Western elk hunt camping method

[jmez]

Truck or spike depending on where we hunt. Never bivy hunt and carry camp around every day.

 

[Backyard]

I hit that age where I’m not going anywhere without my pull behind heater, shitter, queen bed and machine that keeps ice frozen for my Crown pour each night.

I may be getting close to that myself. Not quite, but close.

 

[Werty]

Truck, I like to move if need be. Also I live in elk country.

 

[Phaseolus]

I'm curious about how y'all approach Western elk hunt camping. Backpack hunt, spike camp, truck camp, or anything else. Obviously the general answer is "it depends", but I'm looking for what you tend to do most, or what you prefer.

You can pick as many options as you want. If you do all three just as often as the other, click all three.

If I've left out any obvious choices, let me know. Or feel free to elaborate in the comments.

I'm a new hunter, and have only done truck camping. So far.

You left out, “hunt from the House” as an option. My B list cow tag is done from the house, the bull tags are a combination of your three options.

 

[5MilesBack]

You left out, “hunt from the House” as an option.

If you're hunting from your house, then that would be your base camp with day trips.

 

[JHDoritos]

Backpack in and set up a spike camp. Cut out all of your “commute time”. Roll out of bed and start glassing, makes it very easy to be in the right spot for prime time glassing when you camped 50 yards from it. And when you spot an animal on top of the ridge across the basin from you, you’ll be more likely to make a stalk on it since you didn’t have to hike in that morning. Where as the day hunter could talk himself out of heading deeper in to go after that animal. You definitely give up some comforts but you’ll typically be hunting less pressured animals.

 

[Guy]

Coolest elk hunt I did was 19 years ago, with a fellow who had horses and mules. We horse-packed nine miles into the wilderness, set up camp at about 9,000' and hunted from our wall tent. Pretty doggone nice hunting experience, and I managed to take a good 6x6 bull about a mile from camp. That was a real comfortable backcountry camp! Here's an old camp photo from that hunt:

I'm not much of a horseman, but I enjoyed using them on that hunt:

That however is a way of camping & hunting that many of us can't do. I haven't had a hunt like that since.

However I also live in decent elk country in Washington, and my last elk was taken only a few miles from home. That was a real nice cow elk, and I'd love to be able to do that hunt year after year. Pretty nice rolling out of my own bed in the morning, and being out hunting only an hour later.

Guy

 

[Phaseolus]

If you're hunting from your house, then that would be your base camp with day trips.

I mean, I can walk out my back door and be in elk within two miles, assuming there is snow to push them down. No day tripping needed.

 

[Trevor73402]

My Dad and I always packed in a full camp on our horses. It’d take a full day getting it all packed in 5+ miles back, but it was well worth it. Wall tent. Stove. Cots. Kitchen. We didn’t do without much and ate/slept well.
With me being solo now, I’ll most likely be truck camping or carry camp on my back. Just depends on the place/situation.

 

[fbhandler]

I like to bivy - I think it’s more effective, plus I enjoy the freedom. I am a fairly obsessed ultra lighter for that purpose too. But you have to watch out, because it’s easy to get too far back.

Yup

 

[Indian Summer]

Backpack in and set up a spike camp. Cut out all of your “commute time”. Roll out of bed and start glassing, makes it very easy to be in the right spot for prime time glassing when you camped 50 yards from it. And when you spot an animal on top of the ridge across the basin from you, you’ll be more likely to make a stalk on it since you didn’t have to hike in that morning. Where as the day hunter could talk himself out of heading deeper in to go after that animal. You definitely give up some comforts but you’ll typically be hunting less pressured animals.

The beauty of a spike camp. I couldn’t have said it better!

 

[5MilesBack]

I mean, I can walk out my back door and be in elk within two miles, assuming there is snow to push them down. No day tripping needed.

As long as there's daylight out, it's a day trip IMO.

 

[Flatlander81]

I would say probably all 3 but here’s a question how do you get your unmotivated hunting buddy’s to push out past the safety of the truck

 

[sasquatch]

I would say probably all 3 but here’s a question how do you get your unmotivated hunting buddy’s to push out past the safety of the truck

Leave them and come back with an elk?


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[Flatlander81]

Leave them and come back with an elk?


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That’s what I’m thinking

 

[theleo91386]

My preference is to load up the mules and head into the back country for a week plus. Setup camp, make wide loops, and move onto the next drainage if there's nothing willing to play.

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[wyosam]

Either “base camp”, which is a 4bd/2ba house with a hot tub, or spike camp/backpack hunt.


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[Grant K]

90% based from the truck, exceptions might be if it's hard to get the wind correct in the morning without camping, or no way to get across an open slope, etc...
for those that spike camp I have some things to think about:
1. unless you are solo and being careful you are probably pushing elk out of the area, the area you impact by camping is larger than you think, if you are glassing elk from 50 yards away from camp they better be on a far-out hillside or you are way too close, it's all good if you get one the first day but the longer you stay the less you are likely to see near camp...
2. do you really want to pack an elk that far? for me the limit of how far I will go on a day hunt is about the end of where I want to pack an elk out of, if you have stock or a packer lined up this obviously changes but for someone intending to get an elk out by manpower alone you will be pretty worked getting an elk out that you really needed to spike camp in to get... and yes, I've packed plenty of elk out, probably upward of 100 at this time, it's not hard to hunt 5-6 miles in on day hunts, it is not fun to pack an elk much farther than that...

