then it’s time for Plan B.

 

[aodeh]

It sounds like you are doing your homework. But I would think twice about backpacking to a spot before I hunted it a day or 2 from a base to camp to make sure the effort will be worth it. It’s much easier and faster to relocate from a base camp.

My concern is mainly fitness. The ridge I aim to backpack to has perhaps 5 or 6 drainage offshoots that could all hold elk. I don't think I have it in me to hike the 8-10 miles a day for the there and back trips for 6 days in a row. What I could do is hike up 4 miles, set up camp, and then procedurally glass the drainages from the ridge, moving about 2-3miles on the ridge line in either direction. I also reckon I can better capitalize on morning glassing this way. It's open country, so far as I can tell, and my hope is I'll be able to see into the areas I expect I'll be able to see into.

My strategy is far more focused on glassing than it is on finding sign on the ground, though I'll probably do a bit of that in some areas I think are especially promising and especially if I have seen an animal in the area. My hope is that with an animal as big as an elk, I will be able to spot them and set up a plan to get down between them.

The rationale for the strategy is that for a completely novice like myself, I'll probably be better off covering vast swathes of land visually than betting it all on areas I suspect elk will be in. I just don't have that kind of relationship with elk yet to really know where they'll be. Heck, i can look at a map and tell you down to a hundred yards where you'll have the most probability of seeing a deer, but an elk? I can't read the terrain the same way with them. I'm also betting on elk being patternable in that first week of September, before all the pressure picks up.

Happy to be corrected in my thinking, I know what I know but I don't know what I don't know

 

[aodeh]

I'll add I've got about a 9 days total to spend before I'm back on the road. I hope to glass through my first location in a couple days, then I'll move out to one other location if it seems dead. I don't think I'd have time to test out more than two areas. That 2-3 mile mark feels about the the same size as the areas I've marked out on the map

 

[dustyward3]

I was in the same boat as you recently. My first CO elk trip was a heavily hunted OTC unit in 2022, rifle. Went last year for archery in same area and saw a spike, and slung an arrow at a 6x5 but unsuccessful shot due to brush/tree limbs.

I had similar game plans about getting to a good ridge and glassing elk up. However, I quickly found that leaves/growth in September makes that a lot tougher so resorted to more hiking around. My plan for this September will be the same: look for sign, glass when I can, but certainly not anticipating glassing lots of elk up

Good luck!

 

[midwestcowboy]

Following the thread to see how this season goes for you and your friends. Best of luck!

 

[575 ELK]

Glass from the ridges and listen for bugles. Elk are big but they can just disappear in the timber. Being you’re bow hunting the rut will be going, if you hear a bull and start in on him be watching for cows. If you’re only concentrating on the bull and his bugles cows will generally bust you. In September bulls are either with or looking day and night for cows.

 

[aodeh]

The ridge I'm on is rather difficult to descend, even if it makes for an excellent glassing location. I reckon if I spot an animal id need three hours to make the distance if not more. For that reason I've mostly considered glassing as answering the question of where the elk generally are so that at a later time, I can work my way into the area or potentially move camp closer to them. my buddies were debating the viability of being so far from the action. We're kind of in two camps, get into the drainage and listen or stay high and hope any elk we see from above hang out for at least 24 hours. i feel like my research hasn't led me to a conclusive answer. That makes me feel like it's a 50/50 shot that if I see an elk it'll be there the next day.

Can anyone help me understand what factors are at play with patterning them? In the first week of September, I can't imagine that weather will be driving any kind of migration, so I reckon cow elk are just chasing food, water, and shelter. That would make me feel like they'd pattern pretty easy, but no one online has given me the impression that they're easy to pattern.

 

[intunegp]

I know you're not concerned about pressure, but continue e-scouting until you have backups for your backup's backup. Keep in mind many of those 800 people have also never been there, have looked at the same maps and likely landed on the same plans you have. There's the very real possibility that you find a tent or two right where you plan to camp or hunt, or that some of the trails in and out of your target area look like skid row.

Arriving four days before the season starts will give you an advantage as far as a camp location, but once you're in there and setup you might just get more and more surrounded for the next four days. All that to say, remain mobile and don't think you're going to claim an area as yours by showing up first. It sounds like you have a decent start by having three or four places of interest.

Patterning elk, especially during the rut, is a challenge. The old saying "the elk are where you find them" rings true. Food, water, and shelter are great starting points, but elk have no problem traveling miles at a moment's notice to get to the next food/water/shelter. There's never a guarantee that you'll find them where you left them, but if nothing spooks them there's a decent chance they remain in the same general area if they feel secure.

You haven't mentioned calling at all...glassing up an elk or heard of elk in heavy timber and then walking into archery range in challenging terrain isn't an easy task. I think your chances would increase greatly by trying to get the elk to meet you in the middle rather than trying to stalk straight into the middle of them.

 

[Beendare]

My advice;
Enjoy your time in the mountains....drink it in....and don't worry about becoming the next internet hunting influencer. That takes away from the experience.

 

[WoolyBugger]

As someone else said, are you sure the area you are going is going to be good for glassing? Sometimes it may look like it on OnX but you get there and it’s completely different. Have several options. As far as patterning, you’re right.. food, water, and bedding. But it’s not like whitetail; in the Midwest if there is suitable habitat, 99% of the time there are also animals. There is way more habitat than there are elk so it’s hard to pattern them without being there scouting several times during the summer.

From experience even with scouting, it sucks to backpack in deep and the elk that were there a week ago be no longer there and then have to spend time scrambling because you didn’t put much time into a plan B or C.

I look forward to hearing how it goes. I did my first elk hunt in college with next to no money but all the time in the world. Was fortunate to work at an outdoor store and have demo programs through some backpacking companies so I didn’t have to buy a lot of the gear. Being on a budget is stressful but also fun to see how creative you can get to save a couple bucks. Now I can afford gear and tags, but the time away from a young family stings. Make the most of it.

 

[T-Rex]

OnX and Google Earth lie... Everything is much bigger/steeper than you'd expect it to be, take your time and you'll get there, pace yourself. This will be a fun thread to follow along. Sounds like you have the right attitude going in, so it should be fun!