Elk Don't Exist

[bcjoe]

As an old saying goes, the elk are where they are they can be high. They can be low. They can be on North drainages I’ve even seen them on South facing ridges on a hot day rare but they go where there’s no pressure and they feel safe. I agree with the rest of you boots on the ground and miles of walking equals better success one rule I can’t tell you is hunt dark to dark If you’re able to, the more you’re out there the better your chances are.

 

[bcjoe]

Although some years I think there’s a lead cow that runs through the valley a day before opening day and tells all the elk the orange men have arrived

 

[Solm]

You can't win if you don't pay....



Or is it play? Same difference.

You have to pay to play.

 

[The Harbor Master]

None of those questions are a factor of if I was successful or not.

Same. Ive hiked several miles to elk and I've killed elk 400yds from a major highway.

 

[el_jefe_pescado]

There are 8 or so trailheads in a particular part of my state - 6 don’t usually have elk within 3 miles, and two do. No matter how many times I’ve been to them, the areas elk like have elk and the places they don’t don’t. If you’re on foot those 6 make hunting a lot harder than it has to be. It’s much better to not reinvent the wheel, and simply hunt like a local.

When the shooting starts day one elk will go somewhere - if they only go to where you can’t reach them on foot, move. Some areas have one way elk movement until the season is over. If they are pushed a drainage away, and hunters there push them back, you need to understand that and hunt escape routes between the two areas. Maybe there’s three or four areas that elk ping pong between when pushed.

I have a nephew that hunts wherever he can draw a tag - many marginal areas he has no clue about, and often for only a few days of hunting on the weekend. If I don’t tag along, we’ll sit down and come up with a plan for getting as much local knowledge as possible, where to set up camp before the season to best quickly identify elkish areas, then secondary spots if fresh sign is nowhere to be seen, and a Hail Mary if all else fails. Sometimes elk are predictable, but sometimes they have routes that I didn’t anticipate, but the locals know.

Drive a forest service road if you don’t know anything and aren’t seeing anything. Ignore out of state hunters and teenage kids, unless hooves are sticking out of a pickup bed. If there are ten local trucks parked along different parts of a FS road, look on the map to try and understand why each hunter choose that specific spot. They already know more than you, so try to gain something from them. You’ll find some guys don’t have a clue, but others are parked there to access a specific type of terrain. I’ve done this at 10:00am, seen likely escape routes and big benches those day hunters might have pushed elk to, drove a few miles down the road, walked in a short distance, saw one lone cow, then a couple more, and finally walked up on a meat bull that was pushed my way and bang bang.

Don’t be intimidated with big trailheads loaded with horse trailers if there are pockets of dark timber close by that can’t be easily hunted on horseback. Many hunters on foot avoid an area that looks like a rodeo parking lot, but 3 miles in, a single drainage that has too much blow down for horses can be full of elk.

^this is gold.