elk success - where, how, when, etc

[davsco]

would be awesome if the successful amongst us (unfortunately not me on my first elk hunt...) would lay out the where (not gps coords, but description of the area, such as dense or open canyons, steep hillside, glassing from a ridge, 50 yds or 5 miles in, etc), when (first light, midday, last lite); how (posted, still hunting, spot and stalk, etc); etc. any other big success factors or variables i'm not thinking of. thanks!!

 

[wakechase]

would be awesome if the successful amongst us (unfortunately not me on my first elk hunt...) would lay out the where (not gps coords, but description of the area, such as dense or open canyons, steep hillside, glassing from a ridge, 50 yds or 5 miles in, etc), when (first light, midday, last lite); how (posted, still hunting, spot and stalk, etc); etc. any other big success factors or variables i'm not thinking of. thanks!!

I took my elk at 5 yards on a steep NE facing slope right at first light. I had watched the group of 3 bulls for 2 days in a row and figured out their routine (somewhat). Being that it was my first archery elk hunt I was going to shoot whichever of the 3 and not be too picky. Started hiking at 3:45 am as I knew where I needed to be at what time. Began lost cow calling 20 min before first light. He responded instantly. He was convinced and made it was to me crashing, thrashing and bugling. I set up in the doorway (roe hunting resources) making sure that I properly played the wind, and that was what it took. Came in quartering hard to me, stared a hole in me for 30 seconds, took 2 steps and I stopped him with a cow call. Double lunged him, ran 50 yards and expired.
Major factor - wind. I learned twice the hard way. Major cliche- never give up and keep pushing harder and harder if you really want it.

 

[idahohikker]

Archery or rifle? Maybe strategy differences.

 

[5MilesBack]

would be awesome if the successful amongst us (unfortunately not me on my first elk hunt...) would lay out the where (not gps coords, but description of the area, such as dense or open canyons, steep hillside, glassing from a ridge, 50 yds or 5 miles in, etc), when (first light, midday, last lite); how (posted, still hunting, spot and stalk, etc); etc. any other big success factors or variables i'm not thinking of. thanks!!

I've been hunting elk since 1980, both rifle and archery. I have been successful in pretty much every characteristic you posted.......dense or open canyons, the steeps, dark timber, close to the road, 5+ miles in, first light, mid day, last light, still hunting, spot and stalk, aggressive calling, non-aggressive calling, below zero, 75+ degrees, feet of snow, absolutely dry as heck, raining.........etc, etc. There have even been a couple archery opportunities within 50 yards of my truck camp. Was at full draw with my pin on a small bull 50 yards from my camp one year. I debated it for a little while, but let down because it was a pretty good draw unit and early in the season. Then had a 300+ bull raking a tree only 30 yards behind my tent from that same camp site a couple years later. If I hadn't been so surprised by it and had been prepared, I would have most likely shot that bull. The unexpected........

But the one common thing for me whether it's archery or rifle..........is that I'm most always on the move. I have trouble sitting or stopping for more than a few minutes. And for rifle in particular, being at your desired spot "before" first light is key, and staying at a desired spot until dark is key. So that may mean hiking for two hours before you get there, or getting back to camp two hours past dark.

 

[davsco]

I have been successful in pretty much every characteristic you posted

damn, i should sign up as your apprentice!!!

and i agree, sitting still really, really sucks, but i know once i move the odds are very much not in my favor.

 

[davsco]

Archery or rifle? Maybe strategy differences.

yeah i'm a rifle hunter. when i only see two cows and no bulls for the week looking out 100s if not 1000s of yards, and you bowhunters get them close enough to arrow, you get my respect and awe.

 

[Newtosavage]

My buddy shot one on opening day this year, and had we switched places that morning, we both would have shot one (I had a cow tag, he had a bull tag) within the first hour of the season.

We got buggered out of my usual spot by the snow this year. Anything above 8K was white, and above 9K it was more than 10" of snow. "Unseasonably cold" is what the locals were saying. Should have been here last week, etc. LOL

We bailed on the high country and went to look for some low elevation "resident" elk that I've always heard about but never really looked for in the past. To me, elk hunting meant spruce and aspens at altitude, not sagebrush and oak in the foothills.

But lo and behold after a few days and lots of miles, we found a herd in the lower country that looked vulnerable. Turns out they were.

The key however, was allowing for 5 days of scouting before the season started. We set up our initial camp on Monday evening, then moved it Wed. morning about 75 miles. That's where he killed his elk (and I had good opportunities, but didn't connect). Two days later, we moved camp again, about 50 miles, to some BLM and State land where we saw more animals while scouting, and a local gave us some good intel. It turned out to be another good move as we got real, real close to me filling my cow tag on the final day.

