Elk Strategy Help - Lots of Sign/No Calling, What's Your Approach?

[BoilerBowHunter]

I'm a second year (aspiring) elk hunter. Just finished hunting in Colorado, and I am hoping to get some insight from the more experienced members here.

Scenario - We were on public land (Wilderness Area). We found elk sign, and we could hear them bugling at night in fields within a few 100 yards of our spike camp. So we know we have elk in the general area. However, they were generally non-verbal during the day. Occasionally we'd get a bull that would crack off one bugle then go silent, but it was never enough to pin-point them and make a move. What are some tactics that you all have used to get an encounter in a scenario like this where you know they're around, but they aren't giving their position away?

Here are some things we tried with no success.....

We sat patiently in the evenings thinking maybe we'd catch them coming down a hillside where we suspected they were bedded, although looking back I think we needed to be much further up the hillside. We also tried to still hunt through the top third of north facing slopes once the wind stabilized while cow calling to see if we could get a bull to give away a location. Neither of these seemed too productive. We were hesitant to just blindly tromp through the woods for fear of blowing things out.

Look forward to the feedback....

 

[patagonialuke]

I don't have much more experience than you, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but I have been dealing with similar scenarios this season in particular.

Elk have been dang near silent, but we'll often be able to glass them feeding in various open meadows at dawn and dusk. Then we do our best to guess where they head to bed (they're almost always hidden in trees from ~8am – 6pm).

So far, our best opportunities have been created by still hunting through suspected bedding areas and travel routes. We focus on theoretical bedding areas during the middle of the day and travel routes if it's getting closer to dawn / dusk.

It's far from my favorite style of hunting. I'm constantly on high alert, moving very slowly, frequently checking with binos, and never knowing if I'm actually close to a herd (or if that herd has a bull).

But, when the wind is suitable for this approach and the ground isn't absurdly noisy, we have been able to come across a lot of elk and get within archery range. I've actually been surprised by how few elk we've busted while still hunting, despite this approach being pretty new to me.

Of course, there have also been many days when we do all this and don't come across anything, so it's been tough to keep up morale. E.g., I think I covered 25 miles in the past 3 days without seeing or hearing an elk. But with the lack of vocalization this year, I've just had to accept that (I think?) it's my best bet.

Like you, I'm also very open to any alternative strategies.

 

[BoilerBowHunter]

Appreciate the response. Helps to at least make me feel like I'm not crazy! Hopefully we can have a few others chime in on this one.

 

[jjordan355]

Move spots. Many spots. Don’t hang your hat on “good sign” and be committed to that area. Leave elk you can’t hunt for ones that you can. Walk during the middle of the night to locate vocal elk with good wind obviously. As cool as semi fresh sign is you can’t hunt sign if there’s no elk. There’s typically gonna be elk vocalizing during the rut if it’s not too hot somewhere you just have to find them. I’ve seen them also bugling and running cows in the middle of the heat if there’s hot cows around.

 

[nphunter]

If you're in elk hunt them, if you hear them at night hunt them at night with the wind in your favor and be close enough that you know exactly where they are come daylight. If you don't want to get up extra early and coyote the herd find an area where you can spot and stalk elk.

Most of the time an elk will bugle once you get close enough to make them uncomfortable, if you know where they are going into the timber go to that spot with the wind right and bugle. Being afraid to bump them wont get you anywhere, if the options are to find new elk or potentially bump them I would 100% go into their bedding area calling.

The only time I'm not bumping elk is if I'm after a particular elk and don't want to have to find another big bull. If that is the case I will wait for the right time to kill him but I will for sure cut the distance and figure out exactly what they are doing. You will need to go above them mid day to get close or your wind will blow them out. A lot of times elk will feed up with the morning thermals and bed high so they can smell everything below them once the thermals switch. At night they will often stay bedded until cool air causes the themals to shift and they will feed out onto ridge tops and feed. Most likely they are working their way down to water thoughout the night and then back up into the timber right at daylight.

Good luck and stick with them. A lot of times doing the hard thing is the right thing when it comes to playing the wind.

 

[cnelk]

Welcome to Colorado elk hunting

 

[River Reaper]

Spot and stalk

 

[joelski]

Had a very similar experience as you, OP. This was my first time out for archery elk, I heard maybe 3 bugles over a full week but was in a ton of sign. Interested to hear what people do in these scenarios when you don't have good glassing vantages to pivot to spot and stalk? I was fully prepared to spot and stalk, but it was so heavily timbered I couldn't take that approach.

