Elk Tactics

[TWP]

Hey guys, I'm headed to Idaho on the 12th-20th for my first trad elk hunt, but my 8th overall. Was curious what tactics you like to deploy and when?

I am no big killer, but it seems like the only tags I can draw are earlier in the season and the bulls are basically quiet during the day with night time bugling only. I have really only had success calling twice, and most all of my success is hunting water and posting up all afternoon on the edges of meadows that I have seen elk in the previous day and waiting for them to make their way back in. However, that was with 70 yard range with the compound, I'm going to do my best to call something this fall.

How about yourselves??? I know there are a ton of factors, but what works for you?

[overbo]

Hopefully a local can give a tip about what's going on at the time you arrive w/ the elk. If not, find a water hole w/ the best elk sign and sit on it from day light till dark and monitor the elk movement.

[TWP]

Overbo, thanks for the info. I have made several calls to biologists and GWs in the area.

This isn't so much for me, just more of a general sharing of experiences and ideas.

[PistolPete]

I don't drive 30+ hours to sit in a tree--I do that all fall here at home! I run and gun, and have been very successful. Just keep moving until you find elk, then try to kill one. Then repeat.

If you're hunting from a spike camp, I can't help you. It's why I bivy hunt!

[monterey]

You don't have to hear them to hunt them.  If there is any fresh elk sign in the area, then there are elk there.  Cow call em in sets like you are calling coyotes, but do longer sets.  No matter how many you do without results, just keep believing cause when you least expect it, there they are!  :eek:

[Orion]

I'll be hunting Idaho this year as well the second half of the season.  They're more likely to be bugling then than the first two weeks.  Also more wary because they will already have been hunted for a couple of weeks.

Regardless, I don't do much calling.  I do a lot of still hunting.  If a bull calls, I try to sneak in on him. I'll sit wallows occasionally, and have had a few close calls, but have never had a shot at an elk at a wallow.  Have more luck moving, probably because that's what I do 80% of the time.

Where I'm hunting this year, they come out to feed in the sage on the top third of the mountains just before dusk, and they may still be out there at first light.  After that, they work down into the very steep, thick draws.  Was there the first two weeks of season last year.  As the season wore on, they showed themselves feeding less and less.  I don't expect to catch them in the open the second two weeks of the season.  

Last year, I c aught one feeding in a very isolated bowl about mid morning and let him feed into me.  15 yard shot.  

I'm getting stoked just thinking about it.

[Whip]

I've had mixed results with calling - sometimes it works like magic, other times it sends them the other way or is ignored.

Far more important than calling, in my opinion, is the ability to locate elk.  Elk are not scattered in all available good habitat across the mountains like we are used to seeing with deer back home.  At any given time elk only occupy a small portion of their range.   The trick is not to waste a bunch of time hunting areas that are not currently holding elk.  

To have more than just a random chance of success you must put the miles in to find the hot spots that elk are currently using.  They are big animals, and leave a lot of tracks and droppings.  Find fresh tracks and droppings that are still shiny and soft and you are into the elk.  Only then is it time to slow down and really start hunting.  

If you are not seeing smoking fresh sign, keep on moving and trying new areas until you do. If the tracks are old and the droppings dried up don't just keep going back to the same spots day after day hoping that the elk will return.  

Once you find fresh sign the elk are likely to stay in those areas as long as they are not pushed out. If you hunt carefully you can continue be into elk every day.

Most of all, have a great time!!