So true! In high school I drove by this pine tree growing in a CRP field for years. Always thought it was pretty close. When I finally got a rangefinder, I found out it was 270 yds away. No wonder I missed that coyote in that big field!
I wonder if animals are a little less spooked when bumped in the dark because they may not associate the disturbance with humans as much?I think it depends a good deal on where you're hunting, but I have bumped dozens and dozens of elk in the dark moving up to a glassing spot. The thermals are generally favorable early and I want to be in "that spot" before daylight. Most of the spots I'm going to are an hour to two hours (almost always up) so it's inevitable that I'm going to bump elk occasionally on the way up.
I've also had several instances of folks starting a little later than myself, push elk up to where I am- alway a bonus
In the general season in MT, my experience was more often than not, if I bumped elk on the way in, they were cows. Most of my glassing spots are lower than the bulls will be, or about on plane with them.My thought is yes. All of the bumps have been on the "softer" side- not a ton of crashing, more just getting out of the way. Often I smell them before bumping, nothing like the strong smell of elk in the morning
Great insights Jeremy! Now that you mention it, I've always done a little less concerned with bumping elk when rifle hunting vs archery hunting. Would you say that in your experience, rifle hunters can be a little more aggressive and worry less about spooking elk? I wonder how this would differ on public land versus private land?
Bumping in the dark is something they will tolerate provided they don't wind you. They wind you and nothing will keep them there.
Yeah it's wild how sneaky they can be. With twice the amount of feet as us and four times the weight, I don't know how they do it!
Nice bull, and a great tip. When I 1st started hunting elk I had no idea how different the retrieval process would be then for something like a deer. Now I always make sure I have a group of friends lined up to helpAlways know your route to retrieve an animal you plan to shoot. Sometimes the easy way across the canyon doesn’t exist like you think it does. First picture is where the elk I shot this past season was, second picture was the cliff I had to navigate down, third picture shows a better scale of the area. 4th picture shows how most of the trek was. Makes sense why the elk were here, people weren’t stupid enough to go here.
The route straight down from where I shot my elk cross canyon had a house sized boulder sheer off closing it off the year prior leaving it unnavigable. The route we took on the way to the Bull is the route in the picture, after 8 miles to get to the bull busting dense buck brush due to having to find a different route. Thankfully, the way out was 6 miles of which 4 was a horse trail making the heavy half of the trip muchhhh better. Ended up being 21 hiking hours to go a little under 15 miles on opening day of season. At least we were able to capitalize on a highly pressured low success unit with a decent 6x6!
I liked a trimmed down foam pad because I've had such a hard time keeping the air pads from getting holes. They are nice when they work though
