Locating elk with high pressure

[BustedRagHorn]

start glassing like mad but this time for tracks,

This is a great strategy. As mentioned elk will stage if they haven't already started their migration. I find that often when they are staging they are in much bigger groups than deer. You can go days with just cutting one or two tracks then you get into the right basin and there they all are. They will sit in the area where no one messed with them. They can be fairly predictable from year to year once you have their migration routes and staging areas pegged.

 

[HookUp]

find the freshest sign you can and stay in the area. Elk move cylical like hands of a clock and wil be back. They may be running 5-20 mile loops so good luck tracking them down.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

What happens around here in western Colorado is the elk go where there's the least pressure. In the bottoms of the deep canyons, slope with the thickest oak brush or private.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

I knew an old guy (90 something when I met him), who had probably 70 or more sets of just monster elk antlers hanging in his huge shop. Those were just his personal ones, he was an elk guide most of his life. I have had more frustration hunting elk than you can imagine, and so I of course asked him how he did it every year like that.

He said it's really easy. You own a couple of good mules. You ride up to the highest mountain you can find in the area, where you can survey the country with some really good binoculars. You then pick the deepest, darkest, nastiest hole you can find, as in, the one that makes you shudder and pray to God you never have to haul an elk out of that hole. Get back on the mule, and down that hole you go, and then shoot the first big ass bull you see when you get there (because there will probably be more than one).

Hard to say how much of that was an old dude poking fun at my sorry ass who's hunted elk for 20 years and only killed a few (none of them very big), and how much was legit good advice, but he seemed sincere.

 

[Ross]

@NorthIdahoDude he was likely speaking the truth. Most don’t want to do what is required to take a big bull, let alone do it for decades. A mule gives you a big leg up, saving your body to access ground where big bulls often hole up. And then get it out. Many things need to go right on otc elk hunts to routinely take old and mature bulls.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

@NorthIdahoDude he was likely speaking the truth. Most don’t want to do what is required to take a big bull, let alone do it for decades. A mule gives you a big leg up, saving your body to access ground where big bulls often hole up. And then get it out. Many things need to go right on otc elk hunts to routinely take old and mature bulls.

And this guy did most of his hunting in public areas where everybody (and their dogs) in North Idaho hunt elk. He told me the general areas he hunted, and I've taken a drive up the forestry/access roads during elk season, and there was some dude's truck parked every few hundred yards for miles - lots and lots of hunting pressure.

 

[Ross]

One thing I’ve learned, is just because there is a rig there, does not mean they are hunting far &or know what they are doing. I try not to make assumptions and go with what my gut and experience for the area tell me. I’ve also seen where a group of guys will park rigs to deter someone and they are not even hunting the area. Guys can get sneaky

 

[Jeff5053]

Calling them after dark can be a little spooky. A few yrs. ago I was back at camp after hunting that evening, when I herd an bugle, grabbed my bugle went about 50yds. down the road where he was bugling

down the bank. I let out a bugle to him, he screamed back at me, brush started flying as he headed up the hill toward me. Headed back to camp real quick, it's one thing to see one bugling in the daylight

vs when dark and you can't see him. He hung around about an hr. and finally left think he thought I was too chicken to fight and went looking for another but to kick.

Sounds like an awesome experience. Spooky, but cool.

 

[kcm2]

Three days of heavy snow on the ground and the calves start crying because they have not yet learned to paw the snow. The lead cow will take the herd to winter range. Three Forks Ranch will lose 5,000 elk every winter that way.