CO Elk elevation

[cnelk]

Here's another spot that has a couple elk. You can see the profile of the 2 elk feeding, on each side of the pin.
Them aint rocks

 

[tbowers]

thats really cool, i never even thought to look for Elk on GE. How do you see the image date?

 

[Indian Summer]

Hunt as high as you can especially if there’s pressure. If you can walk there elk can live there. There are definitely elk lower but less people higher and so that’s where I like to be. Less pressure means elk will be out longer in shooting light too. Plus the views up there are the BEST!

 

[ChrisAU]

My image dates are 10/12/15, there goes my afternoon.

 

[chindits]

This thread is crazy. I can’t believe it’s actually playing out this way. There are elk down in the sage all summer and up to alpine. Just because you see elk somewhere through optics or satellite image, that doesn’t mean that’s where all the elk are.

There were 126 elk in one basin the first two days of archery. That was the elevation those elk were at, but that’s not the elevation elk are at. Every drainage surrounding that basin had major and minor bulls in it and small cow herds. The second week of archery there wasn’t an elk in that basin. That didn’t mean the elk all went to another elevation, they are still there in the trees but since people don’t see them in the open basin they think the elk just left.

I hear elk bugling while hunting grouse in sage/aspen ecotones and grouse season doesn’t last that long. Food and security will give an elk home. Cover high or low is optional. Last years drought had the alpine near empty after July 30. There wasn’t the forage, it was all browned out. This year there is lots of forage every where although it’s browning out up in the alpine. Every elevation is where the elk are in my areas.

Bull in the open alpine


Bull in the trees ignoring the rut


Bull in the creek bottom


All September bulls high to low

 

[Indian Summer]

Chindits I agree with that. I used to listen to bulls bugling behind the house in the river bottom. I had a friend kill a nice 6 point bull in a river bottom tree stand.... while he was whitetail hunting

I just prefer to hunt high. I love it up there. Plus like I said where I hunt there are just way less people up there.

I will always put in effort to hunt less pressured elk if I can. It’s not just the elk that can be affected by pressure. It’s me! I tend to rush things because I feel like if I take too much time someone else might see or hear the elk I’m hunting and everything will fall to pieces.

 

[xcrunner805]

Just got back yesterday from a 7 day mule deer hunt in the Uncompahgre Wilderness and elk were everywhere from 9,500 ft to 12,800 ft. They move a lot, when in timber hard to know if they aren’t bugling but they are there. Every morning we would find them high elevation and go into timberline after sunrise. They were bugling a lot so also easier to locate. Most the basins we saw them in were 12,000 ft. Don’t get stuck on elevation entirely, elk can mysteriously appear anywhere. They cover long distances and aren’t always consistent.

 

[jog]

El

This thread is crazy. I can’t believe it’s actually playing out this way. There are elk down in the sage all summer and up to alpine. Just because you see elk somewhere through optics or satellite image, that doesn’t mean that’s where all the elk are.

Post #7:

There's elk at all elevations year round. Dont get too stuck on high elevation, there are a ton of other elevation options.

 

[Poser]

One other thing to add about early snow dumps is that within 2-3 days of a storm moving out, higher alpine areas will become wind loaded. Basically, the wind will move the snow around in a manner where it’s only deep in pockets so elk that were pushed down, can and will often return to higher elevations. In short, “getting pushed down” is not necessarily permanent.

 

[the_bowhunter]

They could lose 0-11,800 feet in elevation in a couple weeks lol

For 1st rifle, I like to hunt my archery spots high in elevation

Once 2nd rifle moves around I don’t find many elk above timberline in the woods I run around in


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Newtosavage]

Man, so much can happen in October.

We've had good luck at 10-1k1 through most of the month, but a big snow storm will blow them off the mountain, right down to the valleys and ranches at 6-8k ft.

Every year is so different, its really hard to generalize. just need to watch how the weather progresses and adapt!

That's exactly what happened to us last year. Heavy snow above 8K and they were down overnight. A week later they were right back up. Moving 3K feet up or down is nothing to an elk.

 

[Newtosavage]

Here's the GE image of the elk I found - time stamp is Oct 14, 2017 - elev is 11,600.

Like I said, I killed my elk last week very close to here.



View attachment 121794

My algorithm will have this location identified by sometime tomorrow. Thanks!