 

[va_to_co]

I don't have much more experience than you, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but I have been dealing with similar scenarios this season in particular.

Elk have been dang near silent, but we'll often be able to glass them feeding in various open meadows at dawn and dusk. Then we do our best to guess where they head to bed (they're almost always hidden in trees from ~8am – 6pm).

So far, our best opportunities have been created by still hunting through suspected bedding areas and travel routes. We focus on theoretical bedding areas during the middle of the day and travel routes if it's getting closer to dawn / dusk.

It's far from my favorite style of hunting. I'm constantly on high alert, moving very slowly, frequently checking with binos, and never knowing if I'm actually close to a herd (or if that herd has a bull).

But, when the wind is suitable for this approach and the ground isn't absurdly noisy, we have been able to come across a lot of elk and get within archery range. I've actually been surprised by how few elk we've busted while still hunting, despite this approach being pretty new to me.

Of course, there have also been many days when we do all this and don't come across anything, so it's been tough to keep up morale. E.g., I think I covered 25 miles in the past 3 days without seeing or hearing an elk. But with the lack of vocalization this year, I've just had to accept that (I think?) it's my best bet.

Like you, I'm also very open to any alternative strategies.

I didn’t have even this much success in CO this year, but glad to hear I wasn’t alone.

 

[Koda_]

Bulls will come in silent to a cow call.
Otherwise its spot and stalk.

 

[kcm2]

Elk have a home range but it's as much as 10-15 square miles. Avoid the bedding areas. If you leave the beds alone, they'll return to them. Bust them out of their beds and they won't return for at least a week.

Cover ground until you find them again is one option. Another is to find a bedding zone and find travel route out.

 

[kcm2]

Elk have a home range but it's as much as 10-15 square miles. Avoid the bedding areas. If you leave the beds alone, they'll return to them. Bust them out of their beds and they won't return for at least a week.

Cover ground until you find them again is one option. Another is to find a bedding zone and find travel route out.

 

[Bobrobheimer]

I have been archery hunting cow elk in the same zone for short stints throughout September (close to home) for three seasons or so and can get into elk most days either via spot and stalk or knowing their habits which are pretty repetitive here. I have only ever heard one bull bugle in here and it was at night. There is a lot of hiker presence in the area and I wonder if that contributed to silent elk habits. In the area we rifle hunt we have gotten into much more vocal elk on a few occasions.

 

[TaperPin]

We sat patiently in the evenings thinking maybe we'd catch them coming down a hillside where we suspected they were bedded, although looking back I think we needed to be much further up the hillside.

In one of our timberline mule deer scouting camp spots during archery season, some young bulls start bugling and pushing each other around at about midnight every year, which is kind of funny since during daylight hours the only elk that been seen in over a dozen years bed 4 miles away downslope. If someone were to sit 2 miles closer, they might see them at 10:00pm. If we were hunting them, about 3 miles closer to their beds is where we’d start. New elk hunters often from exploring into the edge of beds to calibrate the brain

We also tried to still hunt through the top third of north facing slopes once the wind stabilized while cow calling to see if we could get a bull to give away a location.

That top third rule of thumb is repeated a lot, and while it’s not wrong, it’s so generic in some places you’d be walking through beds at that elevation and others you’re so far away nobody will hear you. For any given area it helps to calibrate your understanding of where they actually bed to have a more realistic view of what they are doing.

We were hesitant to just blindly tromp through the woods for fear of blowing things out.

Between the two extremes you’ll eventually develop a better feel for getting closer, while not driving every elk out of the drainage, or even still hunting your way through the timber without calling. Not knowing anything about an area, you have to move at a moderate pace until coming across fresh sign, then slow way way down.

If you walked medium-slowly at 80’ every minute, what many consider slow, you’d still cover 7 miles in 8 hrs, so don’t worry you won’t cover enough ground in the timber by slowing down even more. It can feel painful for some to move at half that speed or slower, but do what it takes. Most guys go too fast and the elk always see them first. If you aren’t seeing them first slow down. Watch a feral cat out hunting - he knows when to move at a moderate pace, when to slow way down, when to stop to not give himself away, and when to barely move at all and still close the gap.

There is a lot of value in getting in with the elk and just observing before you need the skill for a big bull. It takes the mystery away of how close you can get and how well they sense people.