Elk have habits

[Pony Soldier]

When you get tired of stories - let me know and I will go find something else to do.

I got out of camp early one morning and started a long sweep in my search for elk. About a mile out of camp I picked up a trail of a herd of 20-30 going north. Being on horseback, I followed them across two drainages about 4 miles to a big empty park. They fed through it in every direction. I started riding circles with increasing radius. At about 45 minutes I found where they came together and lined out toward the ridge I started on.

They took me back south and into the basin south of my camp. They lined out on a small ridge and started up through the cliffs.

I tied up my horse and followed them on foot. As we worked along, small herds would come from nowhere and join up. As we neared the top of the ridge, a couple sheared off and worked around the south side of the cliff the rest went into a hole on the north side. The pair took me around the main cliff into a saddle. As my pair went south, I dropped over the north side to see if I could cut the tracks of the main herd.

I went into a bit of a draw and as I cleared the top of a little ridge, I noted that every tree had a yellow porcupine scar on the butt. I remember I blinked and then realized that every scar was a bedded elk. In the center was a spike with a really stupid look on his face and below him was a huge cow. I had a cow tag so things were looking up. As she sagged at the shot the rest stood and filed single file in front of me at about 20 ft except the spike who ran into a gap in the rocks.

I cut the cow's throat and went to look in the gap. As I got through it I found him and 20 head of very confused calves in a rock culdesac with no way out. I had to crawl up a level to let all the children out to follow their mothers.

I worked my way back to my horse and rode back to camp after I cleaned the cow and prepared her for the next day. I came back the next day with a second horse and sawed my way through the jungle to her.

Two years later I repeated the event and killed another cow in the same place. Three years after that sent my partner into the saddle and he killed a five point. They have places they really like to bed.

 

[5MilesBack]

Ya, they're pretty habitual with their rutting areas as well.

Reading about your tracking reminded me of one time back in the 80's when we got about 8" of snow overnight, and I cut a single set of large fresh elk tracks that morning. I followed those tracks about a mile when suddenly the tracks just stopped. That was it.......just plain stopped in mid track. I started doing larger and larger circles trying to figure out where they picked back up again. I finally found the next tracks about 25 yards away. To this day I still have no idea how that elk mysteriously up and floated over to his next tracks. That's a serious broad jump.....even for an elk.

 

[Pony Soldier]

So much of our success over the years is the cumulative knowledge we get by just doing things. A similar experience I had early in my career was I was tracking a bull through a jungle when the elk tracks came into a set of man tracks and started following them. I continued following quite a distance until I recognized some features and realized they were my tracks. I continued to follow them until I had made a full circle. By then there were so many tracks in the path, I couldn't tell where he got off of them. I was in about 8-10" of powder. I made another circle and then started walking parallel to the tracks about 8 ft out on the perimeter.

On the third trip I found where the bull had stepped off in a patch of crotch high brush and went on his way. At times they can be as curious as a horse.

I never caught him on that day but certainly added to my skills as a tracker. Your past experiences are cumulative in your knowledge and skills which lead to a more consistant success record.

 

[Hammsolo]

It reminds me of when my buddy Kelly and I were young and simply went higher and harder. We hiked into no where, and found ourselves in sheep country at first light.

We were standing at the bottom of a cliff we named “China Wall.” We realized it was a great natural vantage point. We rock climbed to the top and took a seat. We jus happened to have a bird eye view of a sweeping vantage the elk had to pass through due to converging cliffs.

We sat down and within minutes a heard of elk came from the lower fields up through thick pines, and had to move to the chute.

Kelli dropped a spike and we cheered. We were young and inexperienced, about 16 I think. We gutted him and made a harness. I drug that bull about 5 miles with Kell doing some lifting here and there. I asked him to try, but to no avail. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more tired. Wow, I wish I knew better.

We went on to kill multiple bulls in that same chute, and learn there bedding grounds that lied above. We killed multiple bulls creeping through that dense forest.

Sometimes stupidity, testosterone, and youth lead to learning.

 

[Pony Soldier]

On that same vein, in my youth I would access certain ridges by walking up a bottom or for variety - up a finger ridge. At some point, I started to notice that there was a pretty well worn elk trail that connected all of the finger ridges. These finger ridges were about 100 yds down from the top of the main ridge and would end about a third of the way down a drainage. The faces were steep but the tops were typically flat or nearly so. Sometimes a number of stacked benches.

The main trail at the top often had elk tracks going in just one direction that corresponded with the prevailing wind so the wind was in their face.

The bulls especially would feed along the top of the ridge and then bed out on the nose. From there they could go down either side or the face. Often when you jumped them, they would drop down 100-150 ft then cut across the draw and go up the next finger ridge where they would wait just out of sight until you showed then pick an escape route (often below snow line) bed on another ridge and eventually take you back to where you first jumped them about dark.

Once you started to understand their patterns it allowed you to plan strategies for ambush with a partner. Over the years it provided us with a number of bulls.

One time I missed the ridge that I had planned on hitting and ended up a little short. My partner was a little high. That combination jumped a cow off the nose and down the trail I was standing on. I heard the crashing timber, pulled up my gun and shot in the split second before she hit me. At the shot I jumped sideways into a brushpile and she thundered past. I don't think she ever saw me.

Once I got my heart slowed down, chambered another round, I followed the trail down and found her lying in the trail where she ran out of blood.

I have kept my eye out for those finger ridges and found the corresponding trails in countless drainages over my career. The knowledge has filled my freezer many times.

 

[Houseminer]

I believe if the moon is full they head to bed earlier in the morning. Especially if the moon is up the last half of the night.