Pre-Season Scouting

[akak510]

I applied for unit 67 in CO for archery elk with three pts. If the GoHunt odds are correct, as a non-resident, I have a 56% chance of drawing the tag. (Not a sure thing but good odds.) I'm planning to get in the unit once to scout for a couple days this Summer in June or July. I have never been in the unit before. I have hunted elk OTC on private land in CO the last couple years and have killed a couple cows. I have called in multiple bulls every year but haven't successfully brought one home yet. I would consider myself fairly new to hunting out West but it has got me hooked and I want to learn as much as possible. When starting on a new unit, what do you focus on? For instance, I see some clear cuts from multiple years in this unit that I would think would provide good feed. Also, there is some wilderness. There is lots of places to start looking but I would like to be as effective with my time as possible since I'm driving 12 hrs to get to the unit to scout. If I scout during the Summer, I assume they will still be on summer feed patterns the first week of archery but when they start rutting will they move? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[upslope 50]

when you scout in the summer the bulls will be isolated and nowhere near where they rut. I know plenty of dudes with 100 trail camera photos of a bull in velvet and never see him again. However the cows will use the same ranges until pressure starts to be high. Bulls will move to cows and rut in open meadows at night. Find water, wallows and meadows and learn the land. You might get lucky hunting the fringes and killing a satellite bull but calling to the herd bulls in the middle of the rut is sometimes a waste of time. They have all they can handle. Find your bushwacking spots and learn the herd in September not June, July or even August. Most CO units are OTC archery elk. I would learn one over a few years and you will be more successful then hunting one every three or four.

 

[cnelk]

Last year I scouted this area in July and came across these bulls - Scouting Elk 2017 - YouTube

They were still there on September 1 when I called them into my tree stand, drew on the 5pt at 32yds but he bolted when I tried to stop him


I got this pic of a bull not too far away in July, hunted there opening day and shot a cow - go figure

Colorado OTC Public Land - no further than 3/4 mi from my vehicle

Elk are where you find them - scout as much as you can

 

[FlyGuy]

No expert here either, but scouting trips for me are less about actually finding elk and more about general reconosense for the area to get a clearer picture in my head of what the unit truly is like. I too live a long ways away so I rely heavily on digital scouting. I enjoy that process and put time into it, but Google Earth can be so deceiving b/c you have no 1st hand knowledge of the scale of the area. I didn't make a scouting trip my 1st year and I was so-so-so wrong about how feasible it would be to cover an area. Once I got there, All my planning ended up being a waste as I never reached the area I intended to hunt.

Year 2, different area. I had a good plan of how I wanted to hunt the unit going into my scouting trip... and found out it was a really bad plan. My glassing locations were unrealistic. An access trail I wanted to use had a HUGE boulder field to cross that I just couldn't imagine trying to navigate with a heavy haul out. Roads I had planned to use were not open (or not even there).

I didn't "find elk" on that scouting trip, but with the boots on the ground knowledge i had I was able to come back home and put together a realistic plan. I found this also have me a lot more confidence going into the hunt, which is nice.

It was a 2 night trip, so I didn't get to spend as much time hiking around as I would have liked, but I was able to determine that a couple places that I liked had not held elk for a very long time, which saved me at least one day of wasted hunting if not more. I was able to find areas where elk were recently active and I do think this helped me in September, as I was able to key in on that elevation and get into elk pretty early in the hunt. But, the trip would have been worth it even without that. Just knowing what roads are drivable, how long it actually takes to reach a secondary hunting location, a few dropped pins on potential camp spots and trailheads that would be more difficult to locate in the dark, etc.

I'm just saying you don't have to hinge the success of the mission on locating elk, all the other knowledge is worth the effort. Plus, it's fun. A camping trip with buddies, some trout fishing, and a chance to field test some new gear.




Sent from my SM-G610F using Tapatalk

 

[cnelk]

When you do go scout your area, bring a wind checker and a watch.
Find out how the wind currents move and change and at what time of day it happens.

Figure out how long it takes you to get from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’. Slice and dice the area into sections. Don’t waste time zig zagging. Hit certain spots preloaded in your gps. You will find certain better spots are you cruise thru

Look for rubs. They will tell you that elk are at least in the area during season.

This will be my 29th year in my areas, but each year I have a goal to find new hidey holes