First Day in Unit

[kitandace77]

I have heard mixed strategies here. When you arrive in your unit are you heading right to a designated plan A and hunting, or do you take a half day or so to drive around your unit to scope out your predetermined access points and analyze pressure?

I have 10 spots escouted and will be arriving sometime between 7&10AM on the first day of a 7 day hunt. I am leaning towards dedicating the first half day to driving the unit and reranking my spots based on what I am seeing for pressure and conditions.

What is your strategy? Hunt right away or scope out the area?

 

[Gerbdog]

I dont leave the trailheads / roads / but i do look at pressure and see what it looks like. That said : i usually dont get pushed off of Plan A on the first day. As its been preached and as it seems to be : most people dont go more then a mile from their vehicle.... so i'll stick to plan A even if theres someone else and just figure i'm likely not gonna run into them. Hate on it if you want but if you found a spot that i found then you're gonna have to out hunt me, theyre not anyones elk.

That said : if i come up opening morning to the location im planning to hunt that day and run into someone i'm 100% gonna stop and talk to them about their plans and see if we can formulate a plan so we arent stepping on eachother and everyone ends up happy.

I DO NOT plan to go scout on foot into the mountain the day before season - for me its just asking to push elk out of the area you would have had a bow in if you had just waited a day.

 

[Fowl Play]

If plan A looks good and as expected, I'm going in. If not, I'd cruise around, but I'd for sure be hunting that first evening no matter what.

 

[Jaquomo]

New unit or old familiar unit, I always drive all around on opening morning to see where everyone else parks, and figure out strategies based in the directions of the pressure. Public land hunting is as much about finding and patterning hunters as it is about finding elk. I also figure everybody goes straight to their #1 honeyhole on opening morning.

 

[Jmoore]

If it's an area I am familiar with, I'm most likely heading in. If it's new to me, I try and get there a day or so early for just what has been mentioned. More or less to verify "Plan A" is my best choice. Not only pressure and access points may change my mind, but a few times e-scouting looked great but once I got there maybe my vantage points were not as clear as I had thought or like the first year I had Onx. My plan A turned out to be an oak brush jungle, so I had to adjust my plans.
Either way good luck!

 

[CobraChicken]

I've found going a little further and setting up a camp and find a high glass point has worked well. Allows me to wake up around something hopefully and see what the pressure is doing. I like having others push them to me. Not all cases it works like this, but when It can it's been great.

 

[cnelk]

Since the assumption is you’re referring to Opening Day and not just any day you arrive, I’m hunting.

Love to get on that low hanging fruit.

But…. In all the years I’ve hunted opening day (never missed one) I’ve only tagged out once on the opener.

So there’s that.

 

[rkcdvm]

One of my most successful spots always has a ton of people the first day or two. By day three they have all moved on and I have the next several miles to myself. Once they leave the area the animals come right back. I don't worry too much about the "deep" guys because they are way the F back in and if anything tend to push stuff towards me.

I wish I could get a deer tag for that unit too but I don't want to wait that long.

 

[kitandace77]

Lots of good replies here

I’ll be arriving mid season so I think if I get there early in the AM and my spot A looks decent I’ll dive in for a morning hunt. Then scope the unit midday before finding a spot to glass in the evening. If I arrive late, then more time to scope things out, rearrange the deck, and hopefully put in a more involved evening hunt.

 

[Still Hunter]

As soon as you walk out of camp you need to be hunting. You need to be ready. Seen bulls 60 yards form base camp. I hit the area primary wallows, ponds and known watering areas. I set out game cameras and start branching out looking for sign. I hunt thick forest and there is no place to glass/scope. I am looking hard for fresh sign. This year I am going early season so I will be setting up along pinch points, saddle travel corridors from public to private. All the Labor Day crowd and the Bowhunters will start that early push of elk into private.

Good Luck all & be courteous and be safe.

 

[Grant K]

if you are rolling in after daylight I'd 100% be driving around and checking that your E scouting assumptions are correct, If you haven't been in the unit before you never know if the trails and roads shown on your map actually exist and are driveable, where other people are, etc, spend a morning driving and glassing and have an evening plan, rolling in blind is a recipe to waste time hunting where there aren't elk.