2016 elk success thread
- Thread starter tim
- Start date
Vikingload
Member
mrcowboy
Member
That's what it's all about......being in amazing country.....the harvest is the icing on the cake.
velvet5
Member
Well I finally got mine after 2 1/2 weeks of hiking the mountains around my house.
The rack isn't all that big but I've got the meat. Besides, it's easier to drag a smaller one out of the hills, even though I was lucky and two friends (much younger than me) helped carry it out.
I learned a lot about hunting elk in my area, I've hunted a lot in Arizona and Utah and it seems like there are some unique things to pay attention to here.
The first is the elk "are where you find them"
All the great guidelines that the experts publish for our benefit are just those - guidelines, they aren't a road map to the elk.
Around here (the west side of the Great Divide in southwestern Montana) the altitudes don't change a lot. I live at 5600 feet and the tallest mountain in the area is 7300 feet. Following the suggestion that you should always go to the highest peaks was helpful but not actually correct. The day I got my elk it was hot, 60 degrees, and I was sitting in a creek bottom below a good grass area on the top of the peak above me with another smaller grass area (completely hidden within the trees) below it. The peak is at 7157 feet, the lower grassy park is at 6700 feet, and the creek bottom was at 6350 feet. I suspect that the two bulls I saw were coming up later than normal because they were sitting in the cool grass at the creek bottom. They finally got up and moved when the winds started moving as the temperature increased. The only reason I saw them was they thought that they were safe, they were on the south side of a fairly steep drainage and were moving across a small (maybe 50 yards across) grassy spot from tree line to tree line which led to a small hidden saddle. That hidden saddle isn't even obvious on a topographical map but I'd found it the day before when I was tracking a small group of elk that I kicked up. The saddle leads to a nice finger of trees that extended up the slope to the smaller, lower grass park. So it was obvious that I found a small group of elk (there were only 8 of them in that group) about 2/3 of the way up a south facing slope on the edges of a small grassy park and I was able to ambush the elk on their trip to that park at 9:45 AM, they would have reached that park in another 10 or 15 minutes.
All the elk I saw during my pre-season scouting trips were at lower altitudes and moving from east to west rather than north to south. I've not been able to find any of those bulls during the hunting season, it's obvious that the elk have changed their patterns due to hunting pressure, their post-rut needs (food), and the seasonal weather changes. As a result, not much is the same and most of what I learned while scouting was pretty useless. It looks to me like getting an elk during a week long hunt would pretty much be pure luck or the result of really knowing your area very well (something you learn over many years of going to the same place).
So my take away is;
My recommended priorities are (in order of importance - during hunting season)
The rack isn't all that big but I've got the meat. Besides, it's easier to drag a smaller one out of the hills, even though I was lucky and two friends (much younger than me) helped carry it out.
I learned a lot about hunting elk in my area, I've hunted a lot in Arizona and Utah and it seems like there are some unique things to pay attention to here.
The first is the elk "are where you find them"
All the great guidelines that the experts publish for our benefit are just those - guidelines, they aren't a road map to the elk.Around here (the west side of the Great Divide in southwestern Montana) the altitudes don't change a lot. I live at 5600 feet and the tallest mountain in the area is 7300 feet. Following the suggestion that you should always go to the highest peaks was helpful but not actually correct. The day I got my elk it was hot, 60 degrees, and I was sitting in a creek bottom below a good grass area on the top of the peak above me with another smaller grass area (completely hidden within the trees) below it. The peak is at 7157 feet, the lower grassy park is at 6700 feet, and the creek bottom was at 6350 feet. I suspect that the two bulls I saw were coming up later than normal because they were sitting in the cool grass at the creek bottom. They finally got up and moved when the winds started moving as the temperature increased. The only reason I saw them was they thought that they were safe, they were on the south side of a fairly steep drainage and were moving across a small (maybe 50 yards across) grassy spot from tree line to tree line which led to a small hidden saddle. That hidden saddle isn't even obvious on a topographical map but I'd found it the day before when I was tracking a small group of elk that I kicked up. The saddle leads to a nice finger of trees that extended up the slope to the smaller, lower grass park. So it was obvious that I found a small group of elk (there were only 8 of them in that group) about 2/3 of the way up a south facing slope on the edges of a small grassy park and I was able to ambush the elk on their trip to that park at 9:45 AM, they would have reached that park in another 10 or 15 minutes.
All the elk I saw during my pre-season scouting trips were at lower altitudes and moving from east to west rather than north to south. I've not been able to find any of those bulls during the hunting season, it's obvious that the elk have changed their patterns due to hunting pressure, their post-rut needs (food), and the seasonal weather changes. As a result, not much is the same and most of what I learned while scouting was pretty useless. It looks to me like getting an elk during a week long hunt would pretty much be pure luck or the result of really knowing your area very well (something you learn over many years of going to the same place).
So my take away is;
My recommended priorities are (in order of importance - during hunting season)
- Security - trees and steep access routes. They will find flat or gently sloping terrain once they get in to the area.
- Water - they seem to prefer moving water more than standing water. I've seem most of the elk within 1/2 mile of water.
- Food - grass surrounded by trees, the greener the grass the better.
- Southern/ Western Aspects - more food/ grass exists on these slopes. If they need more cover then they'll move to the northern/ eastern aspects.
missjordan
Veteran member
hvfd21walker
Active Member
Well not having much time to hunt for myself because of work and guiding more than usual I was able to sneak out between hunters one morning and get this little booger.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
prhunter
Active Member
sneakypete
Veteran member
Here's my best friends dad's first bull at 81 1/2, 374 yard downhill one shot kill!
what a packout!
what a packout!
sneakypete
Veteran member
Scott, I do. Due to the steepness of the terrain the picture of the kill site are of his two 1/2 sons only.
sneakypete
Veteran member
sneakypete
Veteran member
jjenness
Very Active Member
ElkTrout
Veteran member
