Leif.Rino
FNG
I am from the PNW and have hunted Roosevelt elk in Oregon and Washington for coming up on 20 years. I am planning on heading East to Idaho for a solo archery elk hunting trip this fall. I have been hitting the gym and trying to get in shape to hunt the mountains. I hunt "hills" currently, nothing over 1,500 feet and if it is that high I can see the Pacific from the top of it. Although I haven't totally nailed down where I'm planning to hunt as far as the unit I am planning to stick to the SW part of Idaho just due to its closer proximity and the fact I won't be splitting gas with anyone. Being as this will be my first experience hunting Rocky Mt Elk and my first experience hunting in a drier climate I have a few questions I was hoping yawl could weigh in on.
1) If any of you have hunted both Roosies and Rockys what are the similarities and differences? I have heard and read that Rocky's tend to be more vocal, cover more distance and have larger herds of cows.
2) What types of landscape features should I be looking for and how well can google earth be trusted to depict these features? I understand I'm looking for feeding, bedding and watering areas but on the coast google earth isn't that helpful sometimes due to all of the tree canopy cover and old photos. A clear cut that looks brand new might have head high trees in it now, a good looking cut might be reap rod, a tall patch of timber might be a clear cut now or the picture might have been taken in he winter when all of the leaves are down making things look a lot more open than they are. Looking at the areas around SW Idaho I see a lot of brown and I'm not totally sure how to interpret that.
3) I seem to be narrowing down on the part of the SW region North of I84 and East of the Sawtooth Zone as I am already to late to buy some of those limited tags. McCall appears to be the largest town in the area outside of driving south to the Boise area. I seem to read a lot of horror stories about ATVS blowing up hunts in some of these areas though. If anyone is familiar with that part of Idaho I was hoping you could let me know what areas I might want to avoid in order to stay away from ATVS? Also my wife and I are planning on making a scouting trip to the McCall area in late June, are there any other attractions we should check out? Hot springs? Trout fishing? Good Scenery?
Thanks
1) If any of you have hunted both Roosies and Rockys what are the similarities and differences? I have heard and read that Rocky's tend to be more vocal, cover more distance and have larger herds of cows.
2) What types of landscape features should I be looking for and how well can google earth be trusted to depict these features? I understand I'm looking for feeding, bedding and watering areas but on the coast google earth isn't that helpful sometimes due to all of the tree canopy cover and old photos. A clear cut that looks brand new might have head high trees in it now, a good looking cut might be reap rod, a tall patch of timber might be a clear cut now or the picture might have been taken in he winter when all of the leaves are down making things look a lot more open than they are. Looking at the areas around SW Idaho I see a lot of brown and I'm not totally sure how to interpret that.
3) I seem to be narrowing down on the part of the SW region North of I84 and East of the Sawtooth Zone as I am already to late to buy some of those limited tags. McCall appears to be the largest town in the area outside of driving south to the Boise area. I seem to read a lot of horror stories about ATVS blowing up hunts in some of these areas though. If anyone is familiar with that part of Idaho I was hoping you could let me know what areas I might want to avoid in order to stay away from ATVS? Also my wife and I are planning on making a scouting trip to the McCall area in late June, are there any other attractions we should check out? Hot springs? Trout fishing? Good Scenery?
Thanks