3. if you spike camp you have no flexibility, elk are not there? you waste a day packing up camp and leaving, or you wait and hope, neither of those tactics is getting an elk on the ground, based from a truck you can cover way, way more ground, if elk aren't there you can go to a different spot that afternoon, and the next day, and the next, for hard hunted areas I have far more success doing that than I do waiting for a bad spot to improve.

 

[RCB]

90% based from the truck, exceptions might be if it's hard to get the wind correct in the morning without camping, or no way to get across an open slope, etc...
for those that spike camp I have some things to think about:
1. unless you are solo and being careful you are probably pushing elk out of the area, the area you impact by camping is larger than you think, if you are glassing elk from 50 yards away from camp they better be on a far-out hillside or you are way too close, it's all good if you get one the first day but the longer you stay the less you are likely to see near camp...
2. do you really want to pack an elk that far? for me the limit of how far I will go on a day hunt is about the end of where I want to pack an elk out of, if you have stock or a packer lined up this obviously changes but for someone intending to get an elk out by manpower alone you will be pretty worked getting an elk out that you really needed to spike camp in to get... and yes, I've packed plenty of elk out, probably upward of 100 at this time, it's not hard to hunt 5-6 miles in on day hunts, it is not fun to pack an elk much farther than that...

3. if you spike camp you have no flexibility, elk are not there? you waste a day packing up camp and leaving, or you wait and hope, neither of those tactics is getting an elk on the ground, based from a truck you can cover way, way more ground, if elk aren't there you can go to a different spot that afternoon, and the next day, and the next, for hard hunted areas I have far more success doing that than I do waiting for a bad spot to improve.

Thanks for sharing.
My impression is that spike camp is a good idea if you have a strong reason to believe there will be animals nearby. Ideally that would be based on personal experience: previous hunting, scouting.
Otherwise, yeah, it seems like the mobility of a truck would be very helpful. That being said, I'm quite new to hunting, so I'm still trying to figure out the right balance between "spend more time here" vs. "move to the next area".

 

[JHDoritos]

90% based from the truck, exceptions might be if it's hard to get the wind correct in the morning without camping, or no way to get across an open slope, etc...
for those that spike camp I have some things to think about:
1. unless you are solo and being careful you are probably pushing elk out of the area, the area you impact by camping is larger than you think, if you are glassing elk from 50 yards away from camp they better be on a far-out hillside or you are way too close, it's all good if you get one the first day but the longer you stay the less you are likely to see near camp...
2. do you really want to pack an elk that far? for me the limit of how far I will go on a day hunt is about the end of where I want to pack an elk out of, if you have stock or a packer lined up this obviously changes but for someone intending to get an elk out by manpower alone you will be pretty worked getting an elk out that you really needed to spike camp in to get... and yes, I've packed plenty of elk out, probably upward of 100 at this time, it's not hard to hunt 5-6 miles in on day hunts, it is not fun to pack an elk much farther than that...

3. if you spike camp you have no flexibility, elk are not there? you waste a day packing up camp and leaving, or you wait and hope, neither of those tactics is getting an elk on the ground, based from a truck you can cover way, way more ground, if elk aren't there you can go to a different spot that afternoon, and the next day, and the next, for hard hunted areas I have far more success doing that than I do waiting for a bad spot to improve.

Yes very important to be careful where you set up spike camp, have definitely seen a lot of people camp in basins, we want to hunt, and we just move on because we know it’s blown out, if they can see you, elk, deer, etc they’ll be gone. Even worse I’ve had outfitters set up camps in the bottom of some honey holes that are now not so sweet, have even gone down to talk to the hunters that were in that camp and told them just how wrong that camp placement was.

when I say roll out of bed and hike 50 yards to start glassing. We are typically on the back side or hidden portion of the opposite ridge that’s 1-2 miles away. And you’re right, you can’t go banging the drums at night at camp. I can say from my experience we have routinely woke up to animals right below our camp 500 yards feeding on a bench. Just need to be smart. You can’t party like you would at a base camp at the truck when you’re sleeping with the bucks.

personally pack outs over 5-6 (even a few pushing 10) miles do suck but my hunting partner and I have done a handful but it definitely adds to the accomplishment. A lot of it depends on the state you are in and how you like to hunt. I hate seeing other hunters, we’d rather not see someone for the whole hunt and see less animals than have to work around other hunters. Here in WA if you are hunting from your truck you are racing everybody and there brother up the mountain in the dark. But to your point when we go to Idaho we hunt out of the truck, as we don’t nearly have to get as far in to get away from the people.

hope that is some what logical.