My First Elk Hunt. Little late posting
Lets start out by saying this was not suppose to be a solo hunt my 11 year old was suppose to come with me and this was going to be our first Elk Hunt ever. When I got my sons first progress report about 3 weeks prior to my departure I was less than thrilled with his academic performance. I hated to do it but I made the decision to keep him home so he will learn that his studies will always take precedence.
I decided to leave San diego, Ca Thursday Oct 12th. I wanted to make sure I was able to get to My destination in plenty of time to have 1-2 days to hike into the woods and scout around. Weeks, hell even months leading up to my departure I monitored the weather like crazy from the research I did i was expecting high/low 40's-mid 60's. To my surprise weather was calling for very cold weather and snow for Friday but was suppose to be clear Sunday. I figured I had a good bag and warm clothes I should have no problems.
I drove into Mccall Friday Mid morning and boy was it snowing
I drove in off a service road to find any place I could set up camp. With the amount of snow on the ground and not being from the area this took longer than expected I did not want to pull off the road to find my self in a ditch that the snow was covering up. I found a spot and set camp up about 30 minutes before sun set. ( I was really starting to rethink my decision to camp)
(not sure why this pic keeps showing upside down)
Well with camp set up fire made and food in my belly I was ready to hit the sack and get my first day of scouting in... What I didnt anticipate was the temperature dropping to 14 degrees. While I was fairly warm with my clothes on and my 15degree bag the moment i decided it was coffee time and unzipped my bag I became a popsicle. I decided it was ok to cheat and jump in the truck to warm up. I also needed to defrost my water bottle. I had my bottle in my tent with me and when i woke it was frozen solid :/
The fresh snow made it easy to see elk track EVERYWHERE. Every place i hiked into it was loaded with track. What it was also loaded with was Wolf tracks. My One day of scouting brought me hope that while i didnt see any elk I sure knew there were a ton of them there. I backed out before I bumped them from their beds and set back to camp to make a plan for opening morning
The eve to opening eve I could not sleep. With the excitement of opening day and that it was my first elk hunt I tossed and turned all night. Sunrise was suppose to be at 0801 which meant I wanted to be out of camp hiking by 0615. It was another very very cold morning and decided to throw an additional sweatshirt on. Snow has slowly been melting from the previous day and with the over night freeze was a little crunchy to walk on. Once I got in the woods it was like fresh powder again. Once I got into an open area I sat and eagerly waited. Once legal shooting hour hit I sat and waited to hear shots ring out... They never came. Finally around 0930 I had 4 cow elk walk in to me less than 5 yards away. Wow How cool is that. My first elk hunt and while I dont have cow tags they were with in 5 yards from me. To see them up close and personal like that was truly awesome. But once they finally got my wind they high tailed it out of there and never looked back. I was hoping that I didnt squander my opportunity to kill my first elk. Since it was post rut I thought that those cows would have been solo so I continued to wait to see if I could get anything else to come in and I got Nada.
Day's two and three were much of the same while I was still seeing fresh new scat and track everywhere I was not seeing elk. So day four I decided that I would cross the creek and hike in a couple miles and see if i could get deeper into the timber and get to a better vantage point. By that time the snow had almost melted completely but as i was hiking in I saw more and more track which seemed to be fresh in the mud. I finally got to a pretty open meadow that had a few glassing spots and I watched and watched and watched. Only thing I found was two local hunters walking through. They were great guys we talked for a good 30 or so and they went on their way Once night fall came over I started heading back knowing that this time the Elk got the best of me.
When I finally made it back into my truck I ran into another local that said he has hunted the area for 20+ years. He asked if i noticed all the wolf track. He told me that the Elk are here but pushed so far into the timber from the wolves that unless they are bumped from pressure or feel safe again from the wolves they are moving. (Im no expert but what he said seemed to make sense) My 4 days of hunting the shots I did hear were way off in a distance and aside from the guys I met the last day I didnt see anyone else on the mountain to bump the elk.
