Quote:
Originally Posted by obsessed1
Great info. What would you give as #1 priority for a guy coming for a 5 day hunt with the possibility of a weekend before scouting trip for you're area. What are the tools a guy needs to find Elk? Or even a local nube who is just getting into Elk hunting trying to put his first bull in the freezer?
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That's a good question. About 20 years ago, I was on my first-ever Dall sheep hunt west of Whitehorse. As we were flying over the mountains, I had a great conversation with the float-plane pilot. The mountains all looked gorgeous to me. It ALL looked like awesome sheep country. But I was wrong. He told me that real sheep hunters have to learn where the sheep AREN'T, in order to start finding where they ARE. Habitat has to be more than just food. It has to be cover, and water, and escape routes, and numerous other things, to hold game. The same, to a lesser degree though, holds true for elk, in my opinion. So I know this probably isn't an answer that most guys will be happy to hear, but the #1 priority has to be knowledge. And knowledge comes from experience. I have a friend who sometimes carries a bow and a rifle at the same time because he meanders in & out of the mountain/foothills zones when rifle season isn't open yet in both zones. He kills elk every year. Bulls. That's how you gain experience. I guess I have simply learned a bit about where NOT to waste my time looking. Just like the pilot told me. So I hate the idea of a guy having a 5-day trip planned, without having the knowledge of the area. Scouting certainly helps, but I think that getting UNDERSTANDING of where elk are the most likely to be, well, I'd rather not have any time to scout but have a clear grasp of where I'm going and why...and If at ALL possible, find someone to go out with. Someone who has hunted your area and loves the idea of taking an elk. That kind of experience can leap-frog you way ahead. So... I don't know if I'm being helpful here or not, in answering your question. If you're "going blind", as in, you've booked a week off and you're heading for the hills and you're just HOPING you find elk...well, I've never done well that way. In some parts of the country that may work. Colorado, for instance... some time back, they used to kill more bull elk, on public land, than the entire Province of Alberta elk population. The chances of even out-of-state hunters without a clue about the mountains, finding elk, were fairly good. We just don't have elk numbers like that. I wish we did. So... a good knowledge/grasp/understanding of what kind of territory that elk will prefer to be in, and where they will NOT be...is that one essential ingredient. If you sit down with a map, you can start to scratch off lots of useless ground. Anything within earshot of a paved road, just forget it. Anything within earshot of operating machinery, same thing. A long time ago i read an article in the RMEF Bugle magazine that said research had shown that even one residence per quarter-section of land was enough to keep elk away. I try to hunt at least a mile from any buildings of any kind. Preferably more. I know this isn't really that "one thing" you were hoping for. Just trying to help. I guess if I were to be dropped off somewhere to go elk hunting, besides the obvious which would be my '06 and binoculars, I would want to be away from any terrain where people can drive. Elk don't stay where you can drive for very long.