Troutnut
FNG
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2016
- Messages
- 82
After making mule deer my priority in my first four years hunting the normal West after moving from Alaska, and finally tasting success last year with a pretty 150-class buck, I set my sights on my first elk in 2021. My original, naive plan was to go for an early-season cow elk for some easy meat, freeing me from the pressure of an empty freezer so I could be picky during deer season. It didn't quite work that way.
The long drive from western Washington was filled with elk hunting podcasts (last-minute cramming for the test), plus one massive adrenaline jolt at dusk when a large bull moose sprinted in front of me. I drive with more wariness about animal collisions than most people because I grew up running a gauntlet of kamikaze whitetails to get to school, and if I hadn't been taking it slow my Jeep would be totaled. Very narrow miss.
As with any good hunting trip, first things first. Trout fishing.
However, I was so determined to get an elk that I intentionally stopped fishing. The afternoon before the opener I hiked into the backcountry, enjoying peak fall colors.
The drainage I'd chosen had no obvious water sources, so it was a long slog up the mountain carrying 7 liters beyond the first couple miles. There wasn't much elk sign until I was a few miles back from the road and started picking up occasional old tracks and scat. Toward dark, faint hints of distant bugles echoed their way into my valley from indistinct directions. I saw goats, but no elk.
I woke up two hours before shooting light to the sound of multiple cows mewing at each other, some within 100 yards of my tent. I lay motionless to avoid spooking them, in case they were not acclimated to the sound of Therma-a-rest's warmest, crinkliest sleeping pad. When they had quieted down for a while, I suited up and trudged up the finger ridge toward my planned glassing spot. However, this hill had grown since I last looked at it on the map, and first light arrived before I neared the top. I settled in to glass, thinking this view was good enough.
I spent the early morning hours watching the sun slowly light up an alpine basin that was as pretty as it was devoid of elk. When I finally climbed to the top of the ridge where I meant to be at first light, I crossed paths with the only other hunters in the basin, a young couple traveling lighter and faster than me with supplies for a single night up high. They had been in position to see the elk I heard before shooting light, a sizable herd that wandered up the basin on the opposite side of the finger ridge where I was glassing. I would have seen them if I'd gone to the top, but they were gone now.
At 10 am some clanging rocks called my attention to a cow and two calves in a hurry, moving up my basin. The other hunters probably bumped them hiking out. They were never closer than 600 yards, and I couldn't follow without losing sight of them, but that seemed like my best bet at any kind of action, so I moved up the basin to see if they had stopped.
I spent the afternoon picking apart every tree and bush with my binoculars, but the elk--as I later learned from tracks--were long gone.
The evening and the next morning were quiet. I spent the morning glassing from the bottom center of the basin, thinking this way at least I'd be in range of anything moving up or down on either side. Nothing moved.
That afternoon I climbed to the top of my basin, planning to camp up high at least once and then drop down into another basin with a better chance of drinking water and hopefully elk.
I had a good view of the side basin that held some elk on opening morning while I was on the wrong side of the ridge to find them.
The long drive from western Washington was filled with elk hunting podcasts (last-minute cramming for the test), plus one massive adrenaline jolt at dusk when a large bull moose sprinted in front of me. I drive with more wariness about animal collisions than most people because I grew up running a gauntlet of kamikaze whitetails to get to school, and if I hadn't been taking it slow my Jeep would be totaled. Very narrow miss.
As with any good hunting trip, first things first. Trout fishing.
However, I was so determined to get an elk that I intentionally stopped fishing. The afternoon before the opener I hiked into the backcountry, enjoying peak fall colors.
The drainage I'd chosen had no obvious water sources, so it was a long slog up the mountain carrying 7 liters beyond the first couple miles. There wasn't much elk sign until I was a few miles back from the road and started picking up occasional old tracks and scat. Toward dark, faint hints of distant bugles echoed their way into my valley from indistinct directions. I saw goats, but no elk.
I woke up two hours before shooting light to the sound of multiple cows mewing at each other, some within 100 yards of my tent. I lay motionless to avoid spooking them, in case they were not acclimated to the sound of Therma-a-rest's warmest, crinkliest sleeping pad. When they had quieted down for a while, I suited up and trudged up the finger ridge toward my planned glassing spot. However, this hill had grown since I last looked at it on the map, and first light arrived before I neared the top. I settled in to glass, thinking this view was good enough.
I spent the early morning hours watching the sun slowly light up an alpine basin that was as pretty as it was devoid of elk. When I finally climbed to the top of the ridge where I meant to be at first light, I crossed paths with the only other hunters in the basin, a young couple traveling lighter and faster than me with supplies for a single night up high. They had been in position to see the elk I heard before shooting light, a sizable herd that wandered up the basin on the opposite side of the finger ridge where I was glassing. I would have seen them if I'd gone to the top, but they were gone now.
At 10 am some clanging rocks called my attention to a cow and two calves in a hurry, moving up my basin. The other hunters probably bumped them hiking out. They were never closer than 600 yards, and I couldn't follow without losing sight of them, but that seemed like my best bet at any kind of action, so I moved up the basin to see if they had stopped.
I spent the afternoon picking apart every tree and bush with my binoculars, but the elk--as I later learned from tracks--were long gone.
The evening and the next morning were quiet. I spent the morning glassing from the bottom center of the basin, thinking this way at least I'd be in range of anything moving up or down on either side. Nothing moved.
That afternoon I climbed to the top of my basin, planning to camp up high at least once and then drop down into another basin with a better chance of drinking water and hopefully elk.
I had a good view of the side basin that held some elk on opening morning while I was on the wrong side of the ridge to find them.
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