My advice is to be flexible and pre-scout as much as possible during those 4-5 days before the season. Three of the last four years, I've done that and I've found elk several days before the mass of hunters began to arrive. So I already had a plan while they were just starting to look for elk. I could instead spend my time resting or scouting good access routes instead of just trying to know where to go.

That's my .02

 

[davsco]

yeah that monday of colo first rifle was apparently the coldest 15th in recorded history!! i was there a week before opening day to scout, and drove as far as two hours from base (from rifle to rangely, from se to nw, along piceance creek and white river and all roads off those), and miles and miles on my boots. in hindsight i prob should have scouted and covered more or different areas of my tag (se to sw and sw to nw) as really only saw fresh elk poop in one place (which i hunted twice of the 5 days and only saw two cow elk).

 

[5MilesBack]

"Unseasonably cold" is what the locals were saying.

And the older locals have been saying the last couple decades during rifle have been unseasonably warm. So this year, first rifle was just more ummmm.......normal.

There are a couple truths that I remember most from rifle hunting the 80's and 90's. One is........there was always snow. The other is.......it was always cold. Back in the 80's during 1st rifle one year I came up with my own hierarchy of cold. There's cold, there's *&$% COLD, and there's *&$% ******* COLD. I haven't hunted in that third type of cold since the 90's. I can remember my thermometer freezing up at -15, and getting permanently stuck there, and I remember another year when it got down to -25.

There's a reason I became an archery hunter.........September is AWESOME.......even at 11k feet.

 

[Newtosavage]

davsco, my truck said it was 14 where I was when we headed out in the dark on the 15th. And we were only at 6K feet. It was supposed to be around 3-4 deg. where I hunted last year at 9K.

 

[idahohikker]

There's a lot of threads on here about strategies for rifle hunting. Glassing is the main key to success though. Hunting glasable areas is an advantage I've found. Some do well with still hunting but that's often more needle in a haystack I've found and it's not the recommended method by experts like Randy Newberg. Being there early and late is important to your glassing and learning where elk like to hang out.

 

[Newtosavage]

There's a lot of threads on here about strategies for rifle hunting. Glassing is the main key to success though. Hunting glasable areas is an advantage I've found. Some do well with still hunting but that's often more needle in a haystack I've found and it's not the recommended method by experts like Randy Newberg. Being there early and late is important to your glassing and learning where elk like to hang out.

Great advice. I have taken advantage of Google Earth to 'pre-scout' glassing locations for my pre-hunt scouting days and it's really paid off the past two years. Without ever having to set foot in the same state, I can get an idea of what I can see from certain vantage points, then map out a route to get to them via my GPS or OnX app. Four times now this has paid off with my primary glassing locations being spot-on and producing animals I never would have seen any other way. Three of those glassing spots I never would have known about had I not used the 3D imagery in Google beforehand.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that elk are where you find them. And if you aren't seeing elk, then you need to move until you do.

 

[davsco]

I have taken advantage of Google Earth to 'pre-scout' glassing locations for my pre-hunt scouting days and it's really paid off the past two years. Without ever having to set foot in the same state, I can get an idea of what I can see from certain vantage points, then map out a route to get to them via my GPS or OnX app.

so you're looking for the widest vantage point, so i guess a high point with a big overlook, or overlooking a huge field or the like? do you want to see 500yds, 1000yds, mile, more?

the two canyons i hunted i could see out to ~500yds or so. two fields with some pines i could see out to 1000yds or so. the one trail i could see prob a mile or so including down to the creek. unfortunately even with snow the one day, other than muley's, saw nothing other than the two cows the first morning. as you said, i prob should have moved on, more so than just 20-50 miles down the road i guess.

 

[harge57]

2017 Wyoming 10/31 shot a bull .75 m from a road in the middle of a field on the edge of private

2018 Montana 9/8 shot a bull 5 miles from a road and 1500 ft up.

My key to success.... Number of hours hunting.

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[Newtosavage]

so you're looking for the widest vantage point, so i guess a high point with a big overlook, or overlooking a huge field or the like? do you want to see 500yds, 1000yds, mile, more?

the two canyons i hunted i could see out to ~500yds or so. two fields with some pines i could see out to 1000yds or so. the one trail i could see prob a mile or so including down to the creek. unfortunately even with snow the one day, other than muley's, saw nothing other than the two cows the first morning. as you said, i prob should have moved on, more so than just 20-50 miles down the road i guess.

