Idaho elk report?

[kvw4x4]

A week from today we will be pulling into camp. the weather is cooling down, showing highs of 60 lows of 30 with some rain. also these are temps from the nearest town in the valley we will gain about 2-3000 feet to camp. How will this cooling trend effect the elk?
Thanks Guys love reading all the comments!

 

[H.T. Outdoors]

Hunted opening weekend but haven't made it back up since. Headed up Wednesday after work for 4 days. Hopefully the rut action has picked up and we can call something in to bow range. Got a couple bulls showing up on a wallow but I will settle for any legal elk.

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[87TT]

Sorry Paul, After hunting the first week and only seeing two cows, I called in a spike and shot him on Friday.. I was solo and spent the night packing him out. The meat got taken care of and I'm done for the year. After four years I got it right. First year no clue what I was doing. Second year hit and lost a bull, Last year missed my only call in and shot a cow with a rifle. This year I watched this spike from about 200 yards where he popped out coming to a cow call. I followed something some elk nut taught me and waited until he was behind a tree and couldn't see me. Made a couple more calls and he made a beeline right to me. He was going to run over me until I drew on him at 15 yards or less. I shot him as he turned to run. He wobbled over the hill and dropped about 200 yards away.

 

[sneaky]

A week from today we will be pulling into camp. the weather is cooling down, showing highs of 60 lows of 30 with some rain. also these are temps from the nearest town in the valley we will gain about 2-3000 feet to camp. How will this cooling trend effect the elk?
Thanks Guys love reading all the comments!

Cooling trend not as much as the daylight length which is what triggers the cows to cycle into estrus. Cooler temps help, but that isn't the biggest factor.

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[Usi05]

I fly out in 36 hours for first wave of ten days. If we aren’t successful I will be working some extra weeks in Boise to hunt the weekends.

Couldn’t be venturing out on my first western hunt without the knowledge from this forum. I only hope that and the work I have done is enough to harvest a bull.


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[Marble]

I leave Friday the 13th.....

 

[kvw4x4]

What elevation do you target? or does it vary by area? this is our second year elk hunting and we are open to shooting any legal elk.

 

[Idaho Sandman]

What elevation do you target? or does it vary by area? this is our second year elk hunting and we are open to shooting any legal elk.

Varies greatly by area. In the panhandle we find them from the valley floors at 2200 clear to the top at 8k.

 

[Spencer Lillywhite]

Missed this thread so my info is kind of old. I hunted 9/1-9/7, first time ever archery elk hunting in a place I had never stepped foot in (Central Idaho). Found sign, but it was HOT and struggled to find elk; only had a couple of distant bugle responses at last light. Temps were pushing 90, and what was crazy is that the higher elevations (8600 ft) stayed 15 deg warmer at night than the bottom of the valley (assuming all the cold air sinks down there).

Rain came on 9/6, cooled things down a ton and I got into bulls morning of 9/7 (last Saturday). Had a really big 5x5 respond to a locator at 250 yards. I moved in, challenged him, he got fired up, and came in head-on to under 30 yards with some raking. I blew it as I was switching from calling to shooting; solo hunting is hard.

1.5 hr and a half mile later and I got a response from another bull. He came to 60-ish and spotted me while I was looking for a place to setup and finish calling him in. He was a NICE 6x6. He continued to respond with chuckles and grunts after he spooked, but I ran out of time. I'll get him next week when I come back.

Both were good bulls. Same elevation and terrain features that I had been hunting all week unsuccessfully, so I think the cooler weather flipped the switch. They were both very grumpy but not super vocal. Neither responded to bugles until I was within 200/300 yards. They only called 2 or 3 times but then came STRAIGHT towards me. There was no back-and-forth bugle action or long approach to setup on a long-off bugle; from the time the bulls responded to when they were one me was minutes. Did not see any bulls or cows together.

So that was fun but, I have no idea what they are doing this week though. Guessing they're probably now gathering cows, asserting dominance, and doing other elky things.

 

[Jacobo2012]

we heard bulls going off very frequently
Called in one to 5 yards and almost ran over a couple of my buddies. And my buddy called in one to 15 yards with some cow calls
Unfortunately we only had cow tags which got filled but the bulls are very active and are starting to get there herd going.


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[Schmidty Of Oregon]

Heading out to Pioneer zone Idaho from Oregon on Friday. Hoping to get into more elk than I did during the Oregon opening week.

 

[.204smokechaser]

We've been out the last two weekends for a cumulation of 6 days hunting. This weekend was finally the most active, but took us a while to find the best elk numbers. Was between two bulls yesterday, but they wouldn't commit to coming in. Buddy has had 3 opportunities to shoot bulls so far.

They're starting to talk some where the wolves aren't which is only one place we've found and where we will be headed back to Friday.

Got back from another weekend. Bulls were dead silent during the daylight hours except for this morning after one responded to our bugle this morning about 7. The bulls that were talking started about 9 at night and ended about 4 in the morning. The cows aren't talking during the day either. Been cow calling and they've been staying still but hard to figure out where they are unless you walk right on them.

Seen bulls every day but we weren't lucky enough. Seen one bull yesterday while glassing the river bottom and he spent all of about 30 seconds running across the river.

Wolves were in the area I was in for sure. Fresh tracks and crap everywhere. Heard them once.

Unit 10A

 

[CamoPirate]

Haven't been into anything as of late, no bugles, stumbled onto a lone immature cow. I'm going back to areas with no ATV trails; every time I've been in elk, it's been hiking off-trail and just getting into the wild.

 

[kvw4x4]

We are on the road. 10 hours until we are at camp...

 

[Fridaythe13th]

Weekend was slow with 1 bull bugleing 5 or 6 times south part of the state. Cow calling is working better than bugleing.

 

[Flatlander89]

Have been here the last three days in southern Idaho, heard one bugle this morning but other than that it’s been silent. Lots of deer and a couple of moose sightings but haven’t found the elk yet. Hoping the cooler weather will get them talking. Have 6 more days to get it done.

 

[Ross]

Put in some long hikes in north Idaho like a morgue some good rubs then we get back to the rig and bull cracks off three bugles 300 yds away at dusk....I expect good action when out starting Wednesday

 

[Randle]

Put in some long hikes in north Idaho like a morgue some good rubs then we get back to the rig and bull cracks off three bugles 300 yds away at dusk....I expect good action when out starting Wednesday

Same here Ross Saturday you would have thought the elk had all died off or left the planet. Yesterday we did have 1 bull bed bugle about 500 yards from the truck, and called him in to about 75 yards but he just bedded down and shut down. or left not sure at this point.

 

[mmcdonough]

In lots of bulls but they’ve been dead quiet except for an hour in the morning or 30 minutes in the evening. Buddy had a nice 6 point 5 yards away staring him in the face this morning but couldn’t get a good shot. Waiting for them to get done with this mid day snooze and start talking again. Hopefully we can finally tag one in a few hours!

 

[adamantine]

Was out all last week, they were a bit more consistently vocal early in the week with the rain/snow.

That said, we had a hot one start going off at 1:30pm Friday, and then another that started at 7:45am Saturday. As always, it's local, and I think both of them had cornered a hot cow. Definitely died off everywhere else with that hot weather though. Betting it's getting nuts as the weather cools down again