While this wasnt a success by normal measures. This was successful for me, I went into place I never been to before by my self and tried my hardest to harvest an elk, I took what I have learned from this forum an other places and tried to put it to work for me and I feel if I had more time I would have been successful. I loved Mccall idaho it was a gorgeous place and the people there were awesome. I hope to go back next season and actually get an elk
Lets start out by saying this was not suppose to be a solo hunt my 11 year old was suppose to come with me and this was going to be our first Elk Hunt ever. When I got my sons first progress report about 3 weeks prior to my departure I was less than thrilled with his academic performance. I hated to do it but I made the decision to keep him home so he will learn that his studies will always take precedence.
I decided to leave San diego, Ca Thursday Oct 12th. I wanted to make sure I was able to get to My destination in plenty of time to have 1-2 days to hike into the woods and scout around. Weeks, hell even months leading up to my departure I monitored the weather like crazy from the research I did i was expecting high/low 40's-mid 60's. To my surprise weather was calling for very cold weather and snow for Friday but was suppose to be clear Sunday. I figured I had a good bag and warm clothes I should have no problems.
I drove into Mccall Friday Mid morning and boy was it snowing
I drove in off a service road to find any place I could set up camp. With the amount of snow on the ground and not being from the area this took longer than expected I did not want to pull off the road to find my self in a ditch that the snow was covering up. I found a spot and set camp up about 30 minutes before sun set. ( I was really starting to rethink my decision to camp)
(not sure why this pic keeps showing upside down)
Well with camp set up fire made and food in my belly I was ready to hit the sack and get my first day of scouting in... What I didnt anticipate was the temperature dropping to 14 degrees. While I was fairly warm with my clothes on and my 15degree bag the moment i decided it was coffee time and unzipped my bag I became a popsicle. I decided it was ok to cheat and jump in the truck to warm up. I also needed to defrost my water bottle. I had my bottle in my tent with me and when i woke it was frozen solid :/
The fresh snow made it easy to see elk track EVERYWHERE. Every place i hiked into it was loaded with track. What it was also loaded with was Wolf tracks. My One day of scouting brought me hope that while i didnt see any elk I sure knew there were a ton of them there. I backed out before I bumped them from their beds and set back to camp to make a plan for opening morning
The eve to opening eve I could not sleep. With the excitement of opening day and that it was my first elk hunt I tossed and turned all night. Sunrise was suppose to be at 0801 which meant I wanted to be out of camp hiking by 0615. It was another very very cold morning and decided to throw an additional sweatshirt on. Snow has slowly been melting from the previous day and with the over night freeze was a little crunchy to walk on. Once I got in the woods it was like fresh powder again. Once I got into an open area I sat and eagerly waited. Once legal shooting hour hit I sat and waited to hear shots ring out... They never came. Finally around 0930 I had 4 cow elk walk in to me less than 5 yards away. Wow How cool is that. My first elk hunt and while I dont have cow tags they were with in 5 yards from me. To see them up close and personal like that was truly awesome. But once they finally got my wind they high tailed it out of there and never looked back. I was hoping that I didnt squander my opportunity to kill my first elk. Since it was post rut I thought that those cows would have been solo so I continued to wait to see if I could get anything else to come in and I got Nada.
Day's two and three were much of the same while I was still seeing fresh new scat and track everywhere I was not seeing elk. So day four I decided that I would cross the creek and hike in a couple miles and see if i could get deeper into the timber and get to a better vantage point. By that time the snow had almost melted completely but as i was hiking in I saw more and more track which seemed to be fresh in the mud. I finally got to a pretty open meadow that had a few glassing spots and I watched and watched and watched. Only thing I found was two local hunters walking through. They were great guys we talked for a good 30 or so and they went on their way Once night fall came over I started heading back knowing that this time the Elk got the best of me.
When I finally made it back into my truck I ran into another local that said he has hunted the area for 20+ years. He asked if i noticed all the wolf track. He told me that the Elk are here but pushed so far into the timber from the wolves that unless they are bumped from pressure or feel safe again from the wolves they are moving. (Im no expert but what he said seemed to make sense) My 4 days of hunting the shots I did hear were way off in a distance and aside from the guys I met the last day I didnt see anyone else on the mountain to bump the elk.
While this wasnt a success by normal measures. This was successful for me, I went into place I never been to before by my self and tried my hardest to harvest an elk, I took what I have learned from this forum an other places and tried to put it to work for me and I feel if I had more time I would have been successful. I loved Mccall idaho it was a gorgeous place and the people there were awesome. I hope to go back next season and actually get an elk