Not necessarily the widest vantage point. I start by finding an area I'm interested in. Whether a basin, valley or group of meadows. Then I zoom in as closely as I can to those and use the CTRL - pan feature to move the image around in 3D to see what vantage points are visible from that area. Once I see those, I go to them and look back at the area I'm interested in to see what the view would look like from that glassing spot. If it looks like it has promise and that I can get there reasonably well, I mark that spot on my GPS or OnX app as a potential glassing point. So far, I've not been disappointed.

I'm looking at glassing points up to 2 miles from the areas I'm interested in - just for locating animals. With a good tripod and binocular tripod mount, I can easily pick out elk in openings up to 3 miles away. I've counted points on bulls out to 2 miles with my little 50ED spotter.

 

[Newtosavage]

Here's an example in the Northern Flattops, between Yampa and Meeker, CO. That's Cyclone Park to the West of an open ridge that would make a great glassing point early or late.

Google Maps

If you press the CTRL button and move the mouse around, you can see the view before you ever set foot on that trail.

 

[5MilesBack]

i prob should have moved on, more so than just 20-50 miles down the road i guess.

Sometimes all you have to do is cross over into the next drainage to find them. With fresh snow on the ground, it's easy to tell if there are elk in an area but you might have to cover a lot of ground to cut their tracks.

It's kind of funny........this year I ran into a guy during archery season that was almost running through areas "looking for fresh elk droppings". When he found none he said he moves on because there are no elk there. I hunted one area this year where I found maybe two fresh piles the entire season, yet I was into elk every time out there except twice. Elk are definitely where you find them.

 

[wannakillabigbull]

Typically when I cnelk I'm about to kill I'm 5MilesBack. If I'm that far in and don't get into the elk I feel realunlucky, but at least I feel like a backcountryhunter2. That sounded so much funnier in my head...

Honestly, though, I feel like every elk I've killed has been in a completely different situation. In a meadow, bugling in the aspens, on the way back from a water hole, on top of the ridge, on a bench, out in the wide open sage country. I try to just trust my instinct about where the elk will be to get away from the pressure but still have food, water and cover. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you're never out of it no matter what time of the day it is or where you are. I've blown enough chances by thinking "man I haven't seen an elk all day, woe is me" then I'll kick an elk out of a spot that I might have been able to still hunt into and get a shot. You never know where they're going to be, and if you think they're not there, that might just be when you're wrong.

 

[LandYacht]

The old saying that goes along the lines of “you’ll find the elk where they are” seems to be the most apt advice someone can get.

I’ve found a few other tips along the way that help to find them where they are:

1. Very rarely will you find an elk while you are on your couch.

2. Let your eyes do most of your walking.

3. You will never beat an elk’s nose.

The last strategy is a sequence that works more often than not, but it’s a great way to improve your chances at seeing elk when the going is getting tough. The hunter must start the day intently focused on nothing other than trying to find an elk. After 4 or 5 hours of this intense focus the hunter must now let their mind wander and start thinking about other things besides hunting, i.e. trudging forlornly through the least likely terrain to hold elk while talking out loud to yourself that ranchers got it right with cattle instead of climbing mountain after mountain looking for the last elk left on earth.

You are getting closer to seeing an elk, but your mind is still semi focused on the elk decreasing your chances of seeing them.

Once your mind has shifted all the way from anything elkish and your focus is now on kicking the pine cone that looks like the mustache from the gal you saw at the bar when you first turned 21-you will be brought back to reality by the sound of thunder and the shaking of the earth beneath your feet. At this point look wildly around you. If you are quick enough whipping your head from this way to the other, you will be rewarded with the view of elk, albeit a rather brief glimpse most times. This strategy is difficult to plan for and most often times leads to wildlife viewing as opposed to harvesting, but it does renew your confidence that there is more than one elk left in the world.




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[Brafcauknid]

For me, the area Ive hunted, which mostly a mix of high aspen pockets, oak brush, then cedars and sage brush flats down lower, and almost always during 1st rifle season...the best strategy for me has been to set up on a ridge top, a ridge over from a high aspen pocket and let the inevitable swarm of hunters drive those elk out, sometimes to me, sometimes not, but usually works rather well. I try to get a good vantage point and look for clearings in the oak brush and then get comfortable, glass a lot, and listen.

If that doesn't work, and haven't seen much, I then will head elsewhere, always glassing a lot, stopping to listen, etc...my grandpa always emphasized that 1 methodical mile, stopping to glass and listen and really be aware, will always be more effective then 5 miles of speed walking. Last, I usually check the cedars, Ive had surprisingly good luck with elk hanging out in the cedars, especially a few days into the season after the pressure has moved them from the high aspens and oak brush.