Welcome Elk Finder & win 1-year access

[dirtshooter]

Welcome! I'm in Alberta so I can't win it/use it but it looks like a neat tool to add to the toolbox.

 

[Lil-Rokslider]

Welcome! I love archery elk. Also curious to compare this with my actual field results. I've got some way points I'd share where I've had success but no longer hunt

 

[Carr5vols]

Welcome. Muzzleloader is the way for me...

 

[grainhog]

Please just kill them for me too

 

[WhoGarrDen]

Welcome! Late rifle is my main interest. Probably not the best candidate for validating anything...but might be the candidate with the most to learn lol.

 

[MTBlazer89]

Welcome this looks very interesting. Step 1-Find Elk is the step I haven't figured out in all my years. Haha! Love rifle hunting and glassing big country, but it's hard to choose between that and bugling in the timber!

 

[RyanT26]

Rifle. Be nice to see a video and how it works. God knows I need all the help I can get.

 

[LFC911]

Welcome to RS, Archery is preferred elk tackle but i won't turn my nose up to a rifle or ML tag especially in September!

 

[The_Jim]

Welcome Jon. Rifle or I’d never kill anything

 

[Jon Olson]

Welcome! I love archery elk. Also curious to compare this with my actual field results. I've got some way points I'd share where I've had success but no longer hunt

One of the rules for general etiquette regarding sharing of information is:

• "Any unit question/answers remain out in the world wide webs forever, which can doom some really great spots. The expectation is that all Rokslide members will understand and support this concept and take all such conversations to private message."

If you or anyone wants to DM me coordinates or waypoint they know to hold elk, then I will be happy to send back a DM screenshot of the results.

The app calculates top 5 elk spots at higher zoom levels based on the current viewport (the map seen on screen). Every time you zoom in or pan, it recalculates using the bedding, feed and slope layers.

It tells you where the ideal elk habitat is in the current view regardless of how good or poor it may be. It finds the best place on the map where the most cover, the highest vegetation/feed moisture and ideal slope (0 to 40 degrees, but ideal is 5 to 35) meet.

 

[wapitibob]

Sentinal and Landfire are only updated once/year?

 

[Jon Olson]

Sentinal and Landfire are only updated once/year?

Landfire canopy cover/height is once per year.

Sentinel-2 satellites fly over and take pictures roughly every 5 days, therefore the current moisture data in Elk Finder is for archery season of 2025 - Aug 25 to Sept 15 (21 days). The reason why it's multiple weeks is due to cloud cover: by utilizing multiple scenes, the data is more accurate because cloudy blocks within a scene are discarded.

As Sept 1 approaches this year, I will add moisture data for the current period as it happens live. I may just include all of August and add updates with early September data as it comes in. This is especially important given the exceptionally dry year here in the west. I optimized my batch job to run in under 5 hours on Google Cloud batch computing. It assembles about 1 terabyte of mosaic images and produces a single file that I add as a new layer.

As Oct approaches this year, I will also add moisture data for rifle season.

Therefore the current state is:

• Archery 2025 moisture data (good for scouting)

The future state will be:

• 2025 Archery moisture data (late Aug to mid Sept)
• 2026 Archery moisture data (late Aug to early Sept)
• 2026 Rifle moisture data (late Sept to Oct)

 

[North of 60]

Welcome and rifle for sure, archery when the frozen shoulder gets better

 

[MarkOrtiz]

Welcome! I've only gotten one elk tag and hunted my NV bull with a muzzleloader. I would love to hunt them in the archery season someday though.

 

[C.F.]

howdy Jon, archery Elk is where my money goes

 

[horse43]

Great concept, wishing you success on